Monday Q&A | What is “doubled in size”? Plus, clothing for older kids.

by Kristen on February 8, 2010 · 16 comments

in Baking, Clothing

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

I have a baking question: How do you know when something is “doubled”? I don’t have one of those super nice buckets that a lot of bakers use so I’m having a hard time knowing when things look doubled.  Especially once I’ve rolled it out and put it on (or in) the pan and have waited the length of time, I can’t tell if it’s doubled or not. Any advice or suggestions on how you tell?

-Elizabeth

This is a very not-exact science, if it makes you feel better! I don’t think my loaves and rolls are precisely doubled in size when I put them into the oven…I just kind of eyeball it, honestly.

I think that as with many other aspects of yeast baking, practice makes perfect. If you make some rolls and discover the end product wasn’t quite as risen as you’d prefer, you’ll know that you should let them get a little puffier next time. And if you let some loaves rise until they’re very puffy and they spill over the top of the pans while they bake, you’ll know you shouldn’t let bread dough get that high in your pan.

Just keep at it…as you gain more baking experience, you’ll have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t, and you’ll be better able to spot a perfectly risen loaf of bread.

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How do you save on your children’s clothing? Hand-me-downs worked great for a while but daughter is developing some curves :O) and is harder to fit now. Unfortunately I never learned to sew. How do you do it with 4?

-Tracy

First, let me assure you that sewing your own clothes is often not a money-saving proposition. By the time you buy fabric and notions, it’s easy to spend just as much as you would in a store, so don’t fret about that, ok? There are plenty of ways to save on clothes without sewing them yourself. I don’t think I have sewn a single item of clothing for my children, even though I do know how to sew!

My oldest kiddo is 10.5, so I haven’t had any personal experience with clothing a teenager. However, I do manage to clothe myself pretty cheaply, and the strategies that work for me will probably work for your daughter as well. Here are my best suggestions:

  • Shop clearances. Doing this does usually mean shopping a bit off-season, but since stores offer the next season’s clothing ridiculously early, it’s not as off-season as you might expect. For instance, you can usually get great deals on winter clothing in January and February, and summer clothes are deeply discounted in August. I’ve found my best clothing clearance deals at Target, Kohl’s, and Old Navy, though those are certainly not your only options.
  • Keep an eye out on Freecycle. Though I’m not really in the market for teenage girl clothes, I’ve noticed several offers for bags full of junior size girl clothes.
  • Watch for sales. This won’t save you as much as the tips above, but if you have to buy something in a retail store, looking for sales when you shop will help to stretch your dollars.
  • Give your daughter a budget. I currently bear the responsibility for buying clothes for my kids, but as they get older, my husband and I intend to give them a monthly clothing budget to spend as they wish. Hopefully this will inspire them to shop clearances, sales, and thrift stores so that they can get more for their money. If your daughter is resistant to these shopping techniques, giving her a personal clothing budget just might help to motivate her (as long as you don’t bail her out if she makes a unwise choice like spending all the money on a single pair of shoes).
  • Don’t buy too many clothes. I’d offer up that we often think we need more clothes than we really do. All six of us here at Chez Frugal Girl get by with smaller wardrobes than the average American (except for maybe Sonia, whose drawer is bursting with hand-me-downs!), and we are all surviving and thriving. And people in generations past managed with a very minimal wardrobe. So, don’t feel as though you must buy your child tons of dress clothes, school clothes, and play clothes. If you could put off laundry for two weeks before your children start running out of clothes, you might have too many. ;)

As I said at the outset, I’m not speaking from personal experience here, so if any of you readers who do have teenagers would like to chime in, feel free!

{ 16 comments }

Want to see some snow?

by Kristen on February 7, 2010 · 35 comments

in Photos

Good, because I have some to show you! These are all pictures I took yesterday, while it was still snowing. This morning, it’s sunny, and I may go out and take some more. But for now, these will do.

The swingset.

My deck chairs and table.

My grill.  Zoe looked out the sliding glass door and said, “Mommy!  Your grill is…tall!”.

My winter compost bucket, looking very wintery.

And it will stay there, looking wintery, for a while, because my compost bin is kind of buried in snow.  See it down there?

The black things sticking up at the bottom of the picture?  Those are my husband’s windshield wipers.  Yeah.  It’s kind of deep out there.

This I’m a little sad about.  My huge holly tree’s multiple trunks are splayed out in all directions, and I’m not too optimistic about how much they’ll spring back.

Also, the branches have landed on top of the shed, which is maybe not so great.  Hopefully no damage has been done.

Happily, I didn’t need to go out in the snow at all yesterday. I stayed inside and cleaned, ironed, took pictures, and did a little baking.

{ 35 comments }

Grocery Spending and Menu Plan | Extra Kid Edition

by Kristen on February 6, 2010 · 14 comments

in Grocery Reports, Menu Plans

Can you find the one that doesn’t belong?

My niece, who is 10 days younger than Zoe, was with us on our grocery shopping day this week, so our trip was wilder and crazier than usual.

And we got even more stares than we usually do while we’re out and about.

Here’s what we bought.

And here’s what I spent.

Aldi-44.15

Weis-$34.14

That’s a total of $78.29, which makes me happy.  :)

Here’s a run-down of what we’ll be eating this week.

Breakfast: oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, homemade yogurt, pancakes, toast, and cereal

Lunch: yogurt smoothies, fruit, sandwiches made with whole wheat bread, and leftovers as necessary

Some of the meals on this week’s menu are here because they got bumped from last week…one day we were at a funeral, and another day, I just decided to make clam chowder instead of the planned meal.

Saturday

  • Pizza
  • green salad
  • cream soda

Sunday

  • snacky stuff for the Superbowl  :)

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

  • Chicken Wraps
  • fruit salad

Thursday

  • Broiled Tilapia Fillets
  • Challah
  • green salad

Friday

  • Teriyaki Chicken
  • side dishes will be decided upon later (dependent on next week’s sales and also what’s left in my fridge!)

{ 14 comments }

Food Waste Friday | Poor Potato

by Kristen on February 5, 2010 · 19 comments

in Food Waste Friday, Food Waste Photos

Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. I started doing this in March of 2008 to help motivate myself to use up my food instead of wasting it and it’s been very effective. Since it helped me so much, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.

This week’s waste is comprised of a lone potato. This was leftover from me making Deep Dish Pizza almost two weeks ago (yes, I am ashamed. That is a long time to have a potato in your fridge!). I should have frozen it right away, but I kept thinking I was going to make potato rolls or include it in some scrambled eggs. Obviously, though, I didn’t, and now that the potato is two weeks old, I am very uninspired about eating it, even if it might still be safe.

On a more cheerful note, I used the jalapeno peppers to make a rub for some chicken, and I did not waste the cilantro I bought last week. And, my fridge is delightfully devoid of leftovers at the moment, which is always a lovely feeling for me.

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How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You’ll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog!

{ 19 comments }

I bought long underwear. Oh yes.

by Kristen on February 4, 2010 · 13 comments

in Staying Warm

I thought we could, perhaps, use a lighter topic after yesterday’s post (which, at the time of this writing had 99 comments! Heavens.).

I am now the proud owner of some CuddlDuds. Yay!  This is the brand that many of you recommended to me when I asked for long underwear advice.

A few weeks ago at Goodwill, I almost thought I’d scored a pair…I found the packaging for a pair of CuddlDuds leggings, but sadly, the package was empty.  I searched through the bins of Target goods, hoping to find the actual product but my searching was in vain.

So, I decided to march myself over to the mall and plunk down the money for a new pair.  Happily, I had a coupon for $5 off any purchase at Sears (we got it because Sears didn’t get our chest freezer out from the warehouse as quickly as they promised), and I had a Sears gift card.

Even better, when I got to Sears, I found that the long underwear was all on sale (yay!).  I tried on several different styles before settling on the really stretchy microfiber variety.  Between my coupon and my gift card, I didn’t have to pay anything out of pocket for these, which was lovely.

Overall, I’m very happy with my leggings…I do feel much warmer when I wear them, and since they’re so thin and stretchy, it’s not at all uncomfortable to wear them underneath my jeans.  However, the top of them does bear a remarkable resemblance to what we unceremoniously refer to as “granny panties”, so I try to avoid looking in the mirror whenever my CuddlDuds are visible.  ;)   I assume the very high waisted (and unflattering!) design of these is for the purpose of keeping me warm when I bend over or lift my arms, so I won’t complain too much about the lack of style.

Since the leggings are working out so well, I’m considering the purchase of a CuddlDuds undershirt.  I was thinking of maybe getting the sleeveless sort because I worry that adding another long sleeve to the two I currently wear would get annoying (I usually wear a long tank top, a long-sleeved shirt, and then a long-sleeved fleece/sweater).  If I decide to go that route, I’ll let you know what I think.

Thank you all for sharing your long underwear wisdom with me…my warm and toasty legs are grateful!

{ 13 comments }

Why I Don’t Think Having Four Kids Is Un-Green

by Kristen on February 3, 2010 · 154 comments

in Green and Frugal

Today’s post is quite off-topic, and I hope you’ll forgive me for that.  This post came about because when I read a guest post on My Zero Waste* the other day, I was inspired to respond to an assumption made at the outset of the article.

*(Mrs. Green of My Zero Waste would like for you to know that she did not pen this intro herself…it was written by the guest poster, who is the mom of four kids)

The introduction says, in part,

“Becky is a freelance writer and Mum of  four children aged from fourteen to four.  With the huge burden she has added to the planet she is hoping to offset this as much as possible and strive to learn more and live as ‘greenly’ as she can.

While I do indeed think that we need to tread lightly on the planet, I am not at all certain that four children are “a huge burden to the planet” and I’m going to share a few reasons today.

(I should note at the outset that in order to stay on topic, I’m only addressing the green/un-green aspect of having 4 kids.  I have ideological and theological thoughts on the topic of family size as well, but they’re somewhat unrelated to the particular question at hand.)

1. A large household doesn’t necessarily use more energy.

Of course, a family of 6 does eat more food than a family of 3, and a family of 10 will need to have more laundry washed than a family of 4. However, in many cases, a family of 6 does not necessarily use twice as much energy as a family of 3.

Consider these examples.

A TV consumes the same amount of electricity if 6 people watch it as it does if 1 person watches it.  A grill full of chicken uses just as much propane as a grill with two pieces on it.  A pot of soup for 6 simmers for the same amount of time as a pot for 3.  It costs as much to heat a home with 1 person in it as it does to heat a home with 6 people in it (our house is the same size as our neighbors’ homes, which have 1-3 people living in them).  A bathtub of hot water costs the same if 1 kid bathes in it as it does if 3 bathe in it.

There are many more instances like these I could offer, but I’m sure you get the idea.

2. A large household doesn’t necessarily consume/throw away more kid-related items.

Think about it.  A family with 1 child will probably buy the same baby/child related items that a family with 4 children will buy.  The difference is that those items will get used 4 times.

Despite the fact that I have four kids, I’ve owned exactly one crib, one swing (secondhand), one bouncy seat (secondhand), and one high chair (ours actually just sat on top of a regular chair).

And though I have 4 kids, I have not had to purchase 4 wardrobes of clothes.   My son is dressed primarily in hand-me-downs, which get handed down to my nephews.  My girls wear mostly hand-me-downs as well, and their hand-me-downs get used three times before we hand them on to someone else.

The same thing is true for toys.  I do not have to buy 4 times the amount of toys a family with 1 child has to buy.  The same set of baby toys was used by all four kids.  The same set of Duplos has been used (and is still used) by all four kids.  The freecycled girls’ bike Lisey used is now being used by Sonia, and will be used by Zoe before it is freecycled again.

Even if I did buy new items for my children, I still wouldn’t be buying more than a family with one child would be buying…I would just be using the items 4 times before they were passed on.

3. Large households are often forced to live frugally, which often means living green.

Though this is not true across the board, it is often the case that large families have less disposable income.  This means that we have to be more careful with our money, and that often means that we live in an environmentally friendly way.  We buy food in bulk instead of in individual packages, we stay sort of close to home when we vacation instead of flying around the world, we cook at home, we don’t buy the latest and greatest of everything, we don’t buy enormous wardrobes for our kids, we can’t buy every new toy that comes out, and so on.

And on a personal note (I don’t know how true this is for other families), having four kids makes me drive less. My kids are well-behaved, but it is still kind of a production to get us all out of the house. I only leave when it’s necessary to do so and as a result, my van sits in my driveway most of the time.

4. Parents who care about the earth will likely raise children who care about the earth.

If people who want to be good stewards of the earth stop having children, or only have a few children, the odds of the next generation caring about the earth aren’t all that great. Of course, some people raised in un-green homes will decide to live in an earth-friendly way, but a more sure-fire way of producing a generation of responsible people is to grow them at home. My four children are immersed in our lifestyle, and they all know the benefits of buying secondhand, composting, recycling, freecycling, and reducing our consumption (ok, maybe Zoe is a little lost on the last one. But she is only 3.).

So, does family size matter?

It is entirely possible for a large family to produce mountains of trash and consume inordinate amounts of resources.  What I’d like to point out, though, is that it is also entirely possible for a small family to produce more trash and consume more resources than a large family…I’ve seen many families smaller than ours who buy, consume, and throw away far more stuff and resources than we do.

In other words, having a small number of children in no way guarantees that you’ll leave a small impact on the earth, and having a large number of children doesn’t guarantee the converse.  No, family size isn’t the issue…what matters more than the size of your family is the size of your commitment to being a good steward of the earth.

______________________________

What do you think?  I’d love to hear your perspective on this topic.  Please remember to be polite to others as you discuss a topic that has the potential to make tempers flare.  And I’d especially encourage my fellow Christians to be kind and thoughtful…it’s easy to be defensive about this, but instead, let’s be like Jesus.  :)

{ 154 comments }

Goal Update for February

by Kristen on February 2, 2010 · 15 comments

in Goals

Since it’s a new month, I thought I’d give a little update on how things are going with my goals for the new year.

1) Eat non-cereal breakfasts 4 days a week.

This is going really well so far. The kids and I have been eating toast, yogurt, oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, bagels, muffins, and pancakes for breakfast. Even Joshua, who is a big cereal fan, is pretty happy about the non-cereal options available. And I’m pretty happy that I don’t have to work as hard at finding deals on cereal.

So, all’s well in the breakfast department here, at least for now.

2) Start saving for a replacement van.

Happily, we did get started on that this month…we have a new ING account set up specifically for this purpose, and we’ve started contributing to it. We were able to put $200 into it this month, and hopefully we can continue to do that each month. I’d really prefer to put $300 in each month, but $200 is better than nothing.

3) Keep Quicken updated once a week.

I’ve been trying to do this every Saturday, and though I missed this past Saturday, I am way more caught up than I usually am! So, I didn’t completely fail at this in January, but I hope to do better this next month.

4) Spend $80 a week on groceries whenever possible.

This, I failed at! I only had a few pennies left in my grocery envelope at the end of January. I’ll give it another try in February, though.

5) Save enough for a replacement camera body by September.

I didn’t exactly make any progress on this goal in January (actually, I went backwards), because of the Haiti fundraising we did here! But that’s ok…helping people in Haiti is much more important than getting me a new camera body. And I do still have a number of months left before September anyways.

I never did tell you the end result of that fundraising post, did I??  I pledged $1 for every comment and link, and there were 300 total by January 21st.  So, I sent $300 off to Living Water at the end of January.  That wouldn’t be so amazing on its own, but all of you that commented and linked were also busy giving to Haiti, so I imagine that the cumulative effect of all of our giving was nothing to sneeze at.  Thank you all for giving!

{ 15 comments }

Monday Q&A | Compost Questions, Extravagant Gifts, and Photography

by Kristen on February 1, 2010 · 9 comments

in Composting, Photography, Q&A

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line.  I look forward to hearing from you!

A few questions cropped up in the comments on last week’s post about composting, so I though I’d include them in today’s Q&A.

Have you done a post on the ins and outs of composting? I would be very interested in hearing your full process.

Yes, indeed! A while back I wrote a post about easy, cheap composting, which explains how I set up and use my bins. And you can read all my compost-related posts in the composting category.

One question: what about the toxins in the ink on the paper from the shredder? Any info on that? I don’t think the black ink is edible, do you?

I hadn’t considered that before, but because of your question, I did a little bit of poking around and came to the conclusion that the ink is not a big problem. The 13 Common Composting Myths article at Earth 911 says that composting actually dilutes the hydrocarbons and that multiple tests have shown the amount of ink in the finished compost is not at all dangerous.

Of course, if you still felt nervous about the ink, you could only put printed paper into compost you plan to use for inedible plants, like bushes and flowers.

One question about composting shredded paper– Wouldn’t it be better to recycle the paper? It would take MUCH longer to grow a tree using your compost, and then turn it into paper, than just recycling it. Of course both options are better than throwing paper in the trash!

That’s an interesting question. I’m no environmental expert, but I would venture to guess that composting is, at the very least, as green as recycling. Consider that composting requires absolutely no outside energy, whereas recycling requires energy on a lot of levels….someone has to come pick the paper up, drive it to the recycling plant, and then at the plant itself, a lot of energy is used in the recycling process. And as Mrs. Green pointed out to me, paper can only be recycled 5-6 times before the fibers are too weak for reuse.

That said, I recycle WAY more paper than I compost, simply because I don’t have room in my composting bins for all the cardboard and paper that comes into our house. I generally only compost the paper that I shred, and that’s usually made up of papers that have personal information on them.

Another reason I am prone to composting my shredded paper is that the shreds have to be bagged up for recycling.  This seems kind of wasteful to me, and I am not at all sure that a single bag of paper shreds is going to safely make it to the recycling plant, especially if it’s in a paper bag (a plastic bag could be tied shut, but then it’s kind of a waste of a bag). The recycling here all gets chucked into the back of a garbage-like truck, so it’s sort of an indelicate ride to the plant.

A final reason I compost paper is that in order to properly compost all my produce scraps, I need to have some browns to include in my pile…if I don’t, the produce scraps take forever to compost and the pile gets stinky.

If someone else offers to pay for something extravagant (= more than you’d pay), is the purchase still unfrugal?  The thing could be a simple as a nice dinner; my point is that the purchaser is willing to spend more than you would.
-WilliamB

Hmm, I guess it would be frugal for me! I actually don’t tend to worry myself about what other people are spending…I focus more on frugality in my life. Are you maybe wondering if something like that would make me feel uncomfortable? If that’s the question, then no, unless it was a case where I knew for sure that the giver couldn’t afford the extravagant purchase.

The bottom line is that I figure that what other people do with their money is not my worry (which might seem sort of odd, given that I blog about money!). And I’m not one to be offended if someone wants to buy something for me…I just say, “Thank you!”. :)

I would love to know how you learned so much about photography. I would love to get started but have no idea what I’m doing! Your pictures are so beautiful!

-Erika

Thank you! I appreciate the encouraging words. :)

I think I first started getting better at taking pictures when I switched to digital. Getting instant feedback on my images helped me to learn how to best use the available light and it helped me to learn much better composition (I used to always shoot from too far away!). I have great respect for people who learned how to take good pictures when film was the only format available…I don’t think I’d do too well that way!

I have not taken any formal photography classes, but I’ve checked out tons of photography books from the library, and I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the internet too (Digital Photography School is a good place to start). In addition to reading how-to kind of stuff on the ‘net, I also like to just browse through photo blogs because they give me good ideas and inspiration.

Probably the best thing I’ve done though, is practice, practice, practice. I take pictures nearly every day, and I think I’ve learned a lot through simple trial and error as I shoot. I take lots and lots of bad pictures (I just don’t show them to anyone!), and I probably learn as much from the duds as I do from the more successful shots.

So, my best advice is to do some reading, look at good pictures taken by other photographers, and practice, practice, practice!

{ 9 comments }

Grocery Spending and Menu Plan | Warm Day Edition

by Kristen on January 30, 2010 · 13 comments

in Grocery Reports, Menu Plans

The groceries are a little lacking in stuffed animals this week.

That’s because it was a lovely, warm day when we went shopping (50 degrees!), and my kids were out enjoying the weather instead of putting stuffed animals on the groceries.

Of course, Zoe had a sea creature with her.

(the kids have named this whale “AnneMarine”…you know, sort of like AnneMarie. Except not quite.)

Sonia was out there too, of course (and she does still have hands. hee-hee.)

She was just busy chucking bouncy balls out into the grass and then running to pick them up. ;)

I’ll leave her and her mismatched outfit up (which I love!) there on the side while we talk about grocery spending. Let’s see…if you remember from last week, I was working with a limited budget ($77.23) this week, so I tried to plan a menu that required minimal spending.

I spent:

-$42.50 at Weis
-$34.15 at Aldi

And that makes for a total of $76.55, which is just under my $77.23 budget. Phew.

Next week it’s a new month, and a new budget…yay!  I’m hoping to actually have some money left in my envelope at the end of next month.

Breakfast this week will be a combination of toast, oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, pancakes, and cereal. Lunch, as usual, is yogurt, yogurt smoothies, fruit, sandwiches, and leftovers as necessary.

And, here’s what we’re eating for dinner.

Saturday-We’re having a date night (woot!).  My dear brother and sister-in-law gave us a restaurant gift card for Christmas with the attached gift of free babysitting (double woot!).  I am e x c i t e d, both for the food and the company.  :)

Sunday

Monday

  • Chicken Tacos
  • fruit salad

Tuesday

  • Shrimp Taco Salad
  • garlic bread, made with French bread from the freezer

Wednesday

  • Swiss Mushroom Chicken
  • Herbed Wheat Rolls (a new recipe)
  • for a side dish, I’ll use up whatever veggies happen to still be around

Thursday

Friday

  • Chicken with Parmesan Risotto
  • green beans

{ 13 comments }

Food Waste Friday | No sighing this week!

by Kristen on January 29, 2010 · 37 comments

in Food Waste Friday, Food Waste Photos

Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. I started doing this in March of 2008 to help motivate myself to use up my food instead of wasting it and it’s been very effective. Since it helped me so much, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.

I’m pleased to report that I have no waste this week. Yay! I do, however, have a couple of wrinkly jalapeno peppers that need to be used. I had more than this, and I sliced, seeded and froze those. I suppose I could do that with these last few peppers, but I think it would be a while before I got around to using that many froze hot peppers (we’re not big hot pepper eaters here).

Any suggestions? I was thinking of making some Jalapeno Poppers, but they seem to be a fair amount of work, and I’m less than inspired after looking at some recipes.

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How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You’ll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog!

{ 37 comments }

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