Last night, before I vanished from the sight of my men, I told them two things that needed to be done. The baby’s clothes were in the dryer and the leftovers needed to be thrown out.
It had been a long day and I just wanted to crawl into a hot bath. Although my day had been somewhat productive, I felt like I was climbing uphill in sand. Head colds will do that to me. I went to bed still fuzzy headed, but clean.
When I got up this morning, there were really only two things that needed to be done – bet you can’t guess what they were. I could have gotten irritated or disappointed. I could have lectured my husband (who was already late for work). I could have pretended that I didn’t notice that the food was still sitting there waiting to be thrown out.
All of those are the easy way.
I got up, got dressed for the day, straightened the kitchen a little and then did my bible study. It reminded me that if I do what God leads me to do then there is always time and then some. So, I began to tackle the chores. Since the dishwasher just got emptied, I decided to dump out the left-overs and load them straight into the dishwasher. When I get back from errands later today, I will empty the dishwasher once again.
There is no reason to get upset or depressed about what the people around us are doing that they aren’t suppose to be doing or aren’t doing what they should be doing. I am the only person that I can change. It took fifteen minutes to do the things that needed to be done. Just think, if I had just done them last night then I wouldn’t have had the dilemma I woke up to this morning.
October 2nd, 2007
Groceries have gotten outrageous. The media is focusing on the rising cost of gasoline, but my milk costs almost twice what my gas costs. I went to the grocery store yesterday, and that one visit cost me half of what I had budgeted for the month. There has to be a better way.
1. Buy bulk with friends. No one person needs twenty pounds of anything, but if you can go together with a couple of friends, you can save a bundle by buying bulk.
2. Try once a month cooking. This would be especially nice if your church has a large kitchen that you and a group of friends could use. Instead of buying prepackaged meals (which can cost a fortune), you and your friends could prepare casseroles and meal ingredients that can be prepared later.
3. Don’t eat out of season. These days you can get just about any fruit any time of the year, but it’ll cost you. Try to stick with fruits that are in season or at least on sale.
4. Waste not, want not. One of the biggest expenses most of us have is letting food go bad. If you aren’t going to get to the ground beef, then go ahead and freeze it. It’s better to have to defrost 2lbs than to have to throw it away.
5. Speaking of freezing, vegetables are good for freezing. I got 3 lbs of carrots yesterday for just $1. I won’t ever use that many fresh carrots, but chopped up and frozen they will store for a long time.
6. Which bring me to my final tip – don’t be afraid to buy the discounted foods. Anything that is close to its “sale by date” is usually discounted by stores. If you can use it or freeze it within a day or two, then go for it.
Groceries are becoming a precious commodity. If the government wants to be concerned about prices, then these are the prices they should be focused on. Everyone has to eat. You may have to tweak your budget some to be able to handle the rising cost of family meals, but with these tips (and the many others available through out the internet) you will be able to survive.
October 2nd, 2007
