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Food Waste Friday | New! Improved! With a FWF Button! (plus, Liseys’ new project!)

by Kristen on January 27, 2012 · 27 comments

in Food Waste Friday

Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. Why do I do this? Because in March of 2008, I finally got fed up with the amount of food I was wasting, and I thought that showing my waste to other people would motivate me to use up my food instead of wasting it. Because this often embarrassing practice was so helpful for me, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born. You should join in!

I think I just might have broken my exclamation point button with that title.

!!!!!

Nope, it still works.

Ok. So, the first marvy-fab thing for today is that those of you who participate in Food Waste Friday can now grab a fancy-schmancy button to perk up your posts. If you copy and paste the following code into your Food Waste Friday post, this little graphic will appear.

FoodWasteFriday

If you blog on WordPress, just make sure you’re in html mode when you copy and paste the code, or it won’t work properly.

A thousand thanks to reader Jen from Dear Mommy Brain for gently nudging me to get this done and for sending me the code pattern.

The second newsy bit I have for you is that Lisey and I have been working on a baking blog. It’s called Baking With Lisey because Lisey loves to bake/cook and I’m a disaster at making time to help her with it. So, I’m taking an approach similar to the one I’m using with my crafting negligence, except Lisey and I started a whole new blog, and we’ll be posting recipes once a week.

Hopefully this will help me make time to bake/cook with Lisey, and hopefully you’ll have fun watching us! Since we’ll only be posting once a week or so, I highly recommend subscribing via email…that way you’ll always know when we’ve got something new up. Go on over and check it all out!

Alrighty! On to food waste.

I have some grape tomatoes that went bad (not dry, just bad…you know the way they get thin-skinned and really mushy?), and part of a lemon that got moldy.

And I think I might have a few spinach leaves that are slimy, but I’m feeling too lazy to go check right now.
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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! And if you don’t blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.

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Today’s 365 post: Dental Office Reading

Joshua’s 365 post: The Answer!

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How about some goals?

by Kristen on January 26, 2012 · 10 comments

in Goals

It’s been a little while since we had one of these, so here are 10 things I’d like to get accomplished (I’ll probably give myself 1.5 weeks to get these done.)

1. Write up a master account/password financial list.

Not to be all morbid and whatnot, but if something bad ever happens to me, I want Mr. FG to be able to access all of our accounts.  I’m the one that takes care of bill-paying right now, so I need to compile all that information in one place.

2. Sell my broken camera lens on Ebay.

My beloved 50mm 1.4 lens gave up the ghost, and repair was going to be slow and expensive (it wasn’t going to be back from the shop in time for Miss Callie’s birth, and I really, really, REALLY wanted it for that!  Taking pictures in dark hospital rooms is nigh onto impossible with my one other lens.)

I had some money that I was saving up for a new lens (I wanted a 35mm or 85mm), but I decided to just use that money to buy a new 50mm (this time I purchased a Canon Lens Hood to help protect the focus mechanism, since it seems to be a fairly common problem with this lens.)  The good news is that even broken 50mm lenses do sell on Ebay (sometimes for a surprising amount!), so I’m going to list mine to recoup some of the cost of the new one.

3. Update Quicken.

Yeah.  Still don’t trust myself to do that without a list!

4. Start on our tax return.

As I shared with you, I use Turbo Tax for this (love it!), and even though we don’t have all of our tax papers yet, I can at least start on my small business taxes, since I own all of those records.

5. Combine two credit card accounts for easier online access.

See that first goal up there?  As a part of that project, I’ve been trying to simplify my financial work (it’s not going to hurt me to have simpler tasks either!).  Anyway, there are two credit cards I want to keep, but one is under Mr. FG’s name and one is under mine (though we both have access to both accounts).  This means there are separate logins for each card.  I want to simplify and end up with just one log-in, but that means we both need to get on the phone to make this happen.

6. Finish editing a photo session, burn the CD, and deliver it.

They’re first birthday pictures for this little one.  Isn’t she adorable??

7. Plan and schedule music and musicians for February

Organizing all of that is my job at church, and I want to get it done soon.

8. Launch Lisey’s secret project (which will then not be a secret)

We just need to do a few other things, and then we’ll be ready to share it with you!

9. Plan my 14 Days of Valentines for this year.

I’ve shared about this tradition of mine before.  It’s really fun if you’ve got a spouse who likes to get gifts, but it does require some advance planning.  And since I’ve only got a week before February hits, I need to get on this!

10. Exercise 4 days a week.

I had a weird cold/flu thing recently and that sort of got me off of my routine.

Ok!  I’ll be back in a week and a half to report on how I did.

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Today’s 365 post: Check out what I found in a kitchen cabinet!

Joshua’s 365 post: Wanna guess??

Amazon links are my affiliate links.

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A new monthly feature: Easy, Frugal Crafts for Kids

by Kristen on January 25, 2012 · 35 comments

in Crafts

Want to know something?

I’m not particularly fabulous at making time to do crafts with my kids.

This would be fine if they were the sort of kids who don’t like doing crafts.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case…Sonia especially is always wanting me to do crafts with her.

Now, I’m not great at doing crafts period, but I’m especially not good with doing them at a moment’s notice.  My personality is such that I really, really prefer to know about things ahead of time.  I do try to be flexible and spontaneous, but the reality is that I function at my optimal level when things are planned in advance.

When I thought about some things I wanted to do in the new year, crafts with Sonia and Zoe came to mind.  And since I know myself well, I thought that I might be more consistent with doing crafts if I planned them out.  So, I picked out 12 craft projects to do with them, and I’ll be sharing them with you each month.

I don’t want to spend tons of time making useless things that will be clutter or trash in a short while, so I’m being picky about the craft projects on my list.

That means that the crafts we’ll be doing will be:

  • inexpensive
  • simple
  • environmentally-friendly
  • not cluttery (they’ll be useful, edible, or simple to dispose of in an environmentally friendly manner)

So, even if you’re a not-great-at-kids-crafts mom like me, these ideas might work for you!

For our first craft, we decided to make paper snowflakes.  Now, if you’re like me, you used to make these when you were a kid, and they turned out kind of like this.

I could never for the life of me figure out how to make round snowflakes.  But, the kids and I found instructions online that made all the difference in the world…just a few folds help you end up with this:

Yes.

That’s much better.

Basically, you just need a square of paper (the larger the better if you’re going for ease during the cutting stage) a pair of scissors, and the following steps.

(you can click on the image to see it in a larger size)

So, when you’re done, you’ll have a triangle that looks like this.

Then you just snip away to your heart’s content (there are lots of pattern ideas here.)

And voila!  A round snowflake.

We taped cotton thread to our snowflakes and hung them from bedroom ceiling fan blades (we don’t turn these on in January usually!) in Joshua’s room:

and Zoe’s room:

But we put the most above Sonia’s bed. The underside of the top bunk is made up of slats, and they’re perfect for suspending snowflakes.

Aren’t they lovely?

When we’re done with these flakes, we’ll just put them into our compost bin…no trash, and no clutter.

Since this craft involves scissors and small cuts, you might not want to do this if you’ve got a bunch of young kids on your hands.  Sonia (7) can do the folding and the cutting, but Zoe (5) could only manage the cuts.

If you’ve got really small children, you could make the snowflakes and then involve the littles by helping them decorate the snowflakes with sparkly silver crayons/markers/glitter/paint.  Or if you don’t mind having non-traditional snowflakes, you could have them color the squares of paper before you fold and cut them.

Ok.  Go make some of these!  It’s fun, fast, and easy.

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Today’s 365 post: Sonia. Just because.

Joshua’s 365 post: Oh yes.

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Callie = Joy.

by Kristen on January 24, 2012 · 102 comments

in Photos

Two and a half years ago.

09.09.09.

A hospital room.

A baby, born still.

Still loved, still precious.

Still privileged to have been there.

Still won’t ever forget.

And now, a new hospital room.

A heartbeat monitor, sending out a regular rhythm that never sounded so sweet.

A waiting mama.

And finally?

A crying baby.

Music to the ears.

So many years of waiting.

So many losses.

And now, arms full of warm newborn sweetness for the first time.

Bliss.

Love.

Yes, Callie Rose.

You are joy.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to the world.

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Today’s 365 post: Nerd Zoe

Joshua’s 365 post: Snow!

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Monday Q&A | Stuffed Animals, 1% Yogurt, and Business Taxes

by Kristen on January 23, 2012 · 25 comments

in 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!

OK, silly question, I noticed you have stuffed animals in your grocery pictures every week. Somehow this has only really dawned on me lately even though I’ve been reading your blog for well over a year. Are they the new ones you buy every week on your grocery shopping trip or are they just for decoration?

-April

A lot you asked about this after the latest grocery picture. Way back in the early days of my blog, Joshua hid a stuffed spider in among the groceries, and that spider made a lot of weekly appearances thereafter.  The girls wanted to get in on the action too, so they started putting a few stuffed animals in the photos as well.  It’s all just for fun, and Sonia and Zoe are especially pleased to think that their stuffed animals are famous because they appear on my blog.  ;)

So, no, none of those are new…they’re just stuffed animals that my children already own.  If I bought new stuffed animals every week, we’d have no space in our house by now (even though we buy them fairly infrequently, we’ve already managed to amass quite a collection!)

I’m curious whether or not you have ever used whole wheat instead of buying flour…and if you know anything about the benefits of that. I’m considering the costs and the added benefits for my family (currently we buy bread and freeze it) of making our own bread but going a step further and getting whole wheat and milling it into our own flour.

-Stephanie

Yup!   I own a grinder and I mill all of my whole wheat flour.  I share more about that on my FAQ page.

If any of you are newbies to my blog, go check out the FAQs! I’ve answered a lot of the most common questions there.

I have a question about the homemade yogurt. Can I use 1% milk? Have you tried it? I am trying to lose some weight and the extra fat in the whole milk will hinder that a little but if the texture and flavor will suffer I will skimp elsewhere.

-Susan

You certainly can if you wish.  The yogurt will not be as thick and creamy as when it’s made with whole milk, though.  To combat this, you can try adding some powdered milk to the mixture before you stir in the starter.

I personally feel that the whole milk is totally worth the extra calories, simply because of the lovely texture it provides.

My husband is trying to start his own business of selling firewood. I know that you teach piano, and I was wondering how you would handle taxes and finances.

-Clarissa

I take care of all that myself…I use Quicken to keep track of my income and my business expenses, and when tax time rolls around, I always use Turbo Tax.


TurboTax - Choose Easy

My piano teaching business and my blog are both sole proprietorships and I file a schedule C for each of those.

You can’t use the free edition of Turbo Tax if you need to file a schedule C, but the deluxe version, which you’ll need, is totally worth the money.  Doing your own business taxes if you’re a sole proprietorship isn’t really that hard if you’ve got Turbo Tax to guide you.  It’s really, really, really user-friendly and takes all the guesswork out of filing.

I love Turbo Tax, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in doing their own tax preparation.

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This post contains affiliate links.

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Grocery Report/Menu Plan | Studies in avoiding the grocery store

by Kristen on January 21, 2012 · 12 comments

in Menu Plans

On Saturdays, I share my menu plan for the upcoming week along with a photo of my groceries and a tally of my spending. My goal is to spend $100/week for our food, toiletries, and cleaning products. I’m currently in the midst of trying to buy more local, sustainably-produced food while sticking to my budget. Can it be done? I don’t know, but I’m going to try, and I’ll share what I learn as I go along.

Grocery Shopping

I didn’t purposely shop for two weeks when I went shopping the last time, but I’m happy to report that I’ve managed to go the whole week without really grocery shopping.

Nice.

I just made a quick stop into Aldi to pick up some milk, oranges, and clementines, and a few other things, and then we were good to go for the rest of the week.  The meals I made used a lot of stuff I had on hand, and I found some goodies buried in the freezer that helped us get through.

Of course, this means I really do need to go grocery shopping on Monday, but I’m pleased to have put it off for a week.

gratuitous photo of marshmallow snowman to make up for lack of grocery picture

By the way, I’ve been shopping early in the week recently, which means these posts are usually reporting on shopping that’s been done almost a week ago.

That sounds awfully confusing.

I used to shop on Thursdays or Fridays and then report on Saturdays, but I’ve been trying a new routine of shopping earlier in the week, and I think I like that better so far.

You probably didn’t need to know all that, huh?

gratuitous photo of fallen snowman, just because it's funny. note to self: next time, use the caramel the directions specified.

Anyway!  The long and short of it is that I only spent $35 on groceries this week, which means that my January grocery budget is lookin’ good.

Also, my fridge is lookin’ nice and empty, which is as it should be prior to a grocery shopping trip.

The Meal Plan

Since Mr. FG works second shift, we eat our dinner meal at noon during the week, and at night on the weekends. And our lunch meal happens at night during the week and at noon on the weekends.

We do eat breakfast in the morning, though, all week long!

Breakfast options are homemade yogurt, granola, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, fruit, and cereal.

Lunches will be comprised of sandwiches made with whole wheat bread, homemade yogurt, yogurt smoothies, cottage cheese, fruit, raw veggies, nuts, cheese, and leftovers as necessary.

Here’s the dinner meal plan:

Saturday

Sunday

  • French Toast.  And I’m thinking about going all fancy and making Challah especially so that we can use it for French Toast.
  • local sausage
  • OJ

Monday

  • Fish Sandwiches
  • Whatever produce still happens to be lurking about!

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

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Today’s 365 post: This is an unusual January sight.

Joshua’s 365 post: Bird Good, Bird Bad

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