The little roll-top with matching swivel chair was just fine and dandy when she was five. Its cute little cubbie holes were a fun place to display her “snow globies” and the small work surface was just perfect for doing a little coloring.

Beyond the undeniable cuteness factor, the desk had become a family tradition.

As a tiny girl, I had colored and played school at that very desk, purchased second-hand for $5 by my folks, who taught me a thing or two about being frugal.

My oldest boy, now 22 and about to graduate college, played office at that desk. My younger son, now 19 and a sophomore in college, took his turn at the desk as well.

But this past weekend, when I glanced in sweet Caroline’s room, the desk struck me as being ridiculously out of place. Piled high with the trappings of a middle school girl, it had not been used for work or play in months, if not years. It had become a keeper of clutter.

My sweet little girl isn’t so little anymore. That was the first thought that hit me, followed by:  She NEEDS a new desk.

Time to go shopping.

But did I really want to spend several hundred dollars on a desk right now?

And as our nest starts to empty and our thoughts have already started to turn to down-sizing, do I really want to bring another incredibly large piece of furniture into the house?

And would she use it?

No. 1 son, once he outgrew the roll-top, sat at his grown-up desk every single day of his life — and still uses it now when he stops in from school. No. 2 son, however, preferred to sprawl across his bed to do homework. His grown-up desk sat in his room loaded with STUFF and, more often than not, covered in dust.

Which brother would she be most likely to follow? Did I want to take that chance right now with a major purchase. We could certainly afford to buy her a new desk, but was it a wise purchase at this point in time.

That’s when the idea hit me.

Yep. With the permission of No. 2 son, we moved that lonely desk of his down the hall, out of his room and into hers.

It may only be a temporary fix because, after all, my son may want/need to take the desk with him when he finishes college in two years. But for now, at least, we’ve shopped from the house, making a not-so-little girl happy.

My wallet’s happy, too. Gives a whole new meaning to “shopping from home.”

(Sweet Caroline’s still at school but when she comes home, I’ll take some photos of daughter and desk and post them for you to see.)

In the meantime, what items in your house have you repurposed? What have you “made do” with instead of rushing out to buy new? Leave your  “shop at home” stories in the Comment section.

Recently, Jaime asked:

What are your favorite stockpile items…items you always have in your pantry for stretching a month of groceries?

Great question, Jaime.

I use two methods to go about stocking my pantry.

The first involves keeping a stash of low-cost ingredients that I can use in a variety of ways to make a lot of the meals that typically appear on my menu plan. I will buy these items with a coupon, if possible, but if not, I try to seek out the lowest price available. That’s where my obsession with Aldi’s comes in.

Here are a few of my pantry basics:

Flour — I like to keep a substantial stash of flour on hand to make my own bread, pizza crust and baked goods. (Right now, there’s a 75-cent coupon out for Gold Medal flour so I’ll be on the lookout for the best deal to stock up on unbleached and whole wheat varieties.)

Yeast — This is an item I’ve added recently as I’ve started to make our own bread.

Oranges and apples — I typically buy a big bag of each of these at Aldi’s. They are inexpensive and last considerably longer than other fruits. (More bang for my produce buck.)

Potatoes — I always like to have a bag of potatoes in the pantry. The DH will bake five at a time, wrap them individually and take one in his lunch each day of the work week. I also use them to make a healthier baked version of french fries as a side dish with our meals.

In the canned goods department, I like to keep a stash of canned corn, tomatoes, black beans and kidney beans, evaporated milk and chicken broth. All of these are key ingredients in meals we often eat.

A few other items I try to always have on hand: tortillas, pasta, peanut butter, pancake syrup, Cheerios, old-fashioned oats, applesauce, chocolate chips, pretzels, dry milk, pasta sauce and raisins.

My second pantry stocking method involves couponing. Basically, if I can get it free or for just a few pennies, I’ll buy as many as possible — within reason, of course.

I’ll use mustard as an example. Come grilling season, mustard coupons will start appearing regularly in the newspaper coupon inserts. And mustard will be on sale in every grocery store. My family ADORES mustard and since we don’t use mayo at all, we go through a lot of mustard. So, I’ll combine those mustard coupons and sales to “buy” a year’s worth of mustard for free. That way, come late winter and early spring, I don’t find myself mustard-less. I’m happy to report, I currently have three bottles on the shelf. (Last year, I miscalculated and had to pay FULL PRICE! It nearly killed me.)

Super Double and triple-coupon promotions, which are offered on a fairly regular basis here in central North Carolina, are a HUGE help in stocking the pantry, along with CVS and its Extra Care Bucks program.

Besides mustard, here’s a random list of some of my most frequent stockpile freebies:  ketchup, salad dressing, barbecue sauce, baking powder, vanilla extract, hot sauce, rice, cake mixes, pancake mixes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, soap, shaving cream and pain reliever.

That about sums it up. I hope I answered your question, Jamie.

I’d love to hear from all of you on this topic. How  do you stock your pantries? What your favorite pantry staples?

And keep those questions coming!

This is only my second week back in the grocery store following a month-long moratorium on spending so this week’s menu is still made up largely of items remaining in our much-depleted stockpile. Luckily, I happened upon a terrific sale on turkey breasts last week for just 77 cents per pound. Using just one of those turkey breasts this week, I’ll be able to make three of this week’s seven dinners plus at least two lunch time sandwiches — all for under $5! If you’ve been wavering on the value of menu planning, I’m hoping I’ve won you over. Think about it. I paid less for one turkey breast than I would have paid for just one “value” meal at most fast-food joints.

Monday: Ziti in the crock pot. This was the meal I planned for last Friday but it never got made. (When schedules unexpectedly changed, the DH and I were able to keep our regular Friday night date with a coupon.)

Tuesday: Pancakes, applesauce.

Wednesday: Southwest roll-ups, salad. I have a stash of these family favorites in the freezer so I won’t have to work very hard to get supper on the table! That’s always a good feeling.

Thursday: Turkey, dressing, veggies, rolls. Part 1 of my triple-play turkey meal deal.

Friday: Open-faced turkey sandwiches, veggies, applesauce. Using leftover turkey, I’ll make these on homemade wheat bread with gravy.

Saturday: Dinner out.

Sunday: Turkey corn soup and crackers. After Thursday evening’s turkey dinner, I’ll pick the carcass clean and simmer it in water for a few hours to make a broth for today’s turkey corn soup. After pouring the broth into the crock pot, I’ll add two cups of turkey, a can of corn and a couple of carrots for an easy and cheap meal. It also happens to be one of our family’s favorites.

Check out other great menu plans at I’m an Organizing Junkie.

For 28 days, we lived in retail rebellion. No money exchanged hands. No credit or debit cards were swiped for discretionary spending of any type. We survived unscathed to tell about it.

Why, exactly, did we choose to do a No-Spend Challenge?

There are many reasons, really, the least of which was saving money.

That might surprise you because we did, of course, save money. (That kind of happens when you don’t go to the grocery except for a couple of gallons of milk and a handful of produce for four weeks straight.) And I will get to all those nitty gritty details later on in this post.

But more than the money, our Month of No Spending was No. 1, a challenge, and No. 2, a reminder.

*a challenge to see how little we could get by on if  we had to…..in other words, if our worst-case scenario occurred and my DH lost his job.

*a reminder of how fortunate we are, both on a personal level and as a country. Nothing like the Great Recession and a couple of earthquakes to bring this point into sharp focus.

Without getting too preachy and/or philosophical, I’ll attempt to explain.

First, the challenge. Could we cut our discretionary spending to zero? How would it make us feel? Would thoughts of deprivation set in, much like an overly strict diet?

Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that difficult. That being said, I realize it probably didn’t seem all that difficult because it was all voluntary. The DH, thankfully, was going off to work each day and his salary was still being automatically deposited into our account. All the bills were being paid. In other words, we were not living with the fear that many in our country are right now because of lost jobs, underwater mortgages, lost health care benefits and no hope in sight that their circumstances will change any time soon.

So from my comfort zone in suburbia, I conducted my little social experiment in “getting by” knowing that Feb. 28 would eventually arrive and we would go back to normal.

OK, so, we began on Feb. 1 with a stocked pantry and freezer, as you can see from the photos I posted here. And no, I did not go out Jan. 31 and run amok through the grocery aisles buying anything and everything I thought we would need in preparation.

In fact, I spent my usual $50 per week for the entire month of January so what you see in the pantry and freezer was pretty representative of how we operate on a typical basis. (It shows the true power of the frugal trifecta:  couponing, shopping sales and meal planning!)

If you’ve been following along, you know we ate fairly well in February. Click here, here, here and here to see our menus.  Improvising was key.

We had an abundance of chicken, thanks to a great sale in December, but not much ground beef. A couple of times I substituted chicken for ground beef — healthier anyway. And twice, I used half as much ground beef as the recipe called for and added black beans. Also healthier.

As I blogged about here, on the ups and downs of no spending, we stretched our milk by freezing some — with mixed results. We also used dry milk in my husband’s coffee and in recipes. It was easy, cheaper and we could not detect any difference in taste.

When our fresh milk and produce ran out, I did replenish them, thanks to a $20 Target gift card I had received at Christmas. (I still have a couple of dollars left on the card so you know I didn’t buy much.)

There was never a single time in the entire month when we felt deprived of food.

In other areas of life, it was also relatively painless to survive a month without spending. That might be because we’re homebodies who are pretty easily amused.  But still.

We used a couple of Redbox codes for free movie rentals. We also borrowed a couple of DVDs from friends and neighbors. Why rent or buy when so many folks have their own mini DVD libraries? Borrowing is one of my favorite frugal recommendations, but be sure to willingly reciprocate.

We took a family walk on the one warm weekend in February, we read books, we went to sweet Caroline’s rec basketball games, and we watched the Super Bowl and a couple of other sporting events on TV together. On the last weekend in February, I actually invited friends over to scrapbook. I made one meal, a friend made another meal and a third brought home-baked goods for dessert. Voila! Free entertainment.

Dining out with cash or credit was also a no-no during the month. Sadly, this meant we couldn’t take advantage of Denny’s free breakfast promo early in the month because I would NEVER stiff a waitress. This also meant we couldn’t use gift cards we had for a couple of other sit-down places. With no money for a tip, we just did without.

We did, however, use our coupons and gift card to Chick-fil-A, which helped ease any fast-food yearnings we had. Luckily, I have a huge stash of coupons for free food at Chick-fil-A.

But our No. 1 secret weapon for surviving the challenge? Our family and friends. My mom treated us to a dinner out one evening and a friend took me out to lunch. Another friend played fruit fairy, leaving a couple of bananas, pears and tangerines on my doorstep. While we were especially thankful for the timing of these love offerings, these folks frequently shower us with random acts of kindness. And, of course, we try to do the same.

What did we miss during the month?

I missed my occasional diet soda indulgence when I found myself out and about and thirsty. I also missed treating my carpool kids to McDonald’s ice cream cones. The DH missed out on a special lunch with his coworkers. I had actually encouraged him to go, but in the end he opted out.

What did we do without?

Probably the hardest thing for me was color ink. We tried to replace our color ink cartridge in late January but our cartridge replacement shop was out of our particular cartridge and wouldn’t be getting it in until February! Drat. I certainly wasn’t going to pay full price at an office supply store so we did without. We did just fine, of course, with black ink only.

We also made do without one of our lights in the kitchen. Of course, it burned out in early February and happened to be the one directly over the kitchen sink area. If I had been a little smarter, I would have switched out the light for one in a less strategic place, but I didn’t. We just made do.

Sweet Caroline went without graph paper for a few days until I discovered an entire pad hiding on the bookshelves in one of her big brother’s rooms. Whoohoo. A win-win. While clearing out clutter, I discovered something we actually needed.

These could hardly be described as deprivation. More like minor annoyances.

Which brings me to how our No-Spend Challenge served as a wonderful reminder of how fortunate, how blessed, we are as a family.

Every evening as I watched the latest news on the Great Recession, I was reminded that real people are living No-Spend Challenges all day, every day and not by choice. They aren’t adding beans to a ground beef recipe; they’re only eating beans.

They aren’t using a gift card to eat fast-food once a week or buy fruits and veggies. If they had any gift cards to start with, they ran out long ago.

And I can only imagine how thrilled they would be if the worst of their troubles was an empty printer cartridge or a burned out light bulb.

On more than one occasion during the month, DH and I found our conversation turned to the subject of gratitude. We shared with each other how thankful we are for each other, his job and all it provides us, our health, our friends and family.

Our Month of No Spending also reminded us about THE STUFF. That  STUFF doesn’t matter. That you can often do without it. That if you do without it for awhile, you often lose your desire for it.

Funny thing about human nature. The less you have, the more you appreciate. Of course, we all know this. We just don’t always remember it.

Oops. I said I wasn’t going to preach or philosophize so I’ll leave it at that.

On to the numbers….

How much did we save?

~Groceries. Since I keep to a pretty strict budget of $50 a week for groceries, I can safely say we saved $200 by not shopping for food and personal care items this month.

~Entertainment. Hard to say how much we saved, given our boring homebody nature. Let’s say $20.

~Dining out. Again, hard to say since we usually don’t indulge much more than our once-a-week fast food treat. I’ll estimate $25. 

~Gasoline. About $75 saved. Since I wasn’t shopping, I didn’t burn up near as much gasoline. I started with a full tank in my Honda minivan and ended the month with about one-third of a tank. In between, I spent right at $75 on gas. In a regular month, I spend almost twice that. Not bad considering I had weekly carpool to sweet Caroline’s  school. And our plans to walk to piano and to deliver Girl Scout cookies were foiled by some of the coldest temperatures we’ve had in February.

~Household purchases. I’m going to say zero, simply because our purchases in this category were merely delayed. We will be replacing that light bulb and printer cartridge.

Estimated grand total of savings for the No-Spend Challenge: $320.

But remember, it wasn’t really about the money.

Pantry BEFORE

And Pantry AFTER

Freezer BEFORE

And freezer AFTER

As you can see, we ate our way through the pantry and freezer, leaving the cupboard pretty much bare. Though I do believe we could have gone a bit longer. Now that really would have been interesting!

I’ll be back later today or tomorrow with a wrap-up post on our Month of No Spending, what we learned, how much we saved and interesting things that happened along the way.

***My apologies for my pantry photos. I didn’t realize until it was too late that I failed to show the top shelf on my AFTER pantry shot. This was an oops on my part, not an attempt to hide a secret stash of Doritos or other illicit purchases!  I could have removed everything I’ve purchased in the last three days to redo the shot, but, truthfully, I’m much too lazy for that. So I hope you understand. Suffice it to say, that top shelf was similarly bare, with just three boxes of Cheerios, two boxes of pancake mix, two boxes of rice and one box of instant mashed potatoes left. Oh yeah, and a couple of bottles of mustard.

It’s March! Which means our No-Spend Challenge is over. Which means I’ll be headed to the grocery to do a full-fledged shopping trip. I’ll be spending my usual $50 per week budget, scouting for extra-good deals to restock my seriously depleted pantry, freezer and fridge.

But, you may be surprised to hear, I won’t be headed to the supermarket until at least Tuesday! I’ve got a lot going on Monday, plus I really want to strategically plan my retail return. So, I’ll be making a shopping list and checking it twice, perusing the sales circulars and heading to at least two stores to maximize my savings.

I’ve also got the extra pressure and excitement of buying groceries for the DH’s birthday dinner and the arrival of two extra mouths to feed when the boys come home from college for their spring breaks.

All of this means that Monday and Tuesday’s meals are based on food I still have on hand after 28 days of shunning the stores and cooking from the pantry. (Luckily, I have plenty of pancake mix, chicken and barbecue sauce!)

The rest of the week, I’ll be cooking with the help of newly purchased groceries.

Monday: Blueberry pancakes, our breakfast-for-dinner selection.

Tuesday: Barbecue chicken sandwiches, veggies, baked french fries.

Wednesday: Grilled cheese, applesauce, pretzels.

Thursday: Cranberry-apple baked oatmeal, a second breakfast-for-dinner selection to help stretch our budget as I try to recoup from our month of no spending.

Friday: Ziti in the crock pot, salad, rolls.

Saturday: The DH’s birthday dinner. He’s ordered up Chicken Tacos, a new recipe I’ll be trying out of Stephanie O’Dea’s Make It Fast, Cook It Slow crock pot cookbook, which, by the way, has become one of my favorite cookbooks ever. Some folks don’t like experimenting with a new recipe for a special occasion, but Mark is an adventurous sort and more than willing to try something new. Besides, I have yet to make a bad meal from this cookbook. (See recipe below.) For his birthday dessert, he’s selected a dark chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

Sunday: Homemade pizza, salad.

*********************************************************************************************************

Chicken Tacos

(Recipe from Make It Fast, Cook It Slow)

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

1 (15-ounce) can of tomatoes with chiles

1 cup frozen corn

1/3 cup water

1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed

corn taco shells

your favorite toppings, such as shredded cheese, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, black olives

Put chicken into a 4-quart crock pot and top with tomatoes, corn, water and beans. Cover and cook on low for 7 to 8 hours or on high for 4 to 5 hours.  Shred chicken with two large forks. Fill taco shells and add your favorite toppings.

For more great ideas on menu planning, check out this week’s edition of Menu Planning Monday over at orgjunkie.com.

]]> http://www.ourfrugaljourney.com/http:/www.ourfrugaljourney.com/menu-planning-monday-our-no-spend-challenge-is-over/feed/ http://www.ourfrugaljourney.com/http:/www.ourfrugaljourney.com/liberation-from-clutter-one-trunkload-at-a-time/ http://www.ourfrugaljourney.com/http:/www.ourfrugaljourney.com/liberation-from-clutter-one-trunkload-at-a-time/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:57:25 +0000 Amy Dunn http://www.ourfrugaljourney.com/?p=2760

So long, stuff.

One of the great side benefits to our No-Spend Challenge during the month of February has been the greater amount of time I’ve had at home.

And one of the tasks I’ve chosen to tackle is our continuing effort to declutter our home.

This is the back of my minivan minutes before I drove it to a local thrift shop that supports low-income families in our area. That brown rectangle in the front is my briefcase, which has sat unused in my closet since 1993 when I left The Miami Herald to become a full-time stay-at-home mom. Inside I found tools of my trade, including a pica pole, a grease pencil and a proportion wheel. Would a young copy editor of today be able to identify these items or explain their use, I wondered.

After two years of pretty steady decluttering, I’m amazed I have this much stuff with which I can painlessly part ways. Sometimes I think my house grows clutter.

See stuff. See stuff go.

P.S. I kept the pica pole and proportion wheel. Even after 17 years untouched, I’m just not ready to let go. Yet.

Think frozen dinners, hot dogs, salami, burritos, french fries and chicken nuggets. I’m not going to say we NEVER eat these types of foods, but we do try to avoid them so I doubt very much we’ll be purchasing any of these items.

Another big portion of the food is from China, which I simply won’t eat or serve my family. I got a little excited when I saw a whole section of frozen fruits and veggies. But sadly, many of them were “products of China,” including bags of peach slices and broccoli florets.

A final group of the frozen foods were name-brand foods, mostly desserts, that you can frequently get much cheaper at the grocery when using coupons. Single-serve Edwards pie slices and ICEE frozen treats are two of the products that I can recall right off the top of my head.

I did, however, find a couple deals. I practically danced a jig when I spotted 10-ounce bags of blueberries, which were labeled “product of USA.”  To compare, I checked the price of frozen blueberries at Harris Teeter. A 16-ounce bag sells for $3.99, and I really haven’t been all that impressed with them.

So once my No-Spend Challenge is over, I’ll definitely be back to try the one-buck berries.

There were also 14-ounce bags of veggies that came from Canada. In a pinch, without coupons, I may try these out.

But the deal of the day had nothing at all to do with the frozen-food section.

Across from the freezers, on the end of an aisle, was a display of Nature’s Own bread, both white and 100 percent whole wheat. At Harris Teeter, a whole wheat loaf is regularly priced at $2.79. So I know where I’ll be buying my bread. I’m trying to bake more and more bread myself but until it becomes second nature, I’m sure there will be weeks when I need to fall back on store-bought.

My bottom line on the freezers at the Dollar Tree and all dollar stores in general: read nutrition labels, look for expiration dates, check for the country of origin and comparison shop. Just because it’s in a dollar store doesn’t make it a deal.

OK, I caved.

I succumbed to the lure of Harris Teeter’s Super Double coupon promotion.

I really didn’t want to break my No-Spend Challenge for the month of February, but I also really hated to miss out on all the great deals.

In the end, I took your advice, my awesome readers, and scavenged for coins in the car, under the sofa cushions and in the laundry room.

Armed with my found money and a bulging coupon binder, I went looking for items that would be free or a couple of cents after coupons. I managed to find a few Super Double deals but not many.

All the FREE Hershey’s dark chocolate bars and Dole pineapple I had dreamed of were looooooooooooooooooong gone, probably just a few hours after the Super Doubling began Wednesday morning. I did manage to get my chocolate fix after all, thanks to a Butterfinger coupon I snared months ago at a gas station.

(Truth be told,  most of my bargains weren’t Super Double deals. Thanks to a wine tag coupon, I scored the Harris Teeter reusable shopping bag. The Quaker Delights were free with 75-cent coupons that doubled and my YoCrunch yogurt was purchased with a FREE coupon.)

In the end, I purchased 16 items, valued at $28.72. After my coupons were subtracted, I owed 34 cents, including taxes.

I counted out my coins and walked out happy.

It wasn’t nearly the haul I typically bring home during a Super Double or Triple-coupon promotion, but I’m OK with that. It just goes to show there’s always another deal around the corner. It also reminded me you don’t need Super Double or Triple coupons to score a great deal.

This week is our final week in our Month of No Spending. The pantry has gaping holes. The freezer has an empty shelf. But, amazingly, we still have plenty of food, which speaks volumes about the wisdom of using coupons to shop, matching coupons with sales and stockpiling those items you use the most when you find a bargain.

We’ve never felt deprived. OK, I did rubber neck the drive-up windows of a few fast-food joints as I drove past.

But seriously, it really hasn’t been that difficult to make our meals from what we had in the freezer, fridge and pantry. I resuscitated a forgotten piece of steak in the crock pot with the help of some barbecue sauce. I baked homemade bread, not as a treat, but in place of store-bought. I roasted a turkey breast and got FIVE meals out of it. Who knew boiling a carcass could be such fun?

This week, I almost feel guilty, having three nights off from the kitchen. As for the rest of the week, the menu is pretty basic. I obviously won’t be experimenting with anything new or different. Just the old standbys to get me through the final days of the challenge.

Monday:  My lucky day. I’ve been invited to participate in a market research panel that not only pays me $75 to give my opinions on one of my favorite topics (organization), but feeds me a light supper. My Mom was kind enough to serve up dinner to her favorite son-in-law and sweet Caroline so I essentially get the day off from kitchen duty.

Tuesday:  Crock pot salsa chicken served over brown rice. Jello with fruit. I’ll be pulling the salsa chicken out of the freezer, thanks to some double-batch cooking earlier in the month.

Wednesday:  Cheeseburger pie and baked french fries. If this sounds awfully familiar, you are correct. I was supposed to make this last week, but leftovers were threatening to take over the fridge so I put my cheeseburger pie plans on hold. No sense in letting perfectly good leftovers go to waste!

Thursday:  I think we’ll have pancakes, a batch of whole wheat blueberry for supper, and a batch of chocolate chip for dessert. As you probably know by now, I absolutely love to serve at least one breakfast for supper each week. It’s a great way to save money and it adds a little fun to the menu line-up.

Friday:  Out to eat with one of my Chick-fil-A coupons for a FREE sandwich. Let’s just say purchasing a couple of Chick-fil-A calendars back in November turned out to be a wise investment.

Saturday:  A big batch of chili and homemade bread. I’ll be having friends over to scrapbook so I’ll be making a giant batch of chili in the crock pot with sour cream and shredded cheese for toppings.

Sunday:  On the final day of our No-Spend Challenge, I won’t have to cook at all. A friend is bringing supper over as we continue our scrapbooking weekend. (More on that later in the week.) . I can’t think of a better way to celebrate 28 days of no spending.

For more great meal plans and recipes, check out orgjunkie.com.