Hello everyone! I've had a busy week. We went to a small wedding over the weekend, and much of the past seven days has been spent picking strawberries for customers. Nonetheless, here are a couple of thrifty things that happened:
1. Stopped at a scratch 'n' dent store after the wedding. Most of these kind of stores are Amish-owned in our area, and they carry a lot of well-priced food items. Sometimes the food is dented, somehow mispackaged, and often it is close to or past the "sell by" date. I was able to get a lot of snack food for an upcoming camping trip, along with regular pantry items like tuna fish and kosher salt. 2. Sold about four flats of strawberries, and earned about $120.00. This money will be spent on improving the strawberry patch, and/or other hobby farm projects. Usually there is more than enough money to fund the homestead, but this year I sunk several hundred dollars into a new strawberry patch and I've earned only a quarter of what is usual. The berries are small and sparse this year, sadly. Still, a little is more than nothing. 3. Went shopping in town and found some deals. We stopped at our local thrift store, Dollar Tree, and Walmart. At the thrift store I only found an interesting serving spoon, a child's rocking chair and a memory game to play with my preschooler. At the Dollar Tree my best find was a comic book version of The Merchant of Venice. I read the original version over 10 years ago, and I don't remember a lot. The other reason I bought it, though, is that we were just in Venice this year and I thought it would be fun to browse the illustrations. Some other notable things I bought were a cat bowl (to replace the cottage cheese container on our porch) and a sewing kit for my weekend/bug out bag. At Walmart, I picked up some regular grocery items along with two rugs that had been marked down to $5.00. I put one in our living room and one in our bedroom. They are a little small for a living room rug at 4'x5', but it is better than what we had before—nothing. The rugs were decent quality, originally priced at $25.00 each. 4. Sorted through some kids' and baby clothes we no longer need. I still have a long way to go, but we were running out of storage space and tubs. In addition, I needed to see what items to look for at garage sales this year. We are finally seeing some community sales reschedule, so I want to have a list ready. 5. Listened to an audio book on Scribd called Fluent Forever. It had some excellent tips for improving your foreign language ability. I've been working on Spanish off and on for years, and to date my biggest accomplishment is buying something at a foreign market. Sigh. I'm hoping some of the tips from the book will help me move forward, especially we have family in a Spanish-speaking country. That's it for this week! I hope you all are having an excellent summer. ~Prudence~
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Hi everyone! Here are some money-saving (or earning) things I did this week.
1. Fixed a Dollar Tree "etch-a-sketch" toy. Our daughter pushed down too hard with the stylus, and the screen had permanent scribbles on it. I figured out how to take the toy apart, flipped the screen over and put everything back together with a "new" screen. 2. Made granola and sourdough bread from scratch this week. The granola will be good with the two quarts of yogurt that we have yet to eat before they begin to go bad. I also continued with our June meal plan, with a few variations. 3. Sold 4.5 flats of strawberries. This is sorely disappointing compared to what I was able to pick in the first week last year. In 2019 we easily picked four flats per DAY, but there were more berries that didn't get hit by frost and the berries were much bigger. The total earnings thus far is $135.00 However, since I already put $50.00 into babysitting (in order to weed the patch), that number isn't quite accurate. Generally I use strawberry funds for other hobby farm projects, and keep that as my natural limit of how much stuff I can buy for our homestead. 4. Finished reading a (free) book about Italy. I will use notes from that book as research for my own book that I'm writing. I finished One Second After and started listening to another library book on the Libby app called Catherine the Great. 5. We went on a few walks and bike rides, and picked up cans to recycle for $0.10 each. Well, that is about all for today! June is one of our busiest months as a family, for various reasons, so I was really happy to find five frugal things in our week. Til next time, ~Prudence~ 5. 1. Garden: We harvested spinach and strawberries this week.
2. Cooking: I dried some celery leaves and extra stalks. It was in the 80's this week, so I served more warm-weather meals like taco salad and chicken salad wraps. 3. Free lighter: I found a BIC lighter at a local playground, and it still worked. So I brought it home. I also brought home a soda can to return when the bottle returns open at Walmart. 4. Free audiobook: I borrowed a book from our library's "Libby" app; One Second After. It's a prepper favorite, a fiction work about the devastating effects of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) on a small town. Even better, it was an audiobook, so I was able to knock it out (lol...) in just a few days while weeding my strawberry patch. 5. I used a free curb-picked T-shirt to make glove extensions for weeding my strawberry patch. I have a 300+ plant patch behind my garden that I sell out of for two weeks in June. On a good year I can make about $1000.00. It's a lot of weeding, though, and there is a bit of poison ivy out there, so the glove extensions are helpful. 6. I did my semiannual "big shopping trip" yesterday, buying enough household, personal care and pantry supplies for 6 months. I was a little nervous about it, given the shortages and judgement surrounding grocery shopping. In fact, for the last month or so I have been picking up a few extra pantry supplies (peanut butter, tuna, pasta, etc.) every time we went shopping, so it didn't look like I was "hoarding". But thankfully we have a small enough family that I got out of the store with just one cart full of stuff. Excluding a few garden and wardrobe purchases, we spent around $150.00. I did use a $1.00 off coupon on a big (already cheap) container of laundry detergent. Well, that is about it for this week! ~Prudence~ Before I met my sweet husband, I thought motorcycles were for big, mean hairy guys with tattoos and long beards. None of my friends or family rode motorcycles. I grew up in a farming community, so people had more use for skid steers, tractors and big trucks than motorcycles.
After riding around with Hubby for a while when we were dating, I realized that motorcycles weren't quite the death machines I thought they were. Riding a motorcycle can be and is safe for many people who take reasonable precautions and know how to use their bike. As with driving a car, driving too fast and not stopping at stop signs will get you into more accidents. If you are a safe driver, the main concern about riding a motorcycle is being seen by other people on the road. In addition to being safer than I originally thought, motorcycles can also be cost effective due to high gas mileage and low insurance costs. Owning a motorcycle made it easier for us to be a one-car family. There were several reasons I chose to get a motorcycle endorsement. Just because I did doesn't mean everyone should. Here were my reasons: 1. We already owned a motorcycle. 2. Transportation was more difficult because I couldn't use the motorcycle. 3. The motorcycle got better gas mileage, and thus was much more economical to drive. 4. Training and endorsement was readily available and relatively cheap ($25.00, plus new gloves and boots because I didn't have any, and gas driving to and from class). Skills Test or Safety Course There are two ways to get an endorsement. The first way- and this is the way Hubby did it- is to just take a skills test (starting and stopping, making a U-turn, swerving and riding through curves). However, you can also take a safety/skills course and THEN take the test after the course. I chose the second option, because I had almost no riding experience, let alone the ability to make U-turns. The problem with motorcycle safety courses is that they fill up very fast. Most summer classes are filled up in January or February. However, the drop out rate for these classes is rather high, so instead of registering early you can just pick the class you want to take and show up as a walk-in. I found a class about 45 minutes away at a college. The college held the same class every weekend, so I simply picked the best weekend for me. The course included one 4-hour Friday night session, and then actual riding time on Saturday and Sunday for another four hours each day. In order to ride out in the parking lot, we were required to have 1) a DOT-approved helmet, 2) a jacket or long-sleeved shirt, 3) boots that covered the ankle, 4) gloves and 5) eye protection or a full-face helmet. The instructor recommended both safety glasses AND helmet, so we could leave our helmets open because of the heat. When I showed up on Friday night, there were probably 25 people in the room—eight of us were drop-ins. I filled out some paperwork, and then the rest of the class was spent going through the textbook that each of us were given. The teacher had each of the three tables read or summarize different sections of the book, and sometimes he would illustrate a certain principle on the chalkboard. It was kind of tedious. I was surprised to see how many women were in the class. I would guess that 25% of us were female. It was interesting though because about half were were under 25- the daring/risk-taking kind of girl with tattoos and piercings and dyed hair, and the other half were over 60 (though more normal-looking). One lady I talked to was 65. I asked her why she decided to take the course. "Oh, I've always wanted to ride!" she said excitedly. Side note: I think it's unfortunate that 'normal' ladies like myself tend to be scared stiff of motorcycles (to the point of forbidding husbands to ride), and the ones that do learn to ride wait until they are 60+ and only have five or ten good riding years left. I think everyone who has a motorcycle at their house should learn to ride it sooner than later, for practicality's sake. Our actual practice time was 10 hours (five hours each on Saturday and Sunday) of different exercises. I was comfortable completing most of these exercises- the hardest part was following directions. The whole parking lot was full of different lines, curves and X shapes, so usually the first person going through went the wrong way, and had to be redirected by one of the instructors. I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the exercises before getting into the parking lot. Here is a list, and there are also videos that people have made going through different exercises. Following instructions was the most frustrating part of the class for me. For example, in one of the first exercises we were supposed to "power walk". I had no idea what power walking was, and the instructor only explained it after I asked. Similarly, some of the motorcycle jargon was lost on me, so when the teacher was explaining fuel-injected and non-fuel injected, I had no idea what he was talking about. The course is supposed to be good for complete newbies, but most of the students in my group already owned a motorcycle and had been riding for some time. After we had been through hours and hours of drills, we did some practice for the test. I spent most of my time practicing for U-turns, because that is where I had trouble. Looking back, I should have also been practicing quick stops as well. I would recommend reading about how the test is scored. Our instructors gave some hints and tips, but I think I could have scored better, had I known what mistakes to avoid and which ones were less critical. In the end, I passed... but barely. We were allowed to get 15 points deducted before failing, and I got all fifteen. Ten of those points were deducted because I didn't stop soon enough on the quick stop. I had understood that it was more important to start braking after the cones than it was to actually stop quickly. However, some of us noticed that people were braking before the cones, and the instructors didn't really care. Apart from the quick stop, I did pretty well. There was one other mistake I made on one of the exercises that cost me five points. The U-turn I was so worried about went without a hitch. I was so thankful that I passed! It was a grueling two afternoons in the heat that I didn't care to repeat. Out of the 12 students in our group, three ladies didn't pass. A 25% fail rate was not what I had expected, reading all the reviews online that said "almost everyone passes". The course was harder than I had anticipated, but I'm so glad I did it. Everyone who passed the skills test got to take home a new safety vest. Written Test The other part of getting a motorcycle endorsement is going to the Secretary of State office to take a written test. This test has 25 multiple choice questions. There are many sample tests that you can take online. I took these sample tests for about an hour before we went in to the Sec. of State. This test, like the last one, was harder than I thought. The lady at the desk counted up all my wrong answers and I had failed. She was really nice about it and just gave me a new test. On the second test there were some different questions. I got fewer questions wrong on the second test and actually did pass. Then she took my picture and I got a new driver's license a couple weeks later. It felt good to follow through with getting an endorsement, since it had been on my goal list that year. A motorcycle endorsement isn't something that you need to re-test for to renew. It's very similar to your driver's license in that way. Once you pass all of the tests, you won't have to take them again. So if you get one early in life, you can ride for a good 40 or 50 years if you want to! One Example of Motorcycle Thrift Shortly after I got my endorsement, we had to pick up a rental car. I was able to follow Hubs home with the motorcycle. If I had not been able to, we would have had to take the truck both to and from the airport. Thus, this ride alone saved us $6, or two gallons of gas, with no inconvenience to us. It's one of many small ways to save without sacrificing lifestyle. In fact, learning to ride a motorcycle has actually enhanced my quality of life. I would much rather take a 30-minute motorcycle ride than rewash 60 plastic bags. Well, it's been one of those weeks... I can't seem to remember a lot of thrifty things that I did. But here goes:
1. Garden: we harvested spinach and cilantro from the garden. I've noticed that ALL of my spinach is beginning to bolt, so I will probably freeze what is left. I planted ornamental gourd and watermelon seedlings. This is only the second time I've started all of my own seedlings rather than buy some (or all) from the nursery. The tomato seedlings look scrawny (as has been my experience with heirlooms) and many of the seedlings faced transplant shock, but so far most of them are doing well. 2. Laundry: line-dried most loads of laundry this week. It was incredibly humid, so I did end up putting two loads in the dryer. 3. Cooking: made sourdough bread and yogurt. We go through a decent amount of yogurt this time of year with smoothies. 4. Chickens: foraged different plants for our small chicks, who are still inside. In doing so, I'm teaching my toddler plant identification. This week we picked chickweed and wild mustard. I have also been setting our live traps for raccoons. I let our chickens free-range during the day, and in June the predators come out like crazy. This week we lost one chicken to a raccoon attack, and caught one raccoon. Since I only had five hens to begin with, losing one was a big loss. We'll see what the count is next week. 5. Exercise: played softball at a local park. I noticed that the playground had not been roped off, so we may utilize it this week as a bike ride destination. That's all for the week! I hope your June is shaping up to be a good one. ~Prudence~ |
About PrudenceI am a Christian homemaker who lives in the Midwest. I enjoy sewing, gardening, reading and thrifting. Archives
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