Archive for the ‘Frugal Living’ Category

In addition to my sundry ramblings about our journey to home-baked bread (below), I wanted to specifically talk about the cost.

I’ve heard people wondering if, these days, you can really make bread at home any cheaper than you can buy it in the store.

I think the answer is, “Yes, and No.”

The bottom-line calculations for this would involve a lot of time, measurement, and calculation. When I looked at all the issues, I decided it wasn’t worth it to even “go there.”

A cursory online search found people’s calculations of the cost of a loaf of homemade bread, including energy, between $0.50 and $1.50 (which included beer). In an absolute sense, I suspect that my bread would come out about on par with the cheapest loaf of bread I can buy at the store (about $0.89 around here for a loaf of Publix grocery store brand white bread). If you have a bakery outlet near you, or similar opportunity, you can probably get it cheaper.

But I have absolute power over my bread.

My bread has no High Fructose Corn Syrup and no preservatives. I use baking powder that has no aluminum, and unbleached four. I use real butter, not artificial and chemical stuff. I add nonfat dry milk for extra protein, and I can switch it up by adding some whole wheat four, oatmeal, herbs, or whatever strikers my fancy.

It makes the whole house smell wonderful, tastes wonderful, and makes my family feel nurtured and happy.

…And I’m positive that my bread costs far less than the price tag of the kind of bread I prefer to buy in the store – approaching $4 per loaf!

I started out using the basic boule recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking.

It tasted nice, and would be fine as bread with soup… but there’s just no way you’re going to be using that for sandwiches.

Luckily, I was pointed towards the terrific blog Everyday Food Storage (actually part of a set of three!), and her recipe for EZ Bread (which I double).

We’ve been eating nothing but homemade bread for over a month now. Each batch we’ve tweaked the recipe just a little, as we learn more about what works, and what we like.

• I use 1 cup of rolled oats in place of 1 cup of four. I’m working on getting some wheat germ in there, too. The kind of “bitter” taste of whole wheat four is just not something the family can seem to get over, so I’m trying to find other ways to get some more nutrition in there.
• Nick and I are learning about watching the dough in the mixer “kneading,” and knowing when you need to add a bit moe flour or water. Recipe or no recipe, there are enough other factors (temperature, humidity, etc.) that this part is more art than science.
• To get the bread nicely done inside and out, we had to lower the cooking temperature and increase the time.
• On a suggestion from an online forum, I butter the top of the loaves when they come out.  Yummy!

We did decide it would be worth it to invest in some better bread pans.  The kind most people have at home (and what I had) are actually smaller than a “real” bread loaf – great for banana bread, but not so much for regular bread-making.

I chose a pair of 1 1/2 lb. Chicago Metallic Commercial Bread Pans, and have been simply delighted with the big, beautiful, evenly-cooked loaves they’ve turned out.

We’ve made our bread into monkey bread, dinner rolls, and pizza crust. My next project is to work on hamburger buns (there’s a great recipe for that on the original Homestead Blessings DVDs I reviewed on Life on the Road!).

It’s surprisingly easy, takes very little hands-on time (especially if your KitchenAid is doing the kneading), and is one of the most gratifying homemaking tasks in my day.

The Everyday Food Storage blog had another great tip for saving even more time: When you bake a batch, make up several more batches of dry ingredients in zip-top bags. Then making the next few batches is super-quick!

You can also make multiple batches on a big “baking day,” and freeze them – slice first for ease of straight-from-the-freezer use.

If you’re not making bread for your family, you’re missing out on a blessing!

It’s just plain too expensive to keep buying the kids new books and DVDs to keep up with their avenous (if wholesome) appetites.

Sure, we have a Blockbuster Online rental program for movies… But it’s so nice to own the “Little House” series that we’re watching together as a family, gradually. And those favorites that people want to see again and again.

And there’s the library, of course. But what do you do when your kid has read everything there that he finds interesting and you find appropriate? Or when you want a certain book that’s out of print and they don’t have? I know some people use interlibrary loan to great effect… I’ve not had that much success with it – or maybe just not librarians who cared enough to really help out.

And then if it’s something you want to keep for a reference?

I looked at a lot of swapping type sites out there, and I found the whole process exhausting.

What are the odds, after all, that the person who wants the book I’m trying to get rid of actually has a book that I’m interested in?

But then I found the site of my dreams – actually two versions of it.

• I set up my account, and list all the books (or DVDs, respectively) that I want to swap – and they even give you a couple of free credits just for doing that!
• Someone else in the system “requests” a book from me.
• I pay the postage to send it to them (Media Mail, not too bad). I get one “credit” in the system.
• I can use my credit to order any book listed in the system (and the sender pays to ship it to me).
• They even have a “Wish List”, so you can automatically request an unavailable book you want if someone posts it!

It’s free to join, so what have you got to lose?  Except, you know, those books collecting dust over there…

Click these handy (giant) buttons to go to PaperBakcSwap and/or SwapADVD.

It just plain makes sense.

I recycle homeschool books this way, as well as Nick’s reading “stack”…

We’ve gotten rid of the DVDs we had accumulated over the earlier years of our lives that we don’t feel are good family entertainment. And, for instance, I just received the six-disc set of Little House on the Prairie Season 3.

I haven’t done the math myself, but according to PaperBackSwap, based on a used book price of $4.50, I’ve saved over $2,200 using their service. Not too shabby, eh? And imagine the cost of new books…

Full Disclosure Notice: There is a referral bonus awarded at PBS, and probably at SwapaDVD, too. Last time I checked it was 1 credit for each referral who posted their initial 10 books. So I will benefit if you click through my link and check it out – although I would have to tell you about it anyway, since it’s too good to keep a secret!

Of course, that also means that you can get some extra credits by referring your friends to sign up…

I recently ran across an ad that got me thinking: Survival Seeds.

Although I haven’t started yet because our housing situation is so uncertain, I have my heart set on starting a garden.

I want to grow a substantial portion of what our family eats – for reasons ranging from cost, to nutrition, to sustainability and independence, to teaching the children important life skills.

The Survival Seeds ad copy touches on a lot of “hot button” issues, but it also makes a lot of factual claims that I don’t know enough to know about.

I’ve often wondered why, for most plants, you hear people talking about either buying seeds to sprout or buying seedling plants from a nursery – over and over again every year.

Why can’t you just keep some of your crop for next year’s seeds?

Apparently, at least part of the reason is that so many of today’s food plants are hybrids, or “engineered” – and in many cases specifically designed to not be able to reproduce! They can make the fruit (or vegetable), obviously, but the seeds are sterile.

This can only be overcome by purchasing heirloom seeds or plants. Another good thing about these is that they are the original plants that God designed.

I’ve read elsewhere that you can have problems with cross-polination with the “modern” plants degrading your heirloom varieties, even to the point of sterilizing them. How do you keep your stock “pure”?

Survival Seeds also warns that these seeds are getting harder to come by, although it’s hard to tell if that’s just a scarcity tactic on their part.

So what is the value of these seeds – is it a good deal?

My cursory Internet searching turned up heirloom seed packets for an average of $2 – $3. Unfortunately, I’m not enough of a gardener to understand how many of those you’d need to plant your acre, so that doesn’t help me much.

I found a similar “plant a reproducing acre” kit from Sweet Corn Nursery, for about the same price.

There’s also a “Victory Garden” from Heirloom Seeds, which offers an optional “sealed in plastic” packaging – although this only claims to be good for three years’ storage, the cost is under $100. If you want to have it for “just in case” for the next couple of decades that won’t cut it, but for me to plant right now it could be the way to go.

And what about that long-term storage solution? Will it work?

I’d be very interested in hearing from any farmers or gardeners out there with your thoughts!

I don’t think of myself as a fanatic in the “environmentalist” category.

I absolutely care, don’t get me wrong… But I think people can get a little nutty with that stuff.

Like the impression I got from the woman in front of me in line at the health food store last week: Crepe-y mumu type dress, Birkenstock sandals, re-usable (purchased) shopping bags, buying granola, organic overpriced everything, drives a Smart car – when not riding her bike, vegetarian, doesn’t shave, wirries a lot about Global Warming…

I just don’t see myself in her.

And then I got to thinking about it some more.

Of course we turn off lights when we leave the room, hang laundry to dry, use Tupperware over plastic baggies, and turn off power strip to kill “vampire” draws… But everyone does that stuff, right?

People who are “environmentally conscious” use paper towels that are made from recycled paper, and they make sure to put them in the recycle bin whenever possible.

But we use cloth for everything, and don’t buy paper towels at all. (I do keep one roll in the house for a few exceptions – like bacon).

Sure, I have to wash them, but tossing a few “un-paper towels” in with my regular wash doesn’t seem like it’s an awful lot of “footprint” compared to the manufacture, packaging, shipping and disposal of a roll of paper towels (plus cardboard core, plastc wrap outer, etc.).

Skating on the daring edge of TMI, I’ll just allude to the fact that we also use cloth for personal hygene matters, eliminating the need for disposable feminine products, and greatly reducing our consumption of toilet paper.

Those cloths all go in with the diaper laundry… Oh yeah, cloth diapers…

It is so tied in with my feelings about being a good steward for my family’s resources, that I often don’t think as much about the environmental impact.

Hey, green’s my favorite color. I’m glad our cloth makes us Greener than I thought!