Category Archives: Groceries

#ThreeRivers Pantry Challenge

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I actually started watching YouTube regularly last February with “Three Rivers Pantry Challenge” begin one of the ways that I was able to find several of the channels that I now follow regularly!

Groceries remain one of our biggest expenses overall. In fact, this month in December I have spent $1085 in groceries. This did include feeding extra people around the holiday but man alive that is a lot. Our average grocery spending for 2022 was $975 a month. This is at least $100 more per month than other year.  After a bit of research, I have attempted pantry challenges several times in the past with limited to no success.  This is the year that I hope to change that. There are a couple of other things that should improve my overall success as well.
First is my electric pressure canner.  I am absolutely loving this appliance.  I have been able to do a couple of batches at a time and the goal is to use all the jars I have purchased. I am going to add and hopefully complete this goal this weekend after canning pinto beans and taco meat.  Yesterday I was able to can up some ham soup that will make for an easy lunch for me if needed.
Another reason is that we have about half the cow we purchased in the freezer still and the garden this year was very plentiful.  One of the goals I have made for myself is to fill the freezer this summer with “prepared meals” including casseroles and slow cooker options that for next school year, all I need to do is simply decided what we are eating for the week and pull it out.  In order to make this happen, I need an almost empty freezer to start with Currently all three of our dedicated freezers are about 3/4 of the way full.

Now to the specifics! I am giving myself only one rule to follow during the pantry challenge and that is that I can only buy things we are completely out of.  For example, we were completely out of cream yesterday so $22 later we should have cream for at least part of the month of January.   In my head, my plan is to stick to the pantry challenge for both the months of January and February.   We receive our “Costco check” in March which would make restocking fairly easy.

I have even made a new category, for this challenge!  I am very hopeful that is the “reset” we need around here in regards to food management.  I am also wondering if this becomes a yearly challenge in order for us to use the items we have! Today, I am getting a jump start on the challenge by assembling breakfast burritos which have become one of my favorite go to meals!

Financial Planning- Year in Review

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Today, I have spent about 3/4 of my time in my office, reviewing, reworking, rethinking and double checking all things in my financial plan.  Overall, this has been a good year for us financially and I want to make sure that we stay on a good course to keep things in a positive direction.

One thing that has significantly changed this year is our income. Matt started the year off on unemployment, actively seeking a position. This continued until mid-April with a period of six weeks where he had no income.   I worked between 10- 15 hours a week in Guam via Tiny Eye until the end of May. I was very surprised to learn that my contract was not renewed in June.  Although this has negative impacted our finances, I do not plan to seek a second job at this point. I have some things on the radar, but this would currently consist of less than 2 hours weekly. One of the things that I wanted to make sure of was that we would be able to continue our current lifestyle without building up debit if things stayed absolutely the same for an entire year.  Currently, we should be able to maintain both our current income and living status based on the numbers I have gotten today.

I was able to finalize a budget for 2023.  I did make some major changes in not only the way I am budgeting but also in the priorities that we have.  Although the way I am wording and paying our expenses in 2023 is different, we are still using a zero budget. Meaning that both Matt and my income is budgeted at 100% with no extra money.  We find ways to save more and make money in a variety of different ways. Part of my time was spent reviewing previous years and where we stand financially compared to even 2011.  We currently have 24 thousand dollars in debt besides our Tahoe and house.   This is in comparison to $16 thousand in December of 2015.   One important difference that should be noted with the current value of our house, we could in theory sell the house and be able to cover not only the remaining mortgage but also our current debt including the Tahoe.  Another comparison that I found is that our minimum credit card payment in 2017 was $989.69 compared to $822 today.  I am going to continue to work toward zero debit other than the mortgage, but I also want to celebrate the success that we are achieving while actively living and engaging in our lives.

Speaking of success, we have achieved a “baby” emergency fund of $1000.  The majority of this is in cash so that is a HUGE success.  The next steps that I am going to focus on under the Dave Ramsey plan is snowballing all debit.  I am seriously considering making zero credit card debit a goal for 2023!  I am not sure this is achievable with Lily starting college, but I do want to have less than $100 thousand in debit including our mortgage and Tahoe by 2024.  Currently we have around $170 thousand in total debit.

We averaged $972 a month in grocery spending this year. In comparison to the USDA “thrifty” plan which would equal $1400 a month. This is significant increase in spending when compared to $530 in 2021, $631 in 2020 and even $821 in 2011.  My mother continues to provide support in this area as she eats at least 3 days a week with us.  My goal is to increase grocery spending to $975 a month in 2023.

We have spent an average of $620 a month on gas this year. This does include 2 trips to Florida, two trips to Mrytle Beach and a trip to Asheville. My plan is to budget $600 a month for gas with anything extra being used to pay down debt or for the extra expenses like oil change that always seem to pop up.

One final thing that I am going to include but it is an after note and one that I just wanted to document somewhere is that we lost around $2500 this year.  This was not an intentional lost or one we could have predicted but it did happen and affected our bottom line!

5 Things Friday

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  1. This has been one of the busiest weeks I can remember! Monday- Kendall Swim meet, Tuesday- Lilly’s birthday, Wednesday-Kids had church, Thursday- recovery day and Friday- Night out for dinner and shopping.
  2. Next week is just as busy except that I have meeting most evenings!  Tuesday is Matt’s work Christmas party, Wednesday- Church, and Friday- Swim Meet. I also have meetings several evenings and Kendall has swim practice every day.
  3. I have already blown the grocery budget for the month. I have already spent $319 on groceries.  Yikes.  Hopefully I can keep under $400
  4. I am finished with Christmas shopping.  We went to Old Navy last night and purchased some clothing for a child at one of my schools.  Now I have a BUNCH of wrapping to do which is my least favorite thing!
  5. We leave for Disney in 9 days!

5 Things Friday

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  1.  Christmas is my favorite time of the year!   We actually have finished with all the decorating!   Lily and I will be headed to Disney in 17 days for a girls only graduation trip!  This is truely a  once in a lifetime experience!
  2. The weather is still really bizarre!  We have several days in the 60s followed by days in the 40s and it feels like it is raining every other day!  We have had so much rain that we are currently trying to figure out ways to dry up the water because we have standing water at the back of the coop.
  3. This weekend is very unique and special…. no plans for the entire weekend other than church. My goal is to get caught up on some cleaning and have an awesome pajama day.
  4. We have scheduled family pictures for December 26th and only one person is still in need of a shirt to wear.
  5. Groceries are the biggest area that I am noticing a difference in cost.  We have been over our grocery budget for 4 out of the last 5 months. And not just a little over WAY over!   I am going to try and reduce our spending on groceries for at least the next 3 months. I will adjust the budget to this year’s average in January but I also would like to reduce the amount we are spending along with adding freezer space that I can feel this summer.  My current goal is to spend $100 in the month of December.

Saving on Saturday

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This is the Saturday after Thanksgiving so today is definitely different than most Saturdays! But here are a couple of ways we are saving today.

  1.  I have pressure canned 15 quarts and 2 pints of turkey stock.
  2. We are eating left-overs in various ways and forms.  Leftover sandwiches have been the biggest hit, but I made turkey sliders for dinner today which were also good.  My goal is to base the menu plan next week on what is still in the fridge instead of shopping in the freezer so stay tune for Monday!
  3. We are using the decorations that we already have. I did spend $37 on new sheets for my bed. And I placed an Amazon order for tent stakes and ways to connect the lights to Alexa.  Total holiday decoration spending $70! I did decide to use the same tree as last year and we dug out more lights that have been sitting in the box for years instead of purchasing more!
  4. My goal is to limit spending for Christmas this year as we prefer to spend time together and have lots of experiences.  I “need” to order one more gift, purchase gift cards for my nieces and purchase the experience for Amanda which is likely around $250 in order to complete Christmas shopping!
  5. My plan is to limit Grocery spending in the month of December to items we need for celebrating. Then for January, February and March only purchase items we are completely out of and eat on a regular basis. I am thinking diary and fruit will be the main items.

October In Review

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Busy busy, stress and more busy are the words that I would use for the month of October. I am slowly catching up at work so hopefully by the end of November that stress will be back at a minimum.  November is the first month in a long time that has no traveling planned in it and I want to get my budget and spending under control.

Groceries– budget amount is $700  Not Met! $1175 is an accurate number that includes a drink stock up. I am also going to say that this is the first month that I have seen a significant increase in prices.  We are continuing to eat from our pantry and freezers, and I am very hopeful that will reduce the amount that is needed to be spent at the grocery store

Auto/ Gas. My goal is $400 a month. NOT met! $709.74 was spent . Yikes if this continues I am going to have to rethink this budget

Cash Envelope system- We have done much better this month and I am beginning to see where money is going.

Blogging- 15 post per month. This is post number 11 so not horribly bad for the month. I was able to hold steady with a slight increase maybe in this month.

Exercise days-   yea no

No Spend Days-No idea!

I am starting November with some better ideas as what we need to do and how we are planning to spend the next two months.

Saving on Saturday

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A constant theme for my blog has always been the rising cost of food!  I have managed to keep our average monthly spending on groceries to around $500 to $700 for many years even with two babies in diapers.  But wow this year, things are going crazy.   We purchased a whole cow, and the garden has set a record but that has not been enough to control the spending.  All five of us eat breakfast, lunch and dinner from our supplies most days. Lily is home and can use water or something here but everyone else takes drinks to work and school.  We made a trip to Costco at the first of October to purchase mainly drinks. I grabbed a package of bath tissue because well because. I spent a total of $448 for this trip. I am in total shock! So again, I am trying to focus on reducing/ maintaining the cost of food!

We have actually been working on emptying our freezers since September and I can finally see a difference. We can now arrange the vegetable freezer so that things are not falling out and we have most of the meat in the chest freezer. As I was grabbing beef broth, I realized we were almost out.  I did not have room for the bones when I ordered the cow and we don’t have any steaks with bones. I did find multiple packs of short ribs.  The plan is to make the short ribs today and then use the bones for broth to can tomorrow.    I can’t remember if I post that we ended up cleaning out the hall clothes of towels and sheets and made it a food storage cabinet mainly for canning!

We had at least two nights this week with the temperature below freezing, so last Saturday, I pulled all the green tomatoes inside and feed the vines to the chickens.  I ended up dicing up several that had ripened to use in our stuff green pepper soup planned for Sunday. And stewed the remained that were ripe for Taco pasta on Tuesday!  Using it before it goes to waste or chicken feed in this case.

We have a set of lights that is currently not working in the kitchen/ dining room. Matt has been spending time trying to locate the problem.  It is a time-consuming task but at $100 an hour for an electrician, it is definitely a money saving endeavor.

Tuesday Thoughts

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  • As you have probably realized, we were out of town this weekend. Lily, Matt and I went on a campus tour of UNC-W on Friday. We drove down on Thursday and stayed until Sunday.
  • I spent an hour on the beach, we all enjoyed the lazy river, kids played in the pool. Putt Putt was enjoyed as well as a campfire and a couple of card games.
  • We also went to the outlets and enjoyed several hours of shopping
  • We have cleaned and winterized the camper. This includes using it as storage for coolers and plastic totes.
  • I started a batch of pear sauce and have plans to use the new electric canner this week.
  • We are staying very busy. I am still overwhelmed at work. Hopefully this will improve in October.
  • My health is improving, and I am hopeful to avoid a second surgery this year.
  • We have finally turned off the air conditioning which is very late for us. I would love to go any entire month with needing heat or air but the chances are very slim at this point.
  • After returning we have opened the rest of the chicken coop. The chickens are enjoying the extra space and practice flying from one end of the other. We have a automatic door to install but that is down the list.
  • My goal for the remaining three month include reducing the grocery budget and working our way through the freezer and pantry. I would love to do a no shopping challenge but not sure I am ready for that additional stress.
  • The garden is changing as well. We have added the rotating bottoms to the green stocks, we need to dig out sweet potatoes and plant that with carrots. The green beans are finishing and I need to purchase worms to add for the end of summer as well.

Sunday Catch-Up

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Another busy weekend has come and gone so I wanted to share what we were able to get accomplished this weekend!   I am still overwhelmed so I am hoping that by being positive I can tackle the rest of the list tommorow!

This is the first Sunday that I have not had to work because the Guam school year has ended.  I really LOVE working with the students, but I do need a break.  This afternoon Mom and I headed to the grocery store, we both had list!  I was so excited to come home and say that I have finally caught up with the list until Zach announced, “We are out of mustard.”  Yeap the story of my life. In other food related news, we schedule to receive our cow this weekend. We are going to purchase a whole cow. It should be ready for pick up the first week of August.  I am going to plan and not purchase any cow related meat for the next two months in order to finish cleaning out the freezer and make room and also to make sure we don’t have something get buried at the back and wasted.   I have stocked up on 2-Liter drinks with a total of 60 purchased this week. If I chose to go to the store again tomorrow to pick up mustard, I will plan to grab another 10. n I did manage to make pickled radish this weekend to use in salads in the next month.  Food Things I have left to get done-  Menu plan, make French toast for breakfast (bread is cut and drying out tonight), make banana muffins to use the remaining bananas from last week, cut up watermelon and cantaloupe so that it will get eaten this week and freeze more Kale from garden.  I should also prepare myself lunch for several days this week as we are not having alot of left-overs currently.

On Saturday, Matt, Zach and I managed to replace the roof of the greenhouse. This should be a permanent fix.  I purchased and planted 7 additional pepper plants from the farmers market and transplanted 4 tomatoes from a bed that was really reallly crowded.  This should finish my planting until July when I will find space hopefully for pumpkin seeds that I already have.   Now the next several weeks should involve watering and weeding while we wait for the harvest to begin.   Garden things left to accomplish-  Get pictures of the veggies growing and post as well as compare to the last couple of years!

I have not touched the budgeting stuff so that is an good chunk of time but hopefully I can get to it this week

Tuesday Thoughts

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  1. I was unable to find strawberry plants on Saturday in town but did find that Stark Brothers has an awesome sale currently. I am likely going to go ahead and order 25 and plant most in the vertical planter and the remaining ones can be planted in containers. As Matt said then if they all live you can transplant next year!
  2. SInce I am ordering the strawberry plants,, I am also debating trying to grow raspberries in the very shady part of my yard. I seriously have a hard time finding information about growing raspberries but I do know that my kids absolutely love them!
  1. Matt and the kids are planning on joining Haley and David for a day on the lake on Saturday. I am excited because this will leave me with lots of time to work on budgeting and bills as well as heading to the grocery store with Mom without pressure to hurry.
  2. We are attempting to leave our air conditioner off as long as possible! I was disappointed that after returning from Disney we had to run the heat for 3 days. So now the goal is to see how long we can go without using the air. With everyone out during the day and baseball games at least 2 nights a week. We should be able to last until May 15th. This would be an excellent way to save on our electric bill as that is the end of the billing cycle!.
  3. I did not share but on Thursday we made an impromptu trip to Costco which blew our grocery budget out of the water! Ugghhhh