Category Archives: Goals

Are You Thirsty? Stockpiling

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Today was officially another snow day for us. I was unable to get out of the driveway or up the street as of 10am when I had to make the decision. However, with the temperature being 45 with the sun shine, we were able to venture out to a couple of stores this afternoon.

The items that we purchased are for the stockpile. The first stop was CVS, the last 2 weeks they have been running a special on 2 Liter Diet Cokes. They are on a stock up price of $.99 each, in addition for each $10 spent you receive 5 in ECB. I have been slowing purchasing a couple but decided to finish up today. I purchased 15 Diet Cokes a couple of Sprites and a couple of Cokes for a total of 19 drinks. I did not use any coupons but did use one of the $5 ECB I received.  Total spent $14.97, saved $24.09 or 62%. I also received another 5 ECB to be used later. The total cost per 2 L including tax was $0.79!

The next stop was Food Lion (our local grocery store), I read on Wednesday of an awesome deal. PowerAde and PowerAde Zero are on sale for $0.89 with the purchase of 15 you receive $10 off at the register. The total cost per 32 oz drink including tax is $0.23!    Matt decided he was okay with stocking up. I did a total of 7 transactions which  was the only down side, we ended up purchasing 105 drinks. In addition to the awesome saving this represents, I will earn 3 points from Coke Rewards for each of these bottles which will be 315 point, of which 250 points earns a free 12 pack!

Total Spent $18.55
Total Saved $146.59 or 89%  And I didn’t even use a single coupon!

January 2014

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This has been a particularly busy month for me, but I still have managed to make progress.

Financial Goals–

1.  Pay off lawn mower by March 2014 to avoid interest being charged.  Made the $100 payment  Goal Met!

2. Emergency Fund to $2000.  $100  moved to this account yesterday Goal Met

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month-  Actually spent this month $400 including a Pamper Chef order.  Goal Met

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs. $103 left in the budget.  With the additional money we spent at the end of January for tires and the repair cost for the January. I am going to use this remaining money to “repay” some of the areas I have recently borrowed from.  Goal Met

Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month  This is post number 15! I am really happy with this as I did not actually post until the 8th this month!  Goal Met

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December 2014.  I weighed in today for a contest at work and have lost 8# this month Goal Met

 

Doing a happy dance!

January No/Low Spend Final Update!

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  • Get $100 in our Emergency Fund.  Transferred $100 today!
  • Pay off the outstanding Verizon bill from where we switch names
  • Deposit for Beach vacation
  • Reduce Groceries to$400 for the month with the remaining $200 set aside for Cheerleading competitions.  Total spent for Groceries $298.63.  I did use the remaining $100 on a order from Pamper Chef!  $212 used for Cheerleading competition spending money!
  • Transfer $50 to auto fund by the end of the month. This has been transferred! Goal Met!

 

I have  managed to met 3 out of 5 of my original goals, I am extremely pleased with these as they were made prior to our planning a trip to Michigan.  This was an awesome way to start the new year!  I will have my goals for February posted on Saturday!

No Spend Challenge and Shopping.

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One of my goals for this challenge was to reduce our Grocery spending to $400 for the month with  the remaining $200 set aside for Cheerleading competitions.  This is one area that we are doing excellent with. One of the reason is my winter cleaning has left our pantry much more organized and we also developed a list of items we have and need to use up.

I did realize that we were running really low on fresh veggies to use this week. We decided to  make several shopping stops today.  First up was a quick trip to CVS. I purchased 2 tubes of toothpaste, 2 2L of Diet Coke and a candy bar. I ended up paying a total of $1.55 of which $0.60 was tax. I received back 4 ECB. Next, was a stop at Aldi, total spent was $14.88 and finally Walmart. I purchased a baby gift and spent 1.71 for a bunch of celery. We check the celery at Aldi but it was limp and Lily wanted celery and peanut butter one day for lunch.   Our grocery total is $298.63 for the month!

I have a chance to order some items from Pampered Chef this week so I am going to use $100 from the left over grocery budget to pay for these items that are all going to be used for cooking.

This goal is MET!!!!!! So far for the challenge I am 2/5. By the end of the week, I hope to achieve 3/5!! This is huge for me as the challenge goals were set prior to planning of our trip!

 

 

Shopping Trip

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So far this month, I have spent $217.56 on groceries. Yesterday, we went shopping and I have no plans to make another trip this month. I have come to realize that I usually don’t shop like other people. I find it very interesting to read the details about other people’s trips and thought it might be interesting to explain how I do shop. I live in a very small town, which has a Walmart and one grocery store chain. I try to combine trips and usually buy items that are on sale only for most trips. Keep in mind that we currently have 40# of chicken breast, 50# of ground venison, a bag of shrimp and probably 10# of pork in our freezer. At the brand sale earlier in the month, I stocked up on canned goods including beans and veggie as well as staples such as oatmeal, ketchup and mustard.  This month, my focus was stocking up at our local store (Food Lion) brand sale and keeping the grocery bill as low as possible. Any amount left in the budget for the month will definitely help to meet our financial goals for this month.

We did end up shopping at CVS, Food Lion, Harris Teeter and Costco yesterday. The first stop was CVS, I purchased eye patches for Kendall and grabbed the best deals on items that we use.  I spent a total of $13.69 of which $4.59 was the cost of the eye patches. At Harris Teeter, I spent $8.96 for only items on sale that ended up costing less than $1 each they included 4 boxes of Hamburger Helper, 2 boxes of cereals, bottle of shampoo, mousse, 2 bottles of Hair Spray, hair gel, toothpaste, 2 boxes of granola bars  and a  roll of sausage. Costco is the only store that I would actually consider grocery shopping because I purchased items that we were out of  including milk, creamer and eggs. I spent $73 at Costco. The final stop was Food Lion where I had $12.50 in coupons from the previous sale, I ended up grabbing items for our Super Bowl party and spending an additional $14 above the coupons.  The total spent for the day was $105.

Does anyone else shop this way?

 

Goals for 2014

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Today, I am caught up!! The last two weeks have been some of the busiest I  can remember but finally we are caught up!  I realized however that I had not posted my goals for this year.

I am going to address these a little differently than I have in the past. My financial goals will change month by month, my intent is that I have an overall goal for the year and then I can adjust each month to meet the goals.

Financial Goals–   1.  Pay off lawn mower by March 2014 to avoid interest being charged.  Current status  $801.51 remaining.  Plan to pay $100 in both January and February with remaining $600 to come from expected tax refund.
2. Emergency Fund to $2000.  Current status $0.  Plan to add $100 a month for first 5 months of the year, then $200 remaining 7 months.
 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month
4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs.
These are some high goals but I really need to get our finances under control this year and stop living pay check to pay check.  My monthly goals for January I have already post as part of the low spend/No Spend challenge. I don’t anticipate meeting all the goals due to our trip but I do hope to achieve at least 50% of them!

Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month  Currently I am at 50% for 2013. 

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December 2014.  Currently I am nowhere near this goal. To met I need to lose 6# a month. I am going to focus of drinking water and getting the exercise in.  

So there are my objectives in writing.  Do you have any goals or by this 11th day of January have they already changed?

 

December/Year in Review

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Here is a look at where we are in December, in addition to how I did for the year. I will be posting new goals soon hopefully!

Financial goals:  I am excited because we maintained our budget this month. Even with extra spending for tires!  Overall, we made progress this year but many of these will remain on the 2014 goal list!

  • Pay off Lawn mower by March 2014, so no interest is charged. Made the triple payment! 7/9 months goal met!
  • Pay off all outstanding debt except the mortgage by June–  Obviously this goal was not met.
  • Emergency fund to $2000–  No progress again. 4/12 months goal met. This will become a major goal in 2014. However, I plan to reduce the goal each month but increase the final goal.
  • Maintain a budget using a form of the envelope system -This is working for us! I continue to make adjustments as to where the amounts are kept and how but overall I am counting this as goal met and will be discontinuing it!
  • Groceries: Spend $600 or less a month  $460 spent for the month in groceries! Overall 10/12 for the year.
  • Gas- Goal Met!! 100% for the time period that I tracked this 7 months! I will leave this for accountability with any remaining to be placed in the Auto fund!

Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month:  This is post number 15 for the month with at least one additional post planned!  5/12 for the year. Definitely staying a goal!

Devotions: Goal is 5 a week   Goal Met! 100% for the year!

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December by losing around 4 # a month   This has been the hardest goal for me. I only achieved it 1 out of 12 months!  Much thinking to do regarding this…

Progress is occurring but it seems that I am taking 2 steps forward and one step back. I am going to continue with a monthly update of goals so that I can stay accountable!  My plan is to publish new goal in the next post!

Menu Planning-Using up leftovers

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I have said before that we enjoy eating out! For me it is more about the convenience and speed than the actual food. Another thing that we have learned is that if we fail to make a plan then we are going to end up eating out regardless of our good intentions or need to stick to a budget. I am proud to say that we have not eaten out in 7 days!  The plan is to continue with this trend until Thursday when we are travelling.

I also hope plan  to be able to take some prepared food with us so that we will be eating out only once per day instead of three meals. The first reason is that feeding 5 people, 3 meals a day for 5 days can cost close to  $500, which as you can probably guess is not in our budget. Another big reason is the time involved in just stopping and ordering a meal and consuming it, even grabbing fast food is a bare minimum of 45 minutes to an hour of time that we end up wasting adding to our travel time. Finally, when travelling 800 miles you realize that your choices are often limited based on the area you are at especially with the 2-3 days of actual travel involved.

I realized on Friday that we had a large assortment of food in our refrigerators that I was not crazy about leaving for a week unattended. So I decided that I would try to use up as much of the leftovers and other items prior to leaving on the trip.

First up is the leftover Boston butt from Christmas Eve at my parents.I decided to make Pork Fried Rice (followed 30 day Chicken Fried Rice Recipe). I was able to make enough for 2 complete meals, one we enjoyed for dinner tonight and the second was frozen to use later. We do have enough left that my plan is to reheat, add dip, and serve for dinner either Monday or Tuesday evening.

I purchased some green peppers the first of the week with the intention  of using in omelets this week but they are still unopened on the top shelf.  So they will become stuffed green peppers for dinner tomorrow night. I will be able to top with mozzarella cheese that is starting to turn. The other ingredients are easily accessible in the freezer.

One of the items I plan to take on the trip is Taco soup. I was able to grab all the ingredients out of the freezer to complete this today as well. We will enjoy one meal for lunch tomorrow (Sunday) and another will be frozen for eating in Michigan.

I used some of the leftover chicken from last week to make a pot of Chicken and Rice on Thursday.  We have already frozen a dish of this to travel with us as well.

Last but no least are all the breakfast items that need to be used up.  This morning the fridge contained; baked oatmeal, French toast, pancakes, gravy and bacon. I decided that no cereal could be eaten until we clear out these items!  A spinach quiche, which will be an option in the morning,  used up a single pie crust and some of the bag of spinach in addition to leftover bacon from Christmas Eve.

It does appear that at least one evening meal, most likely Tuesday will be a left over choice depending on what is eaten for lunches. Another option will be baking sweet potatoes for dinner which are quick easy and well liked.

Here is the plan and we are sticking to it!

January No-Low Spend Goals

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On Christmas Eve Eve, I have determined that by spending cash, we actually are doing a much better job of keeping track of our money. So in honor of that discovery, I am going to join Carla over at My 1/2 Dozen Daily in her January No-Low Spend Goals.  I actually want to achieve some of my goals this time so I am going to be specific but simple.

  1. Get $100 in our Emergency Fund. The goal for 2014 will be to have a base of $1000.
  2. Pay off the outstanding Verizon bill from where we switch names
  3. Deposit for Beach vacation
  4. Reduce Groceries to$400 for the month with the remaining $200 set aside for Cheerleading competitions.
  5. Transfer $50 to auto fund by the end of the month.

The rest of December, I plan to use cash for all purchases which with a little extra Christmas money will mean a little extra spending but we are still on track for the year!

 

 

 

Planning Ahead- How I Spend Time on Sunday Afternoon

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We live a very busy life. Our “normal” schedule includes four night of extra activities a week, in addition since August, I have been working till 5:30 at least 3 if not 4 nights a week. In the mornings, I enjoying taking the girls to school and try to get out the door in time for me to have 15 minutes for my devotional time once I get to work. So I am going to share with you, a couple of time and money saving tips that make our weeks at least a little more smoother.

First is the clothing issue, both Kendall and Lily have every strong opinions about school clothes. On Sunday afternoons, our first chore is to pick out clothes for the week. This is a process as each outfit has to be approved by me. Today, we finished quickly in less than 30 minutes. After we pick out each outfit, it is placed in my room or closet so that there are no “last minute” changes during the week. I offer suggestion and even let the girls decided which day they are wearing each outfit.  I have my required scrub uniform with optional undershirt. I try to wash these on Saturday so that I can just grab and go during the week.

Next is food, this school year both Lily and Kendall are required to take a snack for each school day. Lily is also allowed to bring a bottle of water.  I do keep a small stock of easy to grab items such as Rice Krispy treats and fruit roll up. However, both the girls like to take other things such as popcorn or even chocolate pudding. We pick out the items they want to take for the week and pack it in their bookbags. This is especially important so they can always grab out a snack and one less item on my list.

Finally are lunches. We allow both girls to pack 2-3 times a week depending on the menu. The first step of this process is we print a monthly lunch menu, each girl then reads and circle what items they will be eating or writes pack. No matter what day of the week they chose to pack on we prepare ahead on Sundays. I purchased two years ago “lunch boxes” they are plastic containers with 3 separate areas, the down side is that they will leak but they is usually not a problem. The girls pick what they want in their lunches and it is pack. The “finished” box sets in the fridge until the morning they are packing. We have discovered several easy and favorite meals, they include:
Sandwich sushi- this is a tortilla with meat, cheese and mayo rolled and sliced into bite size pieces.
Toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches- by toasting the bread it stays fresh for the week.
Chicken nuggets- Think lunchable on this one.  I go ahead and fry the chicken nugget on Sunday, place in a container with ketchup or other dipping sauce. This is Kendall’s favorite and she has never complained about it being cold.
Pickles – I cut these to fit in one container.
Carrots and Ranch dressing.
Tomatoes and/or green peppers- this was a favorite during August when we had lots of tomatoes in the garden.
Graham crackers with nutella to dip in.
Applesauce, jello or pudding- I usually pick one of these and mix up a batch. One box of either jello or pudding fits perfectly into 4 of the small compartments. I pour each into the compartment and set in the fridge, it doesn’t spill because it has  settled prior to going in the lunch bag.  This is a huge money saver as I can make a box of pudding for less than a dollar compared to a pre-packaged 4 pack for around $1.50. The girls also enjoy having a choice each week.
Cheese and crackers- either American slices or cheese sticks depending on what is available.

I also take my lunch most days, I can pack with the girls but I usually grab a dinner plate that is made from left-overs, because I can use a microwave at work. Other days I have a soup stash at work.

Do you have an easy lunch idea to add?