House O' Sullivans

January will forever be "Austerity January" at the Sullivan household.  My Uncle Danny and Aunt Leslie got us started and this is our third official observance.  The idea is to not buy anything all month, surviving predominantly on food storage.  We do pay our regular monthly bills, naturally, and we slightly modify and allow ourselves $25 a week to buy milk and fresh produce and we do fuel our vehicles (those vehicles are part of the chaos story to come).   Time slows down in January and I find myself realizing that I don't need much at all to be perfectly content.  Hustle and bustle decreases dramatically and a satisfying stillness fills the vacuum.  These are some photos that I took of the kids at a free zoo day last month: Sophie Gene Hallee Bradshaw Noble Ezekial Roanhorse As January drew to a quiet close, chaos suddenly unleashed with a fury.  Last Wednesday, Casey was driving home from some appointments in Ogden when his car...

Last month, Uncle Danny (my dad's younger brother--the one that has the dog named "Zeke") and Aunt Leslie visited us just before Christmas.  They mentioned how they had an "austerity month" last year.  Their plan was to stock up on groceries at the beginning of the month then not buy ANYTHING all month.  Besides saving a load of money, they both felt like the experience taught them a lot about themselves and their purchasing habits.  They realized that there were things that they were spending money on that they really didn't need.   Even though we are pretty frugal at the Sullivan household, both Casey and I were intrigued.  Always up for a challenge, we decided to try it out this month.  We didn't stock up on anything before we jumped into the test, but we did allow ourselves to buy milk, eggs (our chickens weren't producing), and a "bountiful basket" (a $15 basket of produce from a food coop--bountiful baskets.org) each week so we'd ...