Q&A | Hungry Harvest, Nursing School, Sonia's Hair, and Cheeseburger Soup
Hello, hello! It's Q&A time. 🙂
Do you find Hungry Harvest cost-effective for your current family/life situation?
-Linda
From the beginning, I haven't really gotten Hungry Harvest boxes in order to be cost-effective. I started getting the boxes because I support Hungry Harvest's mission of rescuing food that might otherwise go to waste, and giving producers a way to recoup some money from that produce.
I'm quite sure I could get the contents of a Hungry Harvest box cheaper by shopping sales at grocery stores, or by buying the produce from somewhere like Aldi.
So, Hungry Harvest is really more of a mindful spending decision on my part. But it's about $30 every other week so that averages out to $15 a week. That's not a whole lot of money to pay to support a business that I believe in.
But also:
Hungry Harvest makes me eat more veggies
I like getting the boxes because they really cause me to eat more vegetables than I would otherwise. For instance, I don't often think to buy kale, but when Hungry Harvest sends me a big ol' bunch of kale, I will make zuppa toscana, or a kale salad.
Since we are a smaller household now than we used to be, I just get a box every other week. Otherwise, I'd be overrun with produce.
In conclusion:
If you want to support Hungry Harvest's mission, and you want the motivation to eat more produce, then go ahead and try a box.
But if you are trying to stretch your produce dollars as far as humanly possible, then you probably should just go to Aldi!
If you are new to Hungry Harvest, click here to get $10 off your first order.
Did you share where you will be going to school in the fall?
(also from Linda!)
I'll be attending the same community college where I did my prerequisites. It's a two-year program, and at the end, I will have my RN.
My community college's RN program is very highly rated. In fact, it's in the top 5% of nursing programs nationwide! And lucky me, it's practically right in my backyard.
Plus, as an in-county resident, it's super affordable for me.
I might want to/need to get a BSN eventually, but I'm just focusing on getting the RN right now.
That way I can start working as soon as possible and have access to employer-sponsored health insurance (I'm obviously going to lose my current health insurance soon).
Also, it's possible that the place where I end up working will offer some tuition help for getting a BSN, so it makes good financial sense to get the RN first and then figure out what my options are.
Can we see Sonia's hair?
-multiple readers
After I included a few photos of Sonia's birthday, several of you asked for more pictures of Sonia's hair from the front. She said yes when I asked her, so here you go!
Birthday from the front:
And a little fancier:
Also, some of you wondered how she takes care of her curls and asked for a guest post from her. I will check with her to see if she wants to do that, since I'm not super up-to-date on exactly what she does with her curls right now!
(She tries a lot of different products throughout the year. 😉 )
I do know that the basic process is similar to what I outlined in this post about how I do my hair when I want to wear it wavy.
Can we have the cheeseburger soup recipe?
-lots of readers
After I posted that we'd eaten cheeseburger soup on the ski trip, many of you asked for the recipe.
My mom had gotten it from a cousin of mine, so I texted her to ask for the recipe and it turns out, it's from Taste of Home.
Click here to get the recipe from Taste of Home's site.
There are a LOT of cheeseburger soup iterations on the internet, and they're probably not terribly different from each other. But I can vouch for the fact that this one is tasty. 🙂
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Annnnnd that's the end of the questions I have for right now!
If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future Q&A post, you can leave it in the comments here, or you can email me.
Sonia's really rocking that 50s look! I have a mint green croc Kelly bag I should send her....
@Rose, please send it, and we'll ask her to pose with it, for the guest post!
I love Sonia's hair. ❤️ And speaking of Sonia . . . I was cleaning up in my daughter's room just yesterday I came across the sweet crocheted otter I purchased from her back in 2018. I have twin girls and bought one for each. 🙂 She's very talented.
Aww!
@Beth, I wish I had Sonia's hair, it's gorgeous!
I also am trying to get produce during the dark cold months. Hungry Harvest is not in my area so I know nothing about it. I used Misfit Markets for quite a while but I am now searching Flashfood daily for their produce boxes. My only warning is that sometimes you get a little surprise. In the last 6 months I have tried pomegranate, star fruit and guava. All were small surprises in my $5 box.
Sonia's hair is lovely. I've never been brave enough to have my curls that short. 🙂
Also, thanks for posting the actual soup recipe. I didn't ask for it because my usual method is to do a search for something, look at a couple of recipes, and then make it up from there, but now I guess I can start the making up part with this one recipe.
Love the ethos of Hungry Harvest! Unfortunately, they don't yet deliver to my area.
I appreciate you sharing your journey into becoming a nurse. It's super inspiring.
Also, Sonia's hair looks fabulous!
Good morning. Thank you for the Q&A today. I wanted to comment on your comment about losing health insurance. Please do not go without health insurance – that is paying Russian Roulette with your finances and not something that is frugal. Even healthy people can be in accidents that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get through. The best thing is to try to get the court to order that your soon to be ex-husband pay the cost of COBRA (continued medical coverage) for you until you are employed, or COBRA runs out (generally 18 months). If this isn’t possible, you will be given the opportunity to pay the COBRA premium yourself to continue on your same coverage. This may be the most cost-effective thing to do, because you are getting group rates for the coverage. If this doesn’t work for you, check in with your community college to see if they have student health insurance. You might not be able to get this coverage until you are a full-time student, so bridge with COBRA until then. If none of these options work, go on the Health Insurance Marketplace at healthcare.gov and find a high deductible policy. What you really need coverage for is catastrophic expenses, so a high deductible plan can work. And finally, the girls can be covered until age 26, even if you claim them as dependents, so make sure that’s part of the divorce decree. I wish you all the best.
Oh yes, I can see how you got the wrong impression from my post! I am definitely going to get health insurance for myself in the period between my divorce and the time that I have a full-time job as a nurse.
I don't believe it's even legal to be without health insurance these days, so I will definitely have my ducks in a row on the insurance front when the time comes.
@Lynn, I had similar thoughts--thanks for voicing them!
@Kristen,
It is not illegal to not have health insurance in most states. I've been without for 19 months while going to online college and not having a job. A Healthcare sharing plan is all I would be able to afford and it's well over $100 just for myself. I have just been without and keeping myself healthy. (It helps that I am young and healthy to start with!). I consider it a cost saving measure, and have enjoyed not paying $2000 for no benefit. I have savings to cover any medical visits necessary, baring an accident or needing to be hospitalized. Works for me!
@Alex, I get worried when I read of young people who go without health insurance. My husband was 28, in perfect health, an athlete, with no family history of cancer...when he got cancer. Not one week before he had talked about wanting to drop his health insurance because it was a waste of money for him. It took years to dig out from under those medical bills, even with insurance. Without it, it would have been impossible to cover several hundred thousand dollars for his treatments.
@Kristen,
Finding frugal health insurance would make an excellent Blog post. (One that I would be highly interested in.)
Love the curls! Thank you so much for the cheap hair guide. I've been meaning to do a better job with mine, but I am frugal and lazy with my hair, plus I have a toddler to get out to daycare in the morning! I'm glad to see a product list that isn't, like, $28 per product.
Hungry Harvest seems fun. It's not something that's offered in my neck of the woods, but I have some friends who do CSA boxes who really like it.
Love these Q and A's!
I am wondering what has happened to that old house you rescued so many things from. I am thinking it was on a property your brother bought? Are there still more treasures to be had? Did it get refurbished or torn down? That was a fascinating series to me!
Sonia's hair is adorable! About the vegetables - I use Flashfood.com, and the store I go to has $5 boxes of produce. The one I bought on Friday had a dozen limes, iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, a few apples, and oranges. I'll be zesting and juicing limes today. Every bit can be used. Take a look!
I love the short curly 'do on Sonia. I cut my hair really short a couple of times and always grew it back out. I feel odd with such short hair, it seems.
I got Misfit Market for over a year, maybe two years, and enjoyed it, but I started getting one or two bad pieces of produce in almost every box, or a few would turn bad so fast after I got it that I wouldn't have time to use it - I'm talking only one or two days to turn bad. Honestly, I think a big problem was that this is Florida, and that the box would sit on my porch in the heat until I got home, 9-10 hours later. That, and I felt some of the more tender produce was just not protected enough from the heavier, firmer produce. I'm back to buying in the store, although, like Kristen, I wanted to support a program of rescuing food. Hungry Harvest doesn't serve my area, last time I checked.
When our niece and great-niece who are RN's went to school, they got their BSN's concurrently with their RN's, so I had no idea there was a way to become an RN without getting the BSN!
I don't like cheeseburgers, so the cheeseburger soup didn't tempt me, although I realize the two are not at all the same.
What are your plans about insurance? Are you going to try the government marketplace or just "live dangerously" for a while without it?
Kristen, your ex can be required to keep you on his insurance until X date. Your RN graduation, etc.
I have some options I'm mulling over on the insurance front; my blogger group was a helpful place to offer resources for self-employed people!
Thanks for these. Sonia's curls are fashion magazine worthy. Look forward to a possible post by her on her process.
I put two cups of kale into our morning smoothie each day where it disappears except for tiny green specs. The equal amount of sliced frozen fruit (plus rest of the ingredients) dominate in taste so we get a super yummy shake big on fiber and protein.
Love Hungry Harvest and our CSA produce boxes, both for what they do for the landfills and helping farmers aspects.
THAT HAIR!!! love it
Why don’t we hear about your son?
@Marinell Crippen, Kristen shared a heartfelt post about her eldest awhile back & we totally respect her privacy when it comes to how much of life to share on the internet. <3
@Marinell Crippen, some personal/family topics get to be off limits and as readers of Kristen’s lovely blog, we respect that.
Sonia seems to very much look like you but then also doesn't...it's so interesting how that works with relatives.
I had mixed results with the produce boxes. Like you, it did encourage us to eat more vegetables and try things we wouldn't have otherwise but the produce went bad too quickly for us and it ended up feeling like a stressor. I'm a little better at managing what's in the fridge so maybe I should give it another try. I like the sentiment behind it as well.
I have a q&a question for you/other readers but I feel like you might have answered it in the past: Do you ever get tired of being the reasonable one? What are some of your thoughts to help manage this? I thought of you and your readers this weekend when I found myself at the store and thinking "why is it ALWAYS me who worries about the cost of things?" Then I went to "well maybe I'll stop worrying about it and just spend and my husband can be the one to rein back the spending" but then that won't get us anywhere good either because chances are he won't! Ultimately I know that this is my nature and I'm ok with it but it's tiring sometimes. I don't even like indulgence but yet somehow I feel like I should 'get' to be the one to indulge.
@CrunchyCake, Yes! I feel that way. Partially about money, but a lot about eating well/eating healthy. I've often wondered about the balance of this within partnerships. I feel like I have to "overcorrect" to balance my partner's whims.
@CrunchyCake, Wow, do I feel this! Being the reigner-inner often makes me feel like the killjoy! I would love to be able to find a better balance just for my own mental health!
Guys, being the splurger isn't the here-we-go-gathering-nuts-in-May it sounds like either. There's often guilt for overspending and vows to do better next time. In the past day, my friends convinced me to treat myself to a $$$$ spa day at a local hotel, since I have zero idea when I'll be able to take a vacation. I don't actually feel guilty about that, though.
That's for money. For eating, I don't really have any hangups--I prefer healthful food to junk. I even thought the cheeseburger soup looked too junky for me to make.
@CrunchyCake, thank goodness my husband is on the same page as me. But what I constantly feel pressure about is food going bad especially produce.
Sometimes I go around and around in my head figuring out how to use all the food in different meals. Sometimes I think I am going to clear out the frig and not buy anything for 5 days and take a break. But then after going to a restaurant, which is so expensive, I come to my senses.
@Rose, your opinion of cheeseburger soup. . . yeppers, I saw Velveta and said to myself, "Self", I said, "Not for this little gray duck".
Sonia looks amazing, she could be 1940’s pin-up girl with that beautiful hairdo.
I just made a double recipe of Cheeseburger soup last weekend, it is one of my favorite soups. I also use the recipe from Taste of Home.
You are going to be an amazing RN. I’m envious of your future patients.
@Vickymac, I was thinking 1940s when I saw the "fancier" picture of Sonia, too. And I too wish I could be one of Kristen's patients in the future!
Sonia has hair like one of the Botticelli angels. Gorgeous.
This has probably been asked before, but...
What are you living on right now, while you're waiting for school to start? Are you getting alimony... using benefits... ???
Also, when you list the WWA meals (which I'm glad you do), it seems like you're buying a lot more groceries than you're actually using. Are these going elsewhere...into the freezer... ???
What's the status on your brother's Treasure House? Is it cleaned out now, and renovated?
(See, I'm actually paying attention.)
LOVE your 5 Frugal Things post.
I've always wanted curly hair and Sonia's is to die for but right now I'd take any hair as this bald head of mine gets very cold in the Canadian winter! Even my very straight and kind of limp hair would be something.
We don't have Hungry Harvest here but can purchase the Good Food Box through our public health units. I've never tried one because living in a rural community I have to factor time, gas etc. to pick up (no delivery option) and it just hasn't made sense to this point. And we have our own veggie garden in the summer. I may consider it again next fall though because it is a very good concept.
Also, I am an RN and later BScN nurse myself but sadly that option isn't available in Canada anymore although perhaps with the current shortage they will reconsider? I went to a 2 year program at a community college, received my diploma and then wrote my RN exams. After a few years on the job I started taking courses towards to my BScN and then finished it up approximately 6 years after becoming an RN. It was a bit painful of a process (because my uni was 2 hours away from my home and job) but I worked 30 hours a week for the entire time I worked on my degree. I had to have a way to pay the bills and wasn't too interested in student loans at that time. I think you will make a great nurse, Kristen, I've said that before. Also, your math equivalency exam? You'll ace it! I also took the exam and did very well so did not have to take the course. Good luck with it all, you continue to be an inspiration to me!
Kristen, all of the women in the family are attractive and have the beauty gene from you!
I will concur with getting health insurance when the time comes. My hubby was in excellent health and told me to take him off my plan so I could save money. I thought about it for a few seconds and then thought, with my luck, something will happen. A few months later, he was in the hospital for brain surgery. He had a ruptured aneurysm. The hospital visit lasted 3 weeks followed by 8 weeks of PT/OT/Speech therapy. He got 3 more surgeries after that! The cost of the hospital visit was nearly $750,000. It would have bankrupt us!
Lots of comments about Sonia's curls, but also her color! She's a darling blonde.
One thing I really enjoy is that each of your daughters a truly unique individual. Good job, Mom.
Sonia is a movie star!! Love her hair. She's beautiful and so is the rest of the crew.
Sonia's hair is stunning! She's beautiful. Thanks for sharing!