5 Things Friday “How I Spent my Day”

  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~

5 Things Friday

  1. I have 2 days left before summer vacation! Unfortunately, we are still in limbo with the pool opening. Zach and Kendall have been able to pick up a couple of shifts at other pools but it is stressful trying to get everything arranged. I can’t wait for summer break to start!
  2. I am super excited about the garden this year! We are already getting a harvest and I am planning to continue to plant so that we can continue to get more of what we want. We have gotten peppers, green beans, a couple of cucumbers, dill and a bit of basil, squash and zucchini so far. We will definitely have tomatoes very soon as well!
  3. Matt and I are currently spending around 30 minutes a day in the garden. This is going to increase this weekend for sure.  I am planning to do some replanting and changing this week. First I am going to cut down all the cosmos from this bed.   It is large and pretty but I want to plant another round of squash plants as the squash bugs are winning in the back gardens. When they finally win or when this planting starts to produce, I am going to pull out the squash plants and plant a “row” of cucumbers in the middle of the bed. I really want to harvest and can an abundance of cucumbers this year. On July 1st, I am planning to pull up the spinach and plant pumpkins in the bed in front of the office.  I am also planning on adding a couple of green beans in the empty slots on the greenstalk planters and one additional zucchini in a bed in the back that has not successfully grown anything so far.
  4. I have already started to work on filling up the freezer. This week I was able to get 3 chicken enchilada meals in the freezer. I am also planning to start restocking our breakfast burritos as well. My goal will be to can one item and make ahead at least one item a week. Next week I am hopefully to get chicken, broccoli and rice casseroles made up and frozen for future use.

5. We leave for our “adult cruise in 3 weeks!

5 Things Friday AKA What I did for Spring Break.

1.We, Lily and I planned a short but packed Disney trip for the end of May, approximately 2 weeks ago.  It is something I am convinced we all need and will enjoy. So, in anticipation of the trip, I am going to save as much money as possible between then and now.  I would love to have $1000 but that is going to be a stretch.  The catch to the saving is that it has to come from extra money, not money that I am budgeting. I have worked out the budget for May already, so this is truly going to be a challenge. One caveat is that money left over from the grocery budget can be counted as savings. In addition, I am also going to say no Amazon buying unless absolutely needed.  I will try and deduct this amount from any savings we get.

2. This is week has been both the kids and I week of Spring Break. I have really really tried to get alot of things caught up and prepared ahead for the next month as well. Which hopefully will help with the goal above. Braxton has been with us for at least half of four out of 5 days this week. He is actually enjoying screen free time!

3. One of the areas I have focused on this week is outside both for gardening and landscaping. I have spent $300ish on additional plants, soil and mulch. This includes paying Zach for lots of hot work applying mulch and helping getting the yard looking it’s best.  I have been able to purchase 2 hydrangeas for $14.00 each on clearance, along with several other “clearance” plants that have helped to completely fill by Greenstalk vertical planters. I found angel trumpet trees on Facebook marketplace. Zach helped me repurpose by painting several older planters with a fresh coat of paint which I think turned out great!

I will give a better garden update on Sunday, but we have not lost any plants from transplanting, and we have a watermelon growing!  I am so pleased. Several hours and bags of dirt went to finishing up the planting space. My goal is to finish all the Spring planting today!  I really only have one area to plant now that the dirt is filled.

4.. The other area that I have worked on this week is cleaning and organizing parts of the house. One was the living room, where we found a 5-gallon bucket of water sealant. Zach used this outside as well. I also moved all the plants outside for the fresh air and sunshine.  The living room is so open now it is amazing!  I also spent time filling and organizing the canning closet. I added 28 jars of beef stock and 8 cans of white beans.

5. I also planned to work on getting our food together for the next 4 to 8 weeks (until Summer break). I actually made multiple trips to Costco and Food lion. I also attempted to use up items in our freezers.  I am proud to say other than 1 lunch at McDonald’s for $10.69 We have eaten at home all week. This is huge! I have made multiple batches of sour dough and frozen some.

Overall this was a great productive week!

5 Things Friday

  1. The weather has absolute beautiful with highs in the 70s and lows in the 40s.  I have decided to turn off the heating and air unit in order to save money. In the past I can typically turn this off the first of April but even if I need to turn it back on then we are still saving money!
  2. Zach has been having baseball games or practice 5 days a week which means that our evening are even more pushed and busy.  I am learning that for away games we need to have a food option with us and home games we can typically eat at home if something is ready.  Unfortunately, this was an expensive lesson as we ended up spending $65 on a game day for food and entry.
  3. I am hoping that we are able to complete some outside upgrades and maintenace this weekend as we have 5 weeks till our typical last frost date.  I am planning on continuing with my weekly garden updates on Sunday.
  4. Zach’s truck sold this week.  I have decided that we will not be on the lookout for another vehicle until the end of May.
  5. The pantry challenge is starting to work. I heard from kids yesterday that “there is nothing to eat at home”   In reality we have plenty of food but things have to be prepared and made ahead. I have plans to also do some of this prep work this weekend.

Monday Menu Post

Last week did not go as planned, we ended up cooking and eating different items because of the snow.  Things are starting to pick up around here. We start baseball this week. Looking at the schedule that is 2-3 evenings a week where dinner will be late think 7pm or we will be eating on the run.  I am hopefully that we can at least keep things a little bit more successful with only one night of eating out.  This week we have both games at home which is a 5 minute or less drive so I am going to try my luck and plan to eat at home on both days. I also have lots of thoughts about my pantry challenge, see below for details.

Breakfast- Saturday- Leftover baked oatmeal or breakfast casserole.  Sunday- Banana muffins Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday– find it (breakfast burritos, oatmeal, omelets cereal and milk, French toast sticks, sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs.

Lunch- Saturday-Garlic cheeseburger bites (not a repeat new recipe) Sunday- Gregg’s Monday, – leftovers   Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday- left-overs.  Friday- eat out.

Dinner- Saturday-Pick a soup- tomato basil, chicken stew, chicken and rice and potato soup. Sunday- Left-overs Monday-Beef Fried Rice   Tuesday- Chicken -? This is the baseball game (instapot hamburger helper) Thursday-baked potatoes Friday- Spaghetti

Pantry Challenge
Looking at our grocery expenses for the past two month indicate that we have failed but I am starting to see a difference in our pantry, and I have come to realize that we have a lot of extra food.  I want to be a good steward of this, so my plan is to continue to use this list of goals at least until the end of May just to keep things moving in the right direction.
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 $662.25  On Saturday, I stocked up on soft drinks for the next couple of month. I also had to replenish our “dairy alternatives”.
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)  We opened containers of potato soup and chicken stew that will be used for lunches as well as at least one meal.
3. Use at least 3 jars a week from the canning pantry. Using spaghetti sauce this week along with salsa and chicken broth.
4. Use one item a week from the connivence freezer in my room. I found two unopened pack of turkey and Zach requested on for this week of lunches.
5. Each Monday after menu planning provide a list of how I followed the guidelines for the week.  Done!

Saving on Saturday

Matt and Zach have been able to finish the deck!  Total spent $0.  I will post those pictures on Wednesday.

Today I split myself several times and actually got a lot accomplished. First, I worked on our taxes. I have always completed my own taxes in recent years with the help of a tax program.  This year was not good we ended up owing 3800 to the Federal government and after some deep digging, I did not find much I could do to change this.

Next up I decided it was a good day to start working toward our garden, so I needed to clean out the greenhouse. I am very happy with the results

Before

After

I was able to “find” 4 5 gallon buckets of dirt that will be put in the tomato beds after they are completely repaired.

Next a trip to the grocery store with mom, I discovered an awesome deal on soda so this is the result

Finally we added a vertical growing space to the raised beds. I did not get any pictures but will try to include in a garden update.

 

5 Things Friday

  1. The weather continues to be very different.  This week has brought 2 days of beautiful snow (Wednesday and Thursday).  Both the kids and I had a remote day on Wednesday. I had a second remote day on Thursday while the kids had a total day off.  The good news was that it was a very dry snow and mostly melted so we all returned to school on Friday.
  2. Our electric bill was significantly higher than usual this month. It was over $300 to be exact $319.  This is likely due to the cold weather so there is really not much I could do about this.
  3. Speaking of cold, we have realized that both my office and the living room are much cooler than the rest of the house.  We set up small thermometers in both room and have discovered that overnight the temperature drops to 63 degrees in both rooms with the heat pump set at 67* After discussion this is likely not a new problem but something that continues to happen and with the colder temperatures means increasing bills. We have purchased two small heaters to use in these rooms when we are in them.
  4. The 2025 gardening season has started.  We planted pepper seeds and broccoli seeds last Saturday. We actually have a couple of broccoli plants starting. These will likely go outside in the next couple of days.  I am planning to get out and try and straighten out the greenhouse later today. The next big project is to prune both the rose bushes and fruit trees hopefully next week this will be possible.
  5. Kendall and Zach have been participating in a weekly Bible study with some other from our youth group.   They have been meeting at Starbucks but this is expensive and hard to hear. We offered our house and we will be providing drinks and snacks.  This will affect our grocery bill but both Matt and I agree that we don’t want to change this so a higher bill will be the expectation.

Saving on Saturday- Food Edition

Food is always a huge expense for us, and I am constantly trying to find ways to save money on this expense. The biggest way to save money on groceries is to not throw away food.  We are fortunate to have chickens that pretty much like anything and what they don’t eat they poop on which can be used for fertilizer to grow more food.   I should also mention that yesterday was Valentine Day which added a bit of “celebrating” to this post.

We typically have a special or meal out for Valentine’s Day, but I did not want to deal with the crowds yesterday. Matt offered to pick up take out, which was a great idea. We have been going to the same local Chinese restaurant for at least 20 years so that was my choice for dinner.  We have discovered that recently, ordering out actually gets you more food than eating in. We ordered a Sesame chicken combo dinner which included rice and a soup, and a large shrimp lo mien, total $21.75.  This actually was enough food to feed 4 people dinner and one lunch!  Matt and I headed out early this morning to attend Braxton’s basketball game, we planned to head to Costco to do a stock up trip as I had over 15 items on my Costco list.  I had purchased gift card for a couple of restaurants last year with my Costco reward certificate, so this was a perfect time to use the remaining $25 one for Bad Daddy’s.  Matt and I ate for $8 including tip after the gift card, and we decided to add a Starbuck’s just for fun. Total cost for “Date Day” not including Costco $25! ($8 was to enter the ballgame).

Now on to more food content, I purchased a rotisserie chicken for $4.99 at Costco.  For dinner today, we chopped up some and made chicken and rice, this will also probably be enough for at least 1 more meal and a couple of lunches so that is enough for 10 people to eat, I also will be making a double batch of chicken enchiladas, one for this week and one to freeze, another 10 meals.  That means we spent approximately 25 cent a meal on meat.  But to make this an even better deal, I currently have my roaster oven going with a huge batch of chicken stock with I will can tomorrow!

We have some mini cinnamon and raisin bagel that we purchased a couple of weeks ago and 5 are left, which are beginning to become stale, I have cut these up and will be using for a French toast casserole for breakfast in the morning!

Finally, I have a couple of ears of corn left in the fridge along with a small portion from a can, this will get used for a new honey corn hamburger casserole this week!

I don’t mind food going to the chickens but I prefer to use what we have!

Pantry Challenge Success or Fail?

This actually depends on how you are determining success or failure.

The quickest way to look at pantry challenge is based on money.   I completely failed at this as we spent $771 on groceries in the month of January. But wait this is still almost $50 less than our budget of $820.  But significantly more than my goal of $300.  I actually spent some time researching and checking out numbers today.  The only other time that I have spent over $500 during a pantry challenge was in 2019.   The year the world imploded so this does concern me a bit!

I also did some checking into what the US government is using as a standard.  Based on the numbers from December 2024 we should be spending $1309 on food. Or this is what food stamps would be based on for our family of five.$1309 is considered the “thrifty” amount so this is the lowest amount that the government thinks we could survive on.   Looking a bit deeper this amount indicates an increase from December 2023.  Another interesting fact is that for the year 2020 to 2023 the amount stayed the same! I had thought and even mention increased the amount to $1200 for grocery spending for the first three months of the year.  Now I am leaning toward using the $1309 amount.  Can I feed our family of five for 3 months for the thrifty amount that the government has set? In reality between some stops  at the grocery store already this month and our Amazon subscribe and save our current total for both January and February would be $984, leaving $325.   That may definitely work, I think I just talked myself into this amount.

The other method I could look at the success of the pantry challenge would be to look at the goals I have set.

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 $1309.  Discussed above!

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)  have been consistently doing this and I can start to see a difference and the ability to re-organize this freezer prior to the summer stock up period.
3. Use at least 3 jars a week from the canning pantry. I am beginning to see several lines of empty shelves and I am thinking about ways to use items. I currently have enough empty jars that I could use up pears that have been vacuumed sealed to make pearberry sauce and do a large batch of beef broth.  Again this has been a success!
4. Use one item a week from the connivence freezer in my room. This is also starting to show. My goal would be to completely empty this freezer prior to May in order to organize and use it more efficiently this summer.
5. Each Monday after menu planning provide a list of how I followed the guidelines for the week.  This also has been consistent.

So based on goals I am successful with the pantry challenge to date!   I am going to continue with this challenge using the same guidelines except for increasing the spending for the month of February.  I may need to re-evaluate at the end of February to determine if it is sustainable for the month of March?  Only time will tell but I am at least seeing a benefit.

Monday Menu Post

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!