Category Archives: Saving Money

Tuesday Thoughts- Groceries and Summer Goals

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When we returned home, I knew that I wanted to get busy on preparing food for the school year which is one of my summer goals.  I was very hopeful that we would return to a ton of ripe tomatoes. That did not happen but I still knew this was one of the weeks that I wanted to focus on getting things in the freezer.  Sunday morning Matt and I went to the store. I had planned to re-stock our pantry and see what deals I could find.   I was so excited to find that Food Lion had lots of good things on sale.  One item that I wanted to get in the freezer this week was at least 4 Baked ziti.   Without tomato sause I did not think that was possible. Buy 2 Get one Free made the Ragu jars $1.33 each so we purchased 12.  The ziti pasta was on sale for 54 cents along with a 25 cent digital coupon!  English muffins were BOGO and we found sausage patties on clearance. This was probably one of the high spending single trips to Food Lion in 2 years or more. I spent $201. But this should assist with 12 dinner meals and at least 3 breakfast meals.

Monday morning this summer have included a trip to the Bargain store as everything is $3.  Followed by grocery shopping with my Mom.  I had planned to grab a couple of items that are usually cheaper there.  What I did not plan to grab was chicken breast. These were on sale for $2.29 a pound. I decided to go ahead and stock up. I ended up spending $78 at Aldi with over $50 of that in Chicken breast. I came home and with help from the kids I bagged up 2 bags of Italian chicken for the grill, 1 bag of chicken teriyaki and 5 bags with 2# pounds each. We also started Pineapple Chicken in the crockpot for dinner.

Today I have spent most of the day chopping veggies. Matt and I made philly cheese steak casserole (one for dinner and one to freeze). I will also get omelet bags in the freezer this afternoon.  Tomorow the plan is to make 5 Baked Zitis. We also got 15 English muffins in the freezer yesterday!

It feels awesome to be able to work toward a goal and stay on budget!

Summer Goals

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I wanted to be able to share and remember what I spent my summer doing. I feel like the last several years have been a bust. 2022 was the Summer of being sick and Haley’s wedding. Between my car breaking down and my surgery the summer was not alot of fun!  2021- was a year of trying to catch up. Things had not returned to “normal” yet from COVID and it was just different.  2020- COVID.

I had put in my mind several goals for the summer and now that we are almost 2 full weeks in, I am going to share with you.  This are in addition to my regular monthly goals.

  1. Get 100 dinner meals and an assortment of other food items prepared for simple cook and eat meals. This is not a new concept for me as I usually have lots of items in my freezer to use but I want something easy and really non-thinking.
    I am proud to say that I am making steady progress on this goal. I have 4 Taco rice casseroles, and 3 pizza crust in the freezer. I also canned 22 pints  of green beans and 16 pints of black beans.  I purchased meat on sale and have 3 meals of pork chops and 2 meals of grilled chicken as well.   This morning I put 6 “boxes” of brownie mix in the pantry for easy desserts as well.  I honestly under-estimated the time it would take me to work on this goal. First, each new recipe has to be tested.  This adds at least one extra day to the process and second my family is picky. They like what they like and to find something that all 5 agree to is getting harder and harder.  I am starting to think the hardest part about this goal is finding 20 recipes that we all agree on!
  2. Organize the office and shred any paperwork that is no longer current and relevant.
    We are making progress toward this goal as well.  I have actually cleaned and shredded two hanging file folders in addition to shredding church paperwork from 2017-2019.  An added benefit is that we are using the shredded paper to line our chicken coop. The paper adds an extra layer which is allowing the chickens not to walk in mud continually.  In the fall, my plan is to remove the layer and place in our garden beds as free fertilizer.
  3. Redo our master spreadsheet.   No progress
  4. Organize and delete pictures from my phone in order to free up space. I must make sure that I have the pictures on my Ipad first.  I would also like to order several additional photo books once I get the pictures organized.
    Slow progress as I am working to delete first pictures that are not sentimental such as garden pictures and other documents. The next step is to actually compare and delete pictures.
  5. Earn a $50 gift card from Fetch. This basically means I need to scan each of my receipts all summer long one every 24 hours.
    I currently have 22,000 out of 53,000 I need.

Tuesday Thoughts

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  • The weather this year has been all out strange. We had none, zero, nada weather delays or cancellations during the school year, The first time in at least five years if not more. The spring was cool, we had only 1 80 degree day in May. And now this week, is expected to be rainy and 70 for the entire week!  I am really disappointed since this is my first week off work but I am working on things inside so hopefully I can spend more time outside very soon!
  • My biggest goal for the summer was to get at least 100 dinner meals in the freezer, I have made a start with 4 taco pastas and 3  pizza crust from yesterday.
  • Today, I went to the local Food Lion to find meat on sale because the sale ad changes tomorrow.  I am happy to say that I succeeded!  I was able to purchase the meat for at least 14 meals for $63 or $4.5 each!  This is huge when you are feeding 6 people.
  • I picked up a free 8×10 at CVS today!
  • I have been working on getting some financial things in order for Lily’s college and I am happy to say that the hardest part is done!
  • Yesterday, I booked our Disney trip for Spring 2024 and took advantage of a no interest offer for six months from the credit card.
  • The next thing to tackle is Lily graduation pictures. Hopefully I will get some posted tomorrow as well!
  • Dinner tonight is “beer can chicken in the insta pot” with modifications.

Garden Update

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I really had thought that I was not going to post a garden update this week due to the very limited progress that I was seeing on Friday due to the lack of rain for over a week.  However, after 2 days of steady beneficial rain things are definitely looking up! I can tell the biggest difference in the bed in front of my office window.  We have been getting a handful of sugar snap peas a couple of times this week but I was getting worried about my zucchini.  But now we will at least get a couple of zucchini from this bed! I am still a little concerned about the yellow plants on the end but progress is good!

The cucumbers are hanging on and the transplanted ones have grown another block!  I am disappointed that after planting 50 pea seeds. I have one plant.

I did purchase 6 green pepper plants and 3 squash plants from our local farm stand so now the beds look full for the short run!

The biggest changes are in the tomato beds. In the front bed we have 3 plants over the top! Sunflowers are in the front!

The longer tomato bed is catching up! It is about a foot deeper so I am glad to see the progress.

Finally the watermelon have made progress as well.

Now hopefully we get some good sun to jump start this growing!

Saving On Saturday

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The weather in North Carolina is rainy and chilly.  I am so glad that we are caught up with outside tasks.  Even better is the rain barrel that we put together last week (see the details) is currently filling and we can dump to make sure all the window cleaner is out of it before we use any water on the garden.

Today was spent trying to save money around food.  If you read even 3 or 4 post on this blog, you probably know that groceries are our third highest expense behind the mortgage and Tahoe payment.  I have been working on using up excess food for most of this year. One of the things I wanted to be able to do was condense our freezer food down.  This morning we were able to move around some meat and turn off our oldest freezer.  This will give the old freezer a chance to defrost and also save a small amount on our electric cost at least for the next month until I will restart it to store items from the garden and stock with easy to prepare meals for next school year!  While rearranging we found 4 packs of bacon, a unopened bag of frozen biscuits, an unopened bag of meatball as well as a coconut cake which was desert at dinner.    I spent some extra time this morning checking and making a Costco list. I am going to call it a success as spent $465 at Costco which included 2 prepared meals and a snack for Matt and Kendall.  We enjoyed the rotisserie chicken for lunch, I pulled enough meal off the bones for a chicken and rice soup for tomorrow’s dinner along with a couple of sandwiches as well. The crockpot is going with chicken broth that I will tomorrow.

I was also able to move some food around and now have all but the cereal in the kitchn area instead of spread all over the house!

I also already have a plan for both dinners and lunches next week with two days to continue preparing so that will make tomorrow much easier all the way around!

 

Saving on Saturday

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A couple of weeks ago we realized that one of the rain barrels for the garden had a HUGE crack across the top.  We have used these for several years but I am still very disappointed.  Matt and I decided that we would find on Facebook market place a better water storage unit like the one we use for the chickens.

We were really lucky in that we did find a storage tank the same week for $40 which is $15 less than we paid for the chicken rain barrel!  Although it is not as big as the chicken one it would not fit where our current rain barrels are.

Here is where we are saving money!  We were able to place the new barrel further down the side yard at the point where the deck connects to the house. We reused the black tube and the gutter spout from the original rain barrel and tied that into the gutters on the back of the house.  To level we used cement blocks and post that we already had as well.  We purchased a faucet from Amazon ($24) to add to the front of the barrel. Total cost $64 which we should be able to save in water cost over the course of the summer! Definitely a savings!

5 Things Friday

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  1. The goal for tomorrow is to move the chickens outside!  They have been in training all week. First Lily sat their cage near (1-2 feet) from the chicken run. Next she moved the cage to beside the chicken run and finally inside the chicken run. They spent over 4 hours in a small cage in the chicken run today. Tomorow we open the door! After doing some research this is a full 2 weeks later than when we moved out the original chickens.
  2. We did determine that before we leave the new chickens we must create a barrier at the bottom of the chicken run. It would be possible one of the small chickens to fit through the wire and escape. The plan is to use cable ties and cardboard as a solution until the chickens are bigger.
  3. I have now purchased 4 gallons of strawberries from a farm in Mocksville. They have been the sweetest and best tasting strawberries we have eaten. I do have 2 bags frozen I am hoping to add another 2 bags to get us through the winter.
  4. Lily’s community college graduation was yesterday!  It was so neat. Check out yesterday’s post for pictures.
  5. We need to install the cardboard on the chicken run, install a new radio in Lily’s car and work on our new rain barrel tomorrow.  Sounds really busy!  I also have an awesome garden update to share!

Five Things Friday

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  1. Countdown to Summer!
    5 weeks till Lily’s High School Graduation!
    5 weeks of school for the kids and 5 weeks and 3 days until my Summer Break!
    60 days till we go to the beach!
  2. We are all ready for the newest chickens to move outside. Last weekend, Lucky the rooster escaped!  This evening they have knocked over the water so much that the cardboard box is mushy and the floor is wet!  They should move outside full-time next week!
  3. I am starting to organize and prepare for canning this summer. I have been slowly purchasing jars since October. I have been lucky enough to find on sale at Walmart, Target and Tractor Supply for around $1 a jar including rings and lids.  I was hoping to pick up some jars used but they are at least $2 a jar so today on Walmart, I found an ordered 3 dozen pint jars and 3 dozen quart jars.  One of my goals for tomorrow (Saturday) is to get the canning closet organized and cleaned!
  4. This weekend is probably the least busiest one in a long time. We do have several small projects to complete but the goal is to rest and prepare for the busiest week of the school year!
  5. We tried one of the new recipes that I was hoping to use to stock the freezer this summer and it was a bust. No flavor!

Thursday Thoughts- Goals

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The summer is fast approaching, and I am counting down the days!  I want to make a list of the things I want to accomplish during the summer break.   This way I will also have more accountability this summer as well.

  1. Gardening- My goal is to grow and preserve as much from the garden as possible. I am hopeful to restock the freezer. This goal may also include purchasing some items to make my life easier in the fall.
  2. Prepared Meals- I would like to get 100 dinner meals in the freezer. I will also work on adding convenient breakfasts as well. I also want to freeze at least 10 pizza crust and maybe even some pie crust as well.  The dinner meals can include both crockpot meals and casserole.  I actually need to get started on test meal during the rest of May to help determine what things we like and what is worth making again and again.
  3. Exercise-  I am going to set a goal of 3 times a week this summer. This can include walking in the pool and hopefully at least 1 trip a week to the Y to work out.
  4. Restock- I want to spend time organizing and restocking both the pantry and the freezers. I had actually thought about adding a goal for shopping at least one day a week.
  5. Store and organize all the pictures. I need to clean off my phone but am really afraid that I am going to lose pictures.  I also need to make and order several books from Shutterfly.
  6. VIew and Decide on at least one additional video course for our Sunday school class.
  7. Earn at least one $50 gift card using apps. This is free money but also something that I don’t always make a priority.
  8. Organize/sort and Print a new passwords list for home.
  9. Review, revisit and revise as needed our household budget.  I am hopeful that things will have settled down so that I can put together a realistic budget for paying off medical bills and reducing our overall debt.
  10. Enjoy at least one day a week either reading or just relaxing by the pool. OR at least one day a week on  a special adventure with the kids!

The overall goal for the summer is to get everything back organized and ready for the school year.

Saving on Saturday- Chicken Coop Remodel

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This will be a picture heavy post but first the story behind why we need the chicken coop remodel!  The week before we headed to Disney, we discovered on our video that a possum had gotten into the chicken coop. The kids and I did a quick fix on the door by placing several cement blocks to keep the bottom from being pulled out.   We knew that once we returned, we would need to put some serious work in to make the door stronger.
While we were at Disney, one night 3 of the chickens got locked outside.  We also discovered that the coop did not provide enough shade for days with temperatures in the mid 80s.  This meant we needed to figure out a way to add some shade.
We returned on Monday from DIsney with plans to spend today (Saturday) working on remodeling the coop.  But first more excitement. On Tuesday night we saw a racoon on the chicken camera. On Wednesday night it was joined by two others. And at least one racoon got in the chicken run. We were thankful that the chickens were locked safely up so nothing was harmed. Zach and I discovered on Thursday that something had pulled out couple of nails at a low corner and that is how the racoon was able to get in. Thursday night we set a trap and caught at one of the racoons.

Today we started by add strength and a new latch to the door.

Next up we used material that was already here to upgrade the chicken run. We decided to try and increase the head space so that we could easily get in and out as well as add shade for the chickens.

We are all very pleased with the result. The longer boards were found in the rafters of my building, chicken wire was recycled from the chicken run (it was originally the top), the long metal piece was purchased but not needed when we updated Matt’s Beatle building and we even cut up a couple of landscape timbers that we decided are not needed!  Total cost $0!!!!!!!!

In other exciting news, meet our three new chicks. They are currently almost two weeks old.

“Lucky”

“Honey”

 

“Biscuit”