Home Day

Not my house--wish--a shot of the gardens at Botanica. Another way I save money is by getting a membership to places that I love to visit often. Although I garden at home, a Botanica membership lets me have a place where I can take my knitting and or a book so I can sit by myself and have "MOM TIME" to myself, take the boys and let them walk and enjoy the flowers, indulge in a gardening lecture or class at a member's discount, and just have a place where I can slow down. Plus, they give a REALLY cool annual picture to each member when you renew or join. It is worth every cent.

I'm feeling a little sick today so I am staying home instead of helping out at the yarn shop. I am planning to go to the pottery studio at some point today to try to fix a pot I whacked with my hand after I threw it on the wheel.

The windows and doors are open and it is really nice to hear the birds sing.

I will be bundling up some of my trips today and getting some housework done. It is probably a good day to bake some banana bread from the bananas we have on the kitchen table, they are getting pretty ripe. I also plan to make some chocolate chip cookies and extra dough for freezing.

Instead of buying cookie dough, you can save a bundle by making up dough and freezing the dough either in a freezer safe tub, or scooping the dough into individual sized scoops and freezing them on a cookie sheet until firm. Once the balls are firm, put them into a freezer bag (I put 2 dozen cookie balls to a bag), label them and put in the freezer for use later. It makes homemade cookies a flash on days you want something sweet but don't have time to drag out the mixer and all the other stuff. The individual balls thaw out quicker than a tub and you can put them directly on the cookie sheets to thaw. I make chocolate chip, oatmeal and peanut butter cookies this way, but just about any recipe will work. You save both time and money. It is very satisfying.

I just got an email from our library that a copy of a bread book I have been wanting to buy is in. I put a hold on the first copy since it is a new book and has been checked out every time I try to check it out. I love the library! This is going to be my new best friend in my quest to save $. I also put a copy of Larry Winget's "You're Broke because You Want to Be" on hold...I read a little about him on one of my favorite budget sites "The Simple Dollar". Check out the site--it is really good for little tips on saving $. They have a really good article on getting motivated to save $ by using coupons. I've never been a big coupon user since a lot of the stuff is for brand name items and I tend to veer towards store brands, but I am going to start out with baby steps and try to get a system together for organizing them so they are easier to use when I'm at the store.

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Budget -end of day post: $27.00 Chinese restaurant for 2, $7 Sonic for one kid.....a little backslide, but I'll watch it the rest of the pay period so it doesn't happen more than once. Paid for pottery lesson for son and I. I consider this a necessity.