I love gardening, but I usually  just plant butterly plants etc. Last year I bought some trees from Zone10  Nursery in Miami and they are doing well. I have a mango, mulberry, pomegranate, star fruit and honey bell. I got one honey bell from the tree this year, a miniature star fruit, NO MANGOES at all because of the drought, and lots and lots of mulberries that I have to share with the birds. They did cost a lot to purchase and have delivered, but I thought it was the best idea to make sure the plants were accustomed to this area. I had to recently buy yet another banana plant because the last 3 I got refused to bear fruit and I am just not giving up.

In the past we have used my compost heap to amend the soil here to make the garden plots.  Last year we finally made some raised beds from discarded pallets, but did a poor job of it and they fell apart.

This year i had some bed slats that no one on FreeCycle wanted so i bought some Liquid Nails and some bracket like things and put them together. For $10 I got three 3'X3'X6" raised beds that are holding together nicely.

I have prided myself on having xyroscaped the entire yard for the past 10 years, but this year with the drought I was losing so many plants. the truth of the matter is that the city is putting sewers in my development (built in 1964 and still on septic, thank you very much) so my entire butterfly garden has been watered from the drain field all this time.  I took the grass out shortly after we purchased the house in 1999 because there were bugs killing off the grass and I didn't want to put chemicals down. 

Year after year I have added plants and checked to see what would grow in my yard. Mostly Plumbago, porter's weed. some tall plant with yellow flower and mexican petunias, but then I put in dune sunflower and it is all being taken over. there has been a drought since our wonderful wet season ended and all my plants were "mysteriously" dying.  I just figured out last week that it might just be the lack of water.  Now that there aren't 5 of us at the house any more, and my oldest showers at her boyfriend, and we don't do more than one load of  laundry each week and we have low flow shower heads and low flush toilets (if it's yellow let it mellow......) there just isn't much water getting to the plants. The Swale is totally torn up and I am losing well established plants to the construction and they think they are going to replace all that with grass.

With that in mind I started releveling the back yard which had been torn up pretty badly by three rowdy dogs that are no longer with us. But when I pulled out all the ferns that had grown up to the screened in enclosure and raked out most of the junk and cut back the dead traveler's palms in preparation for moving the new grass to the back yard, I discovered that I was again energized and felt like planting.

So i went to Home Depot late at night and began helping them by recovering dead and dying plants (til my daughter told me that was illegal) and I had several flats of flowers by then. I cleaned up another spot of the side yard and planted them there since we spend so much time on our back patio.

But then I decided that since my septic would be gone soon and my front yard would clearly need to be watered again, I checked my irrigation system. The gardener that my husband had hired while my son and I were living in South America (Uruguay) had run over about one sprinkler in each zone, and I had just given away most of my pvc and sprinkler stuff in a freecycle frenzy. but miraculously the one spot that I had been clearing and watering by hand had complete system.  

I planted the flowers and a sweet potato plant that I had rescued from the front yard. But then I built the garden beds and this year I actually bought the $1.35 top soil from Home Depot, 6 bags of seeds and three tomato plants.

In the remaining raised bed from last year that I had been using as my compost heap I planted a strip of beets and I already had potatoes growing there. I purchased some containers that were on sale and planted okra in them because okra seems picky. in the raised beds in the back yard I planted the corn, green beans and squash in square foot gardening style and mixed a bag of top soil with the sandy soil in my back yard for the cumbers.  The peas went the same place they were last year, against an old fence panel that we will attach string to for trellising, and some went in pots my daughter had found on the side of the road against an old picket fence panel we have placed against the screened in porch to keep the remaining dog in the actual back yard.

I over spent and have since looked at other people's frugal sites for gardening and am mostly ashamed. 

I think that all together I spent $15 on soil, $10 on the glue and brackets, $10 on the seeds.  I was extravagant on the pots and spent a total of $25 for them, but they are so pretty.  Since then, however I saw this one guy use the mayonaise tubs from restaurants (I know how to get those) for his tomatoes.  I bet those are going to grow incredibly well because of the depth.  Mine are in reclaimed landscaping plastics that can be found all over the side of the road on trash day.

The pretty pots are where the neighbors can see them, and the pretty ones my daughter found are by the picket fence.  If all the food grows and I have had the experience that it will, I will have more than $60 worth of vegetables that will produce for the next 6 months. All the peas and the cucumbers have sprouted already (4 days) but I don't see any of the corn or squash.  all of the beets have sprouted. I almost think I should move the potatoes to give them more room, but I don't think they transplant well.

I purchased an organic pest control that will attach to my hose since all of my spray pumps died. ($10) and I did spend $29 on the banana plant, but it is supposed to produce over a period of 5 months as well, and I don't buy bananas right now cause they are too expensive in my book.

so perhaps I spent a total of $100, but I think I will get it all back plus some.  The excess food I will freeze and then donate what I can't use to the food banks in town.

I won't need any mulch for any of the gardens cause I am doing the 3 sisters thing. the tomatoes and okra are in pots and the peas are near an oak and ficus tree that lose leaves all year round.  when they are done sprouting and are up on the trellis I surround them with piles of leaves that I have to take off the screened in porch to clean the gutters.

Speaking of which , the stuff that comes out of the gutters has lots and lots of nutrients, so I usually scoop that all in to a bucket and put it on top of the garden beds as the plants grow. Over the fall when I didn't plant anything, clover was growing in the beds. so all is well and set for tremendous growth.

Dandelions and other greens are the only things that have been growing this winter through the drought.  I just take my scissors out and cut enough for whatever I am cooking. I add them to my beans and my scrambled eggs.  I just call them greens. 

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I have to admit that as I am new to this   purchasing and cooking for one person thing, I have had a few false starts with my food savings.  First I thought I could clip coupons, have them on hand and purchase things as they came up buy one get one free. But my supermarket always has the same few things BOGO and they are usually prepared foods or brands I don't necessarily use.  However, before I realized this, I had purchased quite a few things, so my pantry and, for a while, my freezer were full and I couldn't really justify grocery shopping at all.  I still managed to spend $40 every time I went to the store, but that included pet supplies and cleaning things, which I will begin to dispense with as well.

I have lost quite a bit of my sense of taste and had just started adding cayenne pepper or tabasco sauce on most of my foods, including soups. But after about 2 weeks of eating nothing but lentils and rice or beans and rice, I decided there had to be a better way to do things.

I mentioned earlier that I have been quite depressed about having the kids suddenly gone.  They are having a great time and things are going well for them. They are 19 and 17 and are enjoying traveling the country with their dad who hasn't been home much their entire lives! so I am pleased and proud that things are going well, but the entire expense of taking care of them and feeding them and entertaining them has fallen to him now in a way that he can actually see and feel, not just call me to moan about how much I spend every month.  That is why I am hoping if I can become net zero he will be able to relax a bit.

Anyway, earlier today I found several really good blogs about living frugally etc (something that was so uncool just a few years ago) and a woman recommended SuperCook.com.  This is a website where you can enter in what  food supplies you have in the house and it does the internet search for you to find out what you can make with those ingredients. 

It turns out I had all the stuff I needed to make over 2000 recipes right this very second!!!!!!!

It is a terrific site and I showed it to my oldest daughter who lives here at home with me who can never figure out what to make.  She had just asked me yesterday if there were a site like that and I told her I usually just google a few ingredients and it gives me some recipes, but this site gave me all sorts of entrees, desserts, and starter ideas using the ingredients I already have.  When I run out of the ingredient, I just press the X next to the food item and it removes that from the list as well as any recipe that relied on it.

It also tells you what you might need to buy to make a recipe for which you have most of the ingredients.

Fantastic!!!!

I have always used the Frugal Gourmet books and the $1.98 cookbook for the basis of my monthly food. That is to say I hardly ever eat out.

If I do, I don't order an appetizer, never order a drink and always bring at least half the food home with me. and I always tip 20%.

I enjoy making my own pasta and found a way to make the dough in my bread machine.  I made a bunch of pizza dough and precooked 8 pizzas with just the sauce on it.

the frozen pizzas I made using King Arthur bread flour each cost $.55 after adding the cheese (portion control) and had 335 calories. 

The Pasta I made cost $.40 a pound since I used cheaper flour that was on sale. 

This morning after I made some meals from the supercook.com web site, I portioned out the rice and the main dish and froze them, labeling them with the name of the food, the date made and the calories.

I use Calorie Count Food Log to track my daily intake and try to stay around 1300 calories.  I am trying to lose 15 pounds, but being over 44 doesn't make it happen too quickly despite the fact that I walk almost 27 miles a week.

When the kids are home I usually make home made waffles, pancakes or french toast.  My son doesn't like the home made maple syrup I was brought up on, but he will eat the store brand. I never add butter to any of them to save the calories and the money.

As I track how much I spend on groceries this week and this month, I will write it down.

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Yesterday was ST. Valentine's Day and unbeknownst to me my daughter had plans for the house so she and her boyfriend could spend the day together and have a romantic dinner.

I didn't have any plans myself and ran through the multitude of cheap things I could do.  If I went to the beach, I would have to shave my legs, find a bathing suit that fit (gained weight this year) get quarters for the meters, gather food etc. and well, it just didn't seem like a spontaneous day for me.

So I decided to do something that I had been planning on for a long time.

In Palm Beach County we have the Palm Tran bus system. The number 1 bus runs almost the entire length of the county.  I live in the southernmost city of the county and the bus ride takes two entire hours traveling along Federal and Dixie Highways.  I packed my left over lunch from yesterday's work day (too busy to actually eat it), grabbed my Jon Grishom book I started the night before, and drove to the bus stop. (that is the embarrassing part since there is a bus stop two blocks from my house, but I had more plans with friends that evening and would be needing the car).

I purchased some drinks and waited for the bus. Apparently there had been a problem with the bus that day, and the people waiting where I picked up the bus had been there for the good part of an hour if not longer.

The bus took so long to get there, that when I realized I had forgotten the untensils for my lunch, I had time to drive the 2 miles back home, go to the bathroom, get the fork and spoon and some tissue for my nose, and return to the bus stop just as the bus was approaching.

I bought the one day pass for $3.50 and settled in. The bus was comfortable, cool, and clean. As we got into different areas of the county we picked up a wide variety of people.  Many had been out in the sun for 2 hours waiting for the bus to come.  Some people were going to work and knew they were going to be late and some people were getting off of work.

There were immigrants from many different countries, and people of varying socioeconomic backgrounds.  Let's just say that waiting so long for the bus to come didn't do much good for people's tempers and some people were more vocal about it than others.

The ride took 2 hours almost exactly to get to the Gardens Mall in North Palm Beach.  I got off, used the bathroom at Sears, ate my lunch at the bus stop and got on the next south bound number 1 bus. 

I enjoyed the scenery and the people and was able to finish my book for only $3.50 and was gone from my house for over 5 hours all together.  I got off at the wrong stop, however and at first thought my car had been towed, but then realized I had parked closer to where I had to go that evening.  My friends had already called me and I was running out of battery on my phone.  I had to walk 1.5 miles back to where the car really was, found free parking in Delray and found my friends.  Los Lonely Boys were late starting anyway so I had time to get a beer and something garlicky.

None of that was cheap, by the way.

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Hello.

Our house is 1500 square feet in the sub tropical city of Boca Raton, Florida.

The weather has been amazingly great lately, so there is no reason for heating.  It did get down to the 30's and 40's last week and a few weeks before that but by closing the house up completely and dressing in layers and sleeping with a hoodie on we were able to stay toastie warm.

Our house doesn't require a lot of energy, yet for the most part our electric bill is always over $150 even in the winter.  Our utility prices have gone up recently so I had begun to cut down on some things earlier, but with my husband and the other two kids here somethings just could not be done.

with them gone I have

Shut off or unplugged all electrical equipment. This includes all tv's dvd players, computers, cell phone chargers and the microwave.  These things only get plugged in when they are being used and are immediately unplugged or shut off at the main outlet switch.  I don't know if it is saving me any money yet.  January's bill was only  $91 so something must be going okay.

another thing I did was shut off the pool pump at the switch so that it doesn't go on every day.  Now that the weather has been cooler I am not having my algae problem, so I run the pool pump, brush the pool and run the automatic cleaner just twice a month.  I haven't put any chemicals in lately but I will have to soon, or the lady and the pool store will tell me off and let me know that the walls of my pool are going to be destroyed if I don't do something soon.

I turned down my refrigerator from 4 to 2.5. The ice cream started getting smooshy, so I had to turn it back up to 3.  There isn't much in the refrigerator so it doesn't really run too often.

I only have one light on at a time in the house at night. which often means I have to go back to the last room I was in to switch off the light when I turn on the next one. I do most of my reading outside on the back patio day or night.  The table lamp has a 40 watt bulb in it and it is fine.

The lights in my bathroom and my closet have gone out because of some electrical problem, so they never go on. 

The light fixture in the dining room only has one working thingie on the track.  I haven't quite figured out how to replace them properly, but I will get on that.

In the kitchen we have more electrical problems, so there are usually only three lightbulbs working there at a time.

I try to do all my cooking and cleaning in the day time when I can see so that I don't have to go in there too much after dark.

I am going to move the dining room table in to the family room cause there is a glass door there and there is plenty of light right up until full dark for eating.

I have begun to try to think about air drying my clothes. We went to IKEA and I picked out a really outrageously big indoor air dryer, but when we got home, we realized we had put it down when we put something else on our cart.

I have successfully dried two loads of clothes on the small accordian style dryer that my daughter had for her hand washing clothes.  I also wear the same clothes over and over again during the week so I only ever have one load of clothes to wash.

During the week when my oldest daughter is at her boyfriend's anyway I shut off the hot water heater by the switch. It has been set to 120 as it should be.  I only turn it on like 45 minutes before my shower and turn it back off. The water usually stays warm enough for two days.

I only do dishes once a day so I only have to heat water once.

On Thriftyfun this person says they put a pan of water in the oven after they turn it off to retain heat. I baked a cake today and have water absorbing the heat right now.

I usually use only the microwave and the toaster oven for cooking.  I always use lids when cooking on the stove.

We also turn our porch light off, if it ever actually gets turned on.

If anyone has any more ideas, let me know.

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 So, for very very many reasons I am now an empty nester.  It has been a couple of months, but I am only just now getting used to the idea.  After the initial lethargy and depression and feelings of uselessness I am finally coming around and getting energized.

Early in the year I read the blog about the teachers who tried to eat on $1 a day. I think if they had planned better they would have had a much easier time of it, as many people pointed out.  I figured I should do something similar, but have not been able to.

What I have figured out I need to do, not only for my own sanity, but also to help out my husband with expenses since he has the younger kids now.

I have a job at a local hospital with a fairly low wage but with full benefits.  my take home pay is like $1700.  I figured that if I pay for the house and my car insurance, the electric and the home phone and lived the rest of the month on what was left I would be very useful indeed.

So the budget looks like this

Take home pay       $1700

Mortgage payment $1100 (includes tax and insurance)

Phone & internet     $ 114 (just reduced by AT&T)

Electric                      $   91 (during the winter)

Car insurance          $  80 (part of multi car plan)

my cell phone          $  15 (part of family plan)

So that leaves me $300 to spend on gas for the car and home things, like food etc.

When you consider that I normally spend over $600 on groceries when the kids are here, you can imagine that I have some rethinking to do.

I have always been frugal. Raised on welfare by my grandmother who lived through the depression in Southern California where there was always a drought and a recession or two.

But now I have to go beyond creative.

My next blog will talk about ways I have cut down on energy use.

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