We’ve participated in Black Friday shopping only twice in our lifetimes, and both times we returned home with our modest bags of whatever thinking, “Why in the world did we do that?” If you are the same, let me encourage you to shop this Christmas from one of our Monument Publishing sites. The savings are fantastic, and you don’t have to fight the lines for them!

Family Products at JeubFamily.com

Everything at JeubFamily.com is 50% off through December 18, the last day we’ll guarantee delivery by Christmas. This is our best sale ever. We’ve NEVER cut prices this much. The deals are reason enough to stock up on books for your family and loved ones for Christmas.

The resources Wendy and I create for this site has one sole purpose: encourage families to walk the walk God has for them. Of course, our testimony is primarily in raising children (#15 is expected in March). Love in the House and its accompanying Study Guide make great gifts for couples. Children will enjoy our friend’s story book Arrows in His Hand about the blessing of children. All these for half off the cover price.

God does continue to bless you even when finances are tough, as two resources show how. Love in the Kitchen, Wendy’s cookbook, has a wealth of recipes that we cook in our home. We eat like kings, but spend a fraction of what you would think! This coil-bound book comes with recipes, of course, but likely the most valuable part of it is in the beginning pages where Wendy maps out her shopping strategies on how she spends $500-$700 a month on groceries for our large family. If you really want to dig into the Jeub’s secrets to “fruitful and frugal” living, order Cheaper by the Bakers Dozen audio CD. With accompanying downloadable slides, Wendy and I layout our strategies for you to apply to your own family.

Home-school Speech & Debate at SpeechSupplies.com

The Jeubs are big-time into academic speech and debate. I am the founder and president of Training Minds Ministry and we own and operate SpeechSupplies.com, a leading provider of some of the greatest resources for home-school families involved in this necessary activity. This weekend only, we’re blowing out some great resources. Here are the deals…

40% off most everything! We have a complete page of products that we are slashing the price just this weekend: www.speechsupplies.com/deals_s/46.htm. If you participate in the NCFCA with your children, you’ll be all over the fantastic savings on some big-ticket items like Blue Book Advanced and Keys to Extemp. However, there are a few great resources that those less involved will appreciate, like Jeff Myers’ Handoff and the biography of Sundar Singh. Be sure to check out the savings.

For those of you who want to simply know more about participating in the NCFCA, I wrote a book just for you: Jeub’s Guide to Home School Speech & Debate. For a limited time only, I want to send a free copy to you. If you visit SpeechSupplies.com and add the book to your shopping cart, you can erase the amount of the book from checkout with this coupon code: FreeGuide. This $19.95 book will be sent to you with your only cost being shipping.

So, go shopping from home

Stay home today, kick back with the family, and order some gifts from the sites above. You’ll save tons of money as well as hassle. God bless your Thanksgiving weekend!

In my previous post (”How much does a Jeub Thanksgiving dinner cost?“) I commented on how the media likes to report on how difficult life is for Americans. Perhaps it makes good news or sells papers? I don’t know why, but Wendy and I find ourselves laughing at the headlines and doom-n-gloom news. Life is fantastic nowadays, and the latest shocking news of how troubling Thanksgiving dinner is for Americans is one we strongly rebut.

So, we took the American Farm Bureau’s report seriously and did some price comparisons ourself. The AFB claims the cost for a 10-person standard Thanksgiving dinner runs $44.61. Our cost analysis shows $20.17, roughly a 55% savings! Below is a chart with the differences, plus explanations that follow.

Item	AFB Cost	JEUB COST	Savings
16-pound turkey	$19.09	$4.99	$14.10
Cube stuffing, 14 oz.	$2.57	$1.00 est.	$1.57
Pumpkin pie mix, 30-oz.	$2.34	$1.33	$1.01
Pie shells (2)	$2.26	$.50 est.	$1.76
Sweet potatoes, 3 lbs.	$3.12	$2.49	$.63
Rolls, 12	$2.20	$1.50	$.70
Green peas, 1 lb.	$1.58	$.50	$1.08
1-pound relish tray (carrots and celery)	$.82	Nothing	$.82
Milk, 1 gallon whole	$3.78	$2.47	$1.31
Fresh cranberries, 12 oz.	$2.46	$1.50	$.96
Cream, ½ pint	$1.70	$1.20	$.50
Misc. ingredients	$2.69	$2.69	$0
TOTALS	$44.61	$20.17	$24.44

16-pound turkey. This was the biggest savings, and it is a savings that every family should participate in. Really, we have no idea why anyone would spend nearly $20 for a 16 lb. turkey. Most stores will blow out their turkeys at far below cost and make up for the difference with all the other fixings surrounding a Thanksgiving dinner. Last night we priced 16 lb turkeys at Safeway for only $4.99. Turkeys over 16 lbs were priced at $6.99, and we found a 22 pounder. This turkey was regularly priced at $21.67 for a total savings of $14.68. Truth be known, we purchase as many turkeys our freezers can hold, for they make great eating year-round. At approximately $.30/pound, the turkeys freeze well and are delicious.

Cube stuffing. Mrs. Stovetop got a really brilliant idea years ago: take simple and inexpensive recipe ingredients, throw it in a bag, and charge three times its cost. We do Stovetop Stuffing the way it used to be done: we dry bread, mix it with elk sausage and spices, and stuff it in the turkey. It comes out tasting better for a fraction of the cost. We estimated the comparison at about a dollar.

Pumpkin pie mix. The grocery store we compared prices with came out lower than AFB’s cost estimate ($1.50 compared to $2.34) because of a 2 for $3 sale. However, we stocked up on pumpkin when Wendy took the kids to a pumpkin patch field trip last month. She came home with 10 pumpkins for $30, or $3/each. The price probably comes out about the same with an estimated two pies per pumpkin, though Wendy argues that we get up to four with the biggest pumpkins. For the sake of the chart, we estimated three pies per pumpkin at a price of $1.33 each pie. Once again, going homemade saves money and tastes better. Plus, the pumpkin seeds properly baked are to die for!

Pie shells. Which are you going for: taste or convenience? For taste, go homemade, and you’ll save a bundle. Cynthia loves to mix the ingredients and roll out her own pie crusts. The ingredients are incredibly inexpensive: flour, shortening, water and salt. Maybe $.10-$.15 for one pie shell. If you want convenience, buy the shells, but you’ll be spending at least $1.50, and they’ll be crumbly and won’t taste as good. (Again, you have to hand it to Mrs. Stovetop for her shrewd business sense.) For the chart, we estimated two pie shells at $.50. Cynthia has several pastry recipes in our cookbook.

Sweet potatoes. Cans of sweet potatoes priced a little lower than AFB’s pricing ($2.49 per can), and that is the way we priced it on the chart. However, we almost always make these from scratch, too. Real sweet potatoes go a lot further than the canned kind, and you are able to spice it up to your liking. We probably could cut the cost of canned yams in half, but once you figure in the marshmellow topping (a must!), I suppose it would cost the same.

Rolls. Like pie shells, these are better homemade than store-bought, for cost savings and taste. We’re very blessed to have Cynthia; she loves to bake more than anything else. Wendy’s cookbook Love in the Kitchen is co-authored by Cynthia and many of her favorite baking recipes are in it. If you don’t own this cookbook, order it. We’re having a 1/2 off Christmas special right now. Anyway, Cynthia estimated the cost for flour, yeast and butter to be about $1.50.

Green peas. Who is putting Thanksgiving dinner together at the AFB? Green peas are so un-Thanksgiving. Corn, at least, is more on track. Corn prices at $.50 a can, the same as green peas. We typically stock up on canned goods when they go on sale for 3-4 cans for a dollar, but we priced this conservatively for sake of the chart. In the real world, we cook my grandma’s Sweet & Sour Green Beans (pg. 119 in the cookbook) as a Thanksgiving side, and that has become a Jeub tradition.

1-lb relish tray. Again, who’s putting this Thanksgiving dinner together? Celery and carrot sticks are way, way too healthy for this once-a-year meal. We took it entirely off the menu. Maybe later in the week we’d add it to our turkey sandwich lunches, but not for Thanksgiving. If it crunches at the Jeub Thanksgiving dinner table, it is undercooked!

Milk, 1 gallon whole. Milk was on sale this week at Safeway, so that’s how we priced it. Personally, we enjoy drinking water at our meals. Milk is reserved for recipes, fruit drinks or cereal. Reducing milk from your diet will greatly reduce your weekly grocery bill. We’re not convinced that milk vitamins are as necessary as the milk companies want us all to believe. Water is fine for us, but we put the sale milk on the chart anyway.

Fresh cranberries. Most stores will have several of the most popular items on sale, and Safeway had cranberry sauce on sale 2 cans for $3. These studies probably don’t take regular supply-and-demand into account. The supply is great this time of year for cranberries, so prices naturally go down. While exact prices will vary, sales like these should be available for anyone in the country.

Cream. I’m not sure what this is for, but I’ll take the AFB for their word. A whole pint priced at $2.39 at Safeway, and we cut it in half for the chart. Safeway did not have any 1/2 pints.

Misc. ingredients. Again, we’ll take the AFB’s word for it that we need these ingredients. Much of Wendy’s cookbook is written for ingredients that are common in most family’s kitchens, and we can assume we’ll have a lot of these things on hand. We likely save quite a bit here simply by buying in bulk. For the sake of the chart and because we didn’t want to spend the time dicing up the chart, we kept this price the same.

So the bottom line is a 55% savings in our Thanksgiving dinner. Of course, we double everything for our family, but we still come below the AFB average by a long shot. We even beat the 1986 cost ($28.74), the first year the AFB started tracking the average cost for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Let this post close with a quote from Wendy from Love in the Kitchen: Affordable and delicious recipes for growing families. She’s got the right perspective:

Dear friends, I can’t begin to tell you how fruitful and loving the Jeub kitchen is! In my 24 years of parenting, my kids have never gone hungry. Every evening our meals consist of loving conversation and full tummies. We love to have guests over for meals and the complements often are over the quantity and quality of our food. We seldom eat out (can you imagine the cost?) because we’re very content to eat at home. We’ve found that meals made in our kitchen taste better, fill our appetites, and contribute to the heritage of our home. I love my kitchen, and you can love yours, too!

$15.96 (reg. $19.95)

Always 20% off at JeubFamily.com
1st Class or Priority Mail Shipping

This makes a great gift for Thanksgiving or Christmas. We’re packaging these up right away 1st Class or Priority Mail to ensure speedy delivery. Wendy’s money-saving ideas and wholesome recipes will be the talk of your home over the holidays. Take advantage of this 1-month deal to give great gifts at twice the savings!

The Los Angeles Times reported on the average cost of a Thanksgiving turkey dinner going up 5.6% from last year. As we have continually argued in previous posts, papers like the LA Times attempt to push a “doom and gloom” picture on our opportunities as families. It is interesting to note that the very report the LA Times read from took an optimistic response to the increase: “Classic Thanksgiving Dinner Still Affordable.” Compare the two articles here and here.

When the report came over the radio, I thought to myself, “I wonder how much we spend at Thanksgiving?”

We eat well. We have a huge turkey–usually the largest turkey we can find in the big feezer bin at the grocery store–with homemade stuffing mixed with elk sausage. Sides include mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon, my grandmother’s sweet-n-sour green beans with bacon (a killer recipe included in Wendy’s cookbook), homemade dinner roles, and cranberry sauce. Of course we have a few pumpkin pies to top it all off.

So I asked Wendy and Cynthia how much this all costs. “Fifty bucks,” Cynthia guessed while Wendy pondered. “No,” I returned, “for a family of 10 eaters.” (We have nearly 20.) Cynthia then guessed, “Twenty-five bucks.”

We’re doing our own chart and will post it online here in the next couple of days…Stay tuned!

It is difficult to avoid the doom and gloom in people’s hearts today. Never before has the stock market plunged like it did after a presidential election. No matter what the policies of a new administration, Wall Street usually responds positively because of the certainty of the direction. With Obama, however, certainty isn’t there, other than the fact that he has promised to raise taxes on small businesses. Coupled with his flippant remarks about spreading the wealth around, bankrupting the coal industry, and paying taxes as a show of patriotism, it is no wonder that markets are uneasy.

Most people don’t understand Wall Street, and I too find the numbers and charts confusing. But I understand basic business principles. When expenses go up, you cut where you can. Taxes are expenses, and jobs are cut when taxes go up. Unemployment is at a 14 year high. With a president promising to tax successful businesses and give to lesser successful businesses, who can blame businesses for being preemptive and laying off their people? I know several folks whose jobs are on the line, if they aren’t unemployed already.

The temptation is to fall into the class envy that drove the Obama campaign. Let’s “stick it to the rich” and make them pay for their greed. Folks, this attitude is bondage. In fact, this is a mentality that will ensure poverty even in the midst of prosperity. I know people who make twice as much as we do who think they’re poor because of their envious attitude toward the rich. Likewise, I know people who make less than us (that’s tough, but they’re out there) who joyfully live fruitful lives within their means.

I say the following with utmost conviction: God has blessed us with poverty. I’m serious! God has shown us that money itself is a futile goal. When things get tight financially, God is with us to change our habits and find creative solutions to our economic problems. When the layoff comes, when the sales drop, when the bank account approaches zero: this is when the creative juices flow.

The doom is approaching, but families who understand economics will continue to prosper and find opportunity. God is laying on my heart to brush off the gloomy news and look forward to a prosperous future. I’m relieved now that the political season is over. We need creative solutions to economic hard times. For the majority of our lives Wendy and I have faced economic hard times with joy and success.

Wendy made a note yesterday as results poured in: “This reminds me when Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota.” We were living in Minnesota at the time and cast our vote for then-Governor-elect Norm Coleman. Neither Republican or Democrat won that race when over 50% of the votes cast went for pro-wrestler-turned-politician Jesse Ventura.

Within a year Minnesotans hated Ventura. He ran on a platform “anti-Special Interests” and “change.” Once in office, he didn’t listen to anyone but himself. His political speeches were anything short of embarrassing. He trumpeted no reform at all and left with no changing legacy. Today, Jesse Ventura is considered a nut case. He rants on radio of how assassins are out to get him and that 9-11 was an inside job, if that gives you an idea of his mental sanity.

So now America elected Barack Obama, another so-called reformer out to “change the world.” He ran on the promises to raise taxes, keep abortion legal, and increase government programs. The mainstream media became the propaganda bloodhounds for Obama, ignoring any negative news about his past associations or questionable policy proposals while viciously attacking any threat to his candidacy (e.g. Sarah Palin’s family and Joe the Plumber). Obama ran on “hope” and “change,” and people cast their vote with the sincere hope, I believe, that Obama will change things for the better.

Wendy and I spoke last night to a group of homeschoolers in Colorado Springs. Having nothing to do with the election, we spoke on family traditions, and we thoroughly enjoyed the evening. On the way home we listened to the disappointing news that Americans voted for a more social agenda than a conservative one. Social policies do not work whenever they are tried, and the “hope” of an Obama campaign will be the hope that they do this time.

We are hoping for a rebirth of conservative principles that have brought prosperity and growth to America. We are a unique nation, and though there are those who desire to look more like Europe, I don’t believe these are the next generation of leaders. Our alumni state of Minnesota put Norm Coleman in office last night by a mere 728 votes (.0003% difference), keeping America from a socialist super majority Senate. America was spared a true “revolution” to socialism, with conservatives able to filibuster the most radical changes Congress will attempt to make.

Within a year people will see the policy proposals of an Obama administration come to fruition, and the 2012 campaign will pick up steam. From now until then, we will attempt to rebuild conservative principles in our friends and family who were convinced into believing in socialist ones. Dispite the defeat yesterday, I see hope in our future.