Apples take over

We are blessed with an abundance of fruit growing freely in our backyard. Three apple trees, a plum tree, a peach tree, and grapes that travel over our fence line from our next door neighbor's yard. There is also a grapefruit tree growing in the abandoned yard directly behind our house, where I like to take the kids and liberate the tart little orbs.

This year our apple trees are producing like I've never seen, so I needed to find something to do with the plethora of green fruits. 

Thus, my first attempt at applesauce.

picked fresh today!

I poked around on Pinterest for a recipe, and found (of course) dozens of crock pot applesauce pins. I decided to Frankenstein a couple recipes together to come up with my own.

Step one:

Peel, core & dice 6-8 apples (depending on size.)

after this, I just gave them a really rough chop. not too small.

Step two: Stir together 1/2 Cup water, 1/4 Cup brown sugar, 1 1/2 Tablespoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Step three: Add cut apples to crock pot, then pour liquid mixture evenly over apples. 

omg yum.

Step four: Set crock pot to "Low." They cook for about 4 hours total, but halfway through, I gave them a stir. (Ok, maybe I just wanted to get a really good whiff up close, cuz man oh man, did this smell amazing!)

Step five: turn crock pot off and mash apples with potato masher. Let cool & refrigerate. Or serve warm! Whatever you want! 

I'm thinking about making some pie dough & making dumplings with the mixture. Or topping my waffles with it. Or my ice cream, or stirring some into my oatmeal.....

The possibilities are endless :)

Working Class Wednesday: College on a budget

This is what my weekends look like now

I recently went back to Community College, after taking about 3 years off. My husband is also a college student. With 1 income, 4 kids, and 2 college students in our household, we were sure things would be tight for us this semester.
Turns out, we could not have been more wrong.
It's true, with the rising cost of tuition (currently capping out at a hefty $46 per unit here), books, and transportation, things might look a little bleak. But thanks to government Pell grants and a little something called the Board of Governor's Fee Waiver here in California, we managed to have all of our tuition & administrative fees paid in full.

Unfortunately, financial aid does tend to come a few weeks after your classes start. So what happens when you show up to class with no books because the text is $150? You're S.O.L. right?

Wrong.

There is an awesome website called Chegg, where you can RENT textbooks for a fraction of what the school bookstores are charging you to buy them.
For example, my Criminal Law book was listed as $134 in the bookstore and we paid just $46 for it.
That. Is. Awesome.

If you have any desire to go back to school, make sure you fill out a FAFSA to find out if you're eligible for federal grants. Grants are most often money that you do not have to pay back. Did you read that? You don't have to pay it back! There are contingencies, like- you can't bomb your classes or drop out, or you might be asked to pay back a portion of the grant. So, get an A. Or a B. Or a C at the very worst. There are also tons of scholarships available to help get your butt back in school, you just need to know where to look. A good place to start is the school counselor & financial aid office.

Also, it's much MUCH cheaper to attend a Community College and transfer to a University when you're a Junior. You could quite possibly get through 2 years of college without having to go broke or take out a student loan. It's totally worth it.


If you've been putting off school because you think you can't afford it, do yourself a favor and look into it again, you might be surprised at what you find.

Working Class Wednesday: Books & boats

 I think a lot of people really miss out by not taking advantage of the typically "touristy" attractions in their home town. We talk a lot about travelling and then we discover a new spot in our city that we'd never visited before. Maybe we should see all there is to see here first..........it's definitely a lot easier on our wallets.
Yesterday after we dropped the big kids off at school, Miss L & I decided we were bored, and it was way too nice to be stuck inside all day cleaning, so off we went to the library. If you've been reading for awhile you already know this is a favorite spot of ours.
Free books, free DVDs, free music, free, free, free.
After the library we took our adventure up a notch and picked up Daddy to head to Old Sacramento.
There is this cool toy store in Old Sac that has a train table for kids to play, and it's just as nice as the one in the local Railroad Museum, but we didn't have to pay to play with it.

The best part of the day, though? The beautiful waterfront views that are always, completely, totally FREE.

skipping to the library

returning our old books

my little pre-reader with a "new to her" book

Tower Bridge, Sacramento River

silly pictures

lego bear & flower in a cooool local toy store

playing at the train table with Daddy

$2 lollipop- the only money spent

Next week: Working Class Wednesday: sans kids......

Low income, high life

Awhile back I ranted a little about what seems to be a complete misconception of what the reality of being poor looks like. Since then, I've read a few other blogs and spoken to some awesome twitter friends about this issue and I've come to the conclusion that I need to write about what it really looks like to be a working-class low income family in America.

They may not perceive themselves as well to-do, but when other seemingly well meaning bloggers post pictures of their grand homes and espouse their weekly Whole Foods budget to me, I admittedly cringe a little. 

I mean, I once read a post written by a very well known blogger/advice columnist where she said that she bought her kids "throw-away" clothes at Old Navy and I thought to myself:

You are not like me, you will never get me.

And that's ok, I don't begrudge anyone a good life, but I have to wonder how people like me are supposed to relate to people who are not walking in my Thrift store shoes?
It's like we don't even live on the same planet, let alone within the same income bracket.

And that's what brings me to this post.

I'm ready to shed the shame of being broke in order to (hopefully) help & connect with other people that are in the same boat. I'm hoping that other families who are having to juggle finances will look at the coming posts and feel like it's possible to live a full life even when you don't think you can't afford to.

But let's get a couple things straight here:

First, this is NOT a pity-party. Second, this isn't an advice column.

This is just about how we manage living well, while living within our means.

And with that, tomorrow begins the first in the series of "Working Class Wednesday" posts.