Freeze Your Buns off Challenge 2008

I thought that you all would be interested in this challenge. Though you are not expected to turn the heat off entirely, you are expected to turn it down a little.

The benefits are less pollution and a bit more money in your pocket.

Shannon

P.S. Check out the rest of the blog while you are their. It is a good one.

What it means to be poor…

One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people can be.

 

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”

“Did you see how poor people can be?” the father asked.

“Oh Yeah” said the son.

“So what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father.

The son answered, “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. 
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. 
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. 
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. 
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. 
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. 
We buy our food, but they grow theirs. 
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.”

With this the boy’s father was speechless. Then his son added, “Thanks dad for showing me how poor we are.”

~Author Unknown~

A Project and a Recipe

Hope you are all doing well.

One of the things that I did for the holidays was make tied-fleece pillows for my nieces. They loved the pillows, even though they were made from recycled materials. The gifts went over well. I did not have to pay anything to make these.

Yesterday, I had some Christmas leftovers to use up. We made an interesting lunch with them and some hamburger helper. I only paid .66 for the hamburger helper. Everything else was free leftovers.

Shannon

Take Advantage of After Christmas Sales

Hello everyone! Hope your holidays went well. I have been spending less time blogging and more time with family, but I have some ideas for upcoming information.

Here is an article that I recently added to another blog. It is about after Christmas Shopping and really applies to everyone.

Hope that you enjoy it.

Shannon

Electric Bill Savings

I received a letter from the electric company yesterday telling me that, because I was approved for fuel assistance, I will be getting a discount on the distribution portion of my electric bill. After some figuring I discovered that, had I gotten the discount last month, I would have saved about $20.00 off by bill.

That would have been helpful, as I still owe them $24.00 for my last bill. It will be helpful in the future, and I will likely average a little more savings than mentioned above during the rest of the winter months.

Why? I hadn’t been running the furnace much until just the last couple of weeks, so the full cost of running it was not reflected completely on the last bill.

Of course, that means that what I have to pay will also be more. Every little bit helps right now.

Shannon

Affordable Food Storage

I am currently reading up on food storage. My idea is that I would like to be stocked for a year on most everything. The food and the fuel will be the hard ones, as they are the most expensive.

So far, I have found two helpful articles:

1. How to Afford Food Storage
2. Start Your Food Storage on $10.00 a Week

This type preparedness system could be included in your pantry. It makes perfect sense.

Apparently there are those who believe that stocking a pantry well is hoarding. I disagree with this assessment, particularly if your family has little money, which is happening on a more wide spread basis now.

Indeed, by purchasing items on sale (and with coupons when possible), those of us on lower incomes can stock up and save money at the same time. We could build our stocks slowly, eventually shopping from our pantry each week, and adding to the pantry when things are at their lowest possible prices.

We could, essentially, save a lot of money this way. This could possibly allow us to need less financial assistance in the long run.

Whether the links above may not tell us how to do this the cheapest way possible, the sites can truly help us in developing our own stock-up plans.

Happy Reading!

Shannon

Free Cell Phone for Low-Income People

If you live in one of the states below, you may qualify. I do not, though I can see where a cell phone would come in handy. I have a TracPhone myself, but keep relatively few units on it. I use it for:

* Business: The daycare children’s parents can call me when they are out of school or work to see where to pick up their children. This saves them gas, and me from rushing around so much with a bunch of children in tow. We can go to the playground, and their parents can pick them up there.

2. For me and Zowie: We each have a TracPhone with relatively few units. We text each other, mostly. She walks to the city bus pick-up. The bus has undesirable people (Not all of them, but it is not 100% safe).She goes here and there for her education (we homeschool) sometimes walking 4 miles or more on her own in a day. We are both so busy! I always know where she is. If either of us has a question, we can get the answer right off, which helps us with scheduling. If she has an emergency, I know. She actually does have a pretty severe medical condition that she has many problems with, and sometimes spends more time at the hospital than anywhere else.

It really does come in handy for us, but we can only afford units occasionally. Everyone knows to state their business, get their answer and hang up quickly.

It sure would be nice if this was in my area.

Alabama
Connecticut
New Hampshire
Delaware
New York
D. of Columbia
North Carolina
Georgia
Pennsylvania

https://www.safelinkwireless.com/EnrollmentPublic/Home.aspx

Have a nice day!
Shannon

Frugal Finds for Your Consideration

I was checking out the tag surfer today and came across some things that may interest you:

 

• Copperwyre’s Blog: Stretching a Penny until it’s Copper Wire – Last minute meals, savings secrets and more can be found here.

 

 

• Prepare Today Newsletter - a collection of information to assist others in their preparedness efforts

 

• Homemade Cleaning Products

 

Have a nice day!

Shannon

Updates, and Sick? Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

I have been sick since Friday, plus I was helping out friend all day yesterday, so I have not been posting to the blogs.

I will be posting more this week. For now, why don’t you head over to Frugal Recipes for the Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup recipes that my daughter and I concocted over the weekend.

 

Shannon

Holiday Trail Mix

Most of the holiday recipes I have also work for Thanksgiving, so I probably won’t have a lot in the way of holiday recipes to post for the winter holidays.

However, I do have a simple one for trail mix. Visit Frugal Recipes to view the recipe.

Shannon