Listen…what is that sound…the dishwasher..the computer fan… the water running down the drain in the bathtub… what is so special you might ask? Well it is probably one of the best “gifts” that Matt gives me at on Wednesday nights most of the school year. Any clues yet? It is silence and time to just enjoy being me “alone” in the house. Let me define “alone” it does not mean no one else is home it means that no one else is home and awake. I know that I have probably another hour and half before Matt, Haley and Lily will return from church. Amanda is at work so this is my time. Tonight my plan included a bath and shave :), writing this blog post to post on Thursday and then watching at least one of the 7 episodes I am behind of All my Children. I had thought about several things to blog about today being that it is Matt’s Birthday. I first thought I need to record how we met, naa that will be for our anniversary but then I decide to reflect first on how luck I am to have met and married Matt and then to give you a glance at how we celebrated!

Traditionally we ALWAYS go out to eat on birthday. But since this is a Wednesday night it would have been difficult to go out and for them to get to church on time. Add in the money issues and cost and it was decided that we would either postpone the dinner out or just skip it. We did get lunch yesterday at IHOP, while running errands in Greensboro and I bought sushi for dinner so that is eating out enough for our budget. Today, I decided to use the grill and then fix some of Matt’s favorites to go along with it. After he left for work this morning, Amanda helped me dress and load the babies up for a quick trip to Walmart. He planned to come home at lunch so I fixed “buffalo wings.’ as his first surprise. His gifts this year were Dark chocolate candy(probably 5 different kinds) and black licorice and swedish fish and “Adult beverages”. I was able to surprise him with lunch and we had Jumbo shrimp cocktail, pasta salad, T-bone steaks, homemade bread and cake for dinner. Haley watched the kids after school so that I could get dinner prepared with no help! It was awesome. My parents came over and talked to us while we ate and held Zach!

I know that when we look back 40 years from now it will not be one of his “outstanding gift” years but I do hope he enjoyed today. We celebrated the way that was best and most fun for our young family.

I hope

This is a typical day for me around the house with a couple of excepts. The first being that we did not have “Preschool” this morning. I can’t explain why but I just didn’t make myself stop and do it. I will mostly likely let Lily work on the “starfall” reading tonight on the computer. But I have loaded and unloaded the dishwasher because I wanted to clean the old food out of the fridge. But I knew that if I didn’t empty it first I would not have enough room. There is one load of clothes in the dryer. I have folded one load and organized Zach’s clothes. This means cleaning out and repacking his box of “too big” clothes. I did realize that he already has several pair of 12 month jeans and will mainly need shirts in the fall. I also packed up all the “winter” clothes that were left out and started moving all his clothes to his new dresser. (This dresser is a freebie that has been sitting in the living room since Sunday). I moved his hanging clothes to the laundry room and threw away or boxed up all the extra hangers I have. I want to be able to move the metal shelf to it’s final home this weekend so that was the reason for this change. I have gone thur 2 bags of clothes that Haley pulled out of her room yesterday. 3/4 of them will go straight to “Goodwill” tomorrow but I did find several to try and take to the consignment store as well. I have bagged up the Fisher Price jungle gym to go in the attic and decided to leave the boat out for Zach to sit and play in. I just realize I should also box the bouncy seat up as well. Zach is now dressed and playing in the floor and I just realized it is 1pm so I have to get dressed shortly and head out to pick up Haley. Where has the day gone?

As I was hanging out clothes this morning, I was thinking about all the ways I am trying to save money and get this family on the right financial track. I thought it would be interesting to make a list of all the things, I am currently doing and then maybe look back next year and see how we are doing and if it was worth the work. So here goes

1. Currently and as a general rule, in the Spring and Fall if the weather is not predicted to be above 80 for 2 days in a row, then we turn off the A/C and enjoy the outdoors! For the last several days our house has remained rather cool even tho it was 78 yesterday and around the same today, we only have the kitchen windows and my bedroom windows open. In an ideal world we would not use the A/C until June but since we have already had it on 3 days I can hope it last at least a couple of weeks.
2. I am hanging ALOT (most of the laundry) out to dry. The exceptions are the towels and underwear. Today I have 3 loads on the line and have used all the clothes pins. I could wash and hang out Zach’s clothes but am going to wait and do it tomorrow. I have 87 more loads to hang out this summer before I “justify” the clothes line!

Since our grocery budget is the one area I seem to be unable to get a good handle on the next set of the items are a direct effort to buy less groceries. I will say that I include all cleaning supplies, laundry supplies and diapers in this total.

3. Zach is now on Soy Formula completely so I am trying to make some baby food. I grounded up leftovers last night from dinner and he was not all that happy with it but today I have made 4 containers of carrots and mashed an avocado . Either Lily, Kendall nor myself liked the avocado so I wonder if he will even eat it.
4. We are regular buying Angel food and I am making it a point to use all the food. Some of the items like carrots, cabbage and even apples have been wasted in the past but this month I have decided that nothing will be wasted because of it not being used in time. Along with making baby food it is taking extra time but again we need to get our grocery bill under control.
5. Couponing- I now have my stockpile underway so I am trying to only buy things at stock pile prices or things we absolutely have to have! This is the first month I have been able to do this and am anxious to see if we reduced our 700-800 a month down this month.
6. Square Foot Gardening- We have already got a box built and the dirt placed. Matt is going to make a vertical garden behind our box and we hope to plant and harvest veggies all summer long to help reduce our food bill and actually eat healthier as well.
7. Potty training for Kendall
8. Menu planning/ only eating out one time a week.

As I was typing/feeding Zach/eating my lunch I realized there were several other things I wanted to include so on to the rest of the list….
9. Switched to Digital phone and locked in pricing for 24 months.
10. Signing up and receiving Free items(today I got a reusable bag and a pack of gum in the mail)
11. Rebates.. I have completed 3 of these and only do ones that are simple and I get money back!
12. I am saving for Christmas with “points” currently I have accounts with Swagbucks, NCP (national consumer home panel), Huggies and Pampers. I use swagbucks as my search engine, by far the NCP is the most trouble but I am hoping that I will be able to cash in for a large electronic items in October/Novemeber for a Christmas present. I am planning to do the same with Huggies and Pampers and Swagbucks. My goal for this is to reduce my Christmas spending by half.
13. Recycling paper.. I have requested and received paper that has been used on one side from my church. I print coupons, Lily’s worksheets from the internet and the girls color and draw on this free paper.
14. Ordering ink in bulk from the internet. I like Clicks and 123ink. I got 7 ink cartilages for $35
15. Cheap Pictures.. I LOVE Pictures but have not paid over 9cent a print including shipping for pictures since October of last year. I have a lot more i want to print and hope to catch up with all my “free prints” again soon!
16. Yard Sales/Cosignments/ Ebay; These are my preferred methods for buying clothes and furniture. This summer I hope to be able to buy clothes for next winter without the dash I had to do in the Spring.

Any Ideas for me..Leave a commment