Locavore

As I mentioned in my previous post, my husband has gone totally vegetarian.  I'm not quite there yet, but I'm darn close, usually only eating meat once a week, and at this point it's only at a restaurant or at my parents' house. 

One area where I have pretty much committed is eating local as much as possible.  Yup, I'm a locavore.

Here's this past weekend's farmer's market haul:

I wound up roasting a lot of those veggies for dinner on Tuesday and served them with some gnocchi.  There were basically no leftovers.  I think I need to make more time for those kinds of meals, because they are easy to prepare (I was able to quickly clean and chop up the veggies while Amelia amused herself in her high chair), and they are actually quite inexpensive. 

That's the neat thing about shopping at the farmer's market:  When you're buying produce, it's often both fresher and cheaper than the grocery store stuff, and quite frequently it's organically grown as well. 

The budget busters at the farmers market tend to be the pre-made foods.  $6 for jam, $4 for black bean hummus... I could certainly get those things cheaper at the grocery store, but the truth is that the local stuff truly tastes better.  Those are our splurges, which we justify because overall we're still saving money.  And when I get the chance, I make my own hummus, which is even cheaper than buying it at the grocery store.

Have you seen the USDA Food Plan charts?  They're updated monthly.  For June, the "thrifty plan" for 2 adults aged 19-50 is $378.90/month.  I'm pretty sure we did go over that a bit this month, but most of the time our food budget is in the $350-ish range.  That includes non-food groceries and my extra 500 calories a day.  As long as you don't live in a food desert, it's definitely possible to eat well on a budget.  And for the record, we found ourselves relying on convenience foods more than usual this month, in part because I went back to work full-time and was working off-site a bunch.  We went over budget by something like $100.  Time to start menu planning!

So, which plan do you fall under on the USDA charts?  Is it just me or do those numbers seem kind of high?  Or do I just have our farmers market and mostly cooking from scratch to thank for our comparatively low budget? 


And here's some fun stuff that's been going on with Amelia lately:

Not even 6 months old and the kid can already stand while supporting herself on furniture!  Time to start baby-proofing??

Elvis was kind of wary of this new little person at first, but yesterday he jumped up on our bed and laid down next to her.  He was letting her hold his paws and touch his face, and it was adorable.

Here's a picture Glen took of the two of them:

Amelia's face in that picture is pretty much the greatest thing I've ever seen!  

Perfect Timing

I'm generally not the "I don't believe in coincidences" type, but the past couple of weeks is making me rethink that point of view.

About a two and a half weeks ago, we found out Glen's old car would need a new transmission.  Since Glen's old car was a '99 Kia Sephia worth less than the cost of a new transmission, we decided to search for a new-ish car.  The same week we were car-searching, Glen also applied for a job as an associate editor for Geekosystem.com.

Well, a week and a half ago, we were able to find a car that looked like it would work for us - an '09 Chevy Aveo hatchback.  We'd have preferred a Honda Fit or a Nissan Versa, but unfortunately our search was restricted to dealerships that were actually open after the storm, which meant our pool of potential cars was a bit on the small side, made smaller by the fact that we wanted to keep the purchase price on the lower side since we now have two (ugh!) car loans.  Luckily, we got a really good interest rate on both loans, so the payments are manageable for us.

...Made more manageable by the fact that Glen got the job!!  Apparently he beat out hundreds of applicants for the position, and now Dan Abrams is his boss.  So, yanno, that's pretty cool.  And it turns out it's actually a good thing Glen's car decided to die when it did, because Glen will be commuting to New York a couple of times a week, and I don't think the Kia would have put up with the 130-mile round trip commute for very long. ;-)

Oh, and since this post is pretty light on photos, I thought I'd share this picture I just took of Elvis.  This is what I was contending with while attempting to type this post:

Made it a little difficult to type, but I can't be mad at the guy for being so obsessed with snuggling his baby sister already. ;-)

What Calm Before the Storm?

This weekend has been an absolute whirlwind of a weekend, some good, some not so good.

Things started out on a pretty sour note, when we found out that Glen's car is in need of a new transmission.  In light of the fact that he drives a '99 Kia Sephia, that's not an investment we're willing to make, so now we're on the hunt for a new car for him.  Not happy about having to spend the money, but excited that we will hopefully have not one, but two, relatively new, reliable cars.

We actually got the bad news about Glen's car in between his cousin's wedding ceremony and reception.  I spent the cocktail hour commiserating with my sister-in-law, because as you will see if you hop on over to her blog, October has not been a good month for the Tickle boys' cars.  Despite being bummed about the car situation, the reception was a good time, as evidenced by one of Glen's tweets from that night:

Gotta love swing dancing with my father-in-law!

I was up bright and early Saturday morning for my first craft show of the season:

I was pleasantly surprised by sales for the day.  October shows are usually a bit slower, since people aren't necessarily thinking of Christmas shopping yet, but I made a decent number of sales, and things usually pick up a bit more for the November shows.  I originally hadn't planned anything for December, but I'm debating trying to find a show on December 8.  Maybe my big 7-months-pregnant belly at that point will give sales a nice little bump. ;-)

After getting home from the craft show, we had to run some errands to make sure we were ready for the upcoming storm, making sure we were stocked up on dog food and degu food, as well as non-perishables that can be cooked on our gas range, should we lose electricity.  Lots of canned soups and Chef Boyardee, as well as pasta and oatmeal, and fresh fruit.  

Once errands we done, we took a drive down to Philadelphia for our friend Eric's 30th birthday party.  We haven't seen him since December, which is way too long, especially compared to the days when we all went to the same college and he and Glen were roommates.

Here's Glen with the birthday boy:

Don't be fooled by that casual pose.  They spent a disproportionately large portion of the evening hugging one another. ;-)

Glen and I spent a good chunk of the night hanging out in Eric's back yard, which was all brick and greenery and twinkly lights.  The weather was gorgeous, and even my chronically-cold self was comfortable without a sweater for the earlier part of the party.  Here's an cute photo Eric took last night and sent to me this morning:

We didn't get home until nearly 3:30 this morning, but it was totally worth the lack of sleep!

Now I'm just relaxing at home, recovering from the busy weekend and trying to figure out the odds that I'll be going into work the next couple of days, seeing as the governors of both NJ and PA have declared states of emergency due to the havoc Hurricane Sandy is expected to wreak.

I hope all my fellow northeasterners stay safe these next few days!  Is anyone out there hosting or attending a hurricane party?? ;-)

Maternity Monday: Diapering Decisions

First and foremost: Glen and I DID take 22-week belly pictures last week.  They are still on his camera, because I kept forgetting to put them on my computer.  I will have them next week, I promise!

So, in the meantime, I'm going to talk about one of the first childrearing decisions Glen and I ever made, long before we seriously started considering having a baby.

We've been a bit on the crunchy side, even since we first got married (which, incidentally, was on Earth Day in 2006, but we didn't choose the date for that reason, we chose it because it was the week after Easter and we wouldn't have to buy flowers for the church!).  But increasingly so as the years have gone by.  It started with simply using canvas bags at the grocery store, and now we grow some of our own food, buy a large portion of what we don't grow at the farmers' market.  We buy our eggs and meat directly from a local farm, where we can be assured that the animals were treated humanely and not pumped full of unnecessary antibiotics and hormones.

The crunchy streak continues with our decision to use cloth diapers.  There are three main reasons for this decision:

Cost - Disposable diapers are expensive.  According to this website, assuming Stormageddon is out of diapers by the time she's 2 1/2, we'd have spent about $2500 on disposable diapers.  This seems on par with estimates I've seen elsewhere.  I've done the math, and using a combination of prefolds (the cheapest option, and probably our primary diaper style) and pockets (for when the grandparents watch her, since they are most similar to disposables), cloth diapers will probably run us around $500-600.  Bonus: If we have a second baby and keep the cloth diapers, diapering baby #2 will cost next to nothing!

We're Treehuggers - Disposable diapers are made using chemicals and non-renewable resources, and they take up a TON of room in landfills.  Cloth diapers are typically made of natural materials, like cotton (no chemicals, AND it's renewable).  Yes, they do use water (also a renewable resource) and detergent, but there isn't quite the same environmental impact as with disposables.  You don't throw them away, you keep using the same ones.  Even on future children.  Or you can sell them or give them away.  Heck, I've even heard that people will continue to use them as dust rags after their last child is potty trained (obviously after giving them a very good wash!). 

They're ADORABLE! - Seriously.  Have you seen them?  Just search Amazon and you'll see what I mean.  Here are some of my favorites, from Assunta Store:

Sure, it takes a bit more time, since it means 2-3 more loads of laundry each week, but when the cheapest option is also the most environmentally-friendly AND the most fashion-forward?  It's kind of a no-brainer for us!

As of right now, we've decided to start out using some bumGenius one-size 4.0 pocket diapers, along with prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers, and a selection of adorable, adorable covers from Assunta Store.  As odd as it sounds, I'm actually incredibly excited about using cloth diapers!  My husband doesn't quite get my enthusiasm.  He said he feels good about our decision for reasons 1 and 2, listed above.  I think the gap in our enthusiasm is mostly because I'm a stereotypical girl and can't wait for a daughter to make a fashion statement with her diapers, but Glen just can't get that excited about something that is, as its primary function, a poop receptacle.  ;-)

My Other New Baby!

Well, it took nearly a month and a half of sticking to my guns and playing hard-to-get, but I am now the proud owner of a 2008 Nissan Rogue!

Glen and I first took it for a test drive the last weekend of July, but the dealership wouldn't come down on the price, nor would they come up on the trade-in for my 2003 Cavalier coupe.  It was a shame, since the Rogue was nearly new (it was previously a lease vehicle and only had 29,500 miles on it!) and drove soooo nicely, but I had a very specific threshold of what I was willing to put down and what I was willing to pay each month and how long the loan term could be, and they weren't willing to work with us.

So we walked.  And waited.  And ignored phone calls and emails for about a month.

And then the price came down about $800.  At which point I finally decided to return the dealership's calls.  I said that the drop in price brought us closer to our goal, but they still had to work with me on the trade-in.  And they came up $500 on the trade.  This turned out to be one area where being cheap and stubborn paid off big time!

I still kind of hate that we had to take out a loan to pay for this car, but between the fact that the interest rate is super low and there's no prepayment penalty, I suppose I can't complain too much.  We were able to put down a hefty downpayment (more than 1/3 of purchase price minus the trade-in) and keep the payments under $150/month.  Our back-end debt to income ratio, even with this new payment, is right around 30%, well below the 36% threshold that indicates a "healthy" ratio, with room to spare should we need to take out a loan to replace Glen's '99 Kia Sephia before something else is paid off. 

Oh, and I sort of hate the fact that I'm one of those people who got pregnant and then immediately switched to an SUV.  But the oddest part is that it had less to do with the impending baby than with Elvis.  I knew I'd have to switch to a 4-door once a baby came along, but after considering a sedan, I realized that a sedan would likely force us to choose between taking little Stormageddon places with us and taking Elvis places.  And seriously, who could bear to leave this handsome guy behind??



Maternity Mondays?

Anyone who reads A Cup of Jo knows that Joanna Goddard does a series of posts called Motherhood Mondays.  

Well, in the interest of including updates about baby-related stuff without letting it overwhelm the content of my blog, I've decided to do something similar, at least for the duration of my pregnancy, and relegate all pregnancy posts to one day a week, which shall heretofore be known as Maternity Mondays. ;-)

Of course, anyone who's been reading this blog for any length of time knows that on occasion I will randomly forget/not have time to post for weeks at a time, so this is by no means a guaranteed every-Monday feature.  

One of my biggest budgetary concerns, at least until the Stormageddon makes his or her appearance, was maternity clothes.  I did NOT want to spend a bunch of money on clothing that I'd likely only need for 3-4 months.  Originally I was planning on trying to make it through this thing using belly bands and my already-fairly-extensive collection of dresses and shirts with empire waists and lots of fabric, supplemented by some borrowed pieces from a couple of high school friends.  

Then I went to visit one of my cousins and her new baby girl, and this is what I came home with:

Enough clothing to cover nearly the entire bed, several layers high!

Once I managed to sort through everything and weed out the pieces that wouldn't work (too summery, not my style, too big in the shoulders/bust), I had acquired the following:

• 6 dresses
• 4 skirts
• 6 pairs of pants
• 6 sleeveless tops
• 4 short-sleeved tops
• 4 long-sleeved tops
• 3 sweaters

Not a bad haul, huh?

The dresses are by far my favorites:

 

Because my cousin's baby was born in the end of July, only one of the 6 dresses is long-sleeved, but the material for all the dresses will work just fine for fall and winter when paired with tights and/or a cardigan, which is pretty standard for me during the cooler months anyway.

In addition to all the loaner maternity clothes, my cousin also gave me a bunch of books to borrow.  Among them were these, which I was already debating buying:

 

Now if only she had Let's Panic About Babies! ;-)

Oh Good, an Extra Mortgage!

First and foremost, I have to thank femmefrugality for commenting on my blog, which resulted in my checking out her blog, specifically this post.

I've been wanting to check my credit report for awhile - I haven't checked it since I applied for a mortgage almost 3 years ago.  I've been toying around with the idea of replacing my car later this year, which would probably necessitate taking out a small loan.  The above-referenced post was the kick in the pants I needed to actually follow through on checking my credit report.

Well, my credit reports on Experian and TransUnion looked good, but lo and behold, Equifax thought I had not one, but TWO mortgages. Not just two mortgages, but two IDENTICAL mortgages, with two different banks. 

Needless to say, I filed a dispute in no time flat.  As it turns out, nothing nefarious was going on, no one was stealing my identity or anything of that nature.  The bank that holds my mortgage recently merged with another bank under the same parent company, and they forgot to remove the mortgage under the old bank name after they added it under the new name. 

I have to give a LOT of credit to my bank for how quickly they responded to the dispute and how nice and helpful the woman I spoke to was.  I just have to fax them a copy of the credit report with the error and they're going to remove the mortgage with the old information from my Equifax report. 

Moral of the story: Check your credit report regularly.  And DEFINITELY check it if you think you might be taking out a loan in the near future!