Saturday, February 23, 2008

Maybe I Should Just Buy the Cow

I was at Trader Joe's last night (Friday night) stocking up once again on milk since we go through so much every week, it's crazy. I was explaining this state of affairs to the very sympathetic cashier and he said, "Maybe you should just buy the cow, instead!" Although not practical as I'm sure my HOA CC&Rs don't allow for it and my backyard is pretty much a patio, the comment really is about realizing at what point is it better to milk your own cow instead of buy the milk, or, in any of the following instances: bake your own bread, make your own clothes, repair your old [fill in the blank], plant your own garden, etc. So, that made me think, since I can't buy the cow, what can I do? Here are my ideas:

1. Prepare more meals at home. One thing I haven't done recently is prepare meals ahead of time so we haven't really had too many nutritious, well-balanced meals. I have a crock pot and a crock pot cookbook so I have the tools available.

2. Plan a garden and buy vegetable seeds next month and have the boys help me plant. Probably it would be good to draw out the garden on a piece of paper since I imagine labeled sticks will be promptly taken out of the ground by curious hands.

3. Make my own pizza. I can buy fresh pizza dough for 99 cents at Trader Joe's and I usually have pasta sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese in the house. Total cost for a small cheese pizza would be less than a frozen one and a lot less than one from a pizza place.

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