Prepper Pantry - Pasta Sauce

 

Right now it is a bit difficult to find certain canned goods and the prices on them have nearly doubled on many.  Tomato products have been particularly affected and out tomato plants in our garden did not take off this year.  However I have been able to find and stock up on some #10 cans of crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes and tomato puree.

 

A couple months ago when I bought my first lot of #10 cans I was also able to get some good buys on ground beef and sausage.  I decided it would be prudent to put up a couple batches of homemade pasta sauce so I opened up a couple of those giant cans and got to work.  I made my usual recipe only on a much grander scale and allowed it to slow cook all day before I packed it into sterilized jars and canned it in my pressure canner.  I was able to put up twenty jars of pasta sauce by the time all was said and done.

 

I must say I do enjoy the convenience of having pint jars filled with delicious homemade pasta sauce.  It is super easy to grab one out of the pantry whenever we need to prepare a quick meal.  We will boil up some pasta or gnocchi and drain that, then in the same pot I heat up the pasta sauce and once it boils add the pasta or gnocchi back in, give it all a toss and we are ready to go.

 

My daughter is able to have her supper and plenty leftover for her lunch for the next day or two.  I am also able to use this sauce in some of my keto meals too which helps me out as I find myself often preparing two different meals to accommodate everyone's needs and schedules.  Another win for our pantry!

 

 

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

 

I honestly don't have a lot to report for last week.  My entire week zipped by in a flash and work was super busy.  I worked some long days and earned some overtime and when I got home I was pretty much wiped out.  I did however, plan ahead for my weekend and acquired more craft supplies form Amazon and eBay including some vintage greeting cards to make new cards with, more envelopes, card stock and some stamping supplies.  Most of what I ordered arrived on Saturday and the rest should be her on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

 

After work on Friday I did a Dollar Tree run and picked up a gob of stuff from their craft section.  I was super excited to see all of the new items they have now and I had a ball shopping.  I got up super early on Saturday morning and it was a marathon of crafting and card making.  I didn't stop until close to midnight and I loved, loved, loved every bit of it.  I got up early again yesterday and continued again.  When I am ready I will take some pictures and share my creations with you in an upcoming post.  I'm not sure this was the thriftiest week I've had, but I do know that everything I purchased was at rock bottom prices and/or second hand.

 

As you can see it is pretty smokey here
And apparently this business could use another dumptser.

For those that have asked, yes we are heavily smoked out up here.  Washington, Oregon and California fires are heavily impacting our air quality and that has us indoors and praying we don't go up in flames too.  And praying for rain.  Lots of rain to douse those flames.  What in incredible situation!

 

My $10 prep this week was butter $1.88 a pound

Prepper Pantry = butter.

 

Some of the 15 Minute Chores I accomplished to keep my home in order: 

Laundry Room & Half Bathroom - vacuumed floors.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Dining Room - vacuumed & mopped floor. 

Kitchen -  vacuumed & mopped floor, cleaned stove, rangehood & microwave. 

Bedrooms & Main Bathroom - vacuumed & dusted.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Other - vacuumed & dusted living room, hallway & entry.  Swept front porch & garage.

 

How was your thrifty week?  I hope everyone is safe, healthy and doing well.

 

 

How I Spent My Long Labor Day Weekend

 

I am sure it will come as quite a surprise to all of you but I didn't work myself to death trying to accomplish a million projects or renovate something.  Instead I did something I rarely do, but plan to do a lot more of and a lot more often.  I spent the vast majority of my four day weekend crafting.

 

A week ago my girls surprised me on my birthday with a Sissix Big Shot die cutting machine.  I have pined for one of these for a very long time, but was never willing to make the investment, especially as I was more interested in getting myself debt free.  My very generous girls gave me the die cutter and I couldn't be any happier about it if I tried.  I put it to work!

 

One of my favorite types of crafts is paper crafting, in particular I like to make greeting and Christmas cards.  I'm not sure what it is about paper, but I love it.  All the colors, textures, styles, prints, you name it and I thoroughly enjoy it.  If there was one thing I could hoard it could quite easily might be paper.

 

I bought some new die sets

Last week and also over the weekend I did something else I rarely do.  I spent some money.  On craft supplies.  Yep, I sure did.  I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up four sheets of their loose scrapbook paper for a whopping 25¢ a sheet as well as a pack of colored cardstock and a 50 count set of multi colored gel pens.  I may have a slight obsession with pens as well as paper.  I only spent $15 there, but my eBay and Amazon orders were slightly more.  I have no regrets.

 

I made a boatload of die cut embellishments

I paid a couple visits to Amazon and eBay as well for envelopes, more paper and something I'm really excited to receive and you'll probably think I'm nuts.  But!  I purchased two boxes of used vintage greeting cards.  I love to cut apart greeting cards and use them to make new ones.  It's weird, but it is something I really enjoy doing.  And I've been out of cards for quite some time so I decided to just buy some.  They were super cheap and I should have plenty to last me a good long time now.

 

I spent a fair amount of time with my Sissix and some new dies I had ordered from Amazon cutting components to make paper embellishments.  I cut and folded a gob of card bases in white as well as various sizes.  And I designed a boatload of greeting cards I plan to make.  I also made some of those cards and really impressed my girls.

 

So what do I plan to do with all of the cards I plan to make?  That is a really good question.  I will use some of them of course to send to friends and loved ones.  However, I am toying with the idea of selling some of them too.  Finance my hobby and see if it can be somewhat self supporting.  I have an Etsy shop that I could stock and reopen.  What do you think about that idea?

 

 

A Working Pantry

 

I have shared about our pantry many, many times.  We have what I call a working pantry where items are moved and rotated so we use the older items first and reload the new items toward the back as they are purchased.  I frequently take stock and organized the items inside to make sure I keep it fresh and know what is inside.  It also helps me to meal plan because I always know what I have and can base those plans off of what is already on hand.

 

Over the years I have worked off of a pantry list that I keep in excel and have modified and tweaked it to keep up with us and our changing needs.  I have shared that list with friends and co-workers as well as many of my readers too and am always happy to do it.  I find it helpful and I figured a lot of other people might as well, and because it is an Excel worksheet it is easy to modify and change to custom fit our needs.  It is a constant work in progress.

 

Now that we have a prepper pantry, separate of our regular pantry, I plan in about a year to start incorporating those items in our working pantry in order to make sure things with shorter shelf lives get used so they don't expire and go to waste.  I will "shop" those items in the prepper pantry for our regular pantry and then replace what I use when I shop at the grocery store.  A good majority of what I have will be shelf stable for a very long time, but certain items like canned goods and condiments will need to be used and replaced on a regular basis.

 

As we head into fall and then winter the goal is to always be fully stocked up and prepared and we are very fortunate and blessed to find ourselves in that state at the moment.  My plans from here on out are to pick up fresh produce, dairy items and meat as we need them.  Other than that we are all set, even for the upcoming holidays.  By keeping tabs on things regularly and rotating what we buy and use we should be able to keep any waste to a minimum with zero waste always the goal.

 

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

 

I spent my Sunday crafting last week and it was a slice of heaven!  I made some Christmas cards, some small gift cards and more Christmas themed gift tags.  Fun, fun fun!  I used all items I had on hand in my stash and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I watch free movies on Youtube while I crafted.

 

I recycled a peanut butter jar to store nuts in
I gave the lid a facelift with a little bit of copper paint

My beautiful and extremely thoughtful girls bought me a Sissix Big Shot die cutting tool for me for my birthday which they gave on Wednesday.  They found one for sale on Facebook Marketplace and it came with some dies as well.  I am absolutely thrilled to pieces.  I have wanted one of these for forever, but wouldn't consider purchasing one as they are expensive and it was far too frivolous of an item to buy for myself.  I was so incredibly surprised with this gift.

 

I have the best daughters ever!

After my birthday dinner of hamburger, potato chips and ice cream (not keto at all!) we sat down and I placed a $35 Amazon order for a few more die sets as well as a package of patterned card stock.  Because we ate at home rather than dining out this year I had the money set aside for dinner at a restaurant and was all too happy to spend that on craft supplies instead.

 

The youngest and I went to the grocery outlet store on Thursday after I got home from work and did a fair sized shop.  A lot of what we bought was to fill in gaps in our pantry as well as to stock up on chocolate chips they had for 99¢ a bag.  We will use those for our holiday baking and to make fudge this year.

 

I took the day off on Friday to be home and enjoy my lovely little house.  I sliced up pears from our tree and filled up the dehydrator.  I puttered around the house and pulled out all of my fall decor and decorated the house as well as our front porch.  I don't do a whole bunch of decorating, but enough to make it feel warm and cheery.  I pretty much have pumpkins everywhere.

 

On Friday afternoon I used the remainder of my dining out money at Hobby Lobby for a huge set of gel pens as well as some more card stock and four sheets of holiday themed 12" X 12" scrapbook paper.  I used a coupon to get 40% OFF on the cardstock and everything else was already on sale for 40%OFF.  I spent $15 at Hobby Lobby.

 

On the way home we stopped at the mall so I could go to Bath & Body Works and use some coupons and the tail end of a gift card I had.  I splurged!  It had been a long time since I had done any big shopping there to restock our shower gel, lotion and body cream and I did all of that plus treated myself to candles on sale as well as the cutest pumpkin themed candle holder.  We now have plenty of soaps and lotions for the next two years and I have plenty of wonderfully scented candles for this holiday season.  I decided this shopping spree was my reward for getting all of my debts paid off this year.

 

I made two batches of foaming hand soap to top up and refill all of our hand soap dispenser in our house.  I also refilled two of our empty pocket back hand sanitizer bottles by putting a little bit of shower gel in each one and then topping them up with rubbing alcohol.  That is a little experiment we are trying and it seems to work.

 

Saturday I reloaded the dehydrator with more sliced pears.  Next I filled up my medium sized slow cooker with ingredients to make crack chicken for supper.  Then I spent the day working with my Big Shot and my new craft supplies.  I had way too much fun and loved every minute of it.  It is all a learning process and I love to learn new things, especially when it involves hobbies.

 

Prepper Pantry = curry powder, black pepper, crushed tomatoes, dehydrated pears, rice.

 

Some of the 15 Minute Chores I accomplished to keep my home in order: 

Laundry Room & Half Bathroom - vacuumed floors.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Dining Room - vacuumed floor, dusted shelves & chair rail. 

Kitchen -  vacuumed & mopped floor, scrubbed & bleached sink, cleaned cabinetry. 

Bedrooms & Main Bathroom - vacuumed & dusted.  Scrubbed toilet & tub.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Other - two large loads of laundry, vacuumed & dusted living room, hallway & entry.  Swept front porch & garage.

 

How was your thrifty week?

 

Labor Day

 

Another Small Home Improvement Project - Installing More Closet Storage

 

Last Saturday I was back in the master bedroom for a quick little project.  When I redid the closet last year I knew I probably wanted to add a shelf across the top of the long hanging rod and give it a more finished look.  This was the final thing I needed to do in order to bring the master closet renovation to completion.

 

Fortunately everything I needed to do this project I already had in my garage so this project didn't cost me anything and I was able to use up some things and get them out of the garage.  I used a narrow piece of wood I had acquired some time ago from the FREE WOOD bin near where I work to make brackets and the end of a shelf I had leftover from when I added a new shelf to our pantry.

 

After cutting the pieces to size I gave the two shelf brackets a quick spray of white paint and allowed them to dry before drilling pilot holes and attaching them in place.  I used a level to make sure the shelf was straight and the shelf brackets were in the right place.  A little bit of construction adhesive and two screws were used to attach the one bracket to the closet organizer.  Finished nails were adequate for the one I attached to the side of the shelves in the linen closet portion.

 

With the shelf now installed I gained a lot of extra storage space to keep the ten boxes of facial tissues I bought last week on sale as well as some of or extra packages of toilet paper we have.  I also like how much more finished the closet organizer appears now.  Definitely well worth the effort.