The Bare Necessities

We took The Jungle Book out at the bookmobile on Saturday and I was reminded what a fun movie it is. Not to mention how awesome having a bookmobile within walking distance once a week is - now I have no excuse for fines.

Back to the movie though, with it's musical tunes it held even my daughter's 'too busy for TV' interest for some of the time. Except for the snakes, she came into the kitchen with two bowls asking for raisins saying, "nakes, no like nakes." But then she cautiously carried two bowls of raisins back to the couch offering one to her brother and sat and watched some more.

The lyrics to the bare necessities song reminded me of Mary's grocery challenge next month .... ah, yeah Heidi, that's tomorrow! Adam and I will talk later today about what our goals for the month are. For us it's usually the temptation to go out to eat. Especially since people seem to want to look at our house a few times a month between 5-6pm with little notice. It sorta throws a wrench in even my best plans for dinner. But those are not the only times we are lured by restaurant food so if we could cut back all together we'd save quite a bit.

I know one of my goals is to install a money program and use it to more thoroughly track all of our money expenditures especially our food items. I've gotten out of that habit and need to start it up again!

Mary's book Frugal Feasts for $75 a Week has awesome tips and one that is helping me lately is not just not going to the store right away when I need something. (To avoid other frivolous spending.) I now need six essentials though so I'm going to plan a couple weeks of meals tonight and go tomorrow am or maybe by myself tonight! Eggs and rice milk have been out for a couple days and those are now necessary! We've also cooked several dishes from the cookbook that are terrific!! Thanks Mary for adding some yummy goodness to our lives as well money to our pockets!

One of my favorite things about the recipes Mary shares is they use mostly fresh and scratch ingredients instead of processed or canned ingredients (like cream of whatever soup)which are of course more economical and more healthful too. I'll keep you updated on our progress throughout the month and am looking forward to reading about what others are doing too. I'm sure we all will still be well above the bare necessities of life!

Look for the Bear Necessities,
The simple Bear Necessities,
Forget about your worries and your strife!
I mean the Bear Necessities,
It's why a bear can rest-at-ease
With just the Bear Necessities of life!