Day 79 Tuedsay

Again friends going the extra mile provided a what served to be our dinner - fresh peach pie. It was absolutely divine and the only thing ready to augment bread and butter for dinner. Thank you.

Day 78 Monday Render Service

On Saturday I took 15 minutes to help our new neighbors weed their flower beds. That service was returned with a gift of Zucchini bread. The delicious bread fed our family breakfast today.

Day 77 Sunday

Day 76 Saturday

Day 75 Moving Day

Grandma purchased cold cereal, a vegetable platter, bread and paper ware. We had paper ware on the counter but the extra food we'll gladly eat. I made rolls for sandwiches today and if we were living of the virtual shelves we would have been eating a lot of ham and turkey sandwiches. I have not made pizza. With Grandma's extras we won't need to. The fresh fruit is proving a wonderful snack round the clock. And al is well.

Day 74 Breakfast party

The college age children cooked a big breakfast treating us all to chocolate milk, orange juice and bacon. The staples that were used from the virtual shelves were flour and oatmeal for pancakes, ham, eggs for scrambled eggs. All the extras I would not have purchased but they are preparing to wind up their summer and wanted a splurge. It created a great memory and lots of leftovers for the next two days.

Day 73 Sales

The big purchases today were 2 lugs of peaches and 1 lug of fresh bing cherries. The peaches were on sale for $.39 cents a pound and the cherries for $1.00 per pound. Total: $31.00. The children are loving eating all the fresh fruit they want - it is cheap and if not eaten will go bad. If I weren't moving, I would bottle this fruit at these prices. So far so good on getting bread made and meals ready. It was a relief to have a friend bring in dinner tonight. We were gone for hours tying up loose ends on the new house and it was nice to have a meal to throw in the oven. Grandma also came to help so she made salad for a side. It is wonderful to have back up kitchen support.

Day 72 Baking on the Side

We successfully made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and snacks yesterday and today we made a large chicken soup, started thawing a ham from the freezer that I bought on sale at the end of April for $9.00. Other receipts for he last 10 days are $45.00 fresh produce, $21.00 produce and milk on Monday, Crystal light, deodorant, and ice cream bought by the man in the house totaling $32.00, two cans tomato sauce off the real storage shelves costing about $5.00. Total $112.00. Total on month:

Day 71 Fresh fruit

We served Honey Dew melon, blueberries, and French toast for breakfast. the melon and berries were a dollar a piece divided between 10 people makes $.20 per serving. The french toast cost .05 per slice plus about .05 cents of eggs and milk per person. Total cost of the meal $.30 for a gourmet place to fresh fruit and French toast.

Day 70 Moving - Difficulty of Living Without

The stakes are up. We are moving to a new home 10 minutes away the end of this week. The whole house is in boxes or being sorted. How am I going to feed 12 people, do laundry for 12 people, sort, pack, go to the dump, donate to the second hand store and still stay in budget? These times are when the reality of convenience makes it simple to eat out, to order in pizza, and to do whatever needs to be done to maintain sanity. I cannot cope that way and stay in budget. This will take a plan. As long as there is food to eat, we will be happy staying at home - if there is nothing my husband will offer to pick something up and I will say yes.

Plan: bake cinnamon rolls, cookies, and muffins along with plenty of bread and hoagie buns with 1/2 white flour. Freeze several Pizza crusts so we can make a pizza in 5 minutes.
Leftovers: Make a chicken soup to last half the week.
Shop: get mozzarella cheese and more tomato sauce this week so we can have pizza. Don't forget carrots and celery for the chicken soup.

We are out of chicken breast, out of potatoes, out of carrots.... Why do people intentionally live without supplies in their homes? I hate it. I really dislike not having a choice of all the food I want on my shelves. This exercise has plainly taught me that I never want to live this way again. I like having dried milk and all the flour and wheat I could ever want along with all the extras. Rationing and planning and going without every week is draining. We are making progress on building the virtual supply - the food I can store on only $50.00 per person but it is slow. If I took $100.00 per person, building reserves would go much faster. Being prepared is so much easier.

Day 69 Sabbath - Feeling Hungry

The last two days any time someone looked in the refridgerator, they saw milk, salad dressing, mustard, and a jar of picked jalepeno peppers. There have been no leftovers. If they missed the meal, they were hungry. I thought this whole exercise is more for me as a parent to be disciplined enough to let consequences fall. It is difficult. I would rather fix food. The absense of food gives room for a particular kind of gratitude. The children and my husband are hungry enough to eat anything.

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with toast. (I bought 5 dozen eggs this week. It is nice to have all we want to eat.)
Lunch: Navy beans cooked with a ham bone in the pressure cooker. We spread the flavored beans on the whole wheat rolls. One child thought that this dish was unappetizing and would not eat. But my husband and other children were hungry enough to venture a try. They liked it and declared it good.

Dinner: Aloo Gobi with the last of the potatoes and cauliflower, chicken fried rice (boiled rice, fried chicken, celery, and some scrambled eggs with lemmon pepper and salt), steamed broccoli from the garden, brownies from scratch and ice cream. Everyone was full, there were leftovers, and my husband washed all the pans and dishes. Bless his heart.

Brownies cookie sheet size:

6 eggs
4 cups sugar
2 cups margarine (butter is preferred)
2 TBS vanilla
2 tsp salt
3 cups flour (can be whole wheat)
1-1/2 cup Nuts (optional) I left these out - nuts are not on the virtual shelf.

Day 68 Bananas

Saturday morning began with a large batch of banana, oatmeal muffins. The bananas that I bought last week were half price ($.20 a pound) so I got a lot of them. It was wonderful for the children to eat as many of them as they wanted for a couple of days but they soon were too ripe. I put the remainder in the freezer. It is nice to be able to pull them out now and use them to flavor baked goods or substitute for eggs in crepes, cookies, or cakes. Today we made snicker doodles with no eggs. They turned out great.

Lunch: Birthday Luncheon!!! We finally got everyone to be home for one hour together! We had brownie cake with ice cream to celebrate. Presents and a great time just visiting and laughing.

Dinner: Okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancake). Some children did not appreciate this meal and went hungry.

Day 67 The Lack of Preparation

Pondering today what I would feed the children, wondering how I would stay on this tight budget, trying to come up with another day's meals led me to conclude that many would have difficulty living off basics because

1) They don't know how to budget.
2) They don't know how to make do with what they have.
3) They don't know how to cook what they have.

Breakfast: French Toast
Lunch: One son fried fish, the others had peanut butter on bread again.
Dinner: Fish baked with potatoes and carrots.

Day 66 Avoiding Fast Food

The day was a busy one. We were in the van away from home or in between from 10-5. The first 4 hours were spent shuttling children every 20 minutes between piano, summer school, swimming, home, and helping a friend move. It was a perfect day to grab a burrito or a burger. Here is how we managed to avoid fast food:

The first two hours of the day I made phone calls and scheduled appointments. I ground wheat by hand while on the phone. Enough flour was produced to make a couple of batches of bread, and cookies over the next two days. I made a batch of rolls and for lunch the children ate peanut butter on fresh wheat rolls and I quickly threw a turkey sandwich together for the older children. (Turkey lunch meat was on the grocery list this week ($2.50 per pound regular price). The sandwiches worked well - we had food on the go and avoided the temptation to eat out.

Dinner: Fish baked with potatoes and carrots.

Day 65 Birthday Meals

Happy Birthday to my third daughter. We will have our family together for only two more weeks this summer. I love having a full house. The desire to spoil them all with great meals and "homey" memories is great. This challenge to stay in a tight budget and be disciplined while building storage is - a challenge. What will I do today to make this child feel special?

We served cantaloupe and rice pudding for breakfast. I made it milk free with eggs, water and sugar. It was okay.
Lunch: Pigs in a blanket - two full packages of hot dogs wrapped in biscuit dough made without eggs and with water instead of milk.
Dinner: Her favorite - Spaghetti with broccoli from the garden.

There was no time for a real celebration today when all the family could be together.

Day 64 Paper Towels - Desperate for Dinner

I was reading an article in magazine in the doctors office last year that was giving suggestions for saving money durring the recession. It was refreshing to read something really practical: paper towels are an extra. Do without. Use old rags and throw them out. As a child we never had paper towels. Now they are almost a necessity. We simply are spoiled and it is nice to be reminded that this luxury is one we can live without.

Breakfast: Cottage cheese and toast with delicious bread my husband made last night. (He used the electric mixer. But he made bread and did a fantastic job!)

Lunch: Peanut buter and jam sandwiches, macaroni and cheese

Dinner: It is the end of the "grocery" week. I am trying not to go to the store and desperate! I am tired of trying to come up with something again and again while rationing the same ingredients! Sooo here is what I did tonight: Browned 1/2 pound of sausage, 1 package of hot dogs, one small onion and 5 small potatoes pealed and sliced in bite size pieces; boiled rice (or one could use a rice cooker), and steamed another head of cabbage, the inside stalks of celery leaves and all, and 4-5 carrots. We mixed aout 6 cups of rice with the meats added salt and served plates of steamed vegetables and the rice mixture. Everyone loved it and went for seconds until we ran out. Success!

Day 63 Building Storage Review - Stir Fry

This challenge to build storage on an extremely limited budget has taught me: 1) That money should not be an issue to being self reliant. Families that are most financially strapped should be eating from food groups that have the longest shelf life, feed the family most nutritiously, and are the easiest to store. These foods are also the cheapest: oats, flour, beans, rice, and wheat. 2) Many foods that we are accustomed to can be sacrificed. We have lived with out ketchup, sour cream, corn starch, chicken and beef bouillon, canned vegetables, disposable diapers, many cleaning agents, paper towels, and variety. It is driving me crazy - just a little. Nevertheless we are surviving just fine. The children are not complaining too much. And my confidence is increasing. I made a gravy tonight without bouillon and no one knew. Being able to sacrifice is the foundation of any progress. No one develops a talent without sacrificing time to practice, no one builds a successful business without sacrificing some comfort at the beginning of the investment. Building home storage requires sacrifice to be useful. If one just takes excess funds, buys a large storage and puts it away to be used someday, the greatest benefits are forfeited.

Breakfast: Lumberjack pancakes with white flour
Lunch: Leftover pasta casserole
Dinner: Chicken Stir fry made with a head of cabbage from our garden! carrots, and celery steamed together and chicken breast cut in 1 inch pieces browned. Then for the sauce for the stir fry: 4 cups water, 1 TBS salt, 1 TBSP lemon pepper thickened with 1/4 cup flour mixed with 1/2 cup water. We layered rice, vegetables mixed with meat and then poured sauce over the top. The family loved it.

We are out of dog food. He is eating rice mixed with leftovers and dried whole wheat bread mixed with leftovers until I can get to the store to buy dog food.

Day 62 Sabbath - Raising a Disciple

Raising a child that is a Disciple depends on the child's ability to discipline himself. This morning as I planned one sausage patty per person, 1/2 cup orange Juice per person and a large slice of French Toast, I felt a little badly. Part of me wants to put a huge platter of all you can eat sausage and gallons of orange Juice on the table. The responsible adult in me reasons that I could not serve that much fat even in delicious sausage and more than 1 cup of orange juice simply creates expensive urine. Soon after that thought my mothers intuition whispered that I would not want my children to eat 4-5 sausage patties just to satisfy an appetite. I want my children to stop themselves from eating unhealthy proportions of any food no matter how good it tastes. I remind myself I am in the business of raising children to be disciplined. Parents set an example of good discipline by teaching proper proportions and serving sizes. In some cases those rations are governed my budget constraints but in many where finances are not so tight parents forget what their objectives are in raising children.

I want my children to be able to sacrifice their own wants for the good of their families and communities. I want them to govern themselves instead of letting appetites rule. I marvel at God's grand design that allows us to deny ourselves and give to the poor. He wants us to learn these principles in our homes. I want my children to love God and to love our neighbors as themselves. I want to raise Disciples.


Dinner: Messy lasagna (curly noodles with all the cheese, meat and tomato sauce and spices) This casserole was given to us as leftovers from a church dinner. Salad on the side.

Snack: Root beer floats a la Dad who loves the Children to look forward to Sunday's to have ice cream!
Cinnampn toast for bedtime snack. Some children had bread and milk.

Day 61 Insisting on Nutrition

The morning began at 4:00 as I scrambled 7 dozen eggs and made 4 dozen cinnamon rolls for a Sea Scout Breakfast. The menu was breakfast burritos, "mountain man potatoes," cantaloupe, and orange juice. The scouts made their own hoagies with a choice of toppings including lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, onions, and peppers. It is refreshing to have an adult plan a menu that is healthy for the teenagers instead of allowing themselves to be coward by pressure to "fix what they will eat." The vegetables serve to hydrate physically active growing bodies and provide lots of vitamins and minerals. The protein helps to stabalize blood sugars and protect children from hunger through out the day. Being the adult in charge means we carry the charge to be responsible. If we model good behavior, our children will more likely be responsible as well.

Breakfast at Home: toast and eggs
Lunch: Peanut butter Sandwiches with deviled eggs
Dinner: Pork chops, buttered rice, salad that Grandma prepared with celery, carrots, peppers, kidney beans and coleslaw mix (delicious)

Day 60 Food to make life easier

Friday

My daughter is giving me a sad story about not having real food. So I went the extra mile this morning and served hash browns with sausage, scrambled eggs, and toast with orange juice. All the children were sleeping as I prepared breakfast. It was reinforced that a little enticement in a good breakfast is surely more effective than a stern "Get Out of Bed!"

Lunch: leftovers

Dinner: a pizza - the crust was frozen from the last time we had pizza. I topped it with leftover tomato sauce and mozzarella just as Mr. Young and I were heading out the door on a date. It is nice to have a quick meal in the freezer.