Monthly Archives: December 2023

Year in Review-2023

Posted on by
Reply

Groceries- Budget $975   We have spent over $10,400 in 2023 which is an average of $866 a month.  My goal was $975 a month so YAY!  I did manage to stay under budget for 7 of 12 months!  I am planning to leave this amount unchanged for 2024 but will hopefully be able to incorporate the purchase of a whole or half side of beef.

Auto/ Gas. Goal -= $600 a month. We spent $5740 on gas. Which is an average of $478 a month.  We did manage to spend over $600 on gas in 3 of the last 12 months. I can explain this with the fact that we travelled each of those 3 months. I am going to reduce the budget to $500 a month to leave some wiggle room for traveling as well.

Blogging- 15 post per month. Yet again, I did not meet this goal. I was able to blog 15 times last January and 17 times last May.  I am going to leave this goal, as a form of accountability.  I do enjoy reviewing blogs but sometime blogging gets pushed to the back burner.

Exercise- I am struggling both with my health and how to improve it!  I am losing a small bit of weight.  I ended the year at 220.   Hopefully I will be under 190 by the end of 2024.

2023 brought lots of celebrations and also a fair bit of change.  I hope to make 2024 less stress, fun and need to enjoy some additional down time for sure!

December in Review

Posted on by
Reply

December was a hard and busy month. I got to make two trips to Florida and visited with Haley both times!  We have had quite a bit of sickness this month. Matt missed 3 days of work. I have missed several days of my Christmas Break due to being sick.  Now is the time to start looking ahead and planning for the future after reviewing goals of course!

Groceries- Budget $975   $1564.96 Goal NOT met!  I am heading into the pantry challenge where I hope to save enough to purchase at least half a cow this summer.

Auto/ Gas. Goal -= $600.  Goal NOT Met!  We have spent $561.57 this month.  The most expensive part of our trip to Florida was gas. We get 8.9 miles to the gallon when pulling the camper.

Blogging- 15 post per month.  9  post this month.  I am continuing to struggle with this again.

Exercise- I am struggling both with my health and how to improve it!  I am losing a small bit of weight. I have been sick at least the last week and half so no progress.

Earn extra money: a $50 gift card from Fetch.  I am at 45552. That means I need 7448 more points. Or 30 more receipts to scan at the minimum.  I seriously doubt I hit this goal before March at this point but I will keep working.

 

Christmas Celebrations

Posted on by
Reply

As you can see below, we have been celebrating Christmas several times already this year!

First we hosted a Christmas Dinner..

Next was a “traditional Chinese lunch with friends.!

Finally Christmas Eve at my parent’s house… food, fun and Rook of course!

Oh yea in between lunch and Christmas Eve, we took family pictures, here is a sneak peek.

5 Things Friday

Posted on by
Reply

  1. It is the Friday before Christmas. Christmas is on Monday. We have exciting plans for every day between now and then.  Tomorow, we are hosting a dinner for friends.  Sunday is Christmas Eve services at church as well as my family Christmas.
  2. I have spent most of the day working on the dishes for the dinner. The kids have helped especially with the cleaning. We tried something new and I had everyone come in the kitchen, pick a recipe and then assembly. It worked super well!  We got 5 casseroles assembled in less than one hour!
  3. The kids requested and got to open one present tonight after dinner. Kendall is the happiest with her new journaling Bible ESV version.  Lily loved her present of makeup brushes until she saw Kendall!  Zach is confused. He opened a double pack of baseball for a pitching machine that he does not have.
  4. I am planning to get most of the breakfast items prepared ahead for Christmas morning. We are going to plan to breakfast all day along with some leftovers.  I do want to clean out my refrigerator and not let food go to waste.
  5. We leave for Florida in 5 days.  My mother, Amanda and Braxton will be joining us on this trip. We will spend 4 days in Florida including a day at Disney Spring and another Christmas celebration with Haley and her family!

Thursday Thoughts- Groceries!

Posted on by
Reply
  • Groceries has consistently been one of our biggest expenses. It is also one of the expenses that I monitor very closely using this blog!  I was able to find my groceries expenses all the way back to 2011 this morning!   Which we will discuss in depth in just a few minutes.
  • Last night, I decided that I would finish up my grocery shopping for the month.  Mom and I went into Aldi to grab some fresh veggies and other things in ended up spending $110, this was much more than I had anticipated. I had also decided to grab both Zach and Kendall and head to Costco. My grocery budget does include paper goods, cleaning products and most other things you can purchase at Costco.   We also needed to purchase some extra drinks to take with us to Florida.  My total at Costco for last night was $650.
  • I decided the last week of November, right after Christmas to try out Walmart grocery delivery. I will not be continuing mainly because I am too cheap for it. But I am also disappointed with the level of service and being able to get all the things I want.  I had an order for today which is around $70 and probably one final order before we leave if needed.
  • Wow that sounded expense and it is!  For the month of December, we will end up spending around $1600!  Ouch
  • My next step was to see what my average monthly spending was for 2023. We have spent over $10,400 in 2023 which is an average of $866 a month.  My goal was $975 a month so YAY!  I did manage to stay under budget for 7 of 12 months!   Totally unexpected that I managed to stay in budget this year, but this is a HUGE success! One that I plan to build on see below.
  • Lets’ review some numbers for fun:  in 2011 which included diapers for one kid we spent an average $821 per month.  which was the high amount spent prior to the this  year. Our lowest amount spent on groceries per month was $460 a month in 2013. A more shocking comparison is that in 2019 we averaged $506 a month. Rising to $550 in 2021 which is expected as we were stuck at home and rarely ate out. Finally the average for $2022 was $700  a month.
  • After taking all the in and mulling over the numbers. I am going to maintain the budget at $975 for 2024 especially with a teenage boy in the house and the planned purchase of a cow next summer.
  • Starting in January, I would like to start saving to purchase another whole cow in the summer. Ideally, I would put $500 a month in a saving account for six months to make this happen.   We have a ton of food in multiple locations, and I am really working on keeping it organized and to work through the food that is here before buying new things.  I also need to start to clean out the freezer of all the prepared meals that I made this summer.   I will definitely need the freezer space.  My plan is to start the year by participating in the pantry challenge for both January and February which should also jump start the saving fund.

Wordless Wednesday – Christmas Decorations

Posted on by
Reply

 

This is probably my favorite thing!

Saving on Saturday

Posted on by
Reply

Our grocery bill is one of the highest expenses each month. This has been true since I started blogging many years ago.  I am continuing to gain knowledge and skills that I hope in the future will continue to control our spending.

We are currently in a busy season.  I am struggling to keep our eating out to a manageable level. Manageable meaning paying in cash and not adding to our credit card debit.   Hopefully, the things I am sharing will help this as well.

On Thursday, between running Zach to appointments, I was able to get three complete meals made. A turkey chill, which was eaten for dinner and then froze for a fourth meal. I also assembled two turkey casseroles. One was frozen and the other saved for use next week.

This morning everyone pitched in and we made up 30 “omelet bags”   We can simply add the bag and two eggs to the frying pan for a quick and nutritious breakfast.

I also ran two loads of kidney beans in the pressure canner. These will be used in the future for both soups and chill.

I am preparing for an extended pantry challenge during the months of January, February and March.   I decided to subscribe to Walmart plus for the month of December. This way we can continue to stock up on items that we are running low on or out of.  I will cancel before going to Florida at the end of December but this allows me to add things slower and also keeps me from overspending at the same time.   I am really liking this convivence but definitely not enough to spend $98 a year on it!