Category Archives: Budgeting

5 Things Friday

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5thingsfriday-logoRED1. The kids start to school on Monday. We had a meet the teacher night last night and everyone is excited. In anticipation of this we are following the school night schedule around here including bedtimes! This also means that I am trying to get some filling/quick breakfast made over the next couple of morning to help in the mornings. Did I mention that Tuesday and Friday will be the first time in 10 years that ALL my children will be in school?

2. Yesterday, was a sad day. We spent most of the day outside working in the yard and square foot garden. The reason it was so sad is that I ended up pulling up and throwing in the compost pile, about half the corn, the cucumber plants and about half of the tomato plants. We have had such a dry summer and with us being out of town last week, so no extra watering, they were dead. It was bittersweet because I was able to harvest enough corn for dinner last night and 2 small watermelon that we used for dinner today. We should continue to get a couple of tomato in daily and maybe just maybe a green pepper or so.

3. I was able to leave work on or before 5:30 every day this week and even managed to get home by 5pm this evening!  I know this is hard to understand but it is a HUGE deal for me and something I plan to continue.

4.I want to spend most of tomorrow at the pool as it will only be open for 3 more weekends. I have not checked the forecast but heard it included storms.

5. I was able to get an additional 2 GB of data and $20 knocked off my Verizon bill tonight just by asking!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

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  • We have been home from vacation for 2 days and are about 1/2 the way unpacked. Goal- Be completely unpacked by Saturday.
  • I am going to be changing/hopefully reducing my work schedule over the next month to make things a little bit easier around here in the evenings. My goal until the changes officially take place and for the whole school year is to be leaving work by 5:30. So far I have been home 2 days in a row. Go me!
  • During my extended lunch break today, we headed to Winston to Vision Works to order both Zach and Kendall new glasses. The lesson we learned is that glasses for the little kids need to have nose pieces to keep them from sliding off their face. I did use a coupon surprised? We were able to purchase 2 pair of glasses with transitional lens plus a very nice contact lens case for Lily to take to school for $200.
  • I am planning to attend a continuing education class in September, it will be the first time in 10 years I have stayed by myself in a hotel room. I think I am a little too excited!
  • Disney planning is in full swing as soon as we finish unpacking from the Beach.
  • As part of getting ready to go back to school, I had the kids try on and get rid of any shoes that were too small or that they did not like. Kendall is upset because now she is left with only 22 pairs of shoes.
  • Lily has cheerleading every night this week and man is it rough trying to get everyone back on a school schedule. Zach will start Kindergarten and we are trying to eliminate naps up front so the evening have been full of attitude. Tonight was at least better than last night. Zach made it to his “normal” 7:30 bedtime. Last night he was in bed at 6:50.
  • Amanda has started college and so far I am very proud of the hours she is putting in to be successful!
  • We are on budget so far for the month in both groceries and gas. I am so proud of this especially because of the massive Costco trip we made on Sunday in addition to the purchase of school supplies today.
  • Blogging is always better at the beach, I guess the smell of the ocean makes my thoughts come easier!

 

Menu Plan Monday

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imageSide note…yes I plan to include random pictures from the beach with each post,just because it is fun!

One of the ways that we are able to afford our vacation is by planning ahead. The focus of this beach trip is the beach, which for us means alot of playing in the sand and water. The condo we stay at is at least a 10 minute drive from   any resturants or stores so we plan ahead and usually only eat out a couple of times.

The menu looks  a little different this week because we actually plan a little bit more.

Lunch- “Lunchable” and sandwhiches on the beach.

 

Sunday- Breakfast- Cracker Barrel    Lunch- Steak and Shake Dinner-Pimento cheese sandwhiches
Monday- Breakfast- gravy and biscuits, Dinner- PF Changs for my birthday.
Tuesday- Breakfast- Donuts, DInner- Mexician feast.
Wednesday-Breakfast- Sausage cresant rolls, Dinner- Baked ZIti
Thursday- Breakfast-poptart/ cereal. DInner- Hot Dogs
Friday- Breakfast- Eggs, bacon, toast.  Dinner: Chicken and Broccli
Saturday- Breakfast- Poptart/Toast/cereal.  Dinner:  Seafood out or left-overs

Saving on Saturday August 8th

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image

These are the items that I was able to purchase last week at CVS. My favorite deal was purchasing 2 boxes of cereal, 2 shampoos and a bottle of hand soap for $0.40. The reason this was possible was that I received an “extra” 5 ECB for reaching $50 in beauty care spending. I used that in conjunction with the 5 ECB for purchasing $20 in P&G products from last week.  When you combine all the transactions 5 in total I spent around $8 and saved 81%.  The sharpies are going to finish up Zach birthday gift (autograph books for Disney). All the other items when in my beach stock.(More details on these hopefully later in the week.

I made several additional shopping trips this week to grab up “Lunchables” which we will use at the beach for lunches and for easy school lunches to get us back in the swing in a couple of weeks.  My best grocery deal this week came at Food Lion. I had to make a shopping trip to purchase baby food to use at work, I did use a $1.50 coupon that printed at the machine, At the end of the transaction, the regrister also printed a $3.00 catalina. I used this to purchase bread flour for $.25.

I have also started to play around and use the ibotta and checkout 51 apps. So far that have been fairly simple to use and I am not purchasing items that are not already on my list, so ever little bit helps. This week alone I earned $0.75 at Checkout 51 and 5.35 at Ibbota,

What have you been doing to save money?

Monday Menu Planning 08/03/2015

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After begin so far over budget last month, you would expect us to have lots of food and items to choose from. Unfortunately, this is not the case, mainly because of the way I shop.  We are heading on vacation  next weekend and my plan is to not shop for groceries until after our return. This should help reduce/contain the bill for August. So this week is about using fresh items and cleaning out the pantry so to speak.

Breakfast-Cereal, Poptarts, grits, French  toast, breakfast burritos and maybe some baked Oatmeal to help.

Lunch- Leftovers, sandwiches, dipping day at least once. I made a batch of egg salad and chicken salad on Saturday so sandwiches are the main choice for the week. If needed we have bowls of Mac and Cheese as well as crackers that could be come lunch easily.

Dinner– Focus on smaller meals with little to no leftovers to toss.

Saturday- Lunch: Egg Salad and Chicken salad on Ritz crackers, because we had no bread.   Dinner- Pasta salad with pork, watermelon cantaloupe..

Sunday- Lunch- Cowboy beans.  Dinner-Chicken salad sandwich on fresh sour dough bread.
Monday- Pork chops, potato salad, cantaloupe and cucumber relish
Tuesday- Roast with carrots, onions and fresh fruit.
Wednesday-Hamburger Helper
Thursday-  Layer Taco Salad
Friday- Falafas in crockpot and/or leftovers.

Currently we have about 1/4 a gallon of milk left and are out of several of the kids favorite foods but they are leaning to eat what is on hand. I am hoping to grab an awesome deal on lunchables to use when school starts so at least they have something to look forward to.

Saving on Saturday-August 1st

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sosTarget is one of my favorite stores to shop. I love combining sales and other special deals. This week was an awesome week to stock up on drinks and purchase jeans. I actually received a text message from Target asking me to combine a sale with a 35% off cartwheel of sodas.. I was able to purchase 4 12 packs of Diet Coke, 1- 12 pack of Coke and 8 bottles of Diet Coke for $13.00 or $2.16 each. These will come in hand on our upcoming  Beach trip. Matt requested we grab some “Crystal Lite” packs as well. They were also on sale. Prior to making the trip, I ordered 105 K-cups, they were on sale at Buy Two, Get one Free with an additional 10% off for store pick up, the individual cost of $0.33 each. The final great deal at Target was jeans for both girls, on sale for $10 with an additional 5% using my Target card, which is connect to my regular account.

Shopping is not the only way that I am saving money this week. We are planning our annual trip to the Beach next week. In the past, we have been able to stock up on “Lunchables” to use most days on the beach. This has not been the case so far this year. I have decided that it would make the most sense to make a huge batch of sour dough rolls next week, bake and use these as our ‘sandwich bread” Today, my goal is to make egg salad, and chicken salad to use for these meals. I will also be make a big bowl of pasta salad to take as our meal to the pool this afternoon.

Menu planning and working out  a laundry schedule for the week to maximize the use of our clothes line should round out the day.

 

July in Review

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Blogging:  Goal: 14 per month Been a crazy month and I don’t even feel like going back and making one more post for the month.

Weight: Goal:  Met and maintain weight of 175. This goal will be considered met each month that weight loss is achieved and once this weight is achieved, each month maintained is considered achieved.  No regular exercise…. got to get back in a routine.

Spiritual-  Goal. I want to spend time reading and or studying the Bible at least 5 days a week for the year. Fail fail fail.

Financial Goals-
1.  Full Fund the budget each month.   I can imagine that this may seem strange to some people but I set my budget based on what I need each month to cover all expected bills with extra savings going into various counts for non monthly bills. Some money are much easier than others. For example July was a crazy spending month, however with extra monies coming in from the refinancing of the house we were still able to be totally over budget but everything paid and future expenses saved for.  Goal met!

2. Emergency Fund to $2000.  Met. Added $100!  Goal met 2 months in a row!

. 3. Groceries: Spend $700 a month .Total Fail.  We started the month with a trip to Shuler meats. In addition, we have had to purchase several items such as toilet paper due to running out. Total spent in July 934.12

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month .  This is a huge FAIL!  Because of the wired state of NC, I paid sales tax on the new van when I purchased but also had to pay property tax in order to receive the permanent tag. The car also required an oil change which made me $110 over budget for the month of July.

5. Eating out- tracking purposes only $465

Disney- Goal Met! We have now paid for over half of our Disney trip!

July was intended to be our “budget reset’ month. It also ended up a very expensive and crazy busy month as well. I am so glad to look forward to our Beach trip in August for the life reset I need. Then watch out it is full steam ahead to Disney

Saving on Sunday

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sosOpps!  You are right today is Sunday. I did not get much saving done yesterday because we spent most of the day enjoying the pool.  Kendall had a friend in addition to Lily having a friend spend the night so I got not a lot accomplished except for spending time with the kids. I am starting to realize and trying to enjoy more time just hanging out with the little kids, I know in a flash they will be too busy to hang out! Now back to saving. I did do some shopping today, even with all three little kids in tow. Matt is working for cheerleading so I decided the sales were good enough and we needed most items.

First stop today was CVS. It has been 3 weeks since I last went to CVS, I hope they will not be having another test market of no sales ad in the near future. Today I purchased 7 bottles of shampoo, a bottle of detangle, 2 bottles of Tide free and clear, 4 bottles of body wash,2 sticks of deodorant and a battery powered toothbrush for $36 with a 65% saving, I also have 10 ECB to use in the future.

We also stopped by Aldi to grab fresh produce including cantaloupe, watermelon, grapes and cottage cheese that I need for a recipe. Total spent at Aldi was 18.47

We are continuing to get lots of tomatoes from the garden. I have managed to replenish the shelf of stewed tomatoes and discovered an awesome recipe for spaghetti sauce. I adapted it to the crockpot and hopefully will make at least a batch a week for the month of August. Currently, I am freezing in containers to make Baked Ziti with. My plan is to make 12 of these  and then just freeze spaghetti sauce, even the kids say this is the best sauce they have eaten.

How did you save this month?

 

Budget Update 7/23/2015

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This is an accurate representation of my budget for the month. I will be honest and say that I am not really stressing about it this month. We have had a lot of monies coming in and out of the account in addition to the county swim meet and buying of school supplies, so the fact that I can say that all we are not sinking in an incredible debt hole or juggling important bills is a gain for the month. July is also the month that I receive an extra paycheck, so that helped offset a lot of the additional expenses as well. Now for a look at the numbers…..
1. Emergency Fund to $2000.  Met. I did add money but the fund is still extremely low but I am happy with progress in the right direction.
2.. Groceries: Spend $700 a month .Fail.  Currently we have spent $833.59 so far this month on groceries, this amount does include a large meat order from the beginning of the month. I also have purchased several items to add to the stock pile. As with the rest of our budget August should be a much better month.
3. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs.  This is a huge FAIL!  I am sure had we just been using this money for gas that I could have stayed under budget for the month; however based on the crazy ways that vehicle tax is now being collected in North Carolina, not only did we pay sales tax on the purchase of our new van but we also had to pay regular taxes prior to being issues a tag.  The other major hit this month was an oil change for the car. In August, we will be purchasing new rails for the van to mount our traveling box on, I have to obtain a new license and the car will  need new tags which will mean taxes and an inspection for it as well. I had planned to reduce this budget to $350 starting in August but with all these expenses I will not make any change until September.   4.
4. Disney- Goal Met!  I was able to pay $1000 toward our trip this month!
5.Eating Out- This is a new category and for the present it does not have a set amount but instead it will be a way for me to gauge how much we spend each month to help in developing a budget for next year. So far this month we have spent $292 eating out.

Saving on Saturday July 11 2015

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sosThis is one of those it is a lot of little things that make a big difference kind of week.

We spent most of the morning in the kitchen preparing food ahead. I made burrito bowls for breakfast and we plan to enjoy the leftovers for several morning this week. I also made tomato/basil biscuit. They turned out awesome and we ended up eating for lunch at the pool today. I will plan to make at least a batch of these every couple of days in order to  keep ahead of our garden. Next on our cooking list was “baked ziti” We made two large pans at the same time. The first of these we will be enjoying for lunch tomorrow with friends. My preparing ahead we will not be tempted to eat our tomorrow after church. The second baked ziti went straight in the freezer this is one of the 4 planned evening meal that we will be using on our beach trip. The condo we plan to stay at has a full kitchen but I do not enjoy cooking on my vacation so we plan ahead and take a couple of meal that just need to cook, by freezing the also serve as ice for the cooler on the trip.

I am beginning to notice a difference in my grocery spending this month. The main reason for this is that after making our “big” meat purchase and completing a trip to Costco, I decided to take the remaining money out of the bank and place in a cash envelope. Because I can physically see the money remaining in the envelope and know we still have half the month left, I have been making some tough decision regarding stocking up on items.  I did run to the grocery store yesterday to purchase provolone cheese for the baked ziti but I was not even tempted by any of the sales they had. We are currently on our last 2 rolls of toilet paper.  CVS is having a good sale on my favorite brand tomorrow, I would normal complete this deal twice for a total of $35 out of pocket. This amount of toilet paper would last us 6 months. However, I will only be spending about $17 tomorrow because of checking the cash envelope prior to planning the trip. I don’t have enough cash to cover two transactions so I will be buying more toilet paper in 3 months as the need arises. It may sound silly right now but I am really working at staying on budget this month, even with some big spending up front.

I spent about an hour tonight updating and learning about the different apps that will actually give you money back for purchasing certain items. I have had a saving star account for over a year and realized that I was eligible for my second payout, the amount is only $5.25 but this is directly deposited into my bank account and I earned it by simply buying items that were on sale with a coupon as well. I am hoping to make some extra change each month by using these apps.

How are you saving?