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Monday, March 27, 2017

Guest Post By Leslie

Hello dear friends!   Frequent readers to this blog might recognize Leslie. She comments often and has a very interesting story of homesteading and  raising eight children.  I thought you might enjoy reading how she feeds her large family.

   Hi, my name is Leslie. I am a wife, and a homeschooling mother of eight.   Jane asked if I would share how I fed my family of six on $40 a month.  Now, this was for about 6-9 months back in 2008 when times grew very lean. Also there were only two adults, 2 elementary age children, a preschooler and a toddler. So the toddler wasn't eating much but mashed veggies and bread. We did have a milk goat so that brought our costs down considerably. Also we did grind much of our own flour with a grain-grinder (that we picked up during the Y2K scare). But we did have to buy wheat to feed us and the goat, which was $8 for a 50 lb. bag.
     I was on an email list called The Dollar Stretcher.  It included an article by the Hill Billy Housewife. You can see that article here. She has done all the calculations for you. Now, years ago, this article claimed $20 a week. I used most of her recipes except when it came to the tuna dish, I made Tunisian Tuna on couscous (find this online).  I made my own flour tortillas.  Also don't bother with a tortilla press, a rolling pin works well. Another change I made was using hot dogs diced in my lentils. My kids still love this dish. Also hot dogs in your stir-fry is not bad. I chose not to serve mac n' cheese with our sandwiches as it was just the children and I at lunch. My homemade bread was very filling and the kids love baby carrots.  So besides some substitutions, I shopped exclusively at my local scratch and dent store. Sometimes they didn't have rice or cornmeal but I made do. Also the above menu is simply a frame work. I must say the cheapest and most filling breakfast is cornmeal mush. I know, terrible name but its buttery taste is heaven on a spoon!  One piece of advice, always buy flour rather than cake mix or cornmeal rather than corn-muffin mix...you can do so much more with the raw materials. Also I cooked my beans in the crockpot in homemade stock (that too made in the crockpot). So much more convenient, esp. when you're a busy mama.

Hope this helps! Planning is the key. 
Blessings,
Leslie

22 comments:

  1. So lovely to have a guest contributor. As my husband always has meat, and has done so from day one of our marriage ( except when I tried to fry stewing steak on our honeymoon!!!), I would find it hard to do meals on a smaller budget like that. For myself, sultana bran for breakfast in summer,porridge in winter, sandwich for lunch, veges from our own garden for dinner, stewed fruit, fresh or in winter bottled or from the freezer. I fail to comprehend how anyone with even a small section cannot grow their own veges, even green sprouts in the frozen north would add so much. Thanks Jane and Leslie for todays words.

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    1. I agree Jean! Any little thing you can do is better than doing nothing at all.

      Hugs
      Jane

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  2. Thank you for taking the time to post here. All good suggestions. I like your "can do" spirit. I hope your life has been easier since 2008.

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    1. Thanks for leaving a message for Leslie, Sheila. I thought I'd like to have some guest posts from time to time, to let readers have a different prospective.

      Hugs
      Jane

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  3. Hi Jane & Leslie! Great post, enjoyed it much.
    "when times grew very lean" These words really loomed out at me as I read the post. Seems to me circumstances like that always bring out the best in us... if there is anything to bring out, that is. I know they motivated me back in the 80s when we had relocated for a job my husband had been hired for, then three weeks later the job disappeared. The next five years seemed like a dearth was in the land to us, but we made it through by the grace of God and thrifty living.
    Thank you for sharing your story with us, Leslie.

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    1. I think we have all gone through lean times, Toni. Looking back, they were some of the best times of my life. When you have little, it's easy to focus on what you do have.

      Hugs
      Jane

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  4. Very good tips! (And I love hot dogs, and they add a good flavor to baked beans). I bet Leslie has a lot of good tips on other homemaking subjects! Andrea

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    1. Hi Andrea! Hot dogs get a bad rap, but they have their place. Back in my times of lean, I bought those chicken franks for 79 cents a package. Put enough onions and mustard on them and they fill empty stomachs.

      Hugs
      Jane

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  5. Thank you Leslie & Jane.
    What happiness hotdogs are used in a thrifty/healthy meal plan. I don't miss meat, but I do get massive hankerings for a hot dog. Our could easily do this meal plan, and be content too. Here grocery mark down bins are getting more sparse - to me a sign people are getting smarter or desperate.
    Jane, I remember my mom cutting up chicken franks and making chicken noodle soup - she said she wanted to see what canned soup would have tasted like. Wasn't the same - but still really good.
    Have a great week!
    Hugs, Jen

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    1. Hi Jen! I hope it is a sign that people are catching on to saving money and not that times are getting harder. It's hard to gauge the times. In the bigger cities, it appears that times are booming, but in our little area, we see a lot of stores and restaurants closing down.

      Turkey and chicken franks aren't bad, really. And what's the calorie count? Not much. I think I'm really going to have to look into some one of these days. Haven't bought any in ages. Ran prefers those expensive Koegel Viennas. To me, a hotdog is a hotdog. Just an excuse to eat lots of onions. Ha!

      Hugs
      Jane

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  6. Hi Leslie and Jane! Thank you for the guest post--I really enjoyed Leslie's story of feeding her family on so little money. The link the to The Hillbilly Housewife is just a wonderful resource--I already made "Poor Man's Biscuits" this morning just to try them out! I am going to ask my mom if she remembers them from "the old days" because it's the first I'd ever heard of them. I thought they were quite good (hot biscuits fresh from the oven--what's not to love??), but my husband says he prefers the ones made with cold butter cut in. I didn't notice any complaints when I made him a fried egg breakfast sandwich out of one of those biscuits, so...he just may be seeing them again!
    Hillbilly Housewife also has a recipe for iced tea by the half-gallon that I will certainly try when the weather warms up. So nice to have another avenue to frugal living.
    And Jane, thank you so much for last week's seed starter primer--so much good info in one short post! That pretty much sums up all your writing, though. :^)
    Anyway, thanks again, ladies! Cheers!
    Sue

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    1. Thanks Sue! Glad you enjoyed the post and happy that you found some good recipes!

      Hugs
      Jane

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    2. That was a very interesting post, Jane. I enjoyed reading it. Now I am wanting hot dogs! Haven't had them in a while. I slice and saute them, add some of my homemade tomato chutney (ketchup works, too; just add a little chili powder to it), and serve them with rice and vegetables.

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    3. That's very interesting, Bless! I think the tomato chutney would be really good. Going to have to put that on my list of things to can this year. My sister always claimed that if you sauteed the hotdogs in a little butter (after boiling them) they tasted as if they were grilled. Don't know if that is true or not, but everything tastes better sauteed in butter. Ha!

      Hugs
      Jane

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  7. Hi Jane, I did enjoy this post. It's true about planning being necessary and it's also true that most of us could significantly reduce our grocery expenses if we need too.
    We recently took a short trip and stayed at a suite with a tiny kitchen. I took some food and bought eggs and bananas there. We ate out once but we enjoyed all the other meals in our room or vehicle. I had kind of planned out meals but we ended up combining what I took differently than I planned.
    It was all good and we brought home the leftovers and enjoyed them too.
    Speaking of hot dogs, we did a coupon deal at our commissary and got Oscar Mayer smoked sausage hot dogs for 50 cents a pack. They are really good and I was surprised they are 150 calories, the same calories as the much more expensive fancy chicken sausages I also bought.

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    1. I love it when the hotel has those little kitchenettes, Rhonda. Personally, I would rather spend my vacation money on fun and not on food.

      All this talk of hotdogs has really started me craving them. Right now I'm on a really strict diet as we try to figure out what's going on with my thyroid, but even I can handle 150 calories!

      Hugs
      Jane

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  8. Leslie, I've used Hill Billy Housewife's yogurt from powdered milk with good results... those times I haven't gotten to the store. We love corn grits, but I've never tried cornmeal mush. I expect it's the same taste, different texture. Hot dogs in lentils sounds interesting too.

    Jane, the Bad Axe biodiesel plant left today! Joseph will probably get out there mid summer, which I expect would be a good time to be there?

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    1. Hi Laurie! Mid Summer is fun around the Thumb, especially if you like water sports like swimming and kayaking. We're having another Porch Fest in Port Austin in June. That's a lot of fun and if you're here on the weekend , be sure to stop by our Farmer's Market. Good thing you aren't coming this week, we are supposed to get snow to finish off March. Blech! Sure you won't mind missing that!

      Hugs
      Jane

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    2. Wow, Porch Fest looks like it would be awesome! Thank you for sharing that.

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    3. We had a blast last year, Laurie. There were some really high caliber musicians playing and all the host porches were so nice. Some even had free refreshments.

      Hope Joseph didn't get caught in that storm. Heard it was snowing pretty hard downstate.

      Hugs
      Jane

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  9. Thanks ladies for your comments! I'm glad many of you have tried the recipes. Cornmeal mush is very similar to polenta...but creamier.

    Andrea mentioned that I might have some other tips and I do. I think we all have knowledge and experiences that others can learn from. This post addresses the practical issues during lean times. But there are attitude adjustments you have to make when faced with these challenges. And I think Jane addresses these so well in many of her posts. That is why I read Hope and Thrift. Thanks, Jane for allowing me to share!
    Blessings,
    Leslie

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  10. I haven't looked at the Hill Billy Housewife for a long time, but now I will. Thanks for the reminder.

    I agree that saving money takes a mindset. When we have come into hard financial times, we have always had it turn out ok in the end. BUT, getting through it was sometimes difficult. Last summer, when my husband was out of work, with no pay, we determined to make it a good summer anyway. It's amazing how many wonderful memories I have from last summer. I was just thinking today about some of the fun things we did. I am also glad he has a job now.

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