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!

Actually, first I have a question for you! I changed the font here a few days ago, and I’m wondering what you think of it. I made the overall font size larger a few weeks ago, and while I liked the larger size, I felt that that particular font started to look less readable at the larger size. So, I switched it out for a more plain font. I think this is easier to read, but of course, you guys are the ones who read my blog, not me! So, what do you think? Do you care? Do you like this better, or do you prefer the old font?

My question is: how do you teach your kids not to waste, especially young ones? My daughter is not quite 3 and somehow manages to play with various consumables and therefore wastes them. I feel she’s too old to just hide everything from her, and the eyes in the back of my head just aren’t always quick enough to catch her before the damage is done. Or to what extent do you just let it go, figuring 1/4 bottle of shampoo gone isn’t the end of the world when it’s aiding development somehow?

Best,
Anne

Since my urge to avoid wasting money has always been very strong, I’ve been pretty consistent about not letting my children waste consumable items like toothpaste or shampoo.

At the age of 3 (and really, before then too), I felt that my children were old enough to understand what I meant when I said, “No playing with the shampoo/toilet paper/toothpaste/aluminum foil/whathaveyou.”

So at that point, it became a matter of them obeying or not obeying, not a matter of their development*, and if they didn’t obey, the appropriate consequences followed (I’m sure you’ve already got a consequence for disobedience, so just apply that consequence.)

*if there is a developmental benefit to dumping out shampoo, I’d still maintain that learning to obey is a more important skill to develop!

Unless a child is unusually strong-willed or has developmental delays, after a certain number of these consequences have been applied, that child will likely stop playing with whatever it is you don’t want them to play with.

I should add that of course, in addition to consequences for disobedience, I’ve also talked to my children about why we don’t waste certain things by playing with them, just like I explain to them why we don’t leave the fridge door open or why we turn lights off. Helping them understand the why behind what I’m saying is helpful, and when that alone is not sufficient, a consequence comes in quite handy.

I tried your whole wheat bread this past weekend (after procrastinating for almost a month I’m ashamed to say!) and it was wonderful! Thanks for sharing such a delightfully yummy whole wheat bread. Most of the whole wheat breads I’ve tried are a bit heavy, but this is so much better I think I even like it better then white homemade bread, especially since it’s more healthy.

I also had a question for your Monday question and answer blog. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always had throw rugs in my kitchen. We’ve been married 4 years this past June and it seems like every year we have to buy new rugs since they just wear out. This year our bathroom rugs are worn out also! I realize that I didn’t buy the best as I shopped at Wal-mart, but I didn’t know any better 4 years ago. I’m not sure about replacing my kitchen rugs (although it does seem to cut down on the dirt in the kitchen a little bit), but I do like rugs in the bathroom. So I was wondering if you use rugs at all and what kinds you invest in and how well they last!

-Elisabeth K.

Oh, it’s so delightful to hear that you’re enjoying my whole wheat bread recipe. It is tasty, isn’t it? A slice fresh from the oven, spread with butter, has to be one of the most decadent simple pleasures life has to offer. So good.

I do have two rugs in my kitchen, one by the sink where I often stand, and one right by the sliding glass door (that one serves to catch dirt/debris that comes in from the deck).

I haven’t bought especially expensive rugs, and I think I bought them at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They’re both black, which maybe helps them to hide wear and tear a little better than other rugs.

I don’t keep rugs in the bathroom, mostly because neither of our bathrooms are very big and because when I have tried to keep rugs in there, they seem to get disgustingly dirty in no time flat. So, I’ve got bare bathroom floors.

I wish I had better advice about where to find durable kitchen and bathroom rugs. I can highly recommend L.L. Bean’s Waterhog mats for your more rugged mat needs, though. They’re a bit pricy, but they’re made from recycle materials, are very durable, and they’re made in the USA! All of those factors make them worth the extra money to me.

Also, L.L. Bean does sell bath/kitchen mats, and their products are backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee, so if you’re not happy with the durability of their mats, you can get your money back.

Just wondering…How do you keep in shape? I have 3 young children (the oldest will be five in a few days), and I struggle with this. I was actually a bit overweight when I got married, and I know that losing the weight is harder than maintaining a healthy weight. But I was wondering how you have stayed in such great shape after having 4 children. Thanks.

-Kayla

I totally thought I’d put this into my FAQ, but I just checked and I guess I haven’t! I did answer that question in some detail in a previous Q&A post, though (just scroll down to see my answer).

To add to what I said there, I’d like to say that I don’t at all think that everyone ought to be exactly the same size that I am, and I also think that fit and healthy can come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.  What is of prime importance is living in a way that is kind to your body…staying active, eating real food instead of processed/fast food, drinking water, and including plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet.  Those kinds of things will likely help you get to a weight that is healthy for your body, but even more importantly, they’ll help you feel well and will give you the energy you need to take care of your kids.

I’d also say that I agree with Julia Child when she said, “Everything in moderation, even moderation.”  While I try to eat a lot of produce, nuts, yogurt, and unprocessed foods, I do eat some sugar and white flour, and I regularly have a small piece of dark chocolate after lunch and dinner.  And every once in a while, I eat way, way, way too many homemade cookies/bars.  I really find that having some treats here and there helps me to keep from wanting to regularly gorge myself on food that’s bad for me.

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Readers, what are your thoughts on this week’s questions?

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Today’s 365 post: My shopping partner

Joshua’s 365 post: A Monster of a Mile

Given that Mr. FG and I have four kids, college savings are definitely on our radar, especially now that our oldest is approaching his teen years.

For many years, Mr. FG and I had to scrimp and pinch just to make ends meet, so we weren’t able to make college savings a regular part of our budget.

During those years, I mostly just sent rebate checks and other small bits of money off to an online savings account.  I did manage to amass about $2000 that way, but of course, $2000 doesn’t go super far with four kids.

Now that Mr. FG isn’t working in warehousing anymore, we’ve got a little more wiggle room our budget, so we’ve been able to put a bit of money away each month for the kids, which makes me happy.

Unless something odd happens with our finances, we won’t be able to save enough to pay for 16 years of college, but I am not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. 

Because having something saved is better than having nothing saved.

A while back, I decided to research my options for special savings accounts, and I considered opening 529 accounts for each kid.  These accounts allow you to save for future educational expenses while offering a tax advantage.

Sounds good, right?

The downside is that the money can be used only for educational expenses if you want to keep the tax advantage (if you use the money for non-educational expenses, you are subject to income tax plus a 10% federal tax penalty.)

This is fine if you know your children are all going to go to college.  But I thought about how things went with my siblings and me.

My two younger siblings did get their college degrees in business management and in nursing.

However, my older brother does not have a degree and instead worked his way up through the company he started at (he now manages the technology for 5,200 restaurants on the East Coast.)

As for me, I attended college for a year, got married, and then decided to use the rest of my college money to buy my piano (I consider this to be one of the most brilliant decisions of my life, given that I would not have used my degree thus far and that my piano has paid for itself over and over and over).

My older brother and I don’t at all regret not going to college…it just wasn’t the right path for us.

As of right now, three of our kids want to follow career paths that require a college degree (two herpetologist-wannabes and one marine biologist wannabe), but Lisey wants to be a pastry chef.  The path to pastry-chef-ing isn’t quite as clear-cut as the others, and we don’t want her to be boxed into having to go to college if that’s not the best path.

Plus, who knows what will happen with the other kids?  I’ll be surprised if Joshua changes his mind, but Sonia and Zoe are awfully young to be positive about what they want to do.

So, Mr. FG and I decided to skip the specially earmarked college account and instead, we’ve just got four ING savings accounts open for our kids.  I labeled them as college savings accounts (Joshua’s College Savings), but really, it would be more accurate to label them something like “Joshua’s Future Account”, or “Lisey’s Future Account”.

We figure that this will give our kids the flexibility to spend the saved money in a way that will best prepare them for their adult lives…maybe it’ll be college, maybe it’ll be trade school, maybe it’ll be starting their own business, and hey!  Maybe one of them will need to buy a piano. 

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!

Note: Usually I answer 3 questions in a Q&A post, but these two got sort of long, so I thought I should stop with just 2! Also, my apologies to those of you who aren’t parents, as today’s questions will probably not interest you.  I promise a non-parenting post tomorrow!

I’m curious about what you do and what materials you use during your family worship time. Growing up as an missionary kid, we had family devotions and prayer every morning, but I just haven’t been able to form the habit with my own family. My husband and I have three girls (4, 2, and nearly 2 months – incidentally, the middle one’s name is Zoe Elise!), and I try to read a Bible story/devo to them every night before bed, but I’m not consistent with it.

So, anyway, what format do you follow and what books, etc do you use/did you use when your kids were younger and closer to my kids’ ages? Thanks!!!

-Monika

Well, we try to keep things simple (you know how I love simple!).  There are four main things we do during our family worship times.

Bible Reading

Mr. FG or I read a short-ish section from the Bible (we work through a book at a time), and then we talk a little bit about what the passage means. When our kids were younger, we tried to pick books of the Bible that were easy to understand (like the Gospels or Genesis), but we’ve now worked through some of the minor prophets and the Epistles.

Prayer

After we read our passage, one of us prays…we cycle through the family, and since there are six of us, it usually works out that we each pray once a week (we don’t usually do family worship on Sunday nights). Sonia and Zoe need a little help from me or Mr. FG, but they take turns too.

Singing

Depending on how much time we have and what’s going on with music at church that week, we sometimes have a singing time before we read the Bible. If Mr. FG and I need to play something together at church that week, he plays his guitar, I play the piano, and the kids and I sing the song. Sometimes we let them pick out some other songs to sing (we did this a lot with Christmas songs in December!).

Story Time

Also, something we started recently is some fiction reading after our prayer time. We’ve been working our way through Christian books for kids, like Dangerous Journey (a Pilgrim’s Progress book), and our kids love, love, love this new tradition.

Since your kids are so young, though, I’d recommend keeping it short and sweet. I’d read a short passage from the Bible or a good children’s devotional book, talk about it, have a short prayer time, and be done. If you make it too complicated and long, you’ll lose their attention and you’ll be much more likely to do family worship inconsistently.

(I should add that family worship is not the only spiritual teaching we do with our kids…among other things, Joshua and Lisey read their Bibles before school, I read missionary stories to the kids at lunchtime, and I read Bible stories to Sonia and Zoe during our school time.  And of course, we listen to Seeds CDs too!)

I had a rough morning today and I realize that the kids are taking advantage of me. I also have 4 kids and I have started a system of earning marbles for doing chores. It is a good incentive for them, however some days they are not motivated and I feel like I am constantly nagging at them to pick up after themselves or to do a chore that was forgotten. Do you have a system that motivates your kids? I know consistency will pay off when they are older.

Maybe I just need to make the stakes higher and give them a few marbles for a job instead of just one. Or if they tell me they did a job, instead of me finding it need to be done. I think I am just exhausted and worn out! I need my own break! or a day off.

-Shannon

First, virtual hugs to you!  I understand the frustration of children that can’t seem to remember to get their chores done.  And I too struggle to be consistent…I think it’ll be a battle for all of my parenting years.

That said, here are a few suggestions that have helped me.

Start small and build from there.

If you’ve been sort of lax about chores and responsibilities, start with a small number of chores for each kid.  If you keep it simple, you’ll be much more likely to keep on top of it.  And wouldn’t you rather have a small number of chores done consistently than a huge number done randomly, or not done at all?

Find a consequence/reminder for forgetful children.

Joshua and Lisey are supposed to alternate sweeping the floor and wiping the table after dinner and lunch.  If one of them forgets to do their chore, they then have to do both chores at the next meal.  Since we instituted this policy, they are much less prone to running off after dinner to do other things!

Children do forget things, and a lot of times, it’s not a malicious, disobedient sort of forgetfulness.  The problem is simply that the chore in question wasn’t important enough to them (would they forget to have ice cream after dinner?  Nope, because it’s important to them!).

So, getting extra chores for forgetting is a way for us to help their brains to file chores under “important!”.

On the reminder end of things, Joshua tends to forget to take the trash out, so he’s got automatic reminders that pop up in his email inbox.  That way I don’t have to remind him myself.

(could I say “remind” a little more??  Remind, remind, remind.  There.)

Work first, play later.

At our house, my children need to get their schoolwork done, piano practiced, and their rooms cleaned up before they can spend time playing.

Also, before they eat breakfast, they’re supposed to make their beds, get themselves dressed, and hang up their pjs.  If they try to shuffle out in their pjs and sit down at the table, I send them right back.    Unless, of course, it’s a day where a shower is happening after breakfast!

Of course, there are days where things go all wonky and this work first/play later things doesn’t happen, but on the days where we manage to follow this pattern, life is so much better.

Don’t get too hung up on a system.

There are a million and one chore charts and systems and graphs and checklists out there for children, but ultimately, they’re only as good as you are consistent.  Keep your system and plan simple so that you can have a prayer of staying on top of it.

Do rest and take a break!

I’ll say more about this later in the week, but I definitely think that moms need to get sufficient rest and refreshment in order to function optimally.  In some phases of life, this just isn’t possible, of course, but if you can manage it, I think you should rest.  Get yourself to bed at an hour that works for you, and consider taking a day off once a week.  I personally don’t do any unnecessary work on Sundays… for example, I do dishes and help children brush their teeth, but I don’t do laundry or wash the floor.  This leaves me with time to do fun things by myself and with my family, and that’s refreshing to me.

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Readers, do you have any family worship or chore tips to share with these two readers?

Today’s 365 post: Could lunch get any better?

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!

Last week in your Q&A you said when your children were young you focused on having them obey you quickly and cheerfully (or something like that).
Could you elaborate on how you do that? I have a two year old who for whom I need tips!!

-Laura

Sure!  Mr. FG and I have not executed this perfectly but it has been a large focus of ours because we think it’s really, really important for children to learn to obey their parents.  I especially think that prompt obedience is important for a child’s safety (for instance, if a child is running toward a street full of cars, he’ll be in much better shape if he obeys right away than if he obeys later).  And obedience is such a great life skill because all through life we have to obey people in authority, even when we don’t really want to do what they ask us to do (I’m thinking of teachers, college professors, bosses, and the government, to name a few.).

(of course, adults need to combine obedience with independent thinking and that sort of thing should be encouraged in our children, especially as they grow older and older.  But we’re talking about 2 year olds here, and 2 year olds just  need to stop in their tracks when they’re running toward the road!)

There are 3 main ways we teach prompt, cheerful obedience.

1) We give positive reinforcement in the way of encouraging words when our children obey promptly and cheerfully.

2) We apply negative consequences when they don’t obey promptly and cheerfully. Consistency is THE key here.  When you’re just starting out with this, it might seem like you’ll do nothing all day except deal with this issue, but if you hang in there, your kids will start to get the message.  Whatever consequence you choose, apply it consistently.

3) We remind them ahead of time what we expect of them.  For instance, if I’m going to ask Zoe to do something I know she doesn’t like to do, I might say something like, “Zoe, I’m going to ask you to do something and I want you to obey right away and cheerfully, ok?”.

Along those same lines, I often offer sympathy to my kids because I know what it feels like to have to obey when you don’t want to.  For instance, I don’t feel like obeying when the government tells me to drive 20 miles an hour, but I need to do that because I love God (Romans 13 directs me to obey the governing authorities except if they tell me to sin, and driving 20 miles an hour is painful, but not sinful.).  That kind of hearkens back to what I was saying last week about being humble enough to empathize with our kids.  Mr. FG and I struggle to obey just like our kids do…we’re all in this fight together, so as we teach them obey, we hopefully aren’t doing it with an, “I’m better than you and I can’t understand why you don’t just obey!” sort of attitude.

Parenting is such an enormous topic, and there’s so much more I could say (like that firm, consistent discipline works best in a home where there’s also consistent affection and warmth, that parental patience is essential, that consistent discipline and training is much more beneficial to children than yelling, etc).  But I’m not a parenting expert, and I don’t expertly apply all the parenting principles I believe in, so I’ll just leave it at that!

I noticed in the most recent picture of your groceries that you don’t buy store-brand items (I saw Corn Chex, root beer, etc.). Does your store not offer their own brand? or are you not satisfied with the quality? I know buying store-brand items saves my family a lot of money, and I was just curious. Although, I do live in the region with HEB stores, and I understand that not all store brands are as good as the HEB ones

-Kim

This question actually made me giggle when I read it because on the whole, I buy way, way, way more store-brand items than name-brand items.  This has been especially true since I started shopping at Aldi, because Aldi carries almost nothing but store-brand items.

I do still buy some name-brand items when the circumstances are right, and you saw two of those instances in that grocery picture.

Sometimes name-brands are cheaper than the store-brands (this was the case with the root beer…it was on sale and was cheaper than the Weis brand).  And sometimes, name-brands just taste better (this is the case with Ritz crackers…we’ve tried zillions of off-brand version and none have been good!).

So, although you may see some name-brand items in my grocery photos, I am definitely a huge fan of generic products and I strongly encourage my readers to give them a try. Most generic products offer a money-back guarantee or better, so buying them is very not risky.

How do you handle invites to parties that sell products such as Cabi, Pampered Chef, Jewelry, etc. when you are on a frugal budget?

-Jackie.

This is one of those questions that I’m going to have to throw out to my readers, because I rarely receive invitations like this. I must not tend to be friends with salespeople or something because I think I’ve gotten exactly 3 invitations to product parties in my lifetime and they were all Pampered Chef parties. I went to one in my teens and bought a few products, but I was unable to attend the other two because of scheduling problems.

If I went to one now, I’d probably keep any upcoming gift-giving needs in mind and if I saw a good deal on something, I’d buy it (that way the money would come from my gift-giving budget). I wouldn’t really feel obligated to buy, though, and hopefully the friend throwing the party wouldn’t expect me to buy something I didn’t want or that would blow my budget.

If you’re the sort of person who struggles with self-control at this kind of party, though, I would just send your polite regrets.  No party is worth wrecking your finances over!

Readers, have at it! How do you handle product party invitations? And if you’ve got thoughts on the store brand or obedience fronts, I’d love to hear those too.

Today’s 365 post: Sisters (and I have a problem)

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!

So, my husband is not too frugal, but he believes he is (this is amusing to me!). I talk about your blog all the time to him and in one of his rebuttals (explaining how frugal he really is) he bet me that you or Mr. Frugal does not change the oil in your vehicles, that you take it somewhere to have it done. Sorry for the long story, but do you (or Mr. Frugal) change your own oil?

-Ashley

You win here (sorry, Mr. Ashley!). Mr. FG faithfully does all his own oil changes and has ever since I met him. We do have a mechanic that we use for maintenance that’s really involved or requires equipment we don’t own, but oil changes definitely don’t fall into that category!

And while we would also send our vehicles off to our mechanic for an involved sort of problem, we try to fix stuff ourselves if we can. We replaced a broken door handle on our van last year and saved ourselves $230, and when our A/F sensors went bad (we have an odd California emissions system so our van has A/F sensors instead of oxygen sensors), Mr. FG replaced them with the expert help of my dad.

I think you can get some pretty good deals on oil changes at a shop, but Mr. FG mainly changes our oil himself because he wants to make sure it’s done right and that the correct oil is used.  So for him, the time is well-spent.

I’d love to hear more about how you and Mr. FG discipline your children.  Have different children required different approaches?  I am also interested in the personality differences between your four kids.

-Senga

This answer got kind of long, so I divided it into two sections.

Parenting

Our four kids are definitely each different and unique, and so we do parent them all a little bit differently.

However, there are some overriding principles that govern our parenting with all four of them.   With all of our kids, we try to:

-be consistent

-give correction and consequences patiently, not in anger

-be humble (specifically by letting our kids know that we struggle with sin just like they do…we’re in this together!)

-remind them of the love of God, the grace God has for us, and that because of Jesus, God has nothing but love for us (which means that God is not an angry ogre who loves us when we’re good but hates us when we sin.  His love for us is constant, even when we’re in sin, and our goal is to have our parental love mirror that.).

-restore the parent/child relationship promptly. After forgiveness has been asked for and given, the offense is water under the bridge and things go back to normal (though of course the consequence still stands).

Now, Mr. FG and I are full of flaws ourselves and so we don’t apply the above-mentioned principles anywhere near perfectly.  But, there’s forgiveness for that and grace to keep trying. 

I’d also add that when our children are young, our main focus is on teaching them to obey promptly and cheerfully. As they get older, of course, things get more complicated and nuanced, but with our older two, having that foundation of obedience has been hugely helpful (Sonia and Zoe aren’t quite as skilled at that whole obedience thing yet!). Joshua and Lisey can both be trusted to do what we ask them to do, and so the parenting we do with the two of them is usually more about character-related things (remembering to promote peace in the family, thinking of others first, being responsible for their chores/schoolwork, learning to be humble, extending grace to others, etc).  And hopefully as our kids get older and older, we’ll be able to step back more and more so that the transition from child to adult is gradual (I obviously haven’t parented any teenagers yet, though, and I’m sure that I will possess far more wisdom on that subject in about 15 years!).

(Please note that I’m explaining how we parent and that I’m not offering advice about how everyone else should parent.  Just in case that wasn’t clear.)

Personalities

As far as personality differences go…if I had to sum it up, I’d do it thusly (and I’m mostly listing their good traits because I don’t think it would be nice to trot out their faults here!).

Joshua is smart, sensitive, talkative, and very, very into nature and the animal kingdom in particular.

Lisey is quiet, dependable, thoughtful, and very self-disciplined.  She hasn’t taken a personality test before, but if I had to guess, I’d say her personality is almost exactly the same as mine except that she’s more introverted (I’m an ENFJ, if you’re curious).  Out of all 4 kids, she’s the closest to being a mini-me.

Sonia is, well, Sonia (and if you knew her, you’d know what I mean!). She’s small in stature but makes up for it in personality. She is simultaneously charming and exhausting, and she gives (and wants to receive) countless hugs every day. She’d sort of like to be in charge of everyone and everything and has even been know to holler, “Silence!” at her siblings, as though they are her loyal subjects.

Zoe is enthusiastic, affectionate, and it turns out that she’s pretty smart too (she basically learned how to read just from watching me teach Sonia.  Yay!).  She’s kind of easy to upset, but most of the time she’s perky.  And the stuff she says and does cracks us up on a regular basis.

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Usually I answer 3 questions in a Q&A post, but that last one is equivalent to two, I think!  If I added another one, you’d probably be too exhausted to read it.  More to come next Monday!

Today’s 365 post: My Lisey-Bean

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!

How do people come up with fresh ideas for their menus? And how do you grocery shop for menu planning Kristin – do you plan the menu based on what you have available in your freezer/pantry? Or do you buy groceries based on your menu plan?

I’m in a rut, and I’m so sick of my own cooking. My hubby used to do the majority of our cooking, but his work schedule has changed. It’s just the two of us, and we mostly use chicken, ground poultry, and seafood for our meats. Honestly, when it comes to chicken, I’m about out of ideas. I’d love some input on menu planning – any fave book or website recommendations? Help!

-Deb

First, sympathies on the menu planning…I totally understand the difficulty of coming up with a variety of meals on a budget!

I’m not the sort of cook who can just think up wonderful new meals on my own, so I rely on recipes. My favorite recipe source is Cook’s Illustrated (I subscribe to their website, which contains all the recipes they’ve ever published). I also get some meal ideas from Taste of Home. In addition, I sometimes check out recipe books from the library.

I’ve gotten a few recipes from AllRecipes.com (stick with the highly rated recipes there to avoid a dud), and of course, I browse through the cookbooks I own to find new recipes as well.

Maybe some of the main dish recipes I’ve shared would be helpful to you.  I’ve also posted several pizza recipes, and when I post my menu plans each week, I try to link to any recipes I’ve posted or that are available online.

And I’m POSITIVE that some of my readers will have some recipe ideas and recipe sources for you.

As far as menu planning and shopping go, I make my plan partly based on the food I have in the house and partly on what is available cheaply that particular week (though not everything I buy is cheap or on sale).  I elaborated on this a little more in the posts I wrote about menu planning.  I published those in the early days of my blog, so those will probably be new to you (and to most of my readers!).

What do you do when you deviate from your food plan? How do you accommodate changes in plans without spending a lot of money?

-WilliamB

That sort of depends on the reason I’m deviating from my plan!

Sometimes, I’ll forget to buy an ingredient for a particular meal, and when that happens, I usually try to come up with a substitution or a different meal I can make with the things I do have on hand.

Sometimes, I forget to start a meal early enough (I forget to take a roast out of the freezer, I forget to put something in the crock pot, etc.) and in a case like that, I usually have enough time to figure out a new meal idea before dinnertime.

So in situations like those, my deviations from the menu plan don’t cost us any extra money.

There are some days, though, where I am too busy or too tired or too stressed to put a real meal together. When that happens, I throw together a very easy dinner (like canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches), we order a $5 pizza from Little Caesar’s, or I make something very easy for the kids (leftovers, a box of macaroni and cheese, spaghetti with jarred sauce) and Mr. FG and I get some takeout for ourselves.

This actually happened this past Thursday…I had a dreadful day and wasn’t at all up for cooking dinner (I posted about that on Facebook!). So, I fed my kids a smorgasbord of leftovers and the husband picked up some sushi for the two of us from a sushi restaurant just down the road.

If we were in a situation where money was super-duper tight (and we’ve had lots of years like that!), we would probably have managed to figure out something to eat at home. But, in our current situation a box of sushi was a very manageable expense, and eating sushi on my deck with my husband made my bad day a little better.

I think the key thing here is to not do this too often. If I was scrapping my meal plan and ordering takeout every other day, that would get to be insanely expensive. Since this only happens once a month or less, though, it’s not a budget buster…instead, it’s an occasional sanity-saver!

How do you have so little food waste with four kids? Don’t you have the serve-them-something-then-they-take-two-bites-and-refuse-to-eat-anymore syndrome? Or do you eat all their leftovers? And do you never leave sippy cups of milk out for too long and have to dump it? I’m in awe…

-Jodie

We do have a little bit of this type of waste (I called it table waste), but it’s not a big problem.  And this sort of waste was never our largest food waste issue….back before I started trying to reduce my food waste, I was the biggest problem, not my kids!

I was buying too much food, not paying attention to my fridge, not eating enough leftovers, not planning well enough, and I was throwing away lots of food from my fridge each week (in case you missed it on Friday, you can go look at some of my early food waste photos on my original blog!).

So, the Food Waste Friday thing has mostly been focused on that type of waste.  I don’t take a picture if someone leaves a bit of cereal in their bowl, for example.

That said, I do strive to reduce table waste as much as possible.  Here are a few things that have been helpful to me:

• I give my children small portions to begin with.  They all start out the meal with a small, appropriately sized helping of all the dishes we’re having at a meal.  If they finish everything on their plates and are still hungry, they can choose to have more of any food I’m serving, of course, but I prefer to start them out with amounts I know they’ll be able to eat.

• On a related note, we don’t give our children other things to eat if they refuse the meal we’re serving.  We never make them eat anything, though, so occasionally a child-sized serving of a meal (or part of a meal) gets left behind.  Because no other options are offered, most of the time our kids choose to eat what I’ve served, especially as they get older.  Zoe, my youngest, is just coming out of the phase of choosing to not eat all of her dinner (all of my kids went through this somewhere around the age of 2-4), and so we are now at the happy place where all 4 of our kids can usually be counted upon to eat their dinner without a problem.

• We don’t do a lot of snacking.  I’m not opposed to snacking as a rule, but I find that my children are more prone to eat their meals if they’ve not been snacking.  If they’re hungry before dinner, I usually give them baby carrots, a banana, grape tomatoes, or cucumber slices, since those aren’t very filling.  This gives them something to munch on but still leaves them hungry enough for a meal.

• I give my kids water to drink between meals.  Of course, when my children were babies, their sole beverage was breastmilk, but once I weaned them, their main beverage was water (though they do get juice with breakfast).  A large advantage to water is that it doesn’t go sour at room temperature like milk does, and it also doesn’t fill up my kids’ stomachs, which means they’re more likely to eat the meals that I serve.

• I try to use their leftovers if possible.  For a pretty long while, Zoe was eating all of her dinner except for her salad or her vegetables (though she is now eating them!  Yay!).  Since I’m not sure I could possibly ever eat too many vegetables, I usually just ate her small serving after it became clear that she wasn’t going to.  On a similar note, Lisey decided to bite into a whole apple the other day, and about 1/4 of the way through, she decided she’d had enough of that.  So, I cut off the bitten part and used the apple to make Dutch Apple Pancake for breakfast the next morning.

I hope that’s a little bit helpful.  I know I have lots of readers who are parents, so I’m sure they’ll have some advice to add to mine.

Several months back, I found this frame at Goodwill for $2.50. I LOVE it when I find frames with mats, because mats take a picture from good to fabulous.

It came with a little tag that said “meow” on it, and since the odds of me EVER owning a furry pet that walks around my house are nil, I took that out and made my own tag.

I  l o v e  typewriter fonts.  Happy sigh.

Did you notice something weird about this picture frame?

Did you?  It might be sort of hard to tell from the picture, but this frame has no glass.

When I bought it from Goodwill, it did have a perfect piece of glass inside, but a month or two after I set it on the sofa-side table, someone (it might have been the person in the frame, actually!) knocked the picture frame right off of the table. It hit the floor and the glass shattered into what seemed like a million pieces.

Now, if I’d bought that frame new and had forked over $25 for it, this event would have been kind of upsetting to me. But when a used $2.50 frame loses its glass, it’s not really a big deal to me, and I’m much more able to be gracious towards my (bull-in-a-china-closet) children.

I find this to be true with items other than picture frames too. Remember the white Freecycle dresser I painted for Zoe? Well, two years after that project, my children have delivered a number of dents and dings to that piece of furniture, and it really doesn’t bother me. If we were talking about a $750 white dresser from Pottery Barn Kids, though, I’m pretty sure the dents and dings would be a tish bit more upsetting to me!

Also, as I’ve mentioned before, the vast majority of my kids’ clothes are hand-me-downs, and I think that this  helps me to be a calmer, kinder mother when the inevitable spaghetti, chocolate, and banana spills and drips happen.  Because the clothes are free, it’s just not going to be the end of the world if I can’t get a stain out.

I don’t want you to think I just go willy-nilly through life without trying to take good care of my things…I do pre-treat stains, I do try to keep heavy, dent-causing objects away from my furniture, and I did think that picture frame would be safe on a table near a carpeted floor.

But, when you live with four children, no matter how careful you are, things are going to break, they’re going to get dented, and they’re going to get stained.  It’s just how life is.

So, that picture frame?  At first after it broke, I felt a little bummed out because I didn’t think it’d be at all easy to find a new pieces of glass to fit that frame.

Then the light bulb went off in my head.

Who says picture frames HAVE to have glass anyways?  The print inside was a freebie I got from Walgreens, so it’s not like I need to keep it super safe and protected, and besides, doesn’t glass almost always have a glare problem in frames?

So, now my sofa-side table proudly sports a glass-less picture frame, and I’m even less worried about the frame than I was before!  Because when your frame has no glass, you never have to worry that the glass will break. 

Every Monday I answer a few questions from you, my readers! If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post (or a question that you’d like me to pose to my husband), leave me a comment, or email me (the frugal girl {at} gmail {dot} com) and put “Q&A” in the subject line.

Before I answer today’s question, I have a question for you!  I’m going to be working on putting together some Christmas-related posts in the next month, and I was wondering if there’s any particular Christmas topic you’re wanting me to address.  If there is, just leave me a comment telling me what you want me to talk about, and I’ll do my best to accommodate you.

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I’d love to hear your philosophies on being married and raising children.
-Eva

This question was sent to me for Q&A some months ago, and when I first read it, I thought, “Yikes! How will I ever fit that into a single post?”. But as I’ve mulled it over, my thoughts on the topic have sort of gelled, and today I hope to give you a semi-brief answer to the question.

While I try not to be preachy about my faith here on this blog (scratch that…I try not to be preachy anywhere!), it’s impossible for me to talk about this without explaining some things about my Christian faith.   It’s what makes me tick.  So, be warned…if you can’t stand this type of thing, you might want to skip my answer!

In a nutshell, I think that my purpose here on earth is to glorify God, and one of the main ways I do that is by serving other people (especially those people up there in that picture!).

In other words, I serve God by serving others. The principal objects of this service are my husband and my kids, but I also serve my church family and my extended family, I serve my customers when I teach piano and do photography, and hopefully I serve you through my blog. This is not an exhaustive list, of course (I also try to serve my neighbors and friends, for example), but I think you get the basic idea.

I know this doesn’t sound like a super-duper fun way to live my life because in our culture, the idea of being a serving isn’t particularly esteemed. Few people think, “Ohhh, I really, really want to spend my life being servant!”.

But, the Bible says that Jesus was a servant. He came down from heaven to serve people like me, and I want to be like Jesus and serve others.

In a counter-intuitive way, looking at life in a “What would serve others best?” sort of way actually helps to keep me from running myself ragged. For example, if I don’t get enough sleep, if I don’t get time with God, and if I don’t get some alone time, my ability to serve is compromised. So, in order to serve my family, I go to bed on time, I get up early so I can spend time with God, and every couple of weeks, my husband watches the kids so that I can go out all by myself (I usually go to Atlanta Bread Company, re-asess my priorites, and plan how best to serve my family).

Thinking in a servant-y (I just made that word up!) way also gives me the courage to correct my children and confront my husband when necessary. Servanthood isn’t about being a doormat for other people…it’s about doing what really serves them. So, because I want to serve my children well, I correct them when they do something wrong. And because I want to serve my husband, I let him know when he has offended me (it’s what he’s requested, after all!), even though my tendency is to avoid confrontation.  And though it might seem more servant-like to do everything for my kids, I know that teaching them how to do things for themselves is what serves them best.  So, I make them clear their dishes, clean up their messes,  and pitch in with chores, among other things.

Though I don’t always have a cheerful attitude about serving others (diaper changing isn’t a really inspiring way to serve!), by God’s grace I can honestly say that much of the time I find real joy in serving other people. It brings me joy to help make my husband’s life easier by ironing his clothes and packing his lunch, to make good meals for my family, to read to my children, and to make our home clean and cozy.  (I feel the same way about serving people outside of my family…it brings me joy to help my friends at church, to play the piano at church, to help my extended family, to take pictures for people, to inspire and teach budding young pianists, and so on and so on. )

And when it’s not so easy to serve (like when I have to get up in the middle of the night with my kids, or when I don’t feel like cooking dinner), I know that God’s grace is there to sustain and help me. I also remind myself that if Jesus, who is God, could cheerfully serve mere people, then I should be gracious enough to serve others.  I also try to remember the verse in the Bible where Jesus says that if we serve others, it is as though we are serving Him.  Remembering that serving Zoe in the middle of the night is like serving Jesus himself changes my perspective entirely!

So, that’s how I roll…serving my family and the other people around me, powered by God’s grace.

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On a lighter note, I have finally updated my “About Me” page.  I’ve added some links, made my bio a little lengthier, and added a new picture ( I was kind of overdue, as the old picture was from July 2008!).

…when there is butter, sugar, and flour to be had?

I have yet to meet a kid who isn’t fascinated with the whole baking process.

Not to mention the happy eating that comes later.

Yes indeedy, this is where it’s at.

I will remind myself of this next time I am tempted to say “no” when my kids ask if they can help me bake.

And I am currently reminded to say thank you to my mom, who let me make a huge mess of her flour drawer for years. I learned from her how to bake bread, and she learned from my grandmother (Wednesday Baking probably wouldn’t exist without those two women!).

So, even though the mess increases ten-fold when I include my kids, I’m determined to say “yes” more often when they ask to bake.  Because I wouldn’t be the baker I am today unless my mom and grandma had said “yes”.

Every Monday I answer a few questions from you, my readers! If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post (or a question that you’d like me to pose to my husband), leave me a comment, or email me (the frugal girl {at} gmail {dot} com) and put “Q&A” in the subject line.

I have a question about clotheslines. I have no experience with them at all and want to start using one. I know the basic concept but will the clothes be stiff after drying? It’s beginning to get cold so should I move the clothes to an inside line or is it fine to keep them outside? What about a drying rack for inside instead of a line, is that better? I guess I need overall guidance and haven’t found a good website yet for instructions for a beginner. Am I over complicating this? Thank you so much and keep up the good work!
-Ashley

I wrote several posts about line-drying laundry last year when I first started my blog, and you might find those posts to be helpful.

How To (mostly) Give Up Your Dryer

How To Save Money While Washing Your Laundry (about reducing your washing machine’s electricity usage)

The Benefits of Line-Drying

Two Air-Drying Tips

Perfection and Laundry

To answer your specific questions, yes, air-dried clothes are more stiff than clothes fresh out of the dryer. I’ve found that the best way to minimize stiffness is to run the wet clothes through the dryer on air-dry for 5 minutes or so before hanging them up. This uses very little electricity, but it shakes out the wrinkles and helps the clothes to be a lot softer.

If you live in a warm climate, you may be able to hang clothes out all winter, but it’s too cold to do that here. So, in the winter I use two drying racks and I also put clothes on hangers, which I then hang over the door frames downstairs. If you’ve got a lot of space, an indoor line may work well for you, but my house is not set up in a way that would accommodate an indoor line.

Due to the increase in laundry during the colder months (we wear more clothes!) and the decrease in drying space, I do end up using my dryer for some loads in the winter. I don’t look at air-drying as an all-or-nothing proposition, though, so I don’t beat myself up over my dryer usage. After all, some line-drying is better than none.

Readers, if you have some air-drying tips to pass along to Ashley, leave them in the comments!

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You mention that you grew up in a frugal household. Are your siblings as frugal as you?
-Stephanie

You know, I don’t know that I would characterize my childhood household as frugal so much as non-consumer (although my parents, both of whom read my blog, can jump in and correct me if I’m wrong!). My parents were certainly responsible with their money, but more than that, they didn’t buy into the consumer mindset.

We watched almost nothing in the way of TV, so my siblings and I were exposed to very little in the way of advertising. My mom refused to buy any of the toys that were fads (even at the age of 5, I had more sense than to ask her for a Care Bear!), and so we mostly played with classic toys (Legos, un-motorized dolls, etc.). We only ate out occasionally, and when we spent time together as a family, we often did things like biking, camping, canoeing, playing catch, and taking walks together.

Of course, my parents saved money by not signing up for cable, by not buying us a boatload of cheap fad toys, by feeding us at home, and by doing activities with us that weren’t expensive, but I’ve always thought that my parents’ motivations were about more than just saving money. For example, my mom was staunchly against fads because didn’t want us to buy into the idea that we needed item X just because everyone else wanted one. And I know that their motivation for minimizing our TV exposure was less about saving money than it was about encouraging us to do more productive things with our time.

I suppose that to an outsider, a no-TV, no eating-out, no Care Bear(!) sort of existence could sound kind of bleak, but honestly, I think I was blessed to experience an unusually happy childhood. My family was remarkably peaceful (something I only realized when I grew up and heard about other people’s family lives!), and my free time was spent happily playing with my siblings (especially my sister)…we spent hours playing with our dolls and ponies, and we also spent a great amount of time outside playing in the woods, riding our bikes, and rollerskating.I don’t think I could have asked for a happier existence.

Anyways! To answer your actual question, no, none of my siblings are quite as ridiculously frugal as I am. I wouldn’t say that any of them are as spendy as the average American consumer, but they also don’t line-dry their laundry and obsess about their food waste like I do. To be fair, this is partly due to the fact that some of them don’t need to be as frugal as I do, but it’s also partly because I am just more naturally frugal. Even when I was a kid living at home, I still made sure to use up the last bits of a bar of soap, and I wasn’t even paying for the soap back then! I really think I was just born this way.

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