2018

Posted on June 8, 2018 by Sheila

After much prayer and consideration, Matt is currently seeking a full time job. In the short term, he is picking up extra hours as they are available. Every extra dollar helps and I have to have a new budget in the next month or so that includes EVERYTHING that we need.
Zach was invited to go to the beach with a friend this weekend. This is his first real time away from family. I am hoping he has an awesome time but it is really quiet around here tonight.
We have our first swim meet next Tuesday. I love to be outside and cheering on the kids.
Bath and Body Works is currently running their semi-annual sale. I used the last little bit of my last bottle yesterday. I am so happy that I received both the orders I placed. I split up the order even though it costed more in shipping in order to use $10 off $40 for each order.
I pre-purchased an additional 80lbs of chicken today. This order will not arrive until October. I also have ordered 40lbs that we will receive in July. The reason, I placed the second order is that I was able to purchase at $0.99 a lb. This is the lowest and best price. I am hoping between the two orders this will last us an year!

Five Things Friday 6/01/2018

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Sheila

Did you hear that sigh of relief? Do you have a clue what it means for us?

This is the month, that we hopefully final get our feet back on solid ground. In addition, we are actively seeking ways to increase our overall income as well. My prayers is that by the end of June, we will have significantly increased our income and can adjust our budget accordingly.
The square foot garden should been to produce. We currently are able to harvest lettuce, basil and cilantro. I hope to add at least cucumber and squash to the mix by the end of the month.
Matt and I will have some “alone” time this month. For dinner tonight, we used a gift card and enjoy a large meal at Applebee’s. Total spent was $11! Amanda has taken all the kids with her camping this weekend. All three kids are planning to attend our church camp which be for the entire third week of June. Currently, I have scheduled myself an additional 10 hours the week they are gone to camp. This weekend, my plans are to finish up some spring cleaning and relax.
School ends for Lily next Wednesday. Zach and Kendall will both finish on Friday. This summer will be a definite change as Matt will be working one or more days. We get to start using our “Wet and Wild” pass for the summer. I am hoping to go twice in the month of June alone.
I am finally feeling caught up. I still have several things I would like to accomplish around the house but they are all things that are simple items that will just keep things moving smoothly.

Thanks for sticking with us!

May in Review

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Sheila

This has been a long EXPENSIVE month. I am so excited to say goodbye to May and hello to June. Matt and I both are still working on increasing our income and hopefully we can start to see increases in the month of June.

Financial- This is the worst month this year in regards to finances. The good news is that I receive an “extra” paycheck in June. My goal is to reset and hopefully get our feet back on steady ground. I blogged here about most of the expenses. I was not able to cover them all but we are still eating and floating so I am so thankful to head to another month.
Total paid to credit card debit $1173 total, however this did not produce an reduction Instead we increased our overall debit by almost $600.
Grocery budget $475- Total spent $608.08. Yikes, It happened again and this does not include our cow purchase. I checked and we have been over budget in this year for 5 out of 6 months. I need to take a good look at this for the next 2 months and may in reality need to increase this to a larger more realistic number. We are well stocked and I would love to say we are planning to spend much less this month but I honestly think the kids are growing and we are eating more.
Gas budget- $280- Spent $285. This does not include the inspection, or tags on Matt’s van. I also plan to re-evaluate this during the next two months and may increase if needed.
Kid/Summer expenses : Camp deposit, swim team, baseball games and we are not even going to talk about the medical expenses.
Earned $75-this is the lowest month to date. I am somewhat frustrated but extra is extra so we will continue to attempt to use whatever we can get.
Personal-
Blogging- 9 for the month. No goal met here either
Exercise- 0 total days for the month.

This is real life and just because we have a bad month does not mean we stop working. I am super disappointed but I lived the real struggle this month. I am praying and holding steady for better times ahead.

5 Things Friday 5/25/2018

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Sheila

I have a 3 day weekend! WOO HOO I am so excited to have at least one day to stay at home!
Our square foot garden is thriving. I am so very hopeful at this point. We have enjoyed lots of lettuce and some basil. I am excited to watch everything grow but even more excited when we start eating out of the garden.
Our freezer is once again full. Matt picked up our 890 of beef on Tuesday. Our chest freezer was a great fit. We have spent several hours cooking, so far we have 13 bags of cooked grounded beef. 32 beef and bean burritos, 12 meals of Salisbury steaks and 5 meals of sloppy joes (minus the buns).
May has been a slow and expensive month. I am holding on tight to make it till June. We are definitely over budget with both gas and groceries for the month.
Lily has not had an episode in almost 2 weeks (Sunday). This is a huge praise in our books.

Expensive Month of May

Posted on May 6, 2018 by Sheila

I can honestly say that this May 2018 is probably the single most expensive month that I can remember.

First the “known” expenses-

Pool dues $375
Swim Team Fee $ 110 plus around $80 for new suits
Car Insurance $325
Van Tag $44
Deposit for church camp $150

Other expense (not planned)

Cow butchering $510
Zach braces initial payment $400
Moving of building $300
Lily Additional medical expenses currently $300
Malpractice Insurance for me $160

As Matt stated “We have an income problem” The good news is that he and I both are picking up extra work and hope to cover as much/all of this with extra money this month. Twenty- four hundred is a lot of money so we will be saving each penny and finding creative ways to add to our income this month. First up is a Yard Sale this coming weekend.

Monday Update

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Sheila

So I think it is pretty obvious that I will not meet my blogging goal for the month. I do have a legit reason for it this month, so I wanted to make sure that I have it recorded. We ended up having to move things from Go Daddy due to price and this web site disappeared for approximately a week. That is as technical as I understand. I am very happy that it has all been saved including the huge amount of pictures that I post each year. The good news is for now we have three years until we have to deal with the same thing again.

I am over grocery budget again. So far this month I have spent $436 in addition to purchasing our cow. We will still have to pay the processing fee in May but this is a years supply or more of beef.

On a positive note, we have been able to reduce our total debit this month. I am so excited about this small accomplishment. I do anticipate that the next 3-4 weeks will be very expensive as we have several summer expenses that are due. These include pool membership, swim team, church camp and baseball camp. We also have our car insurance due in the month of May. Yikes

My plan/goal is to get some baseball pictures posted in addition to some other special ones over the last week.

5 Things Friday

Posted on April 13, 2018 by Sheila

Yes, it has been over a week since I posted. My only reason life. I am hopefully to get up a better post over the week but here is the short version.
Zach had his first official baseball game today. I am so excited that his team won 8-7! Zach is playing catcher and doing a great job.
Spring is hopefully here! We have the windows open!
I am so excited about our Square foot garden! I have planted potatoes. Honestly, I probably jumped the gun and went ahead and planted several cucumbers, squash and a jalapeno pepper. The worst thing that could happen is that I will have to replace them. I just really am ready for Spring.
April is going to be a really expensive month for us as we have to pay a deposit on both the girls camp, Pool dues, and need to pay for Zach to attend a baseball camp.

Saving on Saturday 3/17/2018

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Sheila

I mentioned yesterday that we had purchased a trailer of mulch. The cost of the mulch was $15. I was totally amazed at the amount of mulch that we received. Here is a picture of the trailer AFTER I worked on spread for a couple of hours on Friday night.

This was a picture of the mulch uncovered about half way through Saturday.

I have never purchased mulch this way before. I am used to purchasing by the bag at Lowes. I would have been able to purchase approximately 7 bags at Lowes during the best sale which is $2 a bag. This was ALOT of mulch. We were able to apply mulch to all 3 flower bed around the house in addition to the two areas in front of the building and the new area I started in front of the kids play house.

Finally I decided to add mulch around the square foot garden and mulch in the area directly beside several of the beds. I have been doing some research and the mulch should help maintain the temperature better, hold water and prevent weeds.

I will admit defeat, I was unable to use the entire trailer of mulch, left approximately a fourth of the mulch for someone else. It did take a lot of effort or more accurately plain old hard work but we saved over $200 in mulch.

February In Review

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Sheila

I did not want to write this post. In fact, I am writing it 4 days late because I have been avoiding putting the words to the paper. February was a hard month both emotional and financially on me. Actually I think that says it way to nicely. FEBRUARY SUCKED.

Financial- We have been hit with several unplanned financial expenses including a new tail light for my van, nails in at least 3 tires and kid’s expenses were really high for the month.

Total paid to credit card debit $981. We also added to our credit card debit by $381
Grocery budget $450- Total spent $466 I had planned to spend only $300 but…
Gas budget- $280- Spent $205, This was managed by only paying cash for gas and moving money other places.
Kid/Summer expenses : $200, Zach was registered for Baseball, purchased new bat, glove and pants. Lily need silent auction item for LYT
Earned $125- this is indeed a much lower amount but this is the expectation until at least March.

Personal- I fail, just do not want to even discuss it any more.

Six Things On Saturday- 2/10/2018

Posted on February 10, 2018 by Sheila

Yes this is the “day late and dollar short” version of 5 Things Friday. I will be the first to admit that the last couple of weeks have been very stressful and emotionally exhausting in addition to being financially straining.

Yesterday, was our first full paycheck for the month of February. The good news is that we were able to catch up from the snow week. I have a plan in place for both our tax returns and am very hopeful that this will allow us back on a slow but steady track to paying down our huge debit this year. We are working to reduce both our electric and water bills to a more normal level. Matt and I have already worked out a Menu plan for the month which means we should be able to keep the grocery bill on a lower than usual level. Another positive is that Matt has been selling vinyl decals on a very steady basis this month. This is definitely helpful as we have lots of unexpected expenses.

I am battling left-overs in our fridge. Our super bowl party is always fun but we end up with some interesting left-overs. This week, I made an effort to make meals of left-overs and strongly suggested that Matt and Lily eat left-overs for lunch. Today, I am repurposing left-overs, we had a bag of carrots, and a bunch of celery, several cups of rice and some pulled pork. I did a little bit of thinking and decided to make pork fried rice. I chopped up the pork and realized that we had over 4 cups left which is enough to make 2 full meals for us. I let Kendall help chop up the carrots and celery. I added some green peppers and onions and that became our veggies for the stir-fry. One set for dinner and a second set in the freezer for a crazy day of what is for dinner.

Zach has officially started taking piano. He has been asking for over a year but we really wanted him to wait until he was a strong reader before attempting. Kendall started teaching him this week for fun. He even practiced every day without being told. This is definitely an expense that I don’t mind adding.

I am so ready for spring, in fact I have already planned out our square foot garden and added several more containers. I am very hopefully that with a little extra work this year we will have a bumper crop. I purchased trees a couple of years ago to start work on a landscape line. The trees came with a 2 year guarantee. I received an email yesterday that a new peach tree is being shipped this week. My mother has also been growing several pecan trees in her flower bed. So we should be able to finish the border without spending any additional money!

Our busy schedule has returned. Some days, I am honestly thinking how do we actually do this. This week, Lily has practice for her play, 4 nights and a party the 5th night. Kendall has 2 days of extra curricular activities in addition to church on Wednesday night. Matt has also doubled his hours at work for this week. Yikes, better rest up today!

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