I'm back and feeling inspired once again!

Hi to anyone who is actually reading this blog :) It's been roughly 3 months since I blogged and I've missed it. I was feeling rather uninspired about organic eating and living - frugally that is. The price of food and gas has really hit us hard and while we haven't made any large, sweeping changes to our budget and life - it is scary to see the real numbers! Regardless, here is what we've been up to:

Our basement project is chugging along. Drywall is complete, tile will go into the bathroom this weekend, doors will be hung and then we paint and paint and paint. From there we'll see how fast it goes LOL We are doing the painting and trim-work ourselves to save money. DH will also install the bamboo flooring around the wet bar to save money there. Overall, we are thrilled with this project - it has drained our savings so it is a little scary, but we planned it so really it is fine.

Food - ACK! We finally took a long, hard look at our budget last night and here is our plan of attack - track every penny for the month of July to figure out where it is all going! I budget a large amount for food each month and we are going to work together to try and cut that budget a bit. For instance, we have rediscovered our food processor. I spent the morning cutting up carrots (and not baby carrots - expensive!) and making shredded hash browns from potatoes that needed to be used. I LOVE my food processor! I will be going to the market later today to do some price comparisons for real savings, but I'm guessing it will be significant. My quest in the food budget for the month of July is to figure out how to make more of our favorite things from scratch (and yes, cutting my own hash browns counts LOL) to see if it saves money. We also discovered Trader Joes - OMG can you say SAVINGS?! And the best part is there is one not far from DH's job and he has volunteered to do that shopping! Not only does that mean we aren't spending anything on gas to get there, but DH will stick to a list and not deviate - that is HUGE :)

Gas is another scary line item on our budget. We aren't sure how to lower it considering DH works an hour or so away and his job isn't supportive of working from home. So, this will fall primarily on me and my driving. I feel like I've cut it back as much as possible, so it really means we'll be home most weekends :)

Hopefully I can stay inspired to help us get our budget and savings back on track... and hopefully we can be inspired together! Let me know that you're reading this... it is lonely to think I'm writing it all for myself :)