My Dollar Tree Autumn Decor Haul

A week ago Saturday we slid right into November in my area. We had 8 days of rain, dark clouds, and cool weather, 1 day of sunshine (yesterday), and now, today, the November-like rain and dark clouds have returned. All last week I kept thinking about fall. 

I had previously mentioned plans to go to Dollar Tree to check out their autumn decor. I did go, but to the  one that was convenient at the time. That one is always later to get stuff put out or doesn't get the selection that the other location near me. But it was convenient for my errands that day.

So on Friday I went to the Dollar Tree which my daughter had mentioned had a good display of fall decor pieces. Here's what I bought:

4 small artificial pumpkins, 2 faux wheat-like sprays, 1 autumn leaf spray, and 1 russet mum spray. The cost was $10 plus tax. (Dollar Tree is now $1.25-Tree.) I used a gift card given to me by my daughters a year ago for my birthday, which covered all but a little over $1 of my purchase.

These are for the wall troughs by our front door. being in complete shade up against the house on the north side, I'm going with artificial botanicals and pumpkins.

For as early in the season as I went, the fall decor pieces were beginning to look a bit picked over. I bought what they had in stock at the time. I would like to check out a 3rd Dollar Tree for more of the mums and leaves. With the 1st of September right around the corner, I'll be putting these together very soon and will show you how they turned out at that time.

What's been your favorite restaurant re-creation as of late?

Yesterday we talked about how cooking at home is such a budget stretcher compared to dining out, even when using some convenience foods or premium ingredients.

Most of the time, our meals are just ordinary. Tonight we had tuna-noodle casserole with fresh blackberries and figs from our property. Nothing fancy, and certainly nothing that you would likely find on a restaurant menu. However, sometimes one of us gets the notion to recreate a restaurant favorite.

the homemade tostado bowl

Since I'm asking what your favorite restaurant re-creation has been, I'll tell you my recent favorite. This was in early summer. I already blogged about it. My daughters found a tortilla bowl maker at a garage sale in spring and later treated us to tostado salad bowls in homemade flour tortilla bowls, like a Taco Time taco salad bowl. 

the Taco Time Tostado bowl

Taco Time is a "better" taco place near us. Their prices reflect that. They sell beef tostado bowls for $8.19 each.

Our version was really very good.

How about you? What's been your favorite restaurant re-creation?

Inflation Edition: It's still more frugal to cook at home with premium ingredients than eat restaurant meals

I went grocery shopping yesterday morning and found myself taken a bit aback at the grand total of about $120.00 for people food only. This is a weekly shop for food for us. My husband was with me and asked what I honestly thought these foods would have cost 4 or 5 years ago. I told him this amount of groceries probably would have cost about $85. Some foods have seen a small amount of price increase, while others like eggs (which have more than doubled) have really skyrocketed. Butter is crazy high right now. Milk has increased 50% in price. I have primarily bought the same basic foods for many years, so I remember what I used to pay for items pre-2020. Even with more expensive grocery store prices, cooking and eating at home is still a better deal in most cases compared to restaurant eating.

I realize that my region of the US has a high cost of living. So understand that my restaurant meal prices may be more than yours. But I also believe that lower restaurant prices also correlate to lower grocery store prices. So, a similar comparison for your area could likely be made.

Here's a typical casual restaurant meal my family would enjoy.

A Five Guys burger costs $11.29 each, multiplied by 4, $45.16 for the burgers. If we split a regular order of fries 4 ways that adds $6.49. Our sales tax rate is 10.5%. So for $57.07 my household of 4 adults can go grab a burger out.

Or, we can use our premium ground beef bought on contract from a rancher, I can do burgers for 4 at home, including buns and all the fixings for ~ $20.00. If I add frozen fries, our home-made burger night would cost about $23.00. Judging by the fact that high schoolers are hired to flip burgers, I think it's fair to say that making burgers at home is very do-able for most adults.

So burgers can be a bit expensive for better quality ones. How about pizza? Mod Pizza is a popular choice for casual dining in my area. If we all got the Mad Dog (pepperoni and sausage), we'd need 1 "mini" ($9.39) and 2 "MODs" ($11.39 each) to feed us all. If we drank water, we could have a dinner out for $35.55 including tax.

Or, I can make pepperoni and sausage pizza from scratch at home to feed us for $8 or $9 at most. Scratch pizza is a bit more complicated than making burgers, as you have to make a dough. If I don't want to mess with a homemade dough, I can buy a Pillsbury Refrigerated Classic Pizza Crust at Walmart for $3.64. That would bump my homemade sausage and pepperoni pizza meal up to around $10. That is still less than 1/3 of a Mod pizza dinner out.

Even with significant grocery inflation, it's still a better deal for the 4 of us to cook and eat at home, and that takes into account that some of my ingredients are what I'd consider premium and not budget.

We may not be able to reduce inflation ourselves, but we can find ways to mitigate some of the effects of these higher prices.

Easy as Pie: A super easy way to make pie

The Rustic Bramble Tart

I make rustic fruit tarts as an easy way to make a two-crust pie. I've made these with apple, berry, cherry, pear, and plum pie filling. Those are homemade pie fillings, but a rustic tart would also work well with a can of commercial pie filling.

Right now, we are inundated with fresh blackberries. My daughters and husband are harvesting as many as we can wash and freeze to use in winter desserts, breakfasts, and smoothies. For tonight's dessert, I've made a rustic bramble tart. Did you know that blackberries, raspberries, and other prickly-shrub fruits are known as bramble berries? I come across the word "bramble" in my English cookbooks periodically, for example a recipe for "bramble scones." I use blackberries for that scone recipe.

ingredients:

1 patty of pie dough, enough for a single crust (pre-made rolled up pie pastry such as Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crust work well for these tarts, too)

2 cups of fruit pie filling (fresh or frozen berries, fresh or frozen peaches, fresh, frozen, or canned apples, with appropriate amount of sugar and flour or 1 can of fruit pie filling)

granulated sugar, about 1 teaspoon

confectioner's sugar, 1-2 teaspoons

tools

a large baking sheet

rolling pie

off-set spatula or knife

time

20 minutes to prepare the tart (depending on fruit filling prep); 30 to 35 minutes to bake

I use the paper wrappers from a stick of buuter to grease the baking sheet.
There's usually enough butter left on the paper to do a thorough job.

• Lightly butter an extra-large baking sheet.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

I made this filling with about 3 cups of fresh blackberries, 1/4 cup of flour,
and 1/2 cup of blackberries.
I had about 1 cup of cooked filling leftover, which I will use on pancakes,
waffles or baked custard later this week.

• If making your own filling, prepare the fruit filling for the pie with fruit, sugar, and a thickener, such as flour, cornstarch, arrowroot, or tapioca flour. Precook the filling in a microwave in short bursts of about 1 minute each to thicken and stirring often or in a saucepan over the stove, stirring often. This typically takes 3 minutes for me in our microwave. Set aside, stir occasionally to help it cool.

• While the filling is cooling, roll out the pie pastry to about 14 or 15 inches in diameter, about as wide across as your baking sheet.
• Carefully transfer the pastry to the buttered baking sheet. Chill the pie pastry on the baking sheet in the fridge while the filling cools a bit more, about 4 or 5 minutes.

• Spoon the prepared and thickened filling onto the center of the circle of dough.

I made my tart a little small today, so it ended up not round, but a pentagon.

• Using a table knife or off-set spatula, gently fold the pastry over the filling to make a round-ish and flat tart. 
• Check for cracks near the edge that could leak filling. Repair any cracks with a scrap of dough and a drop of water.
• Sprinkle with granulated sugar (optional)

• Bake at 400 F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 F and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden. Remove from oven.
• Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 30 to 40 minutes.
• Using a couple of regular or off-set spatulas, gently lift the tart onto a serving plate.

• Just before serving, sprinkle confectioner's sugar through a sieve or sifter. Cut into wedges.

I use my own homemade pie pastry that I make in a 5-crust batch, freezing in single-crust patties. I use this recipe. I wrap each patty separately, freeze, and then get them out and thaw for an hour, one at a time, as needed. If making your own pastry from scratch, make the pastry before preparing the filling, so the dough can rest before rolling out.

I make these rustic tarts for everyday desserts as well as company desserts. For some reason, they seem to look a bit more "wow" than my standard two-crust pies. I get a lot of compliments on their appearance. I guess the rustic or artisan look of baked goods is appealing to many people.

Keep rustic tarts in mind for fall potluck meals. They're easy, fast, inexpensive, and always enjoyed.

We were never guaranteed an easy life

Hi friends,

So, if you read the comments from my post a week ago, you know I fell and injured myself. I hurt my neck, upper back, shoulder, lower arm, and my ankle. I still have pain. I've been wearing a sling for my shoulder a few hours every day. I have to be careful not to stress my left arm and shoulder. This may sound weird, but typing was stressful for my shoulder all week. It's doing better, but still gives me pain. I'm mostly better, except my neck and shoulder.

I chose not to see a doctor. I'm pretty sure I didn't outright fracture anything or tear anything badly. We're nowhere near our medical deductible for the year. So this would cost a couple hundred, minimum. The past year and a half has been extremely costly for my household. We are struggling financially more than any other year and have even dipped into our funds set aside for retirement to pay bills. A year ago we paid a family member's medical bills, we've had expensive car repairs, we needed a new roof, we still need a new furnace and dishwasher, and a week ago one of our daughters crashed our car (she's okay, thankfully). So, I don't want to hear any criticism for my decision to forgo medical attention for injuries that may just heal on their own. Nor do I want to hear how we should have set aside more for emergencies. We have and then some.

I feel very defeated right now. To help cheer myself, I went outside to see what easy work I could do to beautify my surroundings. A couple of weeks ago I potted 2 large pots with my homegrown marigolds. Today, I managed to pot the rest of the marigolds, using the seedlings I started from seeds, soil from my yard, and pots I already owned. At least I don't need to spend money to add cheer to our home.

I guess I'm just rambling. I hope you all have had a good week and weekend.

I'm getting there . . .

So today I put two coats of the gray solid stain on the top rail of half of the deck railing and one coat of the stain on the bottom rail of half. I expect the entire staining will take three days of work.

It looks good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stands up to our winters better than paint.

Once I'm done with the staining, I'll paint all of the vertical elements of the railing black. I may or may not get to all of the painting this season.  I'll be happy with just getting the horizontal surfaces stained this year and paint on the verticals next year, if that's how it works out.

How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?

Can you believe I'm thinking about fall already? Fall front porch decor plans

When the light begins to shifts, here, my mind starts thinking about fall. It's still hot during the day, but the light changes trigger my subconscious.

I thought I'd share what I have planned for my revamped front porch for fall.

the remaining marigolds after moving several to larger pots

I started a bunch of autumn-colored marigolds from seeds in spring. I've been growing them in small pots for the last couple of months.

Over the weekend I transplanted some of them into a couple of terracotta-colored pots. Since my coleus is still doing well in the lime green pots on the front porch, I'll leave them in place. But in front of those I'll put these slightly smaller pots of autumn marigolds in front or alongside the coleus. I have some small terracotta clay pots that I will move some of the other marigolds into as well, to cluster around the base of the taller marigold pots. Other folks use mums as a fall flower. I'll be using my homegrown marigolds.

current front porch, with nothing in wall planters

For the wall planters -- I never did plant them for this summer. By the time I got them painted, I had my surgery and then wasn't doing very much except what was necessary at the time. So that meant any gardening I was doing pertained to the vegetable garden. But now I'm ready to do the wall planters.

I came across this photo on the internet. I plant on doing something similar with Dollar Tree faux flowers, greenery and pumpkins. (It will have to all be faux, as the squirrels get into everything, and there is no sunlight that hits the wall.) One of my daughters was in Dollar Tree this even picking up some poster board, and she said they had all of their fall stuff in already. I'll be going over in the morning to see what I can find.

I also have some faux pumpkins that I will add to the front porch.

I will update you later this month when I have something pulled together.

How about you? Does a change in the sunlight trigger you to think about fall? Is there anything that you're looking forward to about fall? I'm looking forward to fall-inspired meals, cozy evenings, raking leaves with my family, and a last cook-out in early October.

Windfall apples for winter's apple crisps, cobblers, and spiced compotes

Our early apple tree is ripening right now. Every other day I go out and pick a bucket full to bring in for fresh eating. At the same time I scavenge dropped apples from under the trees and in the nearby bushes.

This is today's pile of dropped apples. After washing them, I trim off bruises, chop the apples (skin still on), and freeze in gallon zip lock bags. In fall and winter I make crisps, cobblers, and sautéed spiced apples to go with cold weather meals.

Those 10 apples left me with over a quart of chopped apples.

Last year I wound up with 2 gallons of chopped apples in the freezer. This year I'm on track to meeting that amount. So far this week I have about 1 gallons of chopped apples.

You know the saying, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. Well, if I'd put these dropped apples into the fridge drawer with the other fresh apples, it would rot sooner than the rest and possibly lead to others in the drawer spoiling prematurely. Apple bruises only grow with time. Getting them trimmed, chopped, and frozen as soon as I can saves more apple for winter treats.

Have I shown you our screen door to the deck?

We've had this screen door for about 12 years and really think it's a good alternative to a pricier installed screen door. We weren't in a financial position to have a screen door installed at that time, so I ordered this one.

It's a flexible fabric screen supported on an adjustable tension rod. The rod is secured at the top of the doorway, and the screen hangs from it. Here's a similar screen from Home Depot. The one in the link is for a single door. The one we have is for a 48-inch width doorway (which works on our 48" French doors). The screen goes up in under 3 minutes and requires no skill to install. 

We need a screen for about 3 months each year. At the end of the season, I take it down, roll the screen fabric around the tension rod, and store it upright in a closet.

Our particular screen has an opening down the center. We don't use that opening. Instead  we simply push the whole screen out of the way as we come and go. It falls back into place after entering or exiting.

So a price comparison -- the Home Depot  36-inch single instant screen door sells for about $24 (I think we paid about $30 for the 48-inch screen). A framed screen door (that would require installation) would cost upwards of $100 for a 36-inch width.

I just wanted to share this, as I think it's a good, budget-friendly alternative to a pricier screen door, especially for an area like mine, where I only need screening for 3 months out of each year. We actually prefer to not have a screen on this door the rest of the year, so we can see through the window better.

Tips for cleaning out a manual defrost chest freezer

I don't usually work on Sundays. However, this past weekend, I did tackle one chore. My chest freezer needed thawing and sorting so that we could begin filling it with garden and orchard produce for winter use. This needed doing and on Sunday I had the helpers around that I needed for sorting.

The frozen foods

• start by finding other frozen storage for frozen meat. I was able to find enough room in my other freezers for the meat that I had in the chest freezer. 
• I sort and bag freezer contents (using plastic shopping bags) as I empty the freezer. This pays off when I go to refill the freezer.
• use ice packs and ice chests for any frozen food that won't fit in existing freezers while defrosting. Ice packs can be gallon zip lock bags filled with ice cubes or those pre-filled ice packs, either the gel ones or the ones that are likely filled with treated water and are hard when frozen. We have 3 styrofoam ice chests in which our meat deliveries come packaged. I used all three to hold the contents of the freezer while defrosting. We also have several hard-pack ice packs that we pre-froze before thawing the freezer. Once filled with frozen foods, move the ice chests to the coolest part of your house while you defrost the freezer.
• no ice chests? You can also use cardboard boxes insulated with towels on the inside and with ice packs, plus quilts on the outside. They won't keep foods as cold as an ice chest, but they're better than storing foods at room temperature for a few hours.

Thawing and cleaning the freezer

• I've found that I don't need to completely thaw all of the ice in the freezer. Once the ice has begun to thaw, it will slide down the walls. I pull complete sheets of ice out of the freezer and toss them out into the garden. I use a large plastic scoop to scoop up chunks of ice and slush into a bucket, as well. By removing ice and slush from the freezer as it is thawing, I save an hour or more of thaw time, which shortens the amount of time my frozen foods will be kept outside of the chest freezer.
• Once thawed, I only wash out the inside if it has a bad smell. A solution of a tablespoon of baking soda and a pint of lukewarm water makes a good deodorizing cleaner.
• I also thoroughly dry out the exterior drain hole, using a piece of paper towel twisted into the opening and left there for about 15 minutes to absorb excess moisture. Drying out the opening allows for a tight fit of the plug.
• After throughly drying the interior of the freezer with multiple cotton rags and towels, I replace the drain plug, turn the freezer back on and shut the door. After about an hour, it's cold enough to transfer foods from the ice chests back into the freezer. Because I sorted contents into bags as I emptied the freezer, it's super easy to reload. Some people sort into plastic milk crates, which can then be stacked inside the now-clean freezer.
• I line the floor of a cleaned out chest freezer with a double layer of heavy plastic. I use a couple of large, thick plastic bags. (Mine came from 10-lb flour purchases.) If you line your freezer floor, then if a liquid item leaks badly or a container of liquid bursts as it freezes, the foods on the floor of the freezer will still be retrievable without thawing the freezer. I learned this the hard way. I put a couple of gallons of milk in the freezer. Even though I had poured off a couple of cups of milk prior to freezing, one of the plastic jugs burst and leaked about 2 cups of milk onto the floor of the freezer, completely freezing the jugs to the floor of the freezer along with several bags of frozen produce. I couldn't remove any of those foods from the freezer floor for months until it was time to defrost that freezer again. So, since that unfortunate episode, I have frozen liquids that leaked in my freezer. Since I now line my freezer floor with heavy plastic, the foods that were frozen in the liquid at the bottom of the freezer came right out, along with the heavy plastic. There was no need for me to thaw the freezer in order to retrieve those items. And, with a double layer of plastic, if some of the liquid seeps under the plastic, only one layer of plastic could become frozen to the freezer floor, meaning I could still lift the top layer off along with the food item frozen to it.

Refilling the freezer

• when you refill your freezer, don't use those handy hanging baskets (that came with the freezer and hang from the lip of the opening) in the hanging position if they keep the freezer from closing tightly. When I use the hanging baskets, ice slowly builds up along the top edge of freezer, preventing the freezer from maintaining a super tight seal. This leads to excess frost build-up at the top of the freezer walls and more frequent need to defrost the freezer. I do use one of the baskets as an organizer inside the freezer. However, I don't use it in the hanging position.

Afterward

• After several hours of refreezing, I check the temperature of the inside with a freezer thermometer. I keep our freezers at 0 degrees F. Those control dials only have MIN and MAX with a range in between, and are not exact. If the temp of the freezer isn't at zero, I adjust the settings as needed and recheck in 30 minutes or so.
• the rule of thumb for when to thaw a manual defrost freezer is once the frost has built up to 1/4 inch in thickness in any area of the freezer. Thicker frost not only takes up room, but it decreases the efficiency of the appliance, costing more in the long run to operate it. In addition, defrosting removes excess moisture, which is the culprit in freezer burn and "freezer taste". I defrost our freezers once per year, at a point in the year when we've gone through most of last year's produce harvest but before needing space for this year's. That means I'm defrosting our freezers sometime in mid-summer.

I don't thaw all of the manual freezer space at one time. Next week, we'll tackle the other manual defrost freezer. 

The entire process took about 6 hours yesterday. The defrost phase took about 5 hours with me periodically checking on the ice layer and removing what ice and slush I could. It took 5 to 10 minutes to thoroughly dry the interior with rags, and about 45 minutes in the operating mode to drop the temperature low enough that the freezer was colder than the inside of the ice chests.

Were there any surprises? We found more frozen chicken than I knew about, as well as a couple of donuts, half of a Danish pastry, a half carton of rainbow sherbet, lots of bread scraps and burger/hot dog buns, three pounds of butter, and some pecan halves. I'll be making something with the bread scraps later this week, and the donuts and Danish are already gone. It's nice to have more chicken than I thought, too. The biggest benefit, though, is we now know what we have and how much.

I'm working hard this week,

but I wanted to wish you all a lovely weekend.

one of several cabbage seedlings transplanted today

I grocery shopped in the morning, sanded in the afternoon, then transplanted some fall cabbage seedlings in the late afternoon before making dinner. Whew! What a day.

I started 2 trough planters of turnip seeds in early July. They're growing well so far.

My fall harvested garden veggies will be cabbage and turnips this year, hopefully ready to bring inside in late October to early November.

Now I've got to go clean up the kitchen. Have a wonderful weekend, friends!

How the deck railing project is going

I continued to use the disk sander on the railing all last week and Saturday. Sunday was a day of rest. And then Monday ushered in some rain. I did get pretty far on the railing until the rain. I've now sanded the handrail on the entire railing, with exception of needing to scrape the small amount up against the support posts.

With the sun coming back this afternoon, I'll get back to sanding and scraping. I'll begin the bottom rail tomorrow. I hope to get that part done in a week. Then I can apply a stain to the top and bottom rails.

The sanding is going faster than I had thought it might. So, I just might get the entire railing refinished this summer. I'll keep you posted. And again, thank you all for your advice and tips last week.

We had initially planned on having the deck railing replaced with a composite railing that would never need repainting. Then the roof needed replacing (big $$$), the car needed expensive repairs (more big $$), the dishwasher needs replacing, the furnace needs replacing, and the list never ends. So we sat down and talked about how we can do as much as possible on our list for this summer. Refinishing the existing railing was the one item that we could do ourselves. If we like the end result, we will have saved some substantial $$ over replacement.

Tomorrow morning I'll be up early and out there scraping and sanding.

What's been in my grocery cart this month? July 2024 Grocery Spending

I only had 2 shopping days this month, each about 2 weeks apart.

On July 2, I did the shopping for the 4th of July, sticking to the local stores Walmart and Grocery Outlet. I stopped at Grocery Outlet first and bought hot dog buns ($2.99), 3.31 pounds of Fuji apples (49 cents/lb), 2.25 lbs sweet cherries (2.49/lb), cherry tomatoes ($2.50), 2 bags of raw vegetable medley), 2 bags frozen sweet potato fries ($3.99 each), chicken jalapeño franks ($3.99), and a cheese, meat, breadstick, and olive charcuterie tray ($5.99). I made my own raw veggie tray, using the bagged vegetable medley (raw cauliflower, broccoli, and baby carrots) plus the cherry tomatoes, and some dip and raw bell pepper I had at home. At Walmart (right across the street) I bought uncured all-beef hot dogs ($4.99), bananas (58 cents/lb), a kale salad kit ($3.98), a case of flavored sparkling water ($4.98), bag of marshmallows ($1.17) and a bar each of unsweetened ($2.42), milk ($1.12), and 70% dark chocolate ($1.12) for making s'mores. I spent a total of $56.25 for all of the above. We ended up with so much leftover food that I was using it in meals for several days after the 4th and didn't need to go shopping again for 2 more weeks.

In addition to those 2 food stops, I also ducked into Value Village (right next door to Walmart). I've been looking for a waffle maker that makes heart-shaped waffles for a while. I lifted the lids on all of the waffle makers and lo and behold, one of them made mini hearts! It was Senior Tuesday, which means I received a discount of 30%. Originally priced at $7.99, I paid $5.59. This will be a fun addition to Valentine's Day brunch. I love specialty-shaped waffle irons, but I'm unwilling to pay the "new" price for this type of item.

On July 17 I did the second grocery shopping of the month. This day I went to WinCo, Walmart, and Grocery Outlet. At WinCo I bought 3 cans of tuna (88 cents ea), a jar of mayo ($3.28), 2 16-oz jars of peanuts ($2.28 ea), 5-lb bag of organic flour for bread ($6.96), salt (67 cents), 2 cartons soy milk ($3.38 ea), 1 pound natural peanut butter ($2.18/lb), 2/3 lb sunflower seeds ($2.08/lb), bananas (58 cents/lb), 24-ct string cheese ($5.48), 2 lb block sharp cheddar ($6.78), 2 lbs butter ($3.68 ea), frozen fish sticks ($5.98), a gallon of milk ($3.49). I stopped at Grocery Outlet next and bought 2 boxes of graham crackers (99 cents ea), and 2 packages bacon ($1.99 ea). Directly across the street is Walmart, where I bought marshmallows ($1.17), uncured beef hot dogs ($4.98), 2 packs turkey snack sticks ($3.72 ea), 3-lbs vegetable shortening ($6.18), and a 5-dozen case of eggs ($16.38). I spent $100.48 in total at all 3 stores.

We're planning another cookout, so I've been picking up a few things that will keep several weeks (beef hot dogs, graham crackers, marshmallows). Otherwise, we wouldn't be going through so many marshmallows!!!

For the month I spent $156.73 on food. Of course, this wasn't a meat delivery month, plus we'vee been supplementing with our garden and pantry/freezer stockpiles. I'll need to replenish some of stockpiled foods next month. So, I expect to spend more.

I'm curious, how do some of my prices compare to yours? In most cases I buy the store-brand on products.

Did/Do/Will You Charge Your Adult Kids Rent While Living At Home?

And how did you arrive at an amount?

Our financial arrangements with our kids and how we came up with the amount

I have mixed feelings about charging my adult kids rent. On the one hand, I want to offer a free place for them because I love them. On the other hand, this is real life, and my daughters need to learn that real life has costs. We ultimately did choose to charge our adult kids. But mostly the "rent" charged reflects some of the real costs of their addition to our household.

We are a family of 4 adults. I took some of the monthly expenses and divided them by four, charging each daughter one-fourth of those monthly amounts.

Each adult daughter pays:

• one-quarter share of utilities: heat, electricity, water/sewer, internet, garbage pickup
• one-quarter share of groceries, except the beef I buy from a rancher, but including the cleaning, laundry, and paper supplies
• the increase (not a quarter share, just the increase) in our car insurance having them as drivers of our singular car

The total monthly amount for each is relatively low. I figure they would have to pay for these items/services anyway if they lived on their own. 

I realize this type of arrangement with adult kids is variable, depending on circumstances. I do think it's helpful to see what others are doing under different circumstances.

If my daughters earned higher salaries, I might charge more. However, I would put the majority of that into a savings account for them, so they would have a little kitty of money to start themselves in their own places someday. 

Alternatively, I might request they set aside a certain portion of their incomes for their own future. This is what we did with our son. He made a healthy salary just out of university. We allowed him to live at home while he saved a sizable chunk of money to put down on a house. We live in an area with very high home costs compared to the average income. Allowing him this extra time to set aside money for a house meant that he and his wife were in a good position to buy when interest rates dropped to historic lows.

I will add, when my adult kids were students and living at home, they lived here rent-free. However, they were expected to work in summers to help fund their tuition and fun things for themselves. It wasn't until they were out of university and working year round that we began discussions about charging rent.

What have you decided to do regarding charging rent for your adult kids living at home?