- This week both Matt and I realized that we are in need of new shoes. Both of us have tennis shoes that did not have any trend on the bottom. We decided to check out Belk’s last night as well had some time without any kids. We did hit the jack pot! Stechers were buy one get one 50% off. With that discount, we purchased a pair of tennis shoes for $63.50 each. Matt also found himself a pair of dress shoes!
- Part of using what is in pantry is not allowing things to go to waste, I am very proud of myself for this! I used two boxes of Chex cereal to make “muddy buddies” and a ranch Chex mix. I will not admit how long those boxes have been in my pantry. I also noticed that the Hawaiin rolls had not been openned that I purchased several weeks ago. Matt suggested that we make a smash burger with them. I used a pound of ground beef and fed five of us with that one pound! The burgers were delicious!
- I did end up at the grocery store today to purchase some fruits and veggies that we have been completely out of for a couple of weeks.
- I am continuing to shred up junk mail and unusable paper to make the grounding and bedding for the chicken coop! So far it is a win win!
- We have spent time cleaning and organizing and cooking ahead again this weekend so I will call it a success!
- Gardening update to come tomorrow!
Category Archives: Saving Money
5 Things Friday
- Last weekend we spent some time shopping to fulfill some summer needs. I did not realize that both Kendall and Zach needed new shoes. I still have a small list of items that are needed but I hope to finish those up this weekend as well. This was expensive but we spent time at Goodwill and Bargains by the Bin before heading to the other stores. Zach was able to find T-shirts at Belks for around $10 each!
- Another good deal last weekend was Shutterfly offered 8×8 books starting at $10. This is an awesome deal, actually one of my favorites. I ended up spending a great deal of time, really too much time, finishing up several projects. I ordered a total of 6 books and ended up spending $130 including shipping. The extra cost came from using Disney themes and extra pages (anything over 20). I do have one additional book I would like to get made and printed. This week Shutterfly is offering unlimited pages so I may see what that cost would be. But this depends on my time.
- We are headed to Disney in a short time. I have set a couple of goals for myself in order not to be the fat mom that slows everyone down. The first is that I spend at least 12 hours on the treadmill at the YMCA. I did my first hour last night so 11 more to go. I also want Braxton to get used to walking as we are not planning to use a stroller on this trip. The hope is that we can start family walks on Sundays and Lily would like to do at least one other walk during the week. The problem again is time at home.
- I have officially lost weight. In fact, I received a compliment on it last week! I have lost 16 pounds since December! I am also down one jean size which is super fun!
- We did not even remotely stick to the pantry challenge this month. So I have decided that we will do a strict pantry challenge with the exception of milk and water and soda until our Costco trip prior to leaving. The challenge will begin March 1st. We will be going to Costco before then but no other trips will be made unless something is a necessity by my standards.
Saving on Saturday!
This winter has been extremely mild and wet. Last weekend, the temperature was around 60 degrees. We took the opportunity to get outside and started working on some areas to grow foods. I am hoping to be able to can more than I have in the past and I also want to grow more than I have in the past. I decided that I needed to make a couple of changes for this year.
We removed the large and tall, wire that was on the back of the building. Last year, I attempted to grow cucumbers and had limited success, even with using starts that I had purchased. I decided that I would try something different. We decreased the size to just about my height and moved the wire to a 12 foot bed. The ideas is that I should be able to grow at least 24 cucumber plants along this trellis! I am going to try to plant one side and then about four weeks later plant along the other side. My goal is to can a years supply of cucumbers and make cucumber relish as well. Time will tell.
I want to try and grow lufas this year and needed a space so we attached another section of wire to both of the beds. The lufas should grow down and feel the space.
Today 2/17/2024, I planted 50 seeds for spinach. It would be nice to start getting some fresh spinach but also grow enough to freeze for use next winter. I started 12 broccoli plants inside as well. I have attempted to overwinter some green pepper plants in the greenhouse but decided to go ahead and order seeds as well. I would love to grow enough peppers not only for fresh eating but to stock the freezer as well. We will be attempting to grow bell peppers, wax peppers (these worked really really well in salsa and some lunchbox peppers as well.
This is totally Matt’s idea but it is a great idea so I wanted to share. This is the bike rake that fits in the Tahoe trailer hitch. Matt drilled a couple of precise holes in the frame of the trailer and put the hitch in the side. This way it keeps everything off the ground and also prevents the straps from getting broken off.
This week we also headed to Goodwill to try and find some clothes that were needed. We ended up with 7 shirts for $22. Next stop was Belk’s by shopping the clearance racks we found 4 shirts for Zach for $42.00.
Remember every little bit counts!
Saving on Saturday
Our grocery bill is one of the highest expenses each month. This has been true since I started blogging many years ago. I am continuing to gain knowledge and skills that I hope in the future will continue to control our spending.
We are currently in a busy season. I am struggling to keep our eating out to a manageable level. Manageable meaning paying in cash and not adding to our credit card debit. Hopefully, the things I am sharing will help this as well.
On Thursday, between running Zach to appointments, I was able to get three complete meals made. A turkey chill, which was eaten for dinner and then froze for a fourth meal. I also assembled two turkey casseroles. One was frozen and the other saved for use next week.
This morning everyone pitched in and we made up 30 “omelet bags” We can simply add the bag and two eggs to the frying pan for a quick and nutritious breakfast.
I also ran two loads of kidney beans in the pressure canner. These will be used in the future for both soups and chill.
I am preparing for an extended pantry challenge during the months of January, February and March. I decided to subscribe to Walmart plus for the month of December. This way we can continue to stock up on items that we are running low on or out of. I will cancel before going to Florida at the end of December but this allows me to add things slower and also keeps me from overspending at the same time. I am really liking this convivence but definitely not enough to spend $98 a year on it!
Menu Planning with a twist
This is officially the week after Thanksgiving. Leftovers are still heavy in the refrigerator, and I do not want to waste any food plus we really like to eat! One thing I did different this year is that we added several appetizers to our evening meal on Thanksgiving to get some variety going! But in reality we also have more leftovers as well. This week has also turned out to be one of the busiest on the fall. Zach has all county band, Kendall has a swim meet. I have multiple meeting at work that will run late. Zach gets his braces off and has a physical appointment. Did I say busy?
Breakfast are pretty standard around here. You find it and make it. We still have some prepared items in the freezer and eggs and yogurt to spare.
Lunches will be leftovers for everyone.
Dinner are a little bit more challenging. So after doing some planning and thinking. I decided that we would have leftovers for dinner at least Sunday, Tuesday and possibly Friday unless they are gone. Saturday evening, I made a turkey soup that was actually really good. So that is another option for Friday or I could change it up and use rice instead of potatoes. .
Here is the twist, I was able to assemble a meal for Monday and a separate meal for Wednesday in 30 minutes on Sunday afternoon.
Monday- Gnocchi bake. This is a recipe that I found from watching “Acre Homestead” on Youtube. I used store bought Gnocchi, diced tomatoes and tomato sauce from this summer, frozen onions and a jar of canned ground beef.
Wednesday- Queso chill mac- This is a recipe total I made up. I used about half of the leftover queso dip, add a jar of ground beef and boiled the remaining pasta in a jar sitting on the cabinet. So far everyone wanted to know if that was dinner.
Simple meal using what we have!
Saving On Saturday- Subscriptions
November is one of the most expensive months for us. It includes tags/ taxes on the Tahoe, and 6 months of car insurance along with regular and holiday expenses. This also happens to be when most of our yearly subscriptions renew. This made the perfect time for me to sit down and consider each subscription and make a decision on rather to keep it or not, I am including my entire list of subscription just as a point of reference.
- Amazon Prime- $139 a year. We live in the middle of nowhere with the closest grocery store not a Dollar General being a 10-minute drive. Definitely keeping this one. Additional benefits include subscribe and save and music in the house.
- Microsoft Office $106 a year. We did discover that we have two accounts and are paying for both. We will keep one of the accounts but the other has to go. This was a very expensive lesson to learn.
- Modwash- This is a car wash and a very recent decision to include. We get unlimited car washes and use of vacuums and other tools. $53.99 a month or $648 a year. This is definitely a luxury and one that we are keeping at this time.
- Discovery Plus- price increase of $2 a month to $9.99 a month or $119 a year. I am the one who was watching this the most and really it has been reduced to maybe once a month. This subscription was cancelled.
- Disney Plus- price increase of $60 a year or $5 a month. I did some research and found we could get Hulu, ESPN and Disney + for $14.99 a month or $179.88 a year. This is really not a savings but when you look at the two “television” subscriptions together which would equal $22 a month. We are going to get additional options and save $7 a month.
- Abode- This has been a must for many years as Matt used it to design and work on websites. However at $32.99 a month or $395 a year. We have not seen this benefit for at least 2 years and his current job does not require it’s us. This is a huge savings so off it went.
- Onstar Data in Tahoe- $15 a month. This is for unlimited data. It equals to the cost of purchasing one additional gig of data a month from Verizon. With any trip this is very much worth it!
- YMCA membership- $27 a month with Lily’s discount. This is another fairly new membership. This is a huge savings compared to any other gym membership and currently everyone but me is going on a regular basis so definitely a keeper.
- Apple Storage- We curently pay an additional $2.99 a month for this. I am trying to reduce but this is a long and long process. This will stay currently.
I did make some changes to our auto insurance this time. We are dropping the collision on the Equinox as it is paid for and I don’t like insurance so what we can get rid of I am going to. We do have a AAA membership which will stay due to towing of the camper. This is significantly cheaper than having insurance on the camper.
Subscriptions take time to manage and really should be looked at yearly. This year we did not really save much but it helped to switch our money to things we find more important and useful.
Five Things Friday- Grocery Version
.
Noone is surprised or can argue the fact that groceries price has risen significantly this year. I am now also feeding 3 teenagers! So it is a struggle to feed us without breaking the bank. Here is how I am working to keep our budget intact.
- Costco chicken…. I picked up a chicken yesterday while getting the tires rotated on the Equinox. We had just the plain roasted chicken with sides for dinner yesterday. It easily fed six of us. I stripped the remaining chicken meat put it in the refrigerator and placed the bones and skins in the crockpot to make chicken stock. We used one package of the chicken for dinner tonight and will have another full meal if not two from the remaining chicken. That means we had enough meat for 3 meals for $4.99. I also made approximately 6 quarts of chicken stock.
- Thanksgiving Turkey- I am in charge of providing the turkey for my families Thanksgiving this year. I was watching for sales as the normal price of $1.29 a pound was just too much. Food Lion had a sale this week, that if you spent $35 you could purchase turkey for twenty-nine cent a pound. Although I really did not “need” any items. I ended up get a 26-pound turkey for $6 and change. The original cost of the turkey was $64.67, and my final total was $51.64.
- Aldi has for the past two years has “rolled back” prices on many items needed for Thanksgiving. There is a 12 can limit per item. I purchased both a case (12 cans) of green peas and corn. I may return and purchase other items later in the month.
- Minimizing food waste. We have had several vegetables that have been sitting in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks now. I also purchased by accident 2 10# bags of potato, each bag was purchased a week apart. The first bag I opened to make baked potatoes last week had already started to spout. I decided to make these items shelf stable before they needed to be tossed. I ended up canning 10 quarts of chicken pot pie base and 9 pints of cream of potato soup. This should actually last over a year but used items that would have otherwise been thrown out!
- Eating from the pantry and only buying items that are either on a signficant sale or items that we have ran out of. For example the green peas, I used the last can last weekend for a 7 layer salad. The cans of corn were 50 cent cheaper than what I am currently getting with Subscribe and Save. I am using the ALEXA app to keep up with items we run out of and am trying not to shop unless absolutely necessary!
5 Things Friday- Financial Version
- November is a really expensive month for us! We have to pay taxes and purchase tags for the Tahoe, pay car insurance for six months and finish purchasing Christmas! Therefore, I have been trying my hardest to find ways to save money this month!
- Our church was gifted pumpkins this year. I volunteered to bring home the leftovers after all the kids got to pick one. We brought home around 20. Lily has helped me roast and bag 4 for baking and cooking. I am also saving seeds to try and plant next year as well as roasting some seeds to eat. The remaining pumpkins will be used to supplement the chickens’ diets!
- Cancelled Discovery plus! This is $7.99 a month. I was notified of a price increase so after talking it over we cancelled.
- Cancelled Disney Plus! Again because of a price increase this is no longer something we needed. We have debated signing up for it again in combination with ESPN. The price would be basically the same as the price increase but with additional benefit.
- I decided to cancel the collisions insurance on my car. The car is paid for and this saved around $150 for six months.
Sunday Catch- Up
Life is busy, difficult, busy, and overwhelming this month. Hopefully I can get catch up and spend a little bit more time with blogging. I also really want to be consistent but at during this season I will just do what I can and give myself some grace!
Financially, I feel like we have recovered from Matt’s short period of unemployment this summer. I am working on finishing the year strong but also starting to look at some changes and plans I want to make for next year. Credit card debit has really creeped up on me, so trying to balance paying that off and saving and enjoying the few short years of kids at home is a balance that takes a lot of mental energy. Groceries have always been one of the biggest expenses for us. My plan and goal for November and December is to pay for what we get and then use any remaining money to pay down the credit card debit. Starting in January, I would like to start saving to purchase another whole cow in the summer. Ideally, I would put $500 a month in a saving account for six months to make this happen. We have a ton of food in multiple locations and I am really working on keeping it organized and to work through the food that is here before buying new things. I have found a couple of “guidelines” that are helping with making plan a little bit easier. First we are having a “breakfast casserole” every Sunday morning. This makes getting ready for church much easier and quicker. Soup for Sunday dinner is also going well with occasional leftovers for the week. I am finding that I must cook 3 meals on Saturday or we end up eating out. Freezer meal are awesome and I already know that I need to have many more in the freezer during the summer.
Kids- Lily is currently in Florida spending two weeks with Haley and David. She has finished her first eight weeks of college classes and is struggling to balance work and school. She also will need a loan to fully pay for her second semester of college. Zach is playing football which means practice Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with games on Wednesday. Braxton is playing baseball which is one game a week. Kendall is anticipating swim season and has started swimming at least 3 days a week. We are also currently struggling to get her permit. Kendall decided very quickly that she did not want to and could not handle working along with school
Chickens- We are getting between 2 and 6 eggs a day. I don’t understand but we have not had to buy any eggs so that is a plus. We have switched the bedding from paper to wood shaving. It is more expensive but the eggs are cleaner. We have purchased another automatic door which is working perfectly. We also still have at least one possum and one racoon who visit once a week. This is a significant decrease from daily so something is working.
Garden- I have probably 3 galloons of tomatoes currently in the freezer. I actually have still been collecting tomatoes this week. We are attempting to keep peppers alive int eh green house. We planted onions and asparagus but that is all for the fall. A couple of beds have paper mulch on them but I would like to move some planters and mulch a couple more beds but again just am struggling with the time.
The word for my job is intense. I really enjoy both the kids and my co-workers but my mental capacities are being exhausted regularly. I am also struggling with some health issues. Nothing major buy annoying.
We do have several trips planned more details to come!
5 Things Friday
- The month of September ends this weekend! It was definitely a month of change and a month of catch up. I will share more in our monthly update but I am very hopeful that we are going to be on solid financial ground moving forward.
- Last Saturday, we ended up clothes shopping. It was definitely time to buy some new jeans and long pants. We still have a couple of small needs but I am hoping to stop shopping in November for everything but food!
- Haley and David will be coming up to NC next weekend. Lily is going to return to Florida for 2 weeks. It should be an experience for everyone! I am sure that Kendall is going to have the hardest time with Lily not here.
- We are still harvesting a small amount from the garden. I also received some onion starts and asparagus in the mail today that I need to get planted.
- Our rooster is crowing and all the hens appear to be laying however we are only averaging 4-5 eggs a day from 7 hens….. this is an increase from 3-4 a day but we have enough eggs to eat and share so that is good enough!