Can homesteading be Effective in an Urban Apartment setting?

Can homesteading in an urban apartment setting really be effective and more importantly will it save my family money? This is a question I would like to explore a little further. As with any good experiment you need a theory, so in this case I will begin with: By making a majority of my food and household items it will cut my expenses. This seems crazy considering I live in a two bedroom apartment in a big city. I can't have chickens, or acres of gardens, instead I have 1000 sq ft of living space and a small patio three stories up. So the challenge is how can I possibly be self sufficient under these circumstances?

I have been reading a ton of blogs lately all related to making my own food items and even furniture (I have to admit a slight addiction to www.anna-white.com) and I am intrigued to say the least. My family exists on a very limited budget and I am curious to see if I can really make a difference in our budget and still get the things that we need. My husband is a carpenter by trade, so furniture making will come easy to him, although Ana White's designs are very detailed so that even a novice can accomplish great things! After viewing Ana's site my list of wants has grown. Our dining table has definitely seen better days. We bought it at a garage sale probably 7-8 years ago. Since then it bows in the middle, has been decorated by a four year olds hand, it wobbles and creaks and is not suitable for public viewing without a table cloth. I have been looking at dining tables at various furniture stores and a decent sturdy dining table is not a cheap item! Most do not come with chairs and you could easily spend $700-$1000 or more for a lower end table. Since my boys are now sharing a room again, bunk beds would be a great addition to their cramped space. I love the loft beds with built in desks and book shelves etc. These are expensive as well with prices ranging from $1200-$3000. A coffee table would also be nice as would a farmhouse bed for my own room. Maybe even an entertainment center (as opposed to my converted thrift store book shelf). The other thing I have discovered is the lower end (cheaper) furniture is made of press board or laminated wood, the real wood furniture costs significantly more. Now my experience of mixing children and furniture is if the furniture is not sturdy and well made you end up with wobbly dining tables and broken book shelves. I have seen the plans on Ana's site and read the many posts of how people made this pice for $100 or that table for $300 and I am curious. Could I really furnish my space for less by building it myself? Now, I do not have a shop and I am sure my neighbors would not appreciate it if I built things inside the apartment. So, we rented a garage on site primarily for additional storage but it is equipped with an electrical outlet and not connected to any of the apartment buildings. We should be able to create our furniture without an issue. While I haven't begun this little adventure but as soon as we do, I will post our progress and all the details.

The other things I have been researching is making our own food products. I love to bake and often make my own breads so I have some skills in the kitchen. I also love good quality food items like yogurt & cheese. It's no secret that food can be expensive. I have read numerous blogs pertaining to making cheese, yogurt even butter from home. These kitchen experiments have peaked my curiosity and I am going to attempt a few of these to see if it is worth the additional effort on my part. Today I am making Greek yogurt in the crock pot following this Recipe. It is still in the crockpot at the moment and I will be sure to post an update on my progress. I hope to write about my future kitchen exploits and I will include the costs I have incurred, this will allow me to really see if this is an economical solution.

I have also planted a small garden on the patio. I purchased a 20x20 sq ft "urban gardening" container from Home Depot for about $30. This container came with an aerator and watering tube. I also grabbed a bag of gardening soil (miracle gro brand) for  around $8. In this container I planted green beans, cucumbers, Carrots, and brocolli. I purchased the seeds on Ebay for $2 with shipping. I was at the dollar store a few weeks back and found a hanging basket for $1 and snapped it up. In this I have planted romaine lettuce, spinach and a french spring mix lettuce. All of these were started from seeds and are doing nicely thus far. From Sam's club I snapped up an italian garden (tomato, basil, oregano, parsley, cilantro, and rosemary) for $12. I know this will not completely supplement our vegetable intake (as a family of four), but I hope to supplement a good portion with our patio garden. The garden is not ready to harvest and I think we still have a month or two before it is ready. The plants have grown considerably and they seem to be thriving.  I can't wait to see how much my little garden will produce.

So this is the little experiment I am undertaking. I should mention that I am a working mother, so with that in mind I will be sure to document how well this works with my schedule and if it does save our family money or not.

How to Build an Emergency fund

Save a part of your income and begin now, for the man with a surplus controls circumstances and the man without a surplus is controlled by circumstances.
- Henry Buckley

Every financial blog I have ever read repeats the same slice of information: "You should have 6 months of expenses in an emergency fund". 

I now that 6 months worth of expenses varies for each individual, but the number I arrived at is $15,600. That is a lot of money for a family like mine to try and sock away. I can think of a billion excuses as to why I cannot save money. Below are the top 5 reasons I not only have used but I hear from family and friends:

1.  Poor job market
2. We are barely making it as it is (did you see #1?)
3. Everything is soo expensive, where can I cut my budget?
4. Budgeting is hard and takes time
5. It will take forever to meet my goal

The fact of the matter is we can think of excuses not to save money, but the the truth is we all really need to! My favorite classes in both high school and college were economics (I know, I am a strange one). I sat down one day and thought, economics applies to more than just big economies, it applies to households as well. On a personal level, it can apply to my household. 

Sure the job market is bad, but there are jobs out there. They may not be the jobs we dreamed of when we were in school, true, but a household needs an income in order to be self sufficient. So, in today's job market you may be a little (perhaps a lot) disappointed at first, but as my grandfather always says "nothing lasts forever". I know my husband and I have had our share of disappointments in this area and I can say with absolute surety we are not the only ones!

With the poor economy covered, we are now at #2. Supporting a family is tough! The bills roll in on a monthly basis and without a care as to how many hours you worked or how many unpaid holidays fell in between that time period. You still need to buy groceries and you need to keep the lights on. While you cannot control the prices of gas or groceries, you can shop around. It's amazing how much you can save when you switch to store brands and eat in rather than grabbing lunch or dinner on the go. The basic rule of thumb is, you need to pay yourself first. Distinguish between wants and needs. This is hard too, believe me. We all feel that we work hard for a living and "deserve" certain things, right? While that may be true to an extent focusing on building wealth rather than just getting by should be a top priority. Try practicing the 72 hour rule. When you see something you think you would like to purchase, hold off for 72 hours. During this time period you can decide if you really need it and possibly even shop around a little to see if you can get it for a cheaper price. I think that is the key here, shopping around and distinguishing wants from needs.

Tracking your expenses also gives you great insight as to where your money is going every month and will cover # 3 on the short list. Yes, I will say it, you absolutely need a budget! We are fortunate to live in an age of convenience, so with that being said have you checked Mint? It's an online budgeting tool, it only takes a few minutes to set up and the best part is it's free! You can even download the app to your smartphone and access it anywhere. It auto tracks your savings accounts, retirement accounts, loan balances and credit cards to show you exactly where you stand financially at a swipe of your finger. I found it to be very eye opening and have been using the app for nearly a year now. It's helped me to figure out where we were spending our money and how I could shift those trends to increase my savings. This also helps to to address #4 on my list. Mint makes budgeting easy, because it can see every transaction and places it within my pre set budgets. 

#5 is the biggest opponent to starting to save for a nest egg. It is mentally draining and very discouraging in the long run. With the poor economy affecting not only the job market but also interest rates only adds to the dismal situation. That 1% savings account doesn't seem like it will help much in the long term, right? Well, here is another reason you need to shop around. There is also a possibility that you will need to have more than one account. The other thing to consider is auto payments. Saving for an emergency fund is so much easier when you treat it like a monthly expense (remember I mentioned paying yourself first?). So here is what I have done:

1. I opened a savings account with my local branch. This account is connected to my checking and will be readily available if I need it. The interest rate is only 0.75%, which isn't that great. I put $25/week in this account so it is slowly growing. It is important to have access to liquid money in case you need it, but I generally try to forget about this money and pretend it is not there for use. 
2. I also opened a certificate of deposit or CD with USAA. I know that USAA is only available to military members and there families but most banks offer similar programs. What I loved about this CD through USAA , is the initial deposit was $250 and I could increase the amount with monthly deposits. This is a 6 month CD and I contribute $25/week here as well. The interest is the same for the savings account, but the difference is I cannot touch this money until the 6 month period is up. That makes this more of a forced savings if I dip into my other savings account. 

Now all of this is outside of retirement savings etc. I will discuss those in a later post. This is essentially my personal experience attempting to build a 6 month emergency fund. I know you can probably find these tips all over the internet, but I find information more useful when it has a personal experience behind it. Happy savings everyone!

Winter is Coming....

I know what you are thinking at this very moment..."summer hasn't even begun yet and she's talking about winter". Does that about cover it? I thought so. No, I am not crazy and believe me when I say I am not trying to invite an early winter by any means. In fact the thought of an icy chill in the air and scraping frost from my windshield makes me cringe. Winter does have a few perks, though (few being the key word here). I love warm fires, hot cocoa, cozy sweaters and socks. These things make winter almost bearable! So with that in mind, my crafty and sensible side is buzzing. I need to prepare (I swear I am part squirrel or something). I have two boys on the cusp of puberty, who are growing faster than any weed in my garden could ever hope to. While I am loving seeing them transform into young men, well the part of me that doesn't miss the little chubby baby cheeks, these two are killing me in the clothing and food department.  When I was pregnant with my youngest and found out we were expecting another boy, I had dreams of budget friendly hand-me-downs and and little boy shenanigans. I got the shenanigans alright! Budget friendly hand-me-downs are a whole different story I'm afraid. My youngest is two years younger than his brother, but that doesn't seem to matter much because he wears the same size clothes and shoes as his older brother (much to my oldest son's dismay). So it's two of everything and that is just the way it is. I feel for all you mom's with multiple's out there! I know I can not even compare to your situation, except for maybe the clothing department.

So what exactly am I working on? Remember I listed a few upside to the winter season...well I love cozy socks and they are an absolute necessity to keep our toes protected from that chilly air. So I am knitting a pair of socks for my youngest son. Now, knitting a pair of socks may not seem all that cost effective at first. I get it, the wool itself can cost up to $30 or more and you only get one pair. I know you can run down to the store and buy at least 3 packs of socks for that price, right? So why in the world would I knit a pair? I have a 3 reasons:

1. I love to knit
2. The quality of the socks I knit by hand far outweigh the ones I buy commercially
3. wool is warmer than cotton and I can customize it to my needs

Now that we have got that all cleared up, let's talk about the materials. I bought a hank of yarn off of ebay ages ago. It is a super wash wool blend that has been hand dyed in black and green. It is a total of 400 yards, which means I can probably get at least 4 pairs of socks out of it depending on the length I choose to knit. This isn't bad considering I paid $20 (including shipping)! I am using a  short row toe up sock pattern that is free on Ravelry, it's very simple and plain so you can jazz it up or knit as is. I like the pattern, but if you are new to knitting short rows, I would definitely recommend watching a few you tube videos on the subject as the pattern doesn't really explain short rows. I really liked this video and thought it really explained the process well, plus I am a visual learner. I like using short rows in sock knitting because it is seamless, which makes the sock more comfortable to wear. I imagine my son wearing these socks with his snow boots as he stomps through the powder white snow that blankets everything. These are blissful Norman Rockwell style visions, I'm sure the reality will be somewhat similar but will include the muddy stinky socks that will end up on the floor and eventually in my laundry pile. Either way, they were made with love!