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No Bountiful Baskets This Week
This week we did not purchase out share of Bountiful Baskets. My daughter graduated from college today so we knew ahead of time that this week we wouldn’t participate. That means that we had to purchase our produce at the grocery store. After the graduation ceremony and our lunch out I decided to go to my local Smith’s grocery store. With tomorrow being Mother’s Day, I decided to have a nice relaxing day at home tomorrow and not have to worry about grocery shopping.
I did still have some produce left over from last week, but not much. I have alot of corn on the cob, green onions, broccoli & canteloupe. So I needed quite a bit to get us through the week until I pick up our produce share next Saturday from Bountiful Baskets. This is also a great opportunity for me to share the value of Boutiful Baskets compared to a regular grocery store. I know that every grocery store’s pricing will not be the same as mine, but Smith’s is one of my normal grocery stores, so it is a great guide for me.
This week I picked up: 2 personal watermelon’s, 8 apples, 5 oranges, a 3 lb bag of halo’s, bananas, 2 lbs of strawberries, 4 potatoes, 1 head of green leaf lettuce, 1 english cucumber, 1 head of cauliflower, green beans, mini sweet peppers, 1 lb bag of organic carrots, 1 bag of baby carrots, & a large container of sliced mushrooms (normally I would buy whole mushrooms but these were on sale for 99 cents for a large container, coudn’t pass them up).
Today’s grand total was $39.90! That is absolutely crazy! My produce share from Bountiful Baskets is $18.00. This is confirmation that Bountiful Baskets is an amazing deal for your money. I can’t wait for next Saturday. I love being surprised by what my baskets will contain. I love getting fresh produce for an amazing price. It makes feeding my family healthy food a wonderfully affordable alternative.
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Katie’s A Graduate
Today was a very momentous day in our family. My daughter graduted from the University Of Nevada Las Vegas. My husband and I are very proud parents. She graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Mathmatics with a Minor in Secondary Education. She is going to be a high school math teacher.
As my husband, son and I sat in the stadium and watched all of the other families come in and claim their seats I was amazed at how many people showed up to support their graduates. The stadium was huge and it was full. There were over 1500 graduates and I am sure that all of those families were just as proud as we were.
It made me so happy that the first glimpse I had of her, when her College of the Sciences walked out, she looked so happy! I am sure that she was happy & relieved to have made it to this point and to be receiving her degree.
What an amazing day we had…
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Welcome To Our Simple Days
When I was thinking of starting a blog I really wanted to share with you all how I try to incorporate natural and simple living into our daily lives. The more I thought about it the more I realized that natural and simple living have meant many different things to my family over the years and I can only imagine that I am not the only one who has ever experienced this. The internet is full of such a wide variety of people looking for ways to live a more simple life. There are people who struggle financially that living a natural life seems out of their reach, and there are people who are financially stable and are looking for more ways to live naturally. I want this blog to be for everyone no matter your age or income. I hope homemakers, single parents, full time working parents, men, women, young adults, retirees and people in their middle years feel equally at home. I hope that we can share something that is relavent to everyone in part or in whole.
My goal with this blog is to share what I have tried that works for my family, things that I am hoping to try, and things that we have tried that really don’t work for us. I hope that as I share things you will also share with us. I know that I have alot to learn but I also know that I have alot to share.
I am sure many of you have read my “About” post located here I would like to share bit more about myself and my family than I touched on in that post. I hope that through out my posts you all can get to know myself and maybe bits about my family too. I may share more about my daughter than my son or husband, as the men in my life are very private and I have to respect that.
I grew up in an very small town in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan. My Mother was a single mom with 4 children and even though she always worked, we were very poor. My childhood was spent thinking Kool Aid was juice, and government cheese made the best grilled cheese sandwiches. We were on governement assistance and even though my mom didn’t really talk about it I think she had W.I. C. also for a time. I remember going to the little store near our home that had a butcher shop and asking for 1/4 lb of hamburger and when money was a little better we could get 1/2 lb hamburger to put into the Hamburger Helper.
My brother’s and I were very fortunate to have had a wonderful Grandmother who loved us and did so many wonderful things for us, like giving us a dime and taking us to pick out Penny Candy at the Ben Franklin store and explaining that some candy was less than other candy and if we really watched the price we could get alot of candy for that dime. She would treat us to ice cream at the Dairy Queen, and to this day my favorite item from Dairy Queen is her favorite hot fudge sundae with Spanish peanuts. I remember fondly her taking me to the little diner she used to go to with her friends and treating me to a grilled pecan sweet roll that I could enjoy while she got to chat with her friends. Pure Heaven!
Growing up poor really made me understand the value of a dollar and how to make money stretch. I learned so many ways to be able to feed my family for very little money. I double couponed, I stocked up, I learned to make things from scratch, I learned to make substitutions when I didn’t have the items I needed.
These skills have served me well throughout my life. It enabled me to be a stay at home mother for several years, and even when the kids grew and I started working more and more it still helped me to be prepared.
So if any of our readers are struggling and are afraid to ask questions or ask for advice, please know I understand. I will never judge you, I will offer support and advice anyway that I can. You are not alone.