Money Free Week Day 2 - More Dehydrator Fun

Day 6 money spent - $0
Flylady Day 4 - doing OK and my sink is still shiny

Zucchini and Apples

(not together)

Before my money free week started, I picked up some zucchini on sale. Inspired by Sheri over at Green and Crunchy, I decided to dry them and make zucchini chips. (I'm really enjoying my dehydrator and have no idea why it was in the garage for so long)

I couldn't decide which seasonings to put on the zucchini so I tried several different seasonings. Clockwise from the top- taco seasoning, nothing, sodium free Mrs. Dash, Johnny's seasoning salt, and garlic salt (I was pretty light on the ones that involved salt). My favorite seasoning were the garlic salt and seasoning salt. I think because they taste more like potato chips. The chips were great plain but even better with a tiny bit of ranch on them.

Since I had half a zucchini left that didn't fit in the dehydrator, I sliced it up and cooked it with a little olive oil and some spices (Really yummy). I think I'm going to have to add zucchini to our menu more often.

And apples! And more apples! The results of dehydrating a big bag of apples picked up in bulk. I actually should have a couple more jars of apples in this picture but it took me a few days to dehydrate all of them and I wiped out a couple jars while I was waiting.

Day 1 Money Free Week - A Yummy Accident

Day 5 money spent - $0
Day 3 Fly Lady - so far so good

This morning I decided to see if I could use up some of the leftovers and older veggies in the fridge. The idea was to make a soup for lunch. From the fridge I gathered bacon, veggies, leftover Benihana Chicken and then added some of my homemade Chicken stock. I didn't have any onions so I threw in some lipton onion soup mix. I added a wild rice mix with seasonings from the pantry and toward the end I tossed in some frozen peas. I guess the rice soaked up all my stock because the finished product had the consistency of gumbo instead of soup. But it was really, really yummy and I used up some of the fridge debris.

I'm also trying to get rid of a lot of the extra clutter that we don't need and putting stuff up on Craigslist and FreeCycle (depending on the item). I've given away a few things and sold two things so far.

Have you noticed that I've got a lot of self improvement projects going on right now? I've noticed that every time Honey is gone I get in this "fix my world" mode. When honey is home, we stay pretty busy with working on the house and "Army stuff." When he's gone, I can only do so much on the apartment and all the "Army stuff" disappears. Plus, I get kinda lonely. So to keep myself entertained (and hopefully not shopping) I use these times to work on the big projects that are easier w/o honey here.

Let's Try this Again

Day 4 money spent - $20 (food at the Cafe hosting the Pagan Meet up Group and seeds for the Ostara planning session)

Day 2 Flylady - my sink is shiny and I'm dressed to lace up shoes

I haven't done as well as I'd hoped with my spending goals so this coming week (Feb 22-28th) I'm going cold turkey. I officially declare a Money Free Week! No food, no gas, no thrift stores, nothing! I have more than enough food in the pantry to feed me for a month much less a week and I can't think of a single thing I absolutely can't live without in the next week. Let the freedom from money begin!

My Sink is Shiny :P

Day 3 money spent - $30 (took sister grocery shopping at Costco and picked up a few perishable staples for myself)
Day 1 Flylady - Shined my sink

I've been trying to spring clean my house (keyword - trying). Organizing and cleaning is one of those tasks that overwhelms me pretty quickly. It seems to be a never ending task so it's really hard to get excited about accomplishments when I know it's just going to have to be done again in a few days. I never let my house get dirty but it tends to be cluttered and that drives me crazy.

A friend at our last duty station was a devoted follower of the Flylady system and it seemed to work for her. I've decided to try the system for myself while honey is away and I have the house all to myself. The website has 31 days of baby steps to get you started and develop the habits that are the backbone of the system. Even if the whole system doesn't work I'll probably gain some techniques that will work for me.

Something to Hug

Day 2 money spent - $4.50

Meet Honey the Second


Honey the First gave me this wonderful teddy to keep me company during the various missions that keep him away from home. He made the bear at Build-A-Bear and the outfit came off a stiff uncuddly military bear I'd picked up at the thrift store. The combination of cute cuddly bear and cute tiny ACUs is wonderful but the real kicker is that Honey recorded a message so when I hug the bear it says "I love you Honey." Awwwwww.... Cute and Smarmy.

A Company I already liked just got better

Owner of Multi-Million Dollar Company Hands Over Business to Employees - ABC News

I first discovered Bob's Red Mill when I wanted to make a Gluten Free dessert to take to an SCA feast for my friends with Celiac disease. I was impressed with their variety of Gluten free products and had a lot of fun experimenting over the next few months in making yummy tasting desserts that my friend could enjoy. As we've been trying to eat out less and keep our food at home healthier, I've used Bob's Red Mill products quite a lot (I can get them in bulk at Natural Harvest).

This morning my news feed was headed by the news that the founder of Bob's Red Mill has given the company to the employees. Pretty cool huh? He decided he could never sell the company to someone else and trust they would maintain the principles the company was founded upon. He could however trust the company in the hands of the people who had built the company right along side him.

And it began with a wimper...

Day 1 money spent - $0

In the days leading up to Honey leaving for another 5 week army trip, we found out we were going to have to replace our roof. We knew when we bought the house we were going to have to replace the roofing in the next few years but this winter has been especially hard and some of the roof issues have come to a head. We came to the conclusion that we're going to have to replace the roof this summer and fix these issues before they get any worse. Since some of the problems stem from having a hot roof flowing into a cold roof, we're going to be changing some of the underlying roof structure while we're in there. Sucks to be us. I'll be honest it was not a pretty sight when we came to the final conclusion. We're entering the home stretch on the apartment and I was really looking forward to having the summer off to work on my garden and plant trees.

Sad, bummed, such is life...

Because we have some major expenses coming up this summer we decided to try and save as much as possible in the next couple months. For the next five weeks Honey is gone and wont have many opportunities to spend money. I'll be here but I'm going to try and eat from the pantry and avoid most spending. The only thing I'm really worried about is gas money. I've already committed to helping my family (60 miles away) with several projects while honey is gone so that's a good chunk of change in gas money right off the bat.

And just to show it never rains but it pours. When I tried to turn on the computer this morning (honey has my laptop again), it just constantly restarted itself. I don't think honey's computer likes me as it did something very similar last time he left as well. So I dug out the 11 year old laptop honey had when we met. (I'm pretty sure the duct tape holding the casing on isn't factory original) It's pretty slow so I'll be cutting back on my Internet time (that's probably a good thing) but I'm going to try and keep posting regarding how my low spending month is going.