One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1619 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.

Giveaway – 3 Autographed Copies of The Four Season Farm Gardener’s Cookbook

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 22, 2013 ·

We recently took a trip to the East Coast and one of the places we stopped was Harborside, Maine the home of Eliot Coleman Barbara Damrosch and their Four Season Farm.

We were lucky enough to meet Eliot Coleman and he graciously signed 3 copies of The Four Seasons Farm Cookbook for us to giveaway to 3 lucky readers.

All you have to do to enter this giveaway is leave a comment below and let us know: What is your favorite fruit or vegetable to grow.

Rules

1 entry per person/ip address. If you cheat, you will totally be disqualified.

Three people will win one autographed copy of The Four Season Farm cookbook.

This giveaway ends Sunday, April 28th, 2013 @9 pm PST and the winner will be announced in the April 29th, 2013 edition of Mornings with Mavis. You will be notified via email and have 48 hours to claim your prize. If the prize is not claimed within 48 hours it will be forfeited.

Good Luck, I hope you win.

♥ Mavis

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Square Foot Gardening – The Planting Continues

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 22, 2013 · 13 Comments

Yesterday Lucy the Puggle Dog and I spent some time working in our square foot garden. As you can see she is very interested in growing food. If there is one thing she loves it’s fresh vegetables {and biting!}.

I was only able to get a few lettuce seeds out of the packet before Lucy ran off with it. By the time I got the packet out of her mouth the remaining seeds were gone. It will be interesting to see where she “planted” them. I guess I’ll find out in a week or two when the seeds start popping up.

More of my favorite French Breakfast Radish seeds were planted.

Sugar snap peas.

Toy Bok Choy.

The Walla Walla onions are doing great! I hope I’m not over crowding them with 5 planted in one square foot.

So far this whole square foot gardening thing is going pretty good. I have 18 squares planted and 14 left to go. I think I’ll plant tomatoes, beans and cucumbers and a few other seeds in the remaining square.

I must admit, it’s kind of fun planting a little of this and a little of that. I think it will be interesting to see how many pounds of food we can grow in just one 4×8 foot bed.

Have you tried square foot gardening before? Do you think I have too many different things planted? I’d love some advise.

Mavis

For more information, check out All New Square Foot Gardening. It is an amazon bestseller and the author, Mel Bartholomew is basically the king of square foot gardening.

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Mondays with Mavis – How to Feed Your Family for $100 a Month

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 22, 2013 · 50 Comments

A strange thing happened at the Boston airport {besides the part about the HH deciding we had to be there 6 hours before our flight was due to take off}. I made a grocery list. A really, really long grocery list.

Idle hands, and sleep deprivation do not go well together.

Here are the groceries we purchased when we came home from our vacation to Boston.

Safeway – $5.38

Our flight from Boston arrived around 10pm and on the way home the HH pulled into Safeway and grabbed 2 gallons of milk for the next morning.

Winco – $88.33

Winco sent out $10 off a $50 purchase postcard coupons last week to Washington and Oregon residents with Winco stores in their area. Plus there was an additional $10 off $50 coupon available to print on the Winco website as well.

Here is a close up of all the goodness. In case you don’t know already, Winco has a great bulk foods section and their deals on produce are pretty good too. Earlier in the year we stocked up on bulk spices and oats so this time around we bough mostly fruits and vegetables and a couple of canned goods.

Orowaet Bakery Outlet – $10

Our next stop was to the Oroweat Bakery Outlet. If you’ve never been to a bakery outlet, you should totally find one in your area and stop by. We picked up 5 packages of bagels, 3 loaves of bread, 2 bags of rolls, English muffins and a box of dounuts for Monkey Boy all for $10. Not to shabby if you ask me!

Costco – $159.61

Holy crap. What is wrong with Mavis?

We went to Costco. I have no excuse. We needed stuff.

So, as you can see, clearly I’ve lost my mind. We spent $263.32 this past week and we stocked not only the refrigerator with yummyness, but the pantry and freezer as well.

Sometimes you just have to live it up. Will we make it to the end of the year on a grocery budget of $100 a month? Hmm. That would work out to $1.14 a day for a family of four for the rest of the year. So, not likely. But you know what? Life is short, and I don’t want to waste anymore of it clipping coupons for products we don’t want to eat.

I’m not sure what our grocery tally will look like at the end of the year, but I will continue to save where I can.

Peace Out Girl Scouts, wake up everyday and make it count!

~Mavis

Total Spent This Week $263.32
Total Spent This Year $910.87
Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $781.98 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 15 yards of soil}, Walla Walla Onions and 90 pounds of seed potatoes. Plus, supplies to make my own potting soil.

Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.

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.

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies

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By Mavis Butterfield on April 21, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Dear Diary,

It is 4 pm and I am still in my pajamas. Clearly it’s too late to get bother with a shower or putting real clothes on, so I might as grab a half dozen of these delicious apple cinnamon cookies I just made and pop in a movie.

Yee-Haw! I love lazy Sunday afternoons.

Ingredients
2 medium apples, peeled, diced {I used granny smith}
1 cup {2 sticks} unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
1 cup raisins
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 cup oats, old fashioned or quick cooking
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda {15 Cool Uses for Baking Soda}
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugars. Add the eggs and the vanilla. Stir until nice and smooth. Set aside.

In another bowl combine the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt. Slowly add the dry mixture into the wet and stir until just combined. Do not over mix. Next, stir in the raisins and apple bits. Chill for 30 minutes.

Using a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop, drop cookie dough on to a lined cookie sheet {I use silpats} and bake for 11-13 minutes until the cookies are lightly browned. If you like cookies on the crisp side add another minute or two.

Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on a wire rack before placing then in an airtight container.

This recipe makes 4 dozen cookies.

Looking for more cookie recipes? Check out the Taste of Home: Cookies cookbook. It’s pretty awesome.

Looking to get your cookie fix? Check out more Cookie Recipes.

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.