DIY logistics

I was recently asked how much time I spend shopping, prepping, and baking, considering all that I do myself instead of buying pre-made.  The short answer just didn't cut it!   I understand how overwhelming it seems, when you're used to buying convenience foods, easy snacks, and cleaners are that are all ready to use, to consider preparing it all in advance.  It would seem that shopping for the stuff would be a whole lot easier and less time consuming than doing it all yourself!

But in reality, it doesn't take that much time! and the savings is totally worth it.  Not only is everything substantially cheaper when made at home, it is also better quality AND much healthier!  We make it a learning experience for our kids and include them in the making of everything so that they too will be prepared to live life simply and effectively as adults.

In order to ease your worry and dissuade your skepticism, here's a closer look at how it all works.

Shopping:

I do my BIG shopping trip once a month only.   Instead of hopping from store to store, I try to buy everything I need in one place.  This is actually very easy when all you need are common ingredients and whole foods   :)  Usually it takes me no more than an hour, but when the kiddos are with it can take a bit longer! 

For milk, eggs, and bananas, all things we use a lot of and can't possibly make enough room for, we reserve a mid-month trip to the local grocery store.  I'm pretty sure we are known around there by now by our strange, monthly purchase...dozens of eggs and copious amounts of bananas   :P

What I buy in bulk I purchase through a buying club, making my orders via email {Country Life Natural Foods is the online website we order from}, once every two months.  When we can afford it, we purchase large quantities of meat from local butchers in quantities that will last the year.  during the summer/early fall I do as much shopping as I can from Farmer's Markets.  It's a nice little get away for me!

Prepping and Cooking:

I need to clarify that because I don't buy anything pre-made, we really don't eat a lot of snack foods or treats that families commonly have on hand for convenience.   Yes, it would be daunting to think of making pounds and pounds of chips and a variety of crackers or other goodies to last a month!

Chips, crackers, cookies, donuts...

These things can all be made at home easily, but I only make them when we know we're going to need them{like for a long trip in the car}.  This has probably contributed a lot to my lack of weight-gain after six pregnancies!   If it's not in the house, we don't eat it! and frankly, having to make it myself is a very good deterrent!  I will say, though, that I'm a sucker for homemade wheat thins...they are soooo goooood, and easy! They only take about 20 minutes to make, and if you double or triple the batch, they last a while.

What do they have for snacks?  I'm sure you're wondering.

Simple:  Nuts and cheese {we live near an award winning dairy where the cheese is simply the BEST}, yogurt with a scoop of granola, lots of fresh fruit and veggies.  That's about it! 

Now, I'm a sucker for pastries, specifically cinnamon rolls and croissant...

So, I make a large batch of croissant dough once a year, create a variety of goodies including cinnamon morning buns, chocolate filled croissant, and plain croissant.  It takes two days start to finish, but believe me, you've never had a croissant like a homemade one! {and most of this time is spent chilling and proofing, so it's not like making croissant is all you're doing for two days}  After they bake, we enjoy a few and then pop the rest into the freezer to ration throughout the year.  I reserve them for special occasions like when I have someone over for coffee or tea, and often when I need a break from reality!

I make cinnamon rolls more regularly, depending on how badly I'm craving them  :P  But again, of the three hours it takes, only 45 minutes is active, preparing the dough and forming the rolls!

I have a treat jar that I try to keep filled with cookies, biscotti, or scones.  But baking a batch once a week or so is something I really enjoy, so to me it's time well spent   :)

When it comes to more basic baked goods like bread, biscuits, rolls, etc.  There's no avoiding them!

Our family is full of carboholics, and I am the chiefest among them.  So I try to strictly ration our intake.  I limit our typical bread use to a loaf a week, which means that I only have to make four loaves (one batch) a month!  If sandwiches or french toast are on the menu, I make a fresh loaf or two to have specifically for that meal.  It fits quite easily into our daily schedule between lessons, meals, and cleaning   :)

Rolls, focaccia, pizza crust, biscuits, frybreads, cornbread...are made fresh on the days they're on the menu.  None of which takes that much more time than opening a box and mixing Bisquick or Jiffy with additional ingredients, or opening a can and popping them in the oven!  Just as an aside, if I know we're having one of these with our dinner, or if we're having pasta, I try to make eggs for breakfast and avoid carbs at lunch! This not only creates healthier eating habits, it also saves me TIME.

Instead of buying cereal, I make granola once a month {unless I have orders to fill}.  I use a huge Wilton sheet cake pan--I'd love to have a second one of those-- and bake two batches throughout the day.  I've never weighed what I make just for our family, but I'm guessing it's at least 10 lbs!  I store  it in really cool, vintage canisters :) --------->

Aside from granola and eggs with toast, we make alot of farina and oatmeal {which we buy bulk}, baked oatmeal, oven pancakes {it's like  a baked custard with crust}, cheesy grits {made overnight in the crock}, and pancakes.  By the time I finish prepping a "real" breakfast, my kiddos are usually finished with their morning chores, so the time it takes doesn't rob time from something else.  Saturday mornings we have a big country breakfast like sausage gravy and biscuits...Mmm...

Lunch at our house usually includes leftovers, or something that I whip up using leftovers.  Like baked mac-n-cheese with leftover chicken and broccoli from the night before, beef and noodles, or potato pancakes made with leftover mashed potatoes. This obviously cuts down on a lot of waste!

For dinner, I usually make nice, big meals.  From pizza and pastas to Mexican; meat and potato meals, soups, and stews.  We use alot of veggies, and we try to incorporate beans where we can to stretch the meat, and do one night every week meatless.  Cuban beans and rice, meatless soups and pastas, risotto, loaded baked potatoes...just a few things that we incorporate into our menu to help save. 

Seasonally, there are definitely times where prepping and
cooking seem to take over.

Christmas time is spent making truffles, turtles, candies, and cookies...I sometimes feel that I'm drowning in chocolate!  But they make a special, inexpensive gift, and I always reserve some for the freezer to enjoy throughout the year.

Summer is berry season!  We devote many days during the summer to picking, cleaning, and preparing berries for the winter.   We freeze gallons of blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries, make jams and sauces.

The makings of Winter sauce

During harvest season I easily spend a week cleaning and freezing bushels of beans, beets, leeks, greens, roasting and freezing peppers and onions.  Canning tomatoes, sauces, and pickles.   I have aspirations of doing more and more every year, but it seems that I always underestimate how much we'll use throughout the winter!  Then there are the apples.   Right now I have about five paper bags full sitting on the pews on my front porch just waiting to be made into sauce, apple butter, and sliced for the freezer.  I do the apple sauce during the day, the butter overnight (it takes FOR.EV.ER), and can the next day.  Many little hands make light (but messy) work of peeling and slicing.

Three bushels of tomatoes made this year's sauces and diced tomatoes

 What else is there...

Yogurt and cheese!

I start my yogurt before bed and let it sit, warmed, overnight.  Voila!  I get to wake up to fresh yogurt, mix in some honey and vanilla (or whatever else I want) and fill up my recycled  containers to store it in the fridge for the rest of the month.  I usually make a half gallon at a time, but am thinking about moving up to a gallon.

I've experimented a bit with different cheeses, and make other varieties irregularly, but the only one I make often is ricotta.   Making ricotta literally takes 10 minutes, and all you need is milk and vinegar or lemon juice!  You can make it in whatever quantity you need and the resulting whey is fabulous for baking, and makes delicious, high protein pancakes too!

Moving out of the kitchen and into the laundry room...

When I decided to make my own laundry detergent, I first began making the liquid (gel) variety.  I was shocked that I could fill the economy size laundry detergent bottles using a cup and a half of actual cleaning product!  The rest was WATER!!!!   It horrified me to realize that all those years I had been spending $20 on 5 gallons of water and a cup of actual detergent!  I really wasn't a fan of making the stuff as often as I had to, so I began just mixing the detergent ingredients together and using it powdered.

I use:

1 box of Borax
1 box of Washing soda
1 bar of Fels Naptha, or other strong soap, finely grated 
{my kitchen aid food processor comes in very handy for this}

I mix it all together WELL in a gallon glass jar I found at a thrift store   :)  This takes about five minutes, and it lasts about three months! And believe me when I say...we do A LOT of laundry.  

All-purpose, disinfecting cleaner takes no more than three minutes to put 
together/bottle if you have everything together.

I fill a spray bottle in each room I use it in regularly {kitchen and two bathrooms} and store it in the cabinet with a roll of paper towels.  That is the only cleaner in my cabinet that I actually use!

Using vinegar, water, alcohol, and ant-microbial E.O.s, you can make a spray that is excellent for cleaning windows, stainless steel, AND disinfecting counters, sinks, and toilets.

Some good E.O.s to use are Tea Tree oil, Lemon oil, Orange oil, Lavendar oil, Thyme oil, and cinnamon leaf oil.  No, don't use all of them together!  But you can choose which ones you'd like to use based on the properties of each oil, and their scent.  In my bathroom, I use Tea Tree oil, Orange, and Lavender because the Tea Tree has a very strong odor, but is a powerful disinfectant.  The Orange and lavender help to mask the scent of the Tea Tree oil.   For my windows and appliances, I use lemon and orange oils {The smell reminds me of margaritas!}


I hope this post has helped to assuage some of your fears, concerns, worries, or just questions...about your ability to keep up with everything you're already doing AND diving head first into the DIY lifestyle.  Again, it truly is a lifestyle, and once you're living it it's hard to imagine life any other way!   It is genuinely fulfilling and satisfying to know that you're doing such an awesome service for you family, and saving money is nice too   ;)

As you begin to see how easy and efficient it all is, I'm sure you'll be happy to know that there's so much more you CAN do!  Soaps, toothpaste, deodorant, facial cleansing cloths, common OTC medicines like Vicks Vapo Rub, cough syrup, the list goes on!

So don't be intimidated, just start somewhere, and HAVE FUN!