Wordless Wednesday- Random Weekend Picture
Reply
Monthly Archives: January 2016
Random Thoughts
- Matt picked up our pork order from Zaycon yesterday. It is awesome! I received an email yesterday about a deposit/refund because we received a pound less of the pork tenderloin than was originally promised. We frozen 5 of the 6 tenderloins we received after cutting in half. Dinner on Wednesday will be the remaining tenderloin with lots of leftovers. After re-packaging I am thinking that we should have at least 6 months work of pork. This should average out to less than $4 a meal for pork.
- Our new King size bed frame was delivered today, unfortunately the mattress will not be delivered until tomorrow. We started moving beds on Sunday to make like easier so tonight, we will be sleeping one last time in our queen size bed which is currently in it’s new home, Lily’s room. Lily and Kendall have been sharing a bed for the past 3 nights and at least Lily is waking up on time in the mornings.
- Working is harder than I expected this week. I knew going in this would be a long week but I am so tired that all I want to do is go to bed, Hopefully by this weekend, I will find the energy to put away the snow village so that Matt can start work on expanding the kitchen soon.
- Matt has let me know that he prefers menu planning by the month instead of weekly. This way he can change around meals as needed without having to worry about eating the same items several weeks in a row. Currently we have a plan through the first week of February. I am going to try this method for at least January and February. The real deciding factor will be if this method ends up saving money or not.
- We are planning a grocery store trip to Costco on Thursday. This will be the deciding factor if we are able to stay on our $200 budget this month. So far I have spent $12 and plan to stick to as close to $100 at Costco as possible. I want to prove to myself that I can stick to a budget. Looking ahead both February and March will bring Zaycon meat orders. My goal is to use up food that is currently in our pantry and freezer for the first 4-5 months of the year, ultimately keeping the grocery budget at or below $500 for each of these months. I can then spend the summer months re-stocking the veggies and fruit from our garden.
- I made a shepherd’s pie tonight for dinner and the kids LOVED it. In fact this is the second night in a row that everyone has eaten and we have no leftovers.
Extreme Couponing
I was really surprised to discover that I had not been to CVS since before Christmas, in fact, my ECBs expire this week. The reason behind my long absence has been simple, no really deals that I wanted/needed to grab. This week was a huge change. I started the trip with 2 $0.89 ECB. I also received $2 ECB for winter spending on Matt’s card.
Here is a breakdown by the numbers
5 total transactions,( one of my card and four on Matt’s).
$7.88 total spent
$84.72 total saved of 91% with taxes included and 95% taking out the $3.68 of sales tax
$6.50 in ECB left.
I purchased:
6 12 pack of Coke (Used 6 free 12 pack coupons from my Coke rewards)
4 packs of M&M ( used 2 Buy One Get One Free coupons)
2 2L Liters (used a 0.24 coupon that printed from red machine)
4 Bottles so L’Oreal Shampoo ( used 2- $4/2 from 01/03)
2 Packages of Crest Sensi strips.
This is one for the record books! My total grocery spending is less than $12 for the month so far! I did make a trip to the building today to check out what we have in the freezers and did a little bit of organizing so we can get our pork order from Zaycon tomorrow. We have enough of a variety with the pork order that I am going to say we are going to plan on coming in under goal for this month of $200 and reduce the grocery spending in February to $500. That will get us totally on the right foot with groceries and may in fact help to control/reduce grocery spending for the year!
5 Things Friday 01/08/2016
- The weather has turned cold here really quickly. On Christmas day it was 74* and today the high was 46*. I really dislike cold.
- Kendall is by far my coldest child. I was so upset at myself to learn last weekend that she really did not have a good coat for her to take to school. I have been having her use a fleece jacket under a “thin” coat for the past week. I am so excited that I was able to find her a pink and purple coat at JCP tonight. I also purchased Matt a pair of jeans. Using coupons and reward points from our purchase of new sheets. I spent a total of $13.83 on both of these items. The sad part is that $8.95 was shipping.
- Our new bed, King size, is scheduled to arrive next Tuesday. I am so excited as we designed our bedroom around a King size bed but were so tired of sleeping on an air mattress that we purchased the Queen size one about 4 years ago. We are doing a major furniture sway next week. Lily is getting our bed, Kendall is getting Lily’s full size bed and Zach is getting a twin bed. Everyone has new sheet and comforters so I will be posting pictures next week.
- Tomorrow is Lily’s first cheerleading competition of the year. I am excited but not excited at the same time. It is a big time consuming task once this season starts. Kendall’s teams is very young and probably will not compete until February or March if at all. We packed both our cheer bags tonight and will be leaving bright and early in the morning.
- Amanda is taking Zach to the Monster Truck show tonight. I really don’t know who was more excited Amanda or Zach. She has been sending me pictures all night and I will share more later, but this is a good end.
Update- January Money Diet
This is going much better than I would have thought especially with the idea of spending less than $200 on groceries for the month. I did plan on some non-essential but excellent deal shopping at Target today. I got to the store and started grabbing the items from memory that were on my list. Over half way through, I needed to check my list regarding yogurt types on sale, that is when I realized I had left the bag with my coupons and list at home. I was frustrated but decided to purchase Zach’s t-shirts and leave the store with no food. That really does improve my overall numbers at this point. I am going to include a day by day spending recap in addition to totals at the bottom.
Friday January 1st- No spending!
Saturday January 2nd- $3.25 to rent War Room for our “date”
Sunday January 3rd- $3 ($2 for entry and $1 for Zach a drink) $2 on a newspaper because of 4 sets of coupons.
Monday January 4th-No spending!
Tuesday January 5th- $21 on a meal out for Matt and myself. Matt had taken my van to get oil changed, tires rotated and van cleaned, this was all covered by Maintenance plan, this ended up taking the whole morning so we decided to grab a quick lunch together. It is extremely rare that we get 2 “dates” in a month so two in a week is unheard of . I am proud to say that we have spent $25 on 2 dates.
Wednesday January 6th- No spending.
Thursday January 7th- I had an hair appointment for color this morning but this is out of our budget fund that we stock every six months. Matt and I talked about it and decided that this was essential spending! We drove to Matthews for Kendall and Zach eye appointments, we decided to pack our lunch, picked up a box of free donuts on the way home and the biggest decision of the day was to skip IKEA. I have flex spending which covered both the appointments and ordering of Rex Spec for Zach. I did purchase a pack of t-shirts for Zach at Target for $5.02 and ordered 6 Polo shirts for Matt from Amazon for a total of $30.
Groceries- $2
Entertainment- $25
Clothing- $35
Gas- $87.42
We are tracking very well for the month. I am so excited. I have already made a menu plan for the month so this should assist in keeping the groceries low. Lily has a two cheer competitions this month which end up being very expensive and will definitely use up our “eating out/entertainment budget” for the month. But since this is spending that we already agreed and committed to I am not going to let that stop us trying to keep all the other expenses as low as possible for the month.
In regards to clothing, the white t-shirts for Zach were needed as he currently only has 3 and with temperatures staying below freezing, I like him to wear one daily. The polo shirts I purchased for Matt average out to less than $5 each so I always like to grab up this deal when available. Matt usually wears short sleeve shirts most of the year and his are becoming “worn” looking so although not on a need list they will definitely save us money in the long run.
Wordless Wednesday- This makes me Happy!
Living room Closet
Hall Closet
My bathroom closet
Menu Planning Monday
These are my exact feeling about today. This is the first week since prior to Thanksgiving that we are back to a “normal” schedule. I will be honest and say that I have really enjoyed this past weekend. Being able to stay home and organize most of it. But all good things must come to an end so back to normal we go. The good news is that I have really focused on getting thing prepared for this first full week so that hopefully, I can still fit in all the things I need to. Menu planning is extremely important as I have slashed our grocery budget for the month of January and would really like to maintain a lower budget of around $500 for the first 4-5 months. I know these are lofty goals but I am going stay positive and attack one month at a time. I realized that I had not posted a plan since mid November so for an update,we have really been focusing on eating good meals and making use of the leftovers that keep occurring. This weekend , we are eating one meal of leftovers a day. So far we are doing excellent with no food being thrown away due to spoiling. This week we have a trip to the Metrolina Eye on Thursday along with a cheerleading competition on Saturday.
Here is the plan :
Breakfast– Breakfast burrito on Saturday (leftovers for the week), Baked oatmeal on Monday (leftovers for the week)muffins and French toast are in the freezer along with our staples of eggs, grits, poptarts, cereal and toast.
Lunch-The kids are really enjoying homemade “chicken dunks” for lunches so these are packed for 3 days with a sandwich and a grab n go day finishing up the week. I am finishing up lettuce in a salad on Monday and will be eating left overs for the rest.
Dinner- No new meals this week as we are in survival mood at least for the first couple of weeks.
Saturday- Lunch- leftovers. Dinner- Stuffed green pepper soup.
Sunday- Lunch- baked sweet potatoes. Dinner- Leftovers.
Monday- Salisbury steak, packet of mashed potatoes and fruit cocktail.
Tuesday-Chicken pot pie.
Wednesday-Pork Chops, green beans, left over stuffing and fruit.
Thursday-Leftovers, soup or may be a meal out depending on time
Friday- Hamburger helper.
Saving on Saturday 01/02/2016
We (yes it is a family thing) are participating in 
. So we are spending the day at home and trying to make it day 2 of no spending for the month. This morning as we were having breakfast and talking, Matt brought up that we need to purchase a fuse for the air compressor so that he can blow up the tire on the lawn mower. After a few minutes of thought we decided to hold off until February because this is not a “need” at this time. Victory number #1!
As part of our spending challenge, we have set an additional goal of grocery spending of $200 or less for the month. Of course, we are starting to realize that we are running out of some things. Normally, I would get a list of anything I think we need from Costco and make a huge grocery trip. Instead I am starting a list of items that we need to replenish and will wait until an awesome sale come or we run all the way out. We are going to run out of milk so I will be using cash to purchase only milk. Matt found 2 gallons of milk in the freezer in our building. Victory number #2
On New Year’s Eve, we went to Walmart . I remembered from the past several years that they mark down gift set as well as Christmas items. I was disappointed when I saw that the signs still read only 50% but just happen to hear from another customer that it really was 75%. We purchases several packs of lights for $0.63 each, several make-up gift sets for $2.44 each, close to 10 gift set of lip balm for $1.22. We also found one star wars plate setting $5.42. These items will be saved for birthday gifts that are needed for the year. We ended up spending around $50.
Only 29 more day to stick to it!
Action Plan for 2016
For some reason, I really like the wording of action plan versus goals, not sure if it is truly a motivational thing but I am going to stick with it. My current plan for each month is not only to be accountable by reporting how each month progress but also included plans for the following month to keep things on track.
Personal-
1. Blogging– Post 20 per month. This is definitely a stretch but a good one for both accountability and fun.
2.Weight Loss– 175#. In January, I plan to use the treadmill for at least 30 minutes a day for 3 days a week.
3. Spiritual– Spend at least 5 days a week, reading and studying The Bible. My Sunday school is starting a new study that has a work book with 5 sections each week. I also really want to finish reading through the entire Bible. Between these two things I am confident this is achievable.
Financial- These are always much harder for me but guess that might be a good thing.
1. Set aside money each month in every budget category. I know very well where all my money goes, but in reality knowing where it needs to go and placing it there are two different things. In addition, life happens and some days I have to borrow from one item to truly pay another. I reset the following funds each January, Gifts and Clothing. I am adding an Eating Out category with a base of $200 per month which will roll and will reset next January. To achieve this goal in January, I am participating in the “January Money Diet “. I also plan to spend $200 or less on grocery. When I am success this will allow all categories to be funded except for eating out. We are suppose to attend two cheerleading competitions this month so I am not sure that we can eliminate this category all together. I do have several items that I need to sell this month which will be used to fund eating out.
2. Establish and maintain Emergency Fund- Ultimate goal is $3500, but this year adding $100 a month is a start. See above for the plan.
3. Groceries: Goal is for $700. This month, we will be using cash and plan to spend $200.
4. Gas: Spend $400 a month. This includes repair, maintenance, tags and taxes. In the past, I have rest this budget each month with using any overage to fund other items. I am going to change that this year and place overage in a Capital one account to be used for larger repairs. I would like to set a $500 limit. In reality with gas prices being so low this will only take 2 months. After meeting the $500 I can switch to again using money in other ways. I am afraid of reducing this amount because if and when gas prices increase this will only cover gas.
5. Pay off all Credit Card debit by December 2016- This is by far the most lofty goal I am setting but the purpose being that we can then plan another Disney trip for November 2017! I have no really plan for meeting this goal except by having a very frugal year and increasing income in any way possible.