plans for evenings

My OCD dictates that I make a plan for my evening even though I know that it is not going to all happen. Last night is an example of one of those evenings. I completed my trades and then headed home to see my honey and the munchkin as well as work on the house. I did go outside and bring in the laundry and then sat down with a couple of slices of gouda to talk to my honey and relax. That lasted very little time before I needed to make a decision on dinner and put up my trade items. I decided to grill ribs which tasted decent and paired that with some wild rice and green beans. Clean up did not take that long and the munchkin was excited to help me wash the new glass pitchers I traded for. I am going to make sun tea now that is the height of summer here and save a touch on my electric bill. I worked on cleaning up the kitchen island which seems to be a dumping ground for everything in our hands. Between that, playing with the munchkin, and getting more trades together the evening was done.

This morning I did manage to sort out the stuff in my bedroom chair to be dealt with tonight and got the clothes ready to iron tonight. As you can tell I will be ironing tonight after dinner and see what else magically gets accomplished. I need to get more items listed on the trade site and get them out of the house. If you have not found a trade site on FB in your area you need to start one, it has been the best thing to happen to us in ages. I have been able to move things out of the house in exchange for items and services that I either want or need. This has gone a long way in helping our budget as well as helping me minimalize so I can hopefully spend an evening in the  future reading or sitting outside instead of worrying about the multitude of chores I need to do.

Weekend come and gone again

I always have grand plans when the weekend comes of amazing stuff I will accomplish. Needless to say only about half of what I wanted to do was even attempted.....I did work on the flowerbeds at our church but they are not completed. Once we made it home from the church I took down the load of clothes I had hung out on the line earlier in the morning and put out a couple more loads. I estimate that hanging out the laundry is saving us between $30 and $50 a month on our electric bill which quickly paid for the $30 clothes line. After that the munchkin and I had baths/showers and headed for the library. After we made out with every train book he could find on the shelf and I had some more canning books we headed home. The evening was just a lot of working on cleaning the house and getting my trade items together. Night night time could not have come fast enough, the munchkin even asked to go to bed at least an hour before he normally goes to sleep. Sunday morning we were up and putting more clothes on the line, fixing breakfast and getting ready for church. Church was nice as I was able to read some while working the nursery. The nursery/toddler room consisted of the munchkin and a friend playing trains. We went out to eat after church and then home for a couple of hours before heading to a baseball game for the evening. Once again baths when we came home and no fussing from the munchkin about bedtime.


Tonight I have several trades to complete and then home for dinner and dishes. I really need to walk Turbo and pass out fliers on our street for Nextdoor.com, I want us to have a stronger identity as a neighborhood. We shall see what wins out since I currently have no idea what I am fixing for dinner.

The grocery budget has stayed pretty steady, I did pick up 4 gallons of milk on an amazing half price sale on Friday but have not needed much else since the trip to the commissary. I was hoping the co-op would be offering peaches or cherries this week so I could do some more canning but no such luck. If I come across a good deal I am definitely going to jump on it. As far as the budget goes I need to flush out how much canning my own food will cost versus buying from the store. the initial investment in jars is the biggest expense but I have been collecting them as I could for a long time. The health benefits and lack of trips to the store will be the best rewards for us I believe. As long as I am not going to the store I am not finding "great" deals and buying stuff we may or may not need.

Reading The Debt Free Spending Plan by JoAnneh Nagler currently for a different prospective and ideas on ridding us of our debts and get us where we feel comfortable with our finances.

Canning

This weekend I canned like a crazed woman! It was my first ever attempt at canning by myself. I bought 8 pounds of strawberries and 25 pounds of peaches through my co-op and went to work. 6 pounds of the stawberries went into jam that ended up not setting so it is being billed as strawberry syrup. I made infused vodka, ice cream, cobbler, jam and sliced canned peaches with the peaches. I also sliced some and put them in the freezer for smoothies. The peach jam also did not set up so it is also syrup. The sliced peaches are amazing and popular opinion is that they are better than store bought. I am going to stick with this for a while since I hate putting in the work on jam and not getting jam at the end. The initial investment in jars and supplies has made it more expensive than buying store bought but I think as the jars are reused and the produce comes out of my own garden it will be a great budget stretcher. I also found another use for the syrup left when we eat the canned peaches. I am going to use it to sweeten my tea so I will have peach sweet tea with no additional sugar used!

debt free

In addition to all the other books I am reading on how to get this blog up and functional the way I want I decided to read on debt free living. I have decided the goal I am working toward besides the relief of being debt free is another tattoo. Another tat will be my reward to myself when I am out of debt and have saved enough for one. After that we will be saving up for a truck and a real vacation!

Vacation etc, etc, etc

It feels like forever since I have posted which it nearly has been. I took 5 weeks off work to spend time with the munchkin and get some stuff done at the house. I ended up spending 2 weeks doing those items and 3 weeks driving to see my mom in Florida and bringing her home with me and running her around town here before she flew home the morning I came back to work. My grocery budget for May stayed the same as I posted on here. June totals will be up soon but it will look crazy since I was traveling, stocking up for the honey so he would not starve while I was gone and then having an extra person eating with us for a couple of weeks. July will look better but will still be over. My mom was here and has a military id so she was able to get me back on the base to shop at the commissary. I picked up as much meat as I thought my freezer would hold as well as a few other items I knew would be cheaper there. I do not really need a lot of other items since I was not home for part of June but I still wanted to do some canning so I bought 2 bulk deals through my co-op which pushed my total up but should help keep it lower in the next couple of months.

I also decided to work harder at getting out of debt and so will be honest on here as far as progress is going and what we are doing to reach this goal.

Birthday!!!!

Today is my birthday!!! I have had a good day although I would much rather have stayed home in bed today. The donut fairy (my boss Jane) brought in my second favorite food this morning and then I had lunch with a friend at one of our favorite local places.

That is totally an aside to why I was posting. I wanted to throw out there that we had cracker crusted tilapia and parmasean roasted potatoes for dinner last night and the budget has taken no more hits yet. I need to trade for some more milk and use my full punch card to get free bread at the day old store and we should make it out of the month for our current total!

blogging book underway

The storm has kept people away from work today so I am using the time to catch up on some reading. I finished reading Living More with Less which was a great book that I recommend. I am now reading Blog, INC. with the hopes I will be able to figure this format out. My eyes needed a rest from the printed page so I thought I would spend a moment on here.

With all the storms and sick people at my house this week has been a blur so I am putting the menu up from a foggy memory. Sunday evening we had Ham with scrambled eggs and toast after church and naps. Last night I used the left over ham in some navy beans and served that with cornbread. Tonight I am searching my brain for something to do with the leftover beans and or cornbread. It is rainy and cooler so I may make a soup when I get home and incorporate the beans in that.

Acquiring needs with no cash!

I am trying to keep the grocery total for this month at its current total which is requiring me to make use of my trading community. I have been super blessed to be part of a Beg Borrow and Trade community and have made some amazing trades. Some items were not "needed" but still great finds. I have traded small amounts of household items for some great work shoes as well as a Kate Spade purse!!!! This week I did make a trade out of necessity. I listed the veggies we were not going to eat from the co-op and traded them for some milk and toilet paper.

addition to the May total

I had to stop for a gallon of milk on Wednesday night so we need to add $2.78 to the monthly total bringing me to $213.81. Last night we had hamburger pie for dinner which is something my mom used to make when I was a kid. It is easy to throw together and cooks up quick. Wednesday night I made alfredo sauce with ham and peas and served that over a mixture of rotini and penne pasta. Both dinners were a good way to use small bits of stuff left from other recipes.

totals for May thus far

If I have not stated before I try to do all my shopping at the beginning of the month since that is when I get paid, I run in for milk the rest of the month.

Produce co-op: $26.00
Braums for milk and ice cream on a whim: $8.99
Sprouts: $8.74
Albertson's: $48.79
Target: $54.79-$2.88 (picked up item for friend and was paid back) =$51.91
Kroger: $66.60

so my total is over budget for the month::::: $211.03

let's see how close I can keep it to this!

running through my head

I know it is ironic since I am typing this on a blog but the whole read my blog because I have everything together and I am going to tell you step by step how to achieve my level awesomeness bugs me. No one has that perfect of a life....mine is a crazy mess of nonsense on a daily basis and this is really a dumping ground for that. Sure, I am starting the $200 challenge but that is mostly to keep myself honest and accountable. I know I will fail a lot more than I will succeed and I am ok with that.  Enough for this rant. I have the receipts and will post the totals in a separate post.

Off and running!!!

I managed to get my grocery shopping done this weekend along with about 400 other things on the list. I will add up the receipts and post totals here as well as what the menu has looked like this month. There will be some treats since my birthday is this month and a lot of places have sent me coupons for free meals!

May!!!

May is off and running....I have started reading the blogging books with the hopes of working this page out. I also stopped last night and spent under $10 for ice cream and milk. Tonight I stopped and spent less than $10 for bananas and a ham. I portioned the ham out when I came home for 4 meals.
The ham was  obviously the protein for dinner tonight, this was paired with steamed carrots and a cherry crumble. I want to use up stuff from the freezer so if my garden produces later this summer I will have room to put some of the veggies up. The cherries were from some I put up a couple of months ago and the carrots were from 25 pounds I purchased through my co-op and put up a few months ago. Tomorrow the plan is to use up the leftover ham and a little more that I portioned out as well as some potatoes I have from the co-op to make a chowder.