Re-budgeting Myself, Part 2

After evaluating all my expenses in my last post, this is what I've come up with for my actual monthly budget (sans rent, utilities, and subscriptions like Netflix, which are the same constant amount every month):

Groceries: $120
This will include food, of course, but also general household supplies and hygiene items. I think I'm actually over-budgeting here- I can't really see spending more than $25 per week, but I'll give it a try this way for a couple months and then possibly reduce.

Transportation: $100
This includes the cost of bus tickets and also my use of Zipcar. I'm curious to see if I'm over-budgeting here too. It depends on my motivation- if I keep up with biking on the days when I have simple commutes, and don't need to use a car at all, costs automatically reduce...

Entertainment/Incidentals: $40
This includes going out to dinner (striving to do this two times a month at most), to movies, going to coffee shops for internet, and any shopping I do that isn't in the grocery category.

Total: $250

I'm not including in my budget any medical expenses, which are relatively unpredictable, or things like textbooks for school, which are necessary but only occur every few months. I'm also not including any out-of-town travel, which is fairly rare anyway and will have to be evaluated on a separate basis. This budget is just for those things that I purchase very regularly.

The majority of my spending on transportation will go on my credit card, to keep my credit rolling, and because that is the only way to pay for Zipcar. I'm going to try to use a cash system for all of the grocery money and entertainment money. I did this before, a few years ago, and it worked really well. Plus research backs me up- you're much less likely to spend cash than you are to put something on a card. I don't know if I'll take all $160 out of the bank at once, or if I'll take $80 out every two weeks- I'll play that by ear and see what works best.

I'm planning to implement this whole deal starting February 1st, and begin tracking the results of each category in a ledger (I have a mostly-unused one floating around anyway). Any money left over at the end of the month I will put into my savings account, or else keep to save up for a particular item (something that pops into my mind is a candy thermometer and kitchen scales to complete my outfitting for soapmaking).

In addition to my regular spending, I have my student loans to think about, and also some personal debts. I took a small loan from a friend to help with moving costs, and I owe Matt some money for utilities, upkeep of the animals ("chicken support") and a few other things. I have been making payments on my unsubsidized loans here and there, to work down the interest, but I would like to be able to pay a constant amount every month. I would like to put a chunk into savings each month too, but on my small income I'm not sure how much will be feasible right now. The main reason I need to think about saving is because after I graduate (and a short grace period), I will have a large required student loan payment every month. Hopefully around that time I will also have a bigger income, but that remains to be seen.

How do you budget? I'm curious to hear more about how other people do it. The just "trying not to spend much" hasn't worked for me, which is why I'm trying to give myself some structure. What works for you?

Have You Seen My Motivation Anywhere?

I'm going to be a bit of a whiner today. I hope you don't mind too much. I don't expect anyone else to solve my problems, but writing about them in a public space gives me a sense of accountability to the whole wide world, which usually helps me turn things around. So thanks for bearing with me. And look, here's a pretty view from the Portland Japanese Gardens:

I've really been struggling these last couple of weeks with staying on task with schoolwork, keeping my energy up, and limiting my spending. I go through phases like this occasionally, where I end up thinking a lot about the things I like doing and things that make me feel the best about myself, but I don't actually do any of them. It's not how I see myself, and so it's very weird and depressing. I tend to blame it on school (it has been a rough quarter with an extra heavy workload of not-particularly-interesting classes), but that's probably just a cop-out. I have pretty high expectations for myself, and when I don't meet them I get down on myself. Does anyone else have this problem?

First, spending. I did so well all summer with not buying coffee or anything, but now I am buying it two or three times a week, which is mostly just a waste of money. This fall, I've been the one who says, almost on a weekly basis, "Why don't we just go out for dinner?" We're not exactly flush with money, and while Matt reminds me that our spending habits are so much healthier than the average American's, I still feel guilty. I am ok with occasionally eating out, but I prefer to do it as a treat, not because I'm feeling exhausted or stir-crazy. Those are situations in which actually putting in some effort to cook a nice meal will make me feel better, but I go for the easy out. And most of the time we have leftovers in the fridge, so I can't even say "there's nothing to eat."

I haven't been doing my best at work, wasting a lot of time and getting behind on my duties. I am putting off schoolwork until the very last minute, and then freaking out about it. I am getting very little exercise and eating a lot of candy (thanks, Halloween), which is rather hypocritical for a public health student whose focus is on promoting physical activity and good nutrition. I'm just finding it really hard to turn these habits around right now. Maybe it's because I was so busy all summer that I didn't properly catch up with myself before school started, and that has been dragging me down all term. Maybe it's the change to fall weather and short, dark days, getting home after dark and no gardening to do. Maybe it's this silly feeling that I'm getting old and it will be awhile yet before kids or a farm come into my life (note to self: you're 28. You have all the time in the world. 30 is the new 20). Maybe it's the fact that 2012 has just been a generally tough year, full of living paycheck to paycheck, working through difficult relationship stuff, loved ones in and out of the hospital, and otherwise generally stressful. Lots of bright spots (so many friends got married!), but exhausting.

I find that I can tell myself over and over, "I will fix this. Tonight I'll do some knitting/cleaning/cooking/reading instead of crawling into bed and wasting an hour on YouTube." And then I get home and crawl into bed and waste an hour on YouTube. I nag Matt repeatedly to do certain chores, without ever actually giving him time to do them. That's not who I want to be, but it's who I am being right now. Ugh.

I know I can't expect myself to snap out of it all at once. But here's what I'm going to try and focus on for now:

• Getting more exercise. We've been managing a short hike each weekend, which is helping, but during the week I'm sitting so much of the time, and it makes me feel gross and lethargic. This week I've been walking to work, which gives me 15-20 minutes of exercise rather than the 5 minutes I get when I ride my bike. I'm going to try and keep that up, to walk to work every day. I'm trying to stand more, but it's not always an option. I'm going to try and bike from to school once a week, rather than taking the bus, but it's a pretty long ride so I'm going to try to not be hard on myself if I don't do it. 
• Not buying coffee or going out for food. I need to start bringing a thermos of tea with me to school. There's no reason not to. I can fill it in the morning or at work, and then hopefully I won't be so tempted to pay $3 or $4 for coffee or chai at school when I feel the need for comfort, otherwise known as a hot drink. And I'll ask Matt to hold me to the not-eating-out plan, and remind me that by actually cooking something we will both feel so much better and will be saving a lot of money too.
• Buckling down on schoolwork. I have been putting off getting started on a couple of final projects that have me a little bit intimidated. I know from experience that just getting started makes the biggest difference, so if in the next couple of days I can read a few articles and write a few paragraphs, that will get me well on my way.

There are only three more weeks of this term of school, and in spite of how hard this quarter has been, I am really looking forward to the next one. I start my Field Experience in January, finally working in the health promotion field and satisfying one of the final requirements for graduation from my program. I'll also be taking elective classes, so they'll be fun ones that I'm really interested in.

We'll be getting out of town soon, too, which I think will help me work out some of my stir-crazies. We're going up to Medical Lake, Washington (near Spokane) for Thanksgiving, to spend it at my brother and sister-in-law's newly purchased turn-of-the-century farmhouse. I haven't seen it yet, apart from pictures, and I am really excited.

I do feel better having written all of this down, and I appreciate your reading it, if you made it through :) 

We'll be back to regularly scheduled food/chicken/rabbit-related programming next time.

A Second Garden

We have a community garden plot!

I know it sounds absurd, because we are doing so much gardening at home, but we don't have as much space as we would like, and this is an excellent solution! It came about because I had griped to Matt about how we didn't have room for vegetables that take up space, like squash and corn (while we have a lot of garden space, there are few large expanses of growing area, mostly small beds). We have a few areas where we can grow larger amounts of space-taking veggies, and we prioritized garlic and potatoes- two major staples in our household. But green beans are one of my very favorite vegetables, and while we can grow a few pole beans against our fence, we really don't have room for any bush beans, and Matt also really wanted to grow corn. So he suggested we apply for a community garden plot. It hadn't even occurred to me as a possibility! I had always thought of community gardens as growing space for people who don't have room at home, or who live in apartments. All of which is definitely true, but why not have a smallish plot as supplemental garden space?

Around the same time we were realizing we should apply, Jessa and Elliot were granted a plot in a garden very near our house (convenient for Jessa because it's right on her way home from work). We hadn't even realized that this garden existed, but as soon as we saw it, we realized how amazing it would be to garden there. There were still free spaces, so we applied.

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The garden is only six blocks from our house, but somehow we had never explored that particular part of our neighborhood, and had no idea it was there. It's enormous, and adjacent to a big demonstration orchard, a massive park, a middle school, and a Master Gardener learning garden.

Last week we were granted a 200 square foot plot, and this weekend we went to check it out. It was a gorgeously sunny weekend, and we spent a couple hours yesterday tilling everything up and planning out our planting: green beans, heirloom corn, carrots, lettuce, peas, and squash.

So much potential!

Our plot is 10'x20', you can see the string outlining it. The nice brown plot right behind it (upper center of the photo) is Jessa & Elliot's- right next door! 

From the south

 Our plot already boasts comfrey (above) and fennel (below), as well as some calendula and a few poppies.

 Matt dropped me off another day to plant chamomile, yarrow, and marigold starts.

I am really excited to have the experience of a community garden, and the plot costs us only $43 for the entire year. It will really expand our growing space, and allow us to be much more self sufficient by growing more food than we have ever been able to. We get to garden right next to Jessa and Elliot, and hopefully lots of other cool people, and it's a very short walk or bike ride from home!

Menu Planning: How and Why We Do It

This week my good friend Alina asked if I could write a post going more in depth about how Matt and I make and use a menu plan, so I'll take a stab at it. We started using a menu plan back when we were traveling in New Zealand and had limited food storage space. By planning our menu for the next week, we could buy just what we needed and no more. Now, we use a menu plan for a variety of reasons:

1) It saves a whole heap of money on groceries- you know exactly what you need, and can buy your non-perishable ingredients in bulk.
2) It keeps us from eating at restaurants, because the obstacle of coming up with an idea for dinner is avoided.
3) It simply makes life easier- come home, look at the menu plan, know what's for dinner, and cook it.

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The conversation about menu planning ties in pretty closely with how we shop for groceries. Since moving into our house, we stock up on bulk staple foods about once every three months, and shop weekly for fresh produce and other perishables. These bulk shopping trips usually cost $200-300. For our stock-up runs, we shop at Costco and WinCo, and occasionally at other local coops for unusual ingredients or smaller amounts of particular ingredients. We always buy flour at Bob's Red Mill, which is marginally more expensive than other stores but much better quality and nutrition, and the Whole Grain Store is just down the road from our house! On our bulk shopping trips we stock up on things like rice, pasta, dry beans, lentils, couscous, flour, other baking ingredients, spices, butter, vinegars and oils, and big bags of potatoes and onions.

We also usually buy large packages of good quality fish at Costco, then divide it into meal portions and freeze those individually. We always have grains, pasta, frozen vegetables and baking supplies on hand, which allows us to limit our weekly shopping to fresh fruit and veggies and milk. We don't buy a lot of meat, usually purchasing several meals' worth at a time from a local farm. We eat meat about once a week. Whenever we do eat meat we make and freeze stock using the leftovers and bones. We also regularly cook up and freeze big batches of beans, and save usable veggie scraps in the freezer until we have enough to make a pot of vegetable stock (a trick I learned from Alina :). In the summer we grow our own vegetables and shop almost exclusively at farmers markets for produce. In the winter, we mostly shop at Trader Joe's for fresh ingredients, as it is the closest to our house (we don't count Safeway) and generally has good quality and prices. Our weekly shopping usually adds up to less than $20.

How We Make a Menu Plan

I've read about several different methods of building a menu plan (links below), but here's ours. We're not consistent about how far out we plan, but it's usually around 3 weeks. Each time our current menu plan gets within a couple days of running out, we sit down and plan out the next few weeks. We take a quick inventory of what we have in the cupboards and fridge, and on the pantry shelves in the basement. Then we pull out all our cookbooks and our recipe box for inspiration, and come up with something that looks like this:

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As you can see, we are fairly specific about the main dish. If it uses a specific recipe, we write that down ("Dishing Up Oregon, p. 70). Things like "stir fry" and "burritos" are things we have been making for years and don't use a recipe for. Side dishes include things like "brown rice," "quinoa pilaf," "roasted potatoes," etc. We don't usually get specific about what kind of vegetable we'll have; as you can see, I've usually scribbled down "Salad/veg" or sometimes "steamed veggies." What these actually become gets decided by the weekly shopping or what is currently growing in the garden. We usually buy enough fresh produce to cover about half the week's meals, and use frozen vegetables for the rest, at least during the winter. We try hard to make all of our meals include servings of protein, grains, and vegetables.

As you can see, the weekly shopping plays into menu planning. Our main dishes are planned so they can be made mostly with ingredients we always have on hand- pasta, eggs, frozen fish, stock. Before shopping for the week, we look at the menu to see if there's anything in particular we need, or if we just need to get some vegetables for side dishes. We try to put down at least one new or more complicated recipe each month or so, to make us try something new or go in search of unusual ingredients. One of the reasons I really love having a menu plan is you can make sure you're getting a variety of meal types. If we didn't have a menu plan, we'd probably have a stir-fry every other night and roasted potatoes on the others. We would also probably eat out a lot more than we do. Because the menu plan tells you what you're having, and you know you have the ingredients, it's really hard to say "actually, we're going to go out for dinner tonight." We also can plan for meals that create leftovers, so we almost always can count on that for lunch the next day. If we end up going to a friend's house for dinner, we just cross that meal off or switch it with another if there are specific ingredients that need using. If we have company, we usually just expand on what we were planning to have ourselves.

Some people plan for lunches as well, but we don't find this necessary. Like I said, we usually have leftovers, and we bake two loaves of bread every week so if we aren't eating leftovers lunch can mean sandwiches, steamed veggies and Parmesan toast, or we'll just whip up some quick rice and veggies. Other people get fancier with their menu plans, making several weeklong ones and rotating them, or mapping it all out in Google Calendars or such. We like just writing it down and sticking it to the fridge.

Hopefully some of you find this helpful and useful- I know I always like seeing how different people come up with different methods for things like this. If you want further reading on the subject, here are some really helpful posts on menu planning from some really great blogs:

Down to Earth
Simple Mom
Organized Home

Happy menu planning, and happy long weekend to those of you in the U.S.!

Thrifty Finds

Taking advantage of the lovely sunny (but COLD) weather this afternoon, Matt and I walked to our neighborhood thrift store to find a few things we've been wanting for awhile, to fill out our array of kitchenware. We had been keeping a short list of items for "when we have a little extra money," and last night two good friends forced payment on me for the easiest babysitting job ever, so we took advantage of a bit of the unexpected income.

We wholly believe in buying secondhand, except when it comes to most appliances. The only things I can think of in our kitchen that were bought new were the cast iron skillet and Dutch oven (several years ago), the food processor, some canning jars and my set of nesting mixing bowls. All the rest we found at thrift stores or received as gifts (or found for free on the curb...). This pretty much goes for all of our clothing, bedding, and furniture too. There is so much useful stuff out there that is in perfect condition but is given away to thrift stores, it makes no sense to pay extra for something just because it is new. And despite a few temptations, we came home with only what was on our list, plus these great aviator shades that looked so good on Matt that I refused to leave without buying them:

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Awesome, yes?

We don't have very much silverware, and it has become clear that we need a few more sets, particularly for when we have company. We also have a nice collection of mugs and teacups, but all of them are quite small, and we wanted to get a few larger ones (how very American of us):

Since moving into this house we have been talking about how we need a second, larger saucepot, because just having one complicates things sometimes, and we had enough of that while living out of the van in New Zealand. We also only have four bowls for a household of three, and none of the wide bowls that are nice for things like chicken and dumplings and stew, until now:

The other thing I love about shopping at thrift stores is that we can pick out individual items that go with our current collection of dishware, and have a huge variety to choose from. We were able to bring home an assortment of cheap mugs and bowls that go with our mismatched but coordinated bright aesthetic, and that makes me really happy.

And all for less than $20!

Vegan Pumpkin Loaf and How to Process Winter Squash

Matt's sister Jessa asked me last week how I prepare pumpkin for pies, and I thought it might be useful to post directions for cooking up pumpkin for use in breads, pies, and other dishes. Fresh, plain pumpkin tastes so much better than store-bought pumpkin pie filling or canned pumpkin, and it's surprisingly easy to prepare. These instructions apply to any kind of pumpkin or winter squash (Matt and I actually prefer to use "true" squashes like Red Kuri and the type below for pies rather than jack-o-lantern type "pie pumpkins." We think the flavor is exponentially better and the texture of the flesh is much smoother and thicker). 

I happen to have photos of the process because on Friday evening Matt and I set about preparing a massive pumpkin we got at the farmer's market, to make up some yummy breads for snacks and breakfasts this week. 

First, preheat your oven to 350 F. Then, using a strong, sharp knife, cut your squash in half or into quarters, depending on how big it is. The pumpkin we were using was so big we just kind of hacked it apart. Scoop out the seeds and stringy flesh from the cavity. You can put the seedy stuff aside at this point to make roasted pumpkin seeds. 

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I love this variety- Queensland Blue. The taste and texture are amazing, and the flesh-to-seed-cavity ratio is great!

Your pumpkin needs to be cut into manageable pieces that will fit into baking dishes and also your oven! We had to rearrange the oven racks and carefully arrange all of this pumpkin to fit it in. The thinner you slice it, the faster it will bake. Bake until you can stab the pumpkin flesh with a fork and meet little to no resistance- our big chunks took about 45 minutes. Also, baking squash releases a lot of moisture, so be prepared for a big cloud of steam when you open the oven!

Remove the baked squash from the oven and let it cool in the pans. Once it is cool enough to be comfortably handled, scoop the flesh away from the rind and into a bowl. I do this with my fingers because the rind is usually so soft at this point that a spoon will puncture it. 

Now you are ready to use your baked squash, or freeze it for use later. You can puree it in a food processor before freezing it, or else freeze it as is, in freezer bags or other containers, to puree and use later. I did a little of both. I used four cups of squash in baking, and still had three large containers' worth to go in the freezer! That one pumpkin cost us $3, and will last us a long time!

Looking at recipes for pumpkin breads, it seemed like almost everything called for at least 3 eggs, and while we had plenty of eggs on hand, I wanted to make them last awhile, so I went looking on the internet for eggless recipes. I found a promising recipe, modified it a bit to cut down on sugar and increase the use of pumpkin, and came with this vegan recipe that is a definite keeper:

5 c. flour 

3 c. brown sugar 

4 tsp. soda 

1 tsp. salt 

1 tsp. cloves 

1 to 3 tsp. cinnamon 

4 1/4 c. solid-pack pumpkin 

1 c. canola oil 

1 to 2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Sift the dry ingredients together. Blend in pumpkin and oil. (It's not necessary to puree the pumpkin here, because mixed with the oil it stirs in smoothly). Fold in nuts. Pour into small loaf pans lined with parchment paper or greased and floured. Bake at 350°F for 1 hour or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Makes 3 to 4 loaves.

 

 

This bread is so. good. It came out deliciously moist and perfect for breakfast or with a cup of tea. I got three good loaves out of it, and put one in the freezer, because even we wouldn't be able to eat through all of that before it goes bad! 

Happy pumpkining!

Jobs, Income and New Routines!

Our routines are changing once again (and I'm sure they'll continue to, as we settle in and figure out how best to work our schedules), because both Matt and I landed income-producing gigs in the last week or so! Matt has just started his second week at a semi-permanent farm internship that has a minimal, but regular, income attached to it, and tomorrow I start a stipended internship with Ecotrust's Food and Farms Program, working primarily on the Edible Portland magazine! Matt's not making much, and my stipend will be $1,500 per quarter (about $500 per month), which will basically cover rent, but it's still something, and we're feeling particularly blessed that we both have found work in exactly the areas we wanted to work in. Matt is working with livestock on a farm that produces lamb and poultry meat, as well as wool and eggs, and I am getting my start in public health, working on a publication that focuses on the local and sustainable food movement. I'll continue to look for additional part-time work, as the internship is only 10-15 hours per week and will only last through the school year, ending in June. I have yet to sort out my schedule, but Matt works usually till dark, Monday through Thursday, not getting home until 6:30 or 7 PM (the farm is about 45 minutes from our house, about as close as it could be!)

Last week was a bit crazy, with Matt not home till later in the evening, thoroughly exhausted, and me in class till late two nights, and we ran short on ready-to-go dinner food, not having time to fit in making bread or cooking up a large batch of anything. I think our next investment will be a good crockpot! We were out of town all weekend, but today I was home and, between nursing a bit of a cold that I picked up over the weekend and working on homework, I somehow managed to bake two loaves of bread and a batch of banana bread, cook up a big pot of kidney beans, do a load of laundry, and run a few errands. I'm feeling much better about how this week will go, with lots of frozen veggies in the freezer and bread and snacks made for our lunches. Also, Matt gets sent home with free cuts of lamb and whole frozen chickens once a week or so, so we will be seeing a bit more meat in our diet, and we now have a good source of eggs until our own flock starts laying (which we're beginning to suspect won't be till spring, but that's another story).

I'm now commuting by bus, which is very convenient and affordable, and works out better for me now that my schedule will be a bit more complicated, and I'm not a big fan of biking through downtown. With the addition of my internship, my one-way commute would be around 7 miles, which is too much for me. So I'm settling into busing downtown, which is easy due to a route that goes from 7 blocks from home, straight through campus. The Portland Streetcar runs directly through campus and across downtown to where my internship will be. Because I'm now getting less exercise without the biking, I'm going to make a concerted effort to make use of the rec center on campus, which is free to students and has all kinds of options for working out, and, most appealing to me, regular yoga classes.

In other news, Heather and Joel at Not a Real Blog (longtime friends from my hometown) just welcomed a daughter on Friday! Many congratulations heading their way! And now I can show you the baby gifts I posted off to them last month:

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Inspired by Laurel, I sewed up two square flannel delivery blankets and three flannel burp clothes. I also finally got back into crocheting and made the wee hat, from a soft wool/acrylic blend. We knew in advance that the baby was a girl, but I don't like to give gendered gifts, so I thought these fabrics and colors were good for any new baby.

It's time for me to get back to my reading for class- I do apologize for the sporadic nature of my posts now. I keep hoping that I will get into a better routine and fit blogging in more regularly, but I guess I can't make any guarantees! I do want to share some of the things I am learning about public health issues, though, and that will be another post of its own.

A Look at the Pocketbook

This post yesterday was a very timely one for me, and a good reminder that life is enriched by how you spend your time, not your money. I start school tomorrow, and intend to spend the next two years (maybe longer) earning my Master of Public Health (MPH). That means a certain amount of student loans, although I am going to keep it to the smallest amount of debt possible. But I'm starting out on close to nothing, and today signifies a pretty big change in how Matt and I will be spending our money. We've been prioritizing our spending in a different way this summer (I'll get to that below), but from here on in, we'll be living extremely frugally.

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When we arrived home from New Zealand at the end of May, we didn't have a whole lot of money, but the experience we got for our money was more than worth it. We came home expecting to be able to find jobs for the summer, and then hopefully ongoing ones, in particular a part-time one for me while I attended school. Things haven't exactly gone that way. We came home into some of the highest unemployment rates Oregon (and the rest of the U.S.) has ever seen. These days, our college educations mean very little, and Matt was happy to find work for ten weeks as a kayak instructor, while I took the first thing that came to me, a temporary data entry job. I started that job at the beginning of July, then got pneumonia two weeks in, then after two more weeks of work developed a repetitive stress injury from using only a mouse (no keyboard) for hours on end, and had to quit. I was not eligible for unemployment benefits. Since returning from NZ, I have only worked for one month. The summer hasn't really gone as planned (although it's been a good one!). We each had to spend $120 to fend off our respective bouts of pneumonia. Neither of us can afford health insurance. I've been searching for a job since mid-August, and have only found three positions to apply to. I won't be able to work more than 20 hours per week while I'm a (full time) student and stay sane, and I'm also limited geographically, because we don't live centrally and I commute by bike and public transit. Luckily this week the school year started, and through PSU I've suddenly found four great positions to apply to, so hopefully something will come through soon. Matt is job searching again too, while trying to change career paths; it's a very hard time to try and transition out of one field and into another. He is getting unemployment benefits, though.

We're certainly not going to founder; I have student loans that will cover all my tuition and living expenses (just barely) and Matt has savings from this summer and some inheritance that we can call on if absolutely necessary. Still, some regular income wouldn't go amiss.

One of the reasons things are so tight now is because when we first moved into our house, we made the decision to spend up front on some things that would enable us to continue on in the lifestyle we wanted. I don't regret that we did this, but it's kind of biting us in the ass right now, financially. There are a lot of things we could have gone without that give us more satisfaction in the long run, and take out some stresses that could have created larger problems later. We spent $300 on a brand new mattress, and don't regret it one bit; we are sleeping better than we have in the last year and have far fewer aches and pains that we used to. We bought a snazzy food processor and are in love with it; it saves us so much time in cooking, which is so valuable as we go into a period of our lives when we'll be on different schedules (my classes are all in the evenings) and our time together is limited. I bought a rear rack and pannier bag for my bike, so I don't have to carry everything in a backpack. We could have continued sleeping on our old futon, tossing and turning and waking every morning with sore backs and necks. We could have decided to forgo the food processor and taken the time to do that work by hand. I could have carried all my textbooks on my back, ending every ride with a backache. We'd rather spend the money up front to be comfortable and happy, frankly.

And there are some benefits to both of us being unemployed at the same time. We got so much done around the house and garden. We completed all the projects we wanted to finish before I got sucked into school. We got to spend a lot of time together before my schedule gets busy again. We had time to fill up the freezer with ready-to-cook foods and made sure the "pantry" was well stocked so we wouldn't have to think about shopping for awhile. I had time to scout out my new bike route to downtown and research the cheapest options for obtaining my textbooks (I'm renting them, for a grand total of $90 for Fall Term. They would have cost me about $370 new).

 Our "pantry" in the basement. The plastic bin and trashcan are full of bulk foods: rice, oats, beans, potatoes, etc.

Our freezer is packed full of good quality meat, fish, containers of beans, lentils, and stock, veggies and berries, herbs and baked goods (and ice cream...)

Ultimately I am happy when I reflect on where our money has gone. There are certainly some "wants" thrown in there with the needs, but I'm happy with our choices. From here on out, there are very few major expenses that we anticipate in the next year, and we have set ourselves up to live the way we want, and not feel that we are depriving ourselves of anything. Truly, we spend so much less than most of those around us. Our everyday expenses are incredibly low. Rent is our biggest cost (we are currently looking for a new roommate, so it's a little more expensive this month. John's friends from Alabama all moved up last week and they got a house together, so we are back to just the two of us until we find another roomie). The only things we regularly buy from the supermarket are milk, cheese and free range eggs, and we can get those very reasonably at Trader Joe's. In just a couple months, eggs will no longer be something we buy at the store. Everything else we buy in bulk and have stored away in the kitchen or basement. I can't remember the last time we went out for food.

However, I know we have it great compared to so many people in these times of financial turmoil. And I know we are not alone; there are so many people, particularly in our age and education bracket, setting out in life, who are coming up against big barriers to paying for further education or for a house or property, or who are laid off or have a medical emergency while uninsured. By tightening our belts, making instead of buying, changing our standards a little and saving a few dollars here and a few cents there, we'll get to where we're going. It will take longer and be a little harder than we imagined, but we'll get there.

New Daily Habits and Fall Chores

One of the advantages of both me and Matt being unemployed right now is that we are getting to put a lot of time in on various projects around the house, yard and garden, albeit usually in the morning or evening, when it's not ridiculously hot outside. Matt has been officially chicken-proofing the garden, fastening chicken wire to the bottom of the fence between the backyard and garden, to prevent any chicken escapades into our precious berries and vegetables.

Since Cluck's death and because the weather is so hot (the coop gets full sun exposure for about two hours every afternoon, and the poor chickens get really warm and are not super smart about staying in their shady areas or dust bathing), we are now letting the chickens out to free range for a few hours in the heat of the day, so they can get into the shade under the lilacs and fruit trees. They dust bathe under the trees, but not in the coop, I think because the soil in the coop is so compacted. We've got the fences all around the yard secured so the chickens can't get out (they're not flying more than two feet high right now anyway) and so neighborhood dogs can't get in. It's a nice new routine for all of us, to have the chickens out and about, taking care of all the weeds and bugs in the backyard and occasionally freaking out for no apparent reason and racing back into the coop.

Another new habit we've adopted this week is keeping a dishpan in our kitchen sink all the time, to collect non-soapy water from rinsing hands and vegetables and dishes. Our sink is big enough that one dishpan takes up less than half the sink, so we still have room for other uses. This way, we are able to get twice the use from any non-soapy water -- when the water in the dishpan builds up, it is used to water the fruit trees, roses, houseplants, or garden, whichever needs it most.

Speaking of fruit trees, while my dad (guru of all things orchard) was here this past weekend, he pruned our fruit trees (one Asian pear and two apples) for us and gave us some pointers on maintaining them to get maximum yield. We moved in too late this year to do much, but now we'll have a good start for next season. The trees clearly hadn't been maintained for several years, and Dad thinks they're five or six years old. They look much happier and healthier now, and we're going to get a decent harvest of apples, although we can only find about six Asian pears on the other tree. We're now getting into a routine of watering the trees every other day, and will set up a drip-watering hose next spring, and one on the raspberries as well. For now, Matt has drilled three holes in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket, and we fill it with water and set it just uphill from the base of the tree, and let the water come out slowly. A lot of it still runs off, because the soil under the trees is so compacted, but we raked all the dead leaves around the trunks to mulch and shade the watering area, so hopefully that will help the soil absorb more water.

With only three weeks left till I start school and with both of us home most of the time, we've been working our way through a list of chores for this fall (how, exactly, did it get to be September already?!). Still on the list:

• Prune back the neighbor's cedar trees that are overhanging the back fence by about six feet and encroaching on the fruit trees.
• Build a portable chicken pen/tractor the size of the garden beds, so we can contain the chickens and let them till up our beds later in the fall, once the veggies are done. 
• Plan our fall/winter garden, amend the soil, plant cover crops and garlic later in October.
• Cut out all raspberry canes that won't bear next year, and top-dress the raspberries with some fertilizer and mulch. 
• Cut back/pull out all the English Ivy and blackberries (both invasive weeds) that are infiltrating our yard from two sides. 
• Start tilling and amending the strips of soil out front where we will plant potatoes next year. 
• Organize the garage/shed and get the rabbitry set up. 

Rabbits? Yes, rabbits! Matt and Eliot (Matt's sis's boyfriend...our boyfriend-in-law?) hatched the plan to raise meat rabbits a few months ago. We really want to raise our own meat as much as we can, and while we live in the city, rabbits and chickens (all our hens now are for eggs, but they will become stewing hens when they've had their two years' of laying) are pretty much our only options. It took me awhile to come around to the idea of rabbits, but it is in line with our goals of self sufficiency and we will be able to ensure that our animals live a happy and healthy life and are killed in a humane way. We're trying to be pragmatic about our animals and not keep them just as a hobby. The fact is that rabbit is incredibly tasty, and is one of the most cost-efficient types of meat out there. So we will raise rabbits, starting next month. In Portland, you have to have a permit from the city to keep more than 3 small livestock (hens, rabbits, miniature pigs, pygmy goats), and, with our landlord's blessing, we have taken our required steps toward officialdom. Today we notified all neighbors within 150 feet that we intend to keep rabbits and more than 3 hens, and then submitted our application to the county, along with a check for the seemingly random amount of $31. Wish us luck!

Home At Last

I'm back! After lots of wonderful vacationing, time with family and friends, and far too many plane rides for even my taste, Matt and I are back in Portland, for good this time! And after a few weeks off from writing, I am excited to be back, and although we are still a couple weeks away from moving into our new rental house (we are currently staying with my cousin, just a few blocks from my old apartment!), I am going to launch myself back into writing about our plans for our little homestead in the city, changing our shopping routines, and getting ourselves some chickens! (Yes, chickens!)

As you can see, I'm still messing around with the layout here, trying to find a template I really like, and I'm almost there! I just need some fresh photos, but those will have to wait until I actually have plants and chickens to take photos of. Do note that I've updated the links in the sidebar, lots of cool and useful stuff there. The Get Rich Slowly site is one of my new favorites. It has loads of helpful hints for saving money, shopping efficiently, and also a lot of good information around bigger financial things like mortgages, credit cards, loans, etc.

Although we're home, we're mostly still living off of the things we took to New Zealand with us. I am SO tired of these clothes. I've gotten a few things at Goodwill and I found an awesome free skirt hanging on a power pole yesterday (I love Portland), but mostly we're trying to hold out until we unpack our storage unit. We attempted to retrieve fresh clothes from the unit before we went to Hawaii, only to discover that in our slightly haphazard packing of the unit, all of our clothes ended up at the very back, underneath all of our furniture. Whoops.

We're still waiting for a move-in date for our house. It will be July 1 at the latest, but the current tenants thought they would be out around the 20th, in which case we will probably be able to move in a few days after that. Matt has already done some research on chicks, and the Urban Farm Store is getting a shipment in on June 24th, with all the breeds we want. With any luck, we'll have our own place by then. I've been doing some garden planning, as we'll be starting our garden so late in the season that there's not a moment to spare- for me, getting some plants in the ground takes priority over unpacking! We'll be able to buy pretty advanced starts for most of the things we want to grow, so I've been doing some comparison shopping to see what the best buys are.

I also decided that my free time right now (Matt already landed a job, but I'm still searching) is best put to use putting together a price book, so that when we move in and supply our kitchen, we'll know where to get the most bang for our buck. It's actually kind of fun, going to grocery stores without buying anything. I got a little looseleaf notebook and spent an hour at Fred Meyer today, writing down the best prices they had for all of the main staples that we buy. I felt like I was sleuthing out some kind of big corporate mystery, seeing the trends in pricing between brands and noting that at particular places you can only buy small bags of whole wheat flour, nothing over 5 pounds! Wow.

That's probably enough of my musing for now. I'm short on new photos at the moment, so sorry about all the text, but thanks for reading, and boy, is it good to be back!

Of Ducklings and Details

I've had a few questions about the work that Matt and I are doing and why we are where we are, so I thought I'd give some more information about that, and then write about a few fun New Zealand quirks and cultural differences, rather than the narrative format I've been doing recently.

Matt and I are in New Zealand on Working Holiday Visas, which are good for 12 months and allow us to take any kind of legal work in NZ. We are actually only staying just over 8 months, because we want to go home to Portland for a third summer before I start graduate school and we head into a Portland winter. We came here hoping to work primarily in farming and similar pursuits, and I am happy to say that we are getting exactly what we came for! Before we left the US, we realized we didn't want to show up in New Zealand without direction or work, as that would cause us to burn through our savings as we searched for something. So we got connected with workaway.info, which connects those in search of work experience with hosts who will provide room and board in exchange for a certain amount of work. It is similar to the Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF) program, except that Workaway is not specific to organic farms or even farming- the site includes work at hostels, in homes, doing childcare, etc. Most hosts take workawayers for 2 weeks or so. We found Lyn & Kate through Workaway, and consider ourselves blessed. We would like to get paid work at some point in the next few months, but with room and board taken care of, all we are spending on right now is petrol for the van, and a few smaller costs like personal items and postcards and things. We will be staying here in Opotiki for 3-4 weeks total, then moving on to a stay at an organic farm on the Coromandel Peninsula, around the beginning of November. After that we will be looking for paid work, probably in fruit picking or other farm work.

(Click on photos to enlarge)

Looking north from the top of Lyn & Kate's driveway. Yes, that's the ocean! The town of Opotiki is just off to the right, maybe 6 or 8 kilometres from the house. 

The loving but cowardly sheepdog Binky. Sweetest canine in existence.

Matt and I with just a few of our animal companions here.

We're doing all kinds of work here. Weeding, gardening, planting, repairing, building, etc. We've been over to Lyn's family's farm several times, most recently to grub out thistles in some cow paddocks yesterday morning, and move the cattle to new pasture. ( Lyn and Kate own 15 head of cattle that graze on land Lyn's family leases). Matt has been over there another time to help Lyn's dad separate out a couple of cattle to be taken away for butchering. Matt is also doing a lot of work to help prepare the house here for painting.

M powerwashing the back of the house. 

Me pruning the largest rosemary bush in existence.

We are both thrilled to be getting lots of experience with poultry and livestock. Most recently, we have met some brand new ducklings! Two of the hens have been sitting on duck eggs (domestic ducks make good layers but terrible mums, it turns out), and they started pipping yesterday, and this morning we had two little ducklets!

This is what the eggs looked like last night. Before this stage, Lyn gave me one to listen to- I could feel it moving around and hear it pecking away the the shell.

Brand new duck!

Matt and the fluffier duckling.

Now on to a few cultural notes! While we are still in a western, English-speaking (well, mostly) culture, we are definitely far removed from Oregon and the United States. While we're managing ok with the Kiwi accent now (time is measured in munnets and we drive on the lift), and are getting used to the strength of the sun due to the hole in ozone layer right overhead (wide brimmed hats are worn constantly and we re-apply sunscreen every two hours at least. The burn time -with sunscreen on- can get as low as 7 minutes in midsummer. After just two weeks here I have more freckles and am more tan than I've ever been, and my hair is bleaching on top...), there is still plenty to get used to- most of which we find very refreshing. For example:

- in New Zealand the business day is generally from 9:30 AM to 4:30 or 5:00 PM. Not that different from the US, except that ALL businesses close around 5 PM. In the US, supermarkets and corner stores and even clothing stores tend to stay open much later, even 10 or 11 PM, but no such thing here. If you want to run a certain errand, you have to make sure you make it in before 4 or so. Many businesses close around 2 or 3 PM, and on Saturdays most businesses in Opotiki and other small towns close at 12:30. 

- Earthquakes! I experienced my first ever earthquake just a couple days after arriving in Opotiki. I was on the phone with my parents at the time, and I hope they weren't too freaked out when I told them what was going on! I couldn't feel anything, but we could hear the windows rattling and the walls of the house shifting. It turns out the actual magnitude was 6.2, quite big, but it happened very deep in the earth, offshore under White Island. Shakes and rattles are not uncommon here, and we've been told to expect to experience several more small quakes before leaving New Zealand. 

-Power usage here is at a much lower degree than in the states, and I have to say I love it. Hardly anyone in New Zealand owns a drier, and we see laundry hung out to dry in almost every yard we drive by. I think it is appalling that in the US it is seen as primitive or troublesome to air-dry laundry, when if everyone turned off their dryer and just used the sun and wind, we could make a huge impact on the current energy crisis, especially in large cities. Also, almost all electrical outlets in New Zealand have an on/off switch so the current can be turned off when the outlet is not being used- brilliant! 

-On the utilities note, all toilets here are flushed by pushing a button- I have yet to see one with a flusher handle. Most toilets are also dual-flush.

I think that's enough for today, I am sure I will come up with loads more New Zealand trivia for you as time goes on, but for now here's just one more example of something you would never find in Oregon...

A dead puffer fish on the beach!

Using Time Efficiently

(I'm including some photos from the past few years. These are just images of things that I am grateful for, I suppose)

I'm one of those people who gets stressed out when I feel I'm not being productive or getting enough done. I know I need to just cool it sometimes and relax (Matt is great about helping me do this), but one of the best things I've found to help myself feel like I'm accomplishing things and create free time is to learn to manage my time efficiently. Mind you, I'm not an expert at this, but I've found some things that work for me, and I'd like to share them in the hopes that they work for others too:

• When you've got a spare few minutes before you need to leave the house or while you're waiting for a friend to show up for an outing, do some small chore to kill time. Take a few dirty dishes from the table to the sink, pick up a few clothes off the floor and put them away, or dust the mantlepiece. It's amazing how far just two minutes can go toward getting something done. 
• If you have a job like mine, with occasional time where you don't have any work to do, check with your supervisor to see if you can bring a project like knitting or embroidery or studying to do at your desk during quiet moments. Or use that time to pay your bills online, make your grocery list, or write your blog : )
• I find that doing errands on my midday break frees up my evening time for household chores or doing fun things with friends or going for an evening hike with Matt. I eat lunch at my desk while I'm working, which frees me up to bike to the library or walk to the store or bank on my break. When I do this, I not only get some quick errands out of the way, but I get some exercise and fresh air, which is very nice if you work in an office and/or end up sitting for most of the day.

 (Pumpkins and gourds from Sauvie Island)

•  If exercise is one of the things you have trouble finding time for, consider the possibility of commuting to work at least in part on foot or by bike, or find another way to work exercise into your routine. I have never been able to motivate myself to exercise simply for the sake of exercise, but if I can bike to and from work, then I get home knowing that I've already had my exercise for the day and don't have to worry about finding time for it elsewhere. When it's built in and is my mode of transport, I don't really have a choice about it and it becomes routine and enjoyable. If walking or biking to work isn't feasible for you, or you don't work outside the home, you can decide that you will bike whenever you go to a certain friend's house, or to the farmer's market every weekend. In addition to helping with your physical and mental health, you will be traveling in a way that is friendly to the environment, and saving lots of money along the way!

 (Pressing cider at Mom & Dad's, two summers ago)

• Do errands or shopping on the way home from work, or on only one day of the week. I do almost all my grocery shopping on my way home, so that once I'm home for the evening, that is taken care of and I don't have to go back out on a separate trip. If you don't work or if this isn't possible for you, think about setting aside one day of the week and save up all your errands for that day. Instead of interrupting every day with a trip or two to the store or bank or wherever, you will have it all out of the way and know that the rest of your time is free for other activities. 

Do any of you have tricks to suggest for making the best use of your time? I would love to hear any other ideas! 

(Thanksgiving Dinner, 2007, at my apartment at the time)