Pertinacious Poverty

Gawker


From the article:

 "Somehow, along the way, America's poorest, hardest-working, least-secure citizens accepted this elision: Their jobs are endangered not by the avarice of the management or investors who exploited them in the first place, but by periodic indigestion in the mysterious guts of this cosmic clock known as The Economy. This economy, man. It's the economy, stupid. Can't anyone fix this economy?"

 There is a false dichotomy in America. You have the noble/eccentric/kindly/frugal super-rich and then you have the poor. Only the poor aren't really poor. They are microwave/tv/refrigerating owning motherfuckers hell bent on stealing the rims of your tires to fill their greedy lustful pockets. The story goes that the wealthy would give more of their hard earned money they work their asses off for if only you would cut their taxes by 100%. See, they can't give fully of their wealth if the government keeps nickel and diming their bank accounts--they might have to ski in Telluride instead of Aspen, for shame. Whereas the poor welfare queens with their special sauce on their cheap McDonalds hamburgers would just keep buying cigarettes anyway and living the high life in the emergency rooms sucking up all the good medical care this country can afford.

 Or. Or we can consider there is this vast spectrum of financial health in our economy where the people scraping by are the majority of the country. A large portion are mitigating financial danger with putting $50 out of each paycheck into savings and still live on the edge of car repair, medical expense, home repair yet can still fill their children's bellies. They feel the pinch, but not the sword of despair. These people are working so damn hard they don't have time to complain. Taking 2 jobs at a time and while their kids are getting an education, vaccinations, and having small birthday parties in their living room with a $20 present, they are stressed every day that the bottom will fall out. They don't know if this is the year they will get to keep their job and develop more skills before the next layoff. These are the people that get let go easily because they work hard, climb the ladder, do all the right things but become a wee bit too expensive to keep increasing pay when a motivated 20yo comes along to do the same job for half the price.

 This isn't a wealthy hit piece. I don't give a shit about the wealthy. They can hire people, politicians, PAC's to care about their narrow economic pet issues. The wealthy do not care about me and they don't care about you either. These people glorify wedge issues in the public square but privately snort coke on the body of a prostitute and send their daughter to a private doctor for that medicinal abortion. Then they get up on Sunday and line the pockets of their loudest preacher to denigrate those that dare sin in the eyes of God. They don't care that life is hard because for them? Life is a fucking feast and you are their dessert.

My $200 menu

I wrote about spending $400 per month, but I really broke it into 15 days each at $200 cash for my goal.

So far so good!

Breakfast:
Oatmeal, cereal, Eggs, muffins, french toast, waffles

Lunch:
Leftovers mostly with PBJ, noodle soup, buttered pasta, grilled cheese, rice bowls

Dinner:
Sunday, Spinach/chicken soup with baguette
Monday, Chicken pot pie with dumplings on top
Tuesday, Potato pancakes, apple chicken sausage and applesauce with a salad
Wednesday, BLT's (forgot the tomatoes, but no one missed them!) with Chips and salad
Thursday, Baked Penne pasta with homemade garlic bread and salad
Friday, Homemade pizza with homemade sauce.  I doctored up the leftover spaghetti sauce from the night before and everyone said this sauce was the best they'd ever had.  Go frugal me! Salad
Saturday, Chicken tacos with homemade tortillas.  Huge favorite!
Sunday, White chicken chili with crackers
Monday, Roast chicken, roasted cauliflower/carrots and buttered penne

Earlier today I made a broccoli/potato cheese soup with leftover chicken sausage from the Friday pizza.

Tuesday, Chicken sausage, bell peppers, fried potatoes
Wednesday, Chicken Stir fry from leftover roasted chicken and bell peppers from Tuesday
Thursday, Must go, everything in the fridge is a must go
Friday, Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and broccoli
Saturday, Chicken/rice soup with homemade bread
Sunday, Fried chicken, cheesy rice casserole with salad
Monday, Pasta, salad, homemade garlic bread
Tuesday, Grilled cheese sandwiches, glazed carrots and salad

This should get me before next pay day.  I haven't had too many surprises, but I will say, the pace is kind of killing me.  I'm devoting so much time to cooking and prep that I think I'm going to have to take that into consideration for the next 15 day segment.  Oh and breakfast for dinner is probably going to get swapped soon because I have a crappy head cold.  Let me know if you want me to post any recipes.

November Challenge: $400 groceries/6 people

This has nothing to do with cloth diapering, but I have set myself up for a challenge to spend no more than $400 for the entire month of November.  I have 4 growing boys and a hungry husband.  My oldest has sensory issues with textures and flavors and a fairly flexible 9yo.  I have a 3 yo that turns his nose up at anything and a 2 yo that will eat mostly meat and anything on my plate.

I've been stockpiling for almost 6 months now and I've found that with stockpiling, I'm getting very good deals, but I'm still spending about $800 per month.  I live in a fairly medium to high COL area, but as a frugal woman, I'm just appalled at the third mortgage we have created.

I am also a woman who prefers organic and fair trade, I have Celiac (gluten free) and have to stay away from anything with food dyes because of my oldest who is allergic to food dyes.

I inventoried my pantry and fridge and compiled a menu for the next 15 days.

I wrote out my menu and checked my coupons and local sales ads for the local grocery stores.  I made my list for what I was going to purchase and where and gathered my coupons.  I went to Safeway first and spent $44 ouch!  Undeterred, I went to King Soopers where I spent $55.  I was hoping to spend $30 at Safeway and $28 at King Soopers, but there were things on my list that I didn't have prices for and I was really off!  Oh well, the point was to spend $200 for the 15 days and I was still way under.  I went to Sprouts to get all my veggies and fruits and spent $34.  now I have about $50+ to spend on milk, bread, eggs or any other essential item until Nov 15th.

Kids are in need of my company right now, but next time I'll post my menu...

Fruit of the Sea Bento

This lunch was a big giant scoop of joy for me.  My amazing friend Julie from Washington State sent me those adorable Japanese picks that I've been eyeing for a long time.  They are so precious and my boys loved them!

The main dish was the Shrimp Primavera leftover from dinner the night before.  Thankfully the boys have a microwave at school to warm it a few seconds.  I got the shrimp for $4.99 in a bag of 50 jumbo shrimp a month ago at King Soopers.  I'm almost done with the bag.  We've probably had 3 meals from that bag, so that was a good protein value.  The upper right box was a mish mash of the end of bags in our pantry.  There were some leftover peanuts, multi grain crackers and goldfish.  Goldfish seemed to go with the theme.  The berry salad was a total steal from Target.  They had berries on sale and even though the strawberries were a little pale and sour looking, the boys ate them up.  The yogurt was a coupon deal and I think I got the yogurts for $.20 a piece and I'm able to get two servings out of it.

Here is Coopers breakfast treat.  He is so picky, but he will eat pretty much anything that is served in cute containers.  He was mystified and adoring of the picks.  All hail Julie's picks!

Now that I've pretty much emptied out all the fruit and pantry of crackers etc., it's time to go grocery shopping!

I wish I was my Mom

This was a fun and super easy way to feed the boys today.  The salad on the bottom of the turkey rolls was leftover from last night.  The turkey was rolled with mild cheddar and held together by a new plastic pic I bought at Hobby Lobby last week.  The Chex Mix was on sale with a coupon again (yay!)  The fruit salad was a little splurge.  I normally just buy what is the weekly loss leader, but they were $.99/lb for the grapes and $3.99 for the strawberries.  The blueberries were $2 a pint which felt really high, but oh well.  My children love berries and they are the best fruit around.  The pistachio's were $3.99 a bag and I had a coupon.  I'll probably get 6 lunch sides out of the bag.

I make 3 lunches a day just in the Laptop Lunches.  Sometimes I make one for Cooper, but usually he just eats off a large plate that I doll up a bit.  Gryffin is still eating like a savage, so I don't bother with him.  I really should treat myself to a lovely lunch.  Isn't it a Mother's way to take care of everyone else and then grab a bite of whatever you can scavenge in the fridge usually while standing.  Then while you are standing over the sink, a little person comes by to mooch off of you?  This is just life for me right now.  I'm sure I'll be eating at a table one day with no one mooching off of me, but for now, I got little mooches.

Happy Turkey Day Bento

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In honor of turkey day, I made a turkey bento for my kiddos:

The turkey was a lot of fun this morning.  It's a plain old PB&J and I used my new square shaped cutter for the body and the circle shaped cutter for the head.  So it's two mini sandwiches.  The cutters I got at Hobby Lobby for $3.77 each with 3 cutter sizes per package.  So while it wasn't the best deal, I couldn't resist!  I could have easily made the square sandwich with a knife and the circle with a shot glass (I've done that before) but these were quick and easy enough.  The wattle was made with a strawberry bit and the beak was a fruit leather piece.  The eyes were made with food safe black marker and the "feathers' are just apple slices.  The upper right hand corner is my attempt at a "Nutri Grain" bar.  I made it with all purpose flour and teff flour and strawberry preserves.  It turned out well and if you would like the recipe, just comment at my blog and I'll post it for you.  I found some turkey toothpicks at Hobby Lobby for 50% off and I'm getting excited for Christmas stuff, but I'm going to wait until closer to black friday when they really discount a little better.

I'm trying to figure out how to make hot lunches in a thermos for the boys.  They love hot lunch, but hate the contents.  For instance, they love Mac & Cheese, but after a few hours in a thermos, it's pretty mushy and unpalatable.  Same with any pasta or noodle concoction.  Hot dogs in the thermos are fine (if I cut it in half or squish it into the thermos,) but then I need a baggy for a bun and a container to keep it from squishing and I don't think the kids want to take two thermos's each or two containers just for one meal.  We also have a condiment issue with my oldest.  He has sensory issues and has to have hot sauce on the hot dog.  Not a big deal, right?  Well, it's Chalulu sauce and gets everywhere because it's so thin and drippy.  Trust me when I tell you that hot sauce is not my friend.  So back to hot lunches, I'm looking for a container that does it all.  A one stop shop.  I'm going to fill out my wholesale license for Citizenpip because it looks as though I can have it all with that system.  Comment below if you know of another containment system that would work even better!

Shark Attack!

I love love love this one!

How else can you jazz up a turkey and cheese sandwich?  Turn it into a shark eating Chex Mix of course.  The turkey was Foster Farms $2.50 a pack turkey special with $1.00 clearance bagged lettuce and colby cheese I got with a ridiculous coupon.  The Chex Mix I can't remember exactly but it wasn't more than $.50 for the big bag with my coupon.  The bell peppers were clearance and the blueberry and strawberry pints were $1.50 each.  I made the teeth with my slivered almonds and the eyeball is a blueberry with a Chex Mix pretzel circle for the iris.  In the small container, I have ranch for dipping.  Riley was very excited to eat this lunch today.