Pneumonia and Chicken Soup

So sorry for the radio silence.  I am still getting use to the idea that I have a blog...that maybe someone reads...that I should consider updating. Anyway,  most of what has been pulling me away from the keyboard has been Greg's nasty case of pneumonia.  Technically, only "walking" pneumonia, but it has been a fun round of antibiotics, tea and chicken soup.  He's definitely out of the weeds, now, which is great, but it's slow going.  Being sick poses a few challenges when you're trying to live on a short budget.  Doctors visits and medicines are nastily expensive, but ABSOLUTELY necessary.  Tea, cough drops and Kleenex are also necessary, but man oh man, has our CVS bill been through the roof this month. All money well spent if it means getting healthier faster, but it really does start to add up.

I have been furiously cooking any all warming foods I could thing of.  We've had at least 5 types of soup in the past week, aided by homemade chicken stock.  At $1.89 a pound, I bought a 3 pound chicken at Eastern Market last weekend.  We roasted it with potatoes, carrots and turnips, covered it it lemon, oil and salt and had a grand old feast.  With the left over meat I made chicken tacos the next night (which also got us lunch the following day).  With the picked over chicken carcass, we made about 12 cups of beautiful, flavorful chicken stock.  I have a couple jars in the fridge and the rest in the freezer to be pulled out when needed.  So, for under $6 we had protein for 3 meals and enough stock for at least 2 big batches of soup. Brilliant! 

mmm! chicken tacos taste even better after days of soup!

This post is low on the details of how the plan is going,  more about getting into the swing of posting.  As the end of January roles around, we'll give a good summary of who, what, when, why, how, etc.

Weekly Round up

Sorry for the delayed weekly round up.  For those of you who haven't already heard, we had a little medical emergency on Thursday evening when my mom drove herself to the ER.  I have been a bundle of nerves since then.  But she started to improve, a lot and quite quickly, and even though the docs couldn't seem to figure out what was wrong they sent her home on Friday night. 

We took her home and made green chile cheese burgers, which made everyone feel better.  Greg also woke up sick on Saturday.  So, the whole house has been hanging out, convalescing.  You know what they say, a family that convalesces together, stays together...

Needless to say, it's been an interesting weekend.  Many thanks to all the family and friends who lent support, love and words of comfort.  Now that everyone is on the mend, let's talk money.

Accomplishments over the past week:

Mini-dinner party with the mom before all hell broke loose.  
Greg made a first payment on the debt to his parents.
I made my standard payment on school loans (I have big plans to pay of a large amount at the beginning of February, more on the thought process behind this later...).

I also paid off my credit card today, but this is a standard monthly practice for me.  I got my first credit card about a year and a half ago, knowing full well that my younger self would not have managed my money well and that I would have even more debt than I now.   When I first got my credit card I had at $500 limit.  I used it for bills, going out to dinner, and then I would pay off the whole thing each month.  Before a big European adventure last year, I asked the bank to up my limit.  They bumped me up to $1,500.  I still use it sparingly enough that I can pay it off totally (or almost) each month.  It allows me for a little extra wiggle room with my finance but I never let myself get out of control. 

A Dinner of French Onion Soup

Tonight marked our first dinner party on the Fast.  To be fair, it was just us and my mom, but that doesn't make it any less of a party.  We toasted the Fast and the wonderful opportunity of week-day dinners together.

It all started because of one of Greg's wild cravings.  Anyone who doesn't know this about Greg, well, I guess it's public knowledge now-they come and can't be ignored until satisfied.  A few months ago Wendy's was all Greg wanted.  The craving didn't die until he brought home a junior bacon cheese burger, a spicy chicken sandwich, fries and a frosty. 

This week, the craving was set on french onion soup.  I whole heartily believe this is a better craving than Wendy's (though, I must admit, I do love french fries dunked in an ice cold frosty).  So, I indulged him, figuring a big vat of onion soup had to be fairly cost effective. 

Knowingly serving french onion soup and not calling my mother would be, well, a dangerous move. She adores french onion soup, can't resist ordering it if it's on the menu and spent a good portion of her first visit to France in 1971 looking for "french" onion soup.  Needless to say, she didn't find quite what she was looking for...c'est la vie!

Over the weekend I bought beautiful onions at Eastern Market.  While we usually make our own veggie stock, beef stock is not a staple in our freezer, so I bought some while out at the Market, too. Today Greg grabbed fresh herbs, wine and cheese and baked up two beautiful loves of fresh bread. 

Greg's version of the classic came from Best Recipes. Onion-y, not too sweet, lots of fresh herbs and the right balance of fat in the brown broth.  Served in hand made bowls (thanks to yours truly), covered in fresh toast and slightly burnt Swiss cheese, it was decadent.

 All totaled, I think our soup was about $2.50/serving, which sounds steep for a vegetable soup.  Maybe my conversion is off?  Or, maybe it was the wine and cheese. TBD.  Anyway, it supplied a spectacular meal for this evening and lunch for tomorrow. We even sent some leftovers home with my mom- think she'll share?

Action Plan! Away!

Okay, short and sweet.  This is how we do it (queue song).

These are the things we find necessary:

1. Rent
2. DC public transportation
3. Our portable telephones
4. Our interwebs
5. Electricity and gas
6. On-line movies
7. On-line yoga instruction
8. Medication
9. Laundry
10. Food for our faces


Any special occasions will be adjudicated upon and we will do our best.  Otherwise, you're getting a homemade gift.  The thought, as they say, is what counts.  Knit pom-pom hats for everybody!

In future blog posts we'll be giving (hopefully) weekly updates.  Here's our first, though we must admit we got off to a slightly rocky start.

We arrived home late on the 30th and didn't go grocery shopping...both Meg and I spent a little bit on eating out January 1.  Damn. We remedied the situation and are munching on fresh veggies, fruits and the multitude of grains in our larder.

Meg got a new job this month and was lucky enough to get some Christmas clothing.  Needless to say, her new job requires new shoes.  Don't ask me, I don't understand.  However, upon consideration it was deemed worthy if she took the money out of her savings account.  Bending the rules, right?  It slides this time.  I'm sure she'll put pictures of herself in them up somewhere.

My bike didn't want to go down the street and needed a new back wheel.  I spent 70 bucks and an hour watching the guy fix it up.  I know now how to fix a back wheel and feel confident that I will be able to do more and more repairs on our bikes myself.

Beyond that, we are full steam ahead with this.  Or, more accurately, we are sitting in our apartment, sober and writing a blog post on a Friday night.  Ain't responsibility awesome?

A short introduction

This may be a bit late to kick off a year long project, but we were busy so this will just have to do.

All of this started with an idea--to lead a more unencumbered life. In pursuit of that goal, Meg and I have tried to figure out ways to be happier and more content. Forgoing a television, hiking more, recipe hunting. We recognized that this things make us happy, therefore we need to do them.

Yet we were constantly bothered by our monetary debts. We saw ourselves make poor choices, purchasing when we shouldn't have. Perfectly okay when you don't owe money to someone, but in our case we did. This led Meg to discover a blog called And Then We Saved.  Blog founder Anna Newell Jones managed to erase about $23,000 of debt in 15 months with the Spending Fast and Spending Diet.  Visit her site to learn more about the Spending Fast and her experience in living thrifty.

Our goal is a bit different, between the both of us we have $41,000 in combined school loans and credit card debt as of this moment.  Hopefully by the end of this year, that number will be significantly smaller.  We are writing this blog as a way to hold ourselves accountable to ourselves and to also share with everyone we know and love what we are doing.  To that end, we apologize well in advance for missing dinners, drinks, presents, and vacations.  On that note, we know that there are exceptions coming down the pike (we have a plan, we swear).  We are still going be our normal selves, our crazy foolish selves, just on a stricter budget.

So we look forward to everything everyone has to say, comment, rant, agree, disagree, or observe.  We really want ways to entertain ourselves (and you!) on the cheap.  So all you in the DC area, we need some help in that department.  In effort to keep this first post short, we'll leave it there.  More details and exactly how we are going to do this to follow.

Love,

Meg and Greg