5 Things Friday 10/07/2016-

5thingsfriday-logoREDMost if not all this weeks event are financial!

  1. Several of our monthly bills are lower than expected this month including cable (refund on over tax), water and electric bill.
  2. I purchased an Orchard In A Box. We will be planting when it arrives in November. I am super excited!  We should be harvesting fruit in 3-5 years. This is long range planning for sure but in 5 years we will have 3 teenagers including a boy so I am fairly certain that our food bill will go up instead of down! I did take this expense out of our normal grocery fund.
  3. Zach is growing! I really this morning that we are going to NEED to purchase at least 5 new pair of pants for him. He and I will be heading to the local goodwill tomorrow. If we are not able to find things there it will be a major trip to Winston on Sunday.
  4. I have finished the majority of my Christmas shopping!  I still need to buy my nieces gifts and we will be purchasing pictures for my parents. I am so excited to have this expense out of the way.
  5. In addition to the orchard, we are going to add pavers around the square foot garden in order to make it easier to maintain!  We are using gift cards earned from Lowes and Swagbucks to cover this expense.

Menu Planning-10/02/2016

I tried to get things planned and prepped ahead for this week as it would appear to be one of the busiest so far. I will not even make it home on Monday till after cheerleading. I am actually taking two meals with me that day.   One thing that has been working the last couple of weeks for us is Soup on Sunday. It is easy to put everything in the crockpot and let cook while we are at church. After lunch, I have been turning off the crockpot and we can enjoy a second time for dinner. I plan to continue this at least for a month and see if anyone object loudly.

Breakfast–   You will notice I am planning on cooking a lot more than usual this week. One of the reason is I am heading to work later. I always store the leftovers for the next week. Saturday-Gravy Biscuits by request, Sunday- leftovers.  Monday- Breakfast Burrito Bowl- I am not scheduled to work till 9:30 and I have already cut up everything to cook. Tuesday- Cereal or yogurt, Wednesday- Baked Oatmeal, Thursday- Tricia Yearwood’s Breakfast casserole, Friday- Leftovers.

Lunch- This week, I will have leftovers and salad. Zach and Kendall have 2 days of chicken nuggets, 2 Uncrustables with pirate booty and a sandwich. Lily and Matt will have salad or leftovers or pizza or chicken nuggets.

Dinner-  Saturday- Lunch- leftovers.   Dinner- Meatloaf, squash casserole, mashed potatoes and cake.
Sunday- Lunch- Taco Soup. Dinner- Sloppy Joes and French Fries
Monday- leftovers
Tuesday-Chicken pie, green beans from freezer and fruit
Wednesday- Pulled pork, carrots and fruit
Thursday- Country Style Steak, rice and fruit
Friday- Homemade pizza night or leftovers. .

I am amazed to look back and realize how far we really have come in the past year. In October last year, I was excited to say that our eating out budget was contained at $200 which was half of September. This year we have more activities and I am excited to say that we spent less than $50 in September on eating out, except for Zach’s birthday meal.

Saving on Saturday-10/01/2016

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This has been a fun week for saving. I am planning to do a separate post about my Food Lion trip, so look for it on Monday or Tuesday.

National coffee day was on Thursday. Coffee is Matt’s absolute favorite thing in the world! He and Lily celebrated big. First they headed to Sheetz to claim a free Iced coffee, and the next stop was Krispy Kreme. They grabbed 26 donuts and 2 coffee for $9. The only sad occurrence of the day is they used the last sticker on our BOGO card. Krispy Kreme is no longer printing these cards. We do still have our calendar which has a deal of donuts at least very other month.

I have enjoyed using the McDonald’s app. I have always since downloading had a free large drink with purchase. It is awesome and for less than $3 I can purchase breakfast on the run.

The weather has finally decided to cooperate, the temperatures have been low 80 during the day with 60s at night. We have been without air condition for almost 2 weeks which I estimate to be around $50 of savings.  The other good news is we finally received some rain. Our water bill dropped again this month to where I hope it stays around $27 a month.

September in Review

Personal-
1. Blogging
– Post 20 per month. Fail. This is post number 18. This number is slowly but surely going up.  We are currently in an extremely busy season with work till 6 most nights for me and multiple practices and games every night.

2.Weight Loss– 175#. No comment.

3. Spiritual– Spend at least 5 days a week, reading and studying The Bible. This continues to be a challenge for me. I need to find a time to set for this but so far not happening.

Personal goals are a failure for the fourth month straight. But on a positive note, things are improving.  I know that once things settle down and I get my school groove back it will get better.

Financial- 

1. Set aside money each month in every budget category. Fail. We have been able to meet all expenses but this is a huge struggle.

2. Establish and maintain Emergency Fund- Fail.
3. Groceries: Goal is for $550. I knew once Food Lion started their sale that I would be way over for the month. I currently have spent $920 which is close to two months. The good news is that I am going to order fruit trees in October and may make one more trip for sale items at Food Lion but otherwise the month of October I don’t plan on a trip until the end of the month if at all!

4. Gas: Spend $300 a month- Fail! We spent $313 this month including an oil change for the van. In October, the truck needs an inspection and tags so it will continue to be a expensive time.

5. Pay off all Credit Card debit by December 2016- Fail. I am meeting bare minimal payments on everything but really was hoping to begin to get control and reduce this number.

6. Money Making Apps- I am adding this for monthly reporting. Matt and I both are trying to see how much we can earn doing small things. This month has been very successful. Matt cashed out for 2 $25 gift cards from Swag Bucks and 2 $5 gift cards from MPLACES. I have cashed out for a total of $75 in gift cards from Swag Bucks and $20 in gift cards from MPLACES. Total of $145 for the month. Extra money is awesome and helping to work our way back to a budget.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

  • Zach got a hit and ran all the way to 3rd base last night. He ran and  touched home plate!  Even a loss is fun when you are learning.
  • We have been without air conditioning or heat for the past week I think we save approximately $25 a week this way.
  • All three kids have field trip this month. I am sad to say that Lily’s trip to play putt putt was the cheapest at $15. What happen to “free public school.”
  • We are continuing to earn extra money to pay toward our next Disney Trip. September has been a great month, by friend we should have earned $100 in gift cards.
  • I get to speak at Kendall school on Thursday.  She is so excited, I hope she will be proud afterwards.

Menu Planning-9/25/2016

Another busy week in store. We are determined to keep our food bill down so with a plan in place here we go.

Breakfast–  Saturday-We splurged- Breakfast from Biscuit King, Sunday- Yogurt and leftovers.  Monday- Grits and Eggs (I am not planning to head to work till 9 so good morning to cook) . The rest of the week will be leftovers including Waffles, cereal, toast including French toast  or yogurt.

Lunch- This week, I will have leftovers and salad. Zach and Kendall have 2 days of chicken nuggets, 2 Uncrustables with pirate booty and a sandwich. Lily and Matt will have salad or leftovers.

Dinner-  Saturday- Lunch- leftovers.   Dinner- leftovers.
Sunday- Lunch- Stuffed Green Pepper Soup. Dinner- Cheeseburger Pizza
Monday- Rice Kreola
Tuesday-Cowboy Beans from freezer
Wednesday- Turkey breast and stuffing
Thursday- Beef and Broccoli or left overs
Friday- Squash lasagna or leftovers.

 

Simple and quick are the cues for the week. Maybe we will get more creative next week.

Saving on Saturday – 9/24/2016

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Took this cutie with me on my trip this morning to Food Lion!

I am doing more shopping than normal the last couple of weeks and will continue for at least two more due to my favorite yearly sale at Food Lion. To learn more about how I plan for these trips check out this post. I have been very pleasantly surprised during both my trips that the cashiers have been very nice and supported even with 3 different transactions. Remember I always use my $10 reward from transactions 1 and 2 in the next transaction.

I have actually made two separate trips to Food Lion this week, the reason sale on Diet Cokes.  My first trip on Wednesday was very planned.  This week, frozen vegetable are on sale for $1 a bag, pasta sauce is $1 a jar. I also stocked up on yogurt and bought pasta to go with the jarred sauce.

Transaction #1
10 bags frozen corn         $10
5 bags frozen Broccoli     $5
6 jars of Alfred sauce       $6
4 jars of Spaghetti sauce $4
10 containers of yogurt    $5
4 boxes of pasta              $3.56
2L of Ginger Ale               $0.84  with a 20 cent off coupon that printed.
Total Spent          $34.91

Transaction #2
4 containers of sour cream    $5.16
6 containers of mustard         $4.14
30 containers of yogurt          $15.00
Total Spent       $14.59

Transaction #3
10 Diet Coke    $0.99 each
Total Spent $0.49

Total Spent $49.99
Total Saved $36.06
  This is the store calculation and does not include how much cheaper store brands are usually. So this is sale items only.

We, Kendall and I headed back to Food Lion this morning. I did not have a list but just knew I wanted to purchase 10 more Diet Cokes. I decided to walk around and see what items I could find that I could put in our pantry. I did need the butter which is the most expensive item I purchased.

Transaction #1
10 packets of brown gravy       $5
10 cans of tomato paste           $5
20 containers of yogurt            $10
Total Spent    $20.44

Transaction #2
5 bags frozen peas and carrots   $5
5 bags frozen broccoli                  $5
5 bags shredded cheese              $10
4 cans of black beans                  $2.72
2 cans of chill beans                    $1.36
5 packs of pasta                           $3.95
4 jars spaghetti sauce                  $4.00
4 2L soda                                     $4.20
Total Spent 32.66

Transaction #3  I used this to gain some ibotta cash. These are all things we use so I did not mind adding
10 Diet Coke                             $10
2 Apples                                    $2.24
2 Oranges                                 $1.38
4 Bananas                                 $0.92
Package of Bologna                 $0.99
Total Spent $6.03

Total Spent $59.09
Total saved
 $36.69

I am trying to keep each trip around $50. I did receive an additional $4 off $50 that I will use next Saturday. My saving percentages are only in the 40% range but I know this is savings I would not get otherwise so worth the effort for me.

5 Things Friday-9/23/2016

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  1. The weather is finally starting to cool off here. This week we went from highs in the 90s to Highs in the low 80s and even some 70s. We decided to turn off our air conditioning on Tuesday night. If we can survive tomorrow, with predicted temps around 85 then we should be good for the rest of the month and hopefully all of October.
  2. I knew this week would be crazy busy but I am exhausted. Monday night we all arrived home around 9pm. Wednesday night is was 8:30pm and Thursday night 9:30pm. Zach’s ball games are an hour earlier this coming week so hopefully that will help.
  3. I am over budget in both groceries and gas but neither are a surprise.
  4. Zach loves baseball. He is actually starting to hit the ball. I am so proud of him for trying his hardest.
  5. My plans for the weekend include getting the October schedule put together and watching television, sounds industrious to me!

5 Things Friday-9/16/2016

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  1. We decided after our long and busy week, we need a treat tonight so we head out to grab some ice cream.  I am trying to balance life with budget. Tonight I am really glad to spend some extra minutes with my kids.
  2. Zach and Kendall both had eye appointments yesterday. I have recently been more concerned with Kendall and the degree to which her eyes cross. After discussion  with the doctor, unless they cross in the glass, we have nothing to worry about. The really good news is no more appointment for 6 months.
  3. We stopped by 5 below yesterday, all three of the kids got new headphones. As we start back traveling regularly, these are very needed items. I am hoping they will last at least a year.
  4. I don’t have to go or be anywhere tomorrow so my goals including getting ahead with some cooking and working on our new Autumn sign.
  5. Gas prices in our area have jumped by 15 cent in our area. Today, I heard that it was due to a break in a pipeline. I am really hoping they stop. We did feel the van yesterday so only paid $1.97 a gallon.

Menu Plan- 9/11/2016

This coming week our lives have officially hit the crazy stage again with multiple (yes meaning more than one) practices each night except for Friday. We also have eye appointments this week.  I know that without a plan we would be eating fast food a lot but here is the plan.

Breakfast–  Saturday- Gravy Biscuits, Sunday- Breakfast Burritos.  Monday- Strawberry and Cream Baked Oatmeal. The rest of the week will be leftovers including Waffles, cereal or Sausage Egg Croissants (on sale at Costco)

Lunch- We have enough Lunchables left to finish out the week. I have pre-cut up salad things for several of the days for Lily and myself.

Dinner-  Saturday- Lunch- Fast food.   Dinner- Cookout with neighbors
Sunday- Lunch- “Alice Springs Chicken”, 6 layer salad, and creamed corn.    Dinner-leftovers or sandwiches
Monday- Sloppy Joes and French fries .
Tuesday-Spaghetti and meatballs, Garlic toast
Wednesday- Honey Garlic Shrimp (new recipe) and fruit
Thursday- Beef and Broccoli or left overs
Friday- Shepherd’s pie