World's Longest Yard Sale Adventure 2015

As you know, I'm a bit of a yard saling geek. So needless to say, 690 miles of yard sales, flea markets and community garage sales totally rocks my world.

No, this didn't come home
with us!

I originally heard about the sale from Erin at About.com's Frugal Living page. Trucker and I went for the first time 4 years ago, and have gone every year since. It's too fun not to!

This year, we'd planned to take a four-day trip, but then life happened. We got bumped up the list at the antique mall unexpectedly, and then moved in the weekend before the yard sales, and we were too tired for a multiple day trip. We decided we probably shouldn't go. However, we still wanted to go, as this is one of our favorite traditions. The morning of, we decided to go for just one day. We save coin every year for the yard sales and usually supplement this mad cash with some from our joint account to cover gas, food and lodging. This time, we decided to go for one day and use the coin for all of our spending. While we drove the 1.5 hours to route 127, I rolled coin. We had saved $150. We planned to stop at a bank and cash it in, but never ended up seeing one. We had to pay for everything with rolls of coin. Most people were fine with it, but next year I'll make sure I get a chance to stop at the bank to exchange the coin for singles.

The lady who sold this to me said she never could figure out
if it was a bear or a monkey. Thoughts?

In the ten minutes between when we decided to go and when we ran out the door, we scrambled to get everything ready. Trucker filled our travel mugs and thermos with coffee, cleaned out the car and tossed in all of our tote bags. I made ham sandwiches and grabbed some nectarines, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, protein bars and apple chips for the road. We ended up only having to buy coffee on the way home.

We got off the highway halfway to 127 to go to the bank to exchange our coin (only to find that the search hadn't mentioned that this was an ATM, not a branch location...oops), and saw a yard sale and stopped. They were selling everything for fifty cents! Can't beat it!

We finally got to 127 and decided to go north instead of south like we have the last two years. WOW! What a difference it made. This part of the route was filled with yard sales. We found two towns having community yard sales and we sidetracked down side streets hitting those yard sales that don't get quite as much traffic. We got some great scores this way.

We were walking down one country road hitting yard sales and a couple offered us kittens. They were too cute for words (so cute, in fact, that I forgot to take a photo for all the cuddling). Trucker had to drag me away, but I think he was as torn as I was. Still, I'm not sure that Ray would be happy with a sibling stealing our affections.

We bought lemonade and cookies from every kid we saw who had a booth set up. I spent $2, but it was totally worth it to invest in some young entrepreneurs.

I thought this beautiful shell would
be perfect for storing jewelry or
other small items or for holding
business cards at a store.

Mainly we bought items for the booth, but got some things for us. Trucker has been needing a mitre box saw and found one for $1. He has been wanting to set up a CB radio and had almost everything he needed. He bought 6 antennas for $10 and will sell the 5 he doesn't use. I got a dress, two tote bags and a nightgown from a free box. It was really hot and I forgot a hair tie, so I bought a $.25 bandanna. I got a cute little head scarf in sea green for $.25; this goes well with the corals and cornflower blues I've been wearing lately. Trucker bought me a $.10 ring tree to help me organize my jewelry.

This photo does not do this cute dress justice.

We spent 6.5 hours yard saling and covered only 6 miles of the route! Usually we cover 30-35 miles in a day, but this part of the trail was chock full of sales. Especially when you stop for the flea markets and community yard sales, it takes a lot of time to cover a mile. In years past, we've gone south at the spot we get on and usually have to drive a bit farther between yard sales. Since we only drove six miles on the route and usually walked to multiple yard sales for each stop, we barely used any gas. That was great as it saved us a lot of money to use for yard sales!

Did anyone else hit the World's Longest this past weekend? Share your stories or scores!

This Week...Beyond Money 08/03 - 08/09

For me, a life beyond money is making choices so that you can live the best possible life, regardless of your income level. Obviously, you have to make a living, but there are many ways to improve your quality of life without increasing your income levels and correspondingly your expenses. This regular post will be some of the ways that we improve our quality of life beyond just trying to make more money.

Gardening:
* I bought another water bottle for the bunnies for $1.
*  I bought more rabbit food. The feed shop was out of all kinds except Purina and Mana-Pro (which I don't need yet since neither of the girls has gotten knocked up yet). I paid $18 for the Purina, which is $3 more than the brand I got last time. However, this store is on the way home from my job and the nearest feed store otherwise would be a good 25 miles round trip out of my way, so it would cost around $3 in gas. Total cost for the bunnies: $146.
* I continue to feed weeds to the bunnies.
* I harvested 1.5 lbs of snap beans from the garden. Am I the only one who finds stringing beans to be one of the most pleasantly satisfying food preparations? Is it because I know the beans are super fresh? Do string beans taste better than stringless? Is it a meditation thing? I'm not sure, I just know that I am always happy while stringing beans.
* I harvested 4 cups of lettuce from the garden.
* I harvested a dozen or so cherry tomatoes. Not a huge harvest, but Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes are intensely flavored. Love it!
* I harvested edible flowers: day lilies, borage and nasturtiums.

Cooking/Groceries:
* I stopped by Aldi one evening when I was next door running another errand. I spent $18.50 for the week's groceries. I got some great deals: 2 packs of tortillas ($1.20 each), 2 loaves of bread ($.50 each), 2 10-oz containers of grape tomatoes ($.69 each, since my tomato plants are sluggish this year), 1 lb mozzarella cheese ($3), 3 packs of taco seasoning ($.35 each), 10 lb bag of potatoes ($3), 2 cucumbers ($.25 each), 2 1-lb bags of baby carrots ($.69 each), 8 plums ($.19 each), 5 nectarines ($.19 each), and 10 peaches ($.19 each). I plan to do some baking and freezing with the fruit. The cukes, grape tomatoes and carrots are for healthy snacking.
* I made fried chicken for dinner one night, simply tossed in flour and Bojangles seasoning. I served it with steamed green beans from the garden.
* I made frozen mochas using some mocha mix I'd been given with frozen bananas, yogurt, milk and topped with some whipped cream I got for $.99.
* I enjoyed adding borage flowers to water for a faint cucumber flavor.

Fun
* My friend came over for lunch one afternoon. She is vegan, so I made TVP tacos. I simply rehydrated the TVP with a packet of taco seasoning, and served with lettuce from the garden, tomatoes from the yard sales, black olives from the salvage grocery, sour cream (for me), hot sauce from the salvage grocery, and salsa from the manager's special bin at the grocery store. It was much cheaper to provide lunch for two at home compared to going out for even a cheap lunch for one.
* Trucker and I took a day to go to the World's Longest Yard Sale. We had planned on taking a four-day trip, but with moving into the booth the weekend before, we were tired and didn't have a lot of extra cash to spend. However, we had saved coin for the yard sales all year. We looked over our finances and saw that everything was fine for the month, so we decided to use the $150 we'd saved to go for one day. By only going for one day, we saved money on gas, food, drinks and hotel stay. We had a blast together, like always. We got a few items for ourselves: 6 CB radio antennas for Trucker (He has almost everything he needs to set up now; he'll use one and sell the others), a huge pottery mixing bowl in blue and white ($.50; it matches both my kitchen and another bowl I got for a bargain), a ring tree ($.10), a dress from a free box and 2 beautiful reusable totes from a free box. Everything else we purchased was for our booth. I packed lunch, snacks and drinks from home, so we only had to buy coffee once on the way home ($2 since we used our travel mugs).
* My family had been planning on going on a fishing trip together during our July vacation, but we got rained out. We took the trip this week. My parents, all three sisters, one sister's fiance and I went out for the day. We brought drinks and food from home, so we didn't purchase anything other than coffee for the 3.5 hour drive home. We carpooled and saved money on gas. It was a wonderful time. It was so nice to be able to talk and hang out with them. I caught the first fish of the boat! The fish weren't biting much for anyone, but it was still a good time. We didn't have a lot of fish at the end of the night, not enough for everyone, so we sent it all home with my sister's fiance.

Nature:
* I got to spend a whole day on a boat watching beautiful clouds and enjoying the fresh air while fishing.
* The one nice thing about having a really rainy summer is the wicked clouds. I've been loving evening runs when the sky is starting to get some color and watching the clouds as I run.

Frugality:
* I was in need of a new cell phone since mine hasn't been working properly. I discussed my options with the salesman and was able to save $120 over two years by buying my phone instead of getting a "free" phone.
* I combined three errands to one trip to save hassle and gas.
* Used swagbucks for all of my searching and filled out a few surveys to earn a little something.

Waste Reduction:
* I composted lots of weird things.
* While crafting, I set aside scraps of fabric to use in other projects.

Work:
* I worked an hour over on Monday and a half hour on Wednesday.
* I packed my lunch each day that I worked.

Future:
* My friend and I have been talking about setting up a booth selling crafts at a local festival next summer. When she came over for lunch, we spent a couple hours crafting to get ready.

Health:
* I've continued to run regularly. I timed myself one day and I did a 9-minute mile. While this isn't fantastic, I'm stoked. This is the best time I've ever had. When I started, I was doing 15 minute miles, and my best time last year was 12 minutes. I'm so excited! Not only that, but I'm able to run farther without walk breaks. I may start doing some longer runs with planned walk breaks.
* I did eat some junky foods while on the fishing trip. When I woke up the next day, I felt like I had a hangover, despite not having any alcohol and drinking lots of water/tea that day. I think my body just wasn't used to those types of foods anymore.

How was your week?

This Week...Beyond Money 7/27 -8/2

For me, a life beyond money is making choices so that you can live the best possible life, regardless of your income level. Obviously, you have to make a living, but there are many ways to improve your quality of life without increasing your income levels and correspondingly your expenses. This regular post will be some of the ways that we improve our quality of life beyond just trying to make more money.

This week's post is a little short. We moved into our booth at the antique store, so we have been working at that pretty much constantly. Some of you asked on social media for photos, and I will take some this coming week for next week's This Week post. Thanks for all the encouraging words!

Gardening:
* Continue to feed the bunnies weeds. They are growing nicely.
* I found mouse droppings in the bunny pellets bag, so I'm going to find a way to secure the bag better.
* Harvested 1 lb of green/purple snap beans. The Dean's Purple Podded poles give such a fantastic harvest compared to anything else I've ever grown. I think I'll grow them every year. I'm still getting some beans from the bush beans, although I may start culling plants that don't have flowers on them so I can get some late carrots, beets and radishes in.
* Harvested 4 cups of lettuces and nasturtium flowers.
* Harvested 5 cherry tomatoes. We made a special moment of eating the first two together.
* Harvested several jalapenos.

Cooking/Groceries:
* I wanted to make BLTs one day, but they were really just BLs. I used loads of lettuce from the garden, but I only had three cherry tomatoes. I cut them in half and put them on Trucker's sandwich and just had lettuce on mine. Soon I'll have more tomatoes, but I'm content enough with bacon. :) I saved half of the bacon to use in other meals.
* My sister came over one evening and I made pita pizzas. I used 4 pita breads ($.06 each), store-brand tomato sauce, a sweet pepper (from the manager's special cart), 3 crumbled slices of bacon, and some mozzarella from Aldi.
* I pulled some ground buffalo from the freezer and made buffalo burgers for dinner one evening. I froze one of the burgers to crumble to use later in tacos, stuffed peppers, etc.
* We spent the week working really hard at getting ready to move into our booth, so one evening I used our points to get a free pizza from Papa John's. They had sent a promo code to use 15 points for a free pizza instead of 25, so I've got half of what I need for my next freebie.

Fun:

* My uncle finished his chemotherapy on Monday, so he and his wife, Mum, Dad and I went out for dinner to celebrate. It was a wonderful time laughing and talking with some of my favorite people.
* My sister came out one evening for dinner. Afterwards, we went to the summer film festival I had tickets for. Since I'd bought a strip of tickets early in the season, our tickets only cost me $2.50 each. I brought some candy from the salvage grocery store. We saw From Here to Eternity.

Nature 
* Trucker and I went for a 2.5 mile hike at a park near us. It was a shorter hike, but there were intense hills, so we got a decent workout in. It was so beautiful.

Work:
* We packed lunches of leftovers each day we worked.
* I worked 45 minutes overtime.

Future:
* We went thrifting to get items for decorating our antique mall booth. I got more lighting, a huge basket and some linens for a couple ugly tables. I was a good girl and didn't look at items for myself. :)
* We spent most of our not-at-the-job time working on pricing items for the booth.
* On Saturday, we woke up early and hit a barn sale that only happens a couple times a year.
* After the barn sale, we ran home and loaded up the cars with all of our shelving, tables, desks, end tables, baskets and items to sell. We used our mad Tetris skills to fit almost all of it into the two Hondas. We got there and unloaded, then Trucker ran out to the hardware store to get more shelving while I started unpacking. We had worked for 2 weeks pricing items and thought we had a lot but...that booth is HUGE. It's going to take some effort to fill it up as much as we need to. Fortunately, we've still got a lot at home that we can price and bring up. As online listings expire, we will take them up to the booth instead of paying to relist online. It took us four hours of work that day. While we were leaving, we saw one of our items in someone's cart. YAY!
* While Trucker was at work Saturday night (poor thing worked a 6 day stretch with this in the middle), I stayed up late pricing lots of items. Sunday we came back with another car load and staged a bit better. When I came in, I saw that I'd sold a few more items. That was encouraging. The weekend sales weren't phenomenal, but the booth is still being filled and staged, and we were in the booth for most of the weekend. I'm sure many people walked by the booth without looking while we were there because it's awkward. We're going to work really hard to get it filled during the week so next weekend we're good to go.

Health:
* I ran a few times this week, but not as much as I wanted to. Honestly, everything was deprioritized after we signed the lease for the booth.

Setbacks:
* We're a little tight until we start making sales at the booth. We'd expected to have several months to save for security deposit and first months rent, plus time to assemble the needed staging and shelving items. Since they rushed us in, we didn't have the time to do it the easy way. We had to move some money around and had to be less picky about staging/shelving items. We didn't want to pass on this opportunity because who knew how long it would be before we could get another chance at such a great booth at this particular mall. Fortunately, we were able to make it work.

Community:
* My sister got a new pair of steel toes since she didn't like her current pair, so she gave them to me. She only wore them a few days. My previous pair was starting to fall apart a bit on the inside, so I had started looking at sales papers for a new pair. I will keep the old pair in my commuter car just in case. If you show up to work without steel toes, you get sent home and if you don't have the day available, tough luck. My dad said he keeps extras of everything he needs in his locker just in case, so I'm doing the same thing. Small step but adds a bit of job security.
* I gave part of my packed lunch to a coworker who forgot her lunch that day.

How was your week?

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The Fine Art of Line Drying

I don't know what it is, but I feel like the perfect little housewife when I line dry clothes. It's really the only chore that I absolutely, thoroughly enjoy. And why not? I get to be outside on a perfect day in the sunlight and fresh air while burning about 70 calories in a half hour. Perfect! It saves money on gas/electric if using a machine you own or the stacks of quarters needed for a pay-machine. Dryer lint is basically just your clothes shredding, so line drying helps your clothes last a little longer. There's every reason to line dry your clothes. Here are my tips and tricks for efficiently and easily line drying all of our clothes.

Buy clothespins from the dollar stores. A big pack of wooden ones costs $1 (for 36 at Dollar Tree) and lasts just as long as more expensive ones. Keep an eye out for clothespins at thrift stores too. You can really never have enough.

Don't buy the cheap rope clotheslines that the dollar store sells. They are a little cheaper, but they do not last as long as a nice, plastic encased line. Worse yet, they will start shedding and will leave fuzz all over your clothes. As it is, the price difference is negligible: $1 for a cheap line, $4-6 for a nice line. When you consider that you'll go through 2 (at least) in the first year if you leave them in the elements, whereas the nicer ones will last for years, it's a no-brainer. Plus you don't have to try to dust off the fuzz from your hubby's favorite t-shirt without him noticing.

When you hang your clothesline, stretch it as tight as possible and leave a tail when you cut off the excess. As you hang clothes, the line with stretch a little or a lot depending on the quality of the line. If you leave a tail, you can pull it tight and retie as needed.

You can use as clothespin bag to hold your pins while you work, or keep them all in a clothespin apron (basically a half apron with a giant front pocket for holding the pins). I don't have either. I have a pretty basket that I put on my patio table (right next to my line). I pin a dozen or so pins onto my shirt, grab a handful of clothes and go hang. It's not pretty, but it works until I get around to modifying one of my aprons.

If you have your choice of weather, go for a warm, low-humidity day with a good breeze. This will ensure that your clothes dry quickly. Also, windy days make for softer clothes which makes for happier families.

If the weather is uncooperative (as I write this, we've had rain 28 of the last 30 days), you can still hang dry clothes, you just have to hang them inside. Get creative with this. Hang light items from hangers on the shower rod (don't hang too many or too heavy items or it will fall). Use clothespins to hang items from a wire shelf (again, stick to lighter items) or a thin towel rod. If your wire shelf is securely fastened to the wall, you can hang some lighter items from hangers slid in between the wires. Hang items from door handles or bathrobe hooks. Hang items from the oven door handle. Drape items over the back of wooden chairs. Drape items over stairway banisters. Lay items such as sweaters or shirts flat on a table, counter or the washing machine. Or you could go conventional and get an indoor clothes drying racks. Whatever.

In my old apartment, there were hooks in the basement where we washed our laundry. We strung up a clothesline and were able to line dry regardless of the weather. This basement wasn't very musty or humid, so this worked well. Clothes took longer to dry than outside, but it was a workable option, especially in winter.

If you have a "hang dry" setting on your washer, use it. This will spin the clothes longer to get them a bit dryer before you line dry them. If you don't have the option, simply set your dryer to spin dry a second time. In fact, this is a good tip even if you use the dryer as you can run the dryer for less time.

Make allowances as necessary for family bliss. Trucker is all for my efforts to save money and act in an environmentally responsible manner. What he's not a fan of is crusty jeans, towels and socks. Fair enough. I don't want to force him to wear uncomfortable jeans and have him snap and declare that all of his clothes much be machine dried. Instead, I line dry everything, then take down the items that are very rough, and toss them in the dryer for 10 minutes. It softens them just enough to be comfortable for him, but not long enough to make much of an impact on our energy bill. I soften our towels, jeans and socks; nothing else is crunchy enough to need it.

If you have to pay for use of a dryer, the above tip won't help you, since you'd still have to pay $1.50 for the 10 minutes. Instead, wait until you have a few loads of laundry to wash. Wash all the loads at once, then separate out the items you want to dry in the machine from the ones you are okay with line drying. Usually, you can consolidate three or four loads of wash into one load for the dryer. Line dry the other 2-3 loads and you'll save $3-4.50. This was my method when we lived in an apartment with pay-appliances.

I generally sort my clothes as they come out of the wash into my large basket. I put heavy items on the bottom, then have one corner of shirts, one corner of underwear, one of socks and one of dish towels/wash cloths/rags. This makes it easier and more efficient when hanging the clothes. Also, my clothesline will hang two medium-large loads of laundry, but I usually end up washing three loads. I start by hanging the light items from the first load, then work to the heavier items. I do the same with the second load. By the time the third load is coming out of the wash, the some of the lighter items are dry and I can remove them and start hanging items from the third load. Yes, I am aware that my OCD is showing. But it works.

As you pull damp clothes from the bin, give them a good snap. This will make for softer, less-wrinkled clothes. (This tip is also good for machine drying as it prevents tangled up messes that take longer to dry).

On sunny days, turn jeans and dark clothes inside out to prevent fading. Make sure to remove dark items as soon as they are dry. For whites that need brightening, leave them out in the sun as long as you please as the sun acts as a nice, natural bleach.

On really windy days, overlap an inch of fabric from each piece over the line and put the clothespin over both layers. This will keep the clothes from blowing off onto the ground.

If you are running out of space or clothespins, you can run a row of dishcloths or other lighter items together. Overlap the corner of the two pieces and use one clothespin to hang it. You can run this as long as you'd like. This saves enough space to add a couple more items and uses one less clothespin per item. This will take a little longer to dry, but helps in a pinch. You can also hang them using just one clothespin, but I find this tugs them out of shape, so I prefer this method. If you have plenty of space and pins, use two pins per piece. Hang dishtowels with a button-closure hanger by fastening over the line. This saves space and clothespins.

Towels are draped over the line. After awhile, if I remember, I flip them around. I'm not sure if this speeds dry-time, but I do it anyway. To dry them faster, hang in a single layer horizontally, fastening with 3-4 clothespins.

I drape sheets in half across the line and fasten a few pins along the length to keep it from blowing off if it's breezy. Blankets are draped in half also, and flipped after an hour or so.

I hang socks by the cuffs. Most people have told me the proper way is by the toe, but Trucker thinks this makes the toes wear out faster. Again, family bliss. I hang them by the cuffs. You can hang pairs together if you'd like to save hands-on time, although it may increase dry time.

Underwear is hung using two pins if I am trying to dry items quickly or by one if I am running short of space and/or pins. I hang boxers by the waistband with two pins. I drape bras over the line and fasten the clasp.

I hang t-shirts and tank tops by the bottom, using 2-3 pins per piece. I button dress shirts, then use 3 clothespins, one on each side and one in the middle.

Dresses can be hung from the top using a 2-3 pins depending on the dress. I often hang them on a hanger and hang these either on the line or inside.

I hang pants/jeans by the legs. Some people hang them from the waistband saying it dries them faster. However, the weight of the waistband gently tugs the pants down, eliminating wrinkles.

When the items are dry, I bring out two baskets, 1 large and 1 small. I first take off every piece that I want to fluff in the dryer: jeans, socks and towels. I toss these into the small basket and take it all in immediately to the dryer. I toss it all in at once and set for 5-10 minutes. Then I go back out to the rest of the laundry. I take down items by type, jeans/pants first, then t-shirts/tanks, then underwear. I fold each piece as I go and place Trucker's items on one side of the large basket and mine on the other. When all other items are removed, I drape dress shirts and dresses over the top so they don't get wrinkled before I have the chance to get it on a hanger. By the time I'm done removing and folding these items, the dryer is done and I can fold those items.

Did I miss anything? Do you have any tips to share with everyone?

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This Week...Beyond Money 7/20 - 7/26

For me, a life beyond money is making choices so that you can live the best possible life, regardless of your income level. Obviously, you have to make a living, but there are many ways to improve your quality of life without increasing your income levels and correspondingly your expenses. This regular post will be some of the ways that we improve our quality of life beyond just trying to make more money.

Gardening:
* Harvested 2 cups of greens.
* Harvested 1/2 lb of snap beans-Dean's Purple podded, Blue Lake, Appaloosa and Jacob's Cattle.
* Harvested 80+ heads of garlic. Most were on the smaller side compared to last year. This was for a variety of reasons: I planted them closer than last year, the weather has been terrible, that garden bed wasn't fertilized before planting, I planted new varieties that were smaller than the variety I grew the previous year, and I bought random heads of garlic from various farmers instead of buying "growing" garlic. I'm not sure what combination of those things lead to the smaller heads (except, of course, the smaller varieties), but I still got a nice sized harvest overall. I planted 80+ heads in the same space I planted 40 in last year. Even with them being smaller, I got a larger overall harvest per square foot, so I consider it a success. Also, I planted mainly hardneck garlic and got a huge harvest of garlic scapes this year. I may space them out a bit more in the coming year, but overall I am happy.
* Continue to feed weeds to the bunnies. They get so excited when I come up with the greens. Also, all of the bunnies, including the Nurse, have gotten more comfortable with me petting them.

Cooking/Groceries:
* I made colcannon and sausages for breakfast one morning. I fried sausages in my cast iron skillet. I harvested kale and lettuce from the front-garden container, added garlic and leftover mashed potatoes with some frozen and thawed yogurt (that had a weird texture after thawing but is safe). I fried it all in a bit of bacon fat. This is one of my favorite dishes ever. It's delicious, flexible, a great way to use up leftovers and it is a great, filling meal.
* I made frozen mochas for us one day. We had some instant mocha powder that someone gave us but we never got around to using. I added some to a couple frozen bananas, some yogurt and a bit of ice with a squirt of chocolate syrup. Delicious and much healthier than frozen mochas that you can buy at a coffee house.
* I had a good day of grocery shopping. I shopped exclusively from the manager's specials. I got 8 cans of organic cat food for $.25/can, a box of Chex for $.99, over a pound of ground chicken for $1.88, 1 pound of pork for $1.40, 2 packs of pita bread for $.49/each, a loaf of pickle rye for $.39 and a loaf of baked-in-store 100% whole grain bread for $.39. I froze all except one loaf of bread.
* I made chicken tacos one evening using 1/2 of the chicken, lettuce from the garden, salsa, the last of the tortillas and plain yogurt since I had no sour cream.

Food Preservation:
* Froze another 3 dozen ears of corn. I'm set for winter!

Fun:
* Trucker and I went to see Shakespeare in the Park, put on by a local theatre troup. Free event. We brought bottles of homemade iced tea and a bucket of popcorn I made right before we left.
* I went out to lunch with a couple of friends from an old job since one of them was visiting from out of state for the weekend. I got the cheapest brunch they had ($6). I parked at a meter that had 3 hours left on it, so parking was free.
* My friend took me out for coffee one afternoon since she had a gift card. We had a great time catching up.
* A friend and I went to the summer film series showing of Young Frankenstein at a nice theatre downtown. I'd bought a strip of 10 tickets for $25 at the beginning of the season, so I treated. Cheap little outing, but we had a blast. She is also a fan of Mel Brooks, so it was perfect.

Frugality:
* I got gas at my job and saved $.30/gallon.
* I got Trucker's oil changed while he was at work one day. I had planned on going to the antique mall to talk with the manager a bit and measure our booth, so I looked up oil change services within walking distance. Then I looked up coupons online. I found that one had a coupon for $17 oil change. I dropped off the car, walked to the antique mall and by the time I was done, so was the car. That saved gas since I was able to combine trips.
* I hand washed a bunch of linens to decorate our booth and to sell. I line dried two loads of laundry.
* I line dried a few loads of laundry.

Waste Reduction:
* Curb shopped for decorating our booth.

Work:
* I worked 45 minutes overtime this week.
* We both packed lunch each day we worked.

Preparedness:
* Froze more food for the winter.

Future:

* I went out thrifting and yard saling for items for display and decoration for our booth. I needed to get some good lighting. I wanted to keep all of the lighting vintage so I could slap a price on it and keep with the overall feel. I scored big! I got a so-awful-it's-great lamp of a lady wearing a lace dress. There's a light on her head and under her dress.  At a yard sale I got a wood and milk glass lamp and 3 wall-hanging glass lights. I found two giant fruit baskets (these are the perfect size to line with the burlap coffee sacks Trucker gets for free from his job), a large basket with a handle, a three-tier wire basket with chipped white paint , and a large, flat wooden box with Japanese writing on it.
* We are spending a lot of time pricing items for our booth. One afternoon, I went to the antique mall to see approximately what others were pricing like at this location. We are racing the clock now. Less than a week til move-in! The kitchen is full of items needing to be washed on one side, and drying items on the other (on towels draped over every flat surface). The living room is full of items that are awaiting pricing or that are priced and packed into boxes. Phew.
* We curb shopped a lovely old wooden ladder. We'll put this over the top of the booth and hang items from it.

Health:
* Continue to run most days. I'm able to run farther than I imagined I would a year and a half ago. Very exciting.
* My weight has stabilized at roughly where I want to be. I would ideally like to lose another 5-10 pounds, but feel I'm at a fair weight for me. My focus is mainly on getting more fit rather than just seeing that number on the scale drop.

Community:
* My friend's friend is moving and was going to throw away some things. Instead, he offered them to my friend. I drove her over to his place to pick up the boxes and helped her move them. They gave me a pressure cooker/canner since they knew I was wanting to learn to can this year! So sweet.

How was your week?

This Week...Beyond Money 7/13 - 7/19

For me, a life beyond money is making choices so that you can live the best possible life, regardless of your income level. Obviously, you have to make a living, but there are many ways to improve your quality of life without increasing your income levels and correspondingly your expenses. This regular post will be some of the ways that we improve our quality of life beyond just trying to make more money.

Gardening:
* I fed the bunnies lots of weeds. I've noticed a bit of a problem. Now that I've been better about mowing as often as my neighbors would want (haha), the weeds don't get as big, so it takes me a lot longer to harvest what the bunnies need. I may need a wild area that I seed to dandelions and plantains and leave to grow lush. Or start poaching from some of the abandoned properties I run by.
* Harvested 3 cups of green beans.
* Harvested 3 baby radishes.
* While I was at a thrift store, I found a rabbit water bottle for $2. I have three for my breeding trio, but need a few more for when the babies go into the tractor. These usually sell for $5-7. My total cost for the bunnies is now $127.
* Harvested 8 cups of greens-6 types of lettuce, radish microgreens, kale and mustard.

Cooking/Groceries:
* For lunch one day, we had quesadillas and a can of tomato soup from the pantry (salvage grocer, $.49)
* We bought 2 heirloom tomatoes from a local farmer for $2. They were fantastic.
* We had BLTs one evening with bacon from the freezer ($1.49/lb on sale), tomato (from the farm stand), lettuce from the garden and some clearance-priced bread ($.49/loaf). Delicious.
* I went to the grocery store. I spent $8 on groceries. I will make this last the whole week. I bought: 3 heads of broccoli (Clearance, $1.49), 2 heads of cauliflower, one purple (Clearance, $1.49), 3 dozen ears of corn ($1/12 ears, loss leader sale), 2 2-litres of soda (We don't drink much soda, so this will last a long time; mainly got it for use as a mixer for parties; coupon+loss-leader sale, $.45/each), 10 oz package of cherry tomatoes (mine aren't close to being ready because of the weird weather; $1 loss-leader sale).

Food Preservation:
* I parboiled 2 dozen ears of corn and cut the corn off the cob. I packed them into 11 freezer bags. I have two dozen more ears to preserve.
* I am drying the corn silk to use as a diuretic tea. I may also try experimenting with giving the bunnies a small amount in winter. I've found mixed reviews of such use online, but I don't think it would be a bad thing to give them a little bit with lots of other things. As always, I'll start out with a very tiny amount and see how it goes.
* I cleaned out the frig of lots of random items: leftover chorizo, leftover rice, the last of a jar of salsa, half a can of pork and beans, the last of a tub of sour cream. I mixed it together with a packet of mac n cheese seasoning (My friend went to a dairy-free diet, and gave me the packets from her boxed mac n cheese) since I usually make my mac n cheese from scratch. I stuffed this into banana and small sweet peppers. I froze all of these. Now we'll be able to pull a several small peppers out for dinner, or a couple to use as a side dish on taco night.

Fun:
* We met up with a big group (~25) of our friends for pizza one evening. We split a one-topping pizza that cost just over what one entree would have cost and got a small pitcher of beer to split. Since we're only going out with friends once a month, it was a reasonable amount.
* We met up with some of my coworkers for drinks one evening. We each only had one drink, for $13 with tip.
* My friend had a bonfire one evening and grilled our ribs. It was a great evening. I brought a couple of beers from home and a dozen ears of corn ($1/dozen) to grill.
* We had a reward for $1 off a drink at our regular coffee date spot. We used that in combination with our travel mugs for a total of $2.18 for our date. Free refills.

Nature:
* We went hiking at a new-to-us park. It was absolutely beautiful! Partially wooded with rock walls jutting up from the earth, a river, meadows. It was less than 50 miles from our home, but there were a lot of plants and insects that don't grow further north where we live.

Frugality:
* I line dried 2 large loads of laundry.
* I ran/walked to the library to return two items that were due. I got my miles in, returned them without a fee and didn't use any gas.

Waste Reduction:
* I am drying the corn husks before I put them in the compost so they'll act more like a brown than a green (I'm assuming that since corn is a grass, it would behave the same as lawn-grass in the compost?).

Work:
* I worked 10 minutes overtime one day and 30 minutes another.
* Trucker brought home a huge bag full of goodies.
* I packed a lunch every day using leftovers.
* One day, Trucker got called in to work 4 hours early. Since he rushed out the door, he forgot to grab the lunch I'd had ready for him. Since it was going to be a long day, I knew he'd be hungry. I was grocery shopping on the way home. The store had 7 oz containers of popcorn chicken on their 11 for $10 sale ($.91, which brings the price to just over $2/lb) so I bought him one and got a bunch of discount bananas and gave him one. I also keep shelf stable foods in the car for work days (since I work a manual job, some days I'm famished when I get off work), so I also gave him a protein bar and a package of fancy mango-coconut crackers ($.36/box of 10 packages). I drove by his job on the way home anyway so it didn't take extra gas.
* I picked up a gig helping out my farmer friend. Not only did I get paid a fair amount for the work I did, but I got some good experience setting up a farmer's market booth (the girl I worked with had lots of experience and knowledge on the best ways to set things up). For breakfast, we ate an ear of sweet corn, raw (had to be able to tell the customers how it was).

Preparedness:
* Froze a lot of food for winter.

Future:
* We got a phone call from the antique mall. They bumped us up on the waiting list. We have signed a lease for a booth. It is a good booth  with one extended wall (more space for hanging things!) off the main stretch right off the entrance. We are really excited. We bought our tags and are going to start getting our items priced.
* After our lease signing, I went to a thrift store to pick up items for staging. I got two lace tablecloths for $3 total. We'll toss these over a couple less-pretty tables to fancy them up for display.

Health:
* Continue to take long walks and run frequently.
* Trucker and I went on a 3.5 mile hike together.

Community:
* I gave a bag of salad greens to the neighbor who gave me plants earlier this year.
* I stopped by another neighbor's house to give her some lettuce. We talked a couple weeks ago and she mentioned that she'd had to give up gardening. She said she doesn't eat much lettuce, but invited me in for coffee. I ended up sitting and talking with her for an hour and a half.
* When I was at the farmer's market, I worked with a childhood friend I haven't seen in 6-7 years. It was wonderful catching up, and we exchanged numbers with promises to do a bit of adventuring together-hiking, biking or running. She also brought some oyster mushrooms she grew to give me! So sweet!
* One of the farmers at another booth brought over cookies for us because he said we looked hungry.

How was your week?

This Week...Beyond Money 07/6 - 7/12

For me, a life beyond money is making choices so that you can live the best possible life, regardless of your income level. Obviously, you have to make a living, but there are many ways to improve your quality of life without increasing your income levels and correspondingly your expenses. This regular post will be some of the ways that we improve our quality of life beyond just trying to make more money.

Gardening:
* Continue feeding weeds to the bunnies. I used to dehydrate my radish leaves to use in my veggie powder. They aren't tasty, but I felt bad wasting them. Now those go into the bunnies' rations also.
* Bunny Weigh-In: Frank the bunny was 1.5 pounds when I got him at 6 weeks old (approx; they said he was older but based on his size, I doubt it). He is now 4 pounds. He's smaller than the girls, but bucks always are. Hopefully he'll continue to grow. I didn't weigh the girls when I first got them (which I regret), but visibly they've grown substantially. Hazel-ra was the smaller of the two and still is, weighing in at 5 pounds. However, she loves her greens and is growing nice and big. Nurse Ratched is ridiculous. She was born within a day of Hazel-ra, but she weighs an astonishing 6.25 pounds! I can hardly believe the difference in their weight. Generally, I love that the Nurse puts on weight so fast, but she eats more pellets than either of the other two rabbits (while still eating all the greens I can give her). Hazel-ra doesn't grow as fast, but she prefers greens and never finishes her pellets, while still managing to gain. I'm hoping that her kits will take readily to a rabbit trailer moved around the backyard. Overall, I'm still really happy. I'm waiting until autumn to breed them so they have time to grow properly before kitting. I'll get one kitting in, then wait until spring for more. So far, my expenses for the bunnies have been: $80 for the cages/water bottles/feeders/carrier/scale/toenail clippers, $30 for the rabbits, $15 for feed, for a total of $125. Some people spend that to adopt a cat. This is totally reasonable for the startup costs to start supplying my family with all of the meat we eat in a year (we have an arrangement to barter rabbit meat for beef and venison when the time comes, so bacon will be our only purchased meat)
* The broadcast radishes germinated well and are pretty evenly spaced. The beets are starting to germinate.
* I broadcast 1 more packet of beets and 3 more packets of radishes in other empty spots in the garden. This is lazy gardening all the way, but what with the poison ivy and near constant rain and mosquitoes, it's what I can do this year.
* Harvested 4 cups of green beans
* Thinned the garden beds and ended up with a cup of edible thinnings: basil, carrots, radish, beets.
* Harvested 3 cups of mixed greens: lettuce, kale and mustards.
* I planted Little Finger carrot seeds among the tomato plants.
* I planted a spare container with Scotch Kale seeds.
* All of the orange mint that germinated was all in one corner of the window box I planted. I transplanted some of the plants throughout the planter. Hopefully they'll be okay.

Cooking/Groceries:
* I used leftover hot dogs from the cookout for perhaps my trashiest meal ever: hot dog gravy and toast. Out of sheer desperation to use them up before they went bad, I sliced them and pan fried til crispy. I made a gravy, like I would for sausage. I served this over bacon cheddar scones that Trucker brought home from his job. It is not something I would plan into the meal rotation, but I'd make it again to use up leftovers. The key is to make a really good gravy, because the meat cannot be the shining light of this dish.
* We went to the grocery store and had a great store. They had a ton of pork products marked down to $1.88/16-18 oz package. We got 8 packages: 2 of ground pork, 2 ground Italian sausage, 2 ground country sausage, 1 package Italian sausage links, and 1 meatballs. They had a clearance cart of $1 personal watermelons. Trucker doesn't eat much watermelon, and I can't eat a huge one alone. I love watermelon, so this will get me my summery fix without waste. Pineapples were $.75; I got two. Any I don't eat fresh will be grilled (because oh, my!). 1 lb containers of baby arugula were on manager's special for $.50; I bought one. I bought a package of organic baby portabella mushrooms, $.50. A package of prepped veggies for roasting was on sale for $.50/lb. While I'd never usually use these, I got one because it contained a good mix of veggies to use at a price that would have been acceptable for any of them: summer squash, zucchini, winter squash, carrots, onions.
* We had big salads for dinner one night: arugula, tomatoes (the last of the toms from the farm stand), onions, zucchini, summer squash, carrots (all from the roasting veggies package). I pan fried some chicken breasts to top them (I froze 2/3 of the chicken for later)
* Trucker made his incredible french toast with bread that was getting a bit stale and made enough for me to use for breakfasts later (pop in the toaster instead of the microwave and it's *almost* as good as fresh).
* We had just a little ice cream left, not enough for us each to have a serving. I made a batch of brownies as a special treat for us one evening and served them hot, each with a scoop of ice cream on top and a drizzle of chocolate bourbon sauce.
* I walked to the Save a Lot near me. I spent $3.50 on a loaf of bread, 2 10-packs of tortillas and a canister of cake spice ($.10).
* We used half of one package of meatballs (so $.94 worth), with spaghetti and tomato sauce (added garlic scapes-free, mustard greens from the garden). Topped with basil microgreens from weeding the garden. I served with slices of bread and White Russians (Trucker found coffee liquor half off and I had bought some fat free "half and half" for $.50/qt).
* I made a peach crisp with the last of the peaches from the farm stand. It was perfect. Absolutely. We ate some warm from the oven, some cold and some as part of a parfait.
* I made two batches of cookies, reserving half of the dough in the freezer for another time. I made a batch of peanut butter shortbread and a batch of chocolate shortbread. Some of the peanut butter cookie dough I made into PBJ thumbprints. These were probably the best cookies I've ever made. Not too sweet. And there's peanut butter for protein and the grape jelly counts as a fruit, right? Health food (according to my Grandma's logic for giving me ice cream for dinners...counts as dairy).
* Made stir fry with lots of random veg from the garden, grocery and farm stand. Served over rice with pumpkin seeds for protein.

Food Preservation:
* I froze some leftover meat to use in meals later. We are still plowing through cookout leftovers as well as a couple of good deals I bought, so I'm putting chicken breasts, hamburger and hot dogs into the freezer. Later, I can pull out a container and have quick tacos or toss the hot dogs (these were already grilled, then sliced) into a casserole with potatoes.
* After each ate a brownie, I froze the rest of the batch in 2 brownie portions.  I also froze two half batches of cookie dough. Whenever we want to have a sweet, I can pull a container out.I am absolutely loving this deep freeze!

Fun:
* Cheap coffee date= $3.18 with our travel mugs.
* We went to Sonic Drive-In for their half-off ice cream cones one day=$2.89 date.
* One evening after I worked late, we redeemed our free pizza from Papa John's. I picked it up on my way home, and we enjoyed it while watching a movie from the library. Free date.
* Awhile back we bought 10 tickets for the summer film series at our favorite local theatre. It's really fun to get dressed up a little to see a movie in a posh theatre. We enjoyed it a lot last year, so decided to get the discount for a bulk-lot this year. We paid $25 for 10 tickets, normally $4 each. We invited a couple of our friends to come with us to the theatre to watch Key Largo (which I hadn't seen yet).

Nature:
* Went out for frequent walks.

Frugality:
* I replaced the furniture pads on the bottom of my desk chair so they don't scratch up the floor in front of my desk and prematurely age my hardwood.
* I line dried three loads of laundry.
* I walked errands one day (5 miles) instead of driving. This didn't save much money, but every bit counts. Mainly, it was a great excuse to spend a couple hours outside on one of the few days it didn't rain all day. And I got a fantastic workout since I was carrying heavy bags for 3 miles of it!
* At a yard sale, I spent $1 on: a blue and white pottery bowl (that matches my kitchen), a pack of outlet sealers and 5 packs of matches.

Waste Reduction:
* I turned an almost-empty bottle of shampoo upside down and got 5 more shampoos out of it. After that, I shook water in it and used it as bubble bath.
* Composted lots of random things.

Work:
* Trucker brought home a big bag of goodies from his job.
* I worked 2 hours overtime this week.
* I was expecting not to receive a paycheck this week because of the vacation the previous week (although next week's check will be larger due to the extra day I picked up at the tail end). However, I received my attendance bonus for the month, which was 10% of what my check usually is. Small, but something.

Preparedness:
* I bought extra matches to have on hand. I'll put these in a plastic bag and put them in our bags.

Future:
* We are officially on the waiting list to get a booth at one of our favorite antique malls in the city. They have good advertising, we see people buying every time we're in, and we've talked with vendors who have good things to say. We're so excited!

Health:
* Continuing to run frequently. I want to race this year, so I thought maybe I should try to run with shoes on. Convention, you know. It was terrible. Immediately my form was off and everything ached. I hadn't realized how much I depend on that sensory data from striking the earth to adjust my form. I may just have to overcome my nerves and race barefoot. I did look online at prices for Vibrams Five Finger shoes. I'll probably buy a pair to use for winter running. For now, I just need to find a good, short answer to the question I get five times each run: "Where are your shoes, girl?"
* I ran a few times this week.
* One day I rode with Trucker to his job and then walked home 5.6 miles, running about a mile of it. Got some much needed vitamin D and fresh air. The next day I walked 4 miles on errands, 3 miles of it carrying heavy bags.

Setbacks:
* I didn't get a full paycheck this week because of the vacation. I did get about 1/10 my usual check because my attendance bonus came in. Next week my paycheck will be larger because of the extra production day I voluntarily worked (for double time pay)

Community:
* A couple of friends gave us an air conditioner that they were no longer using (that another friend had given them when she no longer needed it).
* My mum's friend helps a group of people with special needs make crafts to sell. She asked me to look out for some supplies while I'm out picking. I found a few things cheap and gave them to her.

How was your week?