Category Archives: Groceries

April in Review

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April was not as long as March. I think we are finally settling down into a manageable routine. Matt worked from home the first two weeks of April but has returned to working at his office full time. I am working full-time at home. I am planning to continue through the month of May. I may need to return to work during our school work days in June but I will wait to see what is decided between now and then. School building have officially been closed for the year in both North Carolina and Guam. Lily will not have to take final exams but otherwise she is still completing her charter school. I am getting some limited work in Guam, a lot of IEP for the next couple of weeks. I am hopefully to complete 10 hours of work for April and another 10 for May before the school year ends. We did receive our government stimulus money this month. It was used to pay for the floor in the kitchen and dinning room which I originally budget with Guam money. The rest was applied to debit but every little bit helps!

The garden has taken up a considerable amount of time this month. We are very hopeful that it will produce some inexpensive veggies most of the summer. I have planted the majority of item from seeds this year. Seeds were purchased at twenty-five cent or less a pack. I made a trip to a local nursey and purchased both pepper and tomato plants spending $11 total. So far we are harvesting “volunteer lettuce” each week. I still have some cherry tomatoes to transfer and I am planning to plant green beans every two weeks so that we can get a more continual and plentiful harvest. I still need to purchase and plant sweet potatoes but I am going to assume that will be the last of expenses this year. We have already built an additional strawberry box so I will have to end up buying dirt to fill it this fall.

Goal #1 Grocery Budget of $550- We have exceed it again this month but $190 worth of chicken breast makes this a no brainer. But on the bright side it is still less than we spent last month! Currently we have spent $922 which also includes a stock up on Diet cokes. I think we should also note that April is a 5 week month which threw me off as well. I am hearing lots of reports of increase pricing for groceries and a possible meat shortage as well. I am planning to stock up on beef and maybe pork next week. I expect the grocery budget for May may be high as well for that reason. The good news is that we should be able to dramatically cut our grocery spending during the summer because of stocking up now. I will continue to watch prices and re-stock items as needed. I actually have started a price list on my phone to begin checking items as I am out picking up other things during the next several weeks.

Goal #2 – Record and keep up with gas/ auto purchase- We spent $$450 this month in gas! This does include the windshield purchase. We decided to wait until May for the taxes and tags on the car.

Goal #3-Use a cash envelope system for everything possible. Success! No spend days are 9 this month. This is better than March but still not my goal of 15. I am not sure what the goal will be for May. Spending will increase as we travel to the pool and as restrictions are lifted. May 10 days of no spending….. or should I just count the days?

Goal #4- Blogging- 15 post per month. This is post number 18 for the month! Which is an increase of 1 for the month! Go Covid-19!

Goal # 5- Fitness- Goal is to walk 3 times a week. I have met this goal this month. The kids are really good at reminding us that we all need the fresh air and exercise. We actually walked 12 days this month! I should be able to continue this especially if the pool opens in May.

Goal #6 – Bible study- Goal- 3x a week – Getting better but still not achieved.

Goal #7-Attempt at least 52 new recipes this year.-  For the first time ever we are ahead of a goal. We have tried 22 new recipes so far this year. We need to try 30 more. I am actually thinking we can meet and exceed this goal. The one down side is that only a handful will be used again.

Earnings_ $75 in gift cards. I did complete one large payout on Swagbucks. Matt completed another survey outside of Swagbucks and should receive another $50 gift card in a few days for Amazon. I will be surprised if this amount increase in May as people are overwhelming the system.

Except for the grocery budget, we did extremely well in the month of April. We are blessed and continue to thank God for his provisions!

4/10/2020

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  1. This week at home has been more of a struggle for me. I am not sure if it was the fact, I was stressing about some work issues or just this is the fourth week of Covid-19 or my Humira shot. But most likely a combination of all of the above. The good news is that I survived and am hopeful the work stress is behind me as well.
  2. I decided to go out shopping on Wednesday this week in order to avoid the crowds over Easter weekend. Again good and bad news. The good news is that we did avoid the crowds and used pick up for both Lowes and Walmart. The bad news is that it was insane at Lowes. I can’t believe how many people were there. We have spent a total of $77.42 on groceries so far this month. I fully expect to keep this number low this month.
  3. Yesterday, Thursday, the windshield of the van was replaced. It developed a crack from a rock in January and finally reached the point it definitely needed to be replaced. I also will need to get the car inspected and tag renewed this month. I know this will exceed my gas budget even with only filling up once or twice. My plan will be to use some of the gas money from May to help cover the expense as well. I will be at home until at least May 15th so between the two months we should have all the repairs and tags covered.
  4. The weather this week has been beautiful and we have spent a good chunk of time outside preparing the garden. We are expected to have another frost this weekend so if all goes as plan we will be doing a lot of planting next weekend. This also works out with the recommendations by the Farmer’s Almanac.
  5. Speaking of next week it should be a real test of patience and parenting skills. All three kids are out of school for Spring Break. I am off on Monday but have to work the rest of the week. In addition, there is a strong possibility that Guam schools will resume which means I am going to be working both jobs from home. A test of patience is the best description I can give.

Monday Menu Planning

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My refrigerators are as empty as I can remember them being in a long long time. In fact, I could likely combine the two and just use one this week. The reason is that I have not stepped inside a grocery store in twelve days. This is definitely a record for me. We are nowhere near out of food. In fact except for maybe five items we could survive another 2 weeks just on what we have. I am planning to go to the grocery store on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. I know I need to pick up a green pepper for the steak fajitas on Thursday so I will probably grab a couple of needs at that time. I would be awesome if I could limit the trips to the store to less than 3 for the month but we shall see. This week I will be working from home the entire week but not sure if that includes Thursday and Friday as far as working goes. Matt will go to the office on Tuesday. After some thought and discussion, we plan to cook most meals this week and save our ordering in meals for the weekend. It may be simpler at some point just to eat at home but we have not arrived at that point quite yet.

Breakfast– Saturday bacon, eggs and toast. Sunday- pancakes and sausage balls. I did manage to freeze a batch of pancakes for later use as well.  Monday, Tuesday,  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday-choice of breakfast muffins, eggs, sausage, pancakes,  cereal or grits. – I definitely plan to do a baked oatmeal one day this week. I am thinking most likely Thursday. But we shall see.

Lunch-  Saturday- Classic pasta salad with ham, tomato and pepperoni added, Sunday- Left-over from Fridge. Last week the kids had hamburger, 2 uncrustable, chicken sandwich and egg roll. Each day they also get at least one vegetable so that adds in. I ended up purchasing lunch for us on Thursday. I have been eating a combination of left-overs and sandwiches for lunch. I am going to assume the trend will continue this week without the meal out.

Dinner-  Saturday- Chinese from our favorite local restaurant with enough for another full meal on Sunday. , Sunday- Left-overs Monday- Chicken Nuggets and carrots (This is my busiest day at work this week so I wanted to keep it simple) Tuesday-Big Breakfast Wednesday- Creamy Chicken spaghetti in the crockpot , Thursday-Steak fajitas Friday-Chicken Bacon Lo mein and egg rolls ( a new recipe).

Tuesday Thoughts

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Technically I am enjoying the final two days of my spring break. I am very thankful to say that I have been able to catch up on the majority of things that I have fallen behind on during the month of February due to illness. We have to finish installing a couple of pieces of trim work and the kitchen/dinning room will be completed. This was a major goal prior to the summer. I am planning to get outside this morning and get some planting accomplished including starting several things outside and I also plan to start some seed trays inside as well. Tomorrow, Wednesday is actually a pay day for Matt. I am going to plan to spend the morning, working on our budget and paying bills. I also need to get a trip to Costco to purchase several things accomplished. I am hoping that Wednesday afternoon is much less crowded than a Saturday but I can not be sure.

The governor announced yesterday that schools in North Carolina will remain closed until May 15th. I am not sure what this will look like for us. Because I work in a different school district than the kids attend, things are getting a little hairy. I will admit that I have been a little snotty about things and really did not want to return to work. But in reality, I am very fortunate to be able to continue to work. The kids are currently able to all three complete school work via the internet. They will all three have a week of Spring Break during April which will cause a bit of complication. I will have Friday and Monday of that week off as well. We are just going to have to set the expectation that they complete their school work and remain civil to each other while Matt and I work. A huge plus is that currently our school district is providing a lunch meal delivery service. The kids will be able to have a lunch provided daily without the need to cook for the entire time they are out of school. I may be able to work from home on certain days but this is so new and different that no one is sure.

On the financial front, with both Matt and I continuing to work we will not see much impact. I will loose at least a month of my income from Guam as school are closed there as well. I am hopeful that once schools reopen there I will be able to schedule and make up for missed time. I have started looking at refinancing our mortgage to get a better interest rate. Otherwise, the only huge expense for us during the next several months is purchasing meat. I am going to start placing money in saving but wait until prices return to a more normal level before attempting to make a huge purchase.

I have been able to enjoy Braxton for serval days during this break. By allowing him to stay with us, his mother is saving the cost of daycare. I am hopeful to be a lot more helpful this summer in this area.

Saving on Saturday

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Time for a confession, we have already spent out entire grocery budget for the month of February, well actually we spent it all by last Sunday aka “Junk Food Sunday.” I actually do know where all of it went and I am ok with it. But I definitely need to make sure that we use up all the food we have so that I am not wasting and going out to buy more. This week I have really been focused on not have any food waste. Monday, everyone took left-overs for lunch. Kendall ended up taking 3 separate days of left-over from the veggie tray to dip. On Tuesday, I made sliders to use the Hawaiian Rolls and cheese from the cheese tray. Wednesday was a pick your own left-over. Thursday, I took the rest of the broccoli and cauliflower covered with cheese slices and baked. I also used the rest of the baby carrot to cook as a side dish.

For lunch on Saturday (today) I cut up the rest of the chicken from Costco last week and made chicken and cheese quesadillas with Taco Fries. I used up the rest of the Taco dip by placing on top of French fries! This was an awesome treat at lunch! Everyone liked the fries! I am also going to count our Taco fries as a new recipe this week! We still have about 2 cups of chicken that is cut up.

I found this morning a new recipe to try in the crockpot. It calls for 3 cooked chicken breast. Instead of cooking chicken breast, I am going to use the rest of the chicken from Costco and also throw in a couple of sticks of teriyaki chicken that is left-overs from Chinese on Friday! I made 16 cups of chicken broth from the bones and skin of the chicken so I am positive that we have gotten our monies worth from that chicken.

Another way I am saving this week is by using gift card earned via Swagbucks. We hit Walmart last night and purchased some needed personal hygiene items, filters for our heating and air system and even water flavor packets using a gift card!

I am also keeping an eye on the cost of flights for our August trip to Disney. It would appear that I may be able to get round trip flights for less than $200 each!

January In Review

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I don’t ever remember the month of January feeling so long….I honestly think someone stuck an extra six weeks in it. The good news is that it is over and we actually stay the course fairly well for the month. We were able to stick to our budget and made some really fun plans for this year. I plan to share those soon as well. As you can tell I have lots of plans!

Goal #1 Grocery Budget of $550- This was a close one at $552.98 for the month. I am going to call this one a success. I want to try and keep things on a even level more this year instead of huge month and really low months. We are headed to Costco for our monthly trip today and we also need to grab a couple more things for our Super Bowl party.

Goal #2 – Record and keep up with gas/ auto purchase- We spent $455 on auto related things including gas, oil change and wiper blades.

Goal #3-Use a cash envelope system for everything possible. Success!

Goal #4- Blogging- 15 post per month. 13 for the month. I do have another recipe to report on but just did not get it posted. This post should have also been in January so I am very close to success.

Goal # 5- Fitness- Goal is to walk 3 times a week. I managed to walk once a week except for the week I was sick. It is a start.

Goal #6 – Bible study- Goal- 3x a week – A fail

Goal #7-Attempt at least 52 new recipes this year.- This has been successful with keeping up with it so far. But the result are not so successful.
Tator Tot Casserole and Taco Tator Tots and Chicken Burrito Soup
I did try another breakfast casserole and will get a post up about it soon.

Menu Planning Monday

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Things are starting to get a little bit hectic around here, cheerleading started last week, Zach has both sign language club and student council meeting, Lily will start rehearsal for her spring play next week. We also are trying to fit in some doctor appointments. Matt is no longer working a second job but I have working at least Sunday and Wednesday night.

Breakfast- Pimento Cheese and Bacon biscuits. Sunday,-Lucky Charms cereal. Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday– Choice of breakfast burrito, omelet, pop tarts, cereal, bagels or toast.  I may make a baked oatmeal for one morning just not sure yet. (Did not happen last week so it may this week.)

Lunch–Saturday- out to eat at The Classic in Denton, , Sunday-Panda Panda Chinese. Friday both Matt and I will eat out, Kids have a mix of salads, soups and sandwiches. Matt and I both has two days of salads, He will have homemade chill the other days and I have a snack tray planned and a left-over soup.

Dinner – Saturday- Salads and crackers.  Sunday–Left-overs Monday-Tator Tot Taco(new recipe) Tuesday– Find your own Wednesday–Chicken Diva Thursday– Pork Chops, scallop potatoes and green beans, Friday- probably a meal out as the girls are going skiing with the youth group.

Five Things Friday

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  1. We have enjoyed two entirely free meal out this week. On Thursday, we used the gift card that was earned and planned for Halloween combined with IHOP customer appreciation to feed our entire family for the cost of the tip! Friday night is always a hetic night with piano. Matt used another gift card earned via Swagbucks to pick up three large pizzas! We have already enjoyed one pizza and left-overs will be for lunch on Saturday and Sunday!
  2. Kendall is growing. I realized this week that she had only 2 pair of pants that were actually long enough for her. We decided to go to Old Navy to try and find her some pants. We actually found what they call “Ballerina” style pants that fit both length and her waist. We grabbed 4 pair along with 2 pair of boots for her. Lily ended up with a sweater, Zach and Braxton have matching Christmas shirts, I got a dress and Braxton has several new church outfits to wear. Total spent $225!
  3. I knew that I was going to be way over budget this month for Groceries. In fact I am at $882 for the month with a goal of staying under $950. I was a bit concerned until I read this :
    “According to the USDA monthly report for October 2019, the average couple spends $617 per month on groceries alone.
    A family of four with young kids on the Moderate-Cost plan spends $894.40 a month on groceries. Families with older kids spend $1067.50. ”
    Matt and I both are working and make it work with an additional 20 or more hours of paid work each week. Our budget is really enjoying the boast and I am very comfortable with setting and achieving budget related goals for the next year. I am planning to share our new updated budget toward the end of December after a second month (December) to tweak it. I also am anticipating that I will have to only purchase one Christmas present in the month of December along with a birthday present for my mother!
  4. The car that we are driving has significantly reduced our gas spending. Currently, we have spend $268.23 in gas. Because we will be at home more next week, I would guess that we will stay under $300 in gas this month. I can not honestly tell you the last time this happened!
  5. I am anticipating a three day work week next week. Sunday night in Guam. Monday and Tuesday at Davie County. Followed by a four day total vacation! I am excited not only for the break but to finish out our budget for November really strong.

Tuesday Thoughts/Catch Up

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We survived the busiest six weeks that I can remember. During the month of October, all three kids were involved in one additional activity besides piano and church. This weekend, Lily had three performances of her play. I can honestly say that I was super excited and luck to have yesterday off from work just to catch up.

Income update- The really good news on this front is not only is Matt working a job that actually pays well but we both have part time jobs. This is a source of stress. We had a couple of different discussions regarding how we could or if we should even attempt this. We are at a point where the kids are pretty self sufficient so that allows us to have the ability to add not one but two part time jobs. I am working in Guam via teletherapy as an Occupational Therapist. This was a job that I initially applied for in February 2017. I have decided to limit by availability to Sunday night for a full 8 hours and Wednesday night to around 3 hours. Because of the 15 hour time difference this schedule works well. I will admit that the first week was a challenge but I also feel that once I get in the swing of things, I should be able to maintain a low level of stress. This job will continue until the end of May. At that time, we will again evaluate and decide if I want to attempt this for a second school year. Matt is working 10 hours a week as the marketing manger for the Humane Society of Davie County. We are currently unsure how long this job will last but God has a plan and a purpose so we need to simply obey. My plan is to use the extra money in November and December to get us on track. I will share an updated budget in December.

I took a day from work last Friday to catch up on grocery shopping. I was able to go to Costco, Aldi and Food Lion and restock our pantry. So far for the month of November, I have spent $750 on groceries. I would bet this number will end up closer to $800 but I am definitely ok with that. I will run numbers at the end of the year but I have a feeling that I need to increase our grocery budget instead of decrease this year.

We are currently driving a car that gets better gas mileage than either of the vans. This is a family decision that I don’t feel free to discuss but it should reduce our gas spending at least as long as we continue to drive it.

To close out our busy season, we had a family movie night on Monday. We watched Toy Story 4. It was much better than I anticipated, in fact it is my second favorite Disney movie now!

Saving on Saturday

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Our single largest expense besides our mortgage is groceries. Typically, the majority of our groceries are food. In order to reduce our overall spending, I always must focus on reducing the amount of money we spend on food. The only real problem with this is that as the kids grow, they eat more food!

One of the ways that I have found to reduce our grocery budget is to make sure we don’t waste any food. I typically do not make a menu plan for the weekend. First this makes my life a little less stressful and second it also allows us to focus on using up left-overs. Today, I feel like I have been really successful at this task. Typically on Saturday mornings, I try to make a bigger breakfast but not this morning. Zach finished a pancake and piece of sausage left-over from Cracker Barrel and I finished the baked oatmeal from last week. Lunch today was pizza left-overs for the kids, I ate the turkey, dressing and green beans plate left-over again from Cracker Barrel, Matt ate some left-over pulled pork. For dinner it was twice baked potatoes! We had crockpot baked potatoes one day last week and I filled the pot up so we had plenty of left-overs. I even froze 8 additional potatoes that can be used in the future either for a lunch or dinner. We are currently out of cheddar cheese so instead of running out to the store, I shredded a block of Colby jack and used in the potatoes instead. The final way, I saved money on food today is a little bit unusual. I signed up to bring a desert tomorrow for our church dinner. I planned to make a peanut butter pound cake. When I pulled out the recipe, I needed two additional sticks of butter. Instead of rushing to the store, I searched the internet and found a slightly different recipe that used more peanut butter and less butter. Another huge win in the food department!

I have not been couponing as much as I would like and really have not been able to find many deals at CVS lately. However, Lily had a personal hygiene need. I had 3 ECB from several weeks ago, I scanned my CVS card and received an additional 3 ECB. I was able to purchase 2 bags of product which should last about 2 months for a total out of pocket of twenty-one cent! Another huge win!