Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge
Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2018 7:50 pm
This is the final week-end for 2018. It has been a challenging and interesting year. Spent on things I had not planned on but were necessary so it was ok. I will be taking an $81.00 a month pay cut in January 2019 so it will be interesting to see how things go. I should be ok but there is little wiggle room. I did use some extra money that I had to buy some food items ahead that are on sale this time of year. I was lucky that my brother paid half of my property taxes so that gave me a little bit of a break. My current plans for the next several days is to do a pantry, fridge, and fridge freezer inventory and then to make menu plans accordingly.
I am hoping to only buy fresh produce in January to save grocery money towards other things. I want to expand my deck garden but have to come up with some cages to keep my resident squirrel, Dennis the Menace, out of the pots and earth boxes. He ate everything last year including the actual plants. I have hinges, nails, tools etc that I inherited from my Dad. Also scrap wood left from projects from my contractor. The big problem was this year I did not have the extra money to buy chicken wire. I recently had a bit of a, I wonder if you can buy it on Amazon moment? Yes you can! It is much cheaper than the local farm stores and they will deliver it right to my door. I need smaller bundles instead of what farmers usually buy and according to other people who have bought from their site it is good quality and cheaper than going to a brick and mortar store. So I will be using grocery money to buy the chicken wire since it involves food..
My new apple trees did not make it this year. We had such a weird cold spring. Snow on Easter and then right in to a super hot summer. I am thinking of replacing them. You have to do that some times with trees. Some of my peach trees were replanted and my pear tree was killed but I am nursing along the volunteer pear tree that sprouted from the side of the trunk and it produced about 6 pears. It always amazes me how farmers managed to grow and produce things in the past and still survived. I know a lot of them did not and there were very lean times. The weather can wipe you out in an hour with a storm or a season. You just keep plugging along. My three peach trees are doing well now but it has taken me 8 to 10 years to get such wonderful crops. My one apple tree that has survived, after about 10 years, is doing better each year. However the others died or did not thrive and had to be removed.
Looking forward to the challenge of growing more of my own food and being able to freeze or can it. I do have a dehydrator I inherited from my Mom and I need to see if it still works. So 2019 should be an interesting year..
Good luck to all of you who are also working on being frugal and may 2019 be your best frugal year ever.
Janet Alliesmama
I am hoping to only buy fresh produce in January to save grocery money towards other things. I want to expand my deck garden but have to come up with some cages to keep my resident squirrel, Dennis the Menace, out of the pots and earth boxes. He ate everything last year including the actual plants. I have hinges, nails, tools etc that I inherited from my Dad. Also scrap wood left from projects from my contractor. The big problem was this year I did not have the extra money to buy chicken wire. I recently had a bit of a, I wonder if you can buy it on Amazon moment? Yes you can! It is much cheaper than the local farm stores and they will deliver it right to my door. I need smaller bundles instead of what farmers usually buy and according to other people who have bought from their site it is good quality and cheaper than going to a brick and mortar store. So I will be using grocery money to buy the chicken wire since it involves food..
My new apple trees did not make it this year. We had such a weird cold spring. Snow on Easter and then right in to a super hot summer. I am thinking of replacing them. You have to do that some times with trees. Some of my peach trees were replanted and my pear tree was killed but I am nursing along the volunteer pear tree that sprouted from the side of the trunk and it produced about 6 pears. It always amazes me how farmers managed to grow and produce things in the past and still survived. I know a lot of them did not and there were very lean times. The weather can wipe you out in an hour with a storm or a season. You just keep plugging along. My three peach trees are doing well now but it has taken me 8 to 10 years to get such wonderful crops. My one apple tree that has survived, after about 10 years, is doing better each year. However the others died or did not thrive and had to be removed.
Looking forward to the challenge of growing more of my own food and being able to freeze or can it. I do have a dehydrator I inherited from my Mom and I need to see if it still works. So 2019 should be an interesting year..
Good luck to all of you who are also working on being frugal and may 2019 be your best frugal year ever.
Janet Alliesmama