Day 10 - fell off the wagon...

Well, today ended up being a shopping extravaganza...

And to top it off, I think that I am annoying hubby enough with this challenge that I may have to quit before the month is out (we'll have to see, I guess!)

We spent the day with my MIL. First thing in the morning Eva had her 4 year checkup with 4 shots! She cried a little, but the prospect of getting to go shopping with Grandma perked her up a lot. As did the bug juice that I bribed her with when she didn't want to get her shots...

Hubby paid for drinks at the convenience store...but I have to admit, I succumbed to temptation and got a diet coke...

So, we went with her to the nearest real city (you know, the kind with a Wal Mart and a Walgreens...) and I did quite a bit of shopping (part of being so isolated, it's a big deal to go shopping...)

First was Walgreens. I bought $54 of OTC medicines with our FSA card (we have a lot of money still on it and we'd lose it at the end of the year...) and I was SUPPOSED to get a $10 Register Reward and a $4 Register Reward. It didn't work out right, and the assistant manager was a big JERK about the fact that I wanted the $14 in RR to spend on other items. Finally, after about 20-25 minutes of waiting around, he ended up getting me 3 $5 Register Rewards instead. I was so fried that we figured we'd go back to Walgreens on the way home.

So, on to Wal Mart where I spent just under $40, and Eva spent 3 of her $5 gift cards (my brother gave her 8 of them for her birthday) on a small toy and a new booster seat for the car. In that $40, I got some groceries, a bunch of diaper wipes and dog food.

Then on to Dollar Tree, where I bought two shave gels in a tube (hubby doesn't like cans of shaving cream because they rust in the shower...he's kind of strange) for $2.14

Finally, back to Walgreens, where we really should have done three transactions to use all three Register Rewards, but we were so fried that we did two, and have one left over, that hopefully we will use before it expires when hubby goes up to that town for a 4th degree Knights of Columbus meeting. I had about $23 on a gift card from last months rebates, and used that all up, plus an additional $9.45 (for diapers).

I now technically have $22 left for the month, but hubby is warning me not to get too legalistic on this whole thing.

I've got 11 minutes left until my pickles are ready...

So, I figured I do an update of today.

I did end up going to the grocery store:

1.61 lb white onions $1.27
1 gallon milk $3.79
2.86 lbs bananas $1.97

So, another $7.20 towards my grocery total for the month. I'm up to $31.18.

I've also noticed that we drink a lot more milk at this house when we don't have any pop around...we used up our last supply for Eva's birthday party, so we haven't had any in the house most of the month (I think the last few cans were finished on the 1st). It's probably way better for us all around...less junk food, less soda, more veggies (if only massive amounts of cucumber salad!) and more home cooked meals.

I ended up making the goulash that hubby asked me to learn how to make for his top ten dishes, but ended up using this recipe instead, since hubby looked up the recipe I found and didn't think it was close enough to his mom's version. He found the second one and said it was closer. The only changes I made were to leave out the stewed tomatoes (don't have any in the house!) and the green pepper (all our pepper plants died within a week of transplant this year).

Sadly, I still have 4 minutes to go...guess I'll go check some blogs!

Day 8 - First Day of School!

Well, today has been a highly productive day for me...particularly since we started Kindergarten for Eva today.

My trial schedule worked pretty well today:

Eat, showered and dressed by 8
Religion - 15 minutes
Reading - 15 minutes
30 minute-ish break (today it was the length of Backyardigans)
Phonics - 30 minutes (15 mins of handwriting on alternate days)
Art - 30 minutes (Each day different: Art, P.E., Music, Science)
Break (today not a very long one, I just unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher and got the laundry transferred) Hubby got home during this break
Math - 15 minutes (30 minutes on days with handwriting)
Spanish - 15 minutes (on first and fourth days)

So, we are doing school 4 days a week, which allows a day off to coincide with hubby's day off (this week, Wednesday) and to do other things (this Wednesday, Eva has her 4 year checkup and we'll be visiting grandma)

My meal schedule for the month has started, too. It seems to be going well, also. I figured I needed a fairly flexible meal plan to be able to use pantry and freezer items more effectively, but I needed a plan for each day, so I wouldn't give up and have us go out (as much fun as having lunch out on the first day of school would have been!)

Here's the general plan:

Mondays - soup for lunch, pasta for dinner
Tuesdays - sandwiches for lunch, crockpot meal for dinner
Wednesdays - leftovers for lunch, misc. dishes for dnner (pork chops, roast, chili)
Thursdays - pancakes or waffles for lunch, meatloaf for dinner
Friday - hot dogs for lunch, Pizza for dinner
Saturdays - conveience food for lunch (stuff from SHARE in the freezer), Fish for dinner
Sundays - Fend for yourself for the meals we are at home (it's looking like 2 this month)

No shopping so far today, but I do think that I'm going to end up making MORE pickles this evening...so I'm hoping we won't need a grocery run, but I haven't checked yet.

Moving to the country, gonna eat me a lot of peaches...

Otherwise known as Day 7 of my 30 days.

Last night, we left my MILs house with 10 packages of hamburger, 5 lbs of potatoes (she was sent home from her brother's house with about 100 lbs) and a slightly less than 25 lb box of peaches. (She bought them from a student selling them for a school club, but accidentally bought from two students. She did the same thing last year, and a bunch of the peaches rotted before she got to freezing them...not to mention that this year she got a 5 gallon bucket full of peaches off her peach tree!)

We also ended up almost hitting a calf in the middle of the road on our way home. Of course, it had the family brand, so we got to turn it around (we scared it, and it was heading away from its pasture) and drive it back with our big ol' Buick. I think it may have been the first time it drove cattle...amazingly enough.

So, after church today (and after clipping a kazillion coupons from this weeks paper!) I canned 7 more pints of peaches, and froze another 1 1/2 quarts.

We did have to stop at the grocery store for ice (we were hoping to stop by the liquor store, because their ice is cheaper...but apparently though both liquor stores in town are NOW OPEN SUNDAYS!!! They don't open at 9 am...) so, that was another $1.62 towards our $25.00 this week. Since I did need to peel the peaches, and since the most effective way is blanching, and since we don't have an icemaker (or normally make ice in ice cube trays) I figure the ice purchase is okay.

Our grocery total so far is: $23.98

Not bad, since tomorrow is the beginning of week 2!

Day 6 - Over the river and through the woods...

Well, we are at grandma's house right now (my MIL, the beloved grandparent!) and things are still going okay with the 30 days.

Yesterday after hubby got home from work, he was really wanting to get out of the house and relax...he asked if it would count against my 30 days if he suggested that we go to Pizza Hut (40 miles away) for supper. I said that if he really needed to get out of the house, we could do it, but that I was more than willing to make homemade pizza. So, instead of about 80 miles round trip and the cost of pizza, I sent hubby to the grocery store and he spent just over $10. (I don't have the receipt with me)

Our grocery list was:
bananas (do you notice a trend? My girls LOVE bananas)
milk (not quite out, but getting close)
dozen eggs
bottle of pizza sauce (kind of a splurge, but the squeezable pizza sauce lasts nicely in our fridge until I can use it up...otherwise, I find moldy pizza sauce in the back of the fridge...)

So, I'm claiming a victory for averting a meal out with $10 at the grocery store, and another movie checked out from the library (which we haven't watched yet).

Today also has gone well...I really had a desire to stop by the pop machines and get 25 cent drinks...but Charlotte would want one, and always spills in her carseat. Honestly, that's probably the only reason I didn't break down...but I did admit that it wouldn't be in the spirit of the challenge to stop for drinks.

Day 5 - Payday!

I love payday...because I can spend time dealing with money, moving it around and paying bills (I may be the only person in the world who actually likes the process of paying bills...of course, I'd rather keep the money!)

So, I was just updating Quicken with hubby's new contribution to his retirement account, transfering money from one account to another so that I can write a check to pay for our foundation repair (which, thankfully only ended up costing $350) and making a contribution to Charlotte's college fund (we alternate months between the girls).

I'm feeling pretty good about this month so far. Obviously, I consider both the foundation repair bill and the college fund contribution to count as necessities.

I do have to admit that everytime I update retirement accounts or college savings accounts, I get a little sick to my stomach. You see, we've put in $950 (before today) for Charlotte's account and it has lost $125...ouch!

So, I have to make myself look at it from this perspective: Better to buy low and sell high! I know it sounds really simple, but I find myself having to work against my emotions. I just want to stop contributing to the funds and build up our emergency fund faster...but I don't really want to, I just don't like seeing the money go down.

Now, if I were a good Dave Ramsey-ite, we would have built up our emergency fund BEFORE we started contributing to retirement and college savings. We made our decision to slow down our savings to do these things, and now I feel like we need to stick with them. Of course, that decision would be reconsidered if anything major happened in our lives.

I am hoping that these 30 days of nothing help us to build up our emergency fund, and get us back on track towards saving, rather than wasting our money, as we so often do.

(Sidenote, we were having a discussion last night while I made dinner...I'll admit it, I was whining a little bit about having to cook and clean up after another meal, so I was trying to put that into perspective by remembering how blessed we are to have a home, a kitchen, food in our fridge and pantry, dishes, a dishwasher, etc. etc. etc...hubby was teasing me and said "you just wish there was someway to have someone cook for you and clean up afterwards" and I pointed out to him that there is such a place, and it is called a restaurant...)

Cow slippers - Day 4

Almost done with day 4 of 30 days...

One of the things that I had noticed needed replacing was my slippers. I generally wear slippers around the house, as we have a lot of hard flooring. In the summer, we often get stickers in the house, and in the winter, the floor just gets cold. The slippers I've been using I bought before I was even pregnant with Charlotte, so they really didn't owe me anything. Unfortunately, the padding got all bunched up inside them, and when I was trying to fix it, it all ended up getting pulled out...so no more padding in the slippers.

Then I remembered that I had another pair of slippers that I don't like very much (they are fine if I am sick, but if I have to walk around a lot in them, they slide right off my feet) so I went into our closet to find them. I found them...AND a pair of cow slippers (you know the kind...with the head of the animal at the toes) that I put up because my other slippers (the now destroyed ones) were more comfortable and, lets face it, less embarassing to wear around the house. So, I have embraced my cow slippers today.

No spending today. We went to the library and signed Eva up for storytime, which starts at the end of this month, then headed over to the park to play on the slides and so Eva could ride her bike (our streets are a little rounded for her abilities!)

I'm already getting creative with food...

We've had some variety of cucumber salad for virtually every meal (at least 1, if not 2 a day) and there is no end in sight. Next year, I'm planning on a more diversified garden if only to be able to go back and forth between cucumber salad and sauteed zucchini...

Lunch today was roast beef slices with a little cheese and mustard on hamburger buns grilled and pressed down with a second skillet (kinda like a really white trash panini, I guess) with cucumber salad and orange slices. Dinner, I baked potatoes, and made twice baked potatoes with a can of rice and pinto beans (from SHARE...I've never seen anything like it before!) and a little cheese on top, and served it with canned peaches (we could've had another cucumber salad...I just couldn't take it!) We did manage to use up the leftover hamburger buns from Eva's birthday party today.

I'm doing okay with my lack of paperbackswap so far, although I think that I will have quite a stack to list by the time this month is over!

Day 2 (or 3...I'm just not sure how to count this yet!)

So, we are now on day 2 since I made the decision to do the 30 days of nothing yesterday...although, I don't think we spent any money on the 1st either, so I guess maybe I'll just call this day 3 to make life easier...

So, today we went to the grocery store. Our local ad came out, and hubby FINALLY remembered to bring it home (usually I have to ask him to pick it up for several days...it comes in the local paper, but the paper is so badly written, we don't subscribe anymore!) of course, right in time for my minimal buying thing...and there were several items that were good deals that I passed up. Here's what I bought:

1 gallon 2% milk $3.79
3.16 lbs bananas $1.05 (got a good price because they are overripe, but the girls are fine with them now...and if they ripen much more, I guess I'll get to make some banana bread...something that hardly ever happens since the birth of Charlotte the banana lover!)
3 boxes cereal $5.00 (5 for $10, used $1 off 3 coupon)
5 lbs potatoes $2.00 (originally charged me $4.45 instead of the sale price, but I noticed before we walked all the way home, so sent hubby back for a refund.)
Total: $12.20

I really have to babysit the checkers at our supermarket because without fail, several things don't scan correctly...and even with my vigilance, they probably overcharge me by $1-$3 per week. If only we had another option (the nearest other grocery stores are 40 miles away)

So far, so good...of course, I have noticed about a dozen things that need to be replaced around here, but I'm thinking of starting a Christmas wish list for them. My parents and hubby's parents frequently ask us what we would like for Christmas, and I almost always tell them there really isn't anything in particular...mostly because I go out and replace things without waiting for an occasion. Maybe this will help me to have a list for them!

30 days of nothing

Okay, so the title is obviously a little bit of a misnomer...as we have LOTS of stuff...

A while back, my friend Katie mentioned a blog called Owlhaven - she really is into the blog because the blogger has adopted several children from Ethiopia (as has Katie). I read through most of the archives, and I was most interested in an experiment that she did called 30 days of nothing. Basically, she challenged herself to spend minimal money (gave up things like buying books, tried to keep to a very minimal grocery budget and eat from her pantry, etc) and do activities with her kids to show them how good we have it in our lives as Americans (I think they washed clothes by hand one day, do regular vegetarian meals, eat oatmeal regularly for breakfast, etc.)

I brought it up to hubby a while back, and he didn't think it was a good idea. Largely in part (I'm guessing) to the fact that I tend to be very rigid and tend to beat myself up for little mistakes. Also, probably because he didn't want to have to hear about it all the time and listen to my determining if something would fit into the spirit of the challenge. (I can see his point, one thing that bugged me most about the service learning house at our college was that they could spend DAYS arguing over whether or not a pasta fork from the thrift store could be considered simple living.)

So, in a spirit of not torturing my husband about it, I have decided that I (not the whole family, just me) am going to attempt a 30 days of nothing challenge...of course, my definition of nothing isn't really nothing:

I am going to:
-Allow $25 a week for groceries (milk, eggs, bananas) but plan menus to clean out our deep freeze (we are trading my parents our little one for their larger one) and use up some of our pantry stockpiles. If we run out of something, I will buy it if I can work it into the $25 budget.
-Take the kids to the library at least once a week, and maybe even check out some movies for family fun night.
-Work on clearing out clutter from our house in my spare time.
-Put a vacation hold on my paperbackswap account (this is the thing that will hurt the most! I love swapping books!) which means, no more books coming in, and no more books going out (which costs us the postage) for the month of September.

I am NOT going to:
-Obsess about how much money hubby has spent on things (really, he doesn't spend very much at all...but I tend to be a bit of a maniac when it comes to saving money) or how much money we do have/are putting/will have in our emergency savings account.
-Talk about how it is going (I'll probably blog about it, then hubby can have fair warning and can avoid reading my posts if he doesn't want to hear about it)
-Nag hubby about cutting down on trips to see his parents. Transportation will continue as usual, and I won't fret about the number of miles/cost of gas.

So, here it goes, my own 30 days of nothing (starting 1 day late!) There are 30 some other people doing the challenge, so feel free to check some of them out!