The Off-Brands

Teaching the girls to research to make educated food choices at the grocery store.

January 14, 2019

The Off-Brands

What is in a brand?

Kimberly and Jaquline were discussing how they liked a certain Aldi off-brand snack better than the name brand one.  Christina commented that she didn’t remember how much better she liked said off-brand snack over the original until she’d tasted the original again that day.

Honestly, I love the new Aldi store because most of their off-brand stuff is healthier than the name brand it is replacing; one of their colored cereals actually is colored with natural pigments, has less sugar, and contains more vitamins and minerals per ounce than the name brand we could buy elsewhere.

Because of the arrival of this Aldi store, our healthy options seriously improved without demanding more on our budget.  In most cases, we were leaving with more groceries, healthier choices, and a smaller food bill.  A full cart with more than half of it filled with bargain fruits and vegetables?  Oh yes.

We studied some about brands.  In some cases, the girls discovered that only the outside label is changed!  This was surprising.  For several items they researched, the only change between certain off-brands and their competitive name-brand item was seriously a label.

Jaquline heard an ad on the radio station and said, “there’s another name-brand making us think they are better than the store kind because they pay for advertising.”

She’s nine.

They are convinced there is nothing as good as Oreos brand cookies, but then I think there is nothing as good as Christina’s chocolate chip cookies and Louis’ oatmeal cake cookies.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Our Daily Bread

Season of Uncertainty: struggles over finances and worry for me. Learning to trust in daily provision.

September 14, 2018

Our Daily Bread

Have you ever thought about the line in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread?”

I always believed it meant to trust God for provision.

I never really lived the “daily” part.

Our life is broken into seasons and in this season, there is no weekly or monthly guaranteed income.  We work daily.  We get paid daily.  Of course, we understand that bills are monthly, so we have to save the money we make in order to pay for monthly provisions.  For the last few months, when we pray that prayer, I understand the “daily bread” part literally.

Our service work is different than a “regular job” in that we don’t have sick days or PTO to pull from when we’re sick.  When I got sick with the mold garbage was a huge cut on our family’s finances.  Our income has even changed from what we had a few years ago: From startup to two years ago our business had several streams of “weekly” or “monthly” income from operating, but times change.  We could take a day off then and it didn’t come with worrying if rent or electric would get behind over it.

God always provides, though.  God makes sure we get enough calls to keep our provisions met (we have been on time for rent & electric in this season).  We get blessed in unexpected ways too.  Unexpected ways are like this past Sunday when a sister from church gave us two boxes of fruit popsicles – the kids LOVE those things!

Radio preachers always say stuff like, “just give what your family would spend eating out.”  It makes me feel so sad.  (We do pay $200 a month to help another – plus anything God tells us to give.  But that is between God and us.) We don’t eat out.  We used to.  If I mention a restaurant we’ve tried “the other day,” it was likely over two years ago.  I don’t tell other people our financial situation.  I don’t like to “bother others” because God does always provide and as long as we have rent, I’m not going to ask anyone for help.  Outside of Louis buying a $20 box from the new Bojangles to try it out for a birthday lunch, we haven’t eaten out in ages.  We understand that good stewardship in our family right now means spending less than $8 for each dinner meal for all of us – and one item each from the dollar menu still breaks that budget.  Honestly, beans and rice (the most common) or spaghetti/zoodles with marinara (2nd most common) cost $2.80 and $3.30 each, respectively.  Most of our family dinners cost us less than $8 a meal.  Breakfast (thank you, God, for eggs!) is under $2 and lunch is usually about $4 since we save full meat and good veggies for dinners.  Since we make feed money off our chickens and eggs, eggs are practically “free.”  We go to a local produce market a mile from us and pick lots of veggies from the $0.50/lb “scratch and dent” box.  I like to think I’m pretty good at stretching money.

For us, this season has taught us to depend on God daily.  That was very hard for me at first.  I am a planner.  I am a saver.  I am very good at saying “no, that’s not on the list,” and not allowing money to be spent on something I consider unnecessary.  But I find it an extreme challenge to not have the full month’s bills sitting in the bank – we used to have six months of bills in the savings account and one in the checking!  I hate the uncertainty of depending on God to give us calls every day.  I look at our reservations and my stomach churns.  There’s usually nothing for me to plan on.  Fifty-three stories online and I made zero in August, so I can’t plan on that just yet.  I’m so unsure that I’m applying for every job that I can possibly pretend my skill sets fit only to be rejected by everything in the last two years.  (Obviously, God doesn’t want me there.)  If I get a job, it will be because God wants me there.  (Maybe God wants me in this season of uncertainty because He’s teaching me to depend on Him more and worry less?)

Do I love working from home?  YES!  (I drive when there are calls, wait at home in-between.) Do I love being able to homeschool, write more stories, tend my garden and tiny farm, and be present as my children grow?  YES!  YES!  YES!  YES!

What is hard for me is accepting uncertainty.

Frankly, though, life is totally uncertain!  A “steady job” is just as uncertain as the “daily bread” season we are in!  It only appears more secure.

Only God is truly certain.  Why would I want to trust in anything else?

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Hand-Me-Downs

A radio talk show guy’s comment made me ponder my absolute love of hand-me-downs and thrift shops.

September 4, 2018

Hand-Me-Downs

Driving to pick up a long-distance call, I was listening to Christian talk radio.  A guy comes on talking about how he and his family love hand-me-downs.

I can totally relate!  All my life I’ve loved, and lived in, hand-me-downs.  When my kids get a bag of clothes, they all get excited.  It’s sorting, trying on, modeling, and deciding how to “fix” something they love to make it fit (sewing skills).  Anything we can’t use (and everything we grow out of or don’t have room for) gets passed on.   We only allow them to keep what they can fit “in their drawers” and on their bit of hanging rack space.   Rebeccah, who loves shoes, has created some interesting storage adaptations to stretch her allotted space to keep extra shoes.

Kids grow so fast!  At one stage, Kimberly jumped through one full shoe size every month for about six months!  During this same time, Jaquline sprouted through three shirt sizes and Rebeccah’s legs stretched by nearly a foot!

We had quite a few bags of shoes and clothes to give away!  Most, we had received as hand-me-downs but they looked practically new!  Lots of happy kids got to pass around clothes in this growth spurt.  The girls like to plan who can get their clothes – if anyone we know needs them, if anyone is their size and is okay with used clothing, or if they know a friend who “loved” some outfit.  Otherwise, we donate to Alpha-Omega or Betty Griffin Thrift.

The radio talk show guy was mentioning that he was super excited one day because a friend gave him some amazing hand-me-downs that were almost new and stylish.  He was showing one off at work and realized he was wearing the emblem for a college he didn’t attend!  So he almost felt embarrassed telling a coworker it was a hand-me-down.  Then, he stopped.  He said we are to be good stewards and trading clothing around if it still has wear in it is being a good steward of the materials (less waste) and finances (less purchases made).   He told his coworker that the money he and his family saved on clothing allowed them to give more financially to charities they supported.

I had never thought of our hand-me-downs as “good stewardship” in that way!  I have always told others that it saves waste (why throw something away when someone else can use it?) and it stretches our budget.  I never actually thought of what I do with the money I save.

We do give a lot of what we make, sometimes we end up giving more in time than in money, but we still help in a lot of places monetarily.

When we do buy clothes, it’s usually underwear (I do buy that new from target on “clearance,” it seems some character is always going out of style), sneakers, or jeans.  We go to the thrift shops on the day when said clothing is x% off or wait for an end-of-season sale (thrift shops do that too).  So, annually, we spend about $300 on all 8 of us.

I never really thought about how much money I’d spend without hand-me-downs.  Using thrift shop prices (I still wouldn’t buy new): I figured that for each growing child, I’d spend about $80 twice a year, and for each adult, I’d spend about $40 a year (what we already buy from thrift stores can’t be counted as savings).  So for our family, that would be about (160×6)+(40×2)=$1,040 annually in addition to the $300 we already spend!

$1,040 is almost a rent payment.

That’s about three weeks’ of work.

Then I realized that I never buy anything new – furniture, animal cages, books, movies, games, toys, yarns, craft stuff… the list is endless.  Except for food, most cell phones, a few tools, the coffee maker, most mattresses, and one computer, we’ve taken hand-me-downs or bought resale items when it comes to everything else.  And we donate what we no longer need.  Oh yeah, and the drum set was new – Louis got a full size eight piece drum set on a clearance sale for $120 about 10 years ago.

We save for items we want (like our couch).  We had a hand-me-down one that served great for a while, but Louis wanted a big one that all of us could sit on at once and it would double as a kid bed when guests came.  We ended up saving and finally bought a really nice used sectional that had two backless sections that doubled as storage (bonus & I love dual-purpose!) and seats six adults without using the backless parts – it was on clearance at Alpha-Omega Thrift so we spent only $165 of the $200 we’d saved for it.  (Yes, Louis was shopping, so we ended up buying $35 of future birthday gifts while we were there.) And one of my sisters said “let me crash here, this is comfy!”

The radio guy quoted the scripture about “where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”

Yes, my treasures are in my children, my family, my friends, the really important things in life.  Our hand-me-down and thrift-store lifestyle helps me to understand that even though we have some cool stuff, it’s just temporary and I’m not really concerned with it.  I mentally note that I’m wearing sandals from one sister, a skirt Christina grew out of that was a hand-me-down from a friend, and a shirt from another sister… all hand-me-downs!

I’m sure the radio guy is right.  Our family is able to do as much giving as we do because we don’t spend “full retail” on temporary items.  Our treasure is in heaven.  Our treasure is the character growing in our six awesome blessings on loan from God…

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

The Demon – (aka jab test)

March 2, 2018

The Demon (aka jab test)

Well, it ended up that the evening of the day someone broke into our van and I got sick, it wasn’t just a fever and go thing.  The fever didn’t want to go away (all my life low fever & cough might take a while, but rest, food, and a few days and it’s usually gone) and the cough felt deep and odd.  I have a sneaky feeling I’ve fought this off before (as a kid, when “sleep, hot potato soup, and pink medicine” made it disappear in a week) but at this stage in my life the distant memory of a thing called “sleep” and the vibrant energy of my work and home was not working in my favor.  Nine days and low fever, I wasn’t doing a good enough job – I needed antibiotics.

I didn’t want to go to the clinic because, although Louis thinks we have a “plan” nothing ever works in my family’s favor financially when I get hurt/sick.  So I was worried about the cost of clinic plus antibiotics.   Louis is like, the clinic is free.  (no, it was $75)  Then when I see a doctor, she’s like “we can’t help you because your O2 (oxygen) levels are too low, you have to go to the ER.” (2 pts, just 2pts!)

Really?  I was so frustrated and totally wanted another clinician’s opinion as hopefully someone would just give me the antibiotic I needed and send me home.  I did not want thousands of dollars of garbage so I could get a bottle of pills.  (I knew it was pneumonia: why couldn’t I just call old man Gower’s Drugs and get a prescription delivered to my house?  I don’t care how many release of liability forms I have to sign.)

Instead, Louis has my mom on the phone when he picks me up – and instead of trying Healing Arts for a second opinion (where I wanted to go in the first place) – it’s just ER.  (Oh, side note?  I think the O2 machine at the clinic was straight-up-kooky-dooks because my O2 levels at the ER?  94.)  Supposedly way higher than at the clinic.  No wonder the physician looked at me like I was hissing words. And have you ever done a flu “jab” test?  (I will 100% avoid the hospital FOREVER simply because of that demon – I now have a fear worse than needles! this makes my white-coat-phobia totally valid!)  After that assault, my perfectly healthy nose was bleeding, swollen, running, and the next CNA to enter asked if I had been like this for 9 days?  (HAHA, no, some dude jabbed a stick up my nose, and this eyes watering and burning, nose running, bloody discharge, is brand new.  Want to know how afraid of this place I was before this?  Now you won’t get me in IF I’m really dying.)

At least these two came in to do the one thing needed that I guess a clinic can’t do.  XRay.  Bingo, with that picture, even a laymen could see junk in half of my left lung.  Great.  The blood guy (who used to work with Louis – everyone in this town knows Louis) asks if I know why I’m here.  I’m like, yes, pretty sure what I thought was a normal cold with a cough is pneumonia.  He asks about pain.  Only in my nose.  Supposedly there’s great chest pain associated with pneumonia that I had lacked to mention (guess my body is just a unique biological specimen – maybe that’s why taking Benadryl for a few bites turns my entire body into a solid rash worse than chicken pox for a week).  Louis says I have a huge pain tolerance.

Becca, Mom, and Anastasia show up (I’m sure Becca is here just to remind me of children.) By this time they know its pneumonia the only guess is am I staying?  Another nurse does a breathing treatment, during which Becca is constantly asking me questions and I’m giving her eyes.  Anastasia sits with her Ipad and Minnie Mouse and is smiling.  Louis still looked worried.  Then we’re told, “oh, you can go home, we’re just waiting on paperwork.”  A pill for 10 days with orders to sleep and not work.  (WHO am I kidding??  That isn’t going to happen.  But I will try my best.)

So I’m home, trying to rest playing a weird game with my girls.  The perfect question pops up (this is some teen personality game for “what faction would you be in Divergent” so I do not know why this question is there) it reads “you are trapped on an island with your crush: you do… a) b) c) d) or e) relax and enjoy! You finally have some alone time!  (And this is making me laugh the entire evening away – because I’d totally be YIPPPEEEE NO PHONES because I could totally go all Swiss Family Robinson and LOVE it forever as long as my family was there.)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

Chore Candy

July 7, 2017

Chore Candy

 We have a neat little system with a chore chart on the refrigerator and set amounts for specific chores completed.  This has worked well for about twelve years.  When a job is done, Mom or Dad (or big sister) checks it and puts the amount on the chart under the helper’s name. On Saturday, if all school work is completed, we would add up the amounts and “take money” off the chart.  They would then decide if they wanted it in their savings account or to spend. *(the picture was taken after Rebeccah and Kimberly pulled all their extra money off to buy guppies)

Then on one fun day at Betty Griffin Thrift looking for a bookcase, we discovered a Candy Machine.  You know; the kind you stick coins in and get candy or nuts.  It was bright powder blue and Christina says “Mom!  This would solve the candy problem and help motivate us for chores!”  (This is coming from my teenager – “candy problem” was that I don’t buy candy.)

It worked and was five bucks.  Yes.  I bought it.  We made the “candy machine rules.”

#1: you must ask mom first, two coins a day is enough candy

#2: whatever money is in the machine after the candy is gone will be used to buy the next batch of candy/nuts

#3: mom has to approve said candy/nuts

#4: disobeying rules means candy machine gets donated right back

Then this started happening: I’d hear, “I’m done with school, I did xyz, may I take 25 cents off my chart for candy?” Or they’d see nothing on the chart under their name and want to know what chores needed doing.  (Motivational tool, check)

The girls raised $6 and change in their first “batch” ($1 worth of jelly beans).  They bought more candy and set their own additional rules which they have been following for the last three weeks.  They added:

#5: money comes off the chart in quarters only when being used for the machine

#6: excess money “made” off the candy machine goes into a savings envelope

#7: each girl gets to pick a candy/nut and mix it together each time they reload

#8: (appears to apply to the three oldest only) if you take money off for candy, you have to put the same amount in your savings account

Now they have “raised” about $25 in a little over a month and asked me to help them print a chart so they can keep it in the envelope with their “candy machine” savings money to track their big goal progress.  I asked what the “big goal” was – all I was told in reply was “at this rate, it will take three years.”

They discovered that if they load dark chocolate into the machine, Daddy uses it too!  So with each new batch, they’ve been sure to add dark chocolate almonds or dove bites (that mix went fast and I’m sure Daddy was probably their #1 customer – he was always asking “do you have a quarter?”)

They turned the “chore motivation” tool into a “saving for a big goal” tool!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Bulk Canning

June 16, 2017

Bulk Canning

Four hours of simmering marinara and the house smells like Italian spices!  Oregano, sweet basil, flowery parsley, smooth garlic, marjoram, sage, thyme, onion, and rosemary flavors blend together with a yummy tomato base to make five gallons of nearly meatless red sauce (nearly, because we use one pound of finely ground meat for flavor).  This is a family cupboard staple.  We use our marinara for lasagna, in soup, for rice dishes, and our favorite way – as spaghetti sauce!

One pound of any noodle + one quart of marinara + a handful of meatballs = yummy spaghetti!

This cooks in the time it takes to boil noodles (usually 15 minutes) so it’s a fast meal.

We started making our healthy bulk marinara about 15 years ago.  First we experimented with small batches for taste.  When we got taste down, we started making full canning-pot batches. (Our canning pot holds 5.5 gallons, but we leave space for stirring, so each “batch” is 5 gallons.)

We spend about 4 or 5 hours canning and processing for one batch of chili or marinara.  But after one batch, we have jars for 10 to 20 meals.  They are perfect for any busy day.  (Like when I’m trying to finish writing but everyone, including my tummy, is hungry!)

This helps on time and on budget!

Each 32 ounce jar of marinara costs us approximately $0.80 to make.  Our chili is about $2.40 per quart jar.  It is easy on the budget, it’s a taste we love, and we know what’s in it!

Now we bulk cook and process (can) many things: chili (our fully organic, vegetable packed, vitamin-loaded spicy soup), broths from our chickens, grapefruit juice, garden vegetables, and soups.  This gives us healthier options with fast cook times!  Since we can adjust the recipe to our liking, we develop bulk recipes that we love.  (There are a few ratio rules to research and remember when attempting to process soups with heavy starches like rice, corn, and other grains – I keep a booklet with notes.)

Canning can sometimes create funny stories.  For example: once, a little helper scooped out 4 tablespoons of crushed red pepper instead of 4 teaspoons and accidentally created “Dragon-Fire Chili,” which she and Louis loved (however, that has not been duplicated on purpose!).

Canned food is also easy to share!  We once had truckloads of fresh grapefruit.  It took us days to juice the excesses we couldn’t eat.  We canned the juice and had fresh grapefruit juice for almost two years. (And so did most of our family!)  We love to buy mountain apples by the bushel when they are in season and anything not immediately eaten turns into homemade applesauce – one of our favorites!  Overly ripe peaches in the soup-stuff box at the local produce market?  This becomes awesome peach preserves!  Any overage of garden vegetables (like 12 bushels of beets) becomes canned away for a rainy day. (Actually, it was separated into beet greens and beet roots, processed, and opened as a side dish with at least three weekly meals until we ran out!)

Canning also saves us freezer space (we buy whole local beef & pork and save freezer space for Unca ChaCha’s occasional gift of venison).

As with any type of cooking, all the instruments must be clean, food fresh, and preparer(s) maintain a clean working environment.  If you take these precautions and take it slow (plan an entire afternoon or whole day) the first few times, you just may discover that you enjoy this “old way” of processing and storing food.   I love it!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Health Changer

June 10, 2017

Health Changer

I have this thing about being dehydrated (low water) and anemic (low iron).  Or at least had that problem.  Pregnancy was like wake up, puke, attempt my multi-vitamin, puke, get to work, puke, and be falling asleep in the truck when we drove home.  I loved everything else about pregnancy.  My midwife told me I was anemic and needed to drink more water.

I didn’t like water.  I tried tallying glasses, but never got more than 3 in a day!  I tried carrying a huge bottle representing how much I needed in a day, but that was seriously discouraging because I didn’t seem to make a dent.  I eat healthy; mostly local and organic, almost never any hydrogenated, bleached, or processed foods, but it just wasn’t enough.

My sister introduced me to Shakeology.

It was $100 a bag (month) if you signed up as a coach ($15 monthly fee) which made it $3.83 per day.  I am a major saver (actually, skinflint, scrooge, etc.) with money when it comes to spending on myself.  I didn’t want to even try.  My coworkers spent $4 or $5 a day on a coffee though and that’s not a meal-replacement shake with over 90 essential nutrients.  But I was pregnant with #3 and if this vitamin stopped the puking and dehydration (as my sister claimed it would), cool.  They have a “bottom of the bag” guarantee (they want you to find your favorite way of making Shakeology).  Return an empty bag if I didn’t like it for a full refund?  Okay, I decided to give this almost-$4-a-day daily dose of dense nutrition a try.

It was awesome!  Within a week I was craving water!  Actually filling my tally sheet with plain, normal, water!  Not flavored water, not sweet tea, not even lemonade, but plain, healthy water!  No dehydration headaches!

But that wasn’t all it did for me!  It filled about half of my iron requirements, so with my other healthy foods, I was no longer anemic!  My bowels were regular. (Yes, all through pregnancy & just after too!)  I wasn’t that exhausted tired where you don’t feel like moving.  Toss in some potassium and I was full of energy.  No need for coffee anymore (I was using large amounts of caffeine to make me awake for the normal day) – coffee was now my treat!

That was about 9 years ago.  Shakeology was a game changer for my health.  More vitamins = more energy = being involved more in my children and life!  Most people say it’s a weight loss shake.  True; we crave food because we are missing nutrients so a shake with most of your essential nutrition = more vitamins = less craving = less calories = healthy weight loss.

When I started we just had chocolate (awesome with milk, Louis likes his with water), now there are six flavors (dark chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, café latte, and greenberry) so the neatest way to try them all is the sample pack.  If you are interested in the business side of it, try the coach link (I’m a coach for the discounts, like some people do Mary Kay for makeup discounts) but know many who make a living being a coach for Beachbody.

I encourage you to give Shakeology a try.  Who knows?  It could be the best investment in your health – I know it was for me!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

 

 

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