We just got our electric bill for July/August, and we were pleasantly surprised! It was $250. Last year for the same month, our bill was $366. That is a 31.7% savings! And that savings was on top of adding a chest freezer in our garage, so you would think our power bill would have gone UP.
This summer has been just as hot as last summer, so what did we change?
1. We had our AC units serviced in June. We have been in the house for 6 years and didn't have the freon checked until this year. We have learned our lesson. One unit was down 2 pounds, the other was down 2.5 pounds of freon. Because of that, our units ran all the time and the house never seemed to cool off. It feels completely different now.
2. In April, we were hit with the craziest hail storm I could have ever imagined. We had to get a new roof and 2 sides of the house replaced. Since we needed the new roof, we lightened it 2 shades from black to grey. There are mixed reviews on the effects of lightening your roof, but I have read where it can reduce your power bill by 20% in some climates.
3. We don't watch television. Last year the girls watched it for a couple of hours a day while I was cleaning house and making phone calls. This year we have left the television sets unplugged.
4. We unplugged appliances that aren't being used. I rarely use the docking station and monitor on my desk, so I just unplugged them. I also unplug cellphone chargers when I get a chance. Phantom power can add up!
We are strongly considering adding a powered attic ventilation fan next year. It would draw hot air out of the attic and help control the heat coming into the house from the attic.
What are some things you have done to reduce your energy consumption?
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Grilled Ahi Tuna Steaks and Veggies
I tried this for the first time tonight and it was DELICIOUS! It took about 30 minutes to do everything, so it was quick and super easy.
I bought a bag of Ahi Tuna at Aldi for less than $4. It had 3 steaks in it, so it was perfect for my little family of 4. The zucchini and squash came from my mom's garden. This meal for 4 cost us about $4, but it tasted like we paid a fortune for it at a restaurant.
1. Cut your squash and/or zucchini in slices lengthwise (so they won't fall between the grill grates).
2. Marinate the tuna steaks and veggies in this for 20 minutes in the fridge while the grill is heating: lemon juice, soy sauce, Extra Virgin Olive Oil (1/4 cup of each, with a little more lemon juice? I don't measure anything...) plus salt, pepper and a lot of garlic (powder or minced). Don't marinate it too long - fish doesn't need to marinate more than 20 minutes or so or the marinade will overpower it.
3. Preheat your grill to the hottest setting. When it's hot, oil the grates so the fish won't stick.
4. Cook your veggies for 5 minutes, then flip them. Leave them on while you cook the fish.
5. Cook the fish for about 2 minutes on each side.
See how easy it is? ENJOY!
I bought a bag of Ahi Tuna at Aldi for less than $4. It had 3 steaks in it, so it was perfect for my little family of 4. The zucchini and squash came from my mom's garden. This meal for 4 cost us about $4, but it tasted like we paid a fortune for it at a restaurant.
1. Cut your squash and/or zucchini in slices lengthwise (so they won't fall between the grill grates).
2. Marinate the tuna steaks and veggies in this for 20 minutes in the fridge while the grill is heating: lemon juice, soy sauce, Extra Virgin Olive Oil (1/4 cup of each, with a little more lemon juice? I don't measure anything...) plus salt, pepper and a lot of garlic (powder or minced). Don't marinate it too long - fish doesn't need to marinate more than 20 minutes or so or the marinade will overpower it.
3. Preheat your grill to the hottest setting. When it's hot, oil the grates so the fish won't stick.
4. Cook your veggies for 5 minutes, then flip them. Leave them on while you cook the fish.
5. Cook the fish for about 2 minutes on each side.
See how easy it is? ENJOY!
Families in Training
Our pediatrician at Charlotte Pediatric Clinic gave us a poster with some common sense ways to promote a healthy family. The building blocks are very simple and easy to incorporate into your daily life.
These are the recommendations:
5 Servings of fruits and veggies per day - piece of cake! I usually serve oatmeal for breakfast, followed by lunch and dinner consisting of a protein, a veggie and a fruit. We usually have fruit for an afternoon snack. Because we eat what our children eat, it's a good way to make sure you work enough of fruits and veggies into your own diet. Think it's too expensive? Try frozen bagged vegetables, and look for in-season fruits. Our standard fall-back for at least once a day is applesauce, which you can get dirt cheap at your local warehouse club.
4 meals as a family per week - My husband works 16 hour days, and if we can do this, you can too! Growing up, we ate dinner together every night as a family, and I will always cherish those special times. In today's world, it's not always possible to do so. It is amazing at what you can learn about your children by eating together and just listening to them. MAKE TIME for family meals. You won't regret it.
3 meals per day (not 2, not 4+) - getting them on a schedule keeps them from grazing on snack foods all day. If they are active between meals, they will be good and hungry for their meal - and obesity shouldn't be a concern.
2 hours or less of screen time per day - kids need to be active and playing. It's how they learn and stay fit. "Screen time" means television, games, etc. It is very possible to do this, and if you cut your cable, not only will you save money, but you will find that you have more time to do more enjoyable activities with your family.
1 hour or more of activity per day - get them outside! They will feel better, eat better and sleep better. If it's hot or rainy, have an indoor parade, dance together or do some simple exercises. take the stairs. If you shop, park away from the door for more exercise. You don't have to do the whole hour at once - 20 minutes for 3 times per day is sufficient.
0 sweetened beverages - cut the sodas and the juice and have more water! Not only is it more cost efficient, it's much healthier for kids and adults alike.
I challenge you to take these steps for you and your kids. It's such a simple way to live healthier!
These are the recommendations:
5 Servings of fruits and veggies per day - piece of cake! I usually serve oatmeal for breakfast, followed by lunch and dinner consisting of a protein, a veggie and a fruit. We usually have fruit for an afternoon snack. Because we eat what our children eat, it's a good way to make sure you work enough of fruits and veggies into your own diet. Think it's too expensive? Try frozen bagged vegetables, and look for in-season fruits. Our standard fall-back for at least once a day is applesauce, which you can get dirt cheap at your local warehouse club.
4 meals as a family per week - My husband works 16 hour days, and if we can do this, you can too! Growing up, we ate dinner together every night as a family, and I will always cherish those special times. In today's world, it's not always possible to do so. It is amazing at what you can learn about your children by eating together and just listening to them. MAKE TIME for family meals. You won't regret it.
3 meals per day (not 2, not 4+) - getting them on a schedule keeps them from grazing on snack foods all day. If they are active between meals, they will be good and hungry for their meal - and obesity shouldn't be a concern.
2 hours or less of screen time per day - kids need to be active and playing. It's how they learn and stay fit. "Screen time" means television, games, etc. It is very possible to do this, and if you cut your cable, not only will you save money, but you will find that you have more time to do more enjoyable activities with your family.
1 hour or more of activity per day - get them outside! They will feel better, eat better and sleep better. If it's hot or rainy, have an indoor parade, dance together or do some simple exercises. take the stairs. If you shop, park away from the door for more exercise. You don't have to do the whole hour at once - 20 minutes for 3 times per day is sufficient.
0 sweetened beverages - cut the sodas and the juice and have more water! Not only is it more cost efficient, it's much healthier for kids and adults alike.
I challenge you to take these steps for you and your kids. It's such a simple way to live healthier!
Thursday, May 19, 2011
I'm BAAAA-AAAACKKKK!!!!
A couple of months ago, I woke up one day and felt different. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I actually felt good. I had energy. I felt like my old self. Then it hit me: my daughter was 17 months old. Right after she was born, a friend told me that she heard it takes a month for every week of bedrest to recover. I was on total bedrest for 17 weeks. My doctors told me I was in for a long recovery, and I didn't fully understand what they meant by that. Not only did I suffer physically for MANY months after my baby was born, but the mental toll was heavy (to say the least). Couple that with all of the medical crap I went through with my other daughter just 3 months after the youngest was born, with my husband being out of work for 8 months after the youngest was born, and with a very nasty and emotionally-draining situation I dealt with at my own job... it is a wonder I pulled through at all.
So now I'm back. I haven't updated my blog because I have been so busy lately! Getting caught up on years of home improvements, nursing a severely sprained ankle, coordinating all of the financial and reconstruction details related to a major hailstorm, and teaching my oldest to write her letters has kept me very busy.
Keep watching my blog in the coming days for new and improved posts! Among our many projects this summer will be building a solar oven and a rocket stove, gardening with toddlers, and organizing our house. It's going to be fun!
So now I'm back. I haven't updated my blog because I have been so busy lately! Getting caught up on years of home improvements, nursing a severely sprained ankle, coordinating all of the financial and reconstruction details related to a major hailstorm, and teaching my oldest to write her letters has kept me very busy.
Keep watching my blog in the coming days for new and improved posts! Among our many projects this summer will be building a solar oven and a rocket stove, gardening with toddlers, and organizing our house. It's going to be fun!
Monday, April 18, 2011
The Code of the Sisterhood of Women
This particular post isn’t about being cheap or simple, but it is about something infinitely more important: The Code of Sisterhood.
Rule number 1 in the Code = NEVER ADMIT ANYTHING IS WORSE THAN CHILDBIRTH.
On Facebook this morning, I saw that a friend’s husband was having a kidney stone busted up today. Someone else chimed in with “Oh that is so much worse than childbirth!” Such an egregious error warrants a reminder on this blog about keeping the Code of Sisterhood, not just for your own benefit but for countless other women in the world.
There is one time in a woman’s life when men actually pamper us and feel sorry for us because they are completely clueless, and that is the birth of one’s first child. (Subsequent births apparently don’t count for much with getting sympathy and help from our husbands.) First time mothers should milk it for everything they possibly can during the first 6 months or so after the baby’s birth, because they will never again get so much help or sympathy by their husbands. If we start talking about things being worse than childbirth, this one perk of postpartum life will vanish. We must keep the code so that other first-time moms can take advantage of it.
Secondly, when we admit that something is worse than childbirth to a man, we lose the ability to hold our sacrifices against him for the rest of his life. My husband whines for hours about a paper cut. Now that I have delivered two babies, I can give him the “I birthed two babies, so shut your mouth” look whenever he whines about his injury. This particular advantage of keeping the Code means we can use it countless times for many years. What woman doesn’t want the ability to say “I pushed a 7-pound baby out of my body, so you can handle having your gall bladder removed!” and go back to reading her romance novel while her husband recovers from surgery?
Come on ladies, you must honor the sisterhood of women all over the world by keeping some things a mystery. If you don’t keep the code for yourself, at least keep it for the millions of women who truly appreciate all the help they can get.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Picky eater tricks
My 3-year-old is a very picky eater. It is almost impossible to get her to eat something new, and she often refuses to eat the things she likes.
Our simple solution? Toothpicks! It makes eating fun. We just watch her very closely and make sure we collect the used toothpick when she is done.
We have also used toppings to make it fun - a little chocolate sauce (on the bananas in the photo), finely shredded cheese, grated parmesan cheese or even cake sprinkles can go a long way!
Another trick we have used is to call food something different. Our daughter won't eat any meat but chicken, so we call everything chicken. She enjoyed her chicken fish last night. Peas are green balls, Broccoli is trees, squash are sunshines... you get the point.
What are some of your tricks for picky eaters?
Our simple solution? Toothpicks! It makes eating fun. We just watch her very closely and make sure we collect the used toothpick when she is done.
We have also used toppings to make it fun - a little chocolate sauce (on the bananas in the photo), finely shredded cheese, grated parmesan cheese or even cake sprinkles can go a long way!
Another trick we have used is to call food something different. Our daughter won't eat any meat but chicken, so we call everything chicken. She enjoyed her chicken fish last night. Peas are green balls, Broccoli is trees, squash are sunshines... you get the point.
What are some of your tricks for picky eaters?
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Healthy Fish Dish
Tonight was fish night, and I wanted to do something different. I found a jar of my mother's canned tomatoes and decided they would go well with the Tilapia I had thawed.
Here's the recipe:
1 pack of Tilapia (4 filets)
one sweet onion, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
1 can of tomatoes (the "put up" kind or the diced canned kind from the grocery store)
minced garlic or garlic powder
Italian seasoning
sliced black olives
Spray a 13 X 9 inch metal pan with cooking spray. Spread the onion and pepper slices on the bottom. Put the filets on top. Mix the tomatoes, garlic and Italian seasoning in a bowl and put 1/4 of it on top of each filet. Sprinkle with olives. Cover with foil and bake at 450 for 20 minutes.
We served it with garlic spinach (see earlier post) and garlic bread. The meal was inexpensive and easy (but looked and tasted fancy). My husband is not a fan of fish, tomatoes or olives, but he requested eating the leftovers for tomorrow night's dinner. It was that good!
Here's the recipe:
1 pack of Tilapia (4 filets)
one sweet onion, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
1 can of tomatoes (the "put up" kind or the diced canned kind from the grocery store)
minced garlic or garlic powder
Italian seasoning
sliced black olives
Spray a 13 X 9 inch metal pan with cooking spray. Spread the onion and pepper slices on the bottom. Put the filets on top. Mix the tomatoes, garlic and Italian seasoning in a bowl and put 1/4 of it on top of each filet. Sprinkle with olives. Cover with foil and bake at 450 for 20 minutes.
We served it with garlic spinach (see earlier post) and garlic bread. The meal was inexpensive and easy (but looked and tasted fancy). My husband is not a fan of fish, tomatoes or olives, but he requested eating the leftovers for tomorrow night's dinner. It was that good!
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