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* F*ree Pumpkins
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After Halloween, you should be able to find pumpkins for F*REE. Look for churches with harvest festivals, street side pumpkin stands, grocers with an over abundance of pumpkins. Don't let them go to waste, use the following recipes.
Cooking a Pumpkin
- On a large counter or floor covered with newspaper, slice the pumpkin in half.
- Scoop out the seeds and soak them in a large bowl of salt water.
- Throw the rest of the pulp into your compost bin.
- Place pumpkin cut side down on a cookie sheet.
- Bake at 375º for approximately one hour or until skin is easily punctured with a meat fork.
- Scoop flesh from skin and puree in food processor or blender.
- Put colander in sink with a thin dish towel or linen sheet scrap.
- Ladle pumpkin into your lined colander and let drain or squeeze towel to remove excess water.
Use in cooked pumpkin in recipes right away or f*reeze in zippered bags for use throughout the year.
Annette takes one day to cook and process all the pumpkins gathered in the fall. The pumpkin is frozen and used for her Christmas Pumpkin Bread recipe. (You can find this recipe in our November/ December 2003 issue or in our HomeEconomiser Newsletter Scriber Download Section — you must be a current subscriber to the HomeEconomiser Newsletter to access this web site feature)
Pumpkins Seeds
- Soak in salt water overnight. (1 cup salt to 4 qts water)
- Bake on cookie sheets at 350º turning once.
- Cook approximately 1/2 hour or until golden brown.
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Back stage with Montel Williams. From the left: Joe, Steve, Abbey, Montel, Annette, Becky and Roy
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In the "Green Room" with our producer — Kim Wright-Johns. She's a sweet, hardworking lady.
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HOW TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE OR LIVE LIKE ONE
Well, guess which part of the show's title refers to America's Cheapest Family . . . they think we live like millionaires — puhleeze. That is the furthest thing from our minds. Our goal is to provide for our family and get the highest quality for the lowest price. And usually we can do it.
Montel gave us a challenge to take the kids clothes shopping — with $50. You'll have to tune in to hear the descriptions of what they bought — see the photo to the right. They also followed us through a quick trip to the grocery store. During our interview with Montel, Annette asked the audience how many of them had clothes in their closets that still had the tags on them — you'll be amazed and how many raised their hands.
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Health insurance — you've got to have it. Since we're self-employed, we get to find and purchase our own — how exciting. Well, it did get REALLY exciting just a few weeks ago when we decided to give eHealthInsurance.com a try.
Here's what we did. The initial information required is minimal: Number of people to be insured and birthdays. At this point you can stay anonymous.
Once you put in the info you'll get to see a listing of a number of health insurance companies in your state along with their prices. The first list you'll see is eHealth's top 12 suggested options for you. There's a button on the top left where you can choose to see all the plans they offer and sort them by price. This is what we did. Plans for our family started as low as $220 per month and went up to $1900 per month. We reviewed the information, read the details and made a few phone calls directly to the insurance company to confirm details.
We ended up selecting to stay with our current insurer, but change our deductible a little. The change we made s*aved us $200 per month! We plan on taking the savings and building our medical deductible savings account with that money. We're basically using the savings to self-insure — once that's done, the savings will be allocated to other projects.
In our case, all we had to do was send a letter requesting a change in the deductible. But if you want to apply for new insurance, it will take you about an hour to fill out the actual application. You'll need lots of personal information: last doctor visit dates, any diagnosis of chronic conditions and answer some general health questionnaires. Once your final application is completed you'll probably be asked to pay the first month's premium. You may want to call eHealth Insurance to confirm, but in our situation, that was the case.
If you buy your own health insurance or pay a significant portion of your employer provided coverage, check out eHealthInsurance.com
Lowe’s offers a workshop for children and their parents. It is called Build and Grow. The best part is that it is F*ree; Lowe’s supplies each child with the materials. Here is the web site: http://www.lowesbuildandgrow.com/ It is also a great opportunity for family time!
Price Chopper, Sunoco Launch Fuel AdvantEdge in New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire.
I'm a new "devotee," and wanted to pass something along to people who live in the NE where Price Chopper Supermarkets are located. Price Chopper and Sunoco have a promotion going that's fantastic. For every $50 you spend at the market, you earn a 10 cent per gallon discount on gas at Sunoco. I went on a big stock-up trip tonight and spent $165, earning 30 cents off per gallon for the next 30 days (of course there are some other limitations, but it's really like getting f*ree m*oney). If I spend more over the next month, the discount will increase. We're going to run our gas tanks dry then fill up and take advantage of the savings. Hope some folks find this helpful!
Editor's Note: Our research indicates that this program started in 2006 and continues to this day. Other grocers which we have seen with similar discount programs include: Safeway — including: Dominick's, Von's, Tom Thumb, Randall's, Genuardi's, Pavilions and Carrs