Category Archives: Home Economics

If you have lemons…

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lemonade concentrateA friend of mine asked me if I wanted any lemons… she had a whole tree full of them and needed them harvested.  My family and I went over and got them all! We ended up with two big bins full of them. Then my husband juiced a bunch of them so that I could make some lemonade …a lot of it!

I made lemonade concentrate and then canned it so that I don’t have to use up space in my freezer or fridge.  It took some time but was worth it.  The only cost was my time and the sugar.  I had everything else. When I was all done, I had enough concentrate to make over 35 gallons of lemonade!  Hopefully that will last us awhile!  Here is the recipe:

Lemonade Concentrate

Equal amounts lemon juice, water, and sugar.

Get canner and jars ready to can.  I always boil my jars and lids.

Mix lemon juice, water and sugar in large pot.  Be sure you leave enough room in the pot to allow it to boil up a little.  Bring to a boil.  This takes a little while.  Stir occasionally.  As soon as it boils it is ready to can.  Fill your jars and boil them for 15 minutes in the canner.  Let them cool down and then store them in the cupboard for up to a year.  To use them, just combine with 3 to 4 parts water for every part concentrate.  Enjoy!

I have a new toy!

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dehydratorWell, I’ve had it for awhile but I just started playing with it… A food dehydrator!  I made beef jerky and dried strawberries and I’m wondering why I waited so long to use it.  I’m already thinking of all the other things I can dehydrate.

The beef jerky was so easy.  Buy a lean piece of beef (the butcher suggested London Broil) and have them slice it really thin.  Take it home and put it in a plastic bag with you favorite marinade and let it sit overnight.  Then spray your dehydrator trays with cooking spray and lay out your marinated beef.  Be sure to leave a little room between each piece so they don’t stick.  Then just plug it in.  It took about 6 hours.  I sent some with my husband and kids on a beef jerkyScout overnight and got rave reviews.  I’m looking forward to doing it again but on a bigger scale.  During the summer London Broil goes on sale all the time.  I’m going to buy a big chunk and make a bunch.  By then I’d like to have a vacuum sealer so that I can store the jerky for awhile.  At this point it is disappearing pretty quickly so I’m not worried about it going bad!

dried strawberriesI saw the idea for dehydrating strawberries on Pintrest.  (I LOVE Pintrest!) It took a lot longer to dehydrate the strawberries.  Probably about 18 hours.  I didn’t spray the trays but I did turn the cut pieces half way through.  Next time I’ll spray… a bunch of them stuck.  Anyway, I just sliced them pretty thin and spread them out on the trays and plugged it in.  After they were done I put them in a baggie and in the freezer since most of my kids don’t like them.  I liked them and my youngest should as well.  Even if no one does, I can re-hydrate them and use them in recipes when ever I want.  This way I don’t have to pay the higher prices when they are out of season (when I usually want to use them.)

The Golden Bubble

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potof goldWhen times get tough a lot of people start investing in things like precious metals because the think that they will keep their value.  The problem is gold doesn’t taste very good.

The current economic situation has us on track for a big gold bubble burst.  While people think that gold is a good investment and it will keep going up, at the current price level, increases can’t be sustained.  Some people will disagree with me.  That’s fine.  A lot of people didn’t think property in California would ever go down in price either.  Now we all know better.

What would be a good investment?  Paying off your debt would be a great investment.  Think of all the interest you would save!  While you are doing that, I also like the idea of investing in food.  I live in California and here in earthquake country we are brought up thinking about THE BIG ONE that will be hitting us eventually.  In a crisis situation, it is food that I will want, NOT gold. And everyone else will want it too so the demand for it will go up and the price will too.

People today are so used to being able to go into a grocery store and find all it’s shelves completely stocked.  And if they don’t find what they want in one store, they have dozens of other stores to go to.  What they don’t realize is that those stores are being stocked daily.  If a crisis were to occur, the shelves would be cleared out and it would take awhile to get more.  If such a situation were to occur I don’t want to be dependent on the government to get me and my family food. I also don’t want to be dependent on gold…

A friend of mine was telling me a story about a man who was in Germany after WWII.  He was a child but remembered vividly what was important in that desperate situation.  One of the most prized possessions was cooking oil.  Evidently, even weeds taste good fried! You can’t say that for gold…

 

Spring Cleaning Follow-up

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Well, I feel like my spring cleaning/clutter busting was a big success!  My mom and I had a two day garage sale and, even without any really big ticket items, we made enough money that we a both happy about it.  AND, everything that went out into the garage sale (except a few things we are going to sell on ebay) went to the Salvation Army for donation.  Look!  I have proof!

DonationI feel like I have a weight off my shoulders! Now on to other things!

Spring Cleaning/Purging

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SpringCleaningI have 3 days. ONLY 3 days!  And I am determined to get rid of as much STUFF as possible.  I’ve gone through my youngest son’s room and have a huge pile of toys and clothes that I’ll be selling at a garage sale this weekend.  It feels good but I know I need to do more.

The overall theme of all my goals this year is freedom.  I have goals for physical freedom, spiritual freedom, financial freedom, etc.  The one I’m dealing with right now is freedom from clutter.  I guess that would go under physical freedom.

While I was growing up we moved every few years.  While that was kind of a pain, it did force us to go through all our things and weed out what we didn’t need/want just so we didn’t have to pack and unpack it.  I’m glad my kids haven’t had to go through all those moves.  We are going on nine years in our current home. The only challenge is giving them enough inspiration to go through all their things once in awhile!  At his point using the word “inspiration” is a stretch.  I think it is more fear of mom losing it…

Oh well, whatever works, right?

Debt – What the Boomers can teach us

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Debt.  As a nation we seem to be mired in it.  It is out of control.  Check out this video…

It is too right on!  It is great at showing us how ludicrous it is to continue in this direction.

Ok – so who is to blame and how do we get out of this mess? Well, I think first we have to get out of it ourselves.  As an individual and families we need to take a hard look at our debt and make some choices so that we can eliminate it.  We have to learn from the Baby Boomers’ mistakes.

The Baby Boom generation gave us a legacy of “conspicuous consumption”.   If you have money, spend it.  Even if you DON’T have money, go into debt so you can still spend it!  It didn’t use to be this way.  Their parents didn’t use debt to finance their wants.  Unfortunately the boomers taught their children to do the same thing.  Now it is our job to give our children the skills and knowledge so they can get us all out of this mess. It isn’t an easy job because a lot of us have to learn it ourselves.

A couple of years ago I went through Dave Ramsey’s course with my husband and really enjoyed it.  He has detailed plans to help you get out of debt.  If you ever have the opportunity to attend one of his workshops please do (many churches offer these – they are DVD workshops – not live.) And you want to get rid of your debt NOW.

In a previous post I talked about how Harry S. Dent has forecast a big economic downturn.  One of the most effective ways to get through the tough times ahead is to put yourself in a better financial position before it gets here.  Don’t get caught up in the conspicuous consumption of the Baby Boomers.  If you are my age and have too much debt, you could really have problems during a financial crisis that is more than likely right around the corner.

Orange Vinegar Cleaner

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Orange VinegarI know vinegar is wonderful to clean things.  I regularly buy big bottles of it and have used it occasionally but the smell really got to me.  After a friend told me about how she used orange peels in her vinegar, I decided to try it.

I googled “orange peel vinegar” and found all kinds of directions for making this cleaner but my friend just peeled a bunch of oranges and poured vinegar on them and let them sit so I did too.  Some of the directions I found said to let them sit for a week, some up to six weeks.  I mixed up my peels and vinegar and forgot about it… I think it’s been about 3 weeks.  I made two bottles so when I’m out of the first bottle I’ll try the one that has been able to sit longer and I’ll let you know if it is better or not.

I love stuff like this!  It saves so much money, doesn’t take much time, AND is better for my family!

I tried it out and it works great… AND it doesn’t have that stinky vinegar smell!  I’ve heard that people use other citrus peels with success too.  This summer when our grapefruits are falling off the tree I try some of their peels.

Enjoy!

Cleaning Project #2 – Dishwasher Soap

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Well, I’m not as excited about this one as my first one.  I got the information from this website.  The author was after sparkly dishes and that might be where I had a problem.  I have very little glass to sparkle at my house.  We my husband and I got married we got a nice big box of drinking glasses.  Within just a few years he had broken all but about 6 of them.  When we started having boys, I decided not to push my luck and I’ve only bought plastic cups since then.

Anyway, on to my experiment.  I put about ½ a teaspoon of Dawn in the soap dispenser with the oxygen cleaner.  I also put ½ a cup of vinegar in a glass measuring cup in the top rack.  It did fine cleaning things but I still had some water spots on my plastic cups.  My Corelle dishes were nice and shiny though.  I think I’m going to try this again.  Maybe it just takes a few times to get rid of spots on plastic…

I can see how this would be a real money saver.   The oxygen cleaner I found at the dollar store and that little bit of Dawn and the vinegar is just pennies.  I am a little bit hesitant to use this on a regular basis though.  My kids do a lot of the dishes and if they put too much Dawn in, we could have a huge mess!

I’ll keep you posted on how this experiment continues….

Cleaning Project #1 – Microwave

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I haven’t forgotten!  Sorry it has taken me a little longer to get this started than I thought.  Life happens, and it isn’t all on the internet!

The first cleaning/cleaner project I decided to do was my microwave.  As you can see by the picture, it needed it!  I found these instructions HERE at One Good Thing by Jillee.  Jillee was hesitant to put them up because she thought everyone knew about this.  I didn’t so I’m sure some of you don’t (or maybe not… maybe I’ve just been hiding under a rock… but in case you are like me…)

Anyway, I don’t like cleaning my microwave because it is a pain.  I don’t like spraying a bunch of harsh chemicals in it because I just imagine them dripping down into my food.  But I’ve had a hard time getting grease and gunk off of it without the cleaners.  Well no more!  This one actually worked!

All I did was put a glass 4-cup measuring cup with one cup vinegar and one cup hot water, into the microwave and then turn it on for 10 minutes.  Jillee said you should check it at 5 minutes just in case.  Well, I got going on something else and came back to it and my microwave could easily be wiped clean.  No scrubbing.  It had just a slight vinegar smell to it but that was fine with me.  I don’t mind vinegar!  It is stuff that I can’t pronounce that I have a problem with…

One Good Thing by Jillee is a great site, by the way!  She has a bunch of ideas… I’m looking forward to spending some time on her site… once I get my house clean!