One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1449 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Homemade Granola Bars

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By Mavis Butterfield on September 29, 2013 · 25 Comments

These granola bars are awesome because they are super easy, have basic ingredients that I can pronounce and are a great healthy lunch snack for my kids. Oh and they are Monkey Boy and the Girl approved. Guess the rest of that wouldn’t matter if they refused to eat them, right?!

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup peanut butter {I used creamy but you could try it with crunchy}
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups quick oats
1/2 cup Rice Krispies
1/4 cup chocolate chips {I used mini}

Directions

Line the bottom of an 8 x 8 inch baking pan with parchment paper. In a sauce pan, melt butter, brown sugar, honey and peanut butter. Heat over medium-low heat until the mixture starts to bubble, stirring often. Once bubbly, cook for a few more minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, oats and cereal. Mix until combined. Pour into the pan and press down evenly. Make sure the bars are cooled completely before sprinkling with chocolate chips. Gently press the chocolate chips into the granola bars with your hands.

Cool bars in the fridge for at least 15 minutes before cutting. Cut bars, do a little dance of joy that an oven was not involved and serve.

~Mavis

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How to Care for Garden Tools

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By Mavis Butterfield on September 29, 2013 · 4 Comments

If you have invested in some nice garden tools, a little yearly maintenance goes a long way in making them last a lifetime. Here’s a couple of steps on keeping them rust and corrosion free:

If you don’t plan on using them throughout the winter, grab a big bucket and fill it with sand. Spray the sand liberally with WD-40 or pour a 1/2 gallon of mineral oil over the top and let it soak through. Remove any dirt clods from your garden tools and plunge them into the mixture. Allow them to spend the winter in this sandy bath in the garage or shed. Come spring, pull them out and wipe them down with a cloth. They will be clean and rust free.
Maintain wooden handled garden tools by rubbing them with linseed oil once a year. {Otherwise, they split and crack over time.}
Keep a bucket of plain old sand in your garden area. Each time you are done with your tools, stick them into the sand mixture–it will help them stay dry, and you’ll know exactly where to find them when you need them.
To keep pruning shears, etc. in working order, spray them with cooking oil. It will make for smooth, happy pruning.

Pretty easy, right? How about you, do you do anything special to make sure your garden tools go the distance?

~Mavis

Want more cool uses for WD-40? Click HERE.

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Catching Up On Emails and Other Random Stuff

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By Mavis Butterfield on September 29, 2013 · 2 Comments

Yesterday, after lounging around all day I logged on the computer for a few minutes to check my emails and then read the latest news stories. This may be the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. It makes me want to take Lucy the puggle dog swimming. But I won’t because the lake is too cold this time of year.

Did you read the story about the parents who donated their daughters wedding reception to the homeless after their daughter backed out of her wedding? Kudos to both the daughter {for being brave} and to the parents {for not letting the money go to waste}.

Maria sent me a picture of some cuddling carrots she pulled form her garden in Saskatchewan, Canada. No word on if she ate them or not. 😉 If I had dug those lovely carrots up though, I don’t think I could have eaten them.

I stumbled upon Mavis Butterfield: My Hero on Pinterest.

Jessica sent me a link to a really cool tree house ladder/bicycle and now I want the Handsome Husband to build me a tree house so I can ride a bike to the top.

I received an email from a guy wanting some buckets.

Hello, I Am Mr. XX XXXXX. I would like to place an order of 5-Gallon Plastic Pails from your company to Haiti, kindly email me with the types you have and their prices and also, your term of payment.

I’m guessing Mr. XX came across my post about how to find free containers for your garden. I’m not sure what the 5 gallon bucket prices are in Haiti, but I certainly hope they are cheaper there than if I were to send him some from the US. I wasn’t sure if it was someone who really needed buckets, or it was one of those email scams.

And last but not least, while I was out walking Lucy, I noticed she had a little unauthorized snack. Having your arm chewed off is one thing, but being dragged through the dirt and having a dog eat your nose for lunch too, is just awful. Bad Lucy.

How is your weekend going so far?

Anything exciting going on?

Mavis wants to know.

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Mavis Butterfield | Backyard Garden Plot Pictures – Week 39 of 52

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By Mavis Butterfield on September 29, 2013 · 10 Comments

Backyard Garden Plot Pictures – Week 39 of 52

We’ve been experiencing some cold and soggy weather here in Western Washington the past few days and I’ve been lazy and haven’t done too much gardening in the last 72 hours.

We’ve been harvesting Bok Choy over the last 2 weeks and now it’s starting to go to seed. I think I’ll try and get out there today and harvest a few more leaves before I toss the rest to the chickens.

The strawberry runners I transplanted a few weeks ago are doing great, but the beans I was planning to dry are not doing so well. I think I planted them a little too late because they are still green. 🙁 I need the pods to turn yellow before I can harvest them so I think they may just end up rotting before they’re ready.

The bean tepees and squash vines are on their last leg. I’ll go ahead and leave the tepee poles as they are until it’s time to harvest all the squash, so I don’t disturb the vines.

I cleaned out the greenhouse last week, but I still need to re-plant the strawberries that I grew in gutters this summer and get the rest of the plants to the compost pile.

I’m thinking about setting up a few garden boxes for next summer in the center of all that bark. There’s a pretty big slope to deal with but I think it might look kind of cool.

The kale ans Swiss chard is doing great but I still need to get out there and put chicken wire over the top of the chicken run.

I think I’m going to wait until the last possible moment to harvest all the pumpkins and squash. If it keeps raining I’ll have to do it sooner than later, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

The raspberry patch. It’s finally looks pretty decent over there. 😉 Now the big question is, do I move the raspberryberry patch to another area in the garden, or keep it there? Hmmm. It’s something to think about.

How is your garden doing? Are you done for the year?

~Mavis

This years garden is being sponsored by the awesome folks at Botanical Interests Seed Company. You can check out their website HERE, order their new 2013 Garden Seed Catalog HERE, or visit my online boyfriend Ryan’s blog HERE.

Up for a tour? Read about our behind the scenes tour of Botanical Interests Seed Company.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.