Ongoing Challenge #2 Moey -- Don't Waste

This walks hand-in-hand with what Deb posted earlier. What she was talking about is a little more pro-active than what I am talking about. At this point in my household, I need to get control over the wastage of stuff -- food, materials, time, talents.

I have read many good books during the course of my married life, about this, but probably the stand-out resource, to me, is that well-known collection by Amy Dacyczyn, The Tightwad Gazette.

This is the book that taught me how to turn leftover bits of foody everything into muffins, casseroles, soups, quiches; how to make almost everything from almost anything; how not to be stuff-proud but money-poor; and most importantly, WHY I would want to!

The fact that the author had both a small income and a large family (six children,like Deb and me), makes her ideas both credible and attainable.

I'll let all the single ladies keep Oprah and Cheryl Mendelson, give me $15 worth of Amy any day.

Now, here is the small difficulty: the book (as a series of newsletters) was compiled in the 90's, in the USA, and so is both somewhat outdated and somewhat USA-biased in its ideas, materials available and advice. (That is one of the reasons I think Deb's input is so valuable as an Aussie.) So in our lives, I hope that we can continue to think of creative ways to use what we have, and not to waste.

I just love that challenge.

Daily List Challenge #1-- Moey

Holy guacamole. I am not really sure how to organize these posts but I don't have the time today to think about it, anyhow, so I am just going to jot down a few thoughts.

First of all: regarding eating for $1/person/day: I don't know that I am going to do a complete breakdown of each individual item that we eat daily. In the book, the authors did do that, which I think was fine for "accounting" purposes, but as a reader, it was a bit tmi. Reason being that, for the authors, it was a 30-day experiment to see if it could be done and at what cost. For me, it is an ongoing goal, not something written in stone.

Well, and over time, for example, peanut butter might cost me .06/tbsp from one jar but only .03/tbsp from another one I got on sale. Too much figuring for an ongoing project. So I think that the cost figuring for me will be a little more long-term: I'll keep track of what is spent every week, and how soon I run out of pantry items or budgeted money. When either the wallet or pantry is empty, then I can calculate from that how close we were to our goal.

Oh, I'll probably give rough estimates of what our daily meals are costing, but just not that level of detail. Cuz, I'm really doing this for a purpose, not as an experiment. I hope that makes sense.

On to the daily list challenge. I have two sets of challenges: Ongoing Challenges and Daily or Short-Term Challenges. I am not sure how I am going to set these up on the blog, but I will at least share my daily list for today. Some of the things on the daily list are actually items from the Ongoing Challenges.

*Diary (y)
Catch up ironing (y)
*Crochet dishcloths (working on it before bed!)
Sweep/mop kitchen and dining (y)
Plant new chocolate-mint starts (n - need to buy potting soil)
*Flute prac (y)
Skype Deb (y)
Call Doc (y)
Make Dentist appt (y)
Clean downstairs bathrooms(y, sort of, I did one)
Update Blog (y)
Library (n, won't have time)
*Garden -- water, clean out dying vines (n - raining),harvest (y), check potatoes (y)
Fold laundry (y)
Datebook update (y)
Find icecube storage buckets, start filling (y)
*Cook foods that are getting old (y - peanut butter, bread, small amt pepperoni, tomatoes, small amt grated cheese, onion, milk, mushrooms)
Dinner -- fish, salad, oven fries (n, made casserole from older ingredients, made salad and green beans w/peanut butter bars for dessert.)

That's it for now, gotta get started. I'll talk more about my list challenges later. I'll be really surprised and shocked if I get through this list today, but, well, it is all about the challenge. Better to do something than nothing, and having a plan helps.

*hope to blog more about these items later

UPDATE BEFORE BED: Well, there is my trivial but very full day. The list wasn't half of what I did, but it was the extra things I wanted to accomplish that I would not have, if I hadn't had the list. More tomorrow! :-)