On Ward To Week Two

Last week Carla wonder about these two thing as we do her challenge...

Financial Goal Week One: Instead of buying something you need this week, find a way to "make do". Do you grab a coffee each day on the way to work? can you brew at home & use a travel mug? Run out of an ingredient for a recipe? Can you find a substitution? There are many ways to "make do" each & every day... track how much you would have spent.....This one is pretty easy for us we made some bean soup and it called for red pepper was going to pick one up and it was $1.96 for one and we said “ouch” and substitute tomatillos and celery was close to a dollar a pound so I use some fennel out of the freezer.....now here is recipe.
WHITE BEAN & BARLEY SOUP

1 ½ Cups of dried northern beans

1 large onion..chopped

2 garlic clove minced

1 T of olive oil

4 cups of vegetable or chicken broth

4 cups of water

3 medium carrots slice

2 medium red peppers slice

2 stalk celery

½ cup of pearl barley

2 bay leaves

½ t dry thyme

½ t pepper

½ cup of minced fresh parsley

1 28 oz can of tomatoes

Place beans in dutch oven or soup kettle. Add enough water to the beans cover the beans by 2 inches. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and cover let it stand for 1 hour. Drain and raising beans, discarding liquid. In a dutch oven saute onion and garlic in oil. Add the beans and remaining ingredients except for ¼ cup of parsley and the can of tomatoes. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Cover and simmer 1 hour or until beans are tender. Add tomatoes and heat though. Discard bay leaves. Sprinkle with remaining parsley.

Editor Note...I would soak the beans over night.

Decluttering Goal Week One: What "thing" clutters up your home the most? Is it clothes? Toys? Books/magazines? Kitchen Stuff? Knick-Knacks? Find a way to get rid of some of these items! Be sure to snap a pic of your declutter!...paper....confession time....if I put my paper away right away and didn't have the attitude of “oh I'll do it later” it would be as cluttered.

Now let get to what I've done and so forth on this January 2013 challenge.

 

I got one of my end table done. One thing I can decided on is what to do with the round box. At this time there nothing in it. I have a few ideal what I can store in. Before I use to keep some of my candles in it, now there in the picnic basket below.

 

Then I've been cleaning under the coffee table. Properly putting things where they need to be. Sure there more to go. I didn't get a picture of the under part of my coffee table before.

As I listed in this blog post I was going to live what they would give two people receiving food stamp or now called “snap” which is $367 a month.

At this point the $367 seem to be plenty to feed a family of two on. Haven't bought any house items with this amount. But here where we stand. Food for the week cost us $72.85. I figure the daily allowance is $12.12 so I'm pretty much on target. Over by 2¢

Living like someone who use snap program to purchase there food with. I'm starting to see it in whole different light. As I said before...”I've always thought people who use food stamp should be limited to the junk food they purchase....confession time...my purchasing of junk food been under $5.00....I still somewhat have this same opinion about buying “junk food”....but I notice since I use cash to purchase food with I had the attitude that I'm so better then those who don't use cash....It was wake up call on my part.

So to visit other who taking part in this challenge please stop in at our hostess Carla