Category Archives: Budgeting

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!

Cooking Day-Non Chicken 1/23/2014

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Matt pointed out the other day that although we have lots of food to choice from we were running extremely low on quick and easy to prepare meals. So with a few minutes of discussion, we decided that today would be a “cooking day”  I am quite pleased with the results.

First, early this morning, I placed the turkey that was purchased prior to Thanksgiving in the crockpot. I must say this is the best way to cook a turkey. I cooked it on high for 4 hours till the internal temperature was 160 then switched to low for another 3 until the temperature was 170*. I cook it breast down, rubbed with olive oil, and coated with Paula Deen seasoning. I did place one onion inside the cavity and added 1 cup of apple juice. We enjoyed turkey for dinner, I have plans to use the rest for at least 2 additional meals this weekend plus at least one or two meals of plain turkey.  In addition to the meat, I have already frozen 16 cups of broth with plans to finish with at least another 20 cups today from the bones and skin.  Total cost for the meat for 5 meals is $12.

Next, we purchased for the cost of processing some venison in November. We have not been able/ forgot to count the total amount of ground venison we received but we are thinking it was around 60#.  Today we used 8# to make and freeze 2 cheeseburger quiches  and 11 packs of Salisbury Steaks. Matt and I both worked in the kitchen for a total of 3 hours or less for these meals. The Salisbury Steaks will need to have a starch and vegetable add to complete.  Total cost for 13 meals of meat is $6.

This was one of the easiest cooking days that I have done in a long time. In less than 4 hours and for less than $25 total, we have 18 meals for 5 people. That works out to  $1.38 a meal. This should go a long way to helping reduce our grocery spending for the first part of the year!

How I Wasted Money This Week

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One of the things that happens to me when I am really working to save money or trying to keep my budget on track is that I begin to notice little things that cost more money than they should in my mind.  This week has been one of those weeks, we are so close to being on track and even ahead  that I am constant thinking of ways to stretch us that last little bit.  I often share about how I save money but in order to get an accurate picture I am going to share on how I have “wasted” money this week. I will start by giving you my definition of “waste”.  Waste equals buying something that was not needed or on the best deal possible! I will be the first also to say that not all of the items on this list were a waste but maybe better viewed as overspending. I will also say up front most of these things I would not or can not change, so enjoy

  1. Purchased 2 new bras at JCPenny. I had received $30 in rewards for the month of January.  My intention was to use this money to buy a bra. I have purchased 10 bras in the past 6 months but am not really happy with any of them. The major problem is that the underwire comes out the side. I did purchase 2 without underwire but these did not provide as much coverage as I like.  Instead of 1 bra I ended up purchasing 2 bras and a set of pajamas. I spent $28 and saved $92.
  2. Throwing out over a years supply of Vitamins. In cleaning, out the pantry on Saturday, I rediscovered several packages of Juice Plus vitamins. I had purchased these several years ago and each year start by taking these regular for less than 3 weeks. This year, I knew that I was not going to complete the cycle again. What I did not realize was that  all the vitamins that I had expired sometime between 2010 or sooner. Into the trash, they all went.
  3. I often keep extra food items in my bathroom closet, simply because it has some additional storage space. I have been seeing on a shelf and forgetting about a couple of cases of Protein shakes that I purchased last year at Costco. My plan was to starting taking these for lunch; however one case expired in August of 2013 and the second in November 2013. I actually attempted a shake from the November case but they just are not drinkable. I know that I spent around $50 on these cases.
  4. Between Thursday and Sunday, we have eaten out 3 times. We have lots of food in the house but chose to eat out anyway.
  5. Girl Scout cookies. 5 boxes to be exact. Definitely not a need but very good!
  6. $719 for 2 pair of glasses for myself. I need new glasses and I have to go to Bifocals. But I chose a really expensive frame and also purchased a pair of sunglass to use this summer. This was definitely an overspend.

So am I the only one wasting money this week?

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?

 

January No-low Spend Challenge Update

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  • Get $100 in our Emergency Fund.
  • 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. I am currently sitting at $217 spending on Groceries for the month. I did already use $100 for our first competition last week.  Goal half met!
  • Transfer $50 to auto fund by the end of the month. This has been transferred! Goal Met!

I am actually pleased with my progress so far this month. After our trip to Michigan I was shooting for 50% achievement but I think the way things are looking, I may be able to met 3/5 of these goals. Progress is nice.

The additional challenge this week was to sell something! Zach has just gone through a huge growth spurt and I was able to sell some of his clothes for $30. I have another lady also wanting to look at the rest.

Extra money has been coming in this month due to me picking up some extra time at work. The hours have been very long but I hope to get this year off to a good start!

Budget and Traveling

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Two weeks ago, I had just signed up to be part of Carla’s challenge of Low/ No Spend January. You can see the goals I set here.  However just a few short days later we decided to make a trip to Michigan to visit family.  After looking at the goals again, I am going to see if I can at least manage to achieve a couple prior to the end of the month. Since I definitely don’t have an update today, I am going to talk a little about our travel budget instead.

Because this is a trip that we had not initially budgeted for, we felt very strongly that we needed to set and stick to a budget. January is one of the two months this year that I will receive an extra check, so this was part of the basis for the budget.  I am excited to say that even after paying for the new tail lights on the van that were needed because of our wreck that we are $50 under budget!!!! I have decided that this will be placed in our auto fund to meet one of the low spend goals of the month!

Here is a breakdown of our spending:
Gas and tolls    $350
Hotel                 $285
Food                $185  (We were treated to several meals by family, but also took with us several meals to reheat. We also packed lots of drinks and snacks)
Bronner’s       $115
Replacement parts $106

Total Spent $1050 for a 4 day trip!  I am so proud that we stuck to our budget!

 

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!