"Spendin' Money?" What do you do??

[JennsPeeps]

DBF will laugh when I tell him that we got chickens to save money.

@#$* coop...

 

[asher]

Quote:
SAHM? Stay at home mom?

Yes, sorry! hehe

 

[Nuggetsowner:)]

Well it seems I am doing alot of what the rest of you are!!

I work two jobs, plus my DH and I own a landscaping company. We are trying to do alot of work ourselves this year so we don't have to hire any "extra" employees. That gets expensive.

As far as home goes this year we planted a huge garden. Just a little over an acre with various plants. It takes alot of time but will be well worth it. I will can and or freeze alot of it!!

I also cut my DH and all my boys hair. It is summer so they don't mind the buzz anyway. My girlfriend's sister is a hairdresser and I have started to trade her 2 dozen eggs for a cut. I think I am getting the better deal but she said that was all she wanted!!

We have been cooking more at home and trying not to eat out. Also less snack foods in the house but I am baking from scratch more so it works for us!

I love the new laundry detergent I have been using for the past week or so. (Thanks for the great idea there guys!) It works well and saves tons of money!!

Conserve gas when we can and all that as well.

 

[LittleChickenRacingTeam]

Well I sell my craft eggs at local fairs & show's.

But as for spending money, I retired 2 yrs ago at 44, sold by biz, sold my stock shares in the Petroleum Industry(should have kept those a few more years)

I also sold my 50 acres with house to the Developers, although we still lease back the property until they decide to build subdivisions.

So basically I just spend money & pay my bills as they come in.

 

[clarkestep]

I mainly just stay at home. We really don't do much at all except going to church. Just combine trips when we can.

As for saving money, I clip and use a TON of coupons. This year I haven't done as well as I've been lazy, but I usually save between $3500-$5000 a year in coupons (the lower amt is actual savings after sales). Well, that is before I started doing all the CVS (drug store for those who don't have them) deals. I haven't had to buy toothpaste, toothbrushes, antiperspirant, tampons, hair care products, and many other products in about 6+ years! If you want to go where the big girls/boys play the couponing game go to www.hotcouponworld.com. It is so fun! And compared to some, I'm just a little girl still. LOL One lady had a total grocery/food budget (out to eat included) of about $900 for all last year. She was a single mom of 3 or 4 girls. I think she made it, too. They have every big chain store listed, the sales, and match ups with coupons. And it is free. Tell them clarkestep sent you if you join. You would be so surprised how much stuff you can get for free after coupons (or even paid to take it).

I'm hoping once my girls start producing I will be able to sell the extra eggs to cover the cost of food/coop. I'm sure it will be a while to break even though. We've already spent about $200 on the coop and I've only got about 10 girls (that's if 6 of the 10 chicks I have are girls. I have 4 other pullets that will start laying in a month or so). So we'll see. LOL

 

[Blisschick]

We live on an acre and own our own business, but the crunch has not been any less for us. The good thing is that we don't have to drive any farther than about 5 miles to work, so that saves us lots on gas, but when my husband has field calls several days a week, it hurts some. We've grown a garden this year, so we've been trying to do some canning to put up food for winter. We had a bumper crop of cucumbers, so I've been selling the extras to a local farmer's market for feed money. Eggs are sold when people request them, but that has been very often. I've sold extra birds off, eaten a turkey, and am looking to sell some poults. I'm not making enough to cover all my feed costs, but it is helping out some. We don't have really any extra indugences except our cell phones and cable. We've been living on a shoestring budget so long, I guess we're kind of used to it.

 

[me&thegals]

We are very lucky to live on 40 acres. It provides us with maple syrup, mushrooms, berries, venison, wild turkey and lotsof room for gardening.

I work at home part time, so that saves lots of gas $ and professional clothing. I also teach CPR/first aid on the side for a little extra $. Just last year started a CSA veggie-share business, so that has provided a fair amount of extra income but lots of extra work

We do most of the above--free entertainment, used clothing, canning/freezing our own fruits and veggies, good gas mileage car, as little driving as possible, combining trips, hanging clothes on line, cooking from scratch, and so on.

We find that our work and all the above keep us so busy that we don't have time to go spend money

 

[DuckyBoys]

I broke down and started applying for real jobs. Right now I work for the state government and only part time, from my home.

The first one is with the EPA...there is something seriously wrong with me. If anyone pays any attention to my posts, I'm not exactly what you'd call on the bandwagon with this "the planet is doomed crapola", in fact I'm the Glenn Beck, Rush, O'Reilly type of girl, yet I find myself working with all these high level tree huggers, in fact my current title (if you can stand the irony) is Environmental Protection Specialist. I dunno how I got here...Just lucky I guess.

On the bright side - it is a forensics job and pays 4 times as much as I make now. My chances of getting a Fed job are slim - so I'm not stressing out about working with "those people" just yet.

I also applied for a coroner job. More my style. Dead people and autopsies....that I can handle. It pays 3 times less as the EPA job.

I hope to be a coroner next month.

 

[lewisfarmgurl]

I'm a stay at home Mom because I take care of my Mom with her poor health. Wish I could go back to work.

Anyway, here is what I have been doing :

I unplug EVERYTHING in the house unless we need it except the freezer, fridge, stove, and hot water heater.

We do not have Direct TV anymore for 4 months now but we do watch movies and play the video games at night for a limited time.

Wash clothes early inthe morning in the slow consumtion time. ( around 3am to 5am) hang up to dry . ( make my own laundry soap)

Keep the ac on 78 degrees unless it is around 100 then lower it to 76.

Planted a garden and I'm canning for the winter. We will be getting meat birds also to put up.

Cook at home and don't eat out. ( we put up Turkeys when they are on sale and put in the freezer. We get 4 meals off them)

I only go shopping every 2 weeks to save on gas. (unless needed for the baby)

There are more things but I'm just not able to write them all.