On the City Library
What has happened to the city library system? Clearly funding and donations are down, largely due to Internet activity, which depletes the need for anyone with an income to make use of the public library.
When I was a student, the library was king. Now, with the onslaught of available information, much without a charge, I suppose the need is dying off. So where does the public library system stand?
During college, most of my research was done at the 42nd Street research library in Manhattan. I would bundle myself up, take the train to Grand Central, walk about four blocks, and spend the day working on research papers for college. At the time, this process was only mildly cumbersome, and I could have used my college's library, but I did not want to wait for inter-library loans on articles I needed. So off I would go to this historic building, sit at its antique oak tables, and read beneath the glow of the green shaded lamps. It may have been cumbersome to use, but it was picturesque and memorable.
As a young teacher, I spent my Sunday's at the Dallas Public Library, researching content for my lesson plans, gathering books and visuals for my students (many of whom had never seen the inside of the library), and write lessons. It was a sanctuary as much as it was an office.
Today, I am chagrined by the quality and staffing of the Austin Public Library. I thought I really nailed it this time. I was going to find some great books, a few DVDs, and save a bundle by returning to this resource. While the staff was very kind and helpful, there certainly were not enough of them. Books stood idle at the end of the stacks on rolling carts. So, if you did not find your text, you were to check the rack, which the short-handed staff would eventually shelve. The whole place needed a renovation as well. I could not even get to the second floor via the elevator because the "2" button was missing. I went to the third floor and walked down a flight.
I really wanted to find a few books on green architecture, four of which I found in the system, but only two of which I found in the stacks, despite their status of being "checked in." The one remaining copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was in, but also not on the stacks. I did find a different work by the famed chef, which I checked out. However, when I went downstairs to the DVD and CD collection, I was nothing short of dumbfounded. When living in Dallas, I checked out most of my music, took it home and taped it. I planned to do the same (except update the "taping" to downloading on to the laptop and Ipod). The collection was nothing short of useless. Oh sure, I could check out any number of versions of some British actor reciting Troilus and Cressida or Le Tragedie de Carmen, but I was looking for some useful rock, jazz, or soundtracks. I found nothing I would want. The DVDs were not much better. Suffice it to say, and I brought home three DVDs, which I deemed the "best" to borrow for the evening's entertainment: Rear Window, an independent film called, Save Me, which we enjoyed (Gotta love that Judith Light!), and Peter Allen: The Boy from Oz, a documentary on the famous entertainer. If I were to return to the library to find other DVDs to rent, I would be forced to bring home Mountain Biking in California, Yentl, Ishtar, and and number of belly firming exercise work-outs for active women or senior citizens.
My heart does not break for me. It does so for the people who remain reliant on the library: the students, the families with small children who should be able to use public services such as this one, and those who can not afford to drop $20 a month on Netflicks. If I were a young teacher today, struggling to craft meaningful lessons for my needy students, I would have to admit that the public library could not meet my needs.
Solutions management is a tough one. Libraries are fighting extinction due to the ease of information found from the home PC. Kindall is pummeling the need for paper bound books. And I am not arguing that progressive technology is bad. Don't misunderstand. However, I am left with the question of where the public library is left but to perish.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
January 10, 2010
How grateful I was to hear from Gaelen and her husband, Sven, last night. They have not died from starvation. However, they have spent $40 on groceries this month. While still within budget, they have not started to use gift cards yet but prefer to use them toward the end of January when the pantry shows that it needs a paint job. With the weekend coming to a close, I have not heard from Consulea. I left a message for her yesterday, checking to see if she was starving. One personality trait Consuela has is that she can charm her way into dinner or drinks with friends and family. I need not worry about her. I don't know how she does it, but she gets a lot of goods for free, including trips to Japan. As a teacher, she can find a grant like nobody's business. Who knows? Maybe Consuela has jaunted off to Israel again to do some last minute consulting. Last year, when she was sent to Poland at the last minute to work with a touring group of educators, I asked her what she was going to do there. She said "a lot of babysitting, and a little teaching about the Holocaust." (I failed to brief you on the fact that Consuela is a noted Holocaust scholar.) Considering she was going to Poland to "teach," I deftly asked, "Are you going to show people how to screw in a light bulb?"
We can not think of a better month to be austere than January. Our taxes are due, and since we do not escrow, I have to write a lot of checks to the tune of $5500. That will scare anyone into eating egg sandwiches for a week. On top of those expenses, Jeff and I are negotiating a contract to build a new, state-of-the-art eco-friendly, sustainable home. More on that later, but suffice it to say that if we get the contract we want, we will drain the savings account of an additional $6000.00 in earnest money.
January offers many challenges, and this year, we are committed to cutting back on dry cleaning. I am a professional and Jeff is in retail management, so our respective companies expect some level of dress, which includes professional dry cleaning. We've decided that one expense we can really affect this month is the cleaning bill. Jeff pays this bill, but I think it's about $200 a month. With the taxes, the medical expenses (reimbursable, but still...), and the need to return to "the pond," we are taking one for the team and washing our own shirts. The washing part is not a problem. I can pre-treat with the best of them, and to some degree get collars spiffier than the the best Oakland California dry cleaners. Since January is going to get me to a deeper sense of myself, I am forced to recall one vital part about my personality: I hate ironing.
It takes an enormous amount of time, which I normally do not have, to iron. Crease this, starch there, did I spray this side already?, get the cord out of the way, button here, hang there, drop this, redo it. It's a nightmare. If I were to win the next scratch off lottery ticket (which I can not afford this month) and win $200, I would march myself to the dry cleaners, and ask then to take it just to put me out of my misery. When I travel for work, my ritual is get there (and deal with the pain of packing, security, flying, and unpacking), and as soon as I check in to my hotel room, I start ironing for the next day.
Again, January teaches austerity, and austerity teaches self-denial. So, I ironed one shirt, which took be about 15 minutes. Our ironing board is not the stand-up kind but a hide-away style that hangs on the back of the door. However, when we moved into this house three years ago, we lost the door hooks. That alone should inform anyone about the last time I ironed. On the bright side, I did not use up my Home Depot gift card (Remember to daffodil issue?), so off I went to buy new hooks and a new can of spray starch for the dry cleaning improvement project. Total costs, about $6, but I used gift cards, so we are still in line. Total time spent ironing: 90 minutes. I was not a fan of spending (wasting) so much time on that chore when I should be hanging out at Jo's coffee shop, taking yoga class, working out, or shopping, but I repeat to myself, "return to the pond."
While ironing, the neighbor's dog jumped the fence and ran up the street. Jeff and I have two weimaraners, and the neighbors daughter has one. Since she moved in about a week ago, I have seen this beauty of a creature across the fence, but I'd not been introduced, and neither had our boys. After dodging a few passing cars, chasing that fast beast around the neighborhood for a good ten minutes, our neighbor, Steve, caught him by the collar. During the debacle, I learned his name was Duke. A sleek, shiny-coated, energetic,two-year-old, Duke can run away like a fox, and he is as athetic as one. I invited Steve to bring Duke into our fenced yard to play with our weims for a while, if he thought that would help burn off some energy. Along with Steve's beagle, Barney, we had four happy pure breds having a high old time in the "back forty." While watching them, I met Sarah, the neighbor's daughter, her two kids, and of course, Duke. We talked dog-owner talk for a while, which Connsulea, not being an animal lover, would have rolled her eyes at. Lots of sitting, praising and crumbled up milk bones were involved, and it was actually not a bother at all. After a half hour, my dogs were duly nap ready, so I brought them in and welcomed Steve to let his dogs run our yard for a while as I prepped some meals.
Since it was Sunday, I probably have been out and about consuming away, had this day been a typical one. Yet, I was staying close to home, watching the finances, checking cookbooks to see how I could use ingrediendts I already have to save money, and something miraculous happened. I spent some time with the neighbors. Since moving here, I can not say we have been welcomed wih a lot of cookie trays from these neighbors, but when we get the chance to let them like us, it usually goes well. I think we reached a milestone today. I bonded with the neighbors, and between the two of us, we have four happy, napping dogs.
We can not think of a better month to be austere than January. Our taxes are due, and since we do not escrow, I have to write a lot of checks to the tune of $5500. That will scare anyone into eating egg sandwiches for a week. On top of those expenses, Jeff and I are negotiating a contract to build a new, state-of-the-art eco-friendly, sustainable home. More on that later, but suffice it to say that if we get the contract we want, we will drain the savings account of an additional $6000.00 in earnest money.
January offers many challenges, and this year, we are committed to cutting back on dry cleaning. I am a professional and Jeff is in retail management, so our respective companies expect some level of dress, which includes professional dry cleaning. We've decided that one expense we can really affect this month is the cleaning bill. Jeff pays this bill, but I think it's about $200 a month. With the taxes, the medical expenses (reimbursable, but still...), and the need to return to "the pond," we are taking one for the team and washing our own shirts. The washing part is not a problem. I can pre-treat with the best of them, and to some degree get collars spiffier than the the best Oakland California dry cleaners. Since January is going to get me to a deeper sense of myself, I am forced to recall one vital part about my personality: I hate ironing.
It takes an enormous amount of time, which I normally do not have, to iron. Crease this, starch there, did I spray this side already?, get the cord out of the way, button here, hang there, drop this, redo it. It's a nightmare. If I were to win the next scratch off lottery ticket (which I can not afford this month) and win $200, I would march myself to the dry cleaners, and ask then to take it just to put me out of my misery. When I travel for work, my ritual is get there (and deal with the pain of packing, security, flying, and unpacking), and as soon as I check in to my hotel room, I start ironing for the next day.
Again, January teaches austerity, and austerity teaches self-denial. So, I ironed one shirt, which took be about 15 minutes. Our ironing board is not the stand-up kind but a hide-away style that hangs on the back of the door. However, when we moved into this house three years ago, we lost the door hooks. That alone should inform anyone about the last time I ironed. On the bright side, I did not use up my Home Depot gift card (Remember to daffodil issue?), so off I went to buy new hooks and a new can of spray starch for the dry cleaning improvement project. Total costs, about $6, but I used gift cards, so we are still in line. Total time spent ironing: 90 minutes. I was not a fan of spending (wasting) so much time on that chore when I should be hanging out at Jo's coffee shop, taking yoga class, working out, or shopping, but I repeat to myself, "return to the pond."
While ironing, the neighbor's dog jumped the fence and ran up the street. Jeff and I have two weimaraners, and the neighbors daughter has one. Since she moved in about a week ago, I have seen this beauty of a creature across the fence, but I'd not been introduced, and neither had our boys. After dodging a few passing cars, chasing that fast beast around the neighborhood for a good ten minutes, our neighbor, Steve, caught him by the collar. During the debacle, I learned his name was Duke. A sleek, shiny-coated, energetic,two-year-old, Duke can run away like a fox, and he is as athetic as one. I invited Steve to bring Duke into our fenced yard to play with our weims for a while, if he thought that would help burn off some energy. Along with Steve's beagle, Barney, we had four happy pure breds having a high old time in the "back forty." While watching them, I met Sarah, the neighbor's daughter, her two kids, and of course, Duke. We talked dog-owner talk for a while, which Connsulea, not being an animal lover, would have rolled her eyes at. Lots of sitting, praising and crumbled up milk bones were involved, and it was actually not a bother at all. After a half hour, my dogs were duly nap ready, so I brought them in and welcomed Steve to let his dogs run our yard for a while as I prepped some meals.
Since it was Sunday, I probably have been out and about consuming away, had this day been a typical one. Yet, I was staying close to home, watching the finances, checking cookbooks to see how I could use ingrediendts I already have to save money, and something miraculous happened. I spent some time with the neighbors. Since moving here, I can not say we have been welcomed wih a lot of cookie trays from these neighbors, but when we get the chance to let them like us, it usually goes well. I think we reached a milestone today. I bonded with the neighbors, and between the two of us, we have four happy, napping dogs.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
January 9, 2010
Tip of the day: put a pair of scissors in your bathroom.
As I prepared for bed last night, I realized two needs: toothpaste and facial cream. Since it’s going to be a long month, I broke out the scissors. When I cut open the facial cream tube, I saw I had enough for two more uses. A lot of stuff gets stuck on the sides and in the nozzle! As far as toothpaste is concerned, when you slice open the tube, you can find about two to three more days of use if you scrape the side remnants with your toothbrush.
Great idea, right? The dark side is that it only lasts you a few days. And that is what your $5 can get you.
Luckily, we did not have to spend money on these two items. I spent the morning organizing bathroom cabinets, as did Jeff. We cleaned up the drawers and found a treasure trove of savings: floss, three tubes of toothpaste, two bottles of moisturizer, countless hotel bottles of hand cream, shampoo, and lots of loose change. Normally, I would have picked up the needs without looking around for back-up. Amazingly, we ended up with more than our share of toiletries, and we spend January emptying the vessel.
The loose change is an interesting dilemma. We all have that coffee mug somewhere in the house. My sister keeps hers in the laundry room. With five kids, she rakes in the commission. We keep ours in the bathrooms, where we disrobe from the day, empty pockets, and never think about loose change piling up. But it does.
We followed this same pattern, and promptly called Gaelen, who provides Five Dollar Days sagacity. We were divided on the whole loose change issue. She is of the opinion that it is found money and does not count toward your $5. Therefore, you can have yourself a field day at the Coin Star machine (or if you are living in the 70s, roll it yourself) and load up on groceries, movie rentals, or take yourself out for some barbecue.
We disagree.
It’s money. We earned it. It made it into this non-interest bearing coffee mug, and if we use it, it counts. With all the spare time from not going out this month, the least I can do is cash it in when the fridge starts to have an echo. So, that is the plan. We will gather the money and use it for food later in the month when it is really needed. Also, if we use the cash right away at the grocery store, we are not dipping into the checking account for food (more money to put on the crazy credit card bill), or – heaven forbid – charging groceries.
So, I provided two sides to this loose change argument for you to decide which fits best for your thinking.
As I prepared for bed last night, I realized two needs: toothpaste and facial cream. Since it’s going to be a long month, I broke out the scissors. When I cut open the facial cream tube, I saw I had enough for two more uses. A lot of stuff gets stuck on the sides and in the nozzle! As far as toothpaste is concerned, when you slice open the tube, you can find about two to three more days of use if you scrape the side remnants with your toothbrush.
Great idea, right? The dark side is that it only lasts you a few days. And that is what your $5 can get you.
Luckily, we did not have to spend money on these two items. I spent the morning organizing bathroom cabinets, as did Jeff. We cleaned up the drawers and found a treasure trove of savings: floss, three tubes of toothpaste, two bottles of moisturizer, countless hotel bottles of hand cream, shampoo, and lots of loose change. Normally, I would have picked up the needs without looking around for back-up. Amazingly, we ended up with more than our share of toiletries, and we spend January emptying the vessel.
The loose change is an interesting dilemma. We all have that coffee mug somewhere in the house. My sister keeps hers in the laundry room. With five kids, she rakes in the commission. We keep ours in the bathrooms, where we disrobe from the day, empty pockets, and never think about loose change piling up. But it does.
We followed this same pattern, and promptly called Gaelen, who provides Five Dollar Days sagacity. We were divided on the whole loose change issue. She is of the opinion that it is found money and does not count toward your $5. Therefore, you can have yourself a field day at the Coin Star machine (or if you are living in the 70s, roll it yourself) and load up on groceries, movie rentals, or take yourself out for some barbecue.
We disagree.
It’s money. We earned it. It made it into this non-interest bearing coffee mug, and if we use it, it counts. With all the spare time from not going out this month, the least I can do is cash it in when the fridge starts to have an echo. So, that is the plan. We will gather the money and use it for food later in the month when it is really needed. Also, if we use the cash right away at the grocery store, we are not dipping into the checking account for food (more money to put on the crazy credit card bill), or – heaven forbid – charging groceries.
So, I provided two sides to this loose change argument for you to decide which fits best for your thinking.
January 8, 2010
Today, I had to go out of town for business. I am honest and fairly frugal with my expense account. However, on days when I return home, I discovered an allowable practice that seems a bit like cheating, but dollar for dollar, it works out. On the day I return home, I do not eat that much, usually stay in a hotel which includes breakfast, and by extension, I have a lot of unused money for my daily allotment for meals. Today, I drove home from Houston, and of my $40 allowable expense, I spent a whopping $10 on lunch. The organization expects that since I will arrive in Austin after close of business, I will require some dinner. Instead, I stop by the grocery store on the way home, pick up some produce on sale, and head for home. At Central Market (not a store where you dollar goes as far as, say, Sprouts, HEB, or Randalls), I picked up the biggest cauliflower I could find, two fennel bulbs, and handful of beets. Total price tag: about $12.00. I am still underspent on the expense account, and we have vegetables for three days.
www.epicurious.com is a favorite website, and during January, it’s my best friend. When I arrived home with the award-winning cauliflower, I went to the site and searched for recipes with the words “cauliflower fennel.” Up came a good-looking recipe for roasted cauliflower, fennel, and onions. Awesome. I had some onions so I was set. Then I saw the best word for the month: marjoram. Remember we had two bottles of those. I set off to make dinner, which includeed this recipe and more lentil soup. It’s a vegetarian fest that will last two nights.
Not everyone has the benefit of the good old expense account, but I use this example to illustrate how you can analyze your quality world so as to benefit your tiny budget. Use your favorite recipe website and search for use of ingredients you are in large supply of. Organize your cabinets and freezer to create a pecking order for those leftovers. Control your calorie intake, so you eat enough, but less.
www.epicurious.com is a favorite website, and during January, it’s my best friend. When I arrived home with the award-winning cauliflower, I went to the site and searched for recipes with the words “cauliflower fennel.” Up came a good-looking recipe for roasted cauliflower, fennel, and onions. Awesome. I had some onions so I was set. Then I saw the best word for the month: marjoram. Remember we had two bottles of those. I set off to make dinner, which includeed this recipe and more lentil soup. It’s a vegetarian fest that will last two nights.
Not everyone has the benefit of the good old expense account, but I use this example to illustrate how you can analyze your quality world so as to benefit your tiny budget. Use your favorite recipe website and search for use of ingredients you are in large supply of. Organize your cabinets and freezer to create a pecking order for those leftovers. Control your calorie intake, so you eat enough, but less.
January 7, 2010
Today, I paid the monthly bills. The mortgage, cell phones, car payment, and savings account are all good to go. Jeff takes care of the utilities, so I know those are done as well.
Then December’s credit card statement popped up on the email. The damage from Christmas: $3000.
At this point, I was glad I had not spent an additional $100 on dinners, celebrated New Years downtown, drank five Starbucks, or gone grocery shopping (except for the quarter). Therefore, I am better positioned to pay more off on the card when the next paycheck lands in the checking account. Only eight days to go before that happens, and the bill is due in nine days. With nothing extravagant coming out of the account in the next week, I can put a large chunk down on the card and possibly pay it off by the end of the month.
Then I remember, it’s January, which means we have to pay the taxes, since we do not escrow. That’s $5000, plus taxes on a little piece of land we bought on a Lake Richland Chambers some years back. I’ve saved the money throughout the year, but boy, it hurts when we write those checks.
The bright side of paying taxes to the city of Austin is that it is a gentle reminder that we live in a city rich with free services such as Lake LadyBird, where we exercise the dogs, Lake Travis, where we swim (not in January), the Capitol building (I could go on yet another free tour and get my Texas on.), the UT museum, and the library. With time to think about services like these, I realized that never got a library card. So, this weekend will be spend running that errand, grabbing some reading material, CDs for burning, and DVDs for weekend movie fests.
Then December’s credit card statement popped up on the email. The damage from Christmas: $3000.
At this point, I was glad I had not spent an additional $100 on dinners, celebrated New Years downtown, drank five Starbucks, or gone grocery shopping (except for the quarter). Therefore, I am better positioned to pay more off on the card when the next paycheck lands in the checking account. Only eight days to go before that happens, and the bill is due in nine days. With nothing extravagant coming out of the account in the next week, I can put a large chunk down on the card and possibly pay it off by the end of the month.
Then I remember, it’s January, which means we have to pay the taxes, since we do not escrow. That’s $5000, plus taxes on a little piece of land we bought on a Lake Richland Chambers some years back. I’ve saved the money throughout the year, but boy, it hurts when we write those checks.
The bright side of paying taxes to the city of Austin is that it is a gentle reminder that we live in a city rich with free services such as Lake LadyBird, where we exercise the dogs, Lake Travis, where we swim (not in January), the Capitol building (I could go on yet another free tour and get my Texas on.), the UT museum, and the library. With time to think about services like these, I realized that never got a library card. So, this weekend will be spend running that errand, grabbing some reading material, CDs for burning, and DVDs for weekend movie fests.
January 6, 2010
With the food inventory managed for a least another week, we looked ahead at expenses and found that there was nothing looming that we may need to spend money on. That will change, but for today, we deluded ourselves, which saved us God knows how much. Of course, due to the hair cut debacle, we are still overspent by $1. We’ll survive.
To support your month of austerity, I suggest you enlist some other frugal Fannies in your life to try the practice. Our dear friend, Geleen started the practice, and we have to give her credit. Although around January 27th, we will probably be cursing her name. She’s bold with Five Dollar Days. Her family of three lives on the cash. They use a lot of curry powder in January! As the years have unfolded, we have planned our Christmas presents to them wisely, but this year, we gave them, at no great expense, the “Five Dollar Days of January Survival Kit,” which included a $20 Whole Foods gift card, puzzles and word search books for her eight-year-old son, and a few morsels from the freezer. She loves our pickled green tomatoes. She gave us a bottle of red wine, among other useful consumable such as Brie and apricot jam. Ohh baby!
Our other friend, Consuela, is single and a teacher, so asking her to live on $5 a day is not that big of a deal, until she wants a spa service. However, we gave her a pound of coffee, a Whole Foods gift card, and some frozen delights as well. Her gifts to us were not January themed, but that is okay. Fused glass from her last trip to Israel (you know, because Consuela is so Jewish) is certainly welcomed in our house!
Around the end of the first week, it’s important to check on your comrades. I started with Gaelen, the founder and CEO of the Five Dollar Days of January. I have not reached her yet, so I hope she has not died of starvation.
Consuela was doing okay, as suspected. Being single has its merits when you are monitoring the spending.
To support your month of austerity, I suggest you enlist some other frugal Fannies in your life to try the practice. Our dear friend, Geleen started the practice, and we have to give her credit. Although around January 27th, we will probably be cursing her name. She’s bold with Five Dollar Days. Her family of three lives on the cash. They use a lot of curry powder in January! As the years have unfolded, we have planned our Christmas presents to them wisely, but this year, we gave them, at no great expense, the “Five Dollar Days of January Survival Kit,” which included a $20 Whole Foods gift card, puzzles and word search books for her eight-year-old son, and a few morsels from the freezer. She loves our pickled green tomatoes. She gave us a bottle of red wine, among other useful consumable such as Brie and apricot jam. Ohh baby!
Our other friend, Consuela, is single and a teacher, so asking her to live on $5 a day is not that big of a deal, until she wants a spa service. However, we gave her a pound of coffee, a Whole Foods gift card, and some frozen delights as well. Her gifts to us were not January themed, but that is okay. Fused glass from her last trip to Israel (you know, because Consuela is so Jewish) is certainly welcomed in our house!
Around the end of the first week, it’s important to check on your comrades. I started with Gaelen, the founder and CEO of the Five Dollar Days of January. I have not reached her yet, so I hope she has not died of starvation.
Consuela was doing okay, as suspected. Being single has its merits when you are monitoring the spending.
January 5, 2010
As I started to see the fruits of my Five Dollar Days labor, otherwise known as a sagging refrigerator inventory, I began to contemplate where we came from, what is left, and how long it will last (and how can I get around the rules). That is what moving into week two is all about.
Lots of our friends and neighbors are privy to our January practice, so they think ahead when gifting for Christmas. Our neighbors brought us a few of their home made morsels – meyer lemon jam, a strudel – And a box of clementines. You may think, “Cute!”, while we think, “Two weeks of produce!”. Some friends and siblings brought or sent us wine, and Jeff’s parents gave us the fruit of the month club. It takes several years for others to catch on to our habit and remember that December does have some planning involved. I do have one warning about planning for the Five Dollar Days of January: don’t stockpile. It defeats the purpose. You are not fooling anyone, especially your checking account, if you drop $300 at Sam’s Club or fill your freezer with sides of pork during December just so you have a leg up on January. That is to say, if you happen to support a family that lives on a $300 a week food budget, December is the time to contemplate how much of that food you really need. Can you do without some of the sugary snacks and slow carbohydrates? Can you cut back on the bread and start using up all that flour to bake your own? Can you clean out all of those canned goods and older spices in lieu of buying more?
After years of Five Dollar Januaries, we have learned to stockpile wisely. Again, we re-learn how to be like our grandparents. From our garden we have prepared the following for January consumption:
• 20 pear rhubarb pies, which we have frozen (Most of those ended up being holiday gifts for colleagues and neighbors)
• 20 jars of pear ginger jam (As you can tell, we have a prolific pear tree. Too bad our 90 lb weimaraner likes to munch on the fallen pears on our white carpet all autumn long.)
• 12 jars of pickled green tomatoes
• 2 bags of pre chopped butternut squash
• 1 container of marinara sauce
• 5 containers or pesto
As you can see, we garden. There were years when we did not. We were busy. We worked multiple jobs. We were too tired or needed more fun time. However, we returned to the earth after moving to Austin and have not looked back. I encourage anyone who plans to take on this challenge to do so, and you will have some extended fruits to use. City slickers and condo dwellers certainly would find it difficult to rise to this challenge, but I do have an alternative. Although you want to avoid stockpiling, you can keep your eye out for auspicious sales as the fall unfolds. Grand openings and closings are great resources for big specials. When Sprouts, a farmers’ market grocer, opened in our neighborhood, they ran a special on ears of corn for a dime. Each family was allowed 30 ears. So, I marched myself down there and picked up my 30, shucked them, ate four that week, and promptly froze the rest for January use. Deep discounts like these I would not considered as stockpiling, just wise planning. We did the same with paper towels and turkey breasts in November (The day after Thanksgiving is a great time to buy a frozen turkey!), and onions in December. If I were really shrewd, I would have returned to Sprouts the next day and bought 30 more, made chowder for the freezer, and planned even better, but that did not happen.
As week two approached, I figured out a manageable food game plan to consume the perishables in the right order. Eat up the vegetables while they still have nutritional value or make stock from them. Consider recipes that use clementines. Drink the milk before the beer. Control portion size. Reorganize the spice cabinet and find recipes that call for cumin, cream of tartar, and marjoram because some time during the previous year we ended up with two containers of each.
Lots of our friends and neighbors are privy to our January practice, so they think ahead when gifting for Christmas. Our neighbors brought us a few of their home made morsels – meyer lemon jam, a strudel – And a box of clementines. You may think, “Cute!”, while we think, “Two weeks of produce!”. Some friends and siblings brought or sent us wine, and Jeff’s parents gave us the fruit of the month club. It takes several years for others to catch on to our habit and remember that December does have some planning involved. I do have one warning about planning for the Five Dollar Days of January: don’t stockpile. It defeats the purpose. You are not fooling anyone, especially your checking account, if you drop $300 at Sam’s Club or fill your freezer with sides of pork during December just so you have a leg up on January. That is to say, if you happen to support a family that lives on a $300 a week food budget, December is the time to contemplate how much of that food you really need. Can you do without some of the sugary snacks and slow carbohydrates? Can you cut back on the bread and start using up all that flour to bake your own? Can you clean out all of those canned goods and older spices in lieu of buying more?
After years of Five Dollar Januaries, we have learned to stockpile wisely. Again, we re-learn how to be like our grandparents. From our garden we have prepared the following for January consumption:
• 20 pear rhubarb pies, which we have frozen (Most of those ended up being holiday gifts for colleagues and neighbors)
• 20 jars of pear ginger jam (As you can tell, we have a prolific pear tree. Too bad our 90 lb weimaraner likes to munch on the fallen pears on our white carpet all autumn long.)
• 12 jars of pickled green tomatoes
• 2 bags of pre chopped butternut squash
• 1 container of marinara sauce
• 5 containers or pesto
As you can see, we garden. There were years when we did not. We were busy. We worked multiple jobs. We were too tired or needed more fun time. However, we returned to the earth after moving to Austin and have not looked back. I encourage anyone who plans to take on this challenge to do so, and you will have some extended fruits to use. City slickers and condo dwellers certainly would find it difficult to rise to this challenge, but I do have an alternative. Although you want to avoid stockpiling, you can keep your eye out for auspicious sales as the fall unfolds. Grand openings and closings are great resources for big specials. When Sprouts, a farmers’ market grocer, opened in our neighborhood, they ran a special on ears of corn for a dime. Each family was allowed 30 ears. So, I marched myself down there and picked up my 30, shucked them, ate four that week, and promptly froze the rest for January use. Deep discounts like these I would not considered as stockpiling, just wise planning. We did the same with paper towels and turkey breasts in November (The day after Thanksgiving is a great time to buy a frozen turkey!), and onions in December. If I were really shrewd, I would have returned to Sprouts the next day and bought 30 more, made chowder for the freezer, and planned even better, but that did not happen.
As week two approached, I figured out a manageable food game plan to consume the perishables in the right order. Eat up the vegetables while they still have nutritional value or make stock from them. Consider recipes that use clementines. Drink the milk before the beer. Control portion size. Reorganize the spice cabinet and find recipes that call for cumin, cream of tartar, and marjoram because some time during the previous year we ended up with two containers of each.
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