May In Review

Posted on May 31, 2014 by Sheila

As predicted May was a very busy and expensive month. In addition to our regular activities, everyone has been sick at one time or another this month. I updated yesterday with my financial goals but I am going to count it as a FAILURE over all. Hopefully things improve both health and financial wise in June! Here are my other goals

Blogging: Goal: 15 per month This is post number 15! I am really excited this month because it has been a really struggle to post but I am going to try an keep up with things in June! Goal Met

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December 2014. I have lost a total of 27# since the beginning of January! I will admit to only going to work out once a week so I need to get back on track with this!

Overall I met 2/3 of my goals so that is a good month!

Budget Update for May

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Sheila

May has turned out to be the most expensive month for us so far this year. I am struggling to keep up and even had to use some of our Emergency Fund but Lily’s medical expenses today. The future is looking better with Matt income for June but I really don’t like the way this month ended.

Monthly Goals: 1. Pay off credit card debit by June. I did make a huge payment (over $150 to the Home Depot card, I am planning to finish paying it off in June)

2. Emergency Fund to $2000. No progress this month due to other necessary spending. This is actually falling way behind but my plan is to make up and get it on track with $625 by the end of June.

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month- Total Spent $790. This does include a 40# ground beef order that will be picked up in July. I also have slowly begun purchasing items for Kendall’s birthday party at the end of June. Ouch is all I can say. I don’t even think we will come significant under the amount in June due to the need for purchasing meat and Kendall’s party.

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs. Total Spent $430 that does not include the cost of a new hatch for the van. The van inspection, tags and taxes are included in this amount in addition to a repair to pass inspection. I drove to Raleigh as well which was unplanned.

Overall 1/4 goals met this month. Ouch!

Short term goals: These are planned to be covered in June with extra income.

1. $400 pool dues- untouched this month, a must for June!
2. $200 for music/piano lessons for the girls this summer- I did purchase on book with need but otherwise no progress
3. $46 Kids dentist bill
4. ~~$200 for the remainder of our car insurance for 6 months.~~ Goal met and I actually ended up saving over $200 on car insurance which will reduce my monthly budgeted amount to $45!
5. ~~$ 50 initial registration fee for both girls in Cheerleading.~~ We have decided to take the month of June off from cheerleading as well. Part of the reason is the expense but in addition both girls are swimming on our pool team and this means daily practice Monday- Thursday. See below for an even more goals for June.

Short term goal were 2/5 met for the month. Again OUCH

Additional Short term goals for the month of June

4. Purchase of new “tent” to use at swim meets.
5. Update Emergency Fund to $625
6. Cheerleading Expenses for first of July- $750 including new shoes for Lily.

Long Term Goals: These are for the next 6 months

1. $2000 to repair our septic system- I have no clue of the cost for this but this is a save range. I will be counting our Emergency Fund in this amount for the time being because if it cost less than anything left will stay in this fund. No progress
2. $1000 to replace the floor in our Living room. No progress

Absolutely no progress on Long Term Goals. I do not expect these to change unless we have a significant increase income for the month of June.

As you can tell, May was an extremely expensive month. I am glad we survived and still have a small emergency fund in place. June does look to be more positive so onward!

School Readiness- Busy Town

Posted on May 29, 2014 by Sheila

One of the activities that Zach has enjoyed this school year besides being at home with Dad is School Readiness. The teacher, Mrs. Kay, comes out once or twice a month and spends an hours with him working on items that will prepare him to enter Kindergarten. Every other month they have a special activity that the kids can attend. This month was “Busy Town”. Zach has been waiting for this!!! Each child brought a riding toy, no bikes.

They “drove” around to the different stations, check out Zach’s favorites….

: Shopping at Food Lion, where Haley works!

: Mailing a letter at the Post Office.

: Working out at the Y, like mommy!

: At the “Y” lifting weights!

Kendall’s First Field Day

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Sheila

I was so excited to attend Kendall first field day! It did end about 20 minutes early due to a thunderstorm but otherwise it was perfect. Of course be aware there are lots of pictures….

Wordless Wednesday- Girls

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Sheila

Can you tell they are sisters? Amanda came to watch Kendall for her Field Day! Kendall was more excited about Amanda sis coming than mommy.

Square Foot Garden 5/26/2014

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Sheila

I am excited about how well our square foot garden is growing this year.

: View from side, can you spot Lily’s cabbage?

: They just make it cuter!

: Squash in the front

But even more important is that we have harvested our first thing…a small squash!

I discovered last night as we were watering but left until this morning so the kids could help with the harvest!

Lily has been growing a cabbage as part of a school assignment since March. This plant has survived 2 ice storms but wow look at it!

Sunday Shopping At CVS

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Sheila

This is one of the best weeks in a long time at CVS, I knew that I needed to get to the store today if I want to grab the couple of deals I spotted. But the reason I am so excited tonight is not only did I get the deal but made money in the process.

In the past, there has been some debate on a couple of websites as how to count your ECB and figure in your savings., however today no matter how you do the math, I made money by shopping. The one slight issue I had was that the red coupon machine did not work so I had to wait till after the transactions to get most of the coupons that have been advertised. I just kept things simple and am sure I did better by the machine being broken in the end.

I started out with $1.00 ECB on my card and $2.50 on Matt’s card.

Transaction #1 (my card)
M&M on sale $0.75 and Skinny Cow Carmel Delight on clearance for $0.59
Total spent $0.37 and Earned $0.75 for the M&Ms

Transaction #2 (Matt’s Card)
Crest Pro-Health mouthwash on sale for $4.99 and a coupon for $1.00 off
Total Spent $1.83 and earned $4 in ECB and an additional $5 in ECB for meeting $50 in the beauty club.

Transaction #3 (Matt’s Card)
Crest Pro-Health mouthwash on sale for $4.99 and a coupon for $1.00 off
M&M on sale for $0.75
I did use $4 ECB from the previous transaction, total spent $1.09 with $4 ECBs

Total Spent out of Pocket = $3.29 plus $3.50 in ECB equals $6.79
ECBs remaining = $10.50
Total profit $3.71!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saving Money- Food!

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Sheila

The single biggest expense in our monthly budget is food. In addition to the $600 each month, we also enjoy eating out. This year we have spent as much as $400 in one month eating out with an average of $200 a month spent on food to go. I usually have coupons so I can’t imagine what this would be if we eat “like normal”. I attempted to plan on the next several months being really expensive with pool season, the beginning of cheerleading and several birthdays as well as our schedule vacation. After some thought and discussion, we decided to try to eliminate all eating out for the month of May. So far we have been successful, we did order pizza the night after our yard sale but used profits to pay for it.

On Thursday, of this past week, Sonic had a super deal of corn dogs (50 cent each) so I decided to be really creative. We have a change bucket that Matt throws his spare change and I will sometime empty mine in to as well. For the yard sale, I took the change container with some change in it, I added to and use it for change all day but did not bother to count it up at the end because I had not counted it at the beginning. So on Thursday, I raided the change and was able to purchase a dozen corndogs and left at least another dollar!

Another way that we have attempted to save money is by making our own bread. I have been doing this since the bread class I taught about in this post. So far I do think it has saved up money, I purchased a large bag of bread flour for $14.95 and several boxes of instant potatoes for less than $5. We have gone 2 months without purchasing bread so we are at the break even point now. I plan to continue with this because it is not as difficulty as I thought, much healthier and cheaper!

Finally several other ways we save money on food/groceries is couponing, buying in bulk and attempting not to waste anything. I mentioned in April that we were starting to run low on choices for meats, basically we had chicken and deer meat. I am very excited to report that we have not purchased any meat yet! We are continuing to eat the meat we have in creative ways!

Saving Money- Checking Insurance

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Sheila

I dislike insurance of all kind and fashion. My thoughts are that they companies are making money on someone’s worries but that being said it is a “requirement” in most situations. We have had both Auto and Home Insurance with the same company Liberty Mutal for close to 10 years. One of the reason’s that I have stayed with this company is it is easy to do. In addition, I usually check out rates every couple of years just to make sure we are still competitive. In the past, the difference have been so small that it was not worth changing. Over the past several months, I have become more and more frustrated with the company. First is their billing system, starting 3 months ahead of time, you get a bill with monthly and then bi-weekly reminders. I receive both paper and email remainders. Next as I started to look over the bill, I found a “clean air allotment” charge, I call to ask and never really got an explanation. I was told that in the past this was split between the billing cycles??? I still don’t know what this charge is. The final problem that made me starting comparing rates and looking for a different company was the statement that once a bill is issued, no changes can be made to the amount due on it. For example, I dropped one car off the policy which reduced my overall policy amount by over $200, however since my bill had been issued I would be given credit for this on the next billing cycle six months away.

I went online the other night and requested auto insurance quotes, I have received five. Each of the five was lower than the amount I am currently paying. So today, I decided to call the companies to verify the amounts before making a decision. I am excited to report that I saved $210.56 by switching my auto insurance to GEICO! I will be able to make changes and even claims online if needed!!

This definitely helps our budget not only this month but for the rest of the year!