Monthly Archives: July 2021

July in Review

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July the official shortest month of the year is now gone!  We spent a week at the beach and last week was probably the single busiest week of the summer with orthodontist appointments, appointments for mom and VBS every evening!  We start back to school in August so I am hopefully to enjoy some less busy weeks before school!

Groceries– budget amount is $650.   We spent a total of $693.49 I have completed my stock up. My goal is to only buy perishable items such as milk, bread, fruits and eggs until December.

Auto/ Gas / Insurance: . My goal is  $400 a month. $414.40. Gas prices are rising! This also includes our beach trip!

Cash Envelope system-  I am going to say No to this.  It is hard to use cash on vacation. Hopefully we will be back on track in August

Goal #4- Blogging- 15 post per month.  This is post number 9. Did I mention that last week was the busiest week of the summer.

Goal # 5- Fitness– Goal is to exercise of some type at least 10 days a month.  At least there is improvement this month. I managed 6 days of 30 minutes of exercise this month!

Goal #6 – Bible study- Goal-  Read or Listen to the entire Bible in a year. I have finished the bible podcast. On hold until school starts.

Earnings– Zero

No Spend Days-Zero. We are enjoying the summer with extra ice cream and other fun!

August should be interesting to say the least!

Five Things Friday

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  1. No Monday Menu will be posted this week. Next week our church is hosting Vacation Bible School from 6 to 8 Monday thur Thursday and a pool party on Friday. Dinner is provided for workers and their children.
  2. Our new oven has arrived!  I have been experimenting and getting use to it over the past couple of days. So far I am very impressed!
  3. With only 3 weeks left of summer vacation, I have established a couple of goals that I want to work toward which will make my life easier in the fall. First- prepare easy to heat and eat meals as much as possible. This week we have focused on making pizza dough. We have all the ingredients but it takes around 2 hours to make the dough. Kendall has made 12 this week. This will make for easy pizza in the fall. Simply unthaw the dough in the morning and add toppings. We also made 2 additional cheeseburger pizza toppings to add to the dough. Second- Stock up and organize the freezers and pantry.  This is also close to completion. I will be adding a couple of cookie, bread and cake mixes during the next week. Finally-enjoy lots of down time by sitting by the pool.
  4. Square Foot Garden- we are making plans to add cement to complete this area but I am also continue to try and figure out how I can improve the soil for next year. We are fortunate to get tomatoes but I am so frustrated that the money I spent on soil is basically worthless this year!
  5. July has turned out to be one of the most expensive months EVER but we are still holding our heads above water. I am ready to start reaping the benefits of all my bargains and saving.

Filling Up the Pantry.

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I have mentioned before that I feel like we have a well stocked freezers.  So now I am trying to stock up the freezers with easy to prepare meals in addition to adding some needed items to the pantry.

I have been doing ALOT of shopping on Amazon this summer, in addition to it being the most convenient option for me, I have been able to find some great deals.  I am using scribe and save- the subscription service.   I am finding that some  deals offer some additional amounts off for your first shipment. I am setting reminders all over the place to go back and check prices to make sure that the second and future shipment are still at the great deal. If not it is not difficult to cancel but the trick waiting till around  a week before your shipment closes and then doing the math.  I have purchased snacks (30 cent or less per pack), hand soap, school supplies, rice and all vitamins. This week  I have found soup for around 80 cent a cup this is a HUGE convivence item for us!

Today I ventured out to Harris Teeter.  I have not shopped this grocery store in over 18 months. I LOVE their sales but with COVID and the distance to get to the store I just have not had a chance. Today I was getting some work on the van so I was  within a mile of a store.  I spent $33.45 and saved 53% according to the receipt! There was only one small catch, none of the items purchased were a need. They all were to add to the pantry. I grabbed 4 boxes of pasta at $0.79 cent each.  Canned beans, green beans and corn at thirty seven cent each and Hamburger helper at ninety-eight cent each. I admit that we use 2 boxes of Hamburger helper to one pound of ground beef but this is a quick and easy meal.

I am actually thinking that I have stocked up on most pantry items as well.  My plan is to only shop sales for the rest of the summer! This months groceries will be a regular month but hopefully I will be able to reduce the grocery budget by half for the rest of the year! $300 a month sounds very doable starting in August.

 

Menu Planning Monday

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Back to reality and now to enjoy a few more weeks of summer break. Our freezers are now officially full.  My goal over the next few weeks is to transform raw ingredients into easy to complete meals for the fall and winter. On Thursday, I will make 2 Taco casseroles with one placed in the freezer ( I have pulled out taco meat and frozen tomatoes to make these).  We are focusing on making 12 bags of pizza dough. On Saturday, I plan to make a cheeseburger pizza for lunch. I will mix up 2 batches and freeze the second in place of the 2 pack of raw hamburger meat we pulled out!

We are currently on week 8 of no stove.  I have an delivery date of this Wednesday so lets hope it starts to get back to normal around here!

Breakfast– Saturday-Old Bridge Restaurant    Sunday- Biscuit King  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday-choice of breakfast muffins, eggs, pop-tarts, sausage, oatmeal, cereal or grits, breakfast burritos, or omelets.  We have lots of options that don’t require the oven!

Lunch-  Saturday–Cook out Sunday- Spaghetti  Matt took a beef and cheddar for Monday and will have hamburgers two days. I want the kids to focus on eating the rest of quick school foods or sandwiches this week as left-overs are not available.

Dinner-  Saturday- Arby’s   Sunday- fried shrimp and watermelon Monday- hamburgers  and French fries   Tuesday- Pepper steak in the crock pot .   Wednesday- Grilled Chicken and  pasta salad .   Thursday- Taco Pasta    Friday-Broiled fish?

Vacation Catch Up

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We spent the last week on Oak Island NC. This was a new spot for us and  I am really impressed. So impressed in fact that we have already reserved  a condo in the same building for next year.  Our only complaint this year was the mattress in the condo we had were HORRIBLE!  But on the bright side for the first time in several years, both Amanda and Haley joined us at the beach. Braxton stayed 4 days, Amanda 2 days and Haley 1 day.

We turned the air conditioning up to 80 degrees while we were gone and unplugged all the computers and electronics.   We are hopeful that this saved us some on the electric bill.

We did spend more of vacation. I don’t like to cook or clean on vacation. We did do at least one load of laundry per day.  We purchased heat and eat breakfast items and ate at a restaurant at least one time a day!

Matt, Zach and Tim went deep sea fishing on Wednesday while us girls shopped. We did not expect any benefit from this trip but  we are very pleasantly surprised to have brought home lots of mackerel (King and spotted) for our freezer.  I also stopped on the way home to purchase 3 pounds of freshly caught shrimp to add to our freezer as well.

We arrived home to 20 pounds of tomatoes which is a great surprise considering this will be most if not all of what we harvest this year.   I made 5 batches of spaghetti sauce.  On Sunday, I decided to spread out the sauce, making a baked ziti, 2 baked spaghettis and 2 bags of meatballs along with 5 containers of spaghetti sauce. We also enjoyed the sauce for lunch!

Vacation is the time when all the money saving stops and we enjoyed what we have worked and saved for all year!

5 Things Friday

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  1. No menu plan for this week for a couple of reasons. First we are on week 6 of no oven.  Scheduled delivery is 2 weeks away.  I wanted to use up a lot of the fresh ingredients in my pantry and refrigerator as well as left-overs. And the final reason… I was just too tired.
  2. Made the first batch of spaghetti sauce from the garden this week. IT was awesome.   Unfortunately, we have discovered that the soil that I purchased from Home Depot was not good. We have been working to salvage anything by adding lime.  We were able to harvest some snap peas and some tomatoes. The tomatoes beds were over half full with dirt that I had already been using so they are at least producing a first harvest. I doubt it will be enough to fill the freezer this year but at least I can make a few batches of spaghetti sauce.  The sweet potato bed which is all old dirt seems to be doing the best so maybe I can salvage a few of those as well. My plan is to continue to add lime a bag a month until we get the beds close to where they need to be. Ugggh  I had high hopes and expectations this year!
  3.  We are headed on our beach trip soon. Not going to share all the details but this will be a totally new experience for us. We are planning a trip to Oak Island. I have never stayed on a NC beach!
  4. Lily is really enjoying her job as a lifeguard. She is actually working much more than she hoped and is enjoying spending the money as well.
  5. My summer is officially half over. I return to work in 6 weeks.  I have actually completed all the items on my summer to do list except stock the freezer. I am hoping that the next 6 weeks are at a much slower pace than the last 5!