being poor-ish

so, lately the full extent of our lack of money has been sinking in... its a little depressing, and makes me realize just how bad we can be with money a lot of the time. I mean, I know there are plenty of people who have way less than us to live on, and they make it, but it's still tough living on one income no matter how you look at it. It's not as though Cape Crud is the cheapest place to live either. Anyway, being cheap or frugal or whatever you want to call it means a lot more work for me in the end.

So, to save a little money on groceries I have been doing things like baking our own bread (it costs me about $1 to bake a full-sized loaf of bread versus paying almost $4 for a comparable loaf at the local grocery store), growing our summer veggies and raspberries (I originally bought $40 of raspberry canes and when they are in season we get about a half pint every 2 days for a couple weeks at a time... when you consider that it costs about $4 to $5 for a half pint at the local grocery store, then we have been eating free berries since the beginning of this summer), and trying to not buy any pre-made meals (ingredients cost SO much less than pre-made food). With all these things though, we are still just barely making it in our food budget now that food prices are rising a lot lately... an example: We buy bottled water because our water is of unknown quality and doesn't taste good. The water we buy used to cost 79 cents a bottle a couple months ago, now it costs $1.19. The bread we used to buy cost $3.09 when we used to buy it a couple years ago, now it costs $3.99. Yet our food budget has not changed. We still need to get the same amount of food with that $100 that we did before, but $100 doesn't go as far. So, what to do? And then there is the problem of new clothes and shoes for E. L can use E's hand me downs, and A and I are just out of luck cause we can't possibly afford new clothes for ourselves... I am running on 3 pairs of socks one of which has holes, but I can't afford new ones... I'll have to wait for Christmas for them.

I don't mean to complain really... just put it out there.... and maybe offer some of you reading a few good ideas of things you can do too (like take some raspberry plants off my hands! They are taking over my yard now!!), maybe a recipe here or there... a progect to do with your kids... a money saving tip now and then... some ideas for inexpensive things to do with your kids.