March in Review

Blogging: I actually have improved with this in the month on March. I am currently on my 14th post but I have to admit that I did post 4-5 of just pictures from Haley's birthday party. I am going to set my goal at 3 a week or 15 plus a month. I honestly don't think that I will ever be able to post daily but I want to keep trying to keep up with the blog to document life if nothing else. Devotions: I am trying but I still have not met consistently 3x a week with a higher goal of 5 times a week. I have to design a time and stick to it. Couponing/Grocery Budgeting: This has been an awesome month in this regard. I checked the Grocery spending for the month and it is 800.35!! This includes the food for Haley's party and quite a bit of stockpiling especially of drinks and diapers. The plan for April is that we cut the budget in half to $400 but not include the money we spend on food in Florida. In case you are wondering, I have budgeted $100 a day in addition to $150 for each of the 2 special meal that we have reservation for. I have already paid for the most expensive meal at "The Royal Table." My plan is to take in one soda a day for each of us and the water bottles. I honestly don't think the food budget will be a problem on the trip but of course I can alway be very wrong. Financially: We did okay this month. My car ended up with some major repairs during the month of February and March. We ended up spending almost 300 in March alone for repairs. However with that begin said, it is running awesome, I am hoping to get at least 300000 out of it. We also are spending around a thousand dollars on our septic system. Hopefully this will solve or at least move the problem so that we don't have to replace it yet again. We did not pay off any extra debit but after looking over our spending for last month, we had around 300 additional in medical expenses and we have been eating out ALOT. Matt and I talked and this is going to change we have decided to limit eating out to 50 a week or 200 for April. We are not including our trip in any aspect of the budget this month. Hopefully we will have an awesome time and still stay on track! Weight- A big ole ZERO, nothing..I am disappointed......any suggestions?

Haley's Sweet Sixteen Party-Random Pictures

Haley's Sweet Sixteen Party- Friends

Haley's Sweet Sixteen Party-Family Pictures

All of the in town family was able to come to Haley party!!

Haley's Sweet Sixteen Party- Haley Pictures

Haley's Sweet Sixteen Party

The focus of this past weekend has been Haley's birthday party. I spent most of the day Saturday decorating the fire station for the party. The party was from 7 till 11pm. We arrived home around midnight thanks to the help of some great friends who not only helped decorate but also helped clean up! I really enjoyed this party because I have seen most of these kids from the time she started school and it had been cool to watch them grow -up. Haley also a group from the youth group come. You hear alot about how bad the kids are but this group is definitely different. We had not one problem and everything we have heard is that EVERYONE had an awesome time. Sunday has been spent sleep and shopping. My plan over the next couple of days/post is to share Haley's party in pictures and then to share about my awesome shopping day. We are also now shifting focus to start counting down the days until our trip to DISNEY!!!! I am so excited! But first Haley's party pictures......the decorations........

Harris Teeter Super Doubles

I did find time on Haley's birthday to make a trip to Harris Teeter. The reason of course is the fact that they are having their "Super Doubles" event which means they will double any coupon up to $1.98. I was able to grab a lot of stuff for free. In total I spent $24 and saved $114 or 82%. I am REALLY pleased with this for a couple of reason. I purchased 6 containers of strawberries and 2 bags of Doritos for Haley's party this Saturday without coupons. They both were a decent price but still NO coupons. I also got a 6 pack of Pedisure for Zach that after coupon doubling to $3 the price for 6 was around 7.50. I couple of items I got for free included bandaids, creamer and milk. I am planning to return on Sunday to finish using my 22 coupons that are left! Of course that depends on how well I survive Haley's party on Saturday!