Category Archives: Saving Money

5 things Friday

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1. The white van left me completely stranded yesterday. Luckily after some investigating, Matt was able to replace the battery with one we already had so no out of pocket expense.

2. Our house appraisal came in much higher than we anticipated, which sounds like a good thing but it means more choice and decisions to be made. I am going with the lesson my mother taught me “never count your chickens till they hatch.” so waiting to actually share numbers and our new budget after everything is settled.

3. Lily and Kendall have 1 more week of school left. Both are excited for the summer! Lily finished required testing this week and scored 5 out of 5, the highest possible on both Reading and Math.

4.My work is crazy. For the first time EVER, I actually worked 40 hours this week. I was really nervous about going over 40, which is not allowed. I managed to stay inside the 40 by 3 minutes.

5. The weather is much cooler than normal and it has rained every day this week. My garden is loving it! We even have corn spouting from the seeds I planted last Saturday.

 

Saving on Saturday-5/30/2015

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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- Car Wash

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I came up with a new idea to help me be a little bit more creative and save money each week. I am calling it Saving on Saturday. The goal will be for me to post one way we save money during the previous week. I would love some idea so feel free to join me!

This week we ended up saving money and have some fun at the same time. It feels like we have been living in a car for the past several weeks and both vans are starting to look like we do as well. So washing our own cars is the first way we are saving money. A low end cleaning run around $25 and even the automatic wash is $12 so I am going to estimate by doing all the work at home  we  save at least $24 and the memories will be priceless!

April In Review

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Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month Goal Met! Even with posting this month in review 2 days late! Go Me!

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.  Fail again! May is the month that I am getting back on track with this! I have been fairly consist with exercising but the diet part is lacking,.

Spiritual-  Goal. I want to spend time reading and or studying the Bible at least 5 days a week for the year. Another Fail!  I have been reading at least 3 days a week need to up my game for sure.

Personal Goals: Achieved 1 of 3

Financial Goals:  Achieved 2 of 4 (50%)

1.  Pay off all debit by December  2015, except for mortgage.  
a. Home Depot-     $170 a month Payment.  Will be paid off in  September.  Smaller than usual payment to offset expenses and also I ended up purchasing some new dirt for the garden. We are still on track with no interest paid on this card so May and June will be catch up  months.
c. American Express   – pay $900 this month. Again smaller than anticipated pay so I have to buckle down.
d. Personal Loan (used to purchase van) .The current scheduled payment is $217 a month with this scheduled to be paid off in December 2015. Goal Met!

2. Emergency Fund to $2000.  Used this to cover the unexpected car repair. So we are starting at zero again. Fail

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month . Huge success this month. We spent $195 on groceries including $50 worth of plants for the garden. The real test will be in May if we can stay around $800 for the month, then this will be back on track for the year.

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs.  I was unable to pay for this last repair out of our gas money so ended up using the Emergency fund to cover the large repair cost of $400. Otherwise on track with spending $364 for gas, which does include our gas for all trips this month as well.. In May, we will have to cover tags, inspection and taxes on the Dodge van. We also have several out of town appointments. My goal will be to stay at $400 including these extra expenses.

Disney- The yard sale was a HUGE! success! In fact it was the biggest yard sale profit I have ever made! I did pay an additional $300 toward our trip so this is awesome!  I do not expect to make big gains in this area until July due to extra annual expenses that are coming due in May.

April was a crazy expensive month. I had planned for our cheerleading trip to the beach but with yet another van repair, we are now going to have to tighten way down for several months. I was extremely pleased to realize that we actually met several of the established goals. May is another expensive month. I have been able to save some money in advance but in May we have to pay insurance and pool dues. In addition our mortgage has increased due to the escrow account, that I am unable to close. I am hopefully that all car repairs are done for several months.  No extra saving or spending planned for May but I am doubtful to have anything extra.

 

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!

Food For Thought

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Up until this Saturday, I had done no grocery shopping in the month of April. Matt actually ran to the store to pick up milk after we came home from the beach.  Because of the limited shopping our budget has stayed very low for the month. My goal for the month was to keep our grocery budget low and to use up as much as possible from our stockpile so I had already decided that I did now want to spend a great deal and I am pleased to report that I was successful. Saturday turned out to be a very rainy and nasty day, Amanda had planned to spend the day with the kids so she offered to watch all three of the little one while Matt and I went to the grocery store. After ten years of marriage, this even is considered a date! Matt has a free drink from Starbucks so that was our first stop. Next we went to Harris Teeter, I saved around 50% and only used 3 coupons, $3 off a 12 pack of diet coke, $3 off 2 boxes of Starbucks K-cups and $5 off purchase of $50. This last coupon was after all other coupons as well. I did shop in the clearance buggy where I found 3 boxes of ant bait.  We also purchased sausage, bacon and pepperoni with our total our of pocket being $47.67. Next we stopped at Food Lion where we purchased 10 boxes of fruit snacks, 5 boxes of pop tarts and a gallon of milk for $22. I was very pleased with our trip> I am actually still under $200 for the month so I may go to Food Lion for a couple more rounds of Fruit snacks.

After keeping our food budget extremely low for the month of April, I am already looking ahead to May, I know that we are going to need to make a Costco trip at the beginning of the month and it also appears as if we will be purchasing 40# of ground beef from Zaycon to last us through the summer. My goal is to stay under $600 for the month so between these two large purchase we most likely will continue to adapt and ate things that we have on hand. Otherwise if the budget goes extremely high it will negate our positive gains in April.

Next item on our food list is that our square foot garden is growing! I am so excited that not only did all the plants that I have initially planted survive but they are growing. Matt has also added a 2×6 box that we will be planting corn in. Depending how well the corn grows and if we really like it, we may add a third box just for corn.

Finally, meal planning for the week. This will be a special week as both girls have Field Day this week, several appointments on Thursday and we are headed to our last competition for Cheerleading next weekend.

Breakfast-French toast (leftovers) , Cereal, Poptarts, eggs and Baked oatmeal.

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

Dinner– Crazy evening schedule with several quick and easy meals thrown in.

Saturday- Lunch: new chicken recipe, Dinner- Homemade pizza with sourdough crust.
Sunday- Lunch- at my parents, Dinner- Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, veggie and fruit.
Monday- leftovers
Tuesday- Hamburger helper
Wednesday-Chicken pie and Squash casserole, I am taking the day off so I will be cooking!
Thursday-  hot pockets or pizza roles
Friday- Pepper steak and rice.

Random Thoughts Thursday

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  1. It does not feel like just a week ago we were enjoying some fun at the beach!
  2. Matt’s birthday was Tuesday but due to our schedule we decided to celebrate tonight. He wished for things to slow down and I just laughed!
  3. I am amazed at the difference in the weather in different parts of the country. Today it was windy but 65* but in Michigan it snowed!  I am also very thankful I don’t live where it snows in April!
  4. I was able to plant most of my square foot garden today!  The current plan is to finish it in two weeks and replace anything that does not survive. I thought I had checked the weather better but it turns out that we have a chance of going below freezing today so I hope everything survives. I am so excited to get things growing!
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  5. . We are doing really well on our budget for the month. I knew in advance that our beach trip would cost us extra and I am hoping to cover the additional repair to the van as well. As of today, we have spent only $121 of our $600 grocery budget and that includes not only the plants you see above but steaks for Matt’s birthday dinner! In gas, we have spent $309. This amount does include our gas for travel to and from the beach but not the repair that was made on the white van prior to going. I don’t see that we will be spending anything more in gas but do expect to end up spending around $150 on groceries by the end of the month.
  6. Weird things excite me, as you can tell from the numbers above, we have not been grocery shopping this month. On Monday, we went down to our building where we have both our freezers. In the chest freezer is all veggies, it is starting to look a little low except for the zucchini which I froze over 2 years ago.  The other freezer now only contains chicken and is less than half full. I am excited to finally be using and seeing a difference in our grocery budget. I definitely don’t want to use up all our stock pile but like the idea of starting fresh at the end of the summer and attempting to maintain the same $600 budget after cutting it down to a fourth for a couple of month.
  7. Our next and final cheerleading competition is only two weeks away but it at Carowinds which is an amusement park. It will be very expensive but a fun trip. I am actually really looking forward to decreasing our schedule by at least one night a week for cheerleading! Swim team starts everyday in the month of June so I am not sure what we will do for the month of June this year. I would love to take a month off from cheering but just don’t see that happening!

March in Review

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Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month Goal Met!  I think I have finally got my groove with blogging!

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.  Fail again!

Spiritual-  Goal. I want to spend time reading and or studying the Bible at least 5 days a week for the year. Doing better but still not achieved

Personal Goals: Achieved 1 of 3

Financial Goals:  Achieved 4 of 4

We are continuing to make small steady progress in this area. Income wise this was an awesome month as we received an expected boast. I am also hoping to keep on track during April with our Beach trip.

1.  Pay off all debit by December  2015, except for mortgage.  
a. JC Penny- 79.32– . DONE
b. Home Depot-     $270 a month Payment.  Will be paid off in July Goal met!
c. American Express   – pay $2300 this month Goal Met!
d. Personal Loan (used to purchase van) .The current scheduled payment is $217 a month with this scheduled to be paid off in December 2015. Goal Met!

2. Emergency Fund to $2000.  Placed $100 in for the month Goal Met!

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month . Currently at $741 for the month.  No real reason for this except we choose to purchase some steaks and convenient foods and this was a 5 week month. Hopefully better on track next month especially with the need to purchase plants for the garden and a trip for meat in our near future. Fail 

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs.  We need to make another repair on the white van this month which cost  $157.  We also have been travelling alot both for cheerleading and for medical appointments. With the repair we ended the month with a total of $474. Because of some extra income we did not need to dip in our emergency fund for this repair so officially this is Goal Met!

Disney- I have decided to add this just to be accountable. This month, I have been selling items online in preparation for our physical yard sale in April. I have been really surprised and excited to see the money come in. I have been able to purchase a stroller that we plan to take and use in Disney, 2 autograph books and a dress.

 

Looking ahead to April- First is going to be to control with grocery budget. I am hoping to eat out of the fridge and freezer for the first 3 weeks of the month prior to our beach trip. I am positive we will at that point have to head to Costco. I will also need to purchase live plants during the last two weeks of the month depending on the weather. I am setting  $100 budget for this which means that I need our grocery spending to stay under $500 for the month. Next is Gas- in April, I am already aware of 3 small repairs that are needed. I am hoping that gas prices will stay low enough to accomplish these repairs in addition to covering our regular expense of gas. Finally, I have reworked our budget and have added a line for saving in our emergency fund. I am so happy to accomplish this goal.

 

Monday-Menu Plan

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After spending the first weekend at home in the month of March, I am happy to report that we have starting to slow down on our schedule just a wee bit, with a final push coming the middle of April with a 4 day trip. This weekend I was able to actually do some cooking ahead and some planning!

Breakfast-French toast (leftovers) , breakfast burritos ( I made a huge batch of “filling” over the weekend), poptarts (these should be running out soon but until they do, the kids are eating at least 2 times a week). I plan to enjoy “green smoothies” at least 2 days this week to use up our spinach.

Lunch-Lunches for the girls and I have already been packed. I made a huge salad on Saturday and even made some tuna salad as well.  Matt and Zach will be eating leftovers and sandwiches this week.

Dinner– We do have a busy week with at least one scheduled activity every evening but we also have  quite a few left-overs that will be eaten along with using up both the chili and slaw I made over the weekend.

Sunday: Lunch- Mexican for Haley’s Birthday Dinner- Chicken/Broccoli casserole.
Monday- Leftovers
Tuesday- Hamburgers and Tator Tots.
Wednesday-Choice of Hot Dogs, leftovers or sandwiches.
Thursday-  Egg Roll in a bowl; new recipe I will be trying.
Friday- Chicken enchiladas that have been previously made and frozen.
Saturday- Lunch sandwiches or leftovers. Dinner- Pizza

As you can tell we are keeping things simple for the week. The plan is to continue with simple meals of the ingredients that we have already purchased for at least the first couple of weeks in April. I would like to avoid grocery shopping until after our beach trip just to finish cleaning out the freezers prior to May when the growing season get in full swing and I want to restock especially the veggie freezer during the summer months.