Saving Money/ Budget Update

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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?

Birthday Party Sunday

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Today we enjoyed two separate birthday parties. Matt and Lily attended the party of one of her classmates, while Kendall, Zach and I attended Zach good friend at church’s party. I was very surprised to find that not only did they have bounce houses for the kids to play in but a reading time and cookie decorations. Everyone had lots of fun and enjoyed lots of sugar!

 

Saving Money in November

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One of the advice that you will receive reading any financial advise is to check your budget and eliminate as much as needed. I thought we were on top of this; however as we have discovered there were some major savings that we found.

The first of which is our security system. This was initial purchased around 6 years ago. At the time, we had two teenage daughters and 3 very small kids in the house. Our biggest concern was not about someone breaking in but rather someone getting out unexpectedly. When we started to try to find money in our budget three years ago, one of the first things we did was call this company. We were able to reduce our monthly monitoring fee by $10 and received some new free equipment.

Over the past two months, we have again been looking at our expenses with the goal of having a total balanced ( income=expenses) budget to start 2014.

This was an easy decision for us to cancel the contract. One of the biggest factor was that the company no longer supports our equipment.  This of course becomes a problem when we need to replace a couple of sensors and the battery of the main box. Our plan currently is to keep the system in place as we own the equipment. The monitoring  by the company, ends November 30. The one feature that we will lose is that if an alarm goes off, police and/or fire will not be notified by the company.  We did end up throwing away several sensors but for the most part we still like having an alarm on the doors and most windows.

This is an easy saving of $28 a month! Keep reading because a much bigger saving and change are in the works for next week!

Wordless Wednesday-Veteran’s Day Program

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Our kids ministry presented a special program for veteran’s on Sunday. All three of the little kids played bells and sang. Lily also gave her testimony. I don’t have any great pictures but I do have an awesome video!

Just Too Busy! What Have We Been Doing?

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I knew that the past several weeks had been busy and I felt exhausted, but I didn’t realize how tired and busy we all were until last night!   Because of the kids whiney, crabby and bad behavior, I made the decision that no one was going to church instead it was going to be an early night for all.  I debated this decision as the kids needed to practice for their veteran’s day performance, but I am feeling very strongly like it was the best one. Everyone was asleep by 7pm and although they did whine today the improvement is very noticeable!

I actually have been off work for two days;  yesterday, Wednesday, I went with Amanda to have some pilar cyst removed from her scalp. Today, the little kids, Matt and myself headed to Matthew for eye appointments for Lily and Kendall. Lily received awesome news because her left eye is getting strong and we most likely will be getting a lower prescription when we return in three months. Kendall, whose teacher voiced some concerns to us, is going to start patching her left eye daily. The doctor does not feel like this eye is getting weaker but that instead as Kendall grows we are noticing the weakness more and they will be able to get a more accurate prescription for her as she now can read the letters.

After the appointments, we headed to IKEA. A quick stop at the OLD Navy, provided Zach with a jacket and a coat. But the most exciting news for all of us was the Zach is now officially tall enough to play in the play area at IKEA. Matt and I enjoyed 90 minutes of shopping kid free but I still think Zach was the most happiest about it. We ended up going to the Dollar store for items for Operation Christmas Child and ended up stopping at Olive Garden for dinner.  Today, was another busy day but all the little kids really enjoyed it and both Zach and Kendall are again asleep by 7pm! Here is proof he can get it!

Finally tall enough!

Finally tall enough!

Wordless Wednesday- Square Food Garden Additon

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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!

photo 2

photo 1

Seven Cent Shopping Trip!

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photoI 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

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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

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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!