How You Doin'? In the Garden

Three months ago, before I up and abandoned our blog, I announced that one of our goals for this year was to grow 750 pounds of produce in our own backyard.  Well I'll be honest, I'm getting really nervous about making that goal.  Not because we aren't growing- I've got pictures to prove we're producing- but just because I'm not sure that all of our experiments are going to work exactly like we had hoped.  Namely, our watermelons are not giant behemoths like they were last year.  They're weighing in at around 3 pounds each.  And our pumpkin plants?  Totally forgot about'em and they're still seeds.  But we are chugging right along anyway.  

So what started out as harvests like this:

Yay first harvest of the year!

 And has now come to include a few of these every week:

What up chickens?!

 Has finally led in the last few weeks to harvests like these:

This was 14 lbs of produce.

Our real live total weight so far is just over 200 pounds and that is nothing to sneeze at, I know, but it's not 750.  Thankfully there are still plenty of weeks of warm weather to be had and last year we were producing tomatoes and egg plants right up into November.  We are also waiting to harvest our first potato towers, cantaloupes, and our first cabbages.

I planted our fall crops last weekend- more cabbages, broccoli, and kale.  We'll be adding another couple of potato towers and clearing out the last of the beans this weekend as well.

Anyone else having long nights of cooking tomato sauce or running out for more jars for pickles?  We've been eating all of the 2011 jars from back in the pantry in order to make more room.  I should probably be taking stock of what's in the freezer as well.

Well those chickens don't feed themselves you know, and I've got eggs to collect.  Happy Wednesday everyone!

Student Loans: The Great Payback

If you have ever met me, or have read back any amount of posts, you will know that I am obsessed with money and my student loans.  Well I am glad to finally tell you that the day has finally arrived, my students loans are paid off.

Can we just take a minute here.  I mean really.

You can bet I ate a huge cupcake for dinner after that.  And then dinner.  And then a dairy free soy based ice cream.

So for anyone who may also be struggling under the weight of bad decisions when you were 19, here is a quick breakdown of how I paid off my student loans 6 years early.

First being a VISTA helped- tremendously.  I don't make a lot of money monthly, but at the end of my service I will be awarded an additional Education Award.  That's $5,500 towards my student loans. So technically I still have a balance of $5,500 in my Sallie Mae account, but it's been deferred with no interest on my part. Then when my service is officially over, that extra check will be mailed in my name straight to Sallie Mae.  I make less each month sure, but that money would have been going towards my student loans anyway, so it all works out in the end.

Me in my VISTA getup

Second, three years ago I opened a savings account with paying back my loans specifically in mind.  Every time I had extra cash, or thought I had extra cash (I'll get to that in a second) I put it in that savings account.  Then each month, or every couple of months I would make additional payments to my loans out of this savings account.  These payments never replaced a regularly scheduled payment, they were additional payments.   Sometimes I would wait until I had a huge chunk of change and make one big payment, but sometimes little bits would turn into bigger bits really fast and I would make as many as 6 extra payments a month if I took on odd jobs or something.

Third, I got into the habit of spending money on myself.  When I had money burning a hole in my pocket or I got the hankering to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe, I would ask myself how much I was willing to spend on that item.  Would I feel comfortable spending $200 at Target right now?  Then that meant that I had too much money in my bank account and I would transfer that money into my savings.  Sure it sucked sometimes, but reality checks like that really helped turn my head around and got me to refocus my attention.

Finally, when the going got tough, I got a little crazy.  There for a few months, before I started as a VISTA, I had a goal of putting $1,000 a month towards my debt, and I got a little crazy.  I took on odd jobs, I had two yard sales, baby sat, baked, anything I could think of.  The purging helped me really look at what I was spending my money on, and the selling really helped me reach those goals.  Sometimes you just gotta dig deep and find the motivation to keep going, and if you dig up some cool stuff while you're at it, all the better.

Was it easy?  Nope.  I am very fortunate to have a wonderful husband who took on most of our financial responsibilities while I focused on my debt, and not everyone has that chance.  But slowly, very slowly, I was able to hack away at it.  And now, 4 years and a few months after I graduated with my degree I'll probably never use, I can finally say it's all over.

And now it may be time for a second cupcake...

Something Old Becomes New Again

While I was trying to pay off my Student Loans I took on a ton of odd jobs every month.  Every little $20 I could make went straight into the Student Loans Savings account I set up so that I could make huge payments each month.  One of the projects I took on was recovering this recliner for a client.  I'm not sure why I didn't take actual before pictures, but here is one stolen from the internet:

Credit: here

It actually looked just like that, except more royal blue.  Anyway, it was in great shape and my super sweet client wanting something more feminine and washable for a corner of her bedroom.  So I created this slip cover, complete with ruffle:

Sorry about the blur, this was a quick shot from my phone while I was waiting for the client to come pick up the chair and realized I didn't have any photos.  

Anyway, I loved this project and was so proud that she loved it too.  It took about a week to really get where I wanted it but it was so worth the time and effort.

I had to stop slinging my sewing when I took my new VISTA position, but it's nice to know I have something to fall back on later if I ever need the extra income.  Anyone else picking up odd jobs to save up some cash?  

The Stuff We Do To Save A Dollar

I get asked all the time what exactly Marco and I save money on.  People love lists and I love to make them, so I thought I'd compile one big one here to showcase where we save and what that does to our yearly budget.

Things We Do to Save Dollars:

1.  Our own hair:  Marco cuts his own hair at home, and as of tonight I started doing my own too.  I learned a few things by watching youtube videos, particularly this one and this one, but otherwise I just wing it.  This saves us about $50 a year in cuts and tips.

2.  Dog care:  Marco cuts the dogs nails and I bathe them.  I also learned how to express their anal glands which is just as glamourous as it sounds- but all together, this saves us about $100 per year.  *Note: we still get their shots and flea/tick/heartworm regularly*

3.  Paper towels:  Last Christmas I traded some sewing for a few pairs of flannel boxers and made a whole pile of reusable not-paper-towels.  They're still going strong and every once in a while I will pick up an extra receiving blanket from Goodwill and make up a few more.  Total yearly savings: $20 or so.

4.  Entertainment:  We have the cheapest internet we could find, no cable, only Netflix on demand and love our library cards.  I think we have been to one movie in theaters this year- Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters.  So we're pretty low key.  Concerts really aren't my thing and Marco knows how to get us invited to the right parties.  All in all by not spending money on cable, DVDs, tickets to events or other similar things, I'd say we save about $250 a year.

5.  Heat and A/C:  We don't turn on the heat until November 1st, and don't turn on the A/C until June 1st.  In the winter we wear a lot of socks, drinks lots of hot tea and double up on sheets.  But in the summer we lose our comforter as soon as the heat starts to settle in, only run the dishwasher at night and rarely run the dryer or the oven.  This has given us 4 months a year where our total utility bills are less than $50 a month.  Compared to our other bills and average usage, that's about $200 in savings each year as well.

Cerulean wears his sweaters all winter

6.  Biking to work and for small errands:  We save about $40 dollars a month just by biking to work.  It added 10 whole minutes to our commutes and cut out any gym memberships we were considering.  Total yearly savings: $400.

7. Food:  When we decided to go veg 5 nights a week (sometimes even more) we immediately starting seeing savings differences.  Growing our own veggies, making our own tomato sauce, and meal planning out of our freezer/pantry all help too.  I am trying very hard to get back into meal planning and hopefully that will help us save even more and waste even less.  It's hard to say how much we actually save by doing this, but when I asked neighbors and friends how much they spend on food monthly, we're spending around $200 less each month.  That's $2,400 a year!

8.  Water:  Our rain barrels and inside water collection help us water our garden, pets and yard.  Savings: $60 a year.

9.  Body Care:  I gave up shampoo and neither one of us wears cologne.  I rarely use makeup and when I do it's not expensive.  I traded for a year's worth of soap for our family and I make my own body scrub from ingredients in our kitchen.  Yearly savings: $100.

10.  Buying Loved:  Our fancy new camera, almost all of our furniture, our books, grill, even our bed sheets, picture frames and about 50% of my wardrobe are all previously loved.  Yearly savings: A LOT

Of course all of these savings mean that we get to splurge in other areas- soy based ice creams for instance- and of course everyone's lifestyles are different, but these are how we feel comfortable cutting back.

Anyone else bartering for a year's supply of soap out there?  Or taking a longer commute to save on gas?  Anyone see any topics that we're just totally missing?  I'd love more suggestions!

What I Got For Free: Wheels Edition

Marco bought himself a bike.

That's not free!  You're saying.  I know, I know, hang on, I'm getting there.

We have been window shopping for bikes for a couple of years since moving into our home along a great bike path.  We have been looking at different models and types, brands and sizes, but it just never seemed like the "right" bike for me or the right time.  There are so many options out there and I feel like my waist is too short but my legs are too long.  I've never been very good at riding a bike. What if we bought a fancy $400 bike and I hated it?  What if I never used it?  What if there was no where I actually wanted to go on a bike??  So I never pulled the trigger and I never bought one.

Well, imagine my surprise then a few months ago when I was talking to a neighbor about things that were completely unrelated- my exercise "routine" (where I basically work out while doing other stuff, planks while waiting for the kettle to boil, squats while folding laundry etc.) and how great our new neighborhood bike/mail box shelter is looking, when suddenly a different neighbor offers me a free bike that they no longer need.  I'll be honest, at first, my reaction was "What?  That sounds like work." but after a few minutes I was really getting into this idea.

You see, spending $400 (that could have gone toward my debt) is one thing, but a free bike is different.  A free bike, although not my "ideal" bike, is, well, free.

So there it sat.  For months.  Sometimes in the shed.  Sometimes in the yard.  But mostly just in the sitting position.  Until a couple of weeks ago when I realized I needed to put gas in my car and the latest heat wave had finally broken and I realized that nope- I was going to bike to work today.

Cut to two plus weeks later.  I've biked to work every day for two solid weeks now.  I've even biked to 3 meetings and one speaking engagement!  I have been logging my miles with the Runtastic Pro app, just because I hate to lose all of my other awesome data for the month (it keeps track of your distances, calories burned, time, all of it).

I gotta say, I don't hate it.  Sure I still get a little winded going up some of the hills around town.  And I cannot say that I'm faster than I was two weeks ago, but Marco promises that those things will come in time.  Right now I'm just enjoying tallying up the money I save everyday and watching my calorie counter click higher each time I reach a destination.  Free transportation, free gym membership, free fuel... Now I just need a review mirror and some awesome stickers and I'll be good to go!

*P.S. Those savings from transportation and what not are going directly into my new savings account for a new, actually my size, hybrid bike that I've been eyeing.  So while they are "savings" they are already allotted to new adventures. *

Anyone else gotten anything free lately?  Or finally bringing that old bike out of storage?  Any bike accessory suggestions?

Sorry 'Bout That

So.  Hey guys.

It's been a while.

*Insert lame excuse here*

Actually, things have been really, really great and I've had tons to talk about, I just haven't been able to make it this way to record them.  But today Google sent me my "renew your domain name" email and I was all "Oh yeah, that blog I started AND TOTALLY ABANDONED 3 MONTHS AGO."

So I'm back.

The short story is that yes, we have so much to share- job stuff, home stuff, life stuff and now that my work schedule has really settled in nicely, I will be able to focus more on the personal stuff, like blogging and bragging.

And as an official apology for being so lame the last three months, here is a picture of the Burg that I took with our new (to us) camera.

But I'm going to cut this post here because I have other posts I want to be writing.  Like how I have PAID OFF MY STUDENT LOANS !!!! and how our garden is doing.

Catch ya later!  But not like last month.  For real this time.

Building Community

It's no secret that one of my biggest goals for the last year (and it turns out this year too!) has been to really build my neighborhood into something great.  We built an amazing patio and grill area.

Marco and Neighbor Tim built a beautiful bike shed and arbor.

There are new flower beds, the community library and we even hosted a really, really nice tree care workshop.

But I just couldn't stop there.  I really, really want people to be able to plant, and grow, and personalize their homes here in the big CG, but it has been really difficult since our soil is, well, less soil and more clay and sand.  And that's not just my opinion either- we did a soil test and sent it to MSU.  For $6 they came back with all kinds of specific suggestions to help grow all sorts of different plants, grasses, vegetables and trees.  For more information about getting your own soil tested click here for more info.

After the soil results came back, I put them with other information I have been collecting too- guides on native Mississippi plants, information on attracting (or deterring) wildlife and pollinators, how to landscape when starting with nothing, all kinds of things.  Then I labeled everything with a very friendly "Property of Community Green:  Please read and return" and filled an entire expandable folder. The folder went straight into our library for everyone to share.

Want to create something similar for your home or community?  I collected my information from our local Master Gardeners club, the Mississippi State Extension Service, the Garden Club, the Community Garden and the Arbor Day Foundation, but I'm sure there are plenty of other sources.  

I guess the point of this is to inspire others to get involved with their own neighbors.  Not everyone in CG comes to every meeting or event or community cookout, but it is very important to me and Marco (and several other neighbors) to offer these types of experiences.  You don't have to host a dinner party every week to meet the guy next door.  Sometimes you just have to be willing to get your hands dirty.  

Anyone else working on group plantings and curb appeal?  Anyone else planting rogue watermelons?  How cute would it be if we had our own pumpkin patch this year.  Don't think I haven't started working on that already!