I realized I never did post about whether or not I met my goals for June. Turns out that we’re still spending a lot of money on little trips to the grocery store to feed our sugar habit (often masquerading as forgetfulness). I made yogurt once, but, afraid to heat the raw milk too high and kill all the wonderful enzymes, it never turned out, and so I bought a 6 quart pack of Nancy’s from Azure Standard. I originally planned to limit my daily showers to 3 minutes, but when that didn’t seem possible for me (who had managed to get soaped and shampooed in less time while in US Navy Bootcamp, back in the day!), I started taking them every other day, and then every third day. I am now down to two showers a week, although I am inclined to shower more frequently during my menstrual cycle (for obvious reasons). Nate continued to bike to work for 4-5 days out of a 6 day work week, and although he had to drive to the VA hospital in Vancouver (WA) a few times, he was reimbursed – he promptly took the money and refilled our tank!
I think I only half understood what I was doing when I spent over $450 on bulk items from Azure Standard in the last month and a half. Nate was working a lot of overtime, he made over $2,000/month for sure, and so I took this opportunity to buy 75 lbs of three varieties of beans, 10 lbs of salmon, 4 chickens, 6 lbs of ground beef, and many other assorted dried and paper goods. I’ve got pintos and lentils sprouting on the counter right now, I made 5 loaves of bread and chicken stock yesterday, and salmon is thawing in the fridge. The chuck roast I bought from the grocery store is on it’s third left-over day (and there’s another one in the freezer). Now that Nate’s working regular hours, we’re back to $2,000 a month, and, we’re hoping we’re finding that even though we’re not meeting July’s goal of not going to the grocery store at all (more on that in another post), we’re are figuring out which things we’re likely to forget, so that eventually, grocery store shopping will be obsolete, and our food bill will even itself out to something less than $300 a month.
1 Comment
August 6, 2008 at 7:16 am
I think you should try making yogurt again. My first attempt failed miserably as well, but I found foolproof method (Laurel’s Kitchen):
Fill a qt jar with 3-1/2 c. warm water (100-110 degrees), pour 1 c. of that into a blender, add 1 c. non-instant powdered milk and 1/4 c. plain yogurt (with live cultures). Turn blender on low. As soon as it’s smooth, stop blender, and pour mixture into the jar with remaining warm water and cover. Put it in the oven with the light on or pilot light on (depending on your stove) for 3-1/2 hrs to 8 hrs. As soon as the surface of the yogurt resists a light touch of your finger, it’s ready. For a tart flavor leave it another hour. Refrigerate and cool completely before using.
I did this last night and it turned out perfectly!