How We Re-stock

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Sheila

For the past several months, I have been on a mission to clean out our freezers. I can finally say that I did succeed. So now what? This month’s grocery budget or should I save overspending will show just how much we can spend in a month. But more about that later.

The first stop we made to re-stock the freezers was a local meat market. We ended up spending around $200 but purchased what I am planning on being enough meat when combined with our chicken order that we will pick up this Saturday to last approximately six month. We purchased chicken wings for our super bowl party in January, several packs of steaks, a couple of London broils, flank steak for use in some fried rice meals, cube steak and a pork tenderloin which Matt split into 4 separate roast before freezing. I did purchase 20# of ground beef which I divided up and froze most of the following out of:
2 meatloaves (this are uncooked but can be easily thawed)
2 Cheeseburger pies. (We have eaten one of these this week)
7 meal packs of Salisbury steaks. ( Matt will combined with frozen mashed potatoes for a really quick but hearty meal).
8 packs of already browned ground beef.
4 meals of stuffing for green peppers. We enjoyed one of these for Amanda’s birthday and a second is a left over meal. The other 2 packs are in the freezer.

Next stop was at Costco where not only did we purchase food to re-supply us but also we need to purchase several vitamins and medicines that I have not been able to coupon for in a long time. We also had to renew our membership which only ended up costing me $14 so I will continue because that works out to around $1.25 a month and just the convenience of buying in bulk is well worth that cost!

Finally we headed out to Target to grab an awesome deal on Starbucks coffee and to gather some additional items we need to make meals out of our chicken.

In addition to cooking above I have also added a Baked Ziti to the freezer and will be placing some Taco soup in tomorrow as well.

I did take a look at our overall grocery budget for the year. Including all the additional spending this month, our monthly average is $650 which is less than last year. My plan is to make a couple of small trips over the next several months but I would imagine that by the end of the year our spending will be at less than $600 a month!

The plan is to let you in on how we end up processing 120# of chicken on Sunday or Monday after it is completed.

Savings!

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Sheila

A list of the things we have done or are currently doing to save money :

No heat or air for the past month! The goal is another month or 6 weeks. The last several days have seen highs in the upper 80s but with low 60s or 50s at night, we have survived with ceiling fans. I can’t wait to see how much this has effected our power bill.
By switching our cell phone bill to my name, we increased our discount by 2% and for some reason they applied the discount differently as well. As a result, our total cell phone bill is over $50 less starting in October!
Matt has been researching our cable tv and its charges. We were both really surprised to find $10 charge for on demand items that we have been paying for over a year that simply we don’t use. In addition, we are planning on dropping our cable tv entirely in the month of November, when our contract is up. We should see this reduce our monthly bills by $100 a month. We know that the first 2 months will be sent on obtaining boxes but still $100 a month is HUGE!
Matt cut his own hair yesterday. The current decision is that some things are just better left to the pros. Hair cuts being one of them!
We are continuing to clean out our freezers. A major shopping trip is planned for next weekend but we are continuing to eat what we have. A good example is today, for lunch everyone chose a left over for lunch. At dinner, I used left over taco meat and made a taco bake which basically was a free meal!
By combining discounts, I was able to purchase a new comforter set for our bed for less than half of the advertised price including shipping and tax. I will definitely be posting pictures of that after it arrives.
I was able to purchase 3 Diet Cokes and 2 bottles of dish detergent at CVS today for $0.34 and left with $2.50 in ECB. I started with NONE! I did use a rain check
As I was cleaning at work last week, I found a huge stack of papers that have been sitting in the same place for 9 months. My first thought was to toss them but then I realized wait they have only been printed on one side. So I brought the stack home, cut off the corners with the staples and not have an entire pack of paper to use for printing and the kids art work. I honestly have not bought paper in over two years. We print a lot but keep a scrap paper bin at church and then recycle all we get here. This saves us a bunch on paper. I do have some “clean” paper for use for official things but have found that no one care what the back of my coupons or list say and the kids are so used to coloring on paper that they use at least 10 sheets a day for art!

So it is important to see savings as a marathon not a sprint!

Fall Festival Fun

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Sheila

This afternoon was the annual fall festival at the girls elementary school. We really enjoyed ourselves as you can tell. This is another picture heavy post…

The food was good..

Cake Walk Strut

Zach choose to buy a snow cone, popcorn and a balloon sword with money he has been earning at Paw Paws

Everyone enjoyed a snow cone but Lily decided she needed 2!

But the fun was even better…

Can you tell we spent a lot of time here!

Candy was hidden all in the corn!

Both girls got their nails painted. Lily in purple and Kendall in yellow!

The bounce a house was great..

Bounce House Fun!

Love the hair!

Kendall in Motion

Kendall in bounce house…she did not want to mess up her new nails.

Zach actually played his entire turn!

Mid Jump

But nothing could beat the slide…

: Kendall on the slide… she only rode about 20 times!

: Lily on Blow up slide. She liked it but preferred the cake walk

: Zach LOVED the slide… he rode probably double the number of times that the girls did!

Bunches of Breakfast

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Sheila

One of the areas that few people talk about is breakfast meals. I am assuming that most plan to eat the cheap cereal for months on in. However that just would not happen in this house. I LOVE breakfast, it is probably my favorite meal. Now that school is back in session, it is hard to eat a quick and healthy breakfast that does not cost a lot. Over the past few weeks we have developed a list of breakfast items that seem to be working for us.

Cereal at least once a week, currently we have several varieties of Cheerios. My price point is $1 a box so I try to stock up when I can.
Poptarts- depending on the flavor we have, some weeks the kids could eat this several times a week. But I can definitely say these are one of the foods I refuse to eat.
Eggs- Fried or scrambled. Over the summer it has been really nice to add fresh green peppers, ham and onions to make a quick omelet. The kids are starting to enjoy plain fried eggs which take less than 3 minutes to fix. Last week I was given the following recipe which I plan to make over the weekend and we can re-heat at least one time if it last. I made it last weekend but we did not have any leftovers.
Pancakes- These are a great meal that we can prepare ahead. I place in a ziplock bag and simply pop in the toaster any morning when the kids ask for them.
Baked Oatmeal- our current favorite is Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chips. The recipe can be found here :http://www.lynnskitchenadventures.com/2009/05/peanut-butter-baked-oatmeal.html. I timed this last night and it took 10 minutes from start to finish. I set the stove to cook and we wake up to a warm breakfast. I also have tried apple oatmeal in the crock pot not bad but with all the variety and ease of this recipe, honestly this is better and easier!

On the weekends we tend to make bigger more traditional breakfast meals but these are quick and everyone enjoys!

Wordless Wednesday- Rocks

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Sheila

Sunday at the Park-LOTS of Pictures

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Sheila

This afternoon our church held a dinner at a park just south of us. The playground was awesome…

With lots to play on with our friends even Zach’s size friends.

Next we rode the Carousal… Zach was not so much a fan….

Zach liked the train ride much better…

Finally we had dinner….

Honestly this was one of the best Sunday afternoon we have spent in a long time!

September Challenge Final Update-Budget

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Sheila

Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone.”
– Isaiah 37:26

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.
-Hebrews 13:5

Yes, those are the verses that keep coming to my mind as I think about updating our budget status this month. First I will be really honest, I did not met either of the goals that I had aspired to this month. However, I don’t count this month as a total fail either. In the area of money we have made small but steady progress.

Our emergency fund is currently sitting at just above $500, I was able to make steady payments on our small debt that is left. We are actually under budget in gas and groceries. In addition, I am actually currently under budget for the year on groceries. I will include actual numbers on the month in review post. Finally, we are currently less than $800 to be even for the year. I am actually really excited by this number! I have committed to work at the nursing home, one day a week for the next six weeks. This alone will make a huge dent in this $800. In addition, our hope is to finally get a web site published and therefore paid for in October. Slow and steady wins the race and I am actually seeing a finish line way up ahead in the distance. The biggest blessing is the verses above because I do not have to worry, my God is in control and his timing is PERFECT!

Restocking

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Sheila

Over the past several months we have been working on cleaning out our freezers. I am happy to say that task is complete. We currently have chicken broth/stock and beef broth in our large chest freezer along with a 20# box of chicken tenders/nuggets. In our second stand up freezer we have veggies. It is quite full but all these are easily seen and I now know what can be used. The plan/goal of the next several weekends will be to restock.
We are a busy family and most weeks, we have extra activities three to four nights a week. One of the most successful ways that we have found to make these evenings go smoothly and not end up eating out is by have an assortment of items in our freezers that when combine make simple meals. We have recently purchased 120# of boneless chicken breast, these will be picked up mid October. I am already collecting recipes to use to make meals with at least the first 40#. The remaining will be divided into portion bags and use for grilling or other things. My hope is that we can find several of meals that we really like and can then just add ingredients together.

This weekend, I am cooking and freezing beans. A can of beans on sale usually is about $0.50 to $0.75 each. A bag of beans is around $1.00. Currently, I have 4 variety of beans soaking overnight; pintos, red beans, black beans and navy beans. I have washed and looked them over, actually removing one rock today. They will soak overnight. I will cook overnight on Friday night and then divide up and freeze on Saturday. Each bag of dried beans will produce 3-4 cans so the saving add up quick, in addition to a significant decrease in sodium. We mainly use beans as soup ingredients, because I don’t like the taste of them.

By the end of October, my goal is to have the freezers restocked and ready for the winter.

September No-Low Spend Challenge Update 3

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Sheila

1.Emergency Fund at $1000 by the end of the month. I did receive a refund on Haley’s tuition so I was able to place $500 in the fund. I still need to find another $500 but this is a start.

2. Grocery spending at $200 or less not including our Zaycon Food chicken order. This week was expensive for groceries. I did place our chicken order and will be picking up 120# of chicken in a October. This week I have made two stops at the grocery store, one at Aldi and another at Food Lion. I am over my $200. Currently I sit at $226 for the month.

As you can tell, I most likely will not be able to met either of my goals for the month. However, I am glad I accepted the challenge as it has made me hyper aware of spending and has actually keep my grocery shopping well under budget as well. I will only do a find update since I am already fallen from the wagon so to speak.