Spending Update for the Week

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Sheila

Last week, I talked a lot about the goals we have over the next two and half months for saving money for a trip to visit family. This is where it starts.

This has been a great week in terms of this goal for us. We have received out water and electric bills for the month of October. Both were lower than the budgeted amount so that savings of $30 will go into our trip.

Next up is our spending, if you recall I had $7 left for the remaining 2 weeks of September to stay on budget. This week I have spent $1.02 which leaves $5.98 for the next week and half. We ran out of baking soda so I picked up two boxes. I did go to CVS this week, I was able to purchase 2 bottles of body wash for Matt and 2 Starbuck’s refresher. I used the CVS gift card that I have so nothing was spent out of pocket. I still have $2 on the gift card in addition to 3.50 in ECB.

I was also able to generate (hopefully) a little extra cash as well. I took 80 pieces of clothing to a consignment sale and we have placed our plastic playhouse up for sale on Craiglist.

Overall I am very excited for being able to stay on track so far and add $30 to our trip fun. The menu is planned for next week so I am looking forward to another week of low to no spending!

Stockpile Full?

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Sheila

This is a picture that I took today of one of the 3 closet/areas that I use to keep most of my stockpile items in. If you can see most of this shelf is complete full and it actually has about another 2 foot of space above it as well. I have been working over the past several days to straighten and organize my stockpile. One of the reason is that I have been making some pretty awesome purchases over the past several weeks, such as Scott Extra Bath Tissue for $0.32 a roll and needed to make room to store it. Another reason is that I have been looking at our budget for the next several month in an attempt to locate enough money for a trip at Thanksgiving.

I have discovered several things during the arranging and rearranging of items. The first of which is that quite literally, we are out of space. I have moved and boxed and rearranged but at the end of the day, my stockpile is full!! I can honestly say it is overflowing. A second thing that has occurred to me is that most of our freezer space is full as well. This would not normally be a huge deal; however I have recently order and paid for a huge 120# order of chicken breast that will be picked up the second weekend in October. So I have to find a place to store this food. The final thought that occurred to me was no wonder my grocery budget is slowing climbing higher and higher each month. I am focusing on buy the great deals but failed to realize that I have 20 boxes of cereal already purchased on a great deal. Taking into account all this information in addition to the trip that we would like to take over the Thanksgiving weekend, I have decided that I will be limiting the amount of shopping and purchasing that I am going to be doing over the next two and half months.

I am definitely going to commit to and be accountable for living off our stockpile until December, approximately two and half months away. Because I know that as soon as I make the commitment to do this undertaking then we will start to run of things or will need to purchase milk and eggs or even worse Diet Coke. I am going to budget $100 a month for groceries during October and November. I have a CVS gift card from our recent toilet paper purchase for $10 so this will be my play money to keep shopping the best deals. If you are wondering about the grocery budget for September, we have $7 left which may or may not get used at CVS as well. My goal with allowing $100 in spending is to purchase only items that we are “out” of. I know that I may miss some really good deals but I also realize that I need to make some space prior to the first of the year when my local store usually runs the best sale of the year. I also will be able to grab “free” items and pay just tax! I will be the first to say that this is going to be hard for me as I enjoy the “shopping game” and love to play it especially at the grocery and drug store but I also realize that this is a great opportunity to prove my self control, manage to save at least one half of the money need for our trip, reduce our overall grocery budget for the year and clean out the 10 boxes of mac and cheese that have been hiding in my closet. I am going to plan to provide a weekly update on my spending just to make myself accountable! Does anyone else have a stockpile that is full?

Thursday Random, Budget Related Thoughts

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Sheila

I made the comment last week that September was turning into a very expensive month. I am relieved to say that things have calmed down a bit and although it will still be an expensive over all month, I am hoping that we can stay on track budget wise.

As of today, I have spent $380 of our $600 monthly grocery budget. This does include a 120# of chicken from Zaycon food, that will not be picked up until mid-October. I currently am planning to do a freezer cooking day with my BFF on Saturday which will add somewhere between $50 to $100 to the budget. This will give us another 10 crock pot meal for use as well. I am expecting $20 in rebate cards from my stock up of Tide Detergent. I will be using this as they come in and moving $20 into our special saving funds, which I will explain in a minute. I also have $7 left on a gift card from CVS. My goal for the rest of the month is to speed as little as possible on groceries. I will definitely be under budget this month, the only question will be by how much?

Currently we have $240 remaining in our gas budget for the month. I estimate we will need to use at least $180 of this but should be able to hang on to the remaining $60.

I was able to finish out Zach’s clothing needs for the fall by purchasing some clothes from a friend! She has the next size up as well so if Zach decides to grow I have an option to purchase without breaking the budget again.

The weather has been very usually in North Carolina this week. Beginning on the 7th, we have not used out central air. I am so excited about this, I have been keeping a close eye on the weather and realized that today (Thursday) was the warmest out of the week. The temperature did get up in the high 80’s and the temperature in the house was sitting at 84, but we survived and with a cold front passing through along with rain, our goal is to make it at least 2 weeks without central air in September. We are usually able to enjoy a lower electricity bill for October and November so this should generate some nice savings for us.

Now for the announcement of where these savings are headed. We would like to make a trip to Michigan to visit with Matt’s family over the Thanksgiving holiday. However, after much discussion and a hard look at our budget, we agree that in order to make this trip we will need to save around $1800 for the trip. So we are both search for any extra money in our budget in addition to searching for extra ways to earn money. For us this is a lofty goal for an 8 week period but I am excited to see where this challenge leads us!

Budget Busting Week!

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Sheila

I had such high hopes for September, budget wise that is. I discussed in my month end post for August, that I was not going to officially join in on any of the challenges for saving in September but did plan to try and save so I could met several of my year long goals. However, at a week into September, I feel like I am already falling behind, my only thought is that maybe the rest of the month will get much more less expensive.

The first hit that our budget took this week was unplanned medical expenses. Both the girls had eye appointments on Thursday, which were accounted for but I have ended up taking Kendall to the pediatrician this week as well as Lily to a dermatologist. On Thursday alone, we spent over $175 on medical expenses, which does not include my dentist/cleaning appointment that will probably end up costing around $100 after the insurance pays.

The next hit is in the area of groceries. My plan was to spend less than $100 besides the huge chicken order that I will be placing this week. I had forgotten that I would need to pick up a few last minute things which ended up being almost $80 including a flea collar for the dog.

Finally, gas, in addition to spending so much on medical expenses by the time we went to three different cities on Thursday, we had put 225 miles on the van. Which means that both the car and van need to be filled this weekend as well. So we will have spent almost half of our allotted gas money for the money in the first week. Yikes!

August in Review

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Sheila

Blogging: Goal: 15 per month Post number 15! Goal met! Busy month again but at least that gives me something to say!

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December 2014. I have only lost 2# this month and definitely have not made it with exercising 3x a week. I said last month I was rethinking this goal and have decided to increase it to 175 which is the point I stayed between the girls and little kids in addition to the point I was at when I met and married Matt. I know this is probably not where most people think I should be but it is where I am comfortable and plan to stay!

Financial Goals:

1. Pay off all debit by July 2015, except for mortgage. Updated this goal again this month as other than credit card debit we have a personal loan and after taking a hard look at this we have changed our plan to get all debit paid off ! At this point, I am unsure if we will stay debt free but it is a goal I want to achieve prior to making any other larger purchases. Goal met for this month.

2. Emergency Fund to $2000. We are sliding backwards again on this goal. I can’t seem to get my self ahead on this goal. It is currently sitting at $100.

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month . Goal Met Total spent $600. I had planned to come in way under for the month but with some of the purchases we made at the beach in addition to stocking up on meat. I am glad to report that we did not go over for the month. In September, the plan is to make a huge chicken purchase but little else so I hope to be under for the next couple of months.

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs. Total Spent $499.72. Goal MET. I did add an additional $100 to the budget this month for our trip. The amount spent includes a small repair on the van and inspection, taxes and tags for the car! Hopefully we have gone over the hump with gas spending for the year!

Overall I did meet 4 of 6 goals. This is the same ratio as last month but different goals achieved. I am feeling much more optimistic about our finances so that is a huge step for me.

I have noticed that during the month of September, several of the blogs I regularly read are doing challenges for saving money and/or cutting the budget for the month. I am not going to participate officially with any, but I do hope to place a little more in savings this month. One of the reason, that I am choosing not to join in is that currently our budget does not have any wiggle room. If we stick to budget, than that is huge and means additional savings but in addition we are in the middle of Birthday season and I have already started slowing purchasing Christmas gifts, so no extra spending may be difficult as well.

Thursday Shopping

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Sheila

We need to have a couple of pairs of glasses worked on in Winston this week so after checking out a couple of ads, I decided we would make a couple of stops to coupon as well. Overall I am very pleased and actually think this is one of my better savings trips overall.

First stop was Harris Teeter- I spent $14 and saved $65 or 82% This include 5 packs of Oscar Myer hot dogs for $0.51 each, 2 cups of Greek yogurts-free, Laughing Cow Cheese and hair products!

The second stop was at Target- I spent $27 and saved $50 with $3.00 remaining on a gift card. The saving was 65%, however because Target prices are lower than most this is actually a huge deal. My purchased included 10 boxes of cereal, 5 2L drinks, 2 packs of juice boxes, 4 Rev sandwich wraps, a couple packs of cookie dough and some school supplies.

Finally stop was Home Depot. I do have a Home Depot Credit Card and usually use it to make purchases for the house. Over the last two years, I have not paid any interest or fees to this card so I am not opposed to use it. I received in the mail on Thursday a 10% your entire purchase coupon. We were able to purchase a new gas grill for less than $150 combining this coupon and a great sale. I am not even sure how to calculate the saving but wanted to include it so that you know to watch your mail and use what companies send you!

I do want to mention one more stop we made but it was actually in Lexington. We went to the Food Lion to pick up some pasta salad mixes for Zach’s birthday party. We had excellent timing and walked in just as the meat was being reduced. So we decided to go ahead and grab what looked good and we knew we could use. This ended up being around $110 of meat including hamburger, beef and chicken. At first you might think this is not a great deal but in addition to the hamburger we already have this should be enough meat for us till mid to late October.

Overall I am very pleased with this shopping day!

10 Things Tuesday -8/5/2014

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Sheila

This is my favorite way of catching up with all the tidbits, so I hope you enjoy!

1. JCPenny’s sent me a $15 reward for my birthday, so I combined with a coupon they also sent to purchase a Liz Claiborne polo shirt and a sports bra for $8.32! SCORE!

2. My square foot garden had started looking really sad and dead but after removing all the squash plants, all but a couple of my bean plants and lots of dead branches from the tomato’s it is finally looking much better. We are still getting just a few tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. We have enjoy a watermelon and cantaloupe as well. I am holding out hope that with our recent wetter weather we will get a decent sweet potato harvest in late October.

3. Someone at work or a patient brought in a table full of tomatoes, corn, cucumbers and cantaloupe. After realizing, that three days later, most of the remaining tomatoes would not last over the weekend, I brought them home and made salsa. It honestly is the best salsa I have ever made. I was able to use the crock pot and froze several batches for use this winter.

4. My work has finally slow down a bit. I have been able to enjoy going into work around 10am for several days the last couple of weeks. This has given me a chance to work on “school” with the kids. Zach is working on recognizing both letters and numbers. Kendall is work on money and her pencil grip and Lily is focusing on math skills and keyboarding.

5. The girls have really enjoyed piano lessons this summer and both are doing well. The teacher who is also a friend at our church has decided to continue this fall! The only downfall is finding some wiggle room in our budget.

6. We have been able to eat at home without going to the store or out to eat for 5 days! I hope we can continue this trend.

7. I spent some time this weekend organizing pictures. I have actually been able to get the pictures from 2014 organized. I would love to find a way to print pictures on a regular basis, Any suggestions?

8. I have been able to exercise 3 time last week and I off to a good start for this week. I am continuing to loss weight and my next milestone is 50 pounds!

9. Both Kendall and Lily started in cheerleading last night. Kendall really liked it but it was “a lot of work”

10. We are having some crazy summer weather, but at least Matt and the kids enjoyed a morning at the park!

Grocery Budget-Motivation

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Sheila

Our largest category of spending is Groceries. I budget $600 a month to go toward this but for this year so far I am averaging over this amount by $14. I often plan and set a goal to reduce this category but it is the most difficulty one for me to control or at least that is what it feels like. If you read my July update, you probably are aware that I plan to save at least $250 of this months grocery budget to use as fun money at the beach.

Every time I make such a plan, things seem to come up and usually I tend to cave and just buy what we “need”. This month, as usual, already we are starting to run out or run low on a number of items. However, I have not caved to the pressure, simply because of the motivation to have the extra money to use at the beach. I will say that this is becoming harder by the day and we still have 2 week prior to leaving for our trip.

One of the items that we are running out of currently are spices. I have just started a list on the back of the monthly calendar so that when we do head out to shop, I can be assured that we are not forgetting anything. We are starting to run low on several items that I would usually plan a trip to Costco just to pick up such as milk and eggs. We brought up from the freezer, our last gallon of milk yesterday. I had originally planned to keep this frozen and use as an ice pack in the cooler but this will not be the case. I have decided that we can always purchase a gallon of milk there it will come from the same money but it at least will be a beach purchase. We have exactly 24 eggs left. The kids have been enjoying at least one egg a morning each with their dad and at that rate we have about a weeks worth left.

A final item that is going to take a little bit more planning for the next two weeks is menus. Our only chicken meal left in the freezer is Chicken Fried Rice, slight problem we are out of soy sauce to complete. The good news is that we have plenty of pork and beef items and even a seafood meal. The addition problem is that starting this week the girls will have cheerleading two nights a week which means that we have to have semi quick meals. I don’t want us trying to save the grocery money to turn into eating out because it is easier. I am hoping that by writing things down it will make me more accountable. Wish me luck!

July in Review

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Sheila

Blogging: Goal: 15 per month Post number 15! Goal met! I will be the first to admit that this has been a real struggle for me this month but I am glad to say I can accomplish it!

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December 2014. The more I look at this goal the more I am wondering if it is realistic. However I am going to leave it in place for now. Officially I have lost 39# since January. I am getting help with a medication but I am also still try to keep with the goal. I need to focus on the exercise part of this goal for sure. I am claiming goal met!

Financial Goals:

1. Pay off credit card debit by June 2015. I did change this goal to reflect the purchase of the new dryer last month. I did pay off all the debt except for the dryer this month. Goal met for this month.

2. Emergency Fund to $2000. We are sliding backwards again on this goal. My emergency fund is down to $100. I know this needs to be important. I just can’t seem to get it in place!

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month Total spent $690, this is over $100 less than last month but it has also raised my monthly average to $617. The good news is that we have purchased all the stuff for our vacation. My plan is to at least the first half of our grocery money in August for spending money on the trip. I know that in the next two months I will also be placing a large chicken order so I am not sure if I will be able to met even the average of $600 for the year.

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs. Total Spent $381. Goal MET. I am excited to see that we have finally been able to reduce our total gas usage for this month. This amount does include an oil change for the van. My monthly average is sitting at $417, this will also have to be a goal looked at closely at the end of the year to determine do I need to increase? I am also increasing this by $100 in August to cover our travel expenses.

Overall I did meet 4 of 6 goals. I am feeling much better about this month than in June. I do realize that I simply may need to raise both the grocery and gas budget by $25 to $50 at the end of the year to achieve a balance!

Weight Loss Journey

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Sheila

On Thursday, I had my appointment regarding the medication I was given to help with my weight loss. If you would like to read the start please go here.

I have been using the medication for 3 months. I have also been very consistently counting daily calories and attempting to add exercise in on a regular basis. Exercise is my least favorite thing to do; however I realize that in order to be successful, I have to add this component in. I am finding it much easier to exercise at the pool this summer instead of the YMCA. I have increased the time walking to at least 1 hour per day.

My official weight loss is 25 pounds in 3 months. Prior to starting the medication, I had lost 10 pounds in 4 months. This represents a huge increase. I am currently at the weight at which I was after giving birth to Lily.

I am very excited to have lost these 35# and with permission, I am going to continue with the same plan for the next 3 months. If I am able to achieve the same weight loss in this 3 month period, I will not reach my ultimate goal of 150 but will be a lower weight than when I met Matt and at the same weight I was after giving birth to Haley at age 22! I will be very pleased with this and don’t know if I want to push much lower however, I have three-month to make this decision so I am going consider and pray over it.

Teens Tots and Everything In Between

Life, Love and Coupons

Category Archives: Goals