Have an end-of-the-month budget balance evaluation that works for you.

In every area of your life, it is a good idea to evaluate how you did during the previous month and to plan for the next. Your financial situation is no exception.

The first question you must ask yourself is, did you have money left over at the end of your month or did you have month left over at the end of your money?

I hope you took a percentage of around ten percent off the top of your income for savings. You want at least $1000 (or equivalent in your area) in easily accessible savings that you can use in case of an emergency.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you still have money in your bank account at the beginning of the month. You are doing better than 64% of people living in the United States. If you find yourself short however and your bank account is empty at the end of the month, now is a great time to evaluate what happened that made you short. If you cut into the 10% that you took off the top for savings, you’re still not where you need to be, so if you come up short, ask yourself these questions. Was there an illness, or was there some other emergency that came up? Did you have a major unexpected car repair? Did you go on a shopping spree or out with friends on an unplanned event? Look at all possibilities and then strategize how you might be able to avoid that next month.  If you had an emergency, then be sure to put money back into your savings account next month.

Look at how it is that you have money left over at the end of the month. Did you work overtime? Did you make an unexpected windfall from your business? Did you do that well in saving money? By determining how you were able to have money left over at the end of the month will help you determine if you can continue doing that or if you might want to change things so that you don’t have to work so hard.

If you paid off one of your credit cards or loans, celebrate in some way. You have increased your financial situation considerably and have more money each month to invest in yourself instead of someone else. It’s like money that you no longer have to work so hard to get because that bill is no longer part of your financial equation.

If you find that you’ll have more money next month, designate as much as possible to your emergency fund as necessary. If you already have a solid $1000 in your emergency fund, I suggest that you consider investing your savings into food, especially in the autumn months.

Take Advantage of Fall Harvests

Food is one of those expenses that each of us needs to invest in every day and you’ll get the biggest return on the money you invest when you invest in food in the fall.

During the fall months, especially this year, it will be important to make certain that you have a sizable amount of food to last several months. Farm and garden harvests come in during the late summer and early fall so getting food in bulk during this time and preserving it to last for the next several months is an excellent way to make your savings work for you—big time.

Many kinds of fruit and vegetables can be bought during this time. I remember when my eldest son was a baby I went to an auction and bought a bushel of pears for about $4. I canned it and had it for several months. Around here there are a number of these auctions that occur every year. If canning is your thing, this might be a good way to invest any money you can spare during the next few months.

Also, a lot of ranchers are cutting back on stock right now and meat is apt to cost less in the autumn than it will be in late winter and into the spring so if you have freezer space, invest in meat if possible. We talked to someone this week who has beef for sale for $4 per pound and we’re buying 20 pounds.

The same is true for grains. Grains have also been recently harvested and are more likely now to be more available than they will be later in the winter and in the spring. Grains can be bought in bulk which can then be used for making bread and breakfasts. A fifty-pound bag of oatmeal at half a cup per meal and be used for 571 meals for one person. A fifty-pound bulk bag of oatmeal costs me about $30 dollars where I live.

Six Months’ Worth of Food

I like to keep six months’ worth of food available in my home at any one time. I would suggest to anyone that getting extra food to last for six months should be the next step after having established an emergency fund.

And Beyond

If you have six months’ worth of food, then you can go ahead and either work to pay off debt, invest in your business, or increase your savings so that you have six months of relatively liquid assets to use to pay expenses for that long.

Unplanned problems usually occur at the worst times. Last week my refrigerator gave out during some of the hottest weather of the season, but it was a whole week before the new one was delivered. Monday, the new refrigerator arrived.

It all started on Friday night over a week ago after I had baked the cookies for the farmers’ market when my husband commented that the light in the refrigerator wasn’t working. We soon realized that it wasn’t just the refrigerator light, but the refrigerator wasn’t cooling either.

Because we were going to the farmers’ market, I made sure to take all the vegetables that we had grown to the market because we wouldn’t have any place to store them where it would be cool. Fortunately, all the vegetables we had to sell were sold.

Cleaning Out the Old Refrigerator

After the farmers’ market, we picked up a bag of ice and some individual drinks from the store as well as a half-gallon of milk instead of our usual gallon. We put the ice in the coolers and then I sorted out all of the food in the refrigerator. I stored certain condiments on the counter that really didn’t need to be refrigerated, but we preferred to keep it cold when we used them. These were things like catsup and mustard. I had just used up the last of the mayonnaise so I didn’t have any of that to put in the cooler, but I did put Miracle Whip salad dressing and the ranch dressing in the cooler.

I threw out the stuff that I thought wasn’t worth keeping like old salsa, pizza sauce, pickles that no one was going to eat anyway, and old applesauce. I put it all in the compost bucket and emptied the compost bucket in the flower garden where the chickens had a feast.

The Freezer

The refrigerator freezer was another challenge that I had to overcome. It was packed with food that I had to do something with and our chest freezer was already filled with meat and berries that we had just obtained. I took a few minutes and determined what I didn’t need in there. There were some frozen, freezer-burned vegetables that I donated to the chickens. I had two pounds of butter that I decided to store in the cooler rather. We ate the frozen potato wedges and hamburgers that night to make room for some of the other foods that were in the refrigerator freezer. There were some things that I had kept in the refrigerator freezer that I decided didn’t need to be frozen at all. For instance, I had just bought two pounds of granulated yeast that was still in mylar bags that I just stored in a container in the freezer. I also had been storing the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips in there. I decided they could stay on a shelf in a cupboard rather than let them get waterlogged in the cooler. It was easier to feed the bread scraps that I stored in the freezer to the chickens rather than trying to dry them in the dehydrator during this hot weather. Sometimes you just got to do what you’ve got to do.

Buying the New Refrigerator

Last Tuesday we bought our new refrigerator. We called several places before we ever left home and with that information in hand, we went shopping.

We started out by going to one of those 90-day same as cash places, where we found a refrigerator that was not only the size we wanted but was also on clearance. It looked like quite the deal, however, when we talked to the salesperson, he expected us to pay a one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar delivery fee and since the only available refrigerator of that model was the floor model, we would have to purchase a three-year extended warranty too for another one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar price tag. We decided we would look elsewhere.

The second place we went was a place that was locally-family owned and had been in business for more than fifty years. They were known for their customer service. The refrigerator that they had for sale was $150 more than the one we saw before, but we didn’t have to purchase an extended warranty and they required only an additional thirty dollars for delivery. That’s $120 less than the other place. We purchased that refrigerator. The only problem was that we would need to wait a week for delivery.

The Waiting Week

Since we knew that we had to wait a week, we devised a plan to pick up ice every day along with anything that we might need for that day. We purchased our milk in half-gallon jugs rather than whole gallons and ate a lot of lunch meat because the weather was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day. When we did cook, we cooked meals outside.

A Lot of Canning

Since I didn’t have refrigerator space and my garden is in harvest mode, I have done a lot of canning during the past week and because it was so hot, I limited this activity to the morning hours. We pulled up our bush green beans and canned the green beans that the plants had produced. I canned tomato products every time I had enough tomatoes to make anything. I canned tomato sauce, whole tomatoes, tomato juice, and salsa. Because I had the peppers, I also made hot pepper jelly. Because I didn’t want to store too much in the refrigerator at any time, I decided to can foods in jars of specific sizes to my husband’s and my needs. For instance, I canned tomato juice and canned tomatoes in quart jars because that is how we are likely to use them. I canned tomato sauce in jars in pints because I believe that is how much sauce we are likely to need for a single meal. I canned the salsa and jelly in ½ pint jars because that’s the size we’re likely to use for them. If I had a bigger family to feed, I would use larger jars, but since it’s just my husband and me, these smaller sizes are perfect for us.

Final Preparations for the New Refrigerator

The refrigerator arrived Monday afternoon, but before it arrived, we had to move the old refrigerator so that I could clean behind it before the new one arrived. I had stuff stored on top of it that I decided needed a new home. I rearranged my canning lids and rings so that I only had to get into a small number of them at a time. The bulk of it I put away so that it wasn’t in the way. The casserole dishes I had stored there I moved to another location in the kitchen so that I had better access to them when I needed them. The massive number of paper plates that I had stored up there I decided would go back on the new refrigerator. Once the old refrigerator was moved forward, I swept out the cobwebs and washed the walls, and then swept and mopped the floor. The refrigerator arrived when they said it would, they put it in place, and they hauled off the old model.

Lessons Learned

• I learned long ago that it is always a good idea to have a contingency plan for potential disasters. The worst always seems to happen at the worst possible times. Therefore, it makes sense to be prepared for whatever may come.
• Refrigerators (and freezers) seem to break down at the worst possible times, therefore, canning as much as possible makes sense. (For more on this subject, here are another article that I wrote Using a Deep Freezer Shouldn’t Be the Only Home Preserving Method https://hubpages.com/food/What-I-did-When-My-Freezer-Failed
• Because we have an emergency fund, we were able to purchase the refrigerator with cash
• We decided to purchase a new refrigerator because it is likely to last longer than another used unit would. (The old one had been used and lasted us about two years.)
• Shop around for the right deal and don’t take what looks like the cheapest price. Pay attention to the price of add-ons.
• Customer service is often worth more than you realize until you see what poor customer service looks like.

What could you do in our situation?

My most recent book, the one that I am currently working on I am calling Two Rivers. It is about Isaac Thorton, a young man who leaves behind his family and the girl everyone expected he would marry and goes up the Missouri River with the Lewis and Clark expedition.

This book has led me to research the Lewis and Clark expedition including specific members of the expedition. One of them was Sergeant Charles Floyd.

Sergeant Charles Floyd’s Life

He was the son of Robert Clark Floyd and born in Kentucky in 1782. He was the nephew of James John Floyd, a cousin of Virginia governor John Floyd. His middle name indicates that he was possibly a relative of William Clark.

He was one of the first men to join the expedition. He was a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, and the quartermaster of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He was the only member of the expedition to die during the expedition.

The Circumstances of His Death

Floyd probably died of a ruptured appendix and consequent peritonitis. The ailment was not even recognized by medical science until twenty years after the expedition, and the first successful surgical treatment came in 1884. Probably no physician of the time could have done much more for Floyd than the captains did. A purgative like Rush’s pills, their usual remedy for digestive disorders, could only have hastened Floyd’s death, but this is probably what Dr. Benjamin Rush himself would have prescribed if he had been present—along with bleeding, which would have accomplished nothing. 

Floyd was buried near Sergeant Bluff on the Iowa side of the river, near the present town of Sergeant Bluff, Woodbury County, Iowa.

Floyd’s Legacy

Later travelers often remarked about the site, and George Catlin painted it in 1832. By 1857 the Missouri had undercut the bluff and the grave was opened and some of the bones lost. Citizens of Sioux City moved the bones to a new burial site., and a concrete slab and a one-hundred-foot monument was erected in 1901.

After Floyd’s expedition journal was published in 1894, new interest was taken in his life. In 1895 thieves stole his grave marker and the bones were examined. He was re-buried on August 20, 1895, with a monument. A marble cornerstone three feet wide and seven feet long was placed in 1900. When the obelisk of white sandstone was completed on May 30, 1901, Floyd’s grave was moved for the fourth time to rest nearby.

The Sergeant Floyd Monument was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark on June 30, 1960. This monument is now located in a 23-acre park that offers visitors a view of the Missouri River valley. Floyd’s final resting place is located on old U.S. Highway 75, in the southern part of Sioux City, Iowa, in the United States.

The Floyd River still bears his name. He is the namesake of Floyd County, Iowa. The Interstate 129 bridge between Sioux City and South Sioux City, Nebraska is named the Sergeant Floyd Memorial Bridge in his honor.

I Read His Journal

In reading his journal, my main thoughts throughout were that I knew he was going to die early in the book and that I felt sad because I knew that he wouldn’t see the expedition beyond the first few months of the expedition.

 I read his while I was also reading the journal entries of the other members of the expedition and I will be sharing from those journal entries as I continue writing their stories not only in my book but here on my blog as well.

If you would like to read his journal and the journals of other members of the expedition, here’s a link https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/journals.

Two Rivers will be the seventh book in The Locket Saga. If you would like to read the first six books of The Locket Saga, here’s a link to my Amazon Author Page. https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B007SM23IK

Last week, I showed you how I use the acronym SOFF to seize every moment possible from each day. I start it with a plan and organize my time and material to make the most of that day. I then focus on the planned project so that I can move forward in that area that day. Finally, I finish what I started and have focused on and determine where I will start the next day.

Not only can I SOFF projects and my days, but I can also SOFF for longer periods. This week I am going to share how I SOFF my weeks toward making the most of them.

What Do I Want to Accomplish This Week?

At the beginning of the week, I plan three big projects that I want to do that week that relate to my larger goals. I am going to use this week as an example. One of my big goals is self-sufficiency or in other words, being as prepared as possible for the worst possible situations. One of the key elements of that goal is a perpetually self-sufficient garden and this past week my goal was to get the main summer crops planted. Another big goal that I had was to finish the research from the Lewis and Clark journals for Book VII of The Locket Saga: Two Rivers. (Check out the first six books in the series Here) This next week I plan to get more into developing the plot lines from the standpoint of the characters, but for last week, my plan was to get the research finished.  The third project that I want to do this week is to get my house more cleaned and organized. This is a repeated project that if I don’t do it, life becomes less functional.

Of course, this isn’t all that is being done this week, for instance, the yard needs mowed, and grass clippings added to the garden, and perhaps the plants will need to be watered as well, particularly the seedlings. The dishes need to be washed a couple of times per day, and the laundry and grocery shopping needs to be done once per week. Also, I needed to write my two blog posts this week this one and the one for The Perpetual Homesteader.  However, by starting with these goal-oriented projects in my schedule, I am more likely to get them done by the week’s end.

Breaking Down the Larger Projects

As part of organizing my week, I break down the larger projects that I want to accomplish. Sometimes I have already broken down a project which was the case of Two Rivers. I had determined that every week I would research one week of the journals. This past week was the last month of the journals that were to be covered in the story, so I knew exactly what I was already doing. I have determined that I will accomplish this on

The second project that I am working on this week, involved planting the summer crops in the garden. This is a big project that also takes more than one week to accomplish, and this week I had determined that I would plant sunflowers, okra, cucumbers, zucchini, and other squashes. To get these planted, because I dig my gardens by hand, I needed to weed the areas where I was going to plant them. Monday I would plant the okra and zucchini. Tuesday I would plant the cucumbers, and Wednesday and Thursday I would plant the other squashes.

The third project, organizing the house was mostly planned for later in the week. I planned to deep clean the bathroom, reorganize my desk, and clean out a couple of cupboards in the kitchen. I determined that I would work on these projects on Wednesday and Thursday as well. Fridays were already taken by getting ready for Farmers Market on Saturday.

Focusing or Gittin ‘er Done!

The next important aspect of SOFFing is Focus and that means that I must take action on what I want to do if I want to actually accomplish what I planned.

On Sunday I cleaned the bathroom and finished researching the Lewis and Clark journals. I also planted the sunflowers, okra, and zucchini.  On Monday because I do all the garden work by hand, I spent the day working the soil with my broad fork. On Tuesday I planted the cucumbers. On Wednesday I planted the other squashes and cleaned out my desk where I found the outline that I would use to continue Two Rivers. On Thursday I organized the kitchen so that it would be ready for Friday.

Finishing the Week

Because I was able to get those projects accomplished earlier in the week, I was able to focus all of Friday on the baking and Saturday on the farmers market. On Saturday afternoon, I was able to take the time off to relax. I had finished the week strong.

The Ultimate Keystone Habit

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love my book The Ultimate Keystone Habit, available on Amazon.

A few days ago, my husband and I were talking with a man about how inexpensive electricity is where we live. I asked him if he knew why our electricity was so inexpensive and he said he did not so I told him that it was because we had an electric cooperative rather than being run by a for-profit corporation. I knew it was true, but I didn’t know the story behind it until I looked it up.

The Birth of the Electric Cooperative

In 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Rural Electrification Administration. A year later Congress gave the agency the money and power needed to promote rural electrification by providing low-cost loans to build transmission and generation facilities.

Boone Electric Cooperative was incorporated on June 11, 1936 – the first rural electric cooperative to form in the state of Missouri. By the end of 1937, Boone Electric served just more than 140 members in rural Boone County.

Rural cooperatives formed rapidly to take advantage of the favorable financing. Farm by farm, village by village, the lights went on across rural Missouri and rural America. And as electrical needs grew, the REA continued to provide low-cost financing. Eventually, major generation facilities, built primarily during the 1960s and 1970s, were financed with help from the REA.

The Advantages Continue

Today, numerous advantages exist for homes that utilize electricity from a cooperative over for-profit utility companies.

• Upon joining an electrical cooperative, I was considered a member and owner rather than a customer.
• Electric cooperatives are service focused. My coop provides electricity to rural areas while commercial utility companies are looking at their bottom line for their stockholders.
• My cooperative follows democratic processes, allowing each member to vote in board member elections, participate in policy making, and influence the company in sharing their ideas and concerns.
• My cooperative is community focused and work to improve the sustainability and well-being of their local and surrounding communities.
• My electric cooperatives returns its revenues or margins to cooperative members in the form of capital credits.
• One of the biggest advantages of being a member of an electric cooperative is that my service is constantly getting better at a lower cost per kilowatt hour than it would cost me for if I were with a for profit company.

Could Cooperatives Be the Answer in Other Areas?

Other areas could benefit from utilizing cooperative power over the for-profit interests of a few people. California electric companies have already been thinking of creating electric cooperatives and in order to lower prices, other areas could do the same.

However, what if the idea of community cooperatives didn’t end with providing inexpensive renewable energy? What if cooperatives were used in other forms of utilities? What if cooperatives were created to deal with waste management? What if the waste management cooperative was also involved in recycling? What if they worked toward reselling recycled materials to other companies or even managed to create recycled products from those items. What if the members voted to have more of it done at a community level as part of the cooperative and those items could be sold or even used within the community? Imagine how everyone could benefit because they all own the company that recycles garbage into usable items.

Imagine a Different Type of Insurance Program

Imagine that same cooperative spirit being extended toward insurance where instead of stockholders benefiting from your insurance premiums, the benefits of the premiums go to the cooperative. Imagine fire insurance paying for all the damages instead of there being a deductible and at a lower cost than what you’re paying now.

When I was a kid in the 1970s there were companies that had this type of insurance that offered fire and wind insurance. This insurance was called Patrons Mutual where you paid a small membership fee and then a small insurance premium. Even with the membership fee, the cost was lower than other insurance companies were charging. However, the other insurance companies lobbied the government and demanded that these companies that demanded membership could not sell insurance and that insurance had to be a for-profit business.

Imagine, however, if we could lobby the government to change these laws and allow cooperatives to exist in insurance and not just fire insurance, but in all types of insurance. Imagine health insurance at reasonable costs to everyone. Imagine insurance companies where the recipients could decide if they wanted their insurance to include preventative measures, to include the ability to pay for experimental procedures so that others could live. They could more likely have all these things because they didn’t have to pay for dividends to stockholders and all of the money is being spent by the contributors who are also the recipients of the healthcare insurance who voted for how their insurance money would be spent through a democratic process.  

So, what do you think? Do you think that cooperatives might be the answer to many financial problems we currently face? If not, what problems do you see with this idea? If yes, what do you think is our next move to make cooperatives more of a reality in our communities? Also, what other possible ways do you think that we could develop cooperatives in our communities?

If you have enjoyed this blog post, consider following this blog. If you’re into gardening and homesteading check out my other blog The Perpetual Homesteader too.