Category Archives: Budgeting

All about the Food

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The past several months have been a struggle in regards to food/groceries and our budget.  We have been attempting to eat what we have and maintain a $600 a month grocery budget while keeping a crazy schedule. I am very thankful that when school ends this Friday, our schedule will become a little bit simpler because the kids will be able to sleep in a bit later in the morning in addition to getting a nap during the day if we are really late getting to bed. School ending will not have an effect on our grocery budget however. We have been packing lunches all year long so in theory we should be eating the same amount of food.

With our busy schedule it has been several months since I have been able to devote time to restocking our freezer with items that make life easier at dinner and breakfast time. The good news is that this weekend, I have been able to accomplish a little bit of that. I am trying to be creative and use food before it ends up in the composite pile as well.

Saturday cooking included: French toast, deviled eggs, potato salad, mandarin salad, watermelon prep, sour dough bread, banana chocolate chip muffins, Mexican rice and a baked spaghetti.

I made a huge batch of French toast, using sour dough bread that needed to be eaten. The down side to making my own bread at this point is that I have to feed the starter every 7-10 days, I could simple toss a cup of starter after feeding it but that feels like waste to me.  I was able to use up a loaf and half of bread this morning. Matt is also planning to make pretzels for a treat and it will use the same dough as well.

My kids love to help in the kitchen and I know that I need to encourage and develop that skill as well so this weekend, the little three have been taking turns helping to prepare food. Kendall read the French toast recipe and Zach dump in the ingredients. Lily was able to make “mandarin salad” following the recipe with just guidance from me. For Zach next turn, he was able to help dump and turn on the blender for mixing up bread dough. Kendall helped with deviled eggs today as well.  The kids really enjoyed working in the kitchen. I was able to get all the food prepare that I had planned so it was definitely a win this week..

One of the areas that is always a struggle for us is Sunday. I really like the idea of not cooking and having a day of rest. In order for it not to turn into a eat out day. I am trying to prepare things ahead. The muffins were made on Saturday. Lunch was prepared on Saturday night and will cook while we are at church. Dinner is also all prepared and will just need to be heated up or in the case of most of the food just loaded on plates.

Overall I am very pleased with the food progress we made this weekend and hope that with some extra prep we can avoid eating out and still maintain a budget during June.

Now to the menu plan with some notes about our work on Saturday.

Breakfast-French toast (leftovers from Saturday) ,  Banana Muffins (made for breakfast on Sunday) Cereal, Poptarts, grits and toast.

Lunch-Lunches are going to be packed later today(Sunday) and I will be taking either a salad or leftovers.

Dinner– In addition to the kids “normal” practice this week we have a meeting for Matt on Tuesday and for Sheila on Thursday.

Saturday- Lunch: Potato salad, Mandarin salad, watermelon, deviled eggs. Matt needed some meat so he eat leftover steak.  Dinner- Mexican rice with salsa, cheese and chips.

Sunday- Lunch- Baked Spaghetti (noodles left over from last week and I need to use up the mozzarella cheese , Dinner- Left over meat choice of chicken, steak or pork with the sides from Saturday or a salad.

Monday- Hamburger steak with sides ( whatever is left) from Saturday
Tuesday- Tacos
Wednesday-Rice creole
Thursday-  Options include leftovers, breakfast, pizza chicken  or pulled pork. (I will make the decision Wednesday night based on what the refrigerator is looking like and my mood.)
Friday- Cowboy beans that will be reheated in crock pot. We may add some corn bread just to make things fun.

Finally the budget discussion, after much thought, prayer and analyzing the numbers, I have decided to increase my grocery budget to $700 a month beginning in June. Food prices have been on the rise for the past several years and I have maintained the $600 budget for almost 3 years. In addition as the kids are growing they are beginning to eat more. With this realization I will be add the $100 a month in hopes of making the budget more realistic and obtainable . Is your budget changing?

 

Saving on Saturday 06/06/2015

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sos

I cheated a little this week. First of all, I actually did the saving on Friday night although the deal is good through Sunday. Next, no picture I forget till everything was put away so…

This week I am saving on groceries and adding to our stockpile. The only grocery store in town Food Lion is running a fairly decent sale this weekend, combined with coupons I was able to save 55%. Here is what I purchased; 9 2L soda $0.99 each
2 box of Pasta Salad $1.50 each(coupon machine in the front of store gave me $1.00 off 2)
12 boxes of Hamburger helper $0.99 each, used 4 $0.75/3 coupons, from SS 5/03 insert
1 bag of self rising flour(ran out last week and Costco does not sell)

Total spent with taxes $22.51, total saved $27.12 or 55%

Anytime I leave Food Lion with saving more than I spent I consider it a major accomplishment! As I was checking out with the usually “coupons” that they given I received a free 8×8 hardcover book from Shutterfly.   I came home to try it as I am always doubtful but it worked! I was able to order our third autograph book for Disney and paid shipping only!  That officially makes it a great trip to Food Lion!

 

May in Review

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Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month Goal Met! I am at 17 or 18 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.  Goal met for the month.  I am moving in the right direction.

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

Financial Goals-
1.  Pay off all debit by December  2015, except for mortgage.  
a. Home Depot-   I am now planning to pay this completely off in June, but this is going to be depended on a couple of factors that I don’t have any control over.
b. American Express   – Smaller than anticipated payment. I only paid $200 this month.
c. Personal Loan (used to purchase van) .The current scheduled payment is $217 a month with this scheduled to be paid off in December 2015.

2. Emergency Fund to $2000.  Fail

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month . After what seems to be an extremely long month. We ended up spending $712 for the month This was not a true success but it really is a success because our monthly average is down to .$572 for the year so I am back on track.

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs.  Goal Met. I spent $402 on gas this month including covering tags, taxes and inspection on Matt’s van,  a new fuel filter on the white van and new radiator  cap for the car. This is a huge success.

Disney- No progress

May seems like a very long month. In the area of finance it does not appear that we made any progress but we are in the process of refinancing our mortgage which will dramatically change our path. Currently we are waiting on the appraisal. Once things are more settled, I am planning to share details, as well as plans. Looking ahead to June, I anticipate another month of close to or over our budget for Groceries just based on things we are starting to run low on. I have not changed the budgeted amount in 3 years even with the significant rise in price and an increase of consumption of food due to growing kids, so I may need to readjust in July based on our actual spending in June. Gas prices are suppose to stay close to their current rate however with us going to the pool on a frequent basis I think we are going to keep that amount the same at least for the summer. I will definitely share changes and new goals in June so that should make things interesting overall.

 

 

Saving on Saturday-5/30/2015

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sos

This saving on Saturday was one that sort of happened. If you had ask me even on Wednesday about it, I probably would have not had a clue. First the story and then lots and lots of pictures.

One of my co-workers is starting a small nursery. I decided to take all the plastic trays and small pots that I have been collecting for the past several years. to her to see if she could use.  I did not realize how expensive they were but really I  just hated to throw them away. She was very excited to get them, and a couple of weeks later when I mentioned that one of the pepper plants I planted had died, she offered to bring me some.  She ended up bring me 6 “rainbow peppers” this week. Next my friend bought at Costco a vegtable/herb growing kit at Costco with little seed pods that are guaranteed to grow. She ran out of room and brought five to me on Friday. I was sort of at a lost because we are all out of room in the square foot garden, but mentioned to Matt that I might go see if I could find some wood to add another section.

The abandoned wood pile deserves at least a paragraph of it own. We began really digging in the pile to finish the composite bin several weeks ago. This wood is actually from the deck that was on the house when I purchased it 22 years ago. About 13 years ago before meeting Matt, I had a friend to tear down the old deck and replace it with a larger one. Instead of recycling or even burning to old deck, he simply cut it into 6 foot sections and deposited in the woods behind the house. These boards are now what we are digging out and reusing.

I walked down to the edge of the woods and spotted a section of decking, I was even able to pull it out of the weeds all by myself. After bringing the wood to the front of the house, we knew exactly what section we wanted to add.

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This morning after a trip to Lowes, I planted the remaining 5 “rainbow peppers, three of the garden pods that my friend gave me. After counting out the remaining squares I decided to head in the freezer and plant another 45 stalks of corn.  So the only real cost to this project was $40 worth of dirt that we purchased.  I am very very pleased with the way this project turned out and am also very hopefully that we will reclaim that $40 in the month of August with a second harvesting of corn and peppers. Here are the pictures I took after finishing planting and watering today!

CVS shopping 5/26/2015

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Consistency is the key when shopping at CVS. I will be the first to say that in recent months, I have not made a trip to CVS in weeks. But this week was well worth the effort. I ended up with 3 separate transactions. I started the week off with 5 ECB from the Coke products I purchased last week. I ended with 5 ECB from the Nail polish.

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Total spent was $5.30 and total saved $41 or 89%. I like to think of it as free nail polish and bath wash with half price sun screen. I should also say that I purchased 3 photo prints to use for Kendall’s poster as well.

 

Saving on Saturday

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sosThis week saving is not exciting but still saving so I am sharing. First up hang clothes on the line instead of the dryer.

IMG_1795Currently on the line we have our sheets and comforter, a load of dark clothes and a load of light clothes. We love the smell of clean sheet that dry outside so I try to do these all year around. The clothes are a different story, I don’t mind hanging out outer clothes it is just a matter of timing. My goal is to get into a routine so that I can save at least 3 hours a week of dryer time during the summer. I refuse to hang out towels and underwear so those will continue to be thrown in the dryer. My only debate is the kids clothes, currently they place their clothes in their own laundry basket and after being washed they are taking out of the dryer and putting all away. It would take a lot more effort for me to hang out their loads in addition to trying to keep things separate  between Kendall and Lily.

Next up is home car repair. Our white van is continuing to give us problems. Today, Matt changed out the fuel filter which cost a total of $11 and his hour of work.

Finally is a fun activity for the kids that saves at least $10 a vehicle, home car washing!  The kids are having a ball and do a fairly good job!

Saving on Saturday 5/16/2015

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sosI am really excited to share this! If you know me you realize that I am not really a craft person. For example in 4th grade it took me 3 months to learn to cross stitch and that was not even to complete a project. I like the idea of being craft but honestly who has the time?

Well this time I did. I spent around 5 hours and $3.00 to create this awesome wreath for the front of my house.

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front laying on floor

front laying on floor

Back side I think it is neat too!

Back side I think it is neat too!

I purchased a bunch of tulle on sale for 10 cent a roll several weeks ago at Walmart. For the wreath, I ended up using about 3/4 of 3 different rolls.

Step one: Make the wreath pattern out of cardboard. I found a pot lid that was the size I wanted for beside the door and then drew and cut it out and then cut our the center.

Step Two: Cut the rolls of tulle into the approximate same size piece and decide a pattern.

Step Three: Tie each of the tulle piece on the wreath, I was careful to stick to the same pattern! I am so excited to show off this project!

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Random Budget Thoughts on Thursday!

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  • This month I am really paying attention to our budget. The goal is to get our spending under control and be able to pay down most of our debts except the mortgage over the summer in addition to saving to pay for our Disney Trip.  I keep reminding myself and Matt that every dollar is important at this stage and that each dollar we save puts us a step ahead. I am also trying to enjoy the small victories like using the clothes line!
  • I was able to hang out 3 loads of clothes today on the clothes line. While shopping at Walmart this morning for a toaster, I picked up 100 wooden clothes pins. Let me tell you these are the cheapest made clothes pins that I have even seen. I had to use 3 to hold up shorts and even some shirts. Matt was excited to smell the fresh laundry. I would love to say that I am going to start hanging our at least one load of clothes a week but in reality I don’t see it happening. So I am simply going to enjoy the fact that it happened today and not worry about when and if it happens again.
  • Our square foot garden is actually growing really well. We have only lost one pepper plant and one cucumber plant, otherwise everything is growing. I am excited each evening to check out what is growing. We have pumpkin and corn in addition to our green beans that are all growing from seeds. The other plants are also growing. We have been watering about every third day so I hope in another month to be harvesting!
  • Over the past several months we have been keeping the budget low by using up  our stockpile. We currently have 2 freezers in our building. In January, both of these were filled to the brim. Today, I could combine the contents of both into one and it would not  be full.  My goal for the summer is to completely restock the vegetable freezer. I am hopefully to accomplish a lot of this with our garden but otherwise I am going to budget $50 a month to buy in season fruits and veggies. In the month of May, strawberries are in season. Last weekend we picked a total of 3 gallons and froze at least 2 of these. I am hoping to get another 2 gallons this weekend. One to enjoy and one to freeze. The second freezer is for meat and the only meat left in it is chicken. I have already planned a  trip to the meat market/butcher the second week of June. This will take about half of our grocery budget for June but hopefully will last the rest of the summer.
  • The white van is continuing to cost us. I am becoming increasingly frustrated with it. I just don’t like the idea of continuing to put money into something month after month after month. Currently the discussion is what is our best options. I honestly don’t feel comfortable driving it on long trips and especially going to Disney. So depending on our budget and saving we have some tough decisions ahead of us. Currently the goal is to keep the van running until September and then re-evaluate the situation.

Random Thought Tuesday

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I have lots of these to share!

  • Happy Cinco De Mayo, we celebrated by having cheese Quesada and Mexican Rice for dinner. Matt and I ended the day with margarita wine! Yes we are partying hard.
  • The white van is having even more issues, currently I have a flashing light and it is running rough. I am frustrated. In fact I am so frustrated that we are discussing options for purchasing a new to us car and making payments. The goal right now is to wait several months in order to reduce our debt load and make sure we can afford a new huge monthly expense.
  • I purchased 48 bottles of water at CVS for a grand total of $0.10 yesterday. This was in fact all tax. I have not been shopping regularly at CVS for over a month now but was excited to actually grab a great deal and use ECB at the same time.
  • Our bean plants have spouted! I have had horrible luck with planting seeds this year that I was becoming concerned that the green beans would not grow either. In fact I was trying to find a store to purchase live plants from. But yesterday, they started popping out of the ground and today I am counting a close to 90% growth rate from the seeds.
  • Spring/Early Summer has finally arrived in North Carolina. The high temperature this week are crawling slowly into the 80s. We have not needed to turn on our air condition yet but I am sure it will not be long. The great news is that we have now been a month without use heat or air. Our electric bill should remain below $200 for the month of May as well!
  • Amanda has applied for and been accepted into the community college starting in the fall. I am so excited and proud of her.
  • On Sunday both Lily and Kendall participate in their final cheerleading competition for the year.  Lily’s team received a special honor of best tumbling for the entire day! My plan is to post lots of fun pictures for Wordless Wednesday. Pictures not only of the competition but also from the rides we enjoyed at the amusement park where it was held.

Celebrating Success with Ham!

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Today is April 30! I am celebrating the fact that we have maintained our grocery budget at $195 for the month. I will be honest this has been a challenge especially this last two weeks while the list of things we are out of continues to grow! But we did it! I should also include as part of this celebration that $50 of that budget went to purchase plants. These will eventually provide food for us but this month they were just an expense. Today is another busy day with dentist and doctor’s appointments so I was trying to figure out a dinner that would work with the items we still have on hand. We do have food but the problem is using the ingredients that we have together. I am proud to say that not only did I come up with a dinner plan but add a choice for lunch as well.

My parent served ham this past Sunday, we were given the left over ham on the ham bone to use.  I honestly learned how to live cheaply from my mother so of course she would not simply just throw out the left overs.  First I made ham salad, which is one of Matt’s favorite and decided to use the ham bone for soup. I decided to include both these recipes with a couple of changes I made.

Ham Salad:  diced ham(ended up around 3 cups), mayonnaise, red onion( about 1/2 cup), mustard( a generous spat)  and pepper.  Simple easy but very good.

The soup I used the basic recipe from here. But used frozen kidney beans, a can of corn, frozen baby carrots and sautéed the remaining red onion, and finally sprinkled heavily with Mrs Dash.  The soup actually smells really good and I will add a verdict later today!