Life is keeping me incredibly busy!!

Hi all!
Life has taken a turn that is keeping me incredibly busy, too busy to get online to write to you.

First off, it's summer, which means harvest and preservation of all that grows here. I'm working my frugal behind off taking care of it all.

And second, my husband's work situation suddenly changed, and we're facing a 30% drop in income.

I've been reworking budgets, brainstorming ways to conserve further, and looking into how to grow our income.

I have slashed our budgets across the board, including dropping back to a one-car family, reducing the grocery budget to well below $200/month, heating the house less, leaving lights turned off unless it is truly dark inside, and we're even considering selling our home and downsizing to a much smaller (and cheaper to maintain) home.

One of the helpful things I am doing is keeping a log of ways that I save money, on a daily basis, and how much each activity saves. For instance, I started Christmas and fall birthday shopping the other day, shopping a clearance sale at Lands' End. I bought 3 gifts for my son (2 for his birthday and 1 for Christmas), which had been on my list for him anyways, and saved about $40 over what I would have been willing to pay, had I waited until the fall to shop. (There's a big difference in "what I'd be willing to pay" and what the store claims is a savings, for my purposes. I only calculate savings on a what-I-am-willing-to-pay basis.) That shopping took me 2 hours online, for a wage of $20/hour. I am also shopping for winter jackets for my two daughters, for their Christmas gifts this coming year. Shopping in the off-season will save me a substantial amount on gift-giving, which will be a great help, as I cut the gift-giving budget in half for this next year.

I also hung a load of wash to dry in the sun, for a savings of 50 cents. I spent about 20 minutes hanging and checking the drying, for a wage of about $1.50/hour.

I refurbed a pair of very worn shoes the other day. I was hoping to replace these shoes this summer, but a refurb job using only what I had here at home, may prolong their life by a year or two. In case you're wondering, I painted a pair of faux suede sandals, with acrylic paint. The faux suede had worn off in patches, leaving a mottled finish everywhere.

Time will tell if my efforts were fruitful, if the painted finish looks good after wearing a few times. If not, my cost was nothing but time. And anyways, they couldn't possibly look worse than they did before. If I delayed the purchase of a new pair of shoes by 2 years, I estimate my savings to be about $5 or so (for those two years of extra wear). I spent about 1 hour in total on the painting of the shoes, for a wage of $5/hour.

I trimmed my hair the other day, instead of going to a cheap haircut place. I extended the life of my haircut by another 6 weeks by trimming it myself. I look for the super cheap coupons of about $8 or $9 for a cut, no style.  One will usually surface in mid to late August (for the back to school crowds). I spent about 1 hour on the trim, saving about $10 after coupon and tip, for a wage of $10/hour.

By logging all this info, I can easily see which activities will save us the most money for the effort. However, the high hourly wage activities are not available every day.

So, we need to grow our income. I have been putting together my resume, and am looking for employment. Unfortunately, having been out of the main workforce for the last 26 years impairs my hire-ability for many positions.

I have also been researching taking in a boarder, to boost our income. Technically, paid lodgers go against the ordinances for our neighborhood. As do home day cares.

I do believe it will take a combination of all three of these areas (changing the budgets, conserving more, and increasing our income), to keep us progressing towards our future goals for retirement.

So, that's where I have been these past 10 days. Life has been keeping me incredibly busy. (And you thought I was off on some beach reading a fun novel!! LOL! Couldn't be further!)

I hope your life has been much more relaxing than mine. If not, and you find yourself as busy as I am these days, know that you are in good company! Have a great weekend, and I'll try to keep you posted on the various ways I find to cut our spending and increase our income. This is the value of blogging -- sharing information can be mutually beneficial for all of us.

This week . . .

It's been another busy week around the homestead.

My husband repaired one of the deck chairs, and now I'm putting primer on it. I'll put a couple of coats of white paint on it over the weekend. Previously, these chairs and matching bench were painted in an oil-based paint. If you are going to use a water-based paint over an oil-based one, you need to give the previous finish a good sanding. I failed to sand the other white chair and bench thoroughly enough last summer, and now have some areas of peeling. I'll need to sand down those spots and repaint. Lesson learned.

I filled a large garden pot for the entry patio, with some summer annuals, clearance perennials and a beautiful fountain grass, all in autumn tones. Yep! I'm thinking autumn already. I have this pesky problem of thinking ahead to the next season constantly. My pot will be beautifully rich in color when the leaves on the birch overhead turn golden.

I've started more basil, cilantro, dill and beets in the garden, to extend the harvest of those four. My garden is doing splendidly, for the most part. The plants are loving this heat. I have about 5 tiny pumpkins, so far, and about a dozen small tomatoes, with the promise of many more. My chard and kale are huge! And lettuce continues to provide us with daily salads.

You already know that I brandied some cherries earlier this week. I've also been dehydrating cherries to use this winter in baked goods and granola. I buy about 2 pounds of dried cherries during winter and spring. Drying some now will save me the expense of buying dried cherries at a premium, later. And today, I am hoping to make some cherry jam. This has been on my must-try list for several years -- think Bonne Maman Cherry Preserves. Yum, I can practically taste it already!

My sourdough starter has been very active this month. I ran out of yeast for homemade bread, so I fired up the starter. I've been using it for the family's bread and pizza crusts. My series of posts from last summer, on making sourdough starter has gotten some interest in the last week. Just an FYI, for anyone curious about making their own sourdough starter, summer is the best time of year to get one started. Most house temps are ideal for getting the activity going.

My daughters made a batch of graham crackers one day. This is a summer ritual for them. A couple of times per summer, they make homemade graham crackers, following the recipe I tore off the side of the brown sugar box, 23 years ago, or so.

But bigger news about my girls -- my two daughters got jobs!! Yay! Really, it's been a lot of hard work applying, interviews, making the rounds of all the places where they've dropped resumes, and finally, almost a month into summer, they've landed jobs on campus at their university. This is their first real paid employment. They'll be able to earn enough this summer to help with tuition costs next year, and have pocket money throughout the school year. We celebrated with a trip to the fabric/craft store and lunch out. My favorite lunch place is a nice little Greek restaurant.

With the warmer temps, my capris that I made from old jeans last summer, have been a wardrobe staple. I am happy to say that I look much more pulled together in summer than I ever do in winter, for casual-around-the-house-wear.

Summer allergies have been terrible here this year. I spent the better part of one day this week giving the bedrooms a thorough dusting, vacuuming and cleaning. I pulled furniture out from the walls, so I could dust/vacuum behind. I tore beds apart, vacuuming under, washing everything but the pillows. (The pillows I ran through the dryer on HIGH for 25 minutes, to kill off dust mites.) I vacuumed mattresses. It was a major undertaking, but in the end, I think it paid off. I actually had a decent night's sleep for the first time in weeks, due to not sneezing and wheezing all night long. I find that if I keep the house immaculately free of dust-mites during peak hay fever season, I fare much, much better.

And in the not-at-all-interesting department, I spent yesterday afternoon getting all caught up on budgeting, bill-paying, account reconciling and correspondence. When I finished, I made myself a great cup of decaf, to reward myself for sticking to it all for several hours.

So, my week has been filled with busy days. With my daughters now off to work each day, I am hoping to tackle a couple of projects in the next two weeks.

And how has your week been?