Author Archives: Sheila

October in Review

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Blogging:  12 post for the month of October. Just got really busy.  Starting on a good foot this month so I only have 14 more post to do! We are traveling so that could go one of two ways. I could be inspired to post or just get too busy,we shall see.

Goal: 15 per month

Devotions: On track again this month! Definitely now need to increase the goal next year! God is AWESOME!

Goal is 3 a week.

Groceries: Continuing to make huge gains in this year. 4 month in a row that I am under budget!!! The next huge step for me will be to go to cash only for groceries. This will mean that I have to spend the grocery money more evenly. I am thinking this will make things so much easier to track once I get it started!  With us travelling this month so therefore not eating at home for an entire week, I am going to reduce this spending to $500 for November.

Grocery Budget is set at $800 per month, this includes diapers, cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.

Financially:God answered prayer. We have learned that Matt will be receiving a pension payment December 1st. This will place us in a much more stable financial position as well as allow us to pay off several credit cards. I will share what we are able to accomplish with this after it happens. In addition. Matt is also working on a possible 2 additional website!

Goal: To be Debt free except for mortgage by the end of the year. This was established prior to our learning of the significant financial changes that are occurring so I am trusting God to provide direction in this area. Currently we are focused on meeting budget each month!

Weight: I have continued to exercise at least 1x a week. The crud got use several weeks so no really changes on the sch Hopefully by November this will put me back in the ones.

Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December by losing around 4 # a month.

In October, I did not met as many goals as I have in the past. The month seemed to drag on as things went off course but I am starting new today for November! As you can probably guess, things are looking up for us financially and with a visit to family in the near future, positive attitude is a good thing!

Week In Review

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Just when I am getting in to a good groove and keeping up with things, I get so busy again that I don’t even know where time goes. This was one of those weeks.  Highlights included:

Monday- Matt picked up Zaycon chicken and Lily had tumbling practice. I did manage to exercise this night.

Tuesday- Matt had a Church Board meeting-Haley played in the schools powder puff game, Amanda came over to hang out for several hours. Squeezed in a second night of exercise

Wednesday- Church night.

Thursday- I spent most of the morning working on budgeting and bill pay. Matt made several contact regarding his business. After picking up Lily from school, we headed to Winston for groceries and a meal at Olive Garden.

Friday- Senior night at Football game followed by Fireworks.

This week has also been the first in a month that I have worked over my hours so it really was hectic.

Finally on Saturday, I had some time to catch up, I spend time cooking a couple of meals for next week, cleaning, laundry. The weather in NC is supposed to turn cooler to the point of freezing this coming week, so I decided to go ahead and pick all the veggies from our Square foot garden and prepare it for the winter. I did leave 4 pepper plants and one tomato plant in case the predictions are wrong.  Both Kendall and Zach helped with picking of the veggies as well as pulling up plants and adding dirt to the garden. They said this was the most fun they had all day!  A picture of what we were able to pick:

 

Grocery Budget/ Shopping Update 10/25/2012

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As the month of October comes crashing to an end, I am thinking toward debt reduction and our budget for the coming year. This year has seen some major financial changes for us, but my God is bigger than any of those!  I will share in more detail very soon the evidence of this! However in the mean time, I have been focusing on readjusting the budget. Our biggest spending area has always been the grocery budget. In reality, I have fed and providing our items for personal use for about $31 a person a week.  For the past 3 months, including this one I have been below budget. Looking back at the entire year to this point I am 50% for meeting budget and on average spend $756 a month. My thought is that with diapers and formula no longer being needed at all, I should be able to reduce this amount to $600 a month. Starting in November, I am going to use this as a stated goal. in addition to this goal, I know that I need to start using cash for grocery purchase. But in order to do this I have to be able to limit shopping for several weeks so maybe November will help in this area also. This month I have spent $725 including my shopping today.

We decided to head to Winston Salem today in order to use one of the gift cards I won at the Fall festival and combine it with an awesome,kids eat free coupon at Olive Garden. Combining both deals we (5) ate for $20 tip included, I also brought home enough left overs for Haley’s dinner and at least 2 lunches tomorrow!  I am really pleased with this deal and combined with the fact we order and ate a free pizza at lunch, no eating out should not be a problem this weekend.

I had read earlier that Harris Teeter was having a really good sale this week, so when I settled on the fact that we were heading to Winston, I decided to plan a coupon trip. To keep things real, I spent approximately 1. hour looking at the sales and pulling out coupons. I spent $31 and saved $63 or 67%!! Even better, I purchased eggs and milk that should last us for a couple of weeks. We will be leaving in 3.5 weeks for Michigian for a week. I would like to clean out some of the food from the freezers. Just in case the electricity goes out while we are away. I hope that will all the items we have been stockpiling, I will be able to avoid shopping  except for trip supplies until after our return.

Grocery Shopping 10/20/2012

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For the past several years we have been working to reduce our grocery budget. One of the suggestions that Matt made was that I start really  keeping track of what I am spending and saving at each store. Over the past several weeks, I have been doing just that.  I am thinking that by sharing at least once a week,it will build more accountability in as well.

This week I stopped in at Food Lion on Monday to pick up the ingredients for Paula Dean mac and cheese. I discovered that pasta was on sale as well. However, I spent nothing out-of-pocket because of one of the items I won was a $20 Food Lion gift card. I still have around $6 left on the card for future use. I am not counting this in the total saving or spent because it truly was free!

The second store that I have shopped at this week is CVS. I ended up making 4 separate trips. One of the main reasons was Diet Coke 2L are on sale for 0.97 each. This is the lowest I have seen in about 6 months so I was going to make sure I have a stock pile. I did end up finding other deals including deodorant, razors and make up wipes to add to each trip. Overall this week I have spent $76 at CVS and saved 50%. Not outstanding saving but because it is on things we use regular, I am not too upset. I am a bit surprised on the overall total, but it does explain where part of my grocery budget is disappearing to!

 

Wordless Wednesday -Family Photo

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We had my whole family pictures made last Sunday. We decided after a couple of attempts at a studio in the past to try something new. A photographer came to their house and then we moved to my brothers for some. I am ending up posting 12 different shots this week with more next week. Leave a comment with your favorite!

Granny and Pawpaw
Married 43 years
Survived 2 teenagers/kids and enjoying 7 grandkids

Hanging Around

The Gang is all here!

Same trouble different view. Amazing that we got several good group shots!

A good family pictures YAY! YAY! YAY!

Could not resist that stair steps
Amanda 21, Haley 17, Lily 6, Kendall 4 and Zach3

I liked the look and feel of this in black and white. My own edit!

Zach and Pawpaw who is having more fun?

This is so a typically Zach… he didn’t want his picture made for about half of the time!

I just like this picture!

Shopping

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This was a pay week for us which means that  most of the shopping gets done on or around Thursday,  I have been trying to reduce our grocery budget and have avoided going to Costco most of the month. In addition to keeping a list up this past week of items that we were running low on, I realized that  I was going to have to go to Walmart  as well. I really dislike Walmart. They are easily offended with my coupons and usually I can get better deals by driving out of town. However this week Walmart was not to be avoid as Amanda wanted makeup and picture frames for her birthday. So I spent about 45 distracted minutes planning a trip which not only included coupons but price matching as well. I am pleasantly surprised. I was able to save $40 or 25% on a trip of groceries. The cashier was very nice and did ask if I had an ad to price match to when I replied no, she started price matching.

Next on Friday night, we headed to Costco with our list that included cat food and dog food. After much debate, we added 25# of rice to the cart. We spent $332 which brings me to around $550 for the month. My plan is to stock up on Diet Cokes on sale at CVS this next week, but otherwise try to stay under $600 for the month!

Finally Saturday, Haley, Lily and I went back to Winston to find some need clothing items. My best deal was a shirt at JCPenny’s for $1.07, they sent me another $10 certificate this month for an unknown reason!  So I am finished shopping for a while (hopefully).

Fall Festival- Kids having fun

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Everyone is trying to find the “treasure” hidden in the corn

Kendall LOVED this slide, I think she went down it 10 times but because of the sun I could not get a picture of her. Lily only like the slide, which means 5 or 8 times down!

Pumpkin Bowling… Kendall threw a strike!

Lily’s turn at pumpkin bowling

Face Painting was our first stop.

Lily chose a butterfly and Kendall got a crown! Zach watched, next we headed to the color hairspray. Lily ended up with purple streaks and Kendall with green hair.

 

Kendall in the Bounce House. Zach and Lily joined her on our second turn.

 

Zach’s favorite thing of the whole time was the “tractor” I even managed to get in this picture!

End of our Fall Festival Fun!

Fall Festival- I won!

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My kids have been excited all week to go to the Fall Festival at Lily’s school this afternoon.  I was surprised by Zach who finally got in the Bounce House and really enjoyed it. To finish out the evening, I received a call that I have won a basket. They sell ticket for $1 each and you place in which things you want to win. We purchased a total of $10 in tickets and place 2 in this particular basket.

The sign says that it has a value of over $250. After digging into it, I found around $400 in gift cards/certificates as well as 3 boxes of candy, 2 DVDs and a game all  in a Vera Bradley bag!  I am so excited about the bag because it is the perfect size for me and I have been wanting a new bag!

The gift cards/certificates included a grocery store care, a certificate for a manicure and European facial as well as lots of local and several national chain restaurants. We have talked about buying several  new DVD for our trip at Thanksgiving but now the kids well be watching Open Season 3 and Beethoven’s 2nd.

Someone had even placed $15 in cash in here so we ended up making our money back for the raffle tickets! It has been a super long time since I won so I couldn’t wait to share!

Pictures of the festival will follow!