Things Are Becoming Even More Expensive

We are cursed blessed to be living in the marcellus shale region. With that comes an increase in traffic, increased demands in housing and businesses are booming. Cost of housing has gone up to insane prices, taxes are going up, water is becoming polluted and I've heard our area being called a "wasteland". Sigh.... Wells are springing up all around us, and living in a small town, we have no recourse but to put up with everything with nothing in return. Am I complaining? Not really - just stating the cold, hard facts.

We have been considering leaving for a long time, but hubby was looking for the perfect job. He could at that time - then the economy changed and his chance of getting that job got a whole lot slimmer. We thought we'd ride things out, but now with the crazy business here of the gas - we really want out. Now, just to find a job that will allow us to leave and be able to pay for a new home and college for 2 kids.

This year is going to be the time for severe cutbacks for us. All those little luxuries that we've enjoyed for years are going.... magazine subscriptions, television, newspapers, etc. - they are all getting canceled or won't be renewed. Both kids will need a cell phone next year for college, so we are going to have to find a cell phone company and we will finally give in to buying cell service. Sadly, reception is poor to none in our area making it about impossible to drop our land-line. Hopefully that will change in 8 months. Imagine, what we save in dropping all the above items will pay for the kids cell phones. :(

Food prices have gone up considerably and so has gas. We are now over $3.20 a gallon and it still continues to go up. Sadly, there were no raises because of company cutbacks. Our garden will just have to be increased in size and now that I have an Excalibur dehydrator, we'll be able to save both time, space and money by dehydrating instead of canning. It is amazing the things one can do with dehydrated foods, and more amazing that they retain most of their nutritional value and flavor!! My goal this year is to see how many groceries we can make ourselves and how much we really NEED from the store.

Speaking of saving money, I MUST share three wonderful new challenges I have joined. Retroredux is having some really fun but frugal reading challenges that really appealed to me.
 

First is the Public Domain E-book Challenge. This challenge deals with public domain books from places like Project Gutenburg, Manybooks, etc. If you are like me, you've been there and have found that there are no descriptions of the books that are offered. This challenge has you reading and reviewing these books. You can pick the level you want to participate in (all are easily obtainable), then read and review the number of books you signed up for. What a fantastic idea!! Not only are you setting a fun goal, but helping other readers at the same time :)

The second challenge she has that I signed up for is called The Buck Stops Here Challenge. In this challenge you read books from your own personal library. The only rules are: 1. They must cost from FREE to up to ONE DOLLAR - nothing more expensive and 2. no loaned books. You MUST own these books. This also includes e-books (and we know how many cheap and free e-books are out there!)

The last challenge is called the Forgotten Treasures Challenge. In this challenge, one must read books that are at least 25 years old. Man, my budget over the last 20 years of marriage has only allowed me to purchase books from yard sales and the Goodwill, plus those that were obtained from FreeCycle, so, I have a TON of these babies sitting on my shelf!!

All of these challenges seem to go hand-in-hand with our cutbacks, so here's to living cheaper without really sacrificing anything at all! :)