To Can or Not to Can: that is the question.  Yesterday I wrote how we save money by growing vegetables in our garden. I decided today to take it one step further and can some of the tomatoes that were overgrowing the garden. Please call me crazy.  I am still not done and I started about three hours ago!  This takes a lot more time than I thought it would.  This is an actual picture of one of our tomato plants.  It is over 5 feet tall!

I anticipate getting more tomatoes off these plants.  There are some green tomatoes growing currently.

Look how big these tomatoes are!!  I’ve never seen any this big.

This was my process: dip the tomatoes in boiling water for about 1 minute, shock them in an ice bath, remove skin and seeds from inside, sterilize jars, put tomatoes in jar, make sure there was no air in them, seal, and put in canner.  I know it sounds easy, but trust me, it was a lot of work!  Honestly I don’t think this was a money saving endeavor, but what can I do?  (pun intended)  The first batch is sitting in my dining room and I hope they seal.  If they don’t, I’m going to have to put them in the freezer, and I really don’t have all that much space in the freezer.  Plus, all the time that I spent on doing this would be wasted!

I think I would have saved (or made) more money had I taken them to the farmer’s market this morning.  If I would have done that, I would have saved time and energy.  I hope that my efforts are not fruitless come winter, and these canned tomatoes are better than any other tomato I’ve eaten.  I can make spaghetti sauce, chili, and a whole lot of other dishes.  Plus, they are in glass jars versus aluminum and I like that.

Do you think it’s worth it to can your own vegetables? 

Posted under DIY, Extreme Frugality, Food

On Sunday I decided I had enough of my basement smelling gross and being damp. I saw one spot down there that had been growing mold, and I don’t know about you, but mold scares me. The reason I hadn’t bought a dehumidifier already was because we had one (albeit small) already and I thought it was doing a good job. Wrong. I sucked it up, went to my local Home Depot, and grabbed one off the shelf and lugged it to my cart. $190 later, and I was the proud owner of a large dehumidifier. I took it home, drug it downstairs, and set it up. That evening I went to check on it and the bucket was already full! I was amazed. I have emptied that bucket twice a day since I’ve had it!

After all the him-hawing I did with purchasing it, I decided I was going to look on the bright side of things and see how overall I will be saving money in the long run. First of all, I would have less moisture in the basement, which means less mold, which means less health problems. Less health problems equals less money spent on going to the doctor and taking time off. Then I decided that not only could I look at it that way, but I also could use that water that the dehumidifier extracted for other things. I can water my houseplants, water my garden, and even add it to the small pond out front. Not only am I being more “green”, but I’m saving money on water!

I still feel a little bad about spending that much money on one item, but I figure it is a necessity. We can’t live with the basement like that. It’s dangerous! I’m glad I was able to look on the bright side of things and realize that there is always some positives that can come out of a negative.

Posted under DIY, Home Ownership

I’ve got a dilemma. It involves the hardwood floors that we were going to install a few weeks ago. I decided that I would just hire someone to install them, and I called for a quote the other day. $2.50 a square foot for installation. Not bad, I thought. As I was talking to the guy, he asked how large of an area we planned on doing, and I told him just the hallway. The hallway is not that large and he thought it would not be worth his time to come out and do just the hallway. So, I told him I’d think about doing the bedroom and the living room at the same time because we want to do those areas as well. I was thinking it wouldn’t be more than $2000 for all of it, because I assumed those three areas were maybe 300 square feet total. Wrong.

They total around 575 square feet. That would cost us $3737.50 for the materials and installation!! We only have $1200 in our hardwood floor fund right now, and that’s okay because I still have our stimulus check that we could use towards the hardwood floors. I really don’t want to spend $3800 roughly out of our savings account. I would feel so guilty about that. So now I’m stuck. I don’t know what I’m going to do. These are a few of the options I have:

• Suck it up and pay for the hardwood floors to be installed. I’d be happy with the results and not fret so much about it, and it would be done and over with. My other concern is we have two labs that I know are going to scratch the floor. What do I do about that?
• Buy a laminate floor instead and attempt to install that ourselves. That should be a lot easier to install. I do not like the look of laminate, and the fact that you can’t refinish it. It would be very resistant to scratches though, and cheaper. I just don’t think I’d get the look or the value I would get out of the hardwood.
• Tile. I don’t think I’d like the look of tile in my living room and bedroom though. And here in the Midwest it’s not popular at all.
• I could do just the hallway and the bedroom. That would cost me around $1500 or so. I can handle that. Then there would be a seam from the living room to our bedroom, and if we did it all at once, that seam wouldn’t be there.
• Install it all by myself. Ugh. This gives me a headache, especially after what happened last time. Nightmare.

What’s the best floor for people with dogs?  I don’t know. I wish I knew.  So, now I’m turning to you.

What do you think I should do?  Is there an option that I didn’t put out there I should consider?

Posted under DIY