Saving on Saturday

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I am so excited about this Saving on Saturday!  Food Lion, our one and only local grocery store, is running it’s house brand sale!  In the past they have ran this sale twice a year, usually January and July. This has not been the case in 2015, this is the first time this year they have offered this sale. With each “house brand” item you purchase you receive a coupon for $.0.25 off your next order. You must purchase 4 items at a time and they limit you to 40 items or $10 at a time. The reason I like this so much is they have house brands of just about everything.  In addition to this coupon, they often run sales on the house brand items . I was also so glad to read that this sale will continue for the next four weeks with new/different items on sale each week.  My biggest disappointment is that I have not came up with a legitimate way to figure the true savings. Because the “house brand items” are usually cheaper to begin with it is hard to enter a saved amount.  I did use my usual tracker to get an idea and it gave me a savings of 42% with my two trips. The other method I have seen and like but really is not accurate in most case is to take the number of items purchased and divide by total cost. I have spent 79 cent on each of these items which is a better way to judge but still not the most accurate.

I spent $66.19 in 7 transactions for the following:

8 2 L Soda
15 Bags of frozen corn
4 4lb bags of Sugar
40 cups of yogurt
18 packets of taco seasoning
6 packets of Ranch dressing
6 boxes of Ziti Pasta
4 boxes of Jumbo elbow noodles
6 cans of cream of celery Soup
6 cans of cream of Chicken Soup
1 can baked beans
2 blocks of cream cheese
Bag of potato’s
package of Pepperoni

After hearing and confirming the sale, I went to my pantry and made a list of “wants” that if I can purchase over the next several weeks, I will consider my stockpile full. So far I am approximately 75% of the items. I am trying really hard to stick to a small grocery budget of $300 this month. Currently I have $32 in cash left in my envelope. My plan is to watch for a sale on Ketchup as this is the next “big” items on my wish list. I will then use my remaining cash and be done for the month! Easier said than done but it is a goal!

5 Things Friday

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1. I am staying in a hotel room tonight, as I attended a continuing education class from 8-5:30 today and will be in class again from 8 till 1:30 tommorow as well. This is the first time since I think Zach was born that I have been away from the kids an entire night.  We are very fortunate to have FaceTime so they are not so far away.

2. I was so very excited to be able to fund all our budget catogeries this month. We are focusing on keeping our expenses low and making any extra payment we can toward our Disney trip.

3. I am going to have another yard sale next Saturday, I am hoping to sell $100 worth of stuff and that money will also go into the Disney fund.

4. Yesterday online I found an awesome coupon for $25 off a $50 purchase at Advance Auto. We decide to go ahead and purchase some items to complete some maintence on Matt’s van. None of the items were emergencies but the goal is to keep his van in the best shape so we can drive for the next 5 years.

5. Zach is having a really good year so far at school with his behavior being some of the best in the class! Kendall also had a great day today with achieve “Gold” status after getting in trouble on Wednesday. I am praying this is the postive up swing she needs!

Labor Day Project

The project for today was to finishing “reclaiming” the old deck wood at the edge of our yard, check out more of the story here.

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Our square foot garden did not produce the corn we had hoped for this year and one of the reasons that we think may have been part of the problem was the amount of “shade” our bed was getting. So a perfect use of this wood was to make a separate “corn” bed in direct sunlight with no shade. Next up I really wanted to add a second layer to the beds we had previously built and ran out of wood. Matt and I spent all morning working on building the box, then after yet another trip to Lowes, it is finished. I am really pleased with the results and officially declare the square foot garden finished!

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You can see how the shade is covering parts of the garden in the above pictures.
I did go ahead and purchase an additional 8 bags of dirt that I will use once we have harvested all the pepper, lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes to make sure we have a good soil base. The dirt was on sale for half price at Lowes so I wanted to make sure I had enough. I also decided to purchase some mums to help with my fall flowers as well.  I hope they will live a nice long time as it does not appear to be “fall” anywhere in the near future according to our weather forecast.

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Monday Menu Planning

Breakfast– French toast, toast with new jelly, cereal, poptarts or grits. Zach has been grabbing applesauce or canned fruit for breakfast as well. Keeping it simple this week!  Saturday morning, Matt made biscuits and gravy, Sunday morning- baked oatmeal.

Lunch- The kids will be taking Lunchables everyday. I am headed to a conference on Friday so I will grab leftovers or even a Lunchable this week?

Dinner– I am trying to stick to my goal of leaving work by 5:30 daily so I can eat with the family most nights.

Saturday- Lunch: BBQ chicken pizza .   Dinner- Layered Taco Salad.

Sunday- Lunch- Spaghetti Lasagna .  Dinner-Leftovers or sandwhiches.

Monday- Country Style Steak, Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes, corn and Mandarin orange salad
Tuesday- Chicken Fried Rice
Wednesday-Chicken nuggets, FF and fruit
Thursday-  ?? Sheila decides or leftovers
Friday- Pizza rolls

Saving on Saturday 9/5

As I mentioned in this post, I am planning to make the next couple of months, low spend/no spend months. That does create a small problem with one of my favorite things to post, Saving on Saturday. The reason, if I am not spending then how can I really be saving. So at least for a couple of times I am going to use this day to discuss my budget and my progress toward goals. My intention is to give concrete steps that I am taking to meet each goal. So for today an update on September Goals.

1. Reduce Grocery spending to $300 for the month. So far I have spent nothing on groceries for the first 5 days of the month. I did go to the building this morning to “shopping” during menu planning. I am so excited to find the meat and other items to make no shopping easier.  I also have already checked the CVS ad starting on Sunday and will not be making a trip this week.  This is a tough decision but I don’t need anything and with no free items why be tempted.

2. When I looked at my September budget, I have 4 categories that are not completely funded for the month so the remaining $400 of the normal grocery budget will be used to completely fund the budget. This should actually occur next weekend after I receive my first paycheck of the month.

Plan to purchase both Lily and Amanda birthday cards.  Completed!  Amanda will  not be getting gift card, instead she needs some items for college.

4. Pay at least $375 toward our Disney trip to maximize Disney points prior to November. Paid $100 toward the trip this week! I did use my Disney card to purchase the gift cards for the kids spending money so I am excited to see where my reward dollars are in a couple of days.

5. Maintain Gas budget at or below $400. We have had to purchase gas in both vans but still less than $100 so far.

6. Reduce/Eliminate Eating out for the month of September. So far we have spent $60 for Zach’s birthday meal and donuts for his class. I do have a meal planned for tomorrow in addition to most of the meals planned for the week. This should definitely help us stay on track.

I have also placed one item, toddler bed on a yard sale site and plan to clean my closet out this week to have a good start! My goal is to place all money earned toward our Disney trip as the other items in our budget are currently funded!

5 Things Friday

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1. I decided to try my hand at fall gardening, so yesterday I purchased 9 lettuce plants and 9 cabbage plants. I decided to test my “Mel’s Mix” and regular soil with the cabbage plants. I planted 4 in regular soil that I purchased at Lowes, the remaining 5 are in the “Mel’s mix” that I have to have shipped at the cost of $18 a bag. Worst case scenario nothing grows and I just wasted $7.

2. We have been extremely busy this week. My work picked up as well. Tonight is actually the first night this week that we are home. I am so tired and just want to hide out all night.

3. We spent around 2 hours yesterday in Lowes, picking up items to finish up some projects around the house. I am always amazed at what we forget each time we go.

4.The kids are out of school on Monday for Labor Day. I am covering inpatients which means that we can sleep in for the next 3 days.

5.I am planning to spend at least an hour or more enjoying my garden tub tonight!