Monday Menu Post

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Sheila

Last week turned out to be different than expected with lots of weather involved. I did not cook on Thursday, so the Bacon Cheeseburger pizza is moved to this week. I wanted to use up more of the leftovers so we could stay on track. Both the kids and I are out of school today for the holiday, so I did a bit of extra cooking today. I also went to the grocery store this weekend and started to purchase food for our annual junk food Sunday.

Breakfast- Saturday-Lily brought home bagels from Panera. Sunday- Dad’s Breakfast Casserole Monday- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday– find it (breakfast burritos, muffins, oatmeal, cereal and milk, French toast sticks, sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs. We are really low on eggs, so I have purchased some instant oatmeal and grits to add to breakfast.

Lunch- Saturday-leftovers Sunday-Dinner out with Friends (CHRISTOS) Monday- corn on the cob and bacon Tuesday, – soup Wednesday- eat out or leftovers Thursday- soup. Friday- eat out.

Dinner- Saturday- Copycat Olive Garden Chicken gnocchi soup and breadsticks. Sunday- Left-overs Monday- Corn chowder (using frozen corn from our freezer) Pear sauce cake in the crockpot. Tuesday- Burritos using Taco Rice in the fridge. Wednesday- Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza (everything from the freezer) Thursday- Eat on the way to swim meet Friday- Parmesan Chicken (we have an excess of chicken in the connivence freezer)

Pantry Challenge
1.Purchasing items that we are completely out of that are staples such as diary as well as buns or other items that will help use items we already have. Total spending for the three months of the 2025 will be less than $900 Current total $514.46. This week we received an Azure order (first one in 18 months) and I started to gather items for our Junk Food Sunday. I also pulled out cash to use for groceries for the remainder of the challenge. I currently have $220 left to meet the goal of $900. Not sure this is entirely possible but even keeping that budget for 2 months would mean $800 in savings.
2. Use at least one “meal/meat portion of the meal” from the stand-up freezer each week. (This is where most of the meals are) Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza. I also pulled out 3 packs of frozen corn on the cob, 2 of which I will use this week for meals. This corn is from at least 2 years ago so I am very proud to be using it up.
3. Use at least 3 jars a week from the canning pantry. I pulled a pint jar of pear sauce and will be using at least 3 jars of chicken broth this week for cooking. My plan is to also use a jar of spaghetti sauce for the chicken parm on Friday.
4. Use one item a week from the connivence freezer in my room. I ended up giving my mom a bag of Chicken nuggets this week and I hope to use some of the chicken patties to make the chicken parm. on Friday.
5. Each Monday after menu planning provide a list of how I followed the guidelines for the week. Done!

5 Things Friday

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Sheila

The weather has remained extremely cold. Today is the first time in a week the temperature has been above 45 degrees. We are actually expecting even colder weather next week with the temperature to remain below freezing from Sunday night until Thursday. There is also a chance for snow as well.
Zach and Kendall have attended school 4 days in 2024 and if they are able to continue with the schedule they plan. Then they will go 2 out of 5 days next week which will put them at 5 full days in the month of January.
On Wednesday this week, I picked up a foster dog who may become a permanent part of our family. He appears to have some hound dog in him and some pit bull. We decided to go the foster route just to make sure that he will be a good fit for us. So far, he appears to be very sweet but is having trouble remembering to pee outside.
I am continuing to work on some budget items and plans. I want to make a significant dent in our overall debt but I also realize that we can’t cut back to a bean and rice budget due to the kids and I want my kids to enjoy their high school years not think about what they can’t do. Look for a post in the next week or so with some more specific details.
I am staring to look ahead to our junk food Sunday! I plan to purchase at least the chicken wings we need this weekend along with some bacon and sausage that we are currently out of. The pantry challenge may be a bit more of a challenge as we look and plan ahead.

Wordless Wednesday- Disney

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Sheila

Monday Menu Plan / Pantry Challenge

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Sheila

Things are starting to get back on track. I am so thankful for the extra time at home due to weather over the past week! I am actually feeling almost better and ready to dive in to a more normal routine. You will notice that we did not eat out this weekend due to the weather as well.

Breakfast- Saturday-Pancakes or French toast from freezer. Sunday- Baked oatmeal Monday- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday– find it (breakfast burritos, muffins, oatmeal, omelets cereal and milk, French toast sticks, sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs. I have added a rice cake with peanut butter to my list of things to eat.

Lunch- Saturday-Lily made meatballs Sunday-My Dad’s chicken stew Monday- leftovers Tuesday, – soup Wednesday- eat out or leftovers Thursday- soup. Friday- eat out.

Dinner- Saturday- Chicken and rice or meatball and rice. Sunday-Hamburger and French Fries Monday-Cowboy beans and cornbread Tuesday- Chicken Fried Rice and eggrolls Wednesday- Million Dollar Spaghetti Pie Thursday- Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza Friday- Eat out before the swim meet.

Snow Weekend/Pantry Challenge

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Sheila

With all our sickness this has been a great week for weather related events. I had a 3-hour delay for a workday on Monday, a two-hour delay on Tuesday and a remote learning day on Friday. This allowed me some extra time at home to start to get things back in order and prepared. On Friday, after finishing work I was able to immediately get started on getting things done around the house. Dinner was already going as I had started in the crockpot during my lunch.

The soup on Friday was a new one to us. Everyone enjoyed and we placed some in the fridge for later meals. One of the things I am trying to do is when I make a pot of soup, put some in containers for easy lunches but also freeze a container that can be used for a quick and easy meal later. But this did not allow us enough for the freezer. I was also able to pull out and make a breakfast casserole for Friday morning, using up things that we already had. It actually was a hit and will be a do over! I even pulled out eggs from the freezer so that we did not use our precious egg supply right now.

One of the hardest parts of starting straight back to work after returning from a trip is the lack of food preparation that is done. This week, I knew I had canned a couple of soups so I used that for my lunches. We also had very simple dinners that basically included heat and eat. Lily also cooked on Thursday night and Saturday lunch which was a huge blessing! My goal for the weekend which I knew ahead of time was to try and get some meals made that first used up ingredients from our pantries and freezers but also that provided options for lunches for the next week.

Lily made meatballs for lunch on Saturday, which were great! Hot dog buns were used for sub rolls and we pulled out a jar of spaghetti sauce along with BBQ Sause to use as a topping. I ended up making cranberry meatballs for my dinner on Saturday night with enough left for at least one lunch this week. Matt and Lily headed to Costco for some car stuff on Saturday as well. They brought back a rotisserie chicken which was enjoyed for dinner by others as well. I had also made a pot of rice for a dinner later this week which most of us added to the protein.

I pulled all the chicken off the bones and put in the fridge to use for our soup today. My Dad’s chicken stew which is most like a Brunswick stew has been on my short list. I threw the bones and skins in the crockpot with water to make chicken stock. This cooked overnight and was ready for use this morning. I was able to pressure can 8 pints of chicken stock which are now shelf-stable for future use.

I was able to use frozen onions and celery, along with a couple of expired cans of mixed vegetables along with cans of corn, tomato and green beans to start a big pot of chicken stew. We will be eating this for lunch as well as freezing one portion for future use and having 4-5 bowl available for next week as well.

My current plan is to have hamburgers for dinner, using buns from the freezer! I am going to start a batch of cowboy beans in the roaster in the morning which will be another lunch options along with a batch in the freezer and other lunch choices as well.

I think we are good for both using pantry items and having prepared meals now!

Saving on Saturday- Pantry Challenge

Posted on January 11, 2025 by Sheila

January has been a little rough overall for us. For more details see this post from yesterday! But today is the most “normal” day so far this month. It is a Saturday; we have snow on the ground and everyone is home. The goal for today is to finish putting away Christmas, unpack the camper and general catch up from the month of December.

I want to focus on the pantry challenge for this post. This is the third year that I have attempted to participate in the pantry challenge. I watched others do the pantry challenge in 2022.

I am going to continue or use the same rules this year for spending that I have in the past. I am only going to buy things as we run out of them and need them. I will continue to receive our subscribe and save items that are the best price from Amazon. To be completely transparent, here is what I have already spent in the month of January, $10 at Aldi’s, I have a current order for pick up at Walmart for around $80 and finally Matt and Lily, will be picking up items from Costco today. I am going to estimate those at around $50. My subscribe and save is $105.46. I also had already purchased an order from Azure Standard as well. So now that I see all the numbers on paper, my overall goal for the three months of the pantry challenge will be to spend less than $900 on groceries which is one month of our current budget.
I have decided to provide a little more structure to what food we are eating so that we can work on eating what food we have instead of just eating what we normally do and then buy more. I worked hard over the summer to get lots of food in the freezer and to fill the canning pantry. I am working on keeping my kitchen pantry stocked and organized. I was able to move items to the kitchen pantry so now I have a better idea of what we have and what we are using.

Here is a final list of the guidelines I would like to stick to during the months of January, February and March

1.Purchasing items that we are completely out of that are staples such as diary as well as buns or other items that will help use items we already have. Total spending for the three months of the 2025 will be less than $900
2. Use at least one “meal/meat portion of the meal” from the stand-up freezer each week. (This is where most of the meals are)
3. Use at least 3 jars a week from the canning pantry. (This can include lunches)
4. Use one item a week from the connivence freezer in my room. (This will also help me get a good handle on what exactly is in this freezer as well.
5. Each Monday after menu planning provide a list of how I followed the guidelines for the week.

Since the pantry challenge has been going on for a total of 11 days but we have only been home the past 6 days here is the list for that time period.
1. Current spending is at $206 with Amazon order and pick up order from Walmart. I will add Azure and Costco to the report on Monday. ($694 left for three months)
2. Fail for the week but we will be using several prepared meals for next week.
3. 7 jars from the canning pantry this week.
4. We pulled out and used 2 rolls of sausage from the connivence freezer this week.

Are you participating in the pantry challenge? What are your rules?

5 Things Friday

Posted on January 10, 2025 by Sheila

This blog is to help me recall all things. Unfortunately, I did not need to recall how 2024 started. I spent the afternoon of January 1, 2024, sitting on a beach. The water was too cold, but the view was worth the chill. I also was very sick with an eye infection and sinus infection. My goal and prayer were that 2025 did not start out the same way. Well, here is how things went this week. Coming home from Disney on Sunday January 5th, Matt had a cold that started on Tuesday and was not getting better, in fact he was getting worse and starting to cough a lot. Zach had a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday morning to get a sport’s physical so that he could swim in a meet on Wednesday. Lily was convinced she had a sinus infection but was not sick enough for a doctor’s visit. We were also no sure how much exhaustion played into her being sick as well. Kendall was still limping from a sprain that happened the first of December, but she was able to walk, and I thought it was appearing less swollen. I knew that this week would involve some doctor’s appointments but not that many.
Matt took Kendall to the pediatrician on Monday afternoon where she was given a referral for an orthopedic visit. We decide this was easier that juggling multiple appointments on Tuesday. I came home on Monday and was exhausted, and not feeling well at all. I ended up in bed around 6:30 and actually woke up a bit better on Tuesday. Zach did have his scheduled sport’s physical on Tuesday. The surprise of the day was Matt got progressively worse on Tuesday afternoon and ended up at Urgent Care. All testing and swabs were negative however because of his significantly increased blood pressure led to a prescription for high blood pressure that has been the biggest blessing of the week.
Wednesday morning Kendall had an orthopedic appointment where the diagnosis was either a sprain or a tear. This led to a referral for an MRI to get a final diagnosis. I had forgotten that Matt had an appointment to have 2 areas of potential skin cancer removed. He ended up taking off the day and was in bed from noon on. Lily and I drove to Greensboro to watch a swim meet. Kendall spent the day on crutches.
Thursday morning- Matt now has a stomach bug so I ended up driving Kendall to her MRI which ended up a good thing as I was able to view the results by lunchtime. It was a sprain, and she needed to keep stretching and working it out.
Friday- the second official snow day of the year. Everyone ended up having a remote day as the weather was unpredictable and ended up starting around 1pm and by 2 the road was covered. Lily is significantly worse and ended up at Urgent Care as well. She has a sinus infection. Both Zach and Kendall feel like crap but based on Matt’s early diagnosis we decided to treat with symptom relief medication. Honestly it was a blessing as everyone did what they needed to do but was also able to sleep most of the crud off. Matt and I both ended up working full days but were able to keep an eye on the kids and make sure everyone eat and took medicine.

The good news is that by Saturday, everyone is feeling human and hopefully this sickness is gone for good!

Wordless Wednesday- DCP

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Sheila

Lily has officially completed the Disney College Program!

Year In Review 2024/ 2025 Plans

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Sheila

As I sat this morning and tried to get my head around the numbers for the year, I was also shocked to find that I have been blogging for 13 years. I was able to go back and review all 13 years! The realization that this blog is for me more than anyone else also strengthens my resolve to continue to make this a point of accountability for myself if nothing else. I do also know that my children enjoying stalking it to see pictures from years past so I will continue for that reason as well. On a personal level this has been a very long and difficult year. I have spent quite a bit of time at Baptist hospital for my mother with both appointments and 3 hospital stays. I was given a written reprimand at work in addition to the normal fun of teenagers. Matt and I have both increased our income. We currently have 2 car payments We are eating out at least once weekly as a family and this will likely not change whatsoever in the near future.

Now let’s look at some of the numbers

Emergency Fund- We are currently looking at our baby emergency fund sitting at $500. It has occurred in the month of December. I want to set a goal for 2025 to have this amount doubled to $1000. My action step will be to transfer my monthly gas allowance into the account to help boast it consistently.

Groceries- The goal was $975 a month. We have spent a total of 9766.65 or $813 a month on average! This is huge! I am so proud of us for reducing this number and staying within budget 9 of 12 month. I will set the goal for 2025 at $820. I do plan to participate in the Pantry Challenge to help reduce and maintain our spending level for January, February and possibly March.

Gas- Our current goal is $500 a month. We spent a total of 5000 a month for gas with an average of $410 a month. We have had 4 trips to Florida this year so I am not at all surprised. I am going to leave the goal of $500 a month and continue to monitor it.

Blogging- For many of the past years, my goal has been 15 per month. I did not hit this goal one single time this year. I have 111 blog post or an average of 9 post per month. For 2025- the goal will be 10 post per month.

Debit- We have made huge financial changes and did a bit of remodeling this year. We did take out a HELOC on the house to help cover some expenses as some of the items needed to be done sooner rather than later. I also consolidated debt to the HELOC due to the lower interest rate. Our current debt is $265411 which includes both vehicles and Mortage payments. It has been several years since I set a debt reduction goal, so for 2025 I want to reduce the amount to 200 hundred thousand. This is a lofty goal but it can only make things easier.