Honestly, this year has been a bit tougher financially as I’ve cut back many of my tutoring hours since I’m going back to school, and that loss of income, though small, can be felt.  On the bright side, I’ve started up a little cottage industry selling Fermented Vegetables in my local co-op, and surprisingly that’s taken off to a good start. Hopefully that can bring in a bit of extra income.

I started to realize that I have complete control over what I spend. Thankfully, we are not in debt (except for our mortgage) and so therefore I really have the power to choose wisely when it comes to spending my husband’s hard-earned cash. 

We’ve stripped our life down to the bare essentials (in my opinon). We own a small, affordable condo.  We own one car. My husband has a great job, closeby, that provides for our needs and has amazing insurance coverage (thank God!).  We homeschool and utilize the local community center for a few affordable classes for the kids, we keep our driving down to a minimum, I stay the heck away from the mall.  We clothe our children with hand-me-downs or cheap finds at second hand stores.  I make most all of our meals. I try to make my husband’s lunch.  We don’t buy expensive conveniece foods.  We don’ have cable, home phones (only cells), dish network, magazine subscriptions, etc.  Our insurance is low and affordable.

So what is the problem?  Well, for some reason we’re still not able to save much money every month, and that really bothers me.  I know I go a little lavish on my food budget because I’m a food snob. I have a problem restraining myself from exotic ingredients.  Well, this year I’m challenging myself to do what this blog is all about: be truly Organic and Thrifty!

Here is my resolution for 2010:

Work to get our costs down to below my husband’s net income so we don’t have to rely on my odd jobs or pull from savings to balance the budget.

…. and ultimately save for my dream home: a yurt on 1/4 acre with southern exposure so I can have my suburban homestead! That might not be my husband’s exact dream…..we’ll see.

Action Steps:

• Grow my hair long again. Save $40 every six weeks on a designer haircut and don’t worry about vanity so much!
• Starting in January,  I’m giving myself a personal “fridge and pantry cleanout” challenge to use every last item in the fridge, freezer(s), pantry, and storage shed until I can see the back of them.  I’m going to blog regularly (hopefully daily) about what I’ve made with what I had on hand.  I am excited to see how long I can make the food last, and also will be eager to see how much we save in the process!
• I’m declaring January a “No Spend Month” (as originally inspired by Shannon of Nourishing Days) other than absolute essentials (toilet paper, etc.). 
• Learn the art of rationing: use bacon sparingly, make almond flour treats once a week only, plan a use for everything, but when it’s gone it’s gone. Learn to live in feast or famine. (No worries, I won’t let my kids starve).
• Simplify menu planning further by creating a month-long menu plan all at once.  Or, just repeat the same theme week after week for a month, and then rotate. I think I’m going to try both ideas and see which one works best.
• To optimize nutrition while saving on ingredients, I’m going to be making lots of soups with bone broth, veggies, and a small amount of meat.  These are real budget-savers, and a couple of soups a week can really make the budget stretch without sacrificing nutrition.
• My new goal is to create as many nourishing, grain-free $5 meals as possible each night. I will post the meals that are worth sharing!
• I’m going to begin making my own coconut milk using dried coconut and hot water. I mostly use coconut milk for soups anyway, so I’m hoping that this process will save a bit of money.
• Ask every dollar “Who are you, and where do you think you’re going?” before spending it (thanks, Dave Ramsey!).

 I’m really excited about sharing my journey and getting back to blogging more about food budgeting while eating real food.  Like I said before, my major motivation right now is to really try to get into a saving pattern so that within the next year or two we really can upgrade and afford to significantly increase our mortgage and purchase a house on 1/4 -1/2 an acre so that I can really work towards more self-sustainability.  This has been a desire of my heart for a while now, but I know that God is teaching me some great lessons here on my little condo “farm”.  I’m excited to graduate to chickens and goats in the near future, and to possibly have more space in my kitchen for culturing more kombucha and such in order to expand my tiny little fermented veggie business.

As always, dear readers, thank you for reading this blog and for your continued support! 

Happy New Year!

Action Steps: Ways I can accomplish this goal:

1. Listen, without judgement when he talks about his day. Be empathetic instead of always so solutions-oriented. (i.e. “Well, why don’t you just…….?”)

2. Spend less money. I’m not a lavish spender. I never buy myself or the kids new clothes (and by “new”, I mean, “new to me”) or toys. We have been blessed by more gifts and hand-me-downs than I could ever use! I don’t even spend much on unnecessary food, we rarely go out to eat….. but nevertheless, the food (and herbal medicines) I feel that we need to nourish our family is sometimes expensive, even without all the boxed, processed junk.

How will I do this?

A) I’ve been inspired by Shannon’s blog to have “No Spend Months” throughout the year.

B) My goal is to continue to be ever more austere in meal planning. For example, I have a freezer FULL of meat that I purchased last summer and am thankful to say that my freezer is still FULL because I’ve been able to use that meat sparingly and make the meat I do use stretch for 3 or 4 meals.

C) In an effort to save money on fresh, organic produce, I am going to have a garden again this year. My 2008 garden wasn’t a huge smash of a success, but it was my start at gardening and there was definitely a harvest. I learned a lot from the experience and now I’m armed with more knowledge than before, and will begin planning NOW (whereas last year it was sort of an afterthought that I put in too late!)

I plan to create a Square Foot Garden in our community plot and am excited to chronicle its success (I’m being positive, aren’t I?) on this blog. I’ve learned that with a minimum expense initially, I can grow enough food for my family and have some extra to preserve.

D) In that vein, I’m also striving to be more creative about reusing old things and making them functional and useful. This is called “upcycling” and I’ve been VERY inspired by my dear friend Michele at Frugal Granola who creatively reuses old items in very functional and beautiful ways. Therefore, I’m going to be doing more knitting, crocheting, and sewing (and will not be buying ANY new fabric, only using what I have stashed over the years) to make gifts for my family and for others. I will share any of my success in that arena on the blog as well.

Major challenge #2 of 2008: Daughter’s health: If you’ve been following this blog, you know a little about my dear daughter’s health. Using the GAPS diet, God graciously provided much-needed healing for my daughter’s constant tummy aches. Through Gaps, God lead us to a new insight about her health. She was recently diagnosed with an attachment disorder due to perinatal neurological damage and her traumatic birth. back in 2005. It’s a long, complicated story, and I might at some point blog more about it, but for now, I’ll leave it at that. An Attachment Disorder is highly ironic considering how much I do in the arena of attachment parenting, but neurological damage is neurological damage. Thankfully, God has lead us to a program of healing called Neurodevelopmental Retraining .

Goal#2 for 2009: To carve out specific one-on-one time with each child. For Kirsten, this means doing play therapy (she loves intricate stories we make up through playing dolls) and working on her neurodevelopmental program which includes creeping and belly crawling and other floor pattern exercises which work to reconnect neurons in her pons brain that were damaged during gestation and birth. Our amazing daughter is a miracle, and a blessing. I want to keep a positive attitude and remember that her behavior, when it’s out of control, has a neurological component that isn’t always “her fault”. Although I know that brings up some complicated child-rearing philosophies that I don’t want to go into right now, but suffice to say, my goal is to continue to show my children unconditional love and joy in all that I do for them and with them.

For Jonathan, this means patiently allowing him to “help” in the kitchen (even when it seems inconvenient) as well as reading more with him (he’s so NOT demanding that sometimes it’s easy to take advantage of him mellowness!) and trying to integrate my two children’s interests together so we can all play (i.e. dolls and cars!) My boy is such a gift from God, so peaceful, so loving, so helpful. He’s so much like his patron saint, John the Apostle! He loves nothing more than to be at my side in the kitchen helping. A future thrifty oreganic? I hope so!

Wow, that’s a long post with a lot of info. I guess my last goal is a personal one. I have taken the resolution to read Scripture every day. I am going to try to read through the Bible in One Year with a daily reading each day. My goal is to do this before I get on the computer to blog each night!

May God continue to fill us with His goodness and inspire us toward a life of simplicity so that we may bless all those around us, and bring peace to the world!

For more inspiring resolutions, please visit one of my favorite blogs, The Nourishing Gourmet!