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The experts tell us our costs are going up but wages will not match the increase. It would be to our advantage to cut $500 from our monthly family budget. This could go to pay increasing energy bills and save for upcoming deep economic recession in 2009.
Please tell us how your family is going to cut out $500 a month in spending.
Oh my...hitting the pet lovers isn't going to get you any medals!
But...whether this was for my dogs or kids, it still applies.
I picked last nights chicken so clean that it provided my two with more than enough to make up for their usual shared "treat" of one can of food.
One roast chicken...bought on sale of course, has given the two of us 5 meals plus leftovers plus the extra treat for the dogs.
I dunno...we've always been frugal without going 'without' so it's an ingrained habit.
I suppose we could join the "we've worked and scrimped all our lives and now we DESERVE......" crowd but...ya' know what?
I thought that's where we'd be and it may not be turning out to be so but I don't guess we DESERVE anything so I' m just relieved to know we know how to save that $500 a month if that's what it'll take.
Other than the 'god' part of it, I think that following the Serenity Prayer goes one hell of a long way to a life that's as ......happy and satifying...as possible.
Oh my...hitting the pet lovers isn't going to get you any medals!
.
I understand what you are saying and I do like my pets a lot too; however, if it gets to the point where one really needs to save money (which I think was the OP intent) then hard choices have to be made... one of those last hard choices is family over pets... it may suprise some and even make some mad, but the pets are just animals and the family is more than that - so from a prioritization perspective family trumps pets.
Things would have to be pretty desparate before any living breathing part of our family goes.
And yhat would mean rock bottom .
And that point, they'd become food for the rest of us survivors.
Obviously clipping and trimming a pet is a long ways away from cutting down for some of us
But, everything is relative.If that would chop $500 of somebody elses budget.....it's something.
We are actually very good w/ our money. Rarely go out to eat. My husband brown bags his lunch, Has a thermos for his Starbucks coffee, we recycle grocery bags for trash, line dry the laundry, I started making tea to cut back on buying soda, started a vegetable garden. I think the only thing I can cut is groceries and my beef jerky snacks. My dogs arn't going anywhere!...: )
We feed them table scraps and homemade sausage that my DW makes from road-kill.
Pyrenees and NewFoundlands, they mark our land, they setup a perimeter of about 100 foot in all directions from our house. Which seems to keep most predators away form our livestock.
Neighbors on both the South and the North have lost chickens in the past 12 months from predators. [we have no neighbors to East or West, one is a river, the other is a peat bog].
We have not lost any livestock to predators, so we are keeping our dogs.
Our dogs are wimps, but they leave a scattering of dog poo piles everywhere, which seems to be enough to keep the predators away.
Damn, you plant and grow your own mustard? Now that is dedication, lol. Last time I bought mustard, I think it cost about $3 for a 1/2 gallon at Costco and lasted like 3 years. Threw it out in fact as it was stale. I would say buy the mustard and use that energy on something that can save you even more. If you're that resourceful, brew your own beer and wine. Would be fun and real cheap.
I am also pretty impressed with growing your own mustard.
really didn't know you could, its one of those things I never
thought about where it came from like bouillon cubes...I don't care what they are ...
I need them.
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