OK – I get lots of folks asking me how we stay healthy without taking flu shots and not having doctor visits.  Some think we are nuts for taking our chances with the flu and other moderately serious  sickness.  I frankly think that they are taking their chances with the flu shot!!  But all opinions aside, I firmly beleive that a person that is healthy can weather the flu seasons and be better for it IF they take proper precautions and adhere to sensible lifestyle habits.

I believe that except for few individuals that have poor immune systems, no one need to fear the flu.  The problem enters in that many more of us have weakened immune systems — by choice!!  Now who in their right mind would choose to have a weakened immune system?!  Mostly it is due to ignorance but partly due to carelessness.  You see, many of us take our body’s health for granted never thinking that what we do and how we eat has anything to do with how our body functions.  Oh how naive… Read the rest of this entry

OK.  You know we are severely recycling when it takes a family of 9 two weeks to fill a 60 gallon garbage can!!  Last week we started having our trash hauled – reasoning: to save us gas and time.  All things being equal, it cost us the same to have someone else pick up and take it away.

How do we do it?  I have a bin in the kitchen that holds the day’s cans and packaging as well as rinsed and squashed milk jugs.  That is emptied at least every other day.

I also have paper recycle boxes near my copier and by the back door.  So, when I look in my trash can next to my desk it contains a broken rubber band and mechanical pencil that doesn’t work anymore and the wrapper from new Post it notes.  Whereas the paper recycle next to my desk is already half full after a week of sorting.

All this type of thing tells me how foolish were all those earlier years.  Now I won’t dwell on the past but will endeavor to learn and change.  I hope that my kids will see the sense in it and carry on in their own lives.

Next time I’ll talk turkey – it’s that time again.

One of the advantages of having a large family and a wide range of ages is that you have the opportunity to explore lots of methods and options in how to teach the subjects.  Just for math I have used Saxon Math, Making Math Meaningful, Professor B’s, Mott, and those are the ones that come to mind quickly.  I know there have been at least a dozen over the years.  and that is just Math!!

Same with Language Arts or History or Science… In the past two years though I sort of settled.  I have used CLP for their Math and Language Arts workbooks mostly because I wanted to make sure that my children got all the basics well covered. Read the rest of this entry

I think it is worth discussing attitude as it pertains to being frugal.  First, that one must never judge an0ther person whether they practice being careful with their money or resources or not.  Frugality is an individual thing.  Some will save all aluminum foil to reuse over and over (I do for maybe three reuses) but that might not be frugal to you.  I rarely clip coupons (not worth it where I live) but do shop the sales.  I buy new underwear and socks but buy nearly everything else at the thrift shops.  I know some who think frugal means shopping the sales at the mall.  That’s OK!

Some of us are very new to saving and being conservative with our resources so it might seem extreme to wash out baggies ( rarely save any baggies but then I use reusable plastic containers).   As times get more tough we will have more and more chances to be creative and learn to stretch dollars.

For me, I found it useful to read Amy Dacyczyn’s book, Tightwad Gazette.  I made it a point to add a new way to conserve money or be careful with my resources each week.  It became a game to see what new things I could do to be more frugal with water, food and clothing – everything.  Now I love it.  It is a way of life.

But I will never be as spartan as some other frugalists out there.  And that is OK.  The idea is to be wise and to implement new steps that help your family as well as benefit the community.

Don’t let yourself get too zealous too fast, either.  Your family might “rebel”.  Like adding new foods to their diet, go slow enough to make it fun and interesting – you know your own family.  Also, some  husbands may be all for conserving  while others more used to a liberal lifestyle.

The point is, begin were you are and allow yourself to expand your frugalness as it seems best for you.  Hopefully you won’t get a sudden cut in income that throws you into desperate need, but if you plan to be more careful and add new habits all along, it won’t hit your budget so hard.

New Frugal habit:   We added garbage pickup to our budget.  We carried our own for the longest time.  But we realized our biweekly trips were costing us more to haul our two cans than to have it taken away for us.  It worked out to be $20 a month plus gas to haul it (not to mention time!).  So now we pay $24 a month to have it hauled and we share the bill with my in-laws since the garbage is partly theirs.