I am a huge lover and admirer of owls – whenever we visit an animal sanctuary it is the first animal that I want to see. While thrift store shopping a couple of years ago, the mister noticed this set of ceramic owls in the window. We immediately went inside to check them out. I was drawn to their quirky shape and giant eyes – when you turn them over they each have a beautiful, hand painted floral design on the back. I knew I had to have them – they were a steal too, only $3 for the set. While doing a little research on them this morning, I found out that they are vintage Mexican Tonala pottery. I found several similar owls on eBay and Etsy but nothing exactly like the set that I have – ranging from $18-$40 for a set.
If your family is like mine, groceries are a major part of your budget, so it is essential to take several steps to stretch your grocery shopping budget. Remember when I paid $1 for $30 worth of groceries at Whole Foods – well, Eben and I did it again yesterday, this time we spent $2 on $46 worth of groceries (above photo). Here are the ten steps that my family takes to make our grocery shopping trips as healthy, sustainable and budget-friendly as possible.
1. Create a Grocery Shopping Budget: When you have a set amount of money that you can spend on groceries it takes the guess work out of “how much did I spend?” It gives you the option to make better choices and to decide what grocery items are sustainable, healthy, necessary, and affordable. We try to only go grocery shopping twice a month, so we divide our monthly budget in half. Just remember to save enough money from your budget, so when you have to stop to pick up fresh fruit, vegetables, bread and milk in between grocery trips, it won’t take you over your budget.
2. Create and Shop with a Meal Plan and List: Sit down with your family and discuss what meals they would like to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also, discuss the snacks and beverages that you would like to have stocked in your pantry. Remember to take school box and work lunch meal plans into consideration when creating your meal plan and list. By creating a meal plan, you will know exactly what items you need to prepare the meal and you won’t have a hard time deciding what is for dinner. This will lessen the chance of everyone jumping into the car for a fast food run. If you need help planning meals, you can check out one of my favorite websites Supercook, which allows you to enter the ingredients that you have on hand and then it will generate recipes that you can make with those ingredients.
3. Electronic Coupons and Buying on Sale: There are many great online services where you can print or order your own natural and organic food and product coupons. Here are my favorite online resources, I also recommend emailing the companies that you love, tell them and they may send you free coupons! I always combine my free manufacturer coupons with store coupons – this gives me money back to use on another purchase.
When shopping for a bargain, consider the store brand. In many cases the store brand is made for your local store by one of the bigger brand names. For instance, if you shop at a big box warehouse, the store brand organic, fair trade, rain forest alliance certified coffee that you purchase, may very well be made by Starbucks. If your favorite organic cereal, granola bars, soups, snacks or staples are on sale, buy as many as you can afford and stock up. Most of these types of pantry items will keep well for weeks, if not months from the date that you purchased them. You can save a ton of money if you stock up on the items that you would usually buy anyhow. This can work well for meat, poultry, fish and frozen food items that you can bring home, divide up and freeze.
4. Buy Local Seasonal Produce and Only What You Can Use: You can save a lot of money by buying organic fruits and vegetables that are in season. In season produce is not only less expensive because of the availability but in most cases this produce tastes the best. When purchasing produce, make sure that you are only purchasing what your family will actually consume before it spoils. This can also apply to other items that you purchase while grocery shopping. It is very Earth friendly to purchase local produce that isn’t shipped halfway around the world consuming enormous amounts of energy in the process. Also, it is a great feeling to support your local agriculture and farmers. Check with your local meat, poultry, dairy and produce farmers to find out if the products that they sell are possible organic but just not labeled as such. Many local farmer’s grow and produce organic products but are unable to afford the organic certification that is required by law.
5. Buy Loose, in Bulk and Bring Your Own Container: Utilizing your local big box warehouse is a valuable tool in purchasing fabulous organic and environmentally friendly products at a much better price. If you don’t feel that your family will consume these items in such large quantities, ask a friend or family member to go in halves and then split the products. Buying in bulk is much more friendly on your wallet and bulk items require less packaging and shipping which is also better on the environment. You can purchase loose items such as cereals, teas, spices, coffee, honey, peanut and almond butter, snacks and grains in loose bulk at your local natural grocery store. Our family takes our own containers to refill which saves the environment the plastic bag or container that the store provides.
6. Eat Less Meat: Let’s face it, organic meat is more expensive, not only on your wallet but on the environment as well. A plant based diet is definitely better on the environment since livestock is the No. 1 contributor of greenhouse gas emission. You can find protein in many foods such as beans, tofu, mushrooms and grains. A good tip is to base your meal on a certain vegetable and built on it from there, instead of making a meat product the main portion of the meal. A good start is to eliminate one meat based meal a week from your diet and replace it with a fabulous vegetarian dish.
7. Make Your Own Dressings and Marinades: The mister does all of the cooking in our home and he makes all of our dressings and marinades from scratch. He has several cookbooks that he loves and utilizes for great dressing and marinade recipes, or he will just whip a new one up. He’s crazy good like that! He says that a lot of dressings and marinades are simple to make and even easy to create on your own without a recipe. Since we almost never purchase bottles of dressings or marinades, we do not have the packaging to dispose of and the mister can use the highest quality organic ingredients in his recipes.
8. Cook from Scratch, Skip Processed and Packaged Foods: Instead of purchasing meals that come in a box, make your own. It is much better for your health and the health of the environment to make your meals from scratch. You can avoid preservatives, added salt, high fructose corn syrup, trans fat and hydrogenated oils by making your own meals. You have complete control over what goes into the meal that you are preparing for yourself and your family. You save a lot of money making your own meals since packaged and processed foods are much more expensive. When you are creating your own meals from scratch, there isn’t as much packaging waste.
9. Shop Around: My family use to do the majority of our grocery shopping at one big name natural food store. We recently found several smaller natural food stores that carry a lot of the same products and name brands for much less. You can also check your local natural food stores websites for current sales and coupons. This can help you to determine where you will get the most for your money. Utilizing a big box warehouse store is also great for getting great organic products at a much more affordable price.
10. Bring Your Reusable Bags: Many of your local grocery stores may offer a reusable bag program. When grocery shopping if you use your own bags, a certain amount of money is deducted from your total bill. There are many great reusable bags on the market and many of them hold 2-3 times more than the traditional paper or plastic grocery bag. You can also find fabulous produce bags to hold all your fruits and vegetables. Since you reuse the bag over and over again, there is no waste added to the landfill. Paper and plastic bags are horrible on the environment, especially since they are not biodegradable in a landfill and the manufacturing process is super polluting and energy consuming.
What are your favorite green budget friendly grocery shopping tips?
NOTE FROM SWEET GREENS: My grandmother lived in a retirement care facility for the last several years of her life. The decision was made when my grandfather became very ill and remained in a nursing home until he passed. This particular retirement community offered many opportunities for her to socialize, discover new interests, exercise and even get her hair done at the on-site salon. More importantly, she was still able to live in her own little space, a community of people around her – and was able to get assistance whenever she needed it simply by pressing a button. This article on modern solutions to retirement care wasn’t written by me, but I thought the information could be helpful to those of you in this transition in life or helping someone who is. Thank you for supporting the community that help to run Sweet Greens.
Elderly people today are very different from those of previous generations. During retirement many people continue to be active for years – continuing to work part-time, volunteer for causes important to them, spending time with friends and family, discovering new interests and hobbies and perhaps helping with the care of their grandchildren. However, when they are no longer able to keep up their own home, take care of their daily needs or need assistance getting around, their living situation will need modification.
Traditional care for older people
There has recently been a lot of concern about standards in retirement care homes throughout the world. While there are good retirement care homes, cost pressures may impact on important areas such as staff training, so standards are not always as high as they should be. It is very important to carefully research the retirement care home before placing your family member in one.
Even if an individual needs care, moving into a retirement care home is not the only available option. Some older people find moving in with family members works for them and their families, but this depends very much on the individuals.
Sometimes moving close to family members is enough to make it possible to stay independent for longer. If you do not want to rely on your family, or do not have close relatives, packages of retirement care can be arranged in your own home from professional caregivers, but the disadvantage of this is that visiting caregivers are not always allocated enough time to meet all of the necessary needs, meaning that you may have to work with many different caregivers in a week.
Modern trends in care for older people
Retirement villages have been popular all around the world for quite some time. Perhaps one of the best solutions available is to buy or rent in a retirement village where you can maintain your privacy and independence but have the security of knowing that the help you need with your day-to-day life is there, as well as opportunities to enhance your social life, engage in fun activities and explore new interests and hobbies.
The benefits of living in a retirement community include the fact that residents can enhance their social life while maintaining their independence. If residents need assistance in any aspect of daily living it can be arranged by the staff. It gives peace of mind knowing that care is available if and when needed.
Retirement villages often have their own centers with cafes, restaurants, hair salons, libraries, fitness facilities and launderettes available for residents to use if they choose. With social activities and programs available to suit people with all levels of ability, making socializing and discovering new activities and hobbies with your neighbors and building friendships very easy.
The individual homes in retirement villages can be one, two or three-bedroom houses, condos, or apartments. They are equipped with emergency alarms and the level of care will be tailored to the needs of the individual. It is good to know that if your care needs increase, the amount of help you get can be increased as well.
An increasing number of retired people as young as 55 are choosing to make their homes in retirement villages where they find all the facilities they need and are likely to need throughout their retirement.
One of the things that I miss most about our home in Colorado – the garden. I have amazing memories of building a raised garden bed and planting vegetables with the boys! Gardening was an activity that all of us loved. It was a great way to bond with each other. And we always had a bounty of goodies ready at harvest time. Oh, how I miss that!
I remember after planting the seeds (on this particular day) we came out the next morning to find our garden markers had washed away during a rainstorm. We had to wait until things started to sprout to remember what we had planted in the different sections. Ha!
I saw these adorable garden markers by Plant Picket and thought they were brilliant. I love that they mark each vegetable with a visual. Wouldn’t these be perfect for children who can’t read yet! There would be no worry that these sturdy markers would wash away in the rain either. Hooray for gardening!
At the beginning of the summer, we decided to move from a huge three-level townhouse into a super small 2 bedroom townhouse. Our decision was based on wanting to decrease our impact on the environment by downsizing into a much smaller space that would require less energy and resources to maintain and would be closer to everything we needed, making it easy to get around by bicycle or on foot.
When deciding to downsize, the mister and I agreed that we would only choose a home that had an outdoor space. We knew that if we were going to lose a lot of square footage inside that we would need an outdoor space where we could sneak away for a little peace and quiet to read a good book, eat dinner outside every evening and entertain friends and family on the weekends. Luckily, we found a home with an amazing front patio – large enough for a dining, grilling and lounging.
Here is what we started with:
Doesn’t look very inviting, does it? To start, we thoroughly cleaned the area, and went through our garage to find items that we already owned to use in the space. We had an outdoor sofa that we thought would be too large to place in the space. However, once we situated next to the front door, we were pleased to find that it fit almost perfectly. We noted that it would need new cushions and pillows. We repurposed the coffee table that came with the outdoor sofa and made it into a side table/bar to go next to the dining area. It has been perfect for holding cocktail mixers, snacks and extra food so the table doesn’t get cluttered up during dinner.
The second step was to find a dining table and chair set that was large enough to accommodate 6-7 people on the weekends when we have friends and family over. However, it needed to be small enough to fit into the space with comfortable seating since we would be using it every day for our family dinners. My first thought was to keep an eye on Craigslist – and it paid off. I found a large, round, wrought-iron table (the table is large enough to sit 7 comfortably) it came with a set of 4 beautifully designed chairs. I negotiated with the owner for a couple of weeks until we agreed on a great price – $200. When we have friends over, it add folding chairs to give us more seating.
The next step was to cozy up the space, add a little personality and make it inviting and fun. I was super excited and lucky to have Sabrina Sota, HGTV star and Target Home Style Expert help me with the process. I sent Sabrina some photos and questions regarding the patio, she offered some great suggestions and product ideas to glam the space up. Here is the Q+A from our design consultation.
Sweet Greens: The patio chairs are very heavy duty, large and will last a lifetime, however they are a tad uncomfortable – what would you suggest to add comfort?
Sabrina: • Adding cushions or outdoor pillows will make chairs more comfortable and inviting!
• Also, consider incorporating a throw for those chilly fall evenings!
Sweet Greens: The patio currently lacks personality, what elements would you recommend we add to glam the space up?
Sabrina: • A key element in any space, whether it be indoors or outdoors, is the use of color. Color plays an important role as it sets the overall mood of any given space. I always like to pick three colors in a 60:30:10 ratio relationship to each other for perfect coverage!
• Another key element is the use of textures and materials. These can be incorporated through accessories or larger furniture pieces such as seating or tables.
Sweet Greens: There is a large blank wall on the patio I would love to utilize. What would you suggest?
Sabrina: • Think of the wall as a blank canvas. The wall is the perfect opportunity to tie in all the elements and colors of the space together! • Proper lighting is also important. If you have no vertical space for an outdoor lamp or standing lantern, use the wall for solar hanging lights or subtle sparkle!
Sweet Greens: If you could do a complete makeover of my patio, what would you envision?
Sabrina: • As the existing walls offer a neutral palette, I would definitely try to bring out the space with color! The space should be inviting with a nice mix of conversational pieces and dining sets. I love the idea of bringing the indoors outside. Incorporate welcoming items such as a rug and fire bowl set. Play with textures and patterns for a truly fun and friendly space!
The mister and I hit Target inspired by Sabrina’s recommendations, along with a list of items that we knew we would need. Here are some of the pieces we decided to purchase:
NOTE: When purchasing new, I suggest that you only buy items that are quality made (so they will last forever or a really long time) and eco-friendly was possible and available.
The solar lanterns combined with the spaces’ overhead lighting put off just enough light for those early evening dinners. The design and color of the lanterns bring personality to the space and the ceramic is heavy-duty so we know these will last forever.
We choose the leafy cushions because they are very durable and add the texture and comfort we were looking for.
We ended up giving the outdoor sofa cushions a good cleaning and decided to keep them and jazz the sofa up with the fun, bright Dahlia pillows.
I surprised the mister with the grill for Father’s Day – every guy needs a grill for those summer weekends. We love having the grill in the space, it allows the mister to converse with guests while he is cooking.
The peacock was Eben’s addition to the space, I always like him to pick out a piece or two when we are creating a space. It makes him feel involved in the process, let’s him use his creative chops and lets him know that the space is for him too. The peacock adds a little fun, color and whimsy to the entry way to the patio. The children who visit our home love it!
Finally, we choose a reusable set of Threshold dishes for use on the patio. We had been using our nice dishes for dinners outside and several were broken from taking them in and out of the house. We decided a good set of reusable dishes for the patio would be much more eco-friendly than using disposables. Do not place these types of dishes in the microwave or dishwasher!
I love the way the project came together – we have been enjoying our new space all summer.
Here is a peek of how the makeover turned out:
Thank you for taking the time to check out our patio makeover. I huge thank you to Target + Sabrina Soto for helping to make this happen. We hope it inspired you to revamp your patio for the summer. You can get 20% off patio sale items at Target here.
Full Disclosure: I am a member of the Target Inner Circle, all opinions expressed are my own. I was provided a gift card to purchase some of the items used in this makeover.
