Theme for the week...

is saving money and getting a handle on a little impulse spending that has been a downfall of mine. That said, I have to confess right out of the gate that I blew it today when I got on Amazon.com and ordered 2 books that REALLY sounded good.

Do I already have a house full of books and many of them either unread or partially read? The answer to that would be a definite yes.

So my goal for the next two weeks is to stay off Amazon.com and read at least one book from the pile that is around my house. Is this going to be easy?

Probably not.

As a matter of fact, it is going to be damn hard! However given the fact the economy is in the tank, I feel it is really important to start getting my priorities in line and put money in savings. Experts say you should have 6 months pay in savings for a rainy day, However, lately I have seen experts changing that number to 10-12 months since the job market has tanked.

Here are some things I am working towards making a habit:

1. Staying off Amazon.com. It's just too tempting.

2. Actually planning --and sticking to--planned meals that are made at home from my MANY cookbooks.

3. Only grocery shopping once every two weeks from my meal plans. If I have to have an ingredient, I'll send hubby. He is much better at being able to leave the grocery store with only the items he came in for. If I "run in for one thing", I end up coming out with $50 extra junk minimum. We burn money with that foolishness! '

4. Trying to resist buying new yarn until I have made a sizable dent in my yarn stash. I tend to buy way to much yarn for future projects and should learn to use that up first. Considering I help out at 2 wonderful yarn shops, this is going to be really hard. However, I am going to really make an extra effort to make this work!

5. Be more consistent about the goals and the frequency of posting to this blog. I have been a little chaotic about posting to this blog and a little unclear of it's mission statement. I am going to work towards clarify the theme over the next couple months to reflect my interest in budgeting, cooking and book interests.

I have several really interesting cookbooks that I am going to utilize over the next couple weeks while I am doing all this home cooking. Two that are sitting next to me right now are Quick Fixes with Mixes by Lia Roessner Wilson -- and Make a Mix by Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward and Madeline Westover. I have had both of these for quite some time and figure it is time to use them. The first book uses mixes like cake mix, cookie mix etc. as the base for recipes. In the morning I am trying a cinnamon roll recipe from the book.

The Make A Mix book contains recipes that utilize base mixes that you make from scratch in bulk. For example, tomorrow I am going to make the brownie mix that is the base for brownies, cookies, Texas sheet cake and a Mississippi mud cake. This is a completely from scratch mix, which I find appealing.

However, using convenience products might prove to be useful too. I will let you know what I try and what I think of these recipes as I bake the goodies. As a matter of fact, as I read through the books on my bookshelf, I will be giving my reviews of them. There will be books from all genres since my reading is pretty eclectic.

So those are my goals for now. Check back tomorrow for the recipe reviews. I will not be printing the recipes since they are in the books and the authors need to be able to fairly profit from them if they are good--I will just be giving my opinion of the recipes that I actually make. I'll spend all of October and part of November on these two cookbooks, then move on to the others in my collection and review other types of books as I read them.