No Spend Month

So I just read a blog about a couple who decided to make July no spend month for their family.  Money has been extremely tight around our house lately but we still find ourselves spending loads of money, so this really tickled my fancy. I read the blog and found that it really wasn't a no spend month, they just limited their excess spending to about $200 including gas and groceries.

My  husband and I decided this would be a really good thing four our house.  We just replenished our food storage so we are going to try a no spend month for August.  We are going to go a little more extreme, though.  Instead of limiting our money for the month of August, we are only going to purchase specific items.  Aside from our mortgage and other bills that we have to pay, the only things we are going to buy this month are gas and milk.  We are not going to eat out or buy ourselves anything.  Instead, we are going to figure out things to eat that we already have around the house.

August is a good month for us to do this because we do have a garden that will be providing us with potatoes, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and corn to help out.  We also have chickens that will give us some eggs.  Everything else we'll just have to live off of what we have in storage.
I'll blog about it over the next month as well, let you know about tricks we figure out or tasty food storage meals we come across.
Wish us luck!!!

Proving Pinterest: Corn Meal Killing Ants

So a little while back.... okay a long while back... I remember seeing a pin on Pinterest that claimed corn meal was a simple way to get rid of ants without worrying about your kids or pets getting into the poison.  The theory is that the ants pick up the corn meal and take it back home, but they can't digest it so it kills them and all their little friends.  Lucky for me, it hast taken me 2 months into the summer before I had a reason to try this out (I thank my chickens for this.  I did see an ant pile once this summer.... then I watched my chickens sit there and eat and eat and eat till most of the ants were gone.  It was awesome).  Alas, last week I spilled some dog food on the steps and didn't bother to pick it up.  An hour later I walked outside and there were ants covering my steps.  An excellent opportunity to try out the corn meal!

I proceeded inside, trying to remember where I put that stuff that I hardly ever use.  I found it and sprinkled it lightly over my steps.  Obviously, it didn't kill them on the spot but I am pretty sure it did it's job.  Within an hour there were a lot less ants there, but not less dog food.  By the end of the day there were only 5 ants working on one piece of dog food.

The best part?  When I decided I should write this blog about how well this works I thought there should be pictures.  I proceeded to reenact everything so I could take pictures.... but that didn't work so well.  No ants came!

Verdict?  Awesome solution to get rid of these pests.  No worrying about poisoning your little ones and no cleaning up piles of dead ants.