January in Review

I am actually excited to write this first update for the year! I also am including some important changes we are starting to implement this month. I will be the first to admit that most of my excitement is due to the fact that with alot of conscience effort, I have met most of the goals this month.





Blogging: This post will make 16 for the month!! I can honestly say that I have had to think about blogging this month. But have been successful in at least getting something on paper.

Goal: 15 per month

Devotions: Major improvements this month including meeting the goal for the month. I need to continue with this focus and also add some meat to it. I am also extremely excited that Matt has "stepped up" and is taking an active role in being the spiritual head of the house!
Goal is 3 a week.

Groceries: So this is the major ouch I am way behind goal on this one. I spent $1120. So my explanations is as following: stock-pile. Food Lion the one local grocery store has been running an awesome "Brand sale". I have made 3 separate trips spending approximately $85 each trip.  This is a store that I normally don't even shop. The other part of the explanation is that we are attempting to stock up on items during the first 3-4 month of the year so that during the remainder of the year, it will make all things easier.
     I am planning on making some major changes in= the way I keep up with our budget in this area. I am going to pull out the designated money on Monday and keep a cash envelope for it each week. This first week will be the hardest since I usually shop at CVS on Sundays, so I may just end up taking a week off or at least                 
 Grocery Budget is set at $800 per month, this includes diapers, cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.

Financially: After looking at our spending and income for the month, we are $450 over budget. I can account for all of this in the medical bills that were paid during the month. In order, to continue without this overage tanking our budget for February, we will be using our unexpected tax return to cover. Other plans for the return including the completion of our addition with gutters going up!
     I realize that we need to place money in our budget for medical expenses and will begin this in March. No debt was paid off this month but we should begin to see one or more a month starting in February.
Goal: To be Debt free except for mortgage by the end of the year.

Weight- I lost 7 pounds in the month of January! An awesome start..at this rate I will reach my goal prior to December of this year! Currently I am exercising 4 days a week and drink 8+ glasses of water

Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150

Saving Money- Using the 3 Rs

Reduce, re-use, recycle... We have all heard of these especially in relationship to saving the earth or reducing our carbon footprint, but they are true when trying to save money.

Reduce- the amount of pre-package foods you are buying and consuming.  This is a huge area where saving money is easy. Instead of buying pre-package dinners try freezer cooking. Another way to REDUCE your spending is by reduce the number of time that you eat out during the week or even simpler reduce the number of trips  you make to the store in a week. Menu planning for us is the only way that we can accomplish the goal to REDUCE. Each Sunday, we look through the freezer and decide what to place on the menu for the week. This is especially helpful when we are running low on meat. If we don't have the items we need then we can't cook.

Re-use- Before throwing away anything, think if you can use it for something else or can it be donated to someone who can. Currently, we are re-using the deck from our deck that was replaced 9 years ago to make a new square foot garden. This wood was taken to the very edge of our yard and has been covered with weeds for years. Matt is in the process of going through each peace to determine which ones can be used and which need to be burned. I also like cooking items like taco rice that can be re-used for green peppers or nachos. Plastic containers can be re-used for storage especially large coffee ones. Another great re-use of plastic containers is for planting. I am also re-using empty water bottles. I started this after reading and realizing that the filtered water from our refrigerator is better than most bottled water. Re-using clothes or hand me downs are a way of life for us.  We currently re-use plastic grocery bags for scooping cat litter as well as holding wet clothes and for small trash can liners.

Recycle: This principle is very similar to the Re-use. One major difference is that by using our own bags for groceries and stuff we are recycling fabric  as well as saving money at the same time. Another way to look at recycling is by using for a different purpose.

My hope is that you begin to look for ways to Reduce, Re-use and Recycle to save money along with me!

An Educational Afternoon

I mentioned that on Sunday, I began to work out a plan for our square foot garden this year. One of the new things I want to try is to grow broccoli. The main reason is that it is a "cool weather" vegetable. Meaning it can be planted early in the spring and then again in the fall with several harvest each time, this would significant increase my use of the gardening box. I went ahead and ordered some seeds on line. They arrived today, I was home around 2:30 and decided to turn this afternoon into a learning opportunity for the younger kids.

We first all watch a video on how to make paper pots from Budgetsavingmom.  Lily was in charge of searching the newspapers to find some without color, each of the 3 little ones got to tear apart the newspaper pages as well as "help" make the pots. Lily actually made her second one alone. Zach and Kendall were learning about positions (before and after) as well as turn taking. After finishing the pots we went out and filled with potting soil. Lily was given 2 word problems to keep her on top of things. Next we all planted the seeds and I watered. Hopefully they will sprout in around 10 days and we will be planting outside the first of March.  I am going to keep an eye on the weather and maybe getting all the plants outside by the first week of April?. But alot will depend on when the estimated last frost is, I have been reading that this can vary as much as a month in our area.  Finally after putting the pots in a cardboard box for easy transportation, Lily was able to use the calender and write the date we should have sprouts by followed by Zach and Kendall working on their names by signing their names. The total time we spent on this mini project was about an hour. But it provide the most teachable moments that I took advantage of in a while. It felt awesome to just be a mom but also know that I was spending quality time with the kids this afternoon.

Productive Free Weekend

We once again had a weekend with no major things to accomplish or events to attend. Haley left on Friday for Winter Retreat with her youth group, Amanda was at school and work and Lily did have a skating party on Saturday afternoon. Lily loved trying to skate and actually got around the rink a couple of times.

On Saturday, I was able to get FREE toilet bowl cleaners at Walmart. I had read about this deal on several website, and decided to try it. I asked to "price match" a sale at Family Dollar for $4 and then had a $4 off coupon. We actually got 2 of these and they are really working great. I was disappointed to find that they were out of the 3 other free items on my list. Also on Saturday,I cooked the 10lbs of chicken I purchased earlier in the week. I was able to freeze 10 cups of shredded chicken as well as 22 bags of chicken broth.

Sunday in North Carolina was rainy and COLD. The temperature was around 35 all day. So to get things warm, I decided to start planning for my "Square Foot Garden."  We have been debating on how big or small to make it this year. I also wanted to stick to items I know we will use. I had purchased several packs of seeds 2 years ago and want to try to start from starch again this year. The good news is that I actually got myself organized enough that this should be possible and if not then I can always purchased at the right time for growing. I did order broccoli seeds to start right away as well as some green chili seeds to try my hand at. I will also be raising some tomatoes this year as well. Otherwise, I hope to purchase enough corn to freeze as well as we will be participating in the Food Coop again. I am excited that I actually am ahead of the game this year instead of waiting to the last minute to start. I also hope this means it works and produces enough for freezing.

Finally on Sunday, Matt and I got all the tax papers together. I am currently waiting on 1 more W-2 then I can spend 3-4 hours filing online.

Sounds relaxing right?

Saving Money-Why we are NOT buying/raising Chickens

One of the things Matt and I have been discussing over the past several weeks to help reduce our food expenses is the possibility of getting our own live chickens. The idea being that we would then raise both hens for eggs and a couple of roosters for meat. However, the only answer for us it NO!  The main reason is that the upfront cost as well as maintenance are significantly higher than what we are paying now. Below is the break down

Current cost: Chicken breast 21.99- 10# bag at Costco, 7 doz eggs 13.99 at Costco, chicken leg quarters $0.59 a pound on sale at Food Lion. I estimate that with the purchase of 2 10# bags of leg quarters the above items will last us approximately 2 months. A total of $50 or $25 each month.

Cost of chicken farming: Original building of coop and hen house $120 (divided into a year so $12 a  month). Chicken food $20 a month. With out even considering the initial cost of chickens we already are spending more for at least the first year on chicken farming. This does not include any labor cost or the daily expectation of gathering eggs or processing chickens.  I should add at this point that Matt does not like birds in fact he said "the only good chicken is a boneless one."

But as you can see with the numbers chicken farming is not in our future.

Saving Money- Add to the Stockpile

Just last week, I was excited to share that I thought our stockpile was near complete. I was even more excited that I was not even close to the grocery budget for the money. Well since then I have been shopping again at Food Lion and have a plan to go to Costco again tomorrow. Sounds crazy doesn't it, what is even more crazy is that I am planning to move some money from dinning out to cover the Costco trip tomorrow.  But let me explain.....

Food Lion is the only "grocery store" in our area. We also have a Walmart that sells groceries but I really dislike Walmart. I rarely go to Food Lion because of their coupon policy and usually much higher prices when compared to Costco. But these past several weeks have been different. A good example is my trip tonight I spent 85.09 and saved 66.13 or 44%. This is not a huge saving percentage and in the past I would not even post about this trip but if you take a close look at what I bought for that $85 it makes more sense.  Chicken leg quarters were on sale for 0.59 a pound in quantities of 10#. This is actually 0.20 cheaper than my stockpile price. I ended up purchasing 40# of chicken. My thought is that I will crockpot cook one bag at a time. This should provide enough meat and chicken stock for at least 4 meals or 1 month so I purchased a 4 month supply tonight. While I was in the store, they have continued there "Store brand sale", in addition to ketchup and BBQ sauce, they added cat food and salad dressing. I again grabbed several of the condiments as well as 40 cans of cat food, at 0.15 a piece it is cheaper than dry food. I also grabbed more sodas at 0.64, with coupons goldfish and pop tarts also made it into my cart.  So this 44% saving trip really is a great deal in real life.

We will head to Costco tomorrow for milk and other items we are out of just to finish off the month. Matt and I are already talking about several changes to the way we are budgeting. In addition starting next month, I am going to use a envelope system for groceries so that we can "carry" any remaining amounts over for a month when our financial situation changes as we are anticipating in the next 6 months or so.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

• Plans for Saturday including working on and filing our income tax.
• Going to try the envelope system next month for easier budgeting and saving.
• Lily's face is looking much better!
• We are going to make another trip to Food Lion this week to stock up more on house brand items
• I am the only one that has a doctor's appointment this week.
• Work is still really slow and looks like it will stay this way for several weeks.
• I am actually met most of my goals this month- thus the need for this really lame blog entry!
• CVS was actually a good place to shop this week
• We actually spend less money when cooking/entertaining friends than even the 5 of us going out to eat!
• Water from our refridgerator is better filtered than what I have purchased, so I am going to start re-using bottles and/or dig out our disney bottles.