Wordless Wednesday- See you at the Pole
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Category Archives: Zach
Saving on Saturday
Been a crazy busy week so I am going to make this a short and simple post. We took advantage of “Talk like a Pirate Day” at our local Donut Store “Krispy Kreme”. We were able to snap 4 dozen donuts for free. We dressed like a pirate and each received a dozen donuts.
5 Things Friday
1. I am staying in a hotel room tonight, as I attended a continuing education class from 8-5:30 today and will be in class again from 8 till 1:30 tommorow as well. This is the first time since I think Zach was born that I have been away from the kids an entire night. We are very fortunate to have FaceTime so they are not so far away.
2. I was so very excited to be able to fund all our budget catogeries this month. We are focusing on keeping our expenses low and making any extra payment we can toward our Disney trip.
3. I am going to have another yard sale next Saturday, I am hoping to sell $100 worth of stuff and that money will also go into the Disney fund.
4. Yesterday online I found an awesome coupon for $25 off a $50 purchase at Advance Auto. We decide to go ahead and purchase some items to complete some maintence on Matt’s van. None of the items were emergencies but the goal is to keep his van in the best shape so we can drive for the next 5 years.
5. Zach is having a really good year so far at school with his behavior being some of the best in the class! Kendall also had a great day today with achieve “Gold” status after getting in trouble on Wednesday. I am praying this is the postive up swing she needs!
Wordless Wednesday-Zach and Amanda
Amanda took Zach to Dan Nicholas Park to celebrate his birthday. They both came home exhausted but sounds like it was lots of fun!
Now for some pictures of the fun…
September Goals
This summer has been full of fun! I really enjoyed some nice long days at the pool in addition to our week of vacation at the beach. However, I have not been as on top of budgeting as I like to be. Our Disney trip is less than 3 months away, so my goal is to tight up the budget and get up ready to enjoy Disney. Keeping that in mind, I have decided to make September a “low spend/ no spend.” month. I really want to make September, October and November all low spend/no spend months but I am going to focus on one month at a time! I know that I can make a goal but if I don’t include some action steps in addition to adding accountability then I am going to fails. I am going to list my plans/goals for September, with weekly or biweekly updates as I can.
1. Reduce Grocery spending to $300 for the month. I am going to purchase 80 pounds of chicken from Zaycon and pull out $150 in cash to put in the grocery envelope. Cash for me is harder to over spend so this should keep me on track.
2. When I looked at my September budget, I have 4 categories that are not completely funded for the month so the remaining $400 of the normal grocery budget will be used to completely fund the budget.
3 Plan to purchase both Lily and Amanda birthday cards. This will allow me to direct our gift money for October, November and December to Christmas. I have already decided that Christmas will be smaller than normal after our trip so I am estimating I need $400 to cover gifts for the kids.
4. Pay at least $375 toward our Disney trip to maximize Disney points prior to November. My goal is to pay for the Bibbidi, Bobbidi Boutique with Disney points only. I have already earned enough to cover one of the girls so well on the way. We are expecting Matt to bring in around $350 in new income from his web business, so I only need to find $25 more.
5. Maintain Gas budget at or below $400. Matt has identified several “maintenance/ repairs” that need to be completed on his van. My goal is to wait till the end of the month to complete to make sure we stay I budget.
6. Reduce/Eliminate Eating out for the month of September. Zach’s birthday is Tuesday September 1st so he has already chosen to eat at a local pizza buffet. Other than this meal, no eating out! I will have to be very deliberate with especially Sunday lunches but we have been spending over $300 a month on eating out and that is a huge amount.
I am hoping to have a yard sale of some form or fashion at the end of the month as well. This may help boost our Disney Payments.
5 Things Friday
- I am loving the Ibbotta app on my phone. I started using it about 6 weeks ago and will not buy anything extra. I have mainly used it for things such as bananas and green peppers. You must have $10 worth of rebates in your account before you can claim. Tonight, I hit $10.80 and decided to move to paypal just to try out. The money showed up within 5 minutes and I was able to order 10 Lighting Charging cords and 5 car chargers for $1.15 after using the Ibbotta credit!
- Kendall has had a rough first week of school. I am hoping that she is just exhausted. I picked her up from school yesterday and she cried on the way home. This morning she cried prior to leaving for school. This evening she is just giggling and laughing. These are all signs that she is overly tired. We will be changing bedtime back to 7pm next week to see if that helps.
- We picked up Zach and Kendall’s new glasses on Monday and today (Friday) we were back at Vision Works to get Zach’s straighten out. Boys…..
- I have been able to leave work before 5:30pm for the last two weeks. I am hoping this trend continues but looking at my schedule for next week, it will become a whole lot harder.
- Tomorrow, the community in schools is hosting a “big toy day” My plan is to take the kids and let them spend a couple of hours enjoying. We may head to the pool to finish out the day but I am seriously afraid the water will be cold after out temperatures begin in the 80s all week. The pool officially closes on Labor Day so we have two weekends left to enjoy.
Wordless Wednesday- First Day of School August 2015
more our real style
Just love this!
2nd day of 2nd Grade for Kendall and 1st full day for Zach.
Zach First Day of Kindergarten
Monday was the official first day of school in NC. I will be posting the traditional back to school pictures with book bags and such on Wednesday. This post is a special one for Zach. His first day of school was really 45 minutes while his dad stayed in the back of the classroom. Zach LOVED school. He is in a small class of 19 students with 11 boys in the group. He was able to complete a scavenger hunt in the classroom, listen to a story and make a craft. I am so excited and proud of him!
5 Things Friday
1. The kids start to school on Monday. We had a meet the teacher night last night and everyone is excited. In anticipation of this we are following the school night schedule around here including bedtimes! This also means that I am trying to get some filling/quick breakfast made over the next couple of morning to help in the mornings. Did I mention that Tuesday and Friday will be the first time in 10 years that ALL my children will be in school?
2. Yesterday, was a sad day. We spent most of the day outside working in the yard and square foot garden. The reason it was so sad is that I ended up pulling up and throwing in the compost pile, about half the corn, the cucumber plants and about half of the tomato plants. We have had such a dry summer and with us being out of town last week, so no extra watering, they were dead. It was bittersweet because I was able to harvest enough corn for dinner last night and 2 small watermelon that we used for dinner today. We should continue to get a couple of tomato in daily and maybe just maybe a green pepper or so.
3. I was able to leave work on or before 5:30 every day this week and even managed to get home by 5pm this evening! I know this is hard to understand but it is a HUGE deal for me and something I plan to continue.
4.I want to spend most of tomorrow at the pool as it will only be open for 3 more weekends. I have not checked the forecast but heard it included storms.
5. I was able to get an additional 2 GB of data and $20 knocked off my Verizon bill tonight just by asking!
Water Wordless Wednesday
