Surviving or Thriving on a Budget... What Is The Difference?

My super frugal grocery shops- for me a pleasure, for others,
 just barely surviving

Today I got into a discussion with someone who is familiar with my blog, and I was mentioning to her about how the focus of my blog is about living as well as one can within their means, however small, and not just doing what you need to survive. The tag line of this blog is and always has been "A Rich Life on a Minimum Wage" and I feel my life and my blog live up to that.

This person, however, said that she felt my blog was more surviving, not thriving, since I talk about family cloth, dumpster diving, and getting free chicken frames and such.

Hence this post.

Because I need to explain something that, I feel, is the essence of my approach to life and finances and frugality. 

Frugality is not one size fits all. In any way, shape or form.

Not only does everyone have a different financial situation, you can have two people with the exact same income, and frugality for each of them would look different.

Why is that?

Tips to Drastically Lower Your Family's Grocery Bill

In a local group I'm in someone today asked if it is possible to spend $575 a month for a family of six. Of course everyone pointed them to me because I do that exact thing. Only I do so for $375-575 a month and that's with eating gluten free and mostly processed food free, my eating paleo, etc. So yes, at least locally it is possible. Here's how one can feed their family for pennies. Ok, not pennies exactly, but less than $1 per person per meal on average. In fact, if you follow these tips, you may very well be able to do it for 50 cents a person per meal....

However there is one thing you have to know. While something may be possible it doesn't mean that you'll love doing it. You can't have it all. To have the exact same diet and foods for less money usually takes more time. If you don't have that extra time, to cut back on grocery costs you'll need to change what you're eating and you may find that hard. There is a saying "insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." That is true when it comes to grocery bills. If you want to keep your shopping habits and menu identical then there's really no way to lower your bills. However, if you're willing to make changes, at times drastic, then it is possible.

I'll start off with tips on how to do that, with a focus on how to do so without spending so much extra time doing money saving things, followed by "extra credit" ideas for people with extra time and motivation to do things even more extremely, followed by frugal meal suggestions. I'm pointing out already that this isn't necessarily the healthiest diet. There's a reason I spent more money on health food items. And hopefully if your time or financial situation improves you can switch to healthier (still frugal) options, but when people are really struggling, fed is best. I'm going to make sure all the meals on the menu plan have produce and protein, etc. And no total junk other than white sugar, vegetable oil, and non whole grains.

Tips to Drastically Lower Your Family's Grocery Bill

How To Overcome An Unexpected Financial Crisis

Image courtesy of jesadaphorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A reader, Heather, reached out to me, and mentioned how she had cancer and she went from being financially stable to in a big financial crisis, because of all the expenses involved in the treatments and being unable to work, and more. She asked me if I'd be able to write a post about how people can overcome an unexpected financial crisis, and I said that I'd be happy to.

In my adult life, I certainly did have an unexpected financial crisis, but I can't say that it was following a period of financial comfort.
Rather, about a year after we got married, some financial mistakes of one of our pasts' caught up with us and gave us a huge jolt, causing us to feel like we were drowning financially, instead of the just barely making it through the month that we'd been doing until that point.

This post will hopefully address people in both circumstances- people who started off financially comfortable and then found themselves in financial hell, as well as people who weren't doing well beforehand and then found themselves in an even worse situation.

Steps to Overcome An Unexpected Financial Crisis

We Finished Installing Our Ikea Kitchen

We did it! My kitchen is now complete! After 9 year old Lee and I built all of our Ikea kitchen cabinets, yesterday Mike and I installed them into our kitchen.  If I want to be honest about who did what, I went to the hardware store to get advice about what type of screws were best for securing cabinets and bought them, then I measured how long the rails upon which Ikea cabinets sit should be, and then marked them, then Mike cut the rails while I held them in place. I then measured and marked on the wall where the rails should go, and marked all the places to drill. After that, Mike drilled into the wall, and added the screws. The screws went in properly onto one wall, the one with the taller cabinets, however, the wall wasn't deep enough for the screws on side with the fridge, so Mike needed to problem solve and figure out different ways to secure the rails onto the wall, which he accomplished very well.

Feeling A Bit Like A Fraud

For the past little bit I've been having this thought running through my head- that I'm not being the Penny I've always been. Since I started packing and preparing for our move, and since we've moved in, in many ways I feel like an impostor, a fraud, and just not myself.

Why?

Two months ago, if you asked me to describe myself using fewer than ten descriptors, they would probably include:

Frugal (and extremely frugal)
Forager
Healthy Eater (mainly Paleo)
Messy
Homeschooler
Tiny House Liver
and a few other things.

But now, I'm finding a hard time finding me since most of those words don't seem to be describing me or my life anymore...

PSA: Watch What You're Dissing

As someone who has lived a frugal life by necessity pretty much since I got married at 18 years old 10 years ago, I've gotten my fair share of remarks from people about how we live our life. Many people don't necessarily understand why I do things the way that I do, and I have a relatively tough skin, but I'll admit, certain things can sting, and even if they don't hurt me, they certainly have the potential to be hurtful to others.
Now that we moved into our new house, these types of remarks have increased, and I am writing this post as a public service announcement, because I'm sure many people don't even realize how certain things they say can be hurtful, and I wanted to point out to people about the power of their words.

First of all, I think it is important to realize that you can never really understand why someone else does things the way that they do. Things may seem silly or strange to you, but if you aren't aware of someone else's life circumstances, you may be missing a big part of the picture of why people are doing things a certain way.

For example, and totally not connected to the comments that inspired this post, I've had people assume that the reason why I am on a strict diet is because I am orthorexic, that I have mental issues that cause me to desire to restrict myself and take away all enjoyment from food, when the truth is that it is because I had physical health issues for years that finally were eliminated by removing trigger foods. Simply because they weren't privy to the details of my health situation, they assumed very incorrect things about me.
Similarly, when people make comments about why I am doing things a certain way, or telling me that I should be doing things in a way I'm not, they aren't knowledgeable about my financial circumstances that are influencing the way I spend or don't spend money. I happen to be more open about my finances than most people (being as I run a blog called Penniless Parenting), but even so, I don't share the details of how much money we bring in each month, various expenses we have, and how much money is left over after all that. Therefore, people may not understand why I make the frugal or extremely frugal choices I make, why I won't spend on certain things that would be givens to other people, and why I do sometimes spend money on things people may consider frivolous.

Reflecting On My Spending Recently

Something I've been doing right now-
 to correct an unnecessary and expensive splurge-
making my own alcohol.

I want to be frugal, to budget well, to save money where I can, but I realize that, often, even to the most frugal minded of us, money sometimes can slip through our fingers in a slow trickle, so that, over time, the little pennies add up and you spend so much more than you'd intended to spend, and your expenses are way too high.

Then again, "too high" is relative; what would be frugal for someone would be overspending for someone else, depending on how much income they are bringing in, and how much money they have left to budget once the non negotiables are budgeted in.

For example, for our family, I decided that our regular budget of $570 per month on groceries is too much. Though it is hard, I am trying to lower it, and to see just how low I can get it to be. The thing is, though, that I'm not doing enough.

I've been keeping track of my grocery expenses every single month, writing down how much I spent on each shop, where it was, and approximately what I bought every time. Looking over my chart of my August expenses, where my total was $509 for the month, already an improvement but not as much as it could have been, I realized something.

The Evolution of Our Family's Finances and Daring to Dream Big and Make Plans

Photo credit- Kenneth Cratty

This blog has evolved a lot over time, as it has been a reflection of our finances that, too, have evolved a lot over time. When I first started out we literally were penniless, not making it through the month, insanely frugal by necessity, and basically pinching pennies so hard they screamed, and even with that, having a hard time managing financially. There were so many frugal things that I knew would help us out but couldn't afford the initial outlay (such as bulk buying, for example). I was in a bad place financially and while my hopes were to get out of that bad financial place we were in, I didn't really know how to do it.

A friend told me that there's only so far we can pinch our pennies; at some point we'd need to earn more, as you can't save money that you didn't bring in already. But I didn't know how to raise our income. Once I calculated how much money I'd be able to bring in each month by working full time at a minimum wage job (the only type of job I was qualified for) and then subtracted work related expenses such as childcare and saw that I'd bring in so little that it would be offset by the amount I could do to save money if I were home so I wrote off going to work as pointless.


I did manage to find some part time jobs, some working from home (started off with childcare, but then switched to writing jobs, primarily), and some part time jobs out of the home -- cleaning jobs, predominantly, and did some occasional gigs here and there to bring in some money, such as teaching foraging classes, and selling homemade food products.

In addition to that, gradually my penny pinching ways gained popularity and I started to be able to earn a little bit of money from this blog, in addition to some other frugality themed writing jobs. Slowly but surely we were inching our way forward and I started to be able to do the things I wanted to do to save money, and we got out of that rut of being insanely frugal and still spending more than we were bringing in, and instead we were just very frugal and generally not spending more than we were bringing in...


When I first started this blog, I'll admit that it was in the hopes of bringing in an income from it, and joked that hopefully one day I'll be able to rename it Penniless to Millionaire. While that is no where near the truth for us, I can say that our financial situation at the moment is worlds apart from how it was 6 years ago. We have up months and down months, but we've had more ups than downs lately, especially since I kicked my butt into gear and started teaching more classes, selling more homemade soaps, writing some books, etc...

So What Does Poor Mean Anyhow?

Photo credit- David Castillo Dominici

Last week I wrote a post discussing whether or not eggs are really as cheap as they are made out to be, and in the comments section there was a little back and forth about being "poor" and if that is something worthy of criticism.

Completely unrelated to that, the other day I went with my kids to the city, and my oldest, Lee, who has been saving up his money, decided completely on his own to bring along some of his loose change to be able to give it as charity to the beggars he'd inevitably see on the street. While in the city, we started talking about charity, needy people, etc, and then he asked me "Mommy, are we poor?"

I mean, as someone who is famous for living frugally and goes by the name "Penniless" I guess such a question from my kids was inevitable at some point.

My answer to my son started with "Poor is relative; compared to some people we're poor, and compared to other people we're rich."

But the thing is- it got me thinking- what does poor mean anyhow, and are we poor?

Musings On Life Without A Car

Photo credit- freedigitalphotos.net- Gualberto107.

We are a family of 6 and we have no car. Never had a car, have no plans on getting a car in the foreseeable future. People often ask me how I manage without a car, especially since all 4 kids of mine are home with me every day. So many people tell me that they can't possibly manage without a car, they absolutely need one, and sometimes even two, so how does my family survive without a car?

I've given this a lot of thought, to be honest, and I think that whether or not someone feels a car is a necessity is a matter of choice and lifestyle and expectations.

Because my husband and I never had a car as adults, we have gotten used to not having a car, and in many ways, we built our life around that fact. There are two ways of looking at it- either that not having a car controls our lives, day in and day out... or that we simply decide that having a car is not a priority for us and structure our lives around that fact.

The Benefits of Frustration (For Kids and Everyone)

Frustration- the true mother of invention

I was having a discussion the other day with someone about unschooling my kids, and how I try not to push them to learn things that they aren't interested in learning yet (yet being the key word), but rather, wait until they show an interest in learning that subject, and then we tend to learn it rather intensely and quickly.
This person, not a big fan of unschooling, was especially concerned about this approach when it comes to learning our local language. That actually is a subject that I do push to some extent and don't completely unschool it, but even that, I try not to make a fight about it or really pressurize my kids with it, because when I do, and especially when others try to push it (said person decides to school my kids in the local language every time they see them), my kids get very annoyed and it makes them disinterested in learning it, and very upset. And then, instead of my being able to teach them the language at a moderate pace, they don't want to learn it at all.
But I am seeing that they are picking up the language, and I see just how much their grasp has improved in the last year and a half or two since we started working on it, and I realize that it'll take time for them to become fully fluent, but they'll get there.
This concerned person was saying that right now they need the local language, to be able to function in society, to make friends, to be able to interact with people at the grocery store and playground, and if they don't speak the local language, they'd become frustrated.
My answer- becoming frustrated that they don't speak the language well enough is a good thing, not the bad thing this person was making it out to be.

And that, readers, is the point of this post.

Not every seemingly negative circumstance actually is negative. Sometimes they are actually beneficial.

I think frustration is a terrific thing, and very beneficial in certain circumstances.

My Latest Shopping Trips- What I Bought and Why

Yesterday I had to go to town, and while I was there, decided to go to a cheap grocery store, the same one where I bought my chicken necks before. This store, actually, is the same store I wrote about before, disparagingly, because of their claiming to be free of gimmicks and tricks, but are actually really full of sly tricks to get you to spend more. That said, it still does have many items being sold at great prices, so as long as you shop carefully you can get your money' worth there, and it is worth the trip there. As long as you're careful.
I noticed that meat prices there, for the most part, are far from what I'd like to be paying, however, they do have chicken necks, which are now one of my new favorite meats, now that I've actually seen how dirt cheap they area and how many different ways they can be cooked, so I headed there with the intention to buy necks, plus a few other things that we needed.

Just an aside- I got comments on my last shopping trip roundup post, about how I "spend a lot of money on nuts for myself, but make my kids eat necks", which, while I addressed in a comment, thought merited a response in a post itself.
When it comes to frugality, I try to save money where I can so that I can have more wiggle room and cash to spend on the things that are important to me. Regarding food, this means making do with cheaper animal proteins (chicken necks, gizzards, wings, etc...) instead of more expensive ones, so that I can have more grocery money available to spend on healthier sweeteners, healthier oils, nuts, etc... It may not be the type of thing everyone would do- maybe some people would rather serve more expensive cuts of meat and cheaper oils/sweeteners, and would skip the nuts, but that's cool- everyone is free to do with their money what they want, but this is the choice we've made for our family.
And as for things for me vs things for my kids, for the most part my family and I eat the same food, other than when they're eating things that I can't, or that I avoid for health reasons. There are the very rare times that I actually buy treats only for myself (like super rare)- most treats that I buy go for the kids. I don't believe that as a parent I should get the good things and my kids not- my kids get what they like and that we can afford, and I get what I like that we can afford. No one feels lacking.
Regarding the specifics- my kids aren't the hugest fans of necks because they don't like the bones, but most meat that I make, whether thighs or drumsticks or wings, my kids ask me to remove the meat from the bones, so I just do the same for them with the necks, and then they'll happily eat it. But for the most part, I am the one eating the necks (together with veggies), while they are eating dairy including cereal and milk, cheese, hot dogs, etc... And nuts end up being mainly for the sweets that I make for the family, usually once a week, so its not lots of money on me vs a little on the kid. We're a family and I buy what each person will like and eat and can tolerate, everyone getting nice things as much as we can allow, no one being forced to eat foods they dislike.

How to Deal Constructively With Differences In Marriage

FreeDigitalPhotos.net- Stuart Miles

Before I get into this post, I need to preface it by saying that, as a policy, out of respect for my husband and our marriage, I do not write personal things about Mike without his full go ahead and permission- I will always read posts to him, in full, before pressing publish, if it talks about him, and make sure he is 100% ok with those things being written about him. Just making sure you know.

Sometimes I get annoyed with my husband for being so different from me in some ways and for not being thrilled about me doing some things I'm gung ho about... And then often after the fact I realize how right he was, and I realize how right he is for me, and how much I need him as a counter balance and that the ways in which he's opposite from me keep me grounded when I am floating away on my ideas that may not be so smart.

Like for example.... I often don't know my own limits and take on more than I can chew leaving me a stressed out overwhelmed mess and the family, my house, and my sanity suffers.
I had planned on hosting this big party in my community this weekend. All self catered and made from scratch of course and I was so excited about it... And Mike was dreading it because he felt I had too much on my plate already so he'd end up feeling the brunt of the extra work. He didn't tell me to cancel it but I did a lot of thinking about it and decided to postpone it for a later date, but was very saddened by the decision.
Just a few hours later though, when I realized what it meant, I breathed the biggest sigh of relief when I realized what a stress was lifted from my shoulders, a stress that I hadn't even been aware of until it was gone. And then I realized how prefect Mike is for me, how much I need someone like him to be shooting down my untenable ideas of mine.

This week was very full as it is and on top of everything else I had an order for a gluten free birthday cake and sushi for my friend Holly's daughter's birthday, my mom is sleeping over for the weekend, I am organizing a book swap on Sunday and I'm teaching a class on wild edibles and medicine in another city on Monday. I barely managed to get everything I needed to get done this week (you'll notice I didn't even get around to posting as often as I've been trying to post lately) and Mike needed to pitch in a lot to keep the house from going crazy. I can't even begin to imagine how I would have self catered a party for over 100 this week.... So thanks Mike for being the voice of reason!

I believe that marriage is funny like that sometimes. Some people end up with each other because they are so similar, and on other cases opposites attract. (I remember when my dad first met Mike before we got engaged he said "Mike's a great and likable guy but you're so different from each other, I don't know how you'll manage as a couple.")

Total Expenses on Groceries this Past Month- Breakdown and Analysis

One of my grocery shops this past month

This is the second month straight, and probably the 6th month total, in which I've tracked our family's groceries down to the last cent. The purpose of this is to get a better picture of where our money is going, and to be able to decide if it is what I would like to continue doing.

Today I was talking to my mother's helper, who asked me if I ever spent money on things, or if I liked to save money whenever and where ever possible. I explained to her my motto when it comes to frugality- not to spend as little money as possible, but rather, that all the money that I spent should be on things that I want to spend them on, that our spending reflects our values. I am very happy to spend money on something that is important to me (including my 2 home births that I paid over $1000 cash for instead of hospital births completely covered by insurance); I don't want to fritter money away on things that I'd regret after the fact.

That is why I like to analyze my grocery expenses.
Because I get to see precisely where my money is going, and I can decide if this is where I want it to go, or if I feel that the money I spent in each category was money well spent.
Analyzing my grocery expenses certainly has been enlightening.

And the more I do this, the more I get reminded that as much as each month's grocery breakdown is helpful to look at, I have to remember that there is a general picture as well, and that one month's grocery bill may be higher, and another one lower, but the average is more important.

Take this month's grocery tally.

It may just be the lowest since I've started tracking my groceries to the letter- $424.48 total spent this month, and $490.28 if I include in the amount of my bulk purchases (of coconut sugar and green buckwheat) that I used this month.

Technological Upgrades... Vs Being Happy With What You Have

I think this post can be summed up in three sentences.
Marketers are brilliant strategists.
Depression and lack of appreciating what you have makes you the perfect target for marketers.
People who appreciate what they have end up saving the most money.

And now, let me elaborate.

When you see an advertisement for some product marketers want you to buy, what are the advertisements like? Usually they're rosy colored depictions of gorgeous smiling people, often having the time of their lives, and using their products.
Subliminal (or not so subliminal) messaging going on here. Your life isn't perfect now (whose is?), but if you buy our product, your life will be perfect, you'll be happy and in love and rich. We all know this isn't true (at least I hope so), but some part of us deep down buys it, and we become convinced that if only, if only... our lives would be better.

But if you feel content with your life, and not lacking- why would you want to buy their products? There'd be no need to chase after that elusive perfect life if your life is already perfect.
Malcontent is exactly what they want, because it is the only way to convince you that spending money on their product is what will make you happy.

Teaching Kids about Healthy Attitudes Towards Beauty, Health, and Weight

Audrey Hepburn, our "beauty standard"

I think one of the hardest things about being a parent is trying to find the middle ground, to raise your kids with appropriate attitudes towards different things instead of falling to either extreme. I want to raise emotionally healthy children, with a healthy sense of self and self image, as well as with a good attitude towards health and wellness. I want my children to be happy with themselves, to love themselves and everything about them, yet at the same time, always work on being the best "them" that they could possibly be.

I've written before about my desire to lose weight, and fortunately I've made progress, to the point where I am definitely in the healthy weight range, and aesthetically much better than before (I'm no longer regularly getting asked if I'm pregnant), but at the same time, I would like to lose more weight. Not a lot- my goal weight is about 15-20 lbs away from where I am now (I lost about 25 lbs already)...
The other day my son asked me if I am able to eat dairy. I told him that the answer is complicated. He wanted to know more. Question followed question, and eventually I told him that I can eat goat dairy, but I don't want to, because I want to lose weight.

"But what's wrong with how you are now, Mommy? You're not fat," my 7 year old Lee wanted to know.

That question was a toughie, and it scared me.
Because there is nothing wrong with how I am now. Yes, I am overweight, according to the BMI, but not by too much. I look good. I just want to look even better. I don't want my kids to think that there is something "wrong" with them if they're less than perfect, because no one is perfect. And I don't want my kids to think that someone skinny is better than someone fat. I don't want my kids to think that someone's value is connected to how they look. And I worried that maybe what I was doing might be harming my kids.

So that made me do a lot of thinking.
And though we generally tend towards unschooling, I put together a lesson plan to hopefully try to teach my kids healthy attitudes about beauty, health, and weight loss. Hopefully it'll help someone else here- maybe you can use it with your kids as well.

Hard Core Poor- A Book on Extreme Thrift by Kelly Sangree- A Book Review

Me snuggling up with this great book!

Have you ever met someone, and thought to yourself that the two of you are kindred souls, that you just get each other completely? I have a good friend, Kelly Sangree, and even though we've never met in person, we are very close, since we seem to simply understand how the other one ticks.
Kelly says, though, that she "had a leg up on me", that she knew we'd be good friends, even before we spoke for the first time. She's been a loyal blog reader "since long before you were even gluten free", she says... That means roughly 4 or 5 years, minimum, she's been reading my blog...
Kelly's got three kids, homeschools one and sends another one to school, has a few gluten free members of her household, and is natural minded, super thrifty, DIY, creative gal, who likes to problem solve to figure out innovative solutions for various money related queries... She also manages without a car most of the time, bike riding her super cool cargo bike...
When I need someone to problem solve with, to ask input on for tough dilemmas, Kelly is the one I often turn to, because she has a great head on her shoulders, and I know her advice will usually be spot on.
So when I heard that Kelly wrote a book on frugality, entitled Hard Core Poor- A Book on Extreme Thrift , I immediately asked her if I could do a book review, because, knowing her, I knew I'd love her book.

I wasn't wrong.

I have ADD or something similar. Unless a book is a gripping novel, sucking me in, I usually have a hard time getting through books, because something always comes up and distracts me from the book, no matter how much I like the book or the information covered within. (I usually have, at any given time, at least 10 books that I'm in the middle of...) This tends to be especially true with non fiction books...

Kelly's book, though, captivated me in the way only great novels usually can. I've read many finance related books in the past, many that I loved (including The Complete Tightwad Gazette, The Total Money Makeover, etc...) but none spoke to me as much as the book "Hard Core Poor".
As I read the book, the Kelly I know and love shined through- her wisdom, insight, creativity, and humor, all those things about her that I appreciate (and the reasons I'm proud to call her a friend), come through clearly in the book, making it a real pleasure to read.

You know how they say that a lot of those frugal books and blogs out there are woefully short of actual, practical ideas to help you save money- they usually just say "stop buying those lattes and you'll have extra cash" or focus entirely on couponing, so there isn't much of tangible use that you get out of the book?

Kelly's book has a lot of practical, down to earth ideas that will actually be more useful to you than just "stop buying lattes" or "use coupons".

Kelly with two of her kids, on her super awesome cargo bike

Why We Went Back to Homeschooling Our Kids- Again

A homeschooling lesson- real life learning.
Baking, following instructions, reading, math, etc..

Those of you who've been following my blog for a long time already might remember some details about my kids' schooling journey, how originally we were homeschooling, unschooling inspired, and then last year we decided to send our kids to school, and now we're back at homeschooling, again unschooling inspired.

People were surprised at my choice- many at my choice to send them to school in the first place (how can an unschooler not only stop unschooling, but actually send to a regular school?), but probably even more people were surprised that we went back to homeschooling after this year- despite the fact that we said from the start that our goal was to send them to school just for a year anyhow. Many said that the second we put them in school, we'd see how much better school was than homeschooling, and I wouldn't want to go back to homeschooling (because I'd miss the free time I had), and it wouldn't be fair to my kids to make them go back to homeschooling, since they wouldn't want it after being in school.

So, hence, this post. Why we're back to homeschooling this year.
But in order to address that question, I'd first have to review the reasons we sent them to school last year in the first place.

Experiences as Gifts, Appreciating What You Have, and What We're Getting Our Kids

Photo credit: Naito8- Freedigitalphotos.net

With the holiday season upon us, people around the world are stressing out about gifting- what they should give each loved one, and many are going into debt to pay for these extravagances. Forums I'm in are filled with discussions about how much to spend on each child ("Is $200 dollars reasonable per kid if we're short on cash- I don't know if I can swing $500 per child?"), feeling guilty about not spending enough on each child, or showing off how much they're showering their kids with all sorts of extravagances.

Tis the season to be materialistic and wasteful, it seems.

Not in our family.

Forget the fact that money is tight around here and cash doesn't flow like water into our bank accounts.

Even if I were rich, I still don't want to be teaching my kids to live their life in pursuit of material possessions, equating acquisition of paraphernalia with happiness. In fact, it is often the opposite- lottery winners are often miserable, and poor people can be very happy.

I mentioned it before Black Friday, and I'll say it again- the best way to be happy is to decide to be happy, to decide to appreciate what you have instead of focusing on what you don't have.
Even if there is a lot you're lacking in your life- just by virtue of reading this post, you automatically are lucky and have more than many people in the world do- you have the ability to read, eyesight, access to technology such as computers, cell phones, and internet. And that isn't mentioning the food in people's refrigerators, the roof over their heads, the clothes on their back, and the clean bill of health that I hope most blog readers have. (And if you don't have all 4 of the above, I really wish you success in getting those soon, and my heart goes out to you.)

We're trying to raise our kids to focus on what they have instead of what they don't have. To realize how much abundance they have in their lives.

Having a Frugal Homeschooling Adventure

Yesterday morning, right after waking up, I turned to my 5 year old, Ike, and asked him "If you could do anything at all, what would you want to do today?" His answer? "I want to go exploring in the jungle."
Unfortunately, we don't have a jungle near our house, but we do have a small forest, and I presented that option to him. "Want to go exploring in the forest together today?" "Yea!" Lee and Anneliese were also excited about the idea of the expedition, and I decided to use it to turn it into a fun learning experience.

Because we're back at homeschooling this year (yes, I will be writing a blog post, hopefully soon, about why we're back at homeschooling), I am leaning more towards unschooling. (I wouldn't call myself unschooling 100%, but definitely my "teaching method" is inspired by the unschooling perspective.) I want life to be full of learning opportunities, but with these learning opportunities more "hidden" so the kids feel more the fun and don't realize how much they're learning. By keeping the learning fun, it'll hopefully help my kids retain their love of learning and not turn it into a battle of wills, and their eventual starting to hate learning as happens with many kids throughout their schooling career.

I didn't tell my kids: Ok, today we're going to be learning about map skills, safety, history, nature, photography. But I did open the door to these opportunities so that they would learn these skills and have a great time while doing it.