While I will not pretend that it's easy, I will say that it's amazing how much I'm learning daily and how living frugally permeates all areas of life.
I find myself driving slower on the freeway (going only 5 miles over the speed limit instead of 15 - just being real y'all!) and boy! Have I conserved gas! I used only 1 tank in 2 weeks!
I'm taking full advantage of our slow cooker and have found that prepping for dinner in the morning works best for our family. Especially since the little ones seem to melt down just before dinnertime. ;)
Our meals have become much simpler. It's amazing how most recipes in my cookbooks are quite complicated and require tons of ingredients. And while I truly enjoy creating fancy meals, simple is better and stretches farther when you are living off limited resources.
Evermore we are seeing how incredibly blessed we are.
I have never been more excited to receive our farm box on our front porch as I was this past Wednesday morning! To find bananas, an assortment of squash, apples, pears, broccoli and so on was a true delight to me as we were running low on produce.
I realized how much we take for granted and how so many in this world don't get even this much.
We have a freezer containing fish & chicken, a pantry stocked with an assortment of items and we get fresh eggs and produce weekly. And yet I'm anxious about whether we'll have enough food?
This process has made me truly appreciate how blessed we are. And has softened my heart for those in this world that have not.
That whole deal about us being in the elite 1% in our world is so true..and we take it for granted.
Another big lesson learned is how quickly our children pick up on our plenty and get used to the luxury of choices. Our 4 year old has had a bit of time getting used to eating only what we make for her. And she's not really picky! She's just used to having options. Now she eats what I make or goes hungry. It's tough, but it's what I grew up with! I didn't even realize it had come to this point with our children, but I think they are learning to appreciate what we have as well.
We looked at our bank account yesterday and we have already saved $1000! And no, that's not simply on food.
You don't realize it until you freeze spending...how much we spend!
An Amazon order here, a Shutterfly photo deal there, a stop at the Dollar Tree or Starbucks or the grocery store for items we run out of. Don't even get me started on extras that catch our eyes while walking through Costco!
Now I want to be real and share that we did need to spend this weekend on an unexpected project for our house (to keep our toddler out of the cat poop that our neighborhood cat prefers to deposit in our sideyard - gross!). My husband has weekly work meetings at a restaurant that he needs to buy lunch for. He also is going hunting for our Thanksgiving turkey this coming weekend, so will have some cost for that. There are definitely a few things that have come up that we didn't plan for. No one is perfect and I certainly don't pretend to be.
But we are changing our mindset about spending - we don't HAVE to!
And that's the lesson we want to learn. Can we live with what we have and can we save some extra in the meantime.
Yes we'll need to purchase some things at the end of this month. We've run out of maple syrup & beer and are running low on many things, but we can press through. We can get creative and make some of our own, for example I just made bone broth with leftover chicken bones & can now make soup this week!
Our meals over the next two weeks are bound to be interested and I'll keep updating my Instagram feed with photos of our creations. Stick along for the ride!
