Monthly Archives: May 2015

May in Review

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Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month Goal Met! I am at 17 or 18 post for the month!

Weight: Goal:  Met and maintain weight of 175. This goal will be considered met each month that weight loss is achieved and once this weight is achieved, each month maintained is considered achieved.  Goal met for the month.  I am moving in the right direction.

Spiritual-  Goal. I want to spend time reading and or studying the Bible at least 5 days a week for the year. Biggest Fail of the month.

Financial Goals-
1.  Pay off all debit by December  2015, except for mortgage.  
a. Home Depot-   I am now planning to pay this completely off in June, but this is going to be depended on a couple of factors that I don’t have any control over.
b. American Express   – Smaller than anticipated payment. I only paid $200 this month.
c. Personal Loan (used to purchase van) .The current scheduled payment is $217 a month with this scheduled to be paid off in December 2015.

2. Emergency Fund to $2000.  Fail

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month . After what seems to be an extremely long month. We ended up spending $712 for the month This was not a true success but it really is a success because our monthly average is down to .$572 for the year so I am back on track.

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs.  Goal Met. I spent $402 on gas this month including covering tags, taxes and inspection on Matt’s van,  a new fuel filter on the white van and new radiator  cap for the car. This is a huge success.

Disney- No progress

May seems like a very long month. In the area of finance it does not appear that we made any progress but we are in the process of refinancing our mortgage which will dramatically change our path. Currently we are waiting on the appraisal. Once things are more settled, I am planning to share details, as well as plans. Looking ahead to June, I anticipate another month of close to or over our budget for Groceries just based on things we are starting to run low on. I have not changed the budgeted amount in 3 years even with the significant rise in price and an increase of consumption of food due to growing kids, so I may need to readjust in July based on our actual spending in June. Gas prices are suppose to stay close to their current rate however with us going to the pool on a frequent basis I think we are going to keep that amount the same at least for the summer. I will definitely share changes and new goals in June so that should make things interesting overall.

 

 

Saving on Saturday-5/30/2015

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sos

This saving on Saturday was one that sort of happened. If you had ask me even on Wednesday about it, I probably would have not had a clue. First the story and then lots and lots of pictures.

One of my co-workers is starting a small nursery. I decided to take all the plastic trays and small pots that I have been collecting for the past several years. to her to see if she could use.  I did not realize how expensive they were but really I  just hated to throw them away. She was very excited to get them, and a couple of weeks later when I mentioned that one of the pepper plants I planted had died, she offered to bring me some.  She ended up bring me 6 “rainbow peppers” this week. Next my friend bought at Costco a vegtable/herb growing kit at Costco with little seed pods that are guaranteed to grow. She ran out of room and brought five to me on Friday. I was sort of at a lost because we are all out of room in the square foot garden, but mentioned to Matt that I might go see if I could find some wood to add another section.

The abandoned wood pile deserves at least a paragraph of it own. We began really digging in the pile to finish the composite bin several weeks ago. This wood is actually from the deck that was on the house when I purchased it 22 years ago. About 13 years ago before meeting Matt, I had a friend to tear down the old deck and replace it with a larger one. Instead of recycling or even burning to old deck, he simply cut it into 6 foot sections and deposited in the woods behind the house. These boards are now what we are digging out and reusing.

I walked down to the edge of the woods and spotted a section of decking, I was even able to pull it out of the weeds all by myself. After bringing the wood to the front of the house, we knew exactly what section we wanted to add.

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This morning after a trip to Lowes, I planted the remaining 5 “rainbow peppers, three of the garden pods that my friend gave me. After counting out the remaining squares I decided to head in the freezer and plant another 45 stalks of corn.  So the only real cost to this project was $40 worth of dirt that we purchased.  I am very very pleased with the way this project turned out and am also very hopefully that we will reclaim that $40 in the month of August with a second harvesting of corn and peppers. Here are the pictures I took after finishing planting and watering today!

5 things Friday

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1. I sent my list of “sit down” dining reservations over to our travel agent this morning. She will be making these on Sunday! It is so exciting!

2. Today is our 11th anniversary. We celebrated by adding on to the square foot garden.

3. I made our first official harvest of the year, 1 small squash a ziplock gallon bag of dill and another bag of cilantro.

4. We are waiting not so patiently for our house appraisal so that we can refinance.

5. Swim season has officially started with practice 3-4 nights a week. This week I have been working until 6:30 then picking up Zach and Kendall from swim practice before coming home. I really dislike this schedule!

CVS shopping 5/26/2015

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Consistency is the key when shopping at CVS. I will be the first to say that in recent months, I have not made a trip to CVS in weeks. But this week was well worth the effort. I ended up with 3 separate transactions. I started the week off with 5 ECB from the Coke products I purchased last week. I ended with 5 ECB from the Nail polish.

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Total spent was $5.30 and total saved $41 or 89%. I like to think of it as free nail polish and bath wash with half price sun screen. I should also say that I purchased 3 photo prints to use for Kendall’s poster as well.

 

Saving on Saturday

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sosThis week saving is not exciting but still saving so I am sharing. First up hang clothes on the line instead of the dryer.

IMG_1795Currently on the line we have our sheets and comforter, a load of dark clothes and a load of light clothes. We love the smell of clean sheet that dry outside so I try to do these all year around. The clothes are a different story, I don’t mind hanging out outer clothes it is just a matter of timing. My goal is to get into a routine so that I can save at least 3 hours a week of dryer time during the summer. I refuse to hang out towels and underwear so those will continue to be thrown in the dryer. My only debate is the kids clothes, currently they place their clothes in their own laundry basket and after being washed they are taking out of the dryer and putting all away. It would take a lot more effort for me to hang out their loads in addition to trying to keep things separate  between Kendall and Lily.

Next up is home car repair. Our white van is continuing to give us problems. Today, Matt changed out the fuel filter which cost a total of $11 and his hour of work.

Finally is a fun activity for the kids that saves at least $10 a vehicle, home car washing!  The kids are having a ball and do a fairly good job!

5 Things Friday!

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1. We are in the process of refinancing our home. This time we are getting a whole new mortgage. By completing this we will be dropping 7 years off our current mortgage schedule and reducing the interest rate by over 2%. So far the process has been time consuming but not difficult. Our closing is tentatively scheduled for the end of June. I will share more details once a couple of issues are settled. The first of which is the appraisal of the house which is schedule next week.

2. The end of the school year is getting closer. I honestly think it is more heavily scheduled than Christmas. Sunday-was a piano recital, Tuesday night-Lily chorus performance, Wednesday night-Ending Party for Church Kid’s club. In addition to cheerleading tryouts on Monday and Thursday.

3.Our community pool opens this weekend, with swim team practice starting on Tuesday. Zach is planning to swim this year and I am so excited just to get him in the water on a regular basis!

4.Kendall is star student next week so I am scrambling to get some picture found and printed so we can make her poster on Sunday.

5. I am officially on call for Monday, so I may have to work a couple of hours but that means that I will get a 4 day weekend for the Fourth of July!

Zach Kindergarten Screening

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Today Zach and I went back to school for his Kindergarten screening. This is the first of 3 trip prior to his first day of school. We will have a meet the teacher night in August, he will go for 45 minute the first day of school. Next he spends a full day of school with 5 or less other students before his official first day of school which is actually day 5 of the school year. Anyway, Zach is really excited!!

Saving on Saturday 5/16/2015

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sosI am really excited to share this! If you know me you realize that I am not really a craft person. For example in 4th grade it took me 3 months to learn to cross stitch and that was not even to complete a project. I like the idea of being craft but honestly who has the time?

Well this time I did. I spent around 5 hours and $3.00 to create this awesome wreath for the front of my house.

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front laying on floor

front laying on floor

Back side I think it is neat too!

Back side I think it is neat too!

I purchased a bunch of tulle on sale for 10 cent a roll several weeks ago at Walmart. For the wreath, I ended up using about 3/4 of 3 different rolls.

Step one: Make the wreath pattern out of cardboard. I found a pot lid that was the size I wanted for beside the door and then drew and cut it out and then cut our the center.

Step Two: Cut the rolls of tulle into the approximate same size piece and decide a pattern.

Step Three: Tie each of the tulle piece on the wreath, I was careful to stick to the same pattern! I am so excited to show off this project!

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Random Budget Thoughts on Thursday!

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  • This month I am really paying attention to our budget. The goal is to get our spending under control and be able to pay down most of our debts except the mortgage over the summer in addition to saving to pay for our Disney Trip.  I keep reminding myself and Matt that every dollar is important at this stage and that each dollar we save puts us a step ahead. I am also trying to enjoy the small victories like using the clothes line!
  • I was able to hang out 3 loads of clothes today on the clothes line. While shopping at Walmart this morning for a toaster, I picked up 100 wooden clothes pins. Let me tell you these are the cheapest made clothes pins that I have even seen. I had to use 3 to hold up shorts and even some shirts. Matt was excited to smell the fresh laundry. I would love to say that I am going to start hanging our at least one load of clothes a week but in reality I don’t see it happening. So I am simply going to enjoy the fact that it happened today and not worry about when and if it happens again.
  • Our square foot garden is actually growing really well. We have only lost one pepper plant and one cucumber plant, otherwise everything is growing. I am excited each evening to check out what is growing. We have pumpkin and corn in addition to our green beans that are all growing from seeds. The other plants are also growing. We have been watering about every third day so I hope in another month to be harvesting!
  • Over the past several months we have been keeping the budget low by using up  our stockpile. We currently have 2 freezers in our building. In January, both of these were filled to the brim. Today, I could combine the contents of both into one and it would not  be full.  My goal for the summer is to completely restock the vegetable freezer. I am hopefully to accomplish a lot of this with our garden but otherwise I am going to budget $50 a month to buy in season fruits and veggies. In the month of May, strawberries are in season. Last weekend we picked a total of 3 gallons and froze at least 2 of these. I am hoping to get another 2 gallons this weekend. One to enjoy and one to freeze. The second freezer is for meat and the only meat left in it is chicken. I have already planned a  trip to the meat market/butcher the second week of June. This will take about half of our grocery budget for June but hopefully will last the rest of the summer.
  • The white van is continuing to cost us. I am becoming increasingly frustrated with it. I just don’t like the idea of continuing to put money into something month after month after month. Currently the discussion is what is our best options. I honestly don’t feel comfortable driving it on long trips and especially going to Disney. So depending on our budget and saving we have some tough decisions ahead of us. Currently the goal is to keep the van running until September and then re-evaluate the situation.