Grocery Shopping: The Menu

I am going to try to make these posts and explanations as clear and understandable as possible. If anything is confusing or you need me to clarify, please let me know! It's kind of a work in progress as I see how things work for us at this stage in life, so it could be changing as we go.

I thought I should start out with my goals for the pantry and our food life. I already cook from scratch as much as I can, so that is a big part of our life and I don't consider that a goal. But you might, so please feel free to write up your own goal list if you want to do this along with me.

My Food Goals:

 - To stock our pantry to have 3 months worth of food for emergencies, to facilitate surprise crowds, or to help others out in times of need. I would like this to include water, so I need to find a place to store large amounts of water if I can.

- To save time in planning our menus and lists. And hopefully get down to shopping once a month.

- To have less waste. I've been pretty bad about tossing things lately.

- To save money on our groceries. Over the last year I have spent an average of $800 a month on groceries. Considering I used to spend $400 for 5 people, that was a major jump. Now, we do have 6 people eating full meals, and the boys are all getting bigger and eating more so I do realize that we are spending more for a reason, but I am hoping a better plan can lower us to about the $600 or under range (and I will admit our spending went up because the junk food consumption did...).

- To get our diet back on track and get rid of the junk food that has crept in while I was being lazy.

Planning Menus
I had originally planned on talking about the pantry first, but it made more sense to go over menus first, since that's why you pack the pantry!

My routine lately has been to write down whatever sounds easiest at the time, then shop for that. My menus have almost been the same from week to week lately, usually including enchiladas, a crock pot meal, and spaghetti. Which are all fine meals, but when I put the same things on the menu every week it gets boring.

So, my new plan is to come up with 15-20 of our favorite meals and rotate those. I might even try to come up with a meal for every day of the month and have the same menu every month. My plan is to use meals that involve mostly pantry items, since my goals is to have a stocked pantry, but you must rotate and use your pantry goods on a regular basis. I will have some days that are special meals, or trying new meals, but for the most part I am trying to simplify and focus on pantry building.

As far as what meal to put on what day, this is how I usually do it:

I usually plan for two weeks, since that is my shopping schedule right now. I am going to try to get on a one month routine, aside from quick trips for milk and such.

I use a blank calendar for my menus. You can print one out from your email/calendar program, or I'm sure you could find something on pinterest.

Mark down any special days like birthdays, anniversaries, etc that would have a special menu or going out. For example, we have a family dinner coming up at my mom's to celebrate some birthdays so I will put "OUT" on that day. If you will be cooking a special dinner, write out that menu on that day.

Make note of any days that need to be a quick meal or easy meal. If you have soccer practice every Thursday night, then a crock pot meal put on the in morning will probably be easier than making a 4 course meal. My cousin comes over every other Wednesday, so on those days I try to plan a crock pot meal or something quick so I can spend more time visiting and less time cooking (and cleaning up).

Fill in all the other days that are still blank. Try to include meals that will use leftovers from previous meals, or produce that needs to be used up. If I have leftover chicken from Wednesday, I will try to use it in pasta salad or enchiladas on Thursday or Friday. If you have some peppers that are starting to look a little sad, try to find a meal that will incorporate those so they don't go to waste.

That's pretty much it! So to recap:

Have a set number of go to meals that rely mostly on ingredients from the pantry. Fresh things can be a bonus as they are in season or the budget allows.

Use a blank calendar and fill in special meal days.

Fill in "busy" days that need easy meals.

Fill in the rest, again, still using meals that are based off of pantry staples.

Now, make a note of breakfasts and lunches, and snacks you want to have on hand (or preferably make). For us breakfast is almost always eggs and toast, in one fashion or another, or oatmeal/pancakes. Lunches are sandwiches or leftovers or hot dogs.

In the next grocery post I'll talk about my plans for the pantry and getting it stocked.

Happy Weekend!
Meg

Revisiting the Shopping List

** The domain name I had (www.bitoflife.com) is expiring/expired and I don't see the point in renewing it, so you'll be able to find us at our normal blogspot address: our-littlehomestead.blogspot.com. If you need to update your readers to reflect that, please make sure you do! **

It's raining today! Weeeeee!!!

Thank you all so much for the comments on the gardening post! I love your ideas - especially about growing the herbs in pots! I'm glad you're all here to keep me accountable! :)


In the past I've shared how I menu plan and handle grocery shopping. Over the past year we've really gotten away from, well, being super responsible and had a year of.... Let's just say it was a "generous" year when it came to buying things, including groceries.

As we try to focus on paying off our house and achieving some other financial goals, I have been revisting and reorganizing my systems and not only trying to get back in the swing of things, but seeing if there is any way I can improve and make it a bit easier. I've also been feeling the need to stock our pantry to last a few months, in the case of any emergency events. (I just have a weird feeling we're due for a good sized earthquake, since that's the part of the country we live in. Not to mention the drought I talked about in the last post that will surely be causing prices to rise.)

I was thinking of this the other day when I was listening to a new podcast I have found that I have been enjoying (The Busy Mom's Survival Guide - she makes soap too!). A few days after I had thought of redoing my methods, I heard her talking on a past episode of how she handles her pantry and food shopping, meal planning etc. I really liked how she explained it, and thought I would incorporate some of her ideas into my own system.

My previous system involved a pre-written grocery list of items that we typically buy, sorted by category, and a blank calender. I would print out each, fill in the calender with our meals for the next two weeks (my typical shopping schedule) then check off items I needed for those meals on the list. I would try to make those meals use what was on sale in the grocery fliers, and add anything that we might be getting low on but weren't specific to the menus.

Over the last year I've let that method slip, I wind up making the same boring things from week to week because I can't think of anything else, and my pantry has gotten more bare. I also have lost track of what's the best price for items because I've ignored my price book for so long. Add to all that the dynamics of a new business and a schedule shift, it's definitely time for a change!

I'll be going into more detail on my new ideas and methods in a bit, but until then I'd love to know what methods you use, how you stock up, your favorite recipes, etc. I love hearing how differently people get the same things accomplished.

Happy Thursday,
Meg

Garden 2014 - Ideas

** The domain name I had (www.bitoflife.com) is expiring/expired and I don't see the point in renewing it, so you'll be able to find us at our normal blogspot address: our-littlehomestead.blogspot.com. If you need to update your readers to reflect that, please make sure you do! ** 

If you're from around here, or follow California news at all, you'll know our part of the nation is having an extreme drought. Really extreme. And unfortunately, that means that the price of food will be going up soon to account for it. So in an effort to keep that part of our budget in check, and to be more prepared for things in general, I'm trying to plan our garden again.

I would like to try providing a lot of our food from our garden this year. (Ok, I say this every year and it never works, but good intentions...). I'm going to write it all down here so you all can hold me accountable. If you run into me on the street, ask me something like "Have you been weeding and keeping your garden alive?" That way I can be guilted into keeping it going and maybe that will work.

We already have:
a cherry tree
an apple tree
4 blueberry bushes (although I think only two are still alive)
a lime tree that has yet to produce anything
7 Boysenberry bushes that produce more than we ever wanted, and make for crazy good jam
and strawberry plants I planted last year that have continually bloomed all winter despite my trying to dead head them.

So that's what we're starting with. I'm hoping we'll get at least something from any of those this year.

The first attempt at green bean trellis

What I'd like to plant for the year:
Tomatoes
Squash
Beets
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrots
Tomatillos
Green Beans
Butter Beans
Peas
Melons
Chard
Various herbs including basil, cilantro, chives, rosemary, and anything else I can squeeze in. And good insect attracting flowers.
And probably some other things that I'm forgetting.

What I learned from last year:
 - Due to our rear neighbor's trees getting larger and creating shade and the height of the fence, the two very back beds of the official garden don't grow much at all.  I will have to stick to the very front of the beds, or maybe not at all. The back flower bed won't grow much either, but I might be able to trick some shade tolerant plants into growing back there.

- Tying the middle trunk of tomatoes to a stake as they grow and  cutting out the little "crotch" shoots will really give a large tomato crop. This practice made my tomatoes the best producing crop out of the whole garden. More on this little trick in a later post.

- Cattle/hog panel zip tied to posts driven into the ground works great as a bean trellis. I'll be doing that again for beans and peas this year.

- I need to get on a feeding schedule. Because our dirt quality is so poor, and we've only been doing this for a few years, I really need to work on fertilizing our plants during the season. We've budgeted for manure/compost and will be doing that in the next few weeks. You know, after we get all the weeds out...

- We definitely need a weed barrier of some sort, because I get very discouraged and give up when the weeds take over. And the heat we get during the summer makes the weeds grow very quickly.

- Double digging the beds last year made a big difference in not only quality (because I dug in compost) but made planting and pulling plants so much easier because the soil was much looser. 

- I think getting some shade cloth will come in handy in keeping our poor plants going when the heat rises during the summer.

I am going to try my best to keep it going and have something to show for it this year. And I want to share how we're doing it to help anyone else that might be on a small parcel (or just wants to garden small). I'll be sharing in the future our official layout for the year, what I'm doing with certain plants, things I'm learning and anything else I can think of.

One thing I am really enjoying already is a little app I purchased for my iPhone. It is called "WhenToPlant", it was $2.00 and it is put out by Mother Earth News. I have tried many times in the past to find information about when to plant in our specific area. And while I've found things that go off our USDA zoning, it never seemed quiet right. It's always warmer here and I think we can plant earlier than the little guides say I can. This particular app goes off of the averages from your nearest weather station, and it seems to be a much closer planting guide. So I am excited to try it out and I'll let you know how it goes.

Are you planting anything this year? I'm curious to know what your plans are and any tips and tricks you might have.

Happy Wednesday,
Meg

A List

I am crazy busy. And my brain doesn't work enough these days to form coherent paragraphs, but I wanted to check in. So here's a list of what's going on around here:

1. We are (sort of) getting the garden ready for the year. We have been talking, and making plans. We finally got around to tearing out/down all of last year's garden... Now we just need to add manure and compost and such and plant when it's time. I should be starting seeds, I just haven't gotten that far yet.

2. Bumblewood has moved from Etsy to it's own online shop! You can find it at www.bumblewoodhandmade.com. I'm very, very excited about this little step for the business. There are a lot of new features that I am loving - like all of our products being listed even when out of stock, a "notify me" option for things you want to know about coming back in stock, and the chance to leave reviews on individual products. You can still find a selection of our products on Etsy if you prefer to shop there, but I'm now offering a greater selection (like our new body butters!) on the main shop.

3. I am trying to redo my Household Planner. I want to get all of my important information, blank menu calenders and grocery lists, garden planners, etc. all into one place. I also want to write up a list of chores that need to be done at certain times of year, or reminders to purchase things for the house (like refrigerator filters). Anything to make life smoother and easier and get back in control.

4. Some of you who have been following along for awhile might remember that a few years ago we worked really hard to become debt free. We got rid of all of our commercial debt (cars, credit cards, etc) within 2 years, and since then have been working on paying down our mortgage. Eventually we'd like to buy a piece of land for larger gardens, animals, and for the kids to have lots of running around space. We bought our house in 2009 and as of this month we now owe under 50k. I can't tell you how excited this makes me feel. I dream of space and quiet and feeding ourselves from our property (and chickens. I will get my freaking chickens some day!) and this is just one step closer to that.

5. I told you back in December that my sister is having twin baby girls. There will be knitting. Stay tuned. ;)

6. Ok maybe I can make full paragraphs.

Happy Tuesday,
Meg

Oh Hey Look It's The End of the Year

Here's to looking forward.

To say I haven't really paid much attention to the calendar this year is a bit of an understatement.

I woke up this morning and my first thought was "Eww. Monday." My second thought was "Oh hey Ben's still on vacation!" My third thought was "And the garage is torn up, so I don't have to do laundry today! Score!"

And then I realized that today it's the eve of New Year's eve.

I don't know about you, but I'm a so very much ready for this stupid horrible year to be over.

2013 has been full of stress, and pain, and depression, and irritation. There have been times this year that I really wasn't sure I could keep going, times I didn't even want to, and I'm just ready for it to be done and over with and move on.

Usually by this time of year I've got everything in order. I've usually reflected on the year, gotten my new goals and resolutions listed, I've gotten the year's files and things organized and ready to put away, etc.

This year?


Pffffffffffffffftttttttt.

I got up and I got dressed this morning. That makes it a good day.

One of the hardest things about this past year was watching myself slip away. My "I can handle everything, everything is in it's place, I know what we're having for dinner, what the kids are wearing, all my chores are handled. I'm freaking June Cleaver." attitude just up and disappeared somewhere around the beginning of the year.

I can't seem to keep anything together anymore. I'm lucky if I can plan for one meal in a week.

I'm so ready for this to be over. I'm really hoping that 2014 brings the return of my mojo.

I am attempting to get my house moderately clean today and tomorrow so that the New Year doesn't start off with a messy house. We'll see how well that goes.

One good and exciting thing from the past week - My sister announced what she's having on Christmas day.

She's having TWIN baby girls!! Apparently having twins our first time around is a new family tradition. I am SUPER excited about that, so 2014 is already looking a bit brighter.

I don't have a list of goals to share with you. I haven't even thought of anything.

Sure, there are things I'd like to do, or am hoping to do, but nothing that I feel I should really write down.

I feel I might rename the blog again.

Bumblewood will be growing. I'm very busy on that front. There will be new goodies, new scents, lots of fun things going on.

Knitting has almost stopped all together, so I don't see much on that front aside from finishing some requested stockings.

I'm sure the garden will be up and down this year.

But as for me, and home, I think my goals are to just:

- Not be as stressed.
- Not be as depressed.
- Be more patient.

Ok. That sounds like a good list.

I hope you all have a wonderful, blessed, amazing 2014.

Happy New Year!!
Meg