joannqn
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Posts posted by joannqn
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I find it interesting how many people are saying that they've gotten the flu every year that they've gotten the flu shot but didn't get the flu the years they did not get the flu shot.
We don't do any vaccinations.
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According to my police officer friend, we live in THE WORST neighborhood in our city. Most of the crime we deal with regularly is not violent though.
In the 10 years, we've lived here...
We've had our car broken into twice.
Had two drunk drivers hit our cars and run.
Had things stolen from our porch.
Our neighbor's house was broken into.
Our other neighbor's garage was broken into.
Another neighbor, and older lady, was pushed down and had her purse stolen.
I saw a drive-by shooting.
The house across the street was shut down as a meth lab.
We reported the people two houses over for suspected drug dealing.
Another house was recently boarded up; we think it was a drug house.
We have regular speed related accidents on our block.
Our grocery store's parking lot is known for drug dealing.
Our local elementary is a known for alcohol and drug dealing after hours.
We had a young girl kidnapped and murdered less than a mile away.
We have no less than 3 level 3 sex offenders living within a mile of us.
And that's just what I know about.
I HATE HATE HATE living here but we are stuck. Our house needs repairs and we can't afford to fix it right now or sell it and lose money (do to the housing crisis). So, I hover over my kids instead and hammer safety into their heads.
Edited to add: I forgot, there was a murder two blocks away recently.
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I had a terrible, terrible time waking up and getting going in the mornings for the first 30 years of my life. Nothing helped. If I HAD to be up for school or work or whatever, I was in a fog until noon. It was not something I could control.
Finally I started taking melatonin, and the quality of my sleep improved so much that I can now actually wake up in the mornings and function. No more morning fog.
This is me...still. I need to be in bed 9 hours minimum to function. It takes me 1-3 hours to fall asleep every night unless I am exhausted to the point of passing out if I sit or lay down. It takes me until lunch to wake up. I'm almost positive I'm ADD/ADHD. I score VERY high on online questionnaires you're suppose to take to your doctor but can't afford the $800 worth of testing my doctor wants me to take before prescribing medicine for it. So, I just deal with it the best I can...like relying on school bell programs, my kids reminding me to feed them, and relying on the kids to help me find the things I've misplaced.....again. Thank God for kids who don't have ADD! LOL
I've learned to function at a minimum level in the mornings but don't start school until after lunch.
So, where do I get melatonin?
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If it were me (and it was me a couple years ago), I'd look for another way to teach math facts than using flashcards and copywork.
Flashcards made my daughter cry every single day. As did timed tests. I decided to relax about memorizing math facts. I told my daughter why it was important to know them and how when she gets to harder math, it will take forever to do each problem if she doesn't know them and left it at that. I quit pushing her to learn them my way but required her to do her assignments every day no matter how long it took.
Surprisingly, my daughter has learned all of her adding, subtraction, and multiplication facts even though I quit pushing her on it every day. She really started to understand what I meant about needing to know them when she got to three digit multiplication. She not quite as fast as I'd like but I figure more speed with come with time. She's finding division to be easy.
When we started using math-u-see , it got better. However, I may not use it the way others do. I do not teach lessons. My kids watch the video and do all the worksheets on their own. If they need help, I'll help by going through a problem with them and explaining it. I'm totally hands off with math.
We also use learning wrap ups. My son loves them, my daughter won't touch them. We use Timez Attack for learning multiplication.
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The increases do stink, even if you have a good plan. For that I'm sorry.
I also tend to have poor health and spend the most on medical costs in our family. Our out of pocket for medical costs usually runs $4,000 to 7,000 year with insurance when you count premiums, copays, and coinsurance. It sucks but you do the best you can.
Right now, my husband is uninsured completely so we have to hope nothing happens to him.
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My guess is that there are hormonal things going on but that people who aren't morning people can be very grumpy when forced to get moving early.
My 8 year old and I are not morning people. I gave up trying to start school in the morning. When I did, we'd spend the whole day and get very little done. So, I reconsidered trying to be "like everyone else" and changed our schedule drastically. Now we start school after lunch and get everything done without complaints. We work on school the rest of the day with breaks here and there. We are much happier and are more productive than we've ever been.
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I refuse to have any beds against the wall. They are too hard to make against the wall.
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Thanks! I just put 2 pounds on the stove to quick soak.
Now if i could find a recipe for refried beans that matched my favorite restaurant in CA (that just closed - no reason to go back now! LOL!!!) i'd be a happy camper :D
Try these. They are my recipe and taste a lot like those you get at Mexican restaurants. Manteca is one of the most important ingredients to getting them to taste right.
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I finally just gave up. We used to eat very healthy
I'm at the same point. At one point I was beginning the process of eating healthier and never made it anywhere near the list on this thread before I just didn't want to eat anymore. I didn't like the food. I found that I'd rather just not eat at all than eat "health food."
For example: bread. I buy whole wheat bread at the store but it has bad stuff in it. I hate homemade whole wheat bread because it is too dense and adding gluten made no difference. I use 2 cups whole wheat and 1 cup unbleached flour in my homemade bread now.
Now I just eat what we enjoy. Most of it is cooked at home so it's healthier than some of the alternatives.
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If you aren't interested, you should just firmly tell them so. I don't think they are trying to be pushy though. They probably are very excited about how much they save and just want to share their discovery so you can benefit too. Maybe, if you saw them as being good-hearted, it wouldn't feel so offensive when he gets so excited about it. I know I get excited about it and share how great I think The Grocery Game is. That doesn't mean I think that the person I'm talking to is stupid or wrong; it just means I've discovered something that I think is great and want to share. I tend to think things like, "I wish someone had told me about this ages ago" and "If I only knew about this before, think of how much money I could have had for other things."
I've found the grocery game to be every bit worth the cost ($10 for 8 weeks) because they do all the work for me. I file my coupons inserts by date so it takes almost no time at all. It takes me about 30 minutes to go through the list online, checking off which items I want to print, and cut my coupons. I get three papers so I can stock up. I shop two stores and spend about 45 minutes in each store.
No stores here double coupons. I save between 50% and 65% off shopping at both Safeway and Albertsons. I haven't needed to go to Walgreens in about a year because I was so stocked up on everything I get there. I still have quite a bit of stuff too, (Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS are great places to shop because of their rebate programs from which you can get much of your bath and beauty products for free or better than free. Why turn down free?)
I just wrote about this week's shopping trip in detail on my blog a couple days ago, including what I bought and how much I paid for each item and overall. For $125, I bought 5 gallons of milk, 10 meals worth of chicken breasts, 3 meals of pork chops, 6 meals of beef roast, 9 cans of spaghetti sauce (for pizza & pasta), 6 cans of diced tomatos, 20 cans of veggies, 5 boxes of cereal, some produce, 24 roll pack of TP, and a few other misc. items. With what I have at home and this one week's worth of shopping, I have everything I need for the rest of the month except fresh produce.
I almost never buy generic because name brand is almost always cheaper with sales and coupons if you wait for the good sales and stock up.
I use anywhere from $2 to $25 worth of coupons from the Sunday paper each week, depending on what I need and what's on sale that week. The rest is knowing what is on sale for the very best price. Looking at the ads is not enough. Most sales are not worth it so you have to know what to buy by either keeping a price book or using a service who keeps a price book for you. I don't have time to keep my own price book, scour the ads, and hunt down coupons, which is why I pay someone to do it for me.
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Ours is $550 per month for a family of five. That includes everything: food/drink, household/cleaning , bath/beauty, and diapers/wipes.
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I bought some containers to freeze beans in - maybe i'll try freezing refried beans and see how that goes. They love burritos! (i make torts - that is easy and I don't mind doing that at lunch really).
Refried beans freeze just fine. Just bring back to room temp and reheat.
I cook up 3 pounds of pinto beans at a time. If I expect to use them up the same week, I refrigerate them unmashed. Then I refry just the amount I need throughout the week. If I don't expect to use them up that week, I mash and fry them for freezing.
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Thanks Rosie! You're a sweet gal. : )
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We are a technology family. My kids have known how to use the computer and Internet since they were two years old. At first, they just visited links I set up for them to their favorite kid websites like Sesame Street and PBS Kids. About a year ago, they asked if they could have their own blogs. We set both of them up with one. Both blogs are public. Both are open to anonymous comments They used to require people to sign in to their google accounts to comment but one person we knew was so very computer illiterate, she couldn't figure it out so we made it as easy as possible. In all that time, my daughter has only gotten one strange comment left. My daughter came and told me about it immediately. Found out it was no big deal.
My kids also have their own emails, are active at an online social networking community for homeschoolers, and are free to play online at various websites. The only thing off limits are games with chat that don't include kid-safety features.
The reason we feel comfortable allowing this much freedom is that we have hammered them with internet safety for 4 and 6 years, respectively, and have proven to be trustworthy. In the beginning, they asked about every single online game they wanted to play and never balked when I turned down a game. I don't require that anymore because they know and follow the rules. They bring every strange comment or email to my attention or delete it as spam. They also know that I reserve the right to log into their email at any time without notice...which I do periodically. I have never found anything to worry about.
I think safety begins with educating the kids. If they are educated and have practice following safety guidelines, they'll be fine.
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Plain old dish soap gets soap scum off easily.
My all purpose cleaner for everything else is:
1 T dish soap
30 drops tea tree oil
water to fill the spray bottle
I don't have grout so I have no idea how to clean that.
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hillfarm: Refried beans freeze well. I just put them in ziploc baggies and freeze. When I need them, defrost and reheat. I don't know about canning since I don't can.
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Hello all! I'm new to this group. Looking forward to finding new ideas and recipes. I've been working on posting frugal kitchen tips and recipes at my homeschool blog so have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen coming up with exact measurements. I'm so used to just-throw-some-in cooking. Made homemade refried beans tonight. Yum! Turns out that they cost the equivalent of $0.35 a can. Gotta love the savings as much as the taste.
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Today's frugal acts: Saved $104 on my groceries. I bought mostly things on sale and/or with a coupon and stocked up on things we use regularly. I made my homemade refried beans (they taste like they come from a restaurant) and computed the cost as being equivalent as paying $0.35 a can. : )
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We've never been part of an academic co-op. At first, it was because I had a preschooler in the public school system half day. I couldn't meet the parent participation requirements and still get to the school in time to pick up my son.
I also don't want to enroll my kids in a class that they'd only get once a week and then go home and learn something different in the same subject four times a week. Does that make sense? It would be like doing medieval history in co-op once a week but studying ancient history at home. It didn't mesh. Of course, I could always try to make our home studies fit with co-op studies but that just sounds too difficult.
Then there's the cost. The major co-ops in our area are pretty pricey.
Instead I watch various homeschool groups for opportunities to do things together. We'll jump at the chance to do park days or field trips.
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My husband switched us over the Viatalk's voice-over-IP plan. They had a special where it cost $199 for one year of service (works out to $16.58 a month) and if you prepaid it, the second year was free (makes it $8.30 a month). I see that their website has the $199 thing but I don't know if that second year is still free when you prepay. With that plan, all we have to pay each month is the taxes, which have been $3.45 a month.
The plan includes unlimied local and domestic long distance service. You have to have a fast internet connection though. We have cable. Very occasionally, we have service problems but a call into them usually resolves it within a couple of hours unless my husband fixes it sooner (he's an IT guy).
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hillfarm, I agree. Buying canned food on sale is definitely more frugal for our family than canning would be. We don't have the option of gardening really. If we did, it would be tiny and yield little do to poor soil. There's also arsenic in our soil where we had previously tried to garden and lead in other planting areas that currently have flowers or weeds.
This week, I have the option of buying canned veggies at $1.69 a can at Safeway or $0.50 a can at Albertson's. Any guesses where I'll be buying that particular item? LOL
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You want to put it in the fridge before you shape it. Then take it out in time to let it come to room temperature before shaping it and putting into you pans.
The last time I tried putting my bread in the fridge, I put it in there in the pan and ended up with a HUGE hole in my bread. Had I punched it down and reshaped it, it would have been ok.
This link tells you how to put bread in the fridge overnight.
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=007zeN
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Your schedule looks good. Another alternative would be to start your days on Fridays and keep going until Tuesday, then have Wednesdays and Thursdays off. The kids need to spend time with Dad too, you know. And you have your Wednesday off to run errands, maybe even by yourself :)
:iagree: I think this is a great solution.
We have a weird schedule in that we don't start school until 1:30pm. I am NOT a morning person. Neither is my daughter. And my son has taekwondo from 10am to noon. Between the three, I don't bother starting until after lunch. We do all language arts and math, take a break, do history, have dinner, do science, have some free time, and then read/discuss literature for our bedtime story. So school begins at 1:30pm and ends at 9:30pm.
It's ok to do whatever works for you even if it is different from normal. Once I made the decision to stop trying to do school early like everyone else, we were happier and started accomplishing more.
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I've enjoyed reading up on what everyone was talking about while I was forgetting about the groups section. For me, living frugally means saving money on groceries and learning how to cook cheaper meals. We have a tiny, city plot of land with very poor soil so growing veggies or keeping animals is out of the question. I have learned to save between 40-65% off groceries by using coupons/sales. Then I use those groceries to make cheaper meals...like stretching 2 chicken breasts to feed the five of us or using one chicken for 3-4 meals. I also save money on toiletries because I've given up on using soap since my skin is very sensitive. I also don't use shampoo or conditioner anymore. I use baking soda to wash and vinegar to condition now. My hair looks better now and it is so much cheaper. It's great for itchy scalp/dandruff too.
I'm also one of those people who don't have a lot of skills because my mom had no skills and I had no other relatives to learn from. I've taught myself to cook, crochet, and do basic knitting. I'd like to learn to knit better so I can make useful things like socks and sweaters. I'd also like to learn to sew more than a straight line and I even have trouble with that sometimes. I wouldn't mind learning how to can so that when produce is cheaper in the summer I can save up for the winter but I'm terrified of blowing up the house. I love the idea of checking with senior centers to find a mentor.
In the Kitchen
in In the Kitchen
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oh, oh, oh. I agree with once. I've never been able to successfully start a sour dough starter but I love sour dough. I think it is too cold when I try to do it and always forget during the summer because we're too busy during the summer.