On the back of yesterdays conversation about saving money, I’ve been brainstorming and researching more ideas on ways that I could spend less and save more. Sure I could eat PB&J for every meal, but there are a few things that I refuse to sacrifice.
I won’t sacrifice my family’s health, nutrition, or sanity to save money. I would be fine completely turning off our cable, knocking our phone service down to the most basic plan, cancelling our Netflix, eating all meals at home, etc. But doing those things would drive the hubby insane, and he would definitely resent it.
What I want to accomplish is minimizing the money we spend on a daily basis without obvious changes in our lifestyle.
I ran across this Lentil Soup “eat for cheap” recipe today and decided to make up a batch since I had all of the ingredients on hand.
That’s four servings of soup for about $1.00 a serving. Add a homemade baguette and it makes for a really cheap meal. These are the kinds of things I’m looking for!
Potatoes are cheap too. Today I baked a potato and topped it with some random ingredients that need to be used up before they pass their prime. You can pretty much add anything to a potato and it always turns out yummy.
Today I started out with my normal: roasted broccoli, onions and a little shredded cheese.
I found some leftover vegetable soup in the refrigerator that I had almost forgotten about and decided to add it to the mix with a little more shredded cheese and sour cream to top it off.
It turned out amazing! Potatoes are a great way to use up random produce and therefore cut down on waste.
It felt like Christmas today when the hubby brought home this package from our storage unit:
I went a little crazy buying cloth diapers when Lincoln was a little baby. I probably ended up spending much more on these than I would have buy buying disposable diapers, but the value in cloth diapers is in their ability to be used again and again as well as their environmental aspects.
My stash includes about 30 diapers in a variety of styles, sizes and colors as well as about 20 hemp inserts.
I just so happened to remember that I had purchased some One Size diapers that are suppose to grow with your child from infancy to potty training.
I found 8 that still fit!! (He’s wearing one of them now). Score!
I did some calculations yesterday and discovered that diapers cost about $.22 – $.27 each. I estimate that we use approximately 4-6 a day. I can save about $38 a month just buy switching back to my cloth diapers.
He doesn’t seem to mind!
Eat to Live, Live to Run 
It’s healthier too! Less chemicals! If you can stand the mess, the reward is wonderful…so I hear, LOL!
We love our cloth diapers! We started using them when our son was 5 months, he’s 2.5 now, and haven’t looked back. We bought mostly one size BG’s and love them. Hubby did the math once and we saved so much money by going the one size cloth route vs disposables. After we’re out of diapers I’m passing them on to a friend that is currently TTC.
I’m kinda sad now that I haven’t been using them all along. I used them religiously from when he was born until he started having solid poop and then I was back at work and didn’t have as much time to devote, so I gave up. I’m hoping to finish out his diaper days in cloth and am definitely excited about cloth for the next baby, whenever that may be.
O has been all cloth ‘cept when we travel. Love!!
Pingback: That’s More Like It « Eat to Live, Live to Run