One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1657 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.

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

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 18, 2013 · 8 Comments

Last week I was pretty busy working in the garden and ended up doing all my grocery shopping in one day while I was out running errands. I LOVE it when that happens.

Here is what I purchased last week:

Harbor Greens Market – $5.28

Hopefully this is the last bag of potatoes I will have to buy for a long, long time. 10 pounds of potatoes $1.99, Green peppers 3 for $1, avocados 2 for $1, and our favorite Fuji apples $0.69 a pound! I love Harbor Greens Market for the weekly produce deals.

Fred Meyer – $13.67

I had this great idea that I would make apple turn overs with some of the free granny smith apples I scored last week from Mr. Produce Guy, but they totally bombed. Although they tasted good, they looked awful. Luckily I only used 1 of the 2 packages so I have to attempt making turnovers again. Oh well.

We are also totally out of chicken. I placed my Zaycon order so we will have more in a few weeks, but this bag will have to last us until then.

QFC – $8.95

I scored some spinach wraps on clearance, fresh asparagus for $1.69 a pound, local milk and a gallon of the regular stuff for Monkey Boy.

Barter with Mrs. Hillbilly – FREE

I traded eggs for butter last night at Mrs. HB’s house. I think the best kind of deals are when you both walk away with what you need. Since we are swimming in eggs {and will be for the rest of the year} I think it will be fun to see what I can trade the neighbors for with my extras.

Mr. Produce Guy – FREE

It was another stellar week in the reclaimed food department. It’s amazing how many meals and snacks you can make from a little bit for fresh fruits and veggies and some staple items. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s kind of cool.

How did you do this week? Did you buy anything exciting? Did you order any meat from Zaycon?

~Mavis

Total Spent This Week $27.90
Total Spent This Year $516.03
Total Spent This Year on Garden Seeds/Supplies $744.79 {I bought a Meyer Lemon Tree, Rhubarb crowns, 6 Fruit Trees , 15 yards of soil} and 90 pounds of seed potatoes.

Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.

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Bartering with Mavis – 26 Eggs for One Pound of Butter

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 17, 2013 · 17 Comments

I stopped by Mrs. Hillbilly’s house this afternoon with some of my excess eggs. I’ve been craving homemade cookies for the last few days but I was down to my last stick of butter and needed more.

I ended up trading 26 fresh eggs for 1 pound of butter. Mrs. HB needed eggs, I needed butter. Having neighbors to barter with is really cool. It sure beats having to drive or walk to the store when you need just one item.

Oh, and Lucy the puggle dog also got a mini play date with her dog as well. What a bonus!

~Mavis

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Is Having a Garden in the Front Yard Illegal?

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 17, 2013 · 26 Comments

Ever wonder what it would be like to dig up your entire front lawn and plant an edible garden instead? Check out this video of Josée Landry and Michel Beauchamp’s beautiful 2012 front yard kitchen garden in Drummondville, Quebec.

{photo credit}

There was actually a big controversy over the garden and the city had planned to make all front lawn vegetable gardens illegal. You can read the whole article about illegal front yard gardens from the Huffington Post. Talk about crazy!

What do you think? Is this an eyesore or eye candy?

~Mavis

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Mavis Butterfield | Backyard Garden Plot Pictures – Week 12 of 52

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By Mavis Butterfield on March 17, 2013 · 12 Comments

Week 12 of 52 – Mavis’ Backyard Garden Plot

Although it rained quite a bit past week, I was still able to get a few projects done. We planted a boatload of new seeds as well as cleaned up the backyard and moved some more pots out of the garage.

The spring bulbs are beginning to pop up everywhere so I’ll have to have The Girl go out and pick a big bouquet of daffodils for the kitchen table later today to bring a little color in to the house.

I know the raised garden beds don’t look too exciting right now, but in another month or so you’ll be able to see lots of green. I think waiting for seeds to germinate in the spring is one of the hardest parts about gardening.

Endive was planted in the back left wood pallet and so far so good. Lucy, the squirrels and the slugs have all left it alone. If you are thinking about creating a pallet garden, be sure and check out this Pallet Gardening 101 post to help get you started.

See that box out there? It’s full of potatoes. Hopefully I can get the rest of the 90 pounds of potatoes planted later today. Fingers crossed.

Future perennial flower garden.

See the green at the base of the tree? Those are the poppies I planted last year. I’ll be planting more poppy seeds this year and we also have artichokes and rhubarb in this area as well. The rhubarb shoots have just begun to pop through the soil. I placed wire tomato cages near them so I’d remember not to plant anything to close to them.

The greenhouse. Hopefully I can write more about what’s going on in there later this week.

The potato towers are on my list of “things to get planted” today.

Remember all those bulbs I planted last fall? I can wait for this area to bloom.

I still need to carve out another large garden plot towards the left.

Happy chickens.

Lucy the crazy puggle dog running all over my newly planted kale plants.

Future pumpkin patch.

Raspberry and blueberry patch {the blueberries are planted just behind the raspberry canes towards the left}.

And last but no least, the future herb garden. We are planning on dragging out a few more large pots to this area pretty soon and filling then with herb starts.

I need more time people, more time!

Well, it looks like it might be a pretty decent day outside today, so I better get dressed and get out there.

Have a wonderful day,

~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.

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.