Let the fun begin

With some things I do not like using powdered milk for at all in cooking for the household here.  The pancakes and waffles are 2 of the things that I have to have regular milk for.  For this weekend I will be doing alot from scratch cooking without a problem at all and I want to see what my Husband does about all of this.  Well I am figuring chicken for at least one day this weekend here along with gravy for the place and I may just make biscuts also while I am at it.  The strange part about it all is that I am willing to do the biscuts and bread for the household for the weekend here.  This way some can not holler to much about it at all since we will have some things on hand.  I broke down and stopped at Walmart after the doctors office and got a pretty sweet deal for what I got.  I will say this I have new hope for being cheaper around the household in many things for some time to come.  I really do not mind stretching things out around here to the max and going to the cheap stores at all to stretch out the budget as far as I can.  I have beat my Father to a pulp on the cheap stage of it all in my household and my one Aunt has agreed with me on that part of the whole thing.  It is not to hard to do around here at all for what I have done.  Now I will say start slow when you are first starting to cut down on things.  What I did at first was to jump in totally around the trailer.  Well I learned from that also.  So I kept cutting the dryer sheets in half and started using less laundry detergent for the washer and dryer.  And I got to thinking there is only 2 of us in the household here lets see what happens when I cut the burger down to about a half a pound and see how that works out.  It worked like a charm and when I get the big packs of ground meat I split it into half pound portions.  It will work for 4 folks in the household also.  For more folks then add more that is how I look at it.  I have also learned that rice is ok also for the household.  The trick to rice is that you cover it up after it starts boiling turn it down to about med low and cover it then set the timer fro 20 min with it covered and DO NOT PEEK until the timer goes off.  That is how I learned to make rice and a crash course into it also.  Clear lids will help out also for that part so you can check on it unless you have a rice cooker in the household also.  Now another thing that I have totally came to is to pick up bags of flour.  I say bags because I will get 8 bags at a time for the household here.  It takes some time to make homemade from scratch pie crusts, muffins, breads, pizza dough, homemade fried chicken, biscuts, and gravies for the household.  It takes some time to get use to and trust me I have learned over the years on how to make it quick for a hungry bunch waiting for food.  So you figure out right quick on what to do and when to do for cooking.  Now I can say that I picked my grandma's brain for how she did some things in the kitchen and will put it all to use.  I am the only one now that does this besides 2 other girls in the family here on the one end of the family.  Myself and my 2 baby cousins will sit and pick grandma's brain for the good things in life it seems when we are together in the same house with everyone.  Yes we gang up on the poor woman and start picking her brain.  The older way is not always the best to some folks and to some of us it is a huge dream on how to be cheap and what our parents did as children also.  Ok so some of us think right out of the bunch here to say the least.  Also we keep learning around here in the huge old world while we are at it.  Now I still wish that I could have picked great grandma's brain in how she did things bringing up 14 children in the household and I missed out totally on her knowledge pluss what the poor woman did as a child.  I never knew why she hated banana's until I was older and I can giggle about it now since I always ate and did not care in what it was.  I have also been cutting down on other things here for the household while I have been here in the household.  The power bill is like nothing here since National Grid screwed themselves so space heaters it is for the main floor here and the gas bill from the furnace and water tank will go down here this month.  I can laugh at this point because I have it somewhat made here in the household totally.  Once you figure out where to be cheap at then go for it around the household totally.  Yes you will get slack from some folks out there that you know and alot of times you can ignore them totally in your place.