No Spend Challenge and Shopping.

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Sheila

One of my goals for this challenge was to reduce our Grocery spending to $400 for the month with the remaining $200 set aside for Cheerleading competitions. This is one area that we are doing excellent with. One of the reason is my winter cleaning has left our pantry much more organized and we also developed a list of items we have and need to use up.

I did realize that we were running really low on fresh veggies to use this week. We decided to make several shopping stops today. First up was a quick trip to CVS. I purchased 2 tubes of toothpaste, 2 2L of Diet Coke and a candy bar. I ended up paying a total of $1.55 of which $0.60 was tax. I received back 4 ECB. Next, was a stop at Aldi, total spent was $14.88 and finally Walmart. I purchased a baby gift and spent 1.71 for a bunch of celery. We check the celery at Aldi but it was limp and Lily wanted celery and peanut butter one day for lunch. Our grocery total is $298.63 for the month!

I have a chance to order some items from Pampered Chef this week so I am going to use $100 from the left over grocery budget to pay for these items that are all going to be used for cooking.

This goal is MET!!!!!! So far for the challenge I am 2/5. By the end of the week, I hope to achieve 3/5!! This is huge for me as the challenge goals were set prior to planning of our trip!

Cooking Day-Non Chicken 1/23/2014

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Sheila

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!

Budget and Traveling

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Sheila

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!

Productive Weekend

Posted on November 24, 2013 by Sheila

I was able to get some extra hours off of work this week so I have been planning ahead to get things done this weekend. I am really excited at how much we have managed to accomplish! I know that the next several weeks will be progressively more busy so I am so glad to feel like I am ahead of the game. Here is a list of thing that we accomplished this weekend: 1. Snow village is total complete!
2. Christmas decorations are almost complete except for the tree which we will be picking up on Thursday. As a bonus, I have even managed to get some of the boxes back up in the attic
3. I am over 75% complete with Christmas shopping. My goal for this next week is to finish up all that I can face the dreaded wrapping.
4. I made an early morning trip to CVS this morning and saved 80%. I will be posting more about this trip on Thursday, when I return to CVS to use up the ECBs that I earned. I always look at these trips as one because I am carrying things forward.
5. We were able to purchase flooring and a new toilet for Lily’s new room. It would be awesome if she actually got to move into her new room on her birthday weekend. But that is a lot of work between now and then!
6. Naps on both days!
7. Finally, we have managed to clean out the fridge so that we can have some really comfort hot meals this week as the weather is too cold for my comfort!

Saving Money/ Budget Update

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Sheila

We did it!!! We decided to cut our cable bill.

I have been unhappy with our cable company for several years. The last time our “contract” was up they sent us a letter which I didn’t read carefully, that locked us into our service for another 2 years. Finally this past weekend that “contract” ended. Matt and I have been exploring objects over the last month. Because we do live in a small town, the options are limited. We also received a new offer from the cable company in which they were only going to increase our current pricing by 5% or $10 total. We both were appalled to pay $180 a month for our bundle of tv, internet and phone. Unfortunately, with Matt’s business there is not another option for us in regards to internet and after some research we discover that without losing our current number or having a “long distance” number from this area, we also are stuck with phone service as well.

Our initial plan was to eliminate cable tv completely and reducing our phone to “local” only, is would drop our bill by $100. However, we also discovered that live television is very difficulty to obtain without a huge antenna. So after spending almost an hour on the phone with Time Warner, we ended keeping basic cable (13 channels), our phone with no long distance and internet. Matt turned in all the other boxes and gadgets from them as well. In the end we dropped our bill by $80!

When combining this with cancelling our security system, we will be decreasing our monthly expenses by $110 a month! I also have a plan in place to have us end the year even for the year and start next year with a zero budget! I also hope to get a small emergency fund in place as well.

Have you saved any lately?

Wordless Wednesday- Square Food Garden Additon

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Sheila

We almost doubled the space we had by adding two new beds to our square foot garden. The front one will be for squash and the middle for sweet potatoes. We saved huge on this project by re-using wood. Most of this wood was from the deck I had replaced ten years ago. I ended up never getting around to burning it. So it has been in the very back of the yard for years. We have gradually pulled out and used most of it! Total cost is $7.00 for the box of screws!

Seven Cent Shopping Trip!

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Sheila

I made a quick trip to CVS, Sunday evening. My initial goal was to grab the free paper towels and a stick of my favorite deodorant breaking even in the process. I was very pleasantly surprised to receive 5 ECB from the beauty club when I scanned my card. So I was able to grab the above items for 7 CENT including tax! I have 2 rolls of paper towel, 2 sticks of Mitcheum deodorant and 2 packs of trident gum! I am really excited as these are truly items that I normally use and the deodorant is one of the few items that I am brand loyal to!

CVS is slowing down on deals lately but it is trips like this that will keep me going back!

Stretching Our Food Budget

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Sheila

I am attempting to feed 5 of us (both the older girls eat only occasionally) on a budget of $600 a month. Let me break this down a little bit further; that is 35 breakfasts, 31 lunches, and 35 dinners a week, or 430 meals a month. Both the girls usually eat at school several times a week but both need a daily snack as well. This amount includes pet care as well as all items except clothing that I purchase to use in the house, paper towel, toilet paper, hair spray, soap, deodorant etc.

Last month, I failed miserable by spending almost double that amount. So one of the things that I will be doing in November to even out the budget for the year is stretching our food. I had originally thought that our chicken purchase would make 50 meals for 5 people or 250 meals. However I have already added at least 10 meals to this number. Here is how:
1. This is simple, depending on the amount of leftovers, I pack a dinner plate or so for me to take to lunch. For example- after 2 dinners of chicken pie, I packed two dinner plates for my lunches.
2. I use leftover chicken to make a different meal. The World’s best chicken was a disappointment alone, so I made chicken salad out of the remaining breast. The girls LOVED this and I know have eaten for lunch at least 2 days and I had a sandwich last night for dinner. Another example is I used the remaining chicken breast from the Café Rio chicken for a pot of chicken and rice soup. I chose this because I had some carrots and onions as well that needed to get eaten. So out of the one bag of chicken, we are currently eating meal number 4.
3. Schedule a left over meal. We had leftovers at least twice last week. One of the meals ended up being a vegetable plate, which the kids thought was a great change.
4. This one is a great lunch suggestion- instead of buying individual size jello or pudding. Buy a box and make it at home. We use re-useable containers and once a week. I will make jello or pudding for the following week. The girls enjoy containers of popcorn, goldfish and nuttella with crackers. By buying in a large size and separating at home, I saved a ton of money!
5. Use coupons to buy some convenience foods for the days you just don’t want to cook. We love pizza and I don’t mind making pizza but on days like today that we have spent busy in the house and outside, come lunch and I don’t want to take time to make the pizza. So we have several frozen pizza in the freezer, we used one of them today instead of running out for pizza or fast food which would have been $10 at best.

If we can control our eating out then our overall budget goes much better. Do you have any suggestion for stretch your food?

October in Review

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Sheila

Financial goals: I will start by saying that I almost did not post this update because of how poorly we did in this area.

Pay off Lawn mower by March 2014, so no interest is charged. Payment of $100 made, almost a triple payment. I have also made a plan to pay this completely off in January!
Pay off all outstanding debt except the mortgage by June– We missed this goal obviously but my new goal is June 2014!
Emergency fund to $2000– Need to start forming a plan to met this goal. I have currently zapped this fund.
Maintain a budget using a form of the envelope system -I know how much I spent last month but it is way over budget
Groceries: Spend $600 or less a month I have ended up spending double this amount this month. The only bright spot is that I have an monthly average of $650 for the year so I am going to try and reduce this to $600 for the year.
Gas- Goal Met!! We currently have $49 left in our gas budget which is going to help cover the groceries.

Blogging: Goal: 15 per month I had 14 post in the month of October. The last week was super busy and I just did not get caught up. I guess that is why it is a goal!

Devotions: Goal is 5 a week Goal Met! I am really enjoying my morning time.

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December by losing around 4 # a month.. Continuing to look at and think about this goal.. Enough said.

I have met one goal this month… Room for lots of improvement! Since I failed on both my blogging and budget in October, I am going to set a goal to post at least one post a week about how we are saving money in November. This will hopefully keep me accountable and focused on saving not spending!

What to Do with 120# of Chicken?

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Sheila

Day Zero- This actually occurred several weeks ahead of time for me. I started searching for a variety of chicken recipes that could easily be frozen. I discovered that the internet is full of ideas but I eliminated first the ones that required ingredients that I don’t normally cook with or just sounded like the same basic idea and second ones that didn’t sound like they would freeze well or be easy to complete. I printed these recipes up and made a stack to be addressed in the next step.

Day One- I will admit that this step took 3-4 hours to complete. I took my recipes decided if I wanted to double triple or just try it out. Next, was a list of the quantity of dishes. Third was the list of ingredient divided into two parts, items on hand and items that needed to be purchased. Finally I made a list of items to be purchased, including which store to purchase at and searched for any coupons I could find.

Day Two- Shopping. I purchased most items on my regular trip to Costco and Target but did make another stop the week we received the chicken to purchase the fresh veggies that were still needed.

Day Two and half- I again spread this out over 3-4 days of the week of chicken arrival. I clean and made space for the chicken first in our large chest freeze, then in one of our kitchen freezers so initial freezing will be easier for some of the items. We also located several crates that will make transporting to the chest freezer easier. I also clean out space in the fridge to be able to place at least one of the boxes to take a break on Saturday night to get the kids feed and in bed.

Day Three- I spent about two and half hours chopping up all the fresh veggies and even beginning to label some of the bags.

Day Four- Chicken arrived, the pick up was smooth and the easiest I have ever experienced. In total we spent 4 hours processing the chicken into the recipes you can find here. I am only counting time that we (Matt and I) were working with the chicken. I did have around an hour that I stopped to get the kids to bed and another 30 minutes that I took a shower while waiting for the crockpots to finish with the chicken to be shredded. By far, the best tip I have is the Kitchen Aid mixer will shred chicken in 2 minutes!

Total of 48 set meals not counting left overs, so easily 50 meals totally prepared in 10 hours or less. Now to see how long it actually last!

Teens Tots and Everything In Between

Life, Love and Coupons

Category Archives: Saving Money