300 a Month Challenge

I will be starting  the 300 dollars a month challenge again. Since I didn't keep up on my posting towards the end of last year, I will try to do a recap of what all I spent, all through right towards the end I sort of fell off. All in all though I think I did pretty good last year but hope to do better this year. I do have some new money saving ideas and plans.

I will post every Monday how I did the previous week, and please feel free to share your money savings for the past week also. I will also be posting the menu for the week and the goals for the week.

I don't count daycare supplies since they are tax deductible. And I don't count canning supplies such as jars and lids, I figure they are more of an investment then an expense.

This amount will include stuff for my food storage.

If you are just starting you food storage and want to try and do this challenge, I would suggest if possible to up it to 350 to 400 a month, so you have a little extra to get started with. I can keep mine a little lower because I do have some stuff put back that I have bought on sale and can use instead of having to buy it that month.

You do need to make a lot of things from scratch, I will try to post as many recipes as possible on making your own stuff. 

For this weeks menu.

Breakfast
Oatmeal
Pancakes
Scrambled eggs
Yogurt/fruit
waffles

To these I will add toast or fruit.

Lunch
Waffles
Chicken Noddle soup
French toast
Mac & Cheese
Mini Pizzas

To these I will add  fruit, crackers, or something as a side dish.

Dinner
Crock Pot Chicken Fried Steak with added potato's
Chili with beans and crackers
N. Tacos
Beef Tips with noddle's
Stuffed Peppers and cheese potato's
Chili and macaroni bake
Leftovers

To these I will add a vegetable.

Snacks
Apples
granola bars
Cheese crackers
Cereal
Animal crackers

Andy's snacks that he takes to work
Banana bread and Apple dumplings  

This weeks goals
I have green chili in the freezer that I didn't have time to get canned last fall so I want to get it canned this week.
Start on tax stuff so we are not to the last minute again this year like we were last year.
Lemons and oranges in the dehydrator.
Start on Katie's robe, she got some fabric and wants me to make her a robe out of it.
I got a sock maker and want to start trying to use it.
Start canning lemon juice.
Clean out the chicken coop.

Well hopefully I can get this all done. Plus do a deep cleaning on the house, we are having people over Saturday night to play music.

So what are some of your goals for the week?

Week 1, 2016 Food Storage Challenge

As I mentioned before, this first month will be a jump start to get a little ahead so if things go south before you can get everything you want, at least you have something to survive on.

The amounts are for two people, If you have more just double to what you need.

This first week is 50 pounds of rice. More if you can afford it.
I get white rice as it will store longer then your brown rice.
Also 50 pounds of beans, get what your family will eat. I get pintos they go a long way and are very nutritious.
(A little update, I checked the price of beans and rice at Wal-Mart. for 20 lbs of rice it is 8.92 and 20 lbs of pinto beans are 13.42. So for 60 lbs of rice it would be 26.76 and 60 lbs of pinto beans are 40.26. )

The action item for this month will be to get in shape. If things go south you will be having to do a lot more physical work  you will need to be in shape so that you will be able to do the things you need to do.

The extra item for this month is a car kit if you don't already have one. You will want one for each vehicle that your family drives. Even the teenagers. They may balk at it but do it anyway. A few days ago there was a bad accident that had the highway closed down for most of the night. people were stuck on each end that lived on the other side, so a lot of people were displaced. Joleen's boyfriend and his grandmother had come to town and were unable to get back home, and had to stay with us. But I was able to use that example as to why you should always have a car kit in your vehicle, even if you don't travel very far from home. 

Every week you will want to put back water. You can buy it, or fill your empty juice and soda bottles. You can also store water in your empty canning jars, as you empty your jars just add some water and put the lid back on. you don't have to can this water but if you wanted to you could. I will be doing a separate post on water in the near future.

Every week you will also want to put back a few dollars, even if it is on a small amount it will add up.

Have a great week

2016 Food Storage Challenge

Happy New year to everyone.

A friend asked me a little while back what to do about food storage since she was just starting and money is a little tight, so I told her I would try to find a doable plan for her. I think I found something that would work I kind of based it on my old plan but have tried to add ideas to make it a little more budget friendly.

I really think everyone needs to have some storage put back because to be honest, I am amazed that they have held the economy together for so long. You can READ HERE and HERE to see some of the warning signs that things can't continue the way they are.

I know money is tight for everyone so I am trying to make this doable. I will also once a week post money saving ideas, and do it yourself things to help be able to have a little extra for your food storage.

Once a week I will post items that you need to try and get. This will be for two people, If you have more just double the amounts as needed. There will be two items, the first is what you need to get and the second if you have a little extra money, would make things a little more comfortable. I will also show how to make a lot of the second items from scratch so if money is tight you can still have these with a little extra work.

At the beginning of the month I will add two items, a action item and a purchase item. The action items will not cost anything they will just be things to do to get you and your family ready for hard times. The purchase item will be something a little larger that would be very helpful if you could get. I will give different options to try and fit into as many budgets as possible. 

I will post this every Saturday or Sunday of the year. I have it all figured out so this winter while it is slow I am going to get all the post written, then this summer when things get busy they will already be ready so there will be no interruptions in the post. I am also going to try and get all the items put up on the side board for the whole year, It won't have the cheaper alterative, but will give you a general idea of what is needed.   

The first month will be a jump start. Stuff to help you get by if it all goes south before you have much put back, then in February we will start the basic list.

Please let me know if you have any questions or ideas, I am always looking for more ideas.

Going to give it one more try.

(Thanks Tabitha Graf for the picture)

First off I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and hope you have a great New Year.

I can't believe it has been over five months since my last post. Not sure where the time goes, but have been soo busy. When I started this blog I did it so I could share information, I kind of felt like it something that I needed to do. I wanted to share the information and things that I know with others, and have it all in one place so they wouldn't have to take the time to search for it in different places.

The past few weeks I have really felt a pulling to resume posting so I am going to try again, and work a little harder at keeping up with it.

I will a little later on do a recap of the 300 a week challenge. I did pretty good with it until about the last month or so. So I will share that and start it all over at the first of the year. I had lost my source for fresh milk, but have found another, only instead of trading hay I do have to buy it so that will cut into my 300 dollars, but I will be making all my dairy products except hard cheese.

I got a drop spindle for Christmas along with to balls of wool and a hour of free lessons to learn how to spin it, so looking forward to sharing that with you.   

I also received a serger sewing machine so hope to be doing more sewing projects also.

And been experimenting with, and doing a little once a month cooking. 

Hope everyone has a great week and look forward to getting back on track with my posting.

Dehydrating and Dry Packing Marshmallows

Even though I like to make my own marshmallows, I still like to have some dried and fresh on hand. There are so many things you can do with dried marshmallows. Put them in hot cocoa, in cookie dough, on ice cream, pancake batter, brownies, rice crispy treats, popcorn balls, in carmel corn, oatmeal, frozen yogurt, cereal, or just eat by themselves or what ever else you can think of. 

This really is super easy. Get your marshmallows plain and flavored.

Spread out on your trays and dehydrate at 125 for 6 to 12 hour depending on how many you are dehydrating.  

As you can see they don't change much they stay the same size just get very hard and crunchy.

When done I just dry pack  them into jars. I also pack some fresh marshmallows to have on hand for roasting.

For the fresh ones I add a little powder sugar to keep them from sticking. 

 

Put in jars and use the jar lid attachments. I found mine at Cabelas, if you don't have them, they have regular and wide mouth.  

If you use you use your food saver be very careful not to expand the marshmallows to much. If they do it will be a sticky mess.

 

 

The one on the right expanded to much the other two are right, as you can see they look like normal marshmallows and the one on the right kind of looks like a blob.

 

I like to use this handy little gadget, If you have the attachments for the jars you can use this on them. It is a little easier to control how much air you pull out so you don't expand the marshmallows to much.  

 

 

 

Just put the hand held food saver on the top of the lid attachment then turn on you have to listen to tell when it is enough. It is easy to tell.  

Be sure to store in a cool place.