Co-housing to ease financial loads

If you would have asked me years ago, I would have replied I could never share a house with another family. But when we made the decision to move to Oregon, that is exactly what we did, as we had grown tired of trying to shoulder everything ourselves. No community to lean on, fighting not just our fight with having cancer but our financial struggles as well. We were given an opportunity to share a really large house with another family who also has their fair share of financial struggles.

It was not easy at first, it was a huge adjustment period, learning everyone's personalities, laying expectations out on the table and communicating everyone's needs and looking for solutions to  live peacefully within a tribe. Over time we have become family and bonds have been built which is different than simply a friendship when you share living space with others.

In many ways it quickly became a blessing especially with news of my cancer spreading again where I would need treatments again.  Housework is shared, rent , electricity and internet is split, food is kept separate with the exception of occasional community meals. We have our private spaces but share great company when we are up to it, regardless of weather conditions. There is an abundance of laughter and genuine caring about everyone in the household too.

 It is really nice to share the financial loads and is allowing hubby time to try his hand at entrepreneurship and grow a business. It also allows our room mate to try to grow her home business as well. While Co-housing certainly is not for everyone, we are finding it beneficial on many levels and for both families, not just one. By leaning on each other for now, we are raising each other up and allowing us this opportunity that otherwise never would have been able to happen. By leaning on each other, we were able to raise the bar in a standard of living, we did not have alone.

It has really been an amazing experience to open our minds up to this kind of lifestyle. How long will we co-house together? Nobody really knows, but for now it is working very well for our families and that is all that matters.

Before Shopping Photos #2

You may remember our Before Shopping Photos a little over a year ago, before receiving SNAP when our monthly grocery amount averaged $250 a month for a family of 5. You can refresh your memory and see that post HERE.

For the last 6 months we have been receiving 575 a month ( which now has gone down for the next 6 months  to $505) for a family of now 4. This is a whole lot of food for us and as you can see, puts us at a much better standing at the end of a grocery term, right before the major shopping day around the 5th of each month.

The first photo shows the  small chest freezer we purchased at the beginning of the year with a 25 pound bag of flour, several bags of homemade stock and some fries. Items were transferred from here to fill the freezer above the refrigerator so that the chest freezer had room for that days shopping.

The next photo is the fridge freezer after the chest freezer had been combined in it. It is full and has no room in it for more. It has frozen fruits,  veggies, a pork loin roast,  a duck, a whole chicken, chicken breasts,  sweet potato fries, pork chops and a steak that was on sale.

The next photo of the refrigerator, well  that is actually pretty empty but has milk, butter, eggs and some condiments left.

Then we get to the cupboards that has oatmeal, sauerkraut, soups, relish, tomato paste, jelly, raisins, and some rice a roni boxes (my sons friend gave us them as it is not something I would buy).  The one cupboard I forgot to take photos of, has fresh potato's, brown rice  and 10 pounds of rolled oats..

All in All I had 2 weeks worth of meals still at the end of the month, breakfasts and dinners were covered, however we were lacking things for lunch  although I could have fudged that for a little by making muffins, waffles, biscuits and banana breads as I have bananas frozen already for that purpose.

As for the duck, my hubby and kids have never had duck before so I wanted to give them that experience as this country girl loves a good duck! While it is pretty expensive, I was able to purchase it due to how frugal I am in general for grocery shopping.  It is in my freezer for a special occasion dinner, and this is the only meat I purchased last month that was not on sale.  All the other meats were drastically reduced and I pick them up through out the month when I see them at the greatly reduced prices which builds up our food  inventory at home.

All in all , the food stamps certainly puts us in a much more comfortable position at the end of a food shopping period and we plan on building up our food  inventory in a very substantial way over the next 6 months when our goal is to get back off of the food stamps.

How long would your food stash last if that was all you had?

Frugal Fun Family Afternoon!

My daughter starts feeling really bored and trapped when we stay home for far too long of stretches and everything follows a simple basic mundane routine of each day blending together in sameness. She is a very active 12 year old who loves creativity and newness so this is to be expected. She does not accept me having cancer or our finances being an issue as an answer, or a good answer anyways. Now granted sometimes this means she just wants us  to spend some family time together playing board games or doing something together. Other times it means she is desperate to get out of the house and go do something fun! I can't say as I blame her,  I think most of us feel this way from time to time especially for  those of us who really stay home a good share of the time.

So when my chemo was cancelled for the second week in a row this past Tuesday due to my white cell count still being low, I decided to take full advantage of us having 2 whole days off as a family including hubby! I  had $35 to our name, so knew it had to be frugal  is as frugal does! My 15 year old son had been asking to go to Game Stop for a few weeks now. We do not go that often because it is in another town 30 miles away, the same distance as my hospital for chemo trips but in the opposite direction! We had already put the gas in our truck though for chemo prior to it being cancelled!

So I had hubby and the kids  go through all  their Xbox 360 games  to gather what they no longer wanted or played which brought up a dozen games to return for store credit. We went to Game Stop and took  our time with no hurrying or rushing where we had enough store credit for each member to choose a new video game. They love going here and for 4  new video games  the out of pocket expense to us was only .70 cents! WOOT WOOT!

Our daughter also loves clothes shopping and at 12 let me tell you she has been growing continuously so always needs new clothes. There happens to be 2 thrift stores in the area of Game Stop, a Salvation Army and a Good Will. She got to go to both and found a couple items at each, I also was able to find a like brand new pair of jeans at Salvation Army. I was happy about this because other than a couple of sweat pants hubby got me at the start of chemo treatments, I only had one black pair of corduroy pants that fit me that again was purchased after loosing a bunch of weight from the cancer.

Then stopped by Walmart to pick up a couple things for dinner at home. All in  all we only spent $15 while the kids enjoyed their afternoon out, even our 15 year old son enjoys going to thrift stores. At home they all played their new video games with each other while I fixed a nice dinner.

$15 for an afternoon day of fun for family of 4, not so bad!