Monthly Archives: November 2019

November in Review

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Grocery budget Total spent $1187.86 . Yes, you read that correctly. This is most likely the highest amount spend on groceries that does not involve a purchase of a cow EVER. I do want to point out a couple of factors. We have had 5 weekends in November. I did not go to Costco at all during the months of September and October which ended up with two trips this month. Otherwise, I can say that I have my stock pile replenished and plan to limit spending in December to needs only.
Gas– I was successful with keeping track of our gas spending during the month of November. Total expense is $471.71. In other successful news, I set the budget at $500 so we at least stayed below that amount.
Kid/Summer expenses: Lily’s play was the first week of November, I spent around $150 on tickets for all of us.
Earned $100 – This is all in the form of Domino’s gift cards. This is actually one of the higher amounts of earning strictly from Swagbucks this year.
Personal–
Blogging-10 for the month. This is probably an average for the year so that is great for me.
Exercise– none no excuse, none.

Financially- We are starting to reach steady ground. Matt and I both are working a full time job and a part time job. We did not add any debit this month and I have purchased the majority of Christmas presents. All of our bill are paid and I spent an enormous amount on groceries. I am very pleased with this month and hope to continue on the positive side. I will share our budget next month. I am still making a couple of changes and tweets to it.

Saving and Shopping

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We all know that I enjoy shopping and I REALLY enjoy saving money. To be honest I have done my fair share of Black Friday shopping especially when my kids were smaller and it was really a chance to get out in public without three little people attached. Things changes as we all know. I have no desire to go out and fight a crowd tonight or tomorrow. But I wanted to grab some of the best deals of the year so I did both online shopping and in store shopping on Wednesday. We ended up spending most of yesterday afternoon shopping. Crowds were light to no existence and the deals were awesome. So I thought I would share most of them with you!

  • Zach used his money to order a X Box One from Costco online for $213 shipped. I used my Costco membership in addition to my Costco credit card (which I paid off immediately online). I ended up earning at least $9 back in cash for this purchase.
  • Lily wanted to use her money to buy Air Pods. We had anticipated grabbing the Black Friday deal online at 10pm, Wednesday night. However we failed. I had actually put the Air Pods in my cart around 9:30 but the price did not change when I went to check out at 10:01 and by 10:02 they were all sold out online. I quickly flipped over to Staples where she was able to purchase them for $8 more. I ended up going through Swagbucks for this purchase and earned $4.02 back.
  • Lily is going to a semi formal dance next weekend. At Kohls she found a dress for $38. I purchased several books for $2.50 and t-shirts for Kendall at $10 each.
  • Hobby Lobby is always so much fun just to walk through. I did find some baseball ornaments that I will turn into a curtain for Zach for $4.
  • Our last stop of the evening was Shoe Carnival. I was so excited to learn that their boots were already on sale for $19.99 a pair. I was beyond the moon to find a selection of wide calf boots that actually fit me. I purchased 2 pair of boots for $42. Today, I received a $10 reward certificate in my email which is good until February!
  • We ate at Olive Garden and brought home 6 prepared meals to use this weekend in addition to enough left-overs and soup for three additional meals. A total of 3 meals for $80 is a huge bargain in my book!
  • My only stop today, Thanksgiving was at CVS. I purchased several gifts and grabbed anything that was free and we use. I spent a total of $30.23 saved $76.14 or 72%. I also left the store with over 20 ECB to be used during the month of December.

I am excited to shop and save but not in a crazy exhausted ugly people way!

Five Things Friday

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  1. We have enjoyed two entirely free meal out this week. On Thursday, we used the gift card that was earned and planned for Halloween combined with IHOP customer appreciation to feed our entire family for the cost of the tip! Friday night is always a hetic night with piano. Matt used another gift card earned via Swagbucks to pick up three large pizzas! We have already enjoyed one pizza and left-overs will be for lunch on Saturday and Sunday!
  2. Kendall is growing. I realized this week that she had only 2 pair of pants that were actually long enough for her. We decided to go to Old Navy to try and find her some pants. We actually found what they call “Ballerina” style pants that fit both length and her waist. We grabbed 4 pair along with 2 pair of boots for her. Lily ended up with a sweater, Zach and Braxton have matching Christmas shirts, I got a dress and Braxton has several new church outfits to wear. Total spent $225!
  3. I knew that I was going to be way over budget this month for Groceries. In fact I am at $882 for the month with a goal of staying under $950. I was a bit concerned until I read this :
    “According to the USDA monthly report for October 2019, the average couple spends $617 per month on groceries alone.
    A family of four with young kids on the Moderate-Cost plan spends $894.40 a month on groceries. Families with older kids spend $1067.50. ”
    Matt and I both are working and make it work with an additional 20 or more hours of paid work each week. Our budget is really enjoying the boast and I am very comfortable with setting and achieving budget related goals for the next year. I am planning to share our new updated budget toward the end of December after a second month (December) to tweak it. I also am anticipating that I will have to only purchase one Christmas present in the month of December along with a birthday present for my mother!
  4. The car that we are driving has significantly reduced our gas spending. Currently, we have spend $268.23 in gas. Because we will be at home more next week, I would guess that we will stay under $300 in gas this month. I can not honestly tell you the last time this happened!
  5. I am anticipating a three day work week next week. Sunday night in Guam. Monday and Tuesday at Davie County. Followed by a four day total vacation! I am excited not only for the break but to finish out our budget for November really strong.

How I Spent my Saturday

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The kids and I spent most of yesterday working on my snow village. This is a photo heavy post if you ever wondered.

I had already done some preparation work and cleared a spot in my bedroom and go the ladder ready.

But then Lily and I decided that we would display the snow village downstairs in the living room this year! This way it would all be close together with a small shelf of houses one side of the television and the ladder on the other side!

The biggest job is to get all the houses arranged and cords hidden.

Finally we added the people and the trees!

This is a shelf that just sort of happened but it turned out awesome!

The Disney shelf. Lily hand painted the present boxes out of Styrofoam so they would hold my six cent Welcome signs!

The tacky house shelf!

These are not real snow village houses but they fit in perfectly!
The Ice skating scene has it’s own shelf and actually looks empty

The kids think that the farm shelf if way too full!

Both Main Street and the housing development look totally different this year!

Which is your favorite? Leave me a comment!

Tuesday Thoughts/Catch Up

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We survived the busiest six weeks that I can remember. During the month of October, all three kids were involved in one additional activity besides piano and church. This weekend, Lily had three performances of her play. I can honestly say that I was super excited and luck to have yesterday off from work just to catch up.

Income update- The really good news on this front is not only is Matt working a job that actually pays well but we both have part time jobs. This is a source of stress. We had a couple of different discussions regarding how we could or if we should even attempt this. We are at a point where the kids are pretty self sufficient so that allows us to have the ability to add not one but two part time jobs. I am working in Guam via teletherapy as an Occupational Therapist. This was a job that I initially applied for in February 2017. I have decided to limit by availability to Sunday night for a full 8 hours and Wednesday night to around 3 hours. Because of the 15 hour time difference this schedule works well. I will admit that the first week was a challenge but I also feel that once I get in the swing of things, I should be able to maintain a low level of stress. This job will continue until the end of May. At that time, we will again evaluate and decide if I want to attempt this for a second school year. Matt is working 10 hours a week as the marketing manger for the Humane Society of Davie County. We are currently unsure how long this job will last but God has a plan and a purpose so we need to simply obey. My plan is to use the extra money in November and December to get us on track. I will share an updated budget in December.

I took a day from work last Friday to catch up on grocery shopping. I was able to go to Costco, Aldi and Food Lion and restock our pantry. So far for the month of November, I have spent $750 on groceries. I would bet this number will end up closer to $800 but I am definitely ok with that. I will run numbers at the end of the year but I have a feeling that I need to increase our grocery budget instead of decrease this year.

We are currently driving a car that gets better gas mileage than either of the vans. This is a family decision that I don’t feel free to discuss but it should reduce our gas spending at least as long as we continue to drive it.

To close out our busy season, we had a family movie night on Monday. We watched Toy Story 4. It was much better than I anticipated, in fact it is my second favorite Disney movie now!

Saving on Saturday

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I was able to find a couple of hours today to search out some awesome sale items, I want to share with you. My first stop was at Dollar General. I specifically chose this store to buy Hot Wheels cars that were on sale for Buy one Get one free. The selection at this store was really limited so I only ended up purchasing 10 cars with several of those being duplicate. I will send the duplicates to church to use. I was so excited to discovery that they were taking an additional 30% off items already on clearance. Summer items are at 90%. So I was able to grab 10 packets of seed for ONE cent each. I did get some cold weather plants such as lettuce and spinach that I hope to plant in February. My favorite find of the day were these signs that I paid SIX cent each for.

Look for them in the snow village soon!

Clothing was at 70% off so I found Matt a swim suit for $1.13 and Braxton an outfit for sixty-three cent. I decided I need to check out at least one more Dollar General before heading home. The second store had a much better selection of Hot Wheels cars so I grabbed one more but less of anything else. I did purchase one Christmas present for $1.34 for the older girls.

My final stop was at Food Lion to grab some carrots and potatoes. I did grab 8 2liter Dr. Peppers because they were $0.69 each. These are a huge treat for the kids and I will plan to take a coupe to our Thanksgiving dinner. I also grabbed a couple of Boston butts roast that we can use for pulled pork. The BEST deal of the day was on cupcake mix which were in the clearance section at the back of the store. The boxes of vanilla cupcake mix were marked down to twenty cent each. The shelf also had coupons for $1.00 off 2 boxes. I grabbed 20 boxes and used 5 coupons so that I was paid $1.00 to carry the boxes out of the store! Better than free!

Did you find any deals let me know in the comment section!

Saving on Saturday

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Our single largest expense besides our mortgage is groceries. Typically, the majority of our groceries are food. In order to reduce our overall spending, I always must focus on reducing the amount of money we spend on food. The only real problem with this is that as the kids grow, they eat more food!

One of the ways that I have found to reduce our grocery budget is to make sure we don’t waste any food. I typically do not make a menu plan for the weekend. First this makes my life a little less stressful and second it also allows us to focus on using up left-overs. Today, I feel like I have been really successful at this task. Typically on Saturday mornings, I try to make a bigger breakfast but not this morning. Zach finished a pancake and piece of sausage left-over from Cracker Barrel and I finished the baked oatmeal from last week. Lunch today was pizza left-overs for the kids, I ate the turkey, dressing and green beans plate left-over again from Cracker Barrel, Matt ate some left-over pulled pork. For dinner it was twice baked potatoes! We had crockpot baked potatoes one day last week and I filled the pot up so we had plenty of left-overs. I even froze 8 additional potatoes that can be used in the future either for a lunch or dinner. We are currently out of cheddar cheese so instead of running out to the store, I shredded a block of Colby jack and used in the potatoes instead. The final way, I saved money on food today is a little bit unusual. I signed up to bring a desert tomorrow for our church dinner. I planned to make a peanut butter pound cake. When I pulled out the recipe, I needed two additional sticks of butter. Instead of rushing to the store, I searched the internet and found a slightly different recipe that used more peanut butter and less butter. Another huge win in the food department!

I have not been couponing as much as I would like and really have not been able to find many deals at CVS lately. However, Lily had a personal hygiene need. I had 3 ECB from several weeks ago, I scanned my CVS card and received an additional 3 ECB. I was able to purchase 2 bags of product which should last about 2 months for a total out of pocket of twenty-one cent! Another huge win!

October in Review

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One of the reason that I continue to block is the ability to go back and see what previous years and months have looked like. It appears that October tends to be a busy month for us! This October was no different. The good news is that I have been able to pick up some extra income. It will be a small amount but I am hoping just the right amount to help us tackle our debit and stop it from growing. I am going to continue to work on the budget and plan to share the new budget starting in January. Our biggest challenge right now is a leaky in the shower. We have replaced and repaired several items but have not had any luck with actually stopping the leak.

Grocery budget Total spent $207.54 . I am super excited for this amount. We have been making small trips to the grocery store and attempting to use what we have in the freezer this month. I do anticipate that November will be much more expense with $600 being realistic at this point.
Gas– We have taken over the payments and driving of Amanda’s Honda CVR. This change has occurred for the last week. The hope is that by me driving it to work, we can reduce the overall gas budget. I have the current gas budget set at $500 but hope to see a reduction in our gas spending which will allow us to pay off more debit. My goal for November is to keep a record of the money spent
Kid/Summer expenses: We have attended at least 3 different ball games a week during the month of October. I am very proud to say that we have not spent more than $10 a week. We have finished the baseball season and the last football game is schedule for Saturday. Lily’s play is next weekend so we should not have any kid related expenses in November.
Earned $75- This is a significant decrease from last year but has been about the same for this year.
Personal-
Blogging-8 for the month. I will admit that this has been a struggle but my goal is to make this goal at least for November and December as we have no travelling planned.
Exercise- My knee is finally at the point that I feel comfortable starting to walk on the treadmill again!