Category Archives: Budgeting

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!

Sunday Catch- Up

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Life is busy, difficult, busy, and overwhelming this month. Hopefully I can get catch up and spend a little bit more time with blogging. I also really want to be consistent but at during this season I will just do what I can and give myself some grace!

Financially, I feel like we have recovered from Matt’s short period of unemployment this summer. I am working on finishing the year strong but also starting to look at some changes and plans I want to make for next year.  Credit card debit has really creeped up on me, so trying to balance paying that off and saving and enjoying the few short years of kids at home is a balance that takes a lot of mental energy.  Groceries have always been one of the biggest expenses for us.  My plan and goal for November and December is to pay for what we get and then use any remaining money to pay down the credit card debit. Starting in January, I would like to start saving to purchase another whole cow in the summer. Ideally, I would put $500 a month in a saving account for six months to make this happen.   We have a ton of food in multiple locations and I am really working on keeping it organized and to work through the food that is here before buying new things.  I have found a couple of “guidelines” that are helping with making plan a little bit easier. First we are having a “breakfast casserole” every Sunday morning. This makes getting ready for church much easier and quicker. Soup for Sunday dinner is also going well with occasional leftovers for the week. I am finding that I must cook 3 meals on Saturday or we end up eating out.  Freezer meal are awesome and I already know that I need to have many more in the freezer during the summer.

Kids- Lily is currently in Florida spending two weeks with Haley and David. She has finished her first eight weeks of college classes and is struggling to balance work and school.  She also will need a loan to fully pay for her second semester of college. Zach is playing football which means practice Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with games on Wednesday. Braxton is playing baseball which is one game a week. Kendall is anticipating swim season and has started swimming at least 3 days a week.  We are also currently struggling to get her permit.  Kendall decided very quickly that she did not want to and could not handle working along with school

Chickens- We are getting between 2 and 6 eggs a day. I don’t understand but we have not had to buy any eggs so that is a plus.   We have switched the bedding from paper to wood shaving.  It is more expensive but the eggs are cleaner.  We have purchased another automatic door which is working perfectly. We also still have at least one possum and one racoon who visit once a week. This is a significant decrease from daily so something is working.

Garden- I have probably 3 galloons of tomatoes currently in the freezer. I actually have still been collecting tomatoes this week. We are attempting to keep peppers alive int eh green house. We planted onions and asparagus but that is all for the fall. A couple of beds have paper mulch on them but I would like to move some planters and mulch a couple more beds but again just am struggling with the time.

The word for my job is intense. I really enjoy both the kids and my co-workers but my mental capacities are being exhausted regularly.  I am also struggling with some health issues. Nothing major buy annoying.

We do have several trips planned more details to come!

5 Things Friday

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  1. The month of September ends this weekend! It was definitely a month of change and a month of catch up. I will share more in our monthly update but I am very hopeful that we are going to be on solid financial ground moving forward.
  2. Last Saturday, we ended up clothes shopping. It was definitely time to buy some new jeans and long pants. We still have a couple of small needs but I am hoping to stop shopping in November for everything but food!
  3. Haley and David will be coming up to NC next weekend.  Lily is going to return to Florida for 2 weeks. It should be an experience for everyone!  I am sure that Kendall is going to have the hardest time with Lily not here.
  4. We are still harvesting a small amount from the garden. I also received some onion starts and asparagus in the mail today that I need to get planted.
  5. Our rooster is crowing and all the hens appear to be laying however we are only averaging 4-5 eggs a day from 7 hens….. this is an increase from 3-4 a day but we have enough eggs to eat and share so that is good enough!

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!

 

 

Tuesday Thoughts

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For the last two years, I have wanted to and attempted to complete the “Every Bit Counts Challenge.”  The reason that the challenge is so hard for me is that I have to return to work in August.  This year, I decided to change it up and attempt to put up 31 items during the month of August. Well I made an excellent effort but failed with only 19 items.  I am going to list anyway just so I have a record.

  1. 21 quarts of pears
  2. 5 quarts of Beef stew
  3. 4 quarts of chicken stock
  4. 2 jars of spaghetti sauce
  5. 2 meals of Chicken enchiladas
  6. 8 pints of salsa
  7. 4 Southern ground beef casseroles
  8. 8 pints of Salsa
  9. Sour dough bread
  10. Sour dough bagels
  11. 6 jars of spaghetti sauce
  12. 3 jars of spaghetti sauce (total of 26 for summer).
  13. Dried basil and cantaloupe seeds.
  14. shredded zuchnni
  15. Salsa batch for fresh eating
  16. Bread and Butter Pickles
  17. Peach Pie filing
  18. 3 frozen lunches
  19. pint of frozen blueberries.

 

I am very hopefully to be able to purchase tomatoes for Enchilada sauce and diced tomatoes but if not we have lots of food to eat through for the winter!

My next goal/ challenge is also food related. I wanted to reduce our grocery spending to $475 a month until December. I am going to see how this works. I have worked alot this summer to prepare food in advance so I am going to enjoy no working so hard for dinner!

 

5 Things Friday

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  1. I am going to call this the summer of just enough. My garden is producing but not an abundance. Today we harvested about 5 pounds of tomatoes, just enough for breakfast and a batch of spaghetti sauce. Just peeled and chopped up all the cucumbers from the week. We made a cucumber salad for a party tonight and have enough for a second batch but not enough for pickles. I planted 5 plants of zucchini and 5 plants of yellow squash.  But yet we are only getting enough squash and zucchini for fresh eating.  I have frozen 2 packs of zucchini for bread but that is not the abundance I was expecting. Just for record keeping, the local farm stand is advertising a sale on tomato for $2.50
  2. After much thought and debate, we are headed to Florida to visit Haley before the school year starts. Lily is not able to go due to work. Matt will make his decision based on his two interviews next week.
  3. IT is HOT!  Like 95 plus degree and we have not had a rain that added to our rain barrel since our beach trip so almost 2 full weeks.
  4. Summer Goals were a high propriety this week.  I currently have 51 dinner meals in the freezer. I am adding spaghetti sauce every couple of days as the tomato come in.  I have had a request for salsa next so I will plan on that instead of spaghetti sauce on Sunday after we return from Atlanta.
  5. We purchased a 12 gallon water tub for the chickens last week at Tractor Supply.  The chicken drank at least 8 gallons in a week.   I am hoping between it and the feeder we can decrease the amount of time and energy spent on the chickens.

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!

Tuesday Thoughts- Groceries and Summer Goals

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When we returned home, I knew that I wanted to get busy on preparing food for the school year which is one of my summer goals.  I was very hopeful that we would return to a ton of ripe tomatoes. That did not happen but I still knew this was one of the weeks that I wanted to focus on getting things in the freezer.  Sunday morning Matt and I went to the store. I had planned to re-stock our pantry and see what deals I could find.   I was so excited to find that Food Lion had lots of good things on sale.  One item that I wanted to get in the freezer this week was at least 4 Baked ziti.   Without tomato sause I did not think that was possible. Buy 2 Get one Free made the Ragu jars $1.33 each so we purchased 12.  The ziti pasta was on sale for 54 cents along with a 25 cent digital coupon!  English muffins were BOGO and we found sausage patties on clearance. This was probably one of the high spending single trips to Food Lion in 2 years or more. I spent $201. But this should assist with 12 dinner meals and at least 3 breakfast meals.

Monday morning this summer have included a trip to the Bargain store as everything is $3.  Followed by grocery shopping with my Mom.  I had planned to grab a couple of items that are usually cheaper there.  What I did not plan to grab was chicken breast. These were on sale for $2.29 a pound. I decided to go ahead and stock up. I ended up spending $78 at Aldi with over $50 of that in Chicken breast. I came home and with help from the kids I bagged up 2 bags of Italian chicken for the grill, 1 bag of chicken teriyaki and 5 bags with 2# pounds each. We also started Pineapple Chicken in the crockpot for dinner.

Today I have spent most of the day chopping veggies. Matt and I made philly cheese steak casserole (one for dinner and one to freeze). I will also get omelet bags in the freezer this afternoon.  Tomorow the plan is to make 5 Baked Zitis. We also got 15 English muffins in the freezer yesterday!

It feels awesome to be able to work toward a goal and stay on budget!

Tuesday Thoughts

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  • The weather this year has been all out strange. We had none, zero, nada weather delays or cancellations during the school year, The first time in at least five years if not more. The spring was cool, we had only 1 80 degree day in May. And now this week, is expected to be rainy and 70 for the entire week!  I am really disappointed since this is my first week off work but I am working on things inside so hopefully I can spend more time outside very soon!
  • My biggest goal for the summer was to get at least 100 dinner meals in the freezer, I have made a start with 4 taco pastas and 3  pizza crust from yesterday.
  • Today, I went to the local Food Lion to find meat on sale because the sale ad changes tomorrow.  I am happy to say that I succeeded!  I was able to purchase the meat for at least 14 meals for $63 or $4.5 each!  This is huge when you are feeding 6 people.
  • I picked up a free 8×10 at CVS today!
  • I have been working on getting some financial things in order for Lily’s college and I am happy to say that the hardest part is done!
  • Yesterday, I booked our Disney trip for Spring 2024 and took advantage of a no interest offer for six months from the credit card.
  • The next thing to tackle is Lily graduation pictures. Hopefully I will get some posted tomorrow as well!
  • Dinner tonight is “beer can chicken in the insta pot” with modifications.

Saving On Saturday

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The weather in North Carolina is rainy and chilly.  I am so glad that we are caught up with outside tasks.  Even better is the rain barrel that we put together last week (see the details) is currently filling and we can dump to make sure all the window cleaner is out of it before we use any water on the garden.

Today was spent trying to save money around food.  If you read even 3 or 4 post on this blog, you probably know that groceries are our third highest expense behind the mortgage and Tahoe payment.  I have been working on using up excess food for most of this year. One of the things I wanted to be able to do was condense our freezer food down.  This morning we were able to move around some meat and turn off our oldest freezer.  This will give the old freezer a chance to defrost and also save a small amount on our electric cost at least for the next month until I will restart it to store items from the garden and stock with easy to prepare meals for next school year!  While rearranging we found 4 packs of bacon, a unopened bag of frozen biscuits, an unopened bag of meatball as well as a coconut cake which was desert at dinner.    I spent some extra time this morning checking and making a Costco list. I am going to call it a success as spent $465 at Costco which included 2 prepared meals and a snack for Matt and Kendall.  We enjoyed the rotisserie chicken for lunch, I pulled enough meal off the bones for a chicken and rice soup for tomorrow’s dinner along with a couple of sandwiches as well. The crockpot is going with chicken broth that I will tomorrow.

I was also able to move some food around and now have all but the cereal in the kitchn area instead of spread all over the house!

I also already have a plan for both dinners and lunches next week with two days to continue preparing so that will make tomorrow much easier all the way around!