5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week #172

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Should I just ignore the fact that I haven’t shared a post in this series for months and months? Or should I talk about it?

Your life is busy, my life is busy. Excuses, excuses.

Who cares about the reasons, right?

Whether I’ve written about it or not, the quest to save money in an economy that makes regular living nearly impossible continues. Because of course it does.

Just in case anyone finds help in the ways I’ve managed to save my own family some cash (even in really trying times), I thought I would do my best to get back to sharing ideas here.

And as always, everyone here would love to see your ideas, too! So if you have any good suggestions, leave a comment. But be nice about it. 😉

The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week

Here we go again!

Gardening

My top money saver this summer was growing a big ol’ garden.

Dad came over and plowed a nice space for me, and we grew tons of veggies! The zucchini is still going strong, my tomatoes are just now turning red in abundance. We have feasted on ground cherries (wow, they are addictive!), cabbage, okra, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, and more.

(I have not feasted on jalapeno peppers, despite appearances in the photo above. BUT I DID learn that you can finally kill a hot jalapeno burn by washing your hands under the hottest water you can stand several times until you can do it without crying. Stinking jalapenos.)

We even grew tobacco and cotton for fun.

Plus we have winter squash and pumpkins to enjoy this fall!

Canning Foods

Water bath canning is something I’ve done for a long time. This year, I canned a ton of things.

(Who’s gonna let all that fresh garden produce go to waste?? Not me!)

Price hikes at the stores are impossible to ignore, but I was surprised the last time I had to buy barbecue sauce. How could it cost that much??

So I decided to add that to my canning recipes this year.

Gosh, the list of things I’ve canned is so long! Maybe I’ll make a post with links if anyone is interested.

But the big change this year is that I invested in a pressure canner. (I chose this one after a little research.)

Never mind the fact that I spent an entire day yelling “Don’t come in the kitchen! This thing might be a bomb!”

Despite the anticipated excitement, it didn’t explode or anything. So maybe I should have tried this years ago??

Either way, I’m looking forward to canning beans (which sounds SO easy!!), chicken broth, maybe some soups? Who knows!

By the way, if you haven’t read about my trick for easily cutting corn off the cob, don’t miss it!

Leftover Corn on the Cob

I’ve gotten in the habit of checking the fridge before I make supper anymore. This time, I found a couple of leftover corns on the cob.

(Corn on the cobs? Corns on cobs? Somebody call an English teacher!)

Grammar aside, I didn’t want these delicious beauties to go to waste. (Especially since I got them at a farm stand in our hometown. I don’t know why, but I feel more guilty wasting food that comes from a local farm than food that comes from Kroger. But it’s all wasted money, isn’t it?)

Knowing no one would eat reheated cobs, I decided to cut the kernals off and fry them up on the stove top. I used butter, but oil works great, too. And you can mix it up by coating it in salt and pepper, or chili powder, or paprika, or the Tajin spice your son dropped in the drawer one time and never used again, or whatever you like! It doesn’t have to be the same thing every time.

It literally takes less than 5 minutes to warm it up and serve something the family thinks is new. 😉 Your secret is safe with me!

Picking Pears

Call me food obsessed, I guess. All of these ideas seem to revolve around it.

We have these super tall pear trees, and despite having really tall sons, none of them can reach the top.

My kids thought we should get some of those cool picking sticks like they used at the apple orchard last year.

This was half a cool idea. (I didn’t like the half that involved spending money, though.)

So we grabbed an empty pop bottle that was rolling around in someone’s car (we have five drivers now, so who knows which one it came from!), taped it to the top of a pipe I found in the barn, and made this nifty pear picker.

The cool part is that it actually works!

(To be honest, I kinda had my doubts. So that was a fun surprise.)

Didn’t Hire A Really Expensive Exterminator

I know, you’re thinking What a cop out!

I mean, I also didn’t buy a horse, or move into a mansion this week, either, so I guess I saved money there, too, huh?

Well, let me explain…

You see that?

No? Not a good pic?

Let me try again.

Now do you see it?

Fine. I’m not getting any closer.

That ugly chicken coop of ours is filled with hornets. (They’re ripping the wood apart.)

Not bees. Not pretty little pollinators.

Hornets.

The kind that get a kick out of stinging you repeatedly until you cry for Mama.

And then they call their friends to get in on the action, too.

When I found them in there, I nearly cried. (Because I got stung.)

But I also nearly cried because I had ALL these plans for those two chicken coops! And until I got the hornets out of there, I couldn’t do ANY of those things.

So I pondered on how to get them out.

I came up with a few plans that involved getting a bee suit or using a drone, or borrowing the neighbor’s blow up dinosaur costume (and also one of the neighbor kids to wear it).

None of those seemed quite right.

Then I thought about an exterminator, but $$$$$$… who has that kind of money??

So then I came up with a different plan.

How about we just leave those jerks in there until Mother Nature freezes them all to death this winter?

Guess what that means? I don’t get to hatch baby chicks or try my hand at ducklings, or even pen up the bad chickens that poop on my back deck all the time.

It’s a bummer. But it’s also ok.

I’m pretty sure the Good Lord is trying to tell me to stop taking on so many projects and just be still for a while. So I’m trying to be a better listener.

Those are the 5 ways we’ve saved money this week!

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