{"id":6309,"date":"2019-02-26T18:43:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T23:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/?p=6309"},"modified":"2019-02-26T18:43:52","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T23:43:52","slug":"planning-ahead-saving-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/?p=6309","title":{"rendered":"Planning Ahead = Saving Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Planning ahead is a way to always save money. If I know that I have a plan, I am less likely to decide and make random choices. I am definitely planning ahead for the Spring. I can not begin to explain how much I am looking forward to warm days.\u00a0 First, it gets me so much closer to the end of the school year and my summer off with lots of fun filled activities.\u00a0 Next, I am also looking forward to my week of Spring Break at the end of March. Let\u2019s talk about what my plans are starting to look like. <\/span><\/p>\n

Both Kendall and Zach will be in school during my Spring break which means I should have some extra time to doing not only shopping for food but also some extra time for meal preparation as well. We are currently eating out of the pantry and freezer in order to make more room for prepared meals. I will be make a huge trip to Costco during my week off to purchase items to make at least 30 meals to place in the freezer. This should provide us with enough \u201cprepared\u201d meal to make the months of April and May pass smoothly even with all the end of year activities, baseball and chorus. My current plans include:
\n<\/span>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>2 baked ziti- One for an evening meal and one for the freezer.
\n<\/span><\/span>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>5lbs of taco meat in the crockpot for our Mexican meals
\n<\/span><\/span>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A pot of sloppy joes. We have been enjoying at least one meal of sloppy joes a month.
\n<\/span><\/span>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>2 chicken pies and 2 chicken pot pies
\n<\/span><\/span>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>3 meals of chicken enchiladas- one for an evening meal and the other two for the freezers. <\/span><\/span>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>6 bags of chicken breast ready to grill.
\n<\/span><\/span>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I am also hoping to try out some more of the freezer meals I have been finding online. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A more long range goal is to plan and prepare ahead at least 60 meals during the summer to use for the school year!<\/span><\/p>\n

Moving to the garden. I am so excited to have the extra time to devote to the garden this year. Last year was a bust overall but I am wondering if most of the issue is the amount of time and energy that was put in the garden.\u00a0 To reduce the overall expense of the garden, I am planning to use gift cards earned through Swagbucks to pay for most of improvements in addition to all of the plants that I want to use.\u00a0 My goal is to have at least $100 to spend on the purchase of plants during the first week of May. I have purchased both cucumber and squash seeds and will be starting these during my Spring break.\u00a0 I will need to purchase one additional bag of dirt to use for starting these plants. I have already purchased one bag of organic fertilizer and will be purchasing at least 5 more to spread in the garden.\u00a0 Between the dirt and fertilizer I am hoping to spend less than $50. My overall goal is to also fund as much of these purchases with gift cards as well.\u00a0 I will also need to spend several hours if no more in the garden spreading the fertilizer and replacing some of the strings that separate all the squares as well. Prior to moving forward with these plans I also need to make a master plan for planting for the year. <\/span><\/p>\n

My other goals\/ plans during Spring break include an appointment to get my hair colored and a trip to the nail salon for a pedicure and manicure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Planning ahead is a way to always save money. If I know that I have a plan, I am less likely to decide and make random choices. I am definitely planning ahead for the Spring. I can not begin to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,19,5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budgeting","category-menu-planning","category-saving-money","category-square-food-garden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ySyX-1DL","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6310,"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6309\/revisions\/6310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.teenstotsandeverythinginbetween.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}