The End of September Hits

At least that is my prayer at this point. On Wednesday, we got confirmation that Zach is a healthy but petite guy with no heart problems. After that appointment, we headed over to Costco to put new tires on the car. In addition to this our new to us dryer is still working great and the van seems to be running well with it’s new tire as well.

All that leaves is my surgery, to say I was not very very very nervous about it would be an understatement. I also had to go on a high dose of antibiotics for the first 2 weeks of October due to the infection in my mouth. I also was taking ibuprofen every day for pain. So I knew it was necessary but still very scary for me.  But I must say that the surgery itself was a breeze. I took the medicine as instructed an hour before arriving at the office. The one problem was with the billing. This office insist that even with insurance 1/3 of the estimated bill must be paid up front, in addition I had to pay the consultation fee up front as well. But after some discussion and a call to my insurance company the total OOP was less than $200. I do expect to re-coup at least half of this from my insurance as well. Matt will tell you I was “falling asleep”waiting in the office. I was taken back to a room, given “laughing gas” I remember the IV being started after I warned them that my veins roll. After that I honest, remember the doctor moving around, then a nurse saying you did great, lets go to your car.  I do remember thinking “Am I in a movie?” when the nurse added that my husband had brought the car around to the back alley.  I have been painful since the surgery, almost 36 hours at this point but I am doing ok and even managed half a day without pain medicine this morning. I am praying by Monday I will be back to normal with no pay at work!

So the hits of September have now passed!

Stress Relief Day

This day actually turned out to be much better than I had hoped or prayed for. Zach had an appointment with a Cardiologist this morning. One of the things that has been mentioned several times in the last two years is the possibility that he is so small maybe be contributed to a heart condition. When the doctor at his two year old check up “thought” he might hear a murmur, it was decided to get it checked out. Today after waiting a total of almost 2 hours we received the best news possible. Zach’s heart is perfect, in fact it never needs to be checked again unless something major happens! YAY! Matt and I have both agreed that as of today, we are no longer worried about the why Zach is small. He is small because God made him that way! As Matt put it “he is small until he is not small anymore.” It feels like a huge burden has been lifted off of me. We have decided that Zach is healthy and we claim it in our Lord Jesus!

In other news we were able to get a new set of tires on the car. Matt also has cashed his first income as a web designer!  He is going to slowly over the next 4 year try to build up and maintain a business that will allow him to be a stay at home dad as well as keep his foot in a door!

GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!

Sticking to the Plan while Life happens!-Menu Planning

One of our biggest money reducing/saving efforts this month is eating out of the freezer/pantry to reduce at least by half our food budget. So far this month we have spent $294. Honestly, this is the point where I usually have the biggest problem. We are running low on bread and milk, so someone is going to have to go in a grocery store to purchase these in the next several days. The trend is that because I have to buy 2 things, I go ahead and make a list of our wants. The goal is to change this habit. We are starting to run low on snack foods as well as quick/easy items for lunches. But again, I don’t want to purchase because that will definitely sink the budget.

Now is where planning and a little next thought takes place. First I am going to share ways we have been trying to waste not, then I am sharing our plan for this hectic week. Yesterday, for lunch, I made tuna salad. We are short on loaf bread so I cut the hot dog buns from earlier in the week in half and made “subs” for the kids. Lily loved it so much she asked if she could have a sub in her lunch as well. Matt and I ate our tuna salad on hamburger buns. Today, I made a Shepard’s pie for dinner, adding left over carrots and fruit cocktail to make it a meal to feed 6. The reason I chose the Shepard’s pie is that we had a huge bowl of leftover mashed potatoes.

Next is the planning. This week is so hectic with Zach’s cardiac appointment on Wednesday and my oral surgery scheduled for Friday in addition to all the regular weekly activities. Another budget buster for us is grabbing food on the run when things get busy. So I went ahead and planned a couple of meals that are quick and easy. First is spaghetti, no preparation just heat and eat. We have some lettuce that needs to be eaten so it will probably be added in on Monday to make this a healthy meal. Wednesday, we have no idea how long we will be at Amos Cottage but previous experiences have said that we need to plan on a long long day. So I have all ready gotten some chicken drumsticks out of the freezer. On Wednesday morning, we can throw in the crock pot with some BBQ sauce, add the rest of the left over mashed potatoes, frozen green beans from the summer and crescent rolls if time and we have an awesome meal. Finally Friday, Matt was concerned about me not being able to eat and needing to buy something. I checked the freezer we have several varieties of soup and also several cans of soup. I also found a couple of boxes of Jello as well as applesauce so nothing else is needed. Tuesday and Thursday, Matt will have to grab something out to grill or a frozen meal but that is not a big deal! Best news of all will be less than $10 at the store for bread and milk.

Waste Not…..Want Not..

Sounds simple and straight forward, a good principle to live by. I have always thought I was pretty good at living by this principle as well. But today, I am beginning to realize that maybe I am wrong.
One of the things we attempting to do in the month of October is live out of our freezor/pantry with as little shopping as possible. Matt and I have been doing really well getting together a menu on Sunday so that we don’t need to rush out and eat somewhere. In reality it is actually working. We have begun to empty out the meat from the freezers in the house and even need to bring up some items from the big freezer in the next week. We are also beginning to see a difference in our pantry as well. Let me be clear, in no way, shape or fashion are we running out of food. Instead we are beginning to run out of our favorite snacks and foods. For example, currently we have one Poptart and only have 7 boxes of cereal. The strange thing is that I noticed this afternoon that my first instinct was to start a grocery list and plan a trip. Then I remembered wait this is a good thing. Next Matt mentioned that we will soon need more cereal. Finally, Haley is looking for something to snack on and say Mom you need to buy more Poptarts. So now I am thinking, maybe it is not always simple to waste not want not.

It is simple to buy food on sale or purchase in bulk, plant a garden and freeze thinking “I don’t want to waste this so I will save it for later.” We, as a family, are discovering that it is not as simple to use what we have on hand, things we have saved for another day instead of rushing out to get our favorite foods.

Since I want to end this on a positive note because I really thing this is a good thing for us and it will help us save at least 1/2 if not 3/4 of our grocery budget this month for other things. I am going to mention 3 meals this week that have used items that are on hand. First, I made a chicken casserole on Sunday from the cooked chicken we put away last week, rice that had been cooked for other meals and some cheese. Second on Wednesday, we had hot dogs and used left-over manwich meat with a dash of chili pepper to top. Finally, today we had Taco Rice and left-over chicken casserole for dinner.

Thoughts to Share

Yesterday was Amanda’s 20th birthday! WOW..we made it..yes it was a joint effort. So in honor of that I thought I would share some things that I wished I had learned 20 years ago aka things I wish she as well as some of her friends would listen and learn.

DISCLAIMER.. I am going to be blunt and might offend so please click the close button if you think I am talking to you.

1. Sex is sex…love and sex are not relate unless you and he both want them to be.
2. Just because you have sex with him does not mean you have to love or marry him.
3. Only bring home guys to meet the family after dating for at least a month and only bring home the ones you want my honest opinion of as well.
4. You can’t change a person or their bad habits..if they do it while you are dating then it will be 10 x worse if and when you get married
5. Don’t waste time on dating someone that fits any of the following statements
a. does not own his own car or form of transportation
b. is in a different stage of life then you
c. does not have a “real” job that has a steady paycheck
d. has different or no religious beliefs.

Okay I am finished being a mom back to regularly scheduled updates

IKEA makes me smile!

So as of this afternoon a momentous occasion has occurred at our house…we all have enough space to keep our clothes and the majority of our clothing is now in the room of the person it is being worn by. The exception to this is Kendall. Her hanging clothes are still in our closet and I don’t see that changing until someone moves out.

On Thursday, after the girls eye appointment we headed to IKEA. I had a plan in mind. We received in the mail over a month ago a coupon for $25 at IKEA. My Mom was so nice to save me the same coupon she received because she will never convince Dad to drive for a furniture store. Thursday morning I was having my hair done and mentioned to the hairdresser that we were headed to IKEA later. She had also saved her coupon and gave it to me. So I had a total of $75 free money to spend. The one slight problem is after arriving there was a sign that stated “one coupon per customer.” Matt and I both redeem our coupons, dropped the kids off in the play place, thank goodness that Kendall was tall enough and thank you nice IKEA lady for making sure 3 different ways without shoes or hair :). After loading the first purchases in the car I realized they had change employees at the front desk set up for validating coupons so I used the third one. We purchased 2 dressers for the girls room. One with 4 drawers and 1 with 3 the original plan was to purchase 2 with 4 drawers but of course they only had one in stock. I also picked up 4 teacher gifts. We also saw something I have been looking for. Wire drawers that stack. We ended with a 2 combination sets. Both are approximately 6 feet tall. Mine has 2 plastic 3 gallon containers and 6 wire drawers, Matt’s has 3 plastic containers and 4 drawers. I had planned on pictures but that just did not happen. The plastic containers actually hold all our jeans in one without a bend. They are awesome!!!! I actually have 2 empty drawer currently. One is the top of the dresser we moved in Zach’s room and the second is in the dresser that is in our bedroom. I have plans for both but we will see. For now I am happy just to have all the clothes with a home!

Staying Busy

I was so excited to exceed my blogging goal in September, that I honestly thought it would continue over in October. Well today is October the 8th and this is my first post. So I seriously have my doubts now.

The biggest item on the calender for this week has been a Bible Quiz meet. Matt and I spent about 2 hours last Sunday and another 2-3 hours on Tuesday working on questions. Haley and I attended the quiz today in Winston for half the day. The last remaining part will be an hour of tabulating score on Sunday. I always say I am not going to wait till the last minute to start working on this each month but I am going to definitely add it to my goals for next year. Finding a scheduled time each week to work on quizzing so it doesn’t ended up consuming a week.

Lily is currently on a cheerleading squad that is starting to practice 2 nights a week. So with Kid’s club this a a total of 3 nights a week she has something going on.

Kendall is going to a Tumble class on Tuesdays which is great for her as well as Zach who gets some “Daddy time.” Both Kendall and Zach have a school readiness person who is coming out 2x a month to make sure they stay on track. Kendall completed her annual testing this past Friday and to our surprise she is scoring on the high end! YAY Kendall. Zach will be tested next week and I hope to post the results as well.

Haley is enjoying school and doing well. Amanda is currently splitting her time between school and work with as much social life as she can squeeze in.

To add to the schedule this week, both Kendall and Lily had eye appointment in Charlotte. Both have increased their vision. Kendall is only patching now 3 days a week for one hour. Lily will continue to patch for 4 hours a day for at least another 6 months. After their appointments we headed to Cracker Barrel and IKEA. I hope to post pictures tomorrow of the purchases.

So if you are keeping count then we are home as a family on Tuesday nights. No wonder I don’t have time to blog much.

September in Review

BLOGGING: I had 17 post in September, including this one! I am so excited that I have met a goal! Now to just keep it up for the next three months! Maybe this month I just had more to write about? I think I just made more time. Goal: 15 per month

Devotions: I am getting better, averaging 2 a week, same as last month but at least it is improving from one a week! Goal is 3 a week.

Couponing/Grocery Budgeting: This month we spent almost $1100 in groceries. I do have serious plans for this number to do down. Matt and I spent an entire Saturday cooking some freezer meal. So this should help reduce this significantly in October. We also need to eat alot out of the freezer in order to really be able to justify a large meat expense in November/December which is my plan. My plan is to reduce the budget to $500 or less for the month of October. If I go below this amount it will be set aside for meat in November. Our Grocery Budget is set at $800 per month, this includes diapers, cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.

Financially
: September was a hard month in this area for us. We had several unexpected expenses but the good news is that we were able to stay caught up on bills for the month. In addition, we paid off 2 small medical bills from earlier in the year! A huge step for us! I had a 3rd paycheck for the month which was a great help. I am going to try something different in the area of savings. I am planning to place $10 a check into savings. This way we are working on our Emergency fund, baby steps. We did spend over $300 in car repairs this month which would replace our car payment. Goals in this area: Emergency fund of $1000, car fund equal to a payment of $300 each month and by January- debt free except for mortgage.
Weight
-I exercised 4 days this month. Not much but a start.

September Hits-Update

A quick update, I have schedule oral surgery for Oct 21st to have the 2 abscessed teeth removed. Our overall cost is around $320. I will of course have another $100 in meds but still way under what I had thought. Zach also has an appointment scheduled with a Pediatric Cardiologist for Oct 19th. The more research and questions we have asked the more this appointment makes sense. In addition to these two appointment, all the kid will get flu shots and both the little girls have an appointment for their eyes. Sounds like October will be spend in medical offices.

I still Love CVS

My first patient on Tuesday morning cancelled so I decided to make a quick trip to CVS on my way to work. The main reason for this trip was to use a rain check for 2 L Diet Cokes for 0.79. I also planned to get a couple of free items and some cheap toothpaste because my stockpile was down to one tube. But I found an awesome deal, the Crest Complete toothpaste is changing packaging and some were marked down to $1.95! So for $6.11 I was able to purchase 5 2L of Diet Coke, 6 tubes of toothpaste, 2 8 ct bottles of Excedrin and 1 thermcare wrap. Total saved 34.02 or 82%

So last night I was given 3 more coupons for the toothpaste and decided to use them. today I spent 5.66 and saved 15.77 or 74%. I also received an additional 4 ECB back to use on my next purchase.

CVS is still my favorite store!