September Goals

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Sheila

This summer has been full of fun! I really enjoyed some nice long days at the pool in addition to our week of vacation at the beach. However, I have not been as on top of budgeting as I like to be. Our Disney trip is less than 3 months away, so my goal is to tight up the budget and get up ready to enjoy Disney. Keeping that in mind, I have decided to make September a “low spend/ no spend.” month. I really want to make September, October and November all low spend/no spend months but I am going to focus on one month at a time! I know that I can make a goal but if I don’t include some action steps in addition to adding accountability then I am going to fails. I am going to list my plans/goals for September, with weekly or biweekly updates as I can.

1. Reduce Grocery spending to $300 for the month. I am going to purchase 80 pounds of chicken from Zaycon and pull out $150 in cash to put in the grocery envelope. Cash for me is harder to over spend so this should keep me on track.

2. When I looked at my September budget, I have 4 categories that are not completely funded for the month so the remaining $400 of the normal grocery budget will be used to completely fund the budget.

3 Plan to purchase both Lily and Amanda birthday cards. This will allow me to direct our gift money for October, November and December to Christmas. I have already decided that Christmas will be smaller than normal after our trip so I am estimating I need $400 to cover gifts for the kids.

4. Pay at least $375 toward our Disney trip to maximize Disney points prior to November. My goal is to pay for the Bibbidi, Bobbidi Boutique with Disney points only. I have already earned enough to cover one of the girls so well on the way. We are expecting Matt to bring in around $350 in new income from his web business, so I only need to find $25 more.

5. Maintain Gas budget at or below $400. Matt has identified several “maintenance/ repairs” that need to be completed on his van. My goal is to wait till the end of the month to complete to make sure we stay I budget.

6. Reduce/Eliminate Eating out for the month of September. Zach’s birthday is Tuesday September 1st so he has already chosen to eat at a local pizza buffet. Other than this meal, no eating out! I will have to be very deliberate with especially Sunday lunches but we have been spending over $300 a month on eating out and that is a huge amount.

I am hoping to have a yard sale of some form or fashion at the end of the month as well. This may help boost our Disney Payments.

5 Things Friday

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Sheila

1. The kids start to school on Monday. We had a meet the teacher night last night and everyone is excited. In anticipation of this we are following the school night schedule around here including bedtimes! This also means that I am trying to get some filling/quick breakfast made over the next couple of morning to help in the mornings. Did I mention that Tuesday and Friday will be the first time in 10 years that ALL my children will be in school?

2. Yesterday, was a sad day. We spent most of the day outside working in the yard and square foot garden. The reason it was so sad is that I ended up pulling up and throwing in the compost pile, about half the corn, the cucumber plants and about half of the tomato plants. We have had such a dry summer and with us being out of town last week, so no extra watering, they were dead. It was bittersweet because I was able to harvest enough corn for dinner last night and 2 small watermelon that we used for dinner today. We should continue to get a couple of tomato in daily and maybe just maybe a green pepper or so.

3. I was able to leave work on or before 5:30 every day this week and even managed to get home by 5pm this evening! I know this is hard to understand but it is a HUGE deal for me and something I plan to continue.

4.I want to spend most of tomorrow at the pool as it will only be open for 3 more weekends. I have not checked the forecast but heard it included storms.

5. I was able to get an additional 2 GB of data and $20 knocked off my Verizon bill tonight just by asking!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Sheila

We have been home from vacation for 2 days and are about 1/2 the way unpacked. Goal- Be completely unpacked by Saturday.
I am going to be changing/hopefully reducing my work schedule over the next month to make things a little bit easier around here in the evenings. My goal until the changes officially take place and for the whole school year is to be leaving work by 5:30. So far I have been home 2 days in a row. Go me!
During my extended lunch break today, we headed to Winston to Vision Works to order both Zach and Kendall new glasses. The lesson we learned is that glasses for the little kids need to have nose pieces to keep them from sliding off their face. I did use a coupon surprised? We were able to purchase 2 pair of glasses with transitional lens plus a very nice contact lens case for Lily to take to school for $200.
I am planning to attend a continuing education class in September, it will be the first time in 10 years I have stayed by myself in a hotel room. I think I am a little too excited!
Disney planning is in full swing as soon as we finish unpacking from the Beach.
As part of getting ready to go back to school, I had the kids try on and get rid of any shoes that were too small or that they did not like. Kendall is upset because now she is left with only 22 pairs of shoes.
Lily has cheerleading every night this week and man is it rough trying to get everyone back on a school schedule. Zach will start Kindergarten and we are trying to eliminate naps up front so the evening have been full of attitude. Tonight was at least better than last night. Zach made it to his “normal” 7:30 bedtime. Last night he was in bed at 6:50.
Amanda has started college and so far I am very proud of the hours she is putting in to be successful!
We are on budget so far for the month in both groceries and gas. I am so proud of this especially because of the massive Costco trip we made on Sunday in addition to the purchase of school supplies today.
Blogging is always better at the beach, I guess the smell of the ocean makes my thoughts come easier!

MIA

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Sheila

Yes, I have been missing in action for at least the past week. But I do have a good reason, this past Friday and Saturday, our community pool hosted the county wide swim meet. Matt and I both were heavily involved in both the planning and working at the event both days. In fact, I probably spent more hours at the pool in the past week then the entire summer of 2012. I am glad to say that we survived and thrived! To give you an idea of the size, between the two day there were a total of 385 swimmers and I would estimate over 1000 people in attendance. Haley came on Friday morning and spent most of the day, guarding the parking gate and then selling t-shirts and heat sheets. Amanda came after she finished work to help sell t-shirts, heat sheet and then she helped Zach drive the golf cart to shuttle people back to their cars. The temperature was HOT HOT HOT! If you would like a little more information check out the website .

Both Lily and Kendall swam on Saturday which was the day for swimmers younger than 10 years old. The girls both swam their hardest and I am so proud of their efforts. Lily won a heat for freestyle which is no simple task and Kendall placed 6 of 18 girls in the Backstroke and also received an ribbon for 3rd place with her freestyle relay team. My goal is to post everyday to catch up! Lots of fun and interesting things have also been happening!

5 Things Friday

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Sheila

Amanda took Kendall to Chunky cheese today to celebrate her birthday! Looks like they had fun..
We have purchased new living room furniture. Matt picked up a new television stand last night and we should receive the new couch we ordered sometime next week. I will post pictures once I figure out where everything is going.
The county swim meet is exactly one week away. I am one of the organizers for the event. Matt and I spent 7 hours yesterday working on printing and tying up loose ends. I am so excited to see the girls swim but also ready to get some of my time back.
We did not stick to our menu plan at all this week. But we are trying to use the veggie from the garden on a daily basis.
Our new budget is working so far. I especially like having cash for quick grocery store trips. I made sure to count and thing about my purchases before making them with cash.

Random Thursday Thoughts

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Sheila

Matt and I have survived our first week of car sharing. Because we do not feel comfortable driving the white van and the truck does not have working air conditioning, we have been car sharing. The current plan is continue for at least 2 more weeks.
My summer clothes shopping is finished. I was able to purchase 2 pair of shorts for myself, a t-shirt for Matt, a shirt to match a skirt for Lily, a pair of short for Lily and 3 pair of shorts for Kendall today all for $92 or about $11.50 each.
We will be increasing our food budget to $700 a month starting in July. Today I used our rewards coupon from Costco help us stay on track for the budget for June. We only needed 3 items but decided to go ahead and buy some extra produce and a couple of fun food items as well. Out of pocket was $23 for 22 items at Costco or $1 an item. No way to match that!
We are suppose to close on our new mortgage next week so I plan to share more detail and our new budget some time after that.
I am already working on the new budget but had to adjust both the water and electric bill higher than I anticipated due to the extreme heat (above 90 for the past 10 days with prediction of another 10 days). At this point if we do not water the garden will be start to lose anything that we have. I had planned to water every third day but I may have to alternate every other day in hopes to still get a decent harvest.
Tonight we made the tough decision to skip a practice. We are in week 3 of 8, with 4 night a week swim practice in addition to cheerleading and piano. Because we have been car sharing, everyone has been out to at least 8:30 each night this week. I am tired and so are the kids, which is evident by attitudes so Zach, Kendall and I stayed home while Lily went to cheerleading only.
Amanda is planning to bring a camper over next week and stay the week allowing the kids to sleep outside in the camper with her a couple of nights. I am not sure how this will work out but everyone is excited so at least it should make for some good stories in the future.

Random Thought Tuesday

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Sheila

I have lots of these to share!

Happy Cinco De Mayo, we celebrated by having cheese Quesada and Mexican Rice for dinner. Matt and I ended the day with margarita wine! Yes we are partying hard.
The white van is having even more issues, currently I have a flashing light and it is running rough. I am frustrated. In fact I am so frustrated that we are discussing options for purchasing a new to us car and making payments. The goal right now is to wait several months in order to reduce our debt load and make sure we can afford a new huge monthly expense.
I purchased 48 bottles of water at CVS for a grand total of $0.10 yesterday. This was in fact all tax. I have not been shopping regularly at CVS for over a month now but was excited to actually grab a great deal and use ECB at the same time.
Our bean plants have spouted! I have had horrible luck with planting seeds this year that I was becoming concerned that the green beans would not grow either. In fact I was trying to find a store to purchase live plants from. But yesterday, they started popping out of the ground and today I am counting a close to 90% growth rate from the seeds.
Spring/Early Summer has finally arrived in North Carolina. The high temperature this week are crawling slowly into the 80s. We have not needed to turn on our air condition yet but I am sure it will not be long. The great news is that we have now been a month without use heat or air. Our electric bill should remain below $200 for the month of May as well!
Amanda has applied for and been accepted into the community college starting in the fall. I am so excited and proud of her.
On Sunday both Lily and Kendall participate in their final cheerleading competition for the year. Lily’s team received a special honor of best tumbling for the entire day! My plan is to post lots of fun pictures for Wordless Wednesday. Pictures not only of the competition but also from the rides we enjoyed at the amusement park where it was held.

Food For Thought

Posted on April 26, 2015 by Sheila

Up until this Saturday, I had done no grocery shopping in the month of April. Matt actually ran to the store to pick up milk after we came home from the beach. Because of the limited shopping our budget has stayed very low for the month. My goal for the month was to keep our grocery budget low and to use up as much as possible from our stockpile so I had already decided that I did now want to spend a great deal and I am pleased to report that I was successful. Saturday turned out to be a very rainy and nasty day, Amanda had planned to spend the day with the kids so she offered to watch all three of the little one while Matt and I went to the grocery store. After ten years of marriage, this even is considered a date! Matt has a free drink from Starbucks so that was our first stop. Next we went to Harris Teeter, I saved around 50% and only used 3 coupons, $3 off a 12 pack of diet coke, $3 off 2 boxes of Starbucks K-cups and $5 off purchase of $50. This last coupon was after all other coupons as well. I did shop in the clearance buggy where I found 3 boxes of ant bait. We also purchased sausage, bacon and pepperoni with our total our of pocket being $47.67. Next we stopped at Food Lion where we purchased 10 boxes of fruit snacks, 5 boxes of pop tarts and a gallon of milk for $22. I was very pleased with our trip> I am actually still under $200 for the month so I may go to Food Lion for a couple more rounds of Fruit snacks.

After keeping our food budget extremely low for the month of April, I am already looking ahead to May, I know that we are going to need to make a Costco trip at the beginning of the month and it also appears as if we will be purchasing 40# of ground beef from Zaycon to last us through the summer. My goal is to stay under $600 for the month so between these two large purchase we most likely will continue to adapt and ate things that we have on hand. Otherwise if the budget goes extremely high it will negate our positive gains in April.

Next item on our food list is that our square foot garden is growing! I am so excited that not only did all the plants that I have initially planted survive but they are growing. Matt has also added a 2×6 box that we will be planting corn in. Depending how well the corn grows and if we really like it, we may add a third box just for corn.

Finally, meal planning for the week. This will be a special week as both girls have Field Day this week, several appointments on Thursday and we are headed to our last competition for Cheerleading next weekend.

Breakfast-French toast (leftovers) , Cereal, Poptarts, eggs and Baked oatmeal.

Lunch-Lunches are going to be packed later today(Sunday) and I will be taking either a salad or leftovers.

Dinner– Crazy evening schedule with several quick and easy meals thrown in.

Saturday- Lunch: new chicken recipe, Dinner- Homemade pizza with sourdough crust.
Sunday- Lunch- at my parents, Dinner- Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, veggie and fruit.
Monday- leftovers
Tuesday- Hamburger helper
Wednesday-Chicken pie and Squash casserole, I am taking the day off so I will be cooking!
Thursday- hot pockets or pizza roles
Friday- Pepper steak and rice.

Wordless Wednesday- Beach

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Sheila

5 Things Friday

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Sheila

We are enjoying our mini vacation so far, one of the favorite things about this trip is that we are eating out most meals. Zach actually at all his breakfast this morning at IHOP.2. Amanda decided at the last minute to join us for this trip and everyone is really enjoying having some quality time to spend with her. The funniest part is that they are “taking turns to sit beside her” but no one wants to sleep with her because she snores! 3. We had planned to play Putt Putt today but the weather has not cooperated at all so instead we surprised the kids with a trip to Ripley’s Aquarium. They LOVED it..I am going to plan an entire “Wordless Wednesday” post with some of the awesome pictures that Matt took.4. The water slide that is part of the outside pool at our hotel was open today and all three of the little kids were so excited to go down it. Unfortunately Zach ended up with a battle scar from it. I was so proud that he did go down a second time after hitting his head the first time. 5. We have not even been down on the beach because of the weather but I did at least get a picture from the pool.