People often ask me how I am able to afford feeding my family of six such a wholesome diet of mostly organic foods on a limited budget. My answer: I make almost all of our food from scratch and I grow and preserve as much of our food as possible.
I don’t claim to be an expert at gardening; in fact, I often tell people that my garden grows in spite of me. I also don’t have the yard space to grow as much food as I need for my family.
How I Preserve As Much Organic Produce As Possible Each Year:
- Grow what I can, making the best use of my garden space.
- Utilize my farmer’s market and learn which vendors grow their produce organically and which ones are willing to “give me a deal” when I buy a large quantity.
- Talk to people. Many people have more apples on their trees and strawberries in their patch than they know what to do with. They are often happy to give me their excess for free.
- Trade. If I have an abundance of potatoes, I’ll trade it for a bunch of green beans. Or, if I don’t have an abundance of any produce, most people are happy to accept a couple loaves of fresh bread in trade!
During the Summer and Fall seasons while fresh produce is readily available, we eat as much as possible. Any extra goes into the freezer or into my jars (and oh wow is there usually extra!).
By the middle of October, I have usually put away enough potatoes, corn, green beans, peaches, pears, applesauce, strawberries, tomato sauce and tomato soup to last us for the entire year.
Also by the middle of October, I am so sick of looking at tomatoes I don’t care if I ever see another one as long as I live! I soon get over it and begin to realize the fruit of my labor as all throughout the coming months I am able to pull delicious organic foods out of my freezer and pantry for our meals.
How Gardening and Preserving Benefits Our Family:
- Our family has saved hundreds of dollars on groceries.
- I know exactly the kind of food going into our pantry and freezers and then into our bodies. I know what I put into my sauces. I know what soil my food came from. I know I can trust the food to be healthy for my family.
- Our family gets to work hard together. Planting, weeding, and picking all becomes a family affair. We are a family with dirt under our fingernails!
- The food is delicious! In my opinion, nothing is better than home grown organic produce!
Be on the lookout now for deals on garage sales on jars and other canning and preserving needs! Brand new jars can be pricey, but at yard sales, you can find them for almost nothing!
Gardening and preserving your own food is a wonderful way to help provide your family with great quality, delicious, inexpensive produce all year round!
Laura Coppinger and her husband have four sons ages 5-12. She blogs at HeavenlyHomemakers.com encouraging women daily in the areas of healthy eating, gardening, parenting, homemaking, faith and fun.
Would you like some help getting started with gardening and preserving? Well, Laura has graciously offered to give away 10 copies of her ebook, Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Gardening and Preserving, here today. To enter to win, just leave a comment on this post in the next 24 hours. Winners will be chosen and posted on Monday.
by Crystal on March 15, 2010
The winners of the Fudgsicles giveaway are:
Kristan (kristanmcnally@)
Jen (thebauerfamily@)
Emelia (yawama68@)
Jennifer P (jenniferpitchford@)
Autumn (autie84@)
Mary (jmkaufman4@)
Teresa (burns6186@)
Kathleen (bremisarah@)
Shannon (bruceandshan@)
Jean (jean.gries@)
Natalie (nmruscha@)
Rebecca (gitrecca@)
Maria (c_maria401@)
Sue (buterflykisses31@)
Carol (CCSansbury@)
Ashley (demureprincess7@)
Kim (ksementa@)
Lorie (darrellandlorie@)
Stacey (halls_teacher@)
Clare (colonrob@)
You should have received an email with further information on collecting your prize. Thanks to all who entered!
_________________________________
Are you giving something away on your blog this week or have you found a great giveaway elsewhere on the web? If so, post your link below and let all the readers here know so they can get in on the action!
Your giveaway must be family-friendly and no-strings-attached. In addition, to make it easy to navigate, your link must go directly to your giveaway post. Links going to the homepage of your blog or any other part of your blog besides the direct link to your giveaway post will be deleted.
by Crystal on March 11, 2010
**GIVEAWAY CLOSED**
Popsicle and Fudgsicle recently released a line of better-for-you treats, including Low Fat Fudgsicle Triple Chocolate bars and Sugar Free Popsicle Tropicals ice pops. They sent our family some coupons so we could try out the products (Free chocolate? Bring it on!).
We weren’t particularly impressed with the 100-calorie fudgsicles. I guess we like chocolate with all the fat in it. No low-fat stuff for us, thank you very much! 
However, we really liked the 100-calorie ice cream sandwiches. Yum! The two boxes lasted all of two days, I think (Did I just admit that online??). For only having 100 calories each, they were amazingly good. (Of course, the fact that I ate five ice cream sandwiches in two days probably defeated the point of them being 100 calories each. Oops!
Would you like to win a coupon for a free product of your choice from Fudgsicle or Popsicle? Just leave a comment on this post in the next 24 hours and you’ll be entered to win. 20 winners will be randomly chosen from the entrants and will be notified and posted on Monday.
by Crystal on March 8, 2010
The winner of the HAPPYBABY Starter Set is:
Charlene (shanenchar@)
Charlene, you should have received an email with further information on collecting your prize. Thanks to all who entered!
____________________________
Are you giving something away on your blog this week or have you found a great giveaway elsewhere on the web? If so, post your link below and let all the readers here know so they can get in on the action!
Your giveaway must be family-friendly and no-strings-attached. In addition, to make it easy to navigate, your link must go directly to your giveaway post. Links going to the homepage of your blog or any other part of your blog besides the direct link to your giveaway post will be deleted.
by Crystal on March 5, 2010
** Giveaway Now Closed**
I’m so excited about this giveaway! HAPPYBABY is giving away a complete Growing Family Starter Set to one reader here in the next 24 hours. This set includes:
1 HAPPYBABY tote
1 organic cotton HAPPYBABY bib
1 organic cotton HAPPYBABY tee
3 cans of HAPPYBELLIES organic cereal with DHA & Probiotics
3 canisters of HAPPYBABYPUFFS organic baby snacks
8 FREE trial coupons for HAPPYBABY fresh frozen baby meals
1 organic cotton HAPPYMAMA tee
1 organic cotton HAPPYPAPA tee
HAPPYBABY: The Organic Guide to Baby’s First 24 Months
HAPPYFAMILY Recipes
1 Eric Carle Growth Chart from YoBaby
HAPPYBABY sent me some products to try myself (well, okay, they were for my children!), and I’ve been very impressed with all the products we’ve tried. They are a little on the pricey side, but they are definitely yummy.
Our favorites were the Organic Puffs. Silas has been gobbling these up–and the girls love ‘em, too. Okay, and I confess, I’ve even tried them and they aren’t bad at all. Even the spinach puffs are tasty. I promise. Your children will never know they are eating their greens. Just don’t let them see the spinach on the outside of the container.
Would you like to enter to win this $200 Starter Set from HAPPYBABY? There are three ways to enter. (If you’d like more chances at winning, you can do each of them for three separate entries into the giveaway!):
::Leave a comment on this post.
::Follow me on Twitter here and then leave a separate comment in the next 24 hours letting me know you’ve done so. If you’re already a follower, just leave a comment telling me you already follow me.
::Subscribe to the MoneySavingMom feed by RSS or email and then leave a separate comment in the next 24 hours letting me know you’ve done so. If you’re already a subscriber, just leave a comment telling me you’re already a subscriber.
This giveaway will be open for the next 24 hours. A winner will be chosen and posted on Monday. Thanks for participating!
by Crystal on March 3, 2010
The winners of the Amazon $25 gift cards are:
Annette (deals4annette@)
Chantel (chantelday@)
Prathee (prathee.chandar@)
Faith (a_faith_stewart@)
Jennifer (jen.burden@)
The winners of The $5 Dinner Cookbooks are:
Felicia (feliciamoore@)
Mike (mike.roosa@)
Becky (rebeccay104@)
Samantha (sprasmussen@)
Steph (vash_ii@)
Each of the winners should have received an email with further information on collecting your prize. Thanks to all who entered!
____________________________
Are you giving something away on your blog this week or have you found a great giveaway elsewhere on the web? If so, post your link below and let all the readers here know so they can get in on the action!
Your giveaway must be family-friendly and no-strings-attached. In addition, to make it easy to navigate, your link must go directly to your giveaway post. Links going to the homepage of your blog or any other part of your blog besides the direct link to your giveaway post will be deleted.
by Crystal on March 1, 2010
**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**
Swagbucks just celebrated their 2nd birthday and in honor of it, they are giving away 60 free bonus points to anyone who signs up for a Swagbucks account and enters a bonus code.
Just sign up here and you’ll get 30 free points and then, if you log into your account and type in MSMCODE4 on the sidebar where it says “Enter Your Swag Code”, you’ll get an additional 30 free points.
If you’re unfamiliar with Swagbucks, basically it’s a search engine that randomly rewards you with points just for doing online searches. Seriously, that’s all there is to it. You’ll likely earn between 10-30 points per day for searches and when you have 450 points, you can cash in for a $5 Amazon gift card. And there are dozens of other great prizes to choose from as well!
For those of you with blogs or who have lots of friends who use the internet, you’ll also want to check out their referral program. For every person who signs up with your referral code, you can earn up to 1000 matching Swagbucks! I have had so much fun introducing many of my friends to this fun program and seeing them earn prizes for doing what most all of us do on a regular basis every day–searching online!
Not only can you get 60 bonus points for signing up for a new account by March 4, 2010, but in the next 24 hours, I’m also giving away 5 $25 Amazon gift cards compliments of Swagbucks. All you have to do to enter to win is be signed up with Swagbucks and leave a comment on this post.
::If you are not signed up with Swagbucks, go here to sign up and get your free 60 points when you type in MSMCODE4, then come back here and leave me a comment and you’ll be entered to win.
::If you already have a Swagbucks account, leave me a comment and let me know that you are already using Swagbucks and you’ll be entered to win.
This giveaway will be open for 24 hours and the five winners will be chosen and announced on Wednesday.
by Crystal on March 1, 2010
**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**
Since it’s Freezer Cooking day, I thought it would be fun to do a cookbook giveaway. So I am going to give away five copies of The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook since I’m using that for some of my recipes today.
In this book, Erin Chase skillfully defies the myth that eating on a budget has to mean bland meals with little nutrition. And she doesn’t just tell you how to stretch your dollars much farther at the supermarket, she also gives you 200 recipes for dinner that she has made for $5 or less. Seriously, she breaks the price of the ingredients down to show you exactly how she did it–and how you can, too!
Would you like to enter to win one of these 5 cookbooks? There are three ways to enter. (If you’d like more chances at winning, you can do each of them for three separate entries into the giveaway!):
::Leave a comment on this post.
::Follow me on Twitter here and then leave a separate comment in the next 24 hours letting me know you’ve done so. If you’re already a follower, just leave a comment telling me you already follow me.
::Subscribe to the MoneySavingMom feed by RSS or email and then leave a separate comment in the next 24 hours letting me know you’ve done so. If you’re already a subscriber, just leave a comment telling me you’re already a subscriber.
by Crystal on February 23, 2010
The winners of the Ziplist gift packs are:
Ashley (ashleypadams@)
Kerri (faithful@
Artsy_momma (artsy_momma_blogs@)
Angie (porteraja@)
Kathleen (foley9@)
Amanda (ayyogurt@)
Becky (bear4047@)
Allison (schneider710@)
Sylvia (sylviarj@)
Elizabeth (ebbyanne@)
Jessica (gaffy911@)
Angelia (amay225@)
Kendra (K_Embery@)
Anna (mkdaly@)
Lauren (mama@)
Each of the winners should have received an email from me with further information on collecting your prize. Thanks to everyone who entered.
In the mean time, are you giving something away on your blog this week or have you found a great giveaway elsewhere on the web? If so, post your link below and let all the readers here know so they can get in on the action!
Your giveaway must be family-friendly and no-strings-attached. In addition, to make it easy to navigate, your link must go directly to your giveaway post. Links going to the homepage of your blog or any other part of your blog besides the direct link to your giveaway post will be deleted.
by Crystal on February 18, 2010
There’s a brand-new website which just launched this week called Ziplist. It’s a nifty free online shopping list and recipe service designed to help shoppers get in and out of the supermarket quickly. Some of the key features include:
::Being able to share your list with anyone in your family so others can help you shop if they drop by the store.
::Sorting your list by store or category to reduce back-tracking through aisles. It also groups all produce together, all dairy together, and so forth.
::Prioritize your list to pick up the most-needed items if you or your husband has time to make a quick stop at the store. This is great to see that you need diapers and milk ASAP.
::Search 100,000s of recipes, including over 10,000 that can be found online at MarthaStewart.com. When you find recipes you like you can just click the “Add to List” button and all the ingredients are added to your list with a link under each ingredient back to that recipe.
::Save any recipe from across the web in a single recipe box at www.ZipList.com.
Ziplist is generously giving away gift packs to 15 different readers here. The gift packs will include one Gro-Pak Chil Insulated Bag from Blue Avocado (colors will vary) and one copy of Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast (just-published cookbook from Martha Stewart).
The Gro-Pak Chil Insulated Bag keeps food either hot or cold for 3 hours and holds 20 pounds of frozen food. Each bag has a cute design with bright colors.
With 250 tempting recipes, Everyday Food: Fresh, Fast, Flavorful is a collection you will want to have. This is the highly anticipated follow-up to the bestselling Everyday Food: Great Food Fast and includes everything from breakfasts to desserts to help you whip up a concoction any time of the day.
Would you like to win one of these 15 gift packs? Just leave a comment on this post within the next 48 hours and you’ll be entered to win.
