Monthly Archives: December 2025

December In Review

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December has flown by. We are ending the month at home with hopefully everyone (all 5 kids) at home. This should be lots of fun!  I am planning to get up at least two post today both this month in review and a year in review post. I will get a post about goals and change in plans in the next couple of days.  I am working toward a more balanced approach.

Emergency Fund- Goal is $1000- $250. This goal was not meet. However the huge expense of a new HVAC system will be totally covered so that should count as something. We are ending the year at the same point we started $250.

Groceries- Goal $820 per month.  Goal not  met with $1272.39. This does included food for both of our big parties, the Christmas dinner party for 30 that was this past week and most of the food for the Super Bowl party that is the first weekend of September.  I am planning for a full on pantry challenge for the months of January and February.  Again I have planned to make a full post on this but we will see when that happens.

Gas- Goal is $500.  December total is $480.48.

Blogging- For 2025- the goal will be 10 posts per month. This is actually post number 13  for the month. Finally back on track.

Debit-  This post details most of the changes. The goal for 2026 will be to pay off the Home Depot Credit card without interest.  This will definitely be a stretch but I am going to work hard toward it.

Health/Exercise- I am maintaining at 179.  My goal for 2026 will be to add some form of exercise 2 times a month.

Reading through the Bible this year- Will read my final chapters today.

Christmas Reflections

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This Christmas has definitely had a different feel.  Some things are positive and some are negative and some I just know but can’t give a name.

One of the things that has been on my mind is the fact that my “littles” are not going to be at home for many more Christmas celebration. I wanted to soak in every minute and just enjoy this season of life. We started by visiting Disney at the beginning of December. It was awesome and many core memories were made.  I really enjoyed hanging out with the kids with less distractions!  Christmas Day was really laid back for us as all three kids had a cold/virus.

We lost a member of our church to a tragic accident the Saturday before Christmas, this was very unexpected and hard for everyone. I can not even begin to imagine the grief felt by his wife and three kids.

We had to replace our HVAC system, the Friday before Christmas which has some financial implications.  One of which is that we have been eating at home for the past two Sundays.  This has saved us money but we have enjoyed spending time with friends during home meals.

I am excited about the new storage areas that we have and I can’t wait to pack up Christmas in a more organized manner and get things back together in the house.

We are definitely preparing for our pantry challenge. I was able to get an additional casserole in the freezer on Friday. I also canned 5 quarts and 17 pints of turkey broth.  I also got one extra meal of soup in the freezer as well.  We need to finish up a ton of left-overs this week as well.

There is a very personal situation going on that  has “stolen my joy”.

Christmas 2025 was different.

Pantry Challenge Preparation

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I am trying to spend part of my winter break working on Pantry preparation.  I had already been thinking about participating in a pantry challenge but with the new heating and air system it is a definite we need to now.  First I have been working on a list of all of the different meals we could have based on items in our freezers and pantry. My goal is to have a list of sixty items. I am planning to share this list once I get it organized and typed up. Here are some of the other ways I am working to get prepared to make this pantry challenge successful for both the months of January and February.

So far in the last week I have made a batch of sloppy joes (8 meals), two extra meals of meatloaf muffins, two extra meals of bagels and one extra loaf of bread.

I have been searching the pantry to try and restock on any items that we might run short on during the next several months.  I ended up at Costco last night to pick up items for our dinner party on Saturday as well as the items we needed. I ended up spending $306 which puts me over the grocery budget for this month however I will let you know next week what our budgets actually look like for next year.

The “rules” I have set for myself

  1. Eating out as a family  only on Sundays – We have a specific budget for this.  I will also try and stretch this budget to cover meals on the go which will be needed for a couple of swim meets.  Matt and I will continue to have our “spending money” which is going to be reduced from $50 to $40 every two weeks for at least the first six months of 2026.
  2. Purchase only diary items such as milk, cheese and creamer.  I am planning to make bread during the challenge so this should not be needed. We have fruits and vegetables in cans, jars and frozen which need to get used up during this challenge.
  3. No purchasing of meat! With the exception of chicken wings needed for our Super Bowl party.
  4. Use at least 5 jars a week from the home canned pantry.
  5. Keep a list of items we run out of and when This is new this year but should help me figure out what I need in our pantry for the future.
  6. Lower the Amazon subscribe and save order to bear minimum of 5 items needed to keep the 15% discount or items we are absolutely out of.

Anyone else participating?

Saving on Saturday

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One of the most important things to remember is every $1 saved is an accomplishment.  With the huge financial expense of the new HVAC system, I am going to focus more on the little things for saving. The reason is we already do alot of things to save money and in reality, I can’t find much more that way. So now it is back to the basics of saving in every way possible.

I mentioned yesterday that I had not been out to eat breakfast. That is the first way we are saving money!

Another way we are saving money is by using items in our pantry. For us as a family this means that we need convenient foods that are easy to make and filling. Breakfast is one of the hardest meals for me because I don’t have much time to get out the door.  I spend ALOT of time in the Summer preparing food ahead but I also need to add to this during the year. Last night for dinner we had sausage balls and French toast.  I decided to go ahead and make a HUGE batch.  We have been getting six eggs a day so this was a good way also to use up the eggs. I purchased three loaves of French bread at Walmart for $1.47 each ($4.50), used sugar, milk, vanilla and cinnamon. I am going to estimate the entire cost to be $10.  Matt used the Blackstone to fry up the bread. We ended up with our dinner and around 60 additional slices of French toast.  Currently one meal of French toast for one person is $10 so for the same cost we probably have at least 5 meals for our family of five.

The final way we saved money this week is by building shelves out of pallets that we got for free last year. We have used this wood to complete the front part of the new building as well.  I did use part of my Christmas money to purchase the brackets. The total cost for his was around $30 but we have lots more space and I definitely like  organization.

5 Things Friday

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1. Today is the official start of the Christmas pajama pants season.  I have two weeks to be able to enjoy wearing these. If you see me in public, I will be festive and warm! So mind your business
2.  I have not eaten breakfast out/grab on the way to work for the past two weeks. This may seem small but it is a big deal for me!  In reality I will have saved probably $20-$40 this month alone.
3. We have our annual Christmas dinner planned for December 27th. I have already started some of the preparations in hopes that it will not be as exhausting and I can enjoy more of the fun parts of it!
4. Our new HVAC system is installed. Here is me looking forward to warmth and lower bills!
5.  On Sunday, we will enjoy a “Birthday Party for Jesus”, lunch with Friends and Carols and Candles at church.  This is a festive as it gets and I am looking forward to each of these!

Financial Changes- Life Happens

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I feel like I had finally decided on a course/plan of action for next year in regards to Finances and was actually going to make a post and state some goals.  Good thing is that I did not get quite that far… because life happens!  This time it is in the form of our HVAC unit.
Let’s start with the background:  I noticed in November that the house just did not seem warm so I ended up increasing the temperature for a couple of days without much thought.  The day after Veteran’s Day, I noticed that our energy consumption was the second highest I had ever seen. We called and got it checked out the next week.
Here is a picture of what we saw…
We had to run the fan over it for 24 hours to discover that a “reversing value” was bad. The anticipated cost was $1500 so we went ahead and had the part ordered. A part arrived this past week and on Wednesday they came to install it.  Unfortunately a freon leak was discovered.  After another hour of trying to find the leak and realizing that we were shipped the wrong part.  We were given the decision to make as we continue with the repair knowing it would add another $1000 to find and repair the leak or purchase a new system.  Several factors were presented including our system is currently 18 years old with a life expectancy of 15 years.  Another consideration was that there was no warranty or guarantee with the repair.  In fact we were told that it was very likely that the repair would not fix the problem and in the best possible case we may get another year out of the system as old as it is.
New systems are not cheap to the tune of $8700!  This was a very tough decision to make.  I am not  one to purchase a new anything in case. After thought and prayer. We decided to go with a new system.
After the decision was made, I did some additional research and discovered that we have spent less than $500 on our system since installation.  Matt also discovered that the new system is supposed to be much more energy efficient as well. The new system will come with a 10 year warranty that will be monitored and covered by the same company we have used since the beginning.
The system is actually supposed to be installed on Friday!
Next came determining how to pay for this expense.  I talked about refinancing the house in this post.  During this process we had decided to put some money back in our Money Market account for future expenses.   The bulk of the cost will come from there. The remaining amount is going to be from our budgeted expenses. My plan was to attempt to pay off several credit cards in 2026. This has now changed, we are going to cover this expense and attempt to pay off the interest free account before it expires.    This will be a stretch but one I am going to face head on and attempt to meet.
In reality this means that for the short run we are going to make only minimum payment on all the credit cards (OUCH).  I am going to focus on also reducing our monthly expenses as well, especially in regards to food and other non essential  spending.
   I am planning a couple of posts in the next two weeks with concrete numbers and ideas. Hang around for the journey!

Monday Menu Post

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I have started thinking about plans for a pantry challenge in January and February minus the Super Bowl Party.  I am currently working on a list of meals that can be made with items we have on hand.  I plan to share the list and the exact details in the next couple of weeks. I am also planning a trip to Costco prior to Christmas so I have started to look at what items we may need to stock up.  This is the final week of work for me for the year. Kendall and Zach have a couple of exams this week but should be all finished by Thursday.  The focus for this week is to start using up what we have and planning for eating from the pantry.  I should mention during our pantry challenge we have a Christmas dinner for approximately 30 and our Super Bowl Party which should be a bit larger maybe we will see. I am trying to make a hot breakfast a couple of morning this week due to how cold it is and the fact the kids have morning swim practice before exams.

Breakfast- Saturday-Left-overs from camping . Sunday- Left-overs from camping. Monday- Rotel breakfast casserole, Wednesday- Baked oatmeal, Thursday- muffins  Tuesday, Friday– find it (oatmeal, omelets, cereal and milk, sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs)

Lunch- Saturday- Leftovers Sunday-Panda Panda .  Left-overs are always great for lunches and I have a stash of crackers and other snack items as well. We are also taking some prepared soups for lunches as well.

Dinner- Saturday- Steaks and salad. Sunday-Chill Chili cheese and corn chips  Monday- Ham Bone Soup  Tuesday- Sloppy Joes on buns that were left from Camping, Wednesday-Kielbasas and rice (Matt is making but using some sausage we have instead of Kielbasa)  Thursday- Zach is in charge Friday- Choice will be steak fried rice or baked ziti.

Taking a Vacation with Animals

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Homesteading/ having a garden and/or animals is hard work.   I have known this fact for a long time. I was raised with animals and growing things.  It takes lots of effort and constant work. The part that I have yet to see on You Tube or any reality tv show is the the fact that you can’t just take a vacation or break. It takes planning and effort.

Paul, the kids’ dog was able to go and stay at Fort Wilderness during out recent trip. However it still required effort and planning.  Most mornings I was the one that let him out of the camper and made sure he had food and used the bathroom before we left for the day. Lily ended up back early on several days just to give him a break.

The chickens required lots of extra planning and preparation.  We ended up purchasing a new feeder several weeks prior to going. The new feeder was not cheap $50 and probably a whole afternoon (several hours) reading, looking, considering all options and trying to make sure the chickens would not run out of feed while we were gone. . This feeder worked out well for several reasons. First it does not sit on the ground and it requires the chickens to stick their heads inside to eat. This SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the amount of waste and extends the time we can be away.  We also noticed a leak with our waterer that required a quick repair as well. I also purchased a mineral block for the chicken just to supplement the feeder in case it failed.   The hardest part with the chicken was making sure they were safe. I was outside 3-5 times a week for a month before we left trying to make sure all the chicken went up in the coop before the automatic door closed.  Unfortunately for me this did not seem to matter as I realized that at least half missed the door on one night. Luckily they all survived and the next night and for the remainder of our trip they have all made it up in the coop. Just prior to leaving the four new chickens started to lay.  We came home to almost 60 eggs!

Just because our vacation is over the work did not end. Yesterday, Saturday, Zach with a little help from Matt did a good chicken coop clean out. He moved at least 11 five gallon buckets of “chicken dirty” from the run into our garden beds. The hope is this will add some much needed nutrients to each of the beds.  We are also going to add the remains of burning and our new fire pit.