Category Archives: DITL

Saving on Saturday

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Today the focus was on using what we have!   We headed out really early for Braxton’s ballgame. I did not want to stop and purchase breakfast, so I made a German pancake and a package of sausage links from the freezer.  For lunch, I made meatballs and lil smokies in the crockpot.  And for dinner, I added sour dough waffles.

We also finished taking down all the Christmas decorations. I absolutely LOVED having the curtain rod with ornaments over the kitchen sink. In fact, I liked it so much that I decided that I needed to purchase a curtain to go on the rod.   However, when I found my bag of Valentine’s items, I decided I could use some of these items and hold off buying a curtain. I do love the way it turned out.

I also went ahead and decorated the sign outside again with things we already have! It also turned out as well.

Total spent today was $20 for entrance into the game.

Every little bit counts!

Tuesday Thoughts

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  1. I am tired of being sick. I have some form of sickness since Christmas Day. That is 16 straight days of not feeling 10%.  I do feel better but when it hits I am just miserable. Because of the weather delay tomorrow morning (see below) I am debating taking nyquil tonight to try and knock it out!
  2. I had my first remote learning day in two years.  Zach and Kendall were both out of school. Today’s weather has been horrible rain and wind including thunderstorms.  I looked at right after lunch to thisMy green stalk was full of dirt and stands about 6 feet tall with the platform.  I am hoping that nothing is broken.
  3. On of the things that I am trying to accomplish this week is cleaning up my home email. I am un-subscribing to any email that is possible. Unfortunately, a lot of spam my firewall prevents me from reaching. But I am hopeful to reduce the massive amounts of junk email I receive. This will also save me money as currently I am working to not spend any extra for the months of January and February along with the pantry challenge. IF I don’t know about a sale I can not buy what is on sale.
  4. Our washer was repaired yesterday which means I can now finish up the laundry, from the camper. I wanted to get everything clean so that in March all I have to do is load in food and clothing.
  5. I was able to redo our monthly budget. This year’s focus is paying down debit. I want to start actively paying more than I am spending in both groceries and gas. This will take some discipline, but I am ready to conquer it!

Saving on Saturday- Pantry Challenge

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Each year #threeriverschallenge (a youtube channel I LOVE) host a pantry challenge for the months of January and February.  I usually attempt to participate in January only.  This year I have decided that we will attempt to participate in both January and February.   To be completely honest, we did not start the challenge until January 3rd because of our travels.  I did run to the store on Wednesday 1/3 to grab milk and cream cheese, spending a total of $10.  My goal for the challenge is spend less than $150 over the next two month not including my subscribe and save from Amazon.  I did start to prepare the kids on the way home but to be honest we are so fully stocked right now it will take a good couple of weeks if not a month for anyone to notice that I am not buying new items.

I have gone thru my subscribe and save on Amazon, reducing my scheduled delivery from 25 items to 5 items for a total of $72.97.   I will do this again in February as well.  I am hopeful that we have enough lunch grab and go items to make it but I may need to keep some of those in the subscribe and save.   My plan is to set aside $500 each month for the purchase of a side of beef.  The remaining monies will be used for medical debit from last year.

This past week, I focused on simple easy meals. Wednesday night, I made pepper steak in the crock pot and also made some rice.  Thursday night we had tomato soup and grilled cheese.  We used sour dough bread from the freezer for our sandwiches. Friday was spaghetti and meatballs.

As I was thinking on Friday, I remembered that we have 4 more whole chickens in the chest freezer outside.  I sent Lily down to find one and start it defrosting in a sink of cold water.  I came home and used the instant pot to cook the entire chicken. Last night I separated the meat and bones.  The bones and skin were thrown in a crockpot with water to make a delicious batch of broth.   This morning I started the cut up chicken, 2 onions and 7 cups of potatoes in a huge stock pot on the stove. I am making a batch of my Dad’s chicken stew   this is really a labor of love, as it requires almost 4 hours of cooking. My plan is chicken stew for lunch and dinner. I will also be freezing at least one additional if not two additional meals. I am hopefully for a couple of lunch as well but we will see.

My plan is to discuss the pantry challenge each week in one of two ways. If it is as simple as what we are eating with very little to no spending I will include in Monday menu planning. If something requires a bit of explanation then I will do a separate post likely on Saturday.

Are you participating?

Saving on Saturday

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Today has been busy but very productive, at least I feel like it has been productive. The weather outside was gorgeous, not to hot not too cold and no really wind.  We needed and actually did get some garden work done.

Zach pulled some chicken poop out of the coop and placed in several of our square foot beds. I went behind and broke up and stirred in the dirt followed by covering with paper mulch for the winter.  I am hoping to finish this process in the next couple of weeks so that it can compose over the winter. Matt helped level and moved one of our greenstalk (vertical planter) to the front. And then he and Zach move one bed to a new spot.  Kendall and I spent some time in the greenhouse. I am super excited to have several green peppers growing in there currently!

Another big project today was making and canning Matt’s chill. This will be used for lunches mainly!  We have 16 pints to put in the canning closet. I hope to post a link to the youtube video soon!

5 Things Friday

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Some good and exciting things going on around here!

  1. The “baby” chickens have started to lay. We do have a rooster. The white chicken which I call “spas” appear to be our best layer. We have been getting consistent eggs every day for a week from her. The eggs are smaller and blue so easy to identify!
  2.  I purchased 50# of tomatoes from my favorite farm stand for $28 this week. I have topped off our supplies of salsa, diced tomatoes, and tomato sauce. I made 16 jars of enchilada sauce.  We currently have a pot of spaghetti sauce going which used half purchased tomatoes and half from our garden!
  3. We will continue to harvest from the garden, today it was 2 large cucumbers, green peppers, tomatoes and green beans and basil. But I will be pulling more dead plants this weekend and also not water for the rest of the season.
  4. In other weather related news!  Our windows are open!  This is so nice and hopefully will result in extra savings on our electric bill next month.
  5. We have planned two trips at least for me to Florida in December!  I love the warm weather!

Saving on Saturday

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This is one of those times that using what you have  to make money and to save money!
I noticed on Friday night that the neighbor had placed out multiple signs for a yard sale!   As a family we often pack boxes and bags full of old clothing or things that need to be sold and stick in my building for a future yard sale.  We talked about it and decided to try and see what happened.  I honestly spent 30 minutes Friday night gathering some of the things I knew I wanted to get rid of in piles.

Bright and early this morning we started (6am).  By 7:15 we had everything out for purchased. We ended up sitting out to around 1pm before cleaning up.  Matt purchased breakfast for us and we also got pizza for lunch and dinner.  We used money from the yard sale to purchase both of these.

We ended up making $150 from clothing and toys and other things we did not need or use.  After food this was actually $75.

The additional benefit was that we loaded most of the leftovers up and donated!  This will be used as a tax deduction! And most importantly, I moved things out of the house! More room and less clutter!

 

 

5 Things Friday

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  1. Today is my first day back at work from Spring Break!  I survived and really enjoyed my first day!
  2. I really enjoyed my birthday escape trip to Florida, we visited and stayed with Haley and David. We played cards several nights and even played BINGO on Sunday!
  3. On Friday of last week, we traveled an hour and half to Orlando to go to a Walmart near Disney. I really enjoyed this store but no one else did. We spent the rest of the day at Disney Springs.  Lunch was at “Earl of Sandwich” This is still my favorite place to eat at Disney Springs.
  4. Saturday we adventured out and found a perfect beach to spend a day. “Golden Sands Beach”  They had a grill and place to eat as well as easy access to the beach!  We also went to the inlet but it was not a good fit for us!
  5. Only Kendall and Zach went with us as Lily had to work. It was a different but fun trip that was just the escape I needed.

Saving on Saturday

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Sometime you save money by doing the big things.  This past week Matt painted our living room.   This room has been this color for at least 19 years. The total cost was less than $50 for paint and supplies.

Before

After

I love the new color and it make the space brighter and bigger!

 

Other times it is the small things that help you save money. For example. I purchased cans of Diced tomatoes on sale for 75 cent.  This week we turned those into pizza sauce and marinara sauce which was delicious and easy!

Del Monte Diced Tomatoes Basil, Garlic And Oregano, 14.5-Ounce (Pack Of 8) - image 1 of 3

 

 

Day In The Life

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Today, I spent the entire day at home. Yay this is one of the things I like most about the summer. Unfortunately, today did not include reading a book or watching television or even enjoying some much-needed downtime.

This morning, I had already planned to make breakfast bowls. Yesterday, I had made gravy biscuits, saving some for today.  I ended up using 16 eggs and I found “bo rounds” which made these bowls even better!  Next up I spent about an hour in the garden, wedding and harvesting.  I sent a 5-gallon bucket to the chickens!

I have harvested 8 pounds of tomatoes in the last 3 days, so I started a huge crockpot of spaghetti sauce. The current plan is to make a couple of “million-dollar spaghetti pies” tomorrow and bag the rest for the freezer.  Matt made potato salad, while I made a squash casserole and a huge pot of chill.   Last night we had purchased a chicken from Costco so the squash casserole and potato salad along with a jar of green beans made an awesome lunch.  The chili used four pounds of ground beef that Matt cooked on the Blackstone along with supper last night.

I pressure canned 8 2oz jars, 4 half pints and one quart of chill for future use. After lunch I tossed the chicken bones and carcass was tossed in the insta pot with water and placed on low using the slow cooker function. So far I have pressure canned 8 pints of chicken stock with the insta pot cooking for another 12 hours.

I did discover that my food processor is broken. We dug out the kitchen aid attachment and shredded the LARGE zucchini for making a loaf of zucchini bread later in the week.

Matt was in charge of cleaning the front and back of the older refrigerator and also used his new shop vac to drain the water from the AC system.  I was in charge of deep cleaning the deep fyer.

Matt made a regular load of bread and I have a loaf of sour dough to finish tonight. Zach decided to deep clean so that also meant I placed 17 nerf guns, a box of legos and a huge hot wheel track on Facebook to sell.

I am tired!

 

5 Things Friday

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  1. Today is County Swim meet for the older (11 and above).  This is Lily’s last year as a swimmer. It is also the first time ever that all three kids have swam in the older day.  Several times we have been on vacation or the girls were at Life (a youth conference).
  2. Summer Goals- I have 40 prepared dinners in the freezer. At least 50 individual breakfast meals and 4 individual lunches.  This makes me happy. Especially since our tomatoes have not came in as expected.
  3. We, especially Matt have spent alot of time cleaning and organizing this week. He was able to complete the top of his building which is a huge effort.  Yesterday, he spent most of the day, removing all items and building new shelves in the dining room closet. This made a huge difference. I am waiting on a couple of basket but will plan to insert a picture of the final project later.
  4. I have four more weeks before returning to work.  We are planning on a weekend trip to Atlanta for a baseball game but I hope to also enjoy lots of pool and nothing time!
  5. We are doing really well in the area of budgeting!   I am so proud that we have been able to stock up but stay on budget!