Wordless Wednesday-Zach and Amanda

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Sheila

Amanda took Zach to Dan Nicholas Park to celebrate his birthday. They both came home exhausted but sounds like it was lots of fun!

Now for some pictures of the fun…

Labor Day Project

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Sheila

The project for today was to finishing “reclaiming” the old deck wood at the edge of our yard, check out more of the story here.

Our square foot garden did not produce the corn we had hoped for this year and one of the reasons that we think may have been part of the problem was the amount of “shade” our bed was getting. So a perfect use of this wood was to make a separate “corn” bed in direct sunlight with no shade. Next up I really wanted to add a second layer to the beds we had previously built and ran out of wood. Matt and I spent all morning working on building the box, then after yet another trip to Lowes, it is finished. I am really pleased with the results and officially declare the square foot garden finished!

You can see how the shade is covering parts of the garden in the above pictures.
I did go ahead and purchase an additional 8 bags of dirt that I will use once we have harvested all the pepper, lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes to make sure we have a good soil base. The dirt was on sale for half price at Lowes so I wanted to make sure I had enough. I also decided to purchase some mums to help with my fall flowers as well. I hope they will live a nice long time as it does not appear to be “fall” anywhere in the near future according to our weather forecast.

Monday Menu Planning

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Sheila

Breakfast– French toast, toast with new jelly, cereal, poptarts or grits. Zach has been grabbing applesauce or canned fruit for breakfast as well. Keeping it simple this week! Saturday morning, Matt made biscuits and gravy, Sunday morning- baked oatmeal.

Lunch- The kids will be taking Lunchables everyday. I am headed to a conference on Friday so I will grab leftovers or even a Lunchable this week?

Dinner– I am trying to stick to my goal of leaving work by 5:30 daily so I can eat with the family most nights.

Saturday- Lunch: BBQ chicken pizza . Dinner- Layered Taco Salad.

Sunday- Lunch- Spaghetti Lasagna . Dinner-Leftovers or sandwhiches.

Monday- Country Style Steak, Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes, corn and Mandarin orange salad
Tuesday- Chicken Fried Rice
Wednesday-Chicken nuggets, FF and fruit
Thursday- ?? Sheila decides or leftovers
Friday- Pizza rolls

Saving on Saturday 9/5

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Sheila

As I mentioned in this post, I am planning to make the next couple of months, low spend/no spend months. That does create a small problem with one of my favorite things to post, Saving on Saturday. The reason, if I am not spending then how can I really be saving. So at least for a couple of times I am going to use this day to discuss my budget and my progress toward goals. My intention is to give concrete steps that I am taking to meet each goal. So for today an update on September Goals.

1. Reduce Grocery spending to $300 for the month. So far I have spent nothing on groceries for the first 5 days of the month. I did go to the building this morning to “shopping” during menu planning. I am so excited to find the meat and other items to make no shopping easier. I also have already checked the CVS ad starting on Sunday and will not be making a trip this week. This is a tough decision but I don’t need anything and with no free items why be tempted.

2. When I looked at my September budget, I have 4 categories that are not completely funded for the month so the remaining $400 of the normal grocery budget will be used to completely fund the budget. This should actually occur next weekend after I receive my first paycheck of the month.

3 ~~Plan to purchase both Lily and Amanda birthday cards.~~ Completed! Amanda will not be getting gift card, instead she needs some items for college.

4. Pay at least $375 toward our Disney trip to maximize Disney points prior to November. Paid $100 toward the trip this week! I did use my Disney card to purchase the gift cards for the kids spending money so I am excited to see where my reward dollars are in a couple of days.

5. Maintain Gas budget at or below $400. We have had to purchase gas in both vans but still less than $100 so far.

6. Reduce/Eliminate Eating out for the month of September. So far we have spent $60 for Zach’s birthday meal and donuts for his class. I do have a meal planned for tomorrow in addition to most of the meals planned for the week. This should definitely help us stay on track.

I have also placed one item, toddler bed on a yard sale site and plan to clean my closet out this week to have a good start! My goal is to place all money earned toward our Disney trip as the other items in our budget are currently funded!

5 Things Friday

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Sheila

1. I decided to try my hand at fall gardening, so yesterday I purchased 9 lettuce plants and 9 cabbage plants. I decided to test my “Mel’s Mix” and regular soil with the cabbage plants. I planted 4 in regular soil that I purchased at Lowes, the remaining 5 are in the “Mel’s mix” that I have to have shipped at the cost of $18 a bag. Worst case scenario nothing grows and I just wasted $7.

2. We have been extremely busy this week. My work picked up as well. Tonight is actually the first night this week that we are home. I am so tired and just want to hide out all night.

3. We spent around 2 hours yesterday in Lowes, picking up items to finish up some projects around the house. I am always amazed at what we forget each time we go.

4.The kids are out of school on Monday for Labor Day. I am covering inpatients which means that we can sleep in for the next 3 days.

5.I am planning to spend at least an hour or more enjoying my garden tub tonight!

Zach Birthday- Wordless Wednesday

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Sheila

2015-09-01 Zach Birthday Big Toy Day 002

2015-09-01 Zach Birthday Big Toy Day 010

2015-09-01 Zach Birthday Big Toy Day 012

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2015-09-01 Zach Birthday Big Toy Day 009

September Goals

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Sheila

This summer has been full of fun! I really enjoyed some nice long days at the pool in addition to our week of vacation at the beach. However, I have not been as on top of budgeting as I like to be. Our Disney trip is less than 3 months away, so my goal is to tight up the budget and get up ready to enjoy Disney. Keeping that in mind, I have decided to make September a “low spend/ no spend.” month. I really want to make September, October and November all low spend/no spend months but I am going to focus on one month at a time! I know that I can make a goal but if I don’t include some action steps in addition to adding accountability then I am going to fails. I am going to list my plans/goals for September, with weekly or biweekly updates as I can.

1. Reduce Grocery spending to $300 for the month. I am going to purchase 80 pounds of chicken from Zaycon and pull out $150 in cash to put in the grocery envelope. Cash for me is harder to over spend so this should keep me on track.

3 Plan to purchase both Lily and Amanda birthday cards. This will allow me to direct our gift money for October, November and December to Christmas. I have already decided that Christmas will be smaller than normal after our trip so I am estimating I need $400 to cover gifts for the kids.

4. Pay at least $375 toward our Disney trip to maximize Disney points prior to November. My goal is to pay for the Bibbidi, Bobbidi Boutique with Disney points only. I have already earned enough to cover one of the girls so well on the way. We are expecting Matt to bring in around $350 in new income from his web business, so I only need to find $25 more.

5. Maintain Gas budget at or below $400. Matt has identified several “maintenance/ repairs” that need to be completed on his van. My goal is to wait till the end of the month to complete to make sure we stay I budget.

6. Reduce/Eliminate Eating out for the month of September. Zach’s birthday is Tuesday September 1st so he has already chosen to eat at a local pizza buffet. Other than this meal, no eating out! I will have to be very deliberate with especially Sunday lunches but we have been spending over $300 a month on eating out and that is a huge amount.

I am hoping to have a yard sale of some form or fashion at the end of the month as well. This may help boost our Disney Payments.

August In Review

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Sheila

I am posting this a day early but hey at least it is posted.

Blogging: Goal: 14 per month This is actually post 20! I may or may not post tomorrow but I am very pleased with the way I am starting to keep up with posting on a regular basis. Goal MET!

Weight: Goal: Met and maintain weight of 175. This goal will be considered met each month that weight loss is achieved and once this weight is achieved, each month maintained is considered achieved. Struggling still.. I have in the last week added back in regular exercise so I hope that will make a difference.

Spiritual- Goal. I want to spend time reading and or studying the Bible at least 5 days a week for the year. I am going to consider this Goal MET! I have been struggling over the summer to find time to read but with school back in session, it appears to be getting easier and I am trying to make a priority otherwise.

Financial Goals-
1. Full Fund the budget each month. I am excited to post GOAL MET! Our savings both emergency and yearly is starting to look regular.

2. Emergency Fund to $2000. Met. Added $100! Goal met 3 months in a row!

. 3. Groceries: Spend $700 a month .Total Fail. Again I am struggling in this area. I am currently $185.72 over for the month. We actually spent less this month than the several month but still we are way over again.

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month . Fail again. I am actually only over by less than $50 this month so I have made some improvement but still not enough. September is without need for tags or title or insurance and with gas prices continuing to decease I am hoping to stay in budget!

5. Eating out- tracking purposes only $381. Again a decrease from previous months.

Disney- Failed! But I have plans to change this!

August was not a total fail or a total success for anything. I do have plans for at least September to help adjust our budgets. I will post more later on the “goal” and the rationale as to why I think September should demonstrate good progress with all my goals.

5 Things Friday

Posted on August 28, 2015 by Sheila

I am loving the Ibbotta app on my phone. I started using it about 6 weeks ago and will not buy anything extra. I have mainly used it for things such as bananas and green peppers. You must have $10 worth of rebates in your account before you can claim. Tonight, I hit $10.80 and decided to move to paypal just to try out. The money showed up within 5 minutes and I was able to order 10 Lighting Charging cords and 5 car chargers for $1.15 after using the Ibbotta credit!
Kendall has had a rough first week of school. I am hoping that she is just exhausted. I picked her up from school yesterday and she cried on the way home. This morning she cried prior to leaving for school. This evening she is just giggling and laughing. These are all signs that she is overly tired. We will be changing bedtime back to 7pm next week to see if that helps.
We picked up Zach and Kendall’s new glasses on Monday and today (Friday) we were back at Vision Works to get Zach’s straighten out. Boys…..
I have been able to leave work before 5:30pm for the last two weeks. I am hoping this trend continues but looking at my schedule for next week, it will become a whole lot harder.
Tomorrow, the community in schools is hosting a “big toy day” My plan is to take the kids and let them spend a couple of hours enjoying. We may head to the pool to finish out the day but I am seriously afraid the water will be cold after out temperatures begin in the 80s all week. The pool officially closes on Labor Day so we have two weekends left to enjoy.