5 Things Friday-Matt’s Edition

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  1. Yesterday was Matt’s 50th birthday and no one can tell me we don’t celebrate in style!  Let me share just how!
  2. Dinner at Bad Daddy’s which is his favorite burger joint and a double appetizer of fried pickles!
  3. Trip to Costco… the Tahoe needed gas so we decide to live large and shop as well.  $425 later… is that large enough?  We were able to score 3 new pair of dress pants for him in addition to some special treats for breakfast and lunch!
  4. After a day at his new job followed by dinner and shopping at Costco with all 5 of us… he came home to work on the dishwasher.  It had thrown an error code AE the night before. Luckily a little bit of research and 30 minutes later, he had the dishwasher repaired!
  5. I purchased a supply of cream horns, chocolate eclairs and cupcakes from Ketchie Creek today to continue celebrating as we work in the yard!

Seriously Happy Birthday to a great father, awesome husband and my best friend thur thick and thin!

Disney Numbers

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Camper spot and park tickets: $5700
Golf cart rental $727
Gas for Trip  $430

These numbers are not exact but a good representation of what I recall.
Snacks in Park average of $35 each day. $210
Lunch meals $500
Dinner  Meals $1200
Breakfast Meals $500

Souvenirs  $500

Memories made and family time = priceless and worth every penny spent!

March in Review

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March was a long hard month.  I knew that this would likely be a one paycheck month and planned accordingly   But even with that knowledge it has been a difficult month trying to decide what to spend and what to wait on.  The fact that we had COVID for the past 10 days also added to the stress.  April has a shot of sunshine and family fun along with the promise of additional funds arriving  even out our budget!  I have also noticed a significant increase in prices. Gas was above $4 a gallon but has return below that mark currently.

Groceries– budget amount is $200 until June.  Not Met! $314.16 This does include our Amazon subscribe and save which was $145 by itself. We are continuing to eat out of the freezer and pantries but with the price increases we have seen it may be impossible to stay under $200 for April, May and June.  This is the goal. I will be readjusting the grocery budget in June no matter the outcome.

Auto/ Gas. My goal is $400 a month.  NOT met! $410.89   We have really limited our driving this month so I am going to assume that I will need to adjust this budget based on the price of gas. We will be traveling to Florida in April so I anticipate at least $400 in gas expense so I would assume we will spend around $800 in gas for April.

Cash Envelope system- You cant spend what you don’t have so this is working well for us!

Blogging- 15 post per month. Post number 13 for March!   Hopefully things return to normal and I can get back in a good routine soon!

Exercise days-  No progress to report! Knee pain much better…. no excuse!
 No Spend Days- 3 while I was so sick from COVID that I could not leave the house! 

As I stated before March was a hard month for everyone in addition to several rounds of sickness. Looking forward to April with sunshine and lots of warm!

Monday Menu Planning

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Being sick is no fun!! The last week has been a long long difficult season.  Besides the physical aches and pains, trying to keep everything going was just mentally exhausting as well. Luckily, I had already put a meal plan in place before I got sick last Tuesday, I had not shared here but it was on the whiteboard.  All the meals were able to me made with modifications needed only for the weekend.  One of the accomplishments for the week is that we made a couple of extra servings that can be used for lunch this week which made several kids very happy. I did end up tossing a couple of items that had gone bad but so is life.

Breakfast– Saturday-   Homemade Bagels with bacon, pimento cheese or tomatoes. Sunday-Cinnamon waffles    Tuesday- zucchini bread, Monday-, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday -choice of breakfast muffins, eggs, sausage, oatmeal, cereal, pancakes, French toast or grits or breakfast burritos.  We do have some left-over baked oatmeal from last week which needs to get eaten
Lunch- – Saturday-leftovers      Sunday – Mexican rice   Monday- Thursday we are taking zucchini rice and Mexican rice for meals along with the usual left-overs.
Dinner- – Saturday- Egg salad and bacon sandwiches     Sunday-   Chicken soup from freezer (I threw in the left-over turkey) Monday- Spaghetti and meatballs. I made an entire box of spaghetti noodles so the kids will use these for lunch as well.  Tuesday-Pork Chops, mac and cheese and green beans.  Wednesday- Left-over or find your own night Thursday- first ballgame of the year!  Friday-Steak, twice baked potatoes and salad.

Saving at Home

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Beside saving on gas by not going anywhere the other focus of saving lately has been with gardening. I am continuing to focus on using items in my freezer and pantry to help control my grocery bill but I also plan to do a lot of restocking this summer.  One of the things that I am hearing on repeat from the channels I watch on you tube as well as with most of the blogs that I follow is that we need to grow as much of our own food as possible.

Last year was a complete bust on growing food thanks to the awful soil that I ended up purchasing.  This year we have started with better soil so hopefully that is a better result.  My initial plan was to purchase most of the plants to start with as I think this is easier and have had better luck in the past. But as I started looking at my current selection of seeds I realized that I had lots of seed just sitting her. I also have containers and extra soil on hand.   To start plants from seed would save lots of money especially since the out of pocket cost was nothing.  I decided to go ahead and try and if I failed then I just wasted my time and effort. We started the seeds inside the house so that the temperature would be more consistent. The plan is to move these to the greenhouse next weekend.  Currently we have 27 pepper plants and 46 tomato plants!

In the red cups, I am trying to start our sweet potatoes!  I am very hopefully that after we return from Disney we will be able to move both the green pepper and the tomato plants out of the green house and into the beds.   I have WAY more tomatoes than I have need for or  have dedicated room for but will just plant what we have and use every spare pot and spot I can find in the mean time.

We have ended up with just a little bit of harvest from the greenhouse with some lettuce and spinach. I am not sure it will be worth using year round but it was a fun experiment. We also continue to have kale.

 

5 Things Friday-COVID Edition

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1 Timeline-  I started with a slight cough on Saturday night while attending LIly’s performance in  Sound of Music.   Worked on Monday but did end a session 10 minutes early. Came home and went to bed.  Tuesday- woke up and took a COVID test- it was positive, Doctor’s appointment on Tuesday.  Wednesday was Awful. Thursday some improvement but went medicine free and started IVermectrin.  Friday- functioning human being but still no where near normal.

2. I have learned that sometimes no medicine is the best.  I had a horrible time both Monday and Wednesday night when taking Nyquil. Thursday night-just honey and 100% improvement. I also have tried the nasal decongest given by my doctor and it makes me soooo sleepy.   Guess I will try again at night.  Uggghhhh

3.  I am planning to be out of work until at least Wednesday.  I will be out of quarantine then as well.  This is the longest I have ever missed work.

4. Symptoms- include NO fever, loss of part of my taste and smell, congestion, coughing, sore throat and ears, coughing and wheezing, chills, nausea and vomitting.

5. Zach had the stomach bug just prior to the last time we had COVID in November 2020.  This time as well!