Thrifty Thursday: switching from two to one income

Okay, a few of the ideas I found at thriftideas.com weren't exactly news items. We all probably pretty much know these things or think of them as common sense, but they are good reminders.


Surprise to me:
~You can freeze milk! As a seldom-milk-drinker, I buy the smallest amount possible when I know we'll have use for it, but still often find myself throwing some of it away a week later.


My Favorite Tip:
~Make-ahead your own basic and convenience food supplies. Such as granola, jam, hard-boiled-eggs, applesauce, etc. Sure, we can get them pre-made, but for quite a price!

Announcing: Totally Free Find!!!
I was stoked last night to find Kitchen Manuals Online, where I finally found the instruction manual for my $5 yard sale bread machine! I could have also gone through the manufacturer but every time I've tried in the last month, I get errors! There are also sites out there that will charge $8+ for these manuals! Don't pay for a manual until you've checked this site out! I was able to go directly to a PDF File and save it right onto my laptop.

I've been thinking more and more about living on one income. Neither me or my hubby are executives, making six figures (I don't think we even make 6 figures between us!) so it's not like living on my hubby's income would be simple. Then again, if we were making 6 figures, we'd be living a different lifestyle and the changes necessary for going from two to one income would also be hard.

But let's face it, living in America, in New England (and some other areas) is rather expensive. Yes, we've gotten used to living a certain lifestyle. In my estimation, it's rather frivolous of us to go to two NASCAR races every year (and this year we're adding a third-ouch!). And I think it's frivolous to have "more than basic" cable. I'm sure there are a ton of other things we're spending money on that are totally unnecessary, but I digress.

At stretcher.com I found this article which talks about going from two to one incomes. I loved reading Sue's entire story, but was thrilled at how she ended it: "I think the one thing we have learned from this transition is that time is a commodity that people rarely put a price on and yet it is probably the most valuable thing we possess."

At Kaboose.com, I found another arcticle about switching from two to one income. As I've mentioned, I don't know if we'll be able to have kids or not, but I definitely want to stay home regardless.

The more I think about the ways in which we can save, cut back, and make extra money doing other things, the more I come to realize many of these things take time out of the day. Not that I'm looking for the "easy way out," but I'm being realistic about my abilities and expectations. We still don't have a 40 hour day and I'm still not going home after working all day to weed the garden and sew up crafts to sell and fold the laundry and turn the kitchen into a showplace.

It's just not...gonna...happen.

I haven't even broached the subject with my hubby yet, but I want to make living on his income work. Before I bring it up with him, though, I think I have to have all my little duckies in a row or he'll completely dismiss the idea! I quit my job once before to pursue a career with a direct sales company and it ended in disaster. We were so deep in debt it looked hopeless. Our marriage suffered and I slipped into the biggest depression I've ever experienced. I anticipate that the first words I speak about this will completely shut my hubby down and he'll stop listening.

But I think, given the experience we had before, we can make it work this time. We hadn't changed our lifestyle any. I drove a gas-guzzling SUV, we went out to dinner, I still impulse shopped, we made no changes. We lived in an imaginary world and were rudely awakened by ruining our spotless credit and the phone ringing off the hook from collectors' calls. Ouch.

This time, we have the benefit of our previous experience to teach us what NOT to do.

Grouch alert

Cooking...
I was grouchy yesterday and by the time I got home (late) I wasn't getting any less grouchy, so we had what I'd dubbed growing up as the "Christmas Eve Special" because it was what we ate while we decorated the Christmas tree and Christmas Eve Special just sounds better than Christmas Tree Decorating Special. This consists of a very grueling preparation of... kielbasa, sliced cheese and crackers. My hubby likes to add horseradish to it. I like kielbasa with horseradish, but it wasn't working with the cheese for me.




I even broke out the paper plates for this one and pulled out the step stool so I could reach the wine glasses. Due to health complications I can't have alcohol, but caffeine free Pepsi is somehow just that much more enjoyable in a wineglass after a grouchy day! Needless to say, I didn't get around to making my special relishes and olives, but then again, I have time tonight...
Free stuff...

Here are some things that should have cheered me up:






Two Totally Free Finds! Thanks to freecycle.com, I won a very large bag of used nursing scrubs and another bag containing two Batik sheets. Two totally separate offers on the same day. Go me!

Sewing...
Then I learned how to darn socks! I googled it and went to a totally random site and I'm not going to give credit because quite frankly, the directions weren't very good. I'm sure there are others out there if you google them and you'll get better directions!





But it was good enough to get me started and I figured everything else they left out on my own! A good tip I got from the site: In leiu (anyone know how to spell?!) of going out and purchasing a darning egg and needle, a light bulb and the longest sewing needle you have will do the trick too.
Normally I'd use a color matching the sock, but for my first time I wanted to make it easy on myself so I used two contrasting and bold colors. There's actually a few things I see wrong with this darning job, but for my first time, I'm psyched! One tip I learned on my own:






If your sock is long enough, make a loose knot over the end of the light bulb. This keeps everything steady; just be sure not to make the knot so tight that it stretches the sock too much. It should be secure enough that the bulb isn't moving around inside the sock but with ease enough that it isn't pulling at the hole. If your sock isn't long enough, I imagine a rubber band or just tying it off with strong floss or ribbon will do the trick as well.
I felt guilty about laundering my new fabric finds while there was a monster-sized pile of regular laundry to do, so I worked my way through that pile last night and found three more holy socks, so I'll get lots of practice in the next couple of days!

Play time...

Then I played with my camera taking ubber close shots of my shells. So cool!

I can't recall where I found these tiny shells, but I absolutely adore how small and thin they are!




And my very first Lazy Daisy. Room for improvement but not a total failure.

There's something about the texture of finished cross stitch and the softness of the floss itself. I just love it!

Then I pulled out of storage the one piece of my finished cross stitches that I have in my possession. This was supposedly a gift to my hubby after our first year of dating. Yeah, giving a guy a cross stitched pillow case and pillow...not exactly a thrill for him. I quickly got it back! Well it gave me great pleasure to photograph it and recall all of the fun things we did that first year. I think I'll post about that back story separately.



TMI?...

I've been pretty teary these last couple of days and that tells me the depression is here and strong. In thinking about how I'm doing socially, how often I choose NOT to withdraw, and when I do...I also do what I can not to get "sucked under" so to speak; I think I'm doing okay considering. In the past I'd be making excuses not to get together with the ladies this weekend no matter how long it had been since I'd seen them. I'd say I was sick and couldn't help out at church on Sunday. I'd tell the outreach director some story about stress at home and work and say I couldn't take on the furniture ministry right now.
But I'm not doing any of those things. I can't say I'm exceeding expectations in any given area, but I'm not ducking out of LIFE. I'm still staying with it, still fighting. And God, how hard is it?! But I'm not giving up. Not this time. It's not going to steal my life away again!

Getting organized...

Last night my hubby and I went out to eat for our Eighth Anniversary even though today is the actual anniversary day. We used to go out to dinner all the time until we plunged ourselves into debt and wondered what we'd spent all our money on!
Now the rule is that we only go out to eat when we have a gift certificate to the place. Personally, I'd never previously heard of giving a gift of dining out, but apparently it's a big thing in his family because that seems to be the gift of choice among them. So we took one of our gift certificate and went to a favorite Italian place on main street and ate WAY too much! One of my hubby's favorite deserts is a plain canoli and he gets it every time we go to this particular restaurant. I chose the molten lava cake ... mmmmm! (But with whipped cream, not ice cream!)
Another highlight of our dining experience was the table side Caesar salad for two! They bring this cart out and the server makes the dressing in the wooden bowl with fresh anchovies, "egg product," worcestershire sauce and everything else that goes into it, then adds the lettuce and serves it up! It's a fantastic experience! The first time we did this was on our honeymoon at Peppe's Ristorante in East Stroudsberg, PA. Now, it's a special thing we splurge on from time to time...like on our anniversary!
I promised pictures of my newly reorganized craft space, so here they are! This reminds me...the large rose painting in the middle of the wall was a total find! I was driving home one weeknight and it was just sitting on the side of the road...not 10 houses away! I grabbed it up, dusted it off and hung it on my wall! I also scored two stools for my breakfastnook in the kitchen. They are perfectly well constructed, not falling apart or needing touch up paint at all! Just cast offs for no obvious reason! Very cool scores...but back to my space...
The ironing board is usually folded up against the wall, but my hubby had taken it out to iron his shirt for our dinner out. (yes, I'm so blessed...he knows how to use the iron!)





Part of my reorganization project was to find a place for all our NASCAR themed hats. I think there's a Red Sox one in there too, but for the most part, it's all NASCAR! We already had a couple nails holding a hat or two on this beam, so I just added a few more in uniformly spaced intervals and voila...a place for the hats out of the way and it also is another element delineating mantown from craft corner! (Note the two rolls of duct tape on the top of one of my shelves...still waiting for a time that we can make my duct tape dress form!)



I also used clear packing tape to hold down an extension cord leading under the bureau and straight to an outlet. The sewing machine power cord is taped under the table top to reach the power cord. I still haven't decided if I'll keep the iron on the table all the time. I think the next project I do will be a cover for the bureau top so I can use that surface without being paranoid about ruining my hubby's family heirloom any more than I already have!



My next organizational project will be getting my shell collection...





into my new shelf unit. I think I mentioned this in a previous post but didn't have a picture of it yet. I found it this weekend for $1! I'm a little concerned about dust control in this type of novelty shelf unit, but I'd picked up a can of air (lol...for real!!) for my desk at work awhile back and I think it'll be usefull for this too.




And lastly, I'm so excited about my gas savings efforts! I thought I'd have lower gas mileage than last fill-up because I found myself frequently going over 70 mph on the highway, but in fact I made better gas mileage! Last fill-up I was at 31.2 something and this morning I calculated it at 31.9!!


Plus, we have it so good...the gas station right by our house is typically a few cents lower in price than the other stations in the area. I got gas this morning for only $3.93/gallon!