God provides, right?

Lately we have had a rough time with things needing our attention. Appliances, cars, bills, household repairs, etc, etc. It seems like it is all piling up, and we don't have the extra cash to fix or attend to them all. My mama told me not to talk about financial hardships on the internet. But I bet there are a LOT of people having financial issues right now! And I bet those people are not judging me because we struggle like MANY, right? Lets face it, we are a one income family with five children.

Right now I can think of nine big household issues that keep me awake at night. Really it shouldn't, people can live without these things and do fine. I am reminded of this book I checked out from the library once. Talk about eye opening!

But boy would my life be easier if we had a working dryer and dishwasher.

I keep praying for God to provide for us and bless us with the means to replace or repair some of these nagging things. But I am not sure if He will. Honestly, I wonder if I really have enough faith that He will. I somehow feel like these are things I should be able to control or help myself. I also wonder if maybe He is trying to teach us something by going without. However, Matthew 6:25-27 says:

Do Not Worry

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[a]?

But these things we think are needs are really not in the big picture of life.

I am not sure where I am going with this and need to stop rambling and get some things done before bed. Thoughts are welcome!

Spending less

I have thought about how I was going to keep track of my food budget to share with you. I might have broken down how much I spent on each meal, or how much I spent each day. I figured it was be way too much work to keep up. So, I am just going to budget spending $400 a month. Some weeks I may spend more that $100, some weeks less. I have to admit we did a bit of stocking up, not really on purpose. Last week we heard a friend was selling a 1/4 grassfed organic beef. We bought it for $200, making the price about $2.50 a pound. I also made a trip to Costco and spent $100. I went BEFORE the start of the year, but we are eating food I bought from there now. So how do I count that? I think I will just keep track of all I have spent in Jan. 2010. It will make things much easier.

Yesterday I made bread with my bread machine, using ingredients I had in the pantry. I made soup with ingredients in the freezer, fridge and pantry. I actually used dried beans! (I used to use canned, much more expensive) I did use some of the tortilla chips (3 lb bag!) I bought from Costco to crumble on top.

This morning I made oatmeal for breakfast. I think we will be eating a lot of that in the coming year. I cooked it in the rice cooker; what a great way to do it! I put in 4 cups of water and 2 cups of oats. It was ready in 20 minutes and had a more creamy consistency. We are having leftover taco soup for lunch (I also froze some for later). I will be throwing some beef in the slow cooker and we'll have some beef and broccoli with rice for dinner. Yum.

I came across this site for cheap cooking ideas.

Also, I switched to cloth diapers ONLY. I refuse to buy disposable again. I should hopefully only have six months or less of diapers so this is do able. I haven't bought diapers in over a month! We also are using cloth napkins and rags instead of paper towels. I am planning on making my own laundry detergent again. I made the Duggar's recipe in the past. I didn't like the way it separated. It worked well though. If anyone knows of a better recipe please let me know!

Frugal fire starters

I saw the instructions on here and decided to give it a try today. We were out of our regular fire starters. What a great idea, and they really work better than the store bought ones we've tried.

1. Recycle a cardboard egg carton.
2. Fill each compartment with dryer lint.
3. Pour melted candle wax over the top of the lint.
4. Cut apart.
5. Light the edges when starting a fire.

more frugality...

My friend Sarah (pray for her please) is now a Mega Family Blogger. I clicked on her badge and instantly was linked to larger (mega) families who blog. People with 7 to 37 children. Yes, 37!

I don't fit. I only have 5, almost 6 kids. I am in between. Not quite a mega family, but are we considered large? I think so. Anyway, there are some great hints on money saving on the listed sites, especially on this site, a family with 37 kids.

Here's another site that's worth checking out:

victory garden

and this one's great too!

Budget Tips

From Facebook Friends:

• Go vegetarian
• More with Less Cookbook
• Family Feasts for Under $75 a Week (was written by an adoptive mom, Mary Ostyn)
• try these sites: greatdepressioncooking, fistfulofcoupons, hillbillyhousewife, cheapcooking, simple mom

A new challenge

I am going to be challenging myself next month by playing a little game. Because of our upcoming adoption expenses, and the fact that we really could stand to cut our food budget (or even have a budget!) I decided for the month of January I will see if we can feed our family of 7 for less than $100 a week. I will keep track of our grocery spending and post an update occasionally. If you have any good tips, links, or recipes to help in this endeavor I would really appreciate it. Let me know if it's ok to post it on here to share with everyone.