Money Saving Mom®

Guest post from Angi of Schneider Peeps

Having six children, three of whom are teenage boys, I often get asked how we keep them fed. To be honest, it’s only by the grace of God. Growing children can eat a lot and teenage boys, well, they take eating to a whole new level.

Growing our own food helps keep our grocery budget down.

However, if we’re not careful, we can spend way too much growing our food and gardening becomes a hobby instead of a budget helper.

So, how can we have a low budget and productive garden?

Research

It’s been said that 10 minutes spent planning will save you an hour. I think that applies to gardening as well.

• Start with finding out your planting zone and times and what grows well in your area. No sense in planting watermelons if you live in Siberia, unless you have a greenhouse, because they probably won’t ripen.

• Find a good gardening book that is written specifically for your area. This book should make you feel good about what you are doing. So if it leaves you feeling guilty, find another one. If you live in Texas a good one is The Organic Gardener by Howard Garrett.

• Talk with other gardeners in your area. Most county extensions have Master Gardeners programs and they are very helpful, so is the county extension agent. Also, don’t overlook the local nurseries and feed stores. These people have a vested interest in you succeeding in your gardening.

Plan

Now that you know what you can plant and when, it’s time to decide what you actually will plant.

• Decide how much space and time you can devote to your garden. Maybe you have some space on your apartment balcony or maybe you have some acreage. It doesn’t really matter, but you need to make a decision about space. Also think about your time. It’s better to grow a few plants well than to have a huge garden that you can’t tend and feel guilty about.

• Decide what you really want to plant. Although we have lots of space we don’t have lots of time so we’ve decided to only plant those things that we like and eat regularly. When we need to make a decision between two plants, we plant the one that is more expensive to buy. For instance, we’ve decided that we will not plant corn this year. Although we love corn, we only eat it once or twice a month. It also takes up a lot of space and it’s hard to keep the worms out. Plus, we can get local corn still in its husks 10 for $1 around July 4^th. If I want to can or freeze some I can just get it then and use the space to plant something else like tomatoes that we use almost every day.

• Decide what to start by seed and what to start with transplants. Starting plants by seed is definitely the cheapest way to go. You can use all kinds of containers to start seeds: empty toilet paper rolls, newspaper pots, yogurt containers, even egg shells. You can also purchase peat pots or a soil block builder. It’s best to start with seed starting soil. It is finer and the seeds have an easier time germinating. Although it’s cheaper to start with seeds, don’t feel guilty buying some transplants especially if you’re getting a late start. Gardening with transplants is still cheaper than buying produce.

Plant and Tend

Now it’s time to actually put the garden in and care for it.

• If you’re new to gardening and need things like pots, spades or even a tiller, ask around and post on Freecycle. There are often people who used to garden and for various reasons no longer do — and have stuff they will gladly give you.

• Look around and see what can be re-purposed. Last year we made a homemade watering system using empty milk jugs.

• Start collecting leaves. We use leaves to mulch our garden and keep the weeds down. We also let it compost down and it makes great soil. Once word gets out that you want leaves people will start calling you telling you they have some for you. Although we have quite a few trees on our property we don’t rake. We let our neighbors do all the hard work and just go collect the leaves from the curb.

• Use newspaper to keep weeds down. We lay a thick layer of newspaper down in between plants and cover it with leaves to keep weeds down.

• Start composting. Even if you don’t have a spot for a large compost bin you can compost right in your garden by burying your scraps (don’t bury anything that will attract animals). Or you can worm compost in a very small space.

• Spend a little time each day or every other day checking on your garden. Look for bugs that need to be dealt with, pull weeds, pick veggies and water. Try to stay on top of the weeding otherwise you’ll wind up with a big weedy mess.

Rely

After all this research, planning, planting and tending it is important to not get too stressed out if things don’t go quite like you planned. There will always be something… pests, too little or too much rain, or bad seeds that will impact our harvest. All we can do is our best and leave the rest to God.

Angi is a pastor’s wife and mom of 6 children who spends her days homeschooling, crafting, gardening, playing chauffer, keeping chickens, trying to learn how take better pictures and blogging at SchneiderPeeps.

Guest Post by Carrie from Frugalistic Mom

On frugal blogs, we talk a lot about how to get more stuff for less money. But lately, I’ve been thinking more about how to allocate my budget in ways that I feel better about.

I would love it if I could afford to buy only the products I feel the best about — and maybe I will achieve that one day! However, I am not going to go over budget just to purchase these products. Here’s how we’ve started buying products we feel better about without increasing our budget:

I realized that we didn’t need as much as we thought we did.

I used to buy meat for each dinner of the week, and lunch meats for sandwiches. Then I started reading about factory-farmed meat, animal cruelty, and environmental degradation.

Our family decided to cut back our meat consumption to three or four meals a week, in order to free up more money in our weekly grocery budget for beef that we buy directly from a farmer we feel good about. The same goes for shopping locally instead of through mass retailers or online.

I stopped comparing apples to apples {literally and figuratively}.

Organic apples are more expensive than conventional – no question. But when compared to other food, pound for pound, organic apples can still be purchased pretty affordably.

Once I stopped comparing the organic price to the conventional price for every little thing, and just thought about what I was spending per pound for my food, I stressed less about the expense for the good stuff.

I prioritized our values.

Most of us can’t afford to buy the best of everything. I don’t buy all organic, even though I know this would be ideal in terms of environmental protection. I don’t buy all organic produce. Instead, I use the list from the Environmental Working Group to determine which produce is most likely to be contaminated with pesticides and I buy those organic. I buy conventional produce for all the rest of my produce purchases.

I put my money into what matters to me, not into showing off.

When my first child was a baby, I felt like everything that went into her mouth – and especially into the snack bag I handed her on the playground – had to be organic or the other mothers would think I was terrible.

I remember even buying organic cookies for her. Now that I’m a mom of three with more confidence in my own choices, I laugh about that. My baby didn’t need cookies at all, much less organic ones. And I don’t care what the other moms think, as long as I feel good about what I’m feeding the kids.

I make it at home when I can.

I’m no do-it-yourself diva – I can barely cut paper in a straight line. However, I realized that some products are so easy to make in an environmentally friendly formula that it’s really no trouble – like spray cleaner out of vinegar and baking soda.

I’m not a very good gardener, but those who are can do a lot toward easing the environmental burden of their diet by growing organic food at home. When I do price comparisons between do-it-yourself and store-bought, I try to remember to consider the social or environmental cost of the product – not just the dollar amount.

I make easy switches.

When I read about the child slavery involved in conventional cocoa beans, I decided not to buy chocolate. And to be honest, I was upset at the prospect of not purchasing our usual chocolate treats. However, once I got over the shock, I realized that kids love lollipops and other candies too. I can splurge to buy a couple fair trade chocolates for the kids, but otherwise I’m sticking to non-chocolate candies for now.

There are plenty of other foods that also come with a heavy human rights price, but since conventional chocolate isn’t a necessity, it was one of the easier choices to make.

I gave myself a pat on the back for choices that just happen to contribute to a greater good.

I’ve been buying nearly all of my kid’s clothes – and an increasing number of my own – second-hand. I do this to save money, but also because buying second-hand is more environmentally friendly, too.

I consider part of my shopping budget as charity.

If you buy the cheapest of everything without thinking about the consequences, and save thousands of dollars each year to donate to charity… are you really helping create the world you want? I’m not saying we should stop supporting charities, but instead, try supporting a retailer that operates according to your values. This can be as powerful as a direct donation.

With all that said, I understand that thinking about the ethics of what you buy is not going to fit into everyone’s budget. If I could barely afford enough groceries to get through the week, I would not waste one minute thinking about organic versus conventional.

And of course, not everyone shares my family’s values. You may go out of your way to support a retailer that I don’t feel comfortable supporting, or vice versa. I’m not trying to convince others to stop buying conventional chocolate or start buying organic. My point is that if there are things that bother you about what you’re buying, you may be able to find a way to shop with your values.

Carrie Kirby blogs about being a realistic frugalista in Chicago at Frugalistic Mom.

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