Category Archives: Budgeting

Positive Budget Adjustments

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This is typically one of the times that I search to make sure that I am getting the best deal of all the normal bills. The reason is simple, I am thinking about the new year and a new budget.  We switched our internet provided right at a year ago. The first three months were $50ish then it went up to $86.75 which was still less than we were paying. We have been receiving promotional offers in the mail from the original provider  (Spectrum) but nothing outstanding aka worth the time and effort.

Well luckily that changed last week. We received an offer for $50 a month for 12 month at the same speed we had.  I went on line to make the change and also saw an offer for $50 free which I grabbed. I knew it would take some time to get everything switched so I scheduled for last Sunday. Of course it did not work out so a technician came on Monday and got it switched over.  We are going to save $26.75 a month for 12 months or $321 for the year.  This offer also included a free mobile phone line.

This offer required a little bit more research but we decided to go ahead and switch Kendall’s line to save an additional $35 a month.  I was actually trying to get a transfer pin from Verizon online when I managed to trigger a $20 a line discount for 12 months with the catch that I needed to call to get this discount.  Of course it did not come that easy. I spent 45 minutes on hold waiting to talk with someone who was only able to immediately apply it to 4 lines (one of which was Kendall’s).  I have been promised that we should receive the additional $40 discount in the next four business days.  But the hassle is worth it. Currently by changing Kendall’s line and given the $60 discount on the three lines our cellphone bill has decreased by $120 a month or $1440 a year!

That means that I am $1761 closer to paying off Home Depot!

Pantry Challenge update

I did a quick shopping trip on Tuesday 12/30 to end out the year.  I am going to attempt to only buy diary that we are completely out of or other items that are necessary in order to keep eating.  I am also significantly reducing my Amazon subscribe and save orders as well. This past week we have been focused on celebrating birthdays and eating left-overs.  Today, I realized that we are out of ranch powder and I used up the remaining thyme in our soup tonight.  Neither are required to eat so we should be good.

Pantry Challenge Preparation

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I am trying to spend part of my winter break working on Pantry preparation.  I had already been thinking about participating in a pantry challenge but with the new heating and air system it is a definite we need to now.  First I have been working on a list of all of the different meals we could have based on items in our freezers and pantry. My goal is to have a list of sixty items. I am planning to share this list once I get it organized and typed up. Here are some of the other ways I am working to get prepared to make this pantry challenge successful for both the months of January and February.

So far in the last week I have made a batch of sloppy joes (8 meals), two extra meals of meatloaf muffins, two extra meals of bagels and one extra loaf of bread.

I have been searching the pantry to try and restock on any items that we might run short on during the next several months.  I ended up at Costco last night to pick up items for our dinner party on Saturday as well as the items we needed. I ended up spending $306 which puts me over the grocery budget for this month however I will let you know next week what our budgets actually look like for next year.

The “rules” I have set for myself

  1. Eating out as a family  only on Sundays – We have a specific budget for this.  I will also try and stretch this budget to cover meals on the go which will be needed for a couple of swim meets.  Matt and I will continue to have our “spending money” which is going to be reduced from $50 to $40 every two weeks for at least the first six months of 2026.
  2. Purchase only diary items such as milk, cheese and creamer.  I am planning to make bread during the challenge so this should not be needed. We have fruits and vegetables in cans, jars and frozen which need to get used up during this challenge.
  3. No purchasing of meat! With the exception of chicken wings needed for our Super Bowl party.
  4. Use at least 5 jars a week from the home canned pantry.
  5. Keep a list of items we run out of and when This is new this year but should help me figure out what I need in our pantry for the future.
  6. Lower the Amazon subscribe and save order to bear minimum of 5 items needed to keep the 15% discount or items we are absolutely out of.

Anyone else participating?

Saving on Saturday

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One of the most important things to remember is every $1 saved is an accomplishment.  With the huge financial expense of the new HVAC system, I am going to focus more on the little things for saving. The reason is we already do alot of things to save money and in reality, I can’t find much more that way. So now it is back to the basics of saving in every way possible.

I mentioned yesterday that I had not been out to eat breakfast. That is the first way we are saving money!

Another way we are saving money is by using items in our pantry. For us as a family this means that we need convenient foods that are easy to make and filling. Breakfast is one of the hardest meals for me because I don’t have much time to get out the door.  I spend ALOT of time in the Summer preparing food ahead but I also need to add to this during the year. Last night for dinner we had sausage balls and French toast.  I decided to go ahead and make a HUGE batch.  We have been getting six eggs a day so this was a good way also to use up the eggs. I purchased three loaves of French bread at Walmart for $1.47 each ($4.50), used sugar, milk, vanilla and cinnamon. I am going to estimate the entire cost to be $10.  Matt used the Blackstone to fry up the bread. We ended up with our dinner and around 60 additional slices of French toast.  Currently one meal of French toast for one person is $10 so for the same cost we probably have at least 5 meals for our family of five.

The final way we saved money this week is by building shelves out of pallets that we got for free last year. We have used this wood to complete the front part of the new building as well.  I did use part of my Christmas money to purchase the brackets. The total cost for his was around $30 but we have lots more space and I definitely like  organization.

5 Things Friday

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1. Today is the official start of the Christmas pajama pants season.  I have two weeks to be able to enjoy wearing these. If you see me in public, I will be festive and warm! So mind your business
2.  I have not eaten breakfast out/grab on the way to work for the past two weeks. This may seem small but it is a big deal for me!  In reality I will have saved probably $20-$40 this month alone.
3. We have our annual Christmas dinner planned for December 27th. I have already started some of the preparations in hopes that it will not be as exhausting and I can enjoy more of the fun parts of it!
4. Our new HVAC system is installed. Here is me looking forward to warmth and lower bills!
5.  On Sunday, we will enjoy a “Birthday Party for Jesus”, lunch with Friends and Carols and Candles at church.  This is a festive as it gets and I am looking forward to each of these!

Financial Changes- Life Happens

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I feel like I had finally decided on a course/plan of action for next year in regards to Finances and was actually going to make a post and state some goals.  Good thing is that I did not get quite that far… because life happens!  This time it is in the form of our HVAC unit.
Let’s start with the background:  I noticed in November that the house just did not seem warm so I ended up increasing the temperature for a couple of days without much thought.  The day after Veteran’s Day, I noticed that our energy consumption was the second highest I had ever seen. We called and got it checked out the next week.
Here is a picture of what we saw…
We had to run the fan over it for 24 hours to discover that a “reversing value” was bad. The anticipated cost was $1500 so we went ahead and had the part ordered. A part arrived this past week and on Wednesday they came to install it.  Unfortunately a freon leak was discovered.  After another hour of trying to find the leak and realizing that we were shipped the wrong part.  We were given the decision to make as we continue with the repair knowing it would add another $1000 to find and repair the leak or purchase a new system.  Several factors were presented including our system is currently 18 years old with a life expectancy of 15 years.  Another consideration was that there was no warranty or guarantee with the repair.  In fact we were told that it was very likely that the repair would not fix the problem and in the best possible case we may get another year out of the system as old as it is.
New systems are not cheap to the tune of $8700!  This was a very tough decision to make.  I am not  one to purchase a new anything in case. After thought and prayer. We decided to go with a new system.
After the decision was made, I did some additional research and discovered that we have spent less than $500 on our system since installation.  Matt also discovered that the new system is supposed to be much more energy efficient as well. The new system will come with a 10 year warranty that will be monitored and covered by the same company we have used since the beginning.
The system is actually supposed to be installed on Friday!
Next came determining how to pay for this expense.  I talked about refinancing the house in this post.  During this process we had decided to put some money back in our Money Market account for future expenses.   The bulk of the cost will come from there. The remaining amount is going to be from our budgeted expenses. My plan was to attempt to pay off several credit cards in 2026. This has now changed, we are going to cover this expense and attempt to pay off the interest free account before it expires.    This will be a stretch but one I am going to face head on and attempt to meet.
In reality this means that for the short run we are going to make only minimum payment on all the credit cards (OUCH).  I am going to focus on also reducing our monthly expenses as well, especially in regards to food and other non essential  spending.
   I am planning a couple of posts in the next two weeks with concrete numbers and ideas. Hang around for the journey!

Friday Financial Update

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So this is the much promised post about the big financial change that we have made.  I have hinted at this post on several occasions but did not want to share until everything was complete and final. The reason for this post is very personal, I want to be able to read this in the future, see my rationale and also determine if it worked or not.

We have refinanced the house and rolled the HELOC into it. First the facts, this is a 15 year mortgage with an interest rate of 6.25%. the anticipated maturity date is December 2040. Our age would be 68.

Next, why we choose to re-finance at this time. There are two main reasons that we looked at refinancing now. The first of which is that we or at least I have started to seriously look at and begin to plan for retirement. My top priority going into retirement is to be debt-free. I do not want to have any payments such as mortgage or car. The auto part is really something that I can’t control as much as the mortgage/HELCO.  I knew going in the HELOC was 30 years and my initial plan was to begin making double payments when we pay off the Tahoe in October 26.  The second reason for considering and seriously looking at a re-fi now is that the HELCO was an adjustable rate.  I don’t recall reading this so maybe I missed it. I realized this (my mistake) because the HELCO was a fixed rate for 12 months and then became adjustable. My realization occurred with the notice that it would increase to over 7%.

The problem…. our mortgage was refinanced during COVID at a rate of 2.75%. This has been the one down side and thing that made the decision to re-fi difficulty for me. But when you compare the fact that the HELCO was already high and had the possibility of going even higher then even math said we should re-fi.

We ended up including some cash out when we decided to re-finance in order to reduce our overall debit load and to make paying everything much easier and quicker.  As I mentioned above the interest rate is 6.25% which is less than any credit card at this point.  We will begin making payments on January 1 2026 and begin to make an extra  principal only payment November 2026 which should reduce our term to 8 years or 2034 and our age to 62.

Pantry Challenge/ Saving Money

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Yes I am writing this on a Sunday. I did most of the work for this on Saturday. But I wanted to share about the building that feels like it is sucking up most if not all of our time.

I work all summer long to get easy to prepare meals in the freezer to make the school year go easier. I also wanted to start using up alot of the food we have here so that I can reduce the food bill for the rest of the year.  I have  not been to Costco since the first of August before school started.  I am picking up items that we are completely out of but I am making a conscience effort not to buy items unless absolutely needed.  We are about 6 weeks in and at the point where our convivence foods are gone. Yesterday we finished up both the chicken nuggets and bagel bites. One of the items that I have the most of is ground beef. When we purchase a whole cow, we get alot of ground beef and I know we can eat it. I am thinking that at this point we have almost 50 # left in the freezer.   We used up the last of the Costco meatball about a week ago.

On Friday, I took a pound of ground beef and decided to make some meatballs to go with our spaghetti.  They turned awesome, so good in fact that I decided to go ahead and make a huge batch. I turned 5 pounds of ground beef into 96 meatballs that can be used for spaghetti, meatball subs and even Swedish meatballs.

While the last batch of these were baking yesterday, I ended up gathering up all the ingredients for Taco Soup. I decided to make a double batch so that I could can up some for quick and easy lunches.  We are eating the soup for dinner this evening and I will have 5 half pints and 12 pints of taco soup to use for lunches or even future meal!  I am excited to have these convivence items instead of purchasing.

5 Things Friday

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1. The school year is in full swing and I am busy. One of the main reasons I am busy is the major overhaul project of rebuilding/making useable the metal building at the end of our driveway. We took down the entire structure which was a metal tube frame and are working on rebuilding.  I am hopefully that by this time next week, the project will be complete and I have been taking pictures to share at the end.
2. Zach’s JV football team is currently 2-0. Yesterday, his game was cancelled because of storms. Unfortunately, we had driven an hour, and sat in the parking lot an hour before it was cancelled.
3. Zach was able to get his driver’s license this week.  Our driveway is getting crowded. But it is nice to not have to drive someone everywhere every day. I am excited and looking forward to this new chapter/season of life.
4. I am happy to report that all my meal preparation over the summer is working.   We are also working hard to use up items before purchasing. I was able to reduce our grocery budget for August by $300 and plan to reduce more in $400.
5. We have planned Kendall’s graduation cruise. This is an item she has talked about for several years.  We will be cruising in April.  I hope it will be all she wants!

5 Things Friday “How I Spent my Day”

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  1. We have been under a extreme heat warning all week. This means that the heat index is at least 101*  The only way that I am able to keep up with the garden is by waking up super early aka 6:30am and spending at least an hour in the garden. This morning I ended up around an hour and half. I was able to get a second planting of crops done. Pumpkins in the bed in front of the office, cucumbers to replace the ones that did not survive and cantaloupe in place of the bush green beans.  I also finished the chore of wedding all the beds, collecting a 5 gallon bucket for the chickens.  I dead headed our white rose bush, collected the small harvest and heavily watered the beds.
  2. 2 loads of towels were washed, dried, folded and put away.  With everyone enjoying the pool and working, it is not uncommon for most of use to take 2 showers a day.
  3. I have got the third load in the dishwasher, I am working on getting rid of any food that has gone bad. I also packed up everything in lunch containers, made desert and have started working on sour dough bread for the weekend. I have no doubt this third load will be ran tonight.
  4.  In my effort to use the food we have I ended up chopping up 4 items for a Big Mac Salad for dinner, lettuce, red onion, cucumbers and tomatoes.  I found a recipe for Big Mac sauce and then cooked a pound of ground beef in steak seasoning to use.
  5. I was able to pressure can 5 quarts of chicken broth that I made from the chicken thighs that were processed yesterday.

No wonder I am tired~

Saving on Saturday

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This week I have been focused on doing the small things that add up to make a huge savings overall.

Let’s start with the yard improvements/maintenance. Mulch is something that needs to be replaced and replenished at least very couple of years. That becomes expensive especially if you need to replace most of it at the same time. This year we ended up needing 22 bags.  I know that usually in the spring the big box stores run a special for bags between $2 and $3 at bag. This year it was $2.50 a bag which is a savings of $1.28 per bag or $28.16.  Because of the work that we have been doing and trying to add different growing areas I also ended up purchasing 18 bags. This was another savings of $23. That adds up to at least $50 in savings. That is besides the saving that I talked about yesterday when buying plants only on clearance or from Facebook marketplace.  I would say that in addition to the money we have saved by starting all the vegetables from seeds would put us around $1000 which is over a months’ worth of groceries for us! This is before we get any food to eat!  Another way we save money outside is by capturing and using rainwater for all the watering outside.

Food saving is another big area for us.  I did a lot of cooking this week. I mentioned yesterday about canning. Another area that saves us money is menu planning.  A third way we save money is by buying our meat in bulk. We have purchased several cows in the past. Last year as we ran out of steaks and were low on hamburger, we found and purchased a whole cow.  We have been enjoying the steaks and some hamburger from the new cow but today we ended up using the last packs of meat from the previous cow purchased about 4 or 5 years ago.  I don’t regret at all purchasing the whole cow last year because meat prices have risen significantly in the past year and will continue to rise. I know that we saved money by purchasing and storing meat in bulk.  A much bigger and sometimes hard way that we save money is by not eating out. This has been hard at times but a cheap meal out for us is around $70, fast food using coupons and drinks at home is usually around $40 and a full regular meal is at least $100. We usually eat out on Sundays for a full meal and at least one other time during the week.  We saved at least $50 this week by eating only at home.

Our money saving goal for the next month is to try and save $1000 to use on our Disney trip.  This will be a stretch but we are focused and by not eating out we have making huge strives.