This is fairly new, but something I've started so I'll use my blog to plan. This is for family meals so I won't state quantities. We have a higher protein content due to Rose's prediabetes and the rest of us eat pretty much the same as she does and we eat our largest meal of the day at lunch. I can plan to use up leftovers and know what items I need to make larger batches of by writing it out. That's all this post is about so if you aren't interested, skip on.

Day One

Breakfast
organic O's cereal with milk
blueberries
cucumber slices
eggs

Lunch
small salad
corn on the cob
chicken
green beans
milk
homemade strawberry frozen fruit bar

Dinner
chicken quesadilla
broccoli/cauliflower

Day Two

Breakfast

turkey ham
cantaloupe
whole grain toast with blackberry preserves
milk

Lunch

Spaghetti noodles with homemade sauce of tomatoes, garlic, scallions, oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, red bell pepper
3 cheese garlic meatballs
Homemade French bread with homemade garlic/parsley butter
kohlrabi
milk

Dinner
Meatball sandwiches made with the lunch leftovers of sauce and bread
broccoli/cauliflower
apple juice

Day 3
Blueberry Muffin
Frittata (eggs, turkey ham, cheese, chopped broccoli/cauliflower) topped with a bit of leftover sauce from previous day
milk

Lunch
tacos (meat, lettuce, cheese, shell)
blueberries stirred into vanilla yogurt
carrots
ice cream
orange juice

Dinner
taco salads made with leftovers from lunch
milk

Day Four

Breakfast

Homemade beef sausage patties
organic O's cereal with milk and blueberries

Lunch
big beef pot roast
mashed potatoes (make big pot, save out half before mashing) with homemade beef gravy
cucumber slices
big batch broccoli/cauliflower
milk

Dinner
small salad
roast beef hash made with leftover potroast and leftover potatoes
nectarines
carrot/apple juice (freshly juiced)
blueberry muffin

Day Five

Breakfast

Hashbrowns (from saved out potatoes and 1/4 of an onion)
Egg scramble with cheese, low-sodium no sugar bacon, little chunks of broccoli and cauliflower, and onion
pineapple juice

Lunch

Homemade pizzas made with leftover beef sausage, pepperoni, ham, green peppers, onion and pineapple (pineapple only for DH's portion)
rest of pineapple (the rest of us will eat it raw only, not cooked)
milk

Dinner
Last of held out potatoes, pan fried, with salt, pepper, cumin, and oregano
canned salmon over lettuce

Day Six

Breakfast

whole grain toast with blackberry preserves
canned salmon omlette with cheese
milk

Lunch

Cod fish nuggets (homemade, just chunks of cod dipped in milk then in parmesan cheese
Baked potato with cheese and broccoli
vanilla yogurt with blueberries stirred in

Dinner

Meatloaf: dice up and throw in whatever veggies need to be used up as well as eggs, crumbs, cheese and a bit of tomato sauce into a ground beef/ground turkey base

Day Seven

Breakfast

Turkey ham
organic 0's cereal with milk
plums

Lunch

whole roasted chicken
roasted carrots and potatoes
green beans
cucumber slices
cherries
milk

Dinner

Leftover meatloaf sandwiches
cantaloupe
chocolate brownies
milk


For snacks it will vary between peanut butter celery or cream cheese celery, crackers with either cheddar or mozzarella, sunflower seeds and almonds with carrot sticks, air popped popcorn (2 cups at a time) and a bag of Bugles (to be eaten in one cup portions) with a small protein choice, usually nuts, and the bad one, Cheez Whiz on whole grain toast. I allow for a bit of junkiness in the kids's diets, but not much.

And that's all she wrote.

Didn't quite get this in under the wire so it will post as Friday but its Thursday's stuff.

First savings: Today was the day of the weekly auto transfer of $10 to savings, bringing that account to $587.56. Just $12.44 shy of $600, which I'll go over tomorrow when I deposit the $56.44 I owe to that account. We'll see if there is any more left after paying the bills that can be squeezed out for savings.

Today (8/10) was Rose's 10th birthday. It was a relatively good day. She got 2 Mermaidia Barbie dolls, a magnetic tin with magnetic car games like tic tac toe, checkers, pyramid solataire and lots of writing paper in it for hangman or other games, and a basketball. She also got 4 books, 2 of them Judy Blume ones that I read as a kid.

When her dad gets back he is going to take her to get a used Game Cube. She is paying half with birthday money she got from the grandparents. My parents also gave her a rabbit she made with my mother at the Build a Bear Workshop. Not sure what the other set of grandparents will do. They bought my son a bigger bike as he had grown two sizes from the one he had, but they did that in June and his birthday was in March.

Rose does not need a new bike. Though by the time they get around to buying one for her, she might. They are notoriously late, though generous. I'm still waiting for what I asked for when she asked me what I wanted for my birthday in February which was a hard anodized caphalon 12 inch skillet. Not a whole set or anything, just the one pan. It'll come, though. Some day. LOL

Tomorrow is payday and grocery day. I will be making a smaller Costco run as I only need a few items, but I really NEED the few items that I need. Definitely under $100 there. Probably closer to $50. I also have to go to Fred Meyer and Haggen. Maybe Cost Cutter, too, I haven't had a chance to look over their flyer. Fortunately, I can do a loop route as they are all within a three mile circle. I'm only buying loss leaders and sale items at the 3 regular grocery stores.

I hope to hit the farm stand on my way home and get more cherries. And possibly go to one of the farms where they grow kohlrabi. My second planting of it got wiped out by the 90 to 100 degree heatwave last month. Hopefully, their's didn't. I love kohlrabi. It is my favorite vegetable. And very low on the glycemic index, too. Have to watch stuff like that as Rose is prediabetic. She loves kohlrabi, too. Maybe I should try one more planting. If September stays hot...they could make it and if not, they're only seeds.

I picked 2 gallons of blueberries from one of my mother's trees (yes, trees, I call them, they are 6 feet tall). I only managed to clear about 2/3 of the one tree. I hope to pick more tomorrow. The other tree is heavily loaded, too but I don't know if I'll be able to get to it before the birds, do.

I did pick a quart size baggy for my dad. He can't see well enough to go out and pick some each morning for his cereal like he used to. He's not blind, but his brain no longer processes images properly so he doesn't see what is right in front of him. It's been bad as he can no longer read and if you knew my dad, well...that is heart-breaking. Add that to the mid-level dementia that is creeping forward. Well, a few berries seems like not enough to do for him. I do read to him when I can. And Rose has started to, also.

Wow, I got chatty tonight. And way off the point of blogs. Well, the berries are free food, so that is saving money, right?

Cashed out a new click-thru tonight for $2.

Still have one $5 payment pending. I wish they'd light a fire under themselves and start moving.

I know because I counted. 27 days until school starts. Why did I count? Because if I didn't know better, if I didn't know that normally my kids are sweet, loving, good to each other children, I'd be thinking I'd given birth to demon spawn. I can survive for 27 more days. And hopefully the kids won't actually kill each other.

I do not know what has gotten into them. I had to threaten Rose that if she slammed her bedroom door one more time today I was going to take it off its hinges and she wouldn't have one. I know how to do it, too, and I will so its not an empty threat. Rose had already broken Tobias' door when she kicked it open so hard and it pushed the door stop right through the wall when she body slammed it after getting it open, so now T has a hole in his wall. That's going to cost money to fix. Plus, we will have to rehang his door and fix the latch.

I am at my wit's end. Rose never loses her temper. T can be a pain and get angry on occassion, but not Rose. Hormones, I think. I hate puberty.

Okay, got that out of my system for now. Thanks for the vent. It stopped raining (rained all day yesterday) and the sun is out now, but it isn't too hot. I have laundry to hang. And getting fresh air will restore my lightness of spirit for the next go-round. Back to the trenches.

The paypal transfer of the $1.71 from cashforaction showed up in my bank account today, so I transferred that to savings, bringing my total in savings to $577.56. When I add the $56 in on Friday I will also add an additional $0.44, as I really don't like non-rounded amounts. I have a bit of a compulsion about numbers. I like them even numbers and whole numbers. I'll take the $0.44 from my change jar. Fortunately, this only rears its head in regards to money with my savings account. My checking account can have odd numbers in it, just fine.

DH and I had a long phone conversation last night. His company has an opening for a higher position and it looks like he may have a shot at getting it. He's been with the company for 10 years and has a very good reputation as a hard working, detail-oriented person. When he got his second degree 4 years ago it was for what this position does.

I am so hoping he gets it. If he does the starting scale is $1000 net per month more than what he makes now. Net. Not gross. $12,000 a year more take home pay. When I think where we could use that much money...Of course, he would no longer be on a 2 and 2, he'd be on a 3 and 3. That would be hard. Especially for the kids. But he'd be home for a longer stretch of time when he was home.

And instead of having to buy 12 plane tickets a year, he'd only have to buy 9, which is a savings of from $1500 to $2000 a year. It would also mean 3 less hotel bills for a total of $300. So ultimately closer to $14,000 more net a year.

Because it is in the same company there would be no changes in his medical, dental or vision benefits.

And that is just the starting wage. The position tops out at $575 a day. This would be the answer to just so many of our problems. To not have to pinch quite so tightly on everything. We could get the credit cards paid off, then the house mortgage, then the medical mortgage on Mom's house. And buy the car we need to get soon. It would make all of our goals reachable in ten years time.

I'm afraid to hope for it. I don't want to start counting any chickens either. But if...if, if, if...it would be pretty wonderful. And I'd still use everything that I have learned in the past 4 months here at this site. I'm not about to let go again and go wild with money. I'll still do my surveys and my click-thrus and my product evaluations. But maybe I'd be able to use them to open my own IRA instead of for a down payment on a car.

The last time I prayed this hard was when I was trying to carry a pregnancy to term the last time. I eventually got that 2nd surviving child, albeit with a boatload of medical bills between the two. Not to mention all the ones that came afterwards. (At least I never had to pay for infertility stuff. Getting pregnant was never the problem. Staying that way was.) Now with this, we would finally be able to put a dent in those bills.

I really, really want this. Almost as much as I wanted my kids. Is it wrong to want something this much?

Okay, I got the $15 in rolled coin deposited today and I cashed the check from SendEarnings. I put $2.85 of that check into savings and kept $50. I will pay that $50 and an additional $6 back to savings on Friday. Total in savings now is $575.85.

I also went to the doctor today. He doesn't charge me my copay, he just charges the insurance company what they pay. I love my doctor. He delivered me so I have known him all my life! He is a very good man and he always makes sure I can afford whatever medications I need.

Well, today I had a raging kidney infection. He does the lab work right there in the office and he says its the worst he's seen me have. I do get them a couple times a year, and this one did feel worse. The onset was very fast, too. Anyway, I ended up with only having to pay a total of $20 for 2 prescriptions, both generic at my insurances $10 copay for each.

Had a nice chat with the pharmacist. Love my pharmacist, too. I've known him since I was a kid. He always makes sure I know what I need to know about new meds and how the will or will not interact with any other meds I'm on. So basically, no interactions, take with food, stay out of the sun. The last of which I am only too happy to oblige right now. I just don't like 80 degree weather.

So all I spent today was that $20. I had a free dinner at my mother's house. Two double cheeseburgers from McD's. She buys them 20 at a time and has them on hand for Dad or when the grandkids stop by. Big meal for me but I didn't eat lunch. Then I went out back and picked some blueberries for dessert. Took a quart size Ziploc full home with me. I'll pick a bunch more on Thursday when we go in again. There's at least 10 gallons worth ripe on the trees right now.

$10 from paypal came through to my credit union so I transferred that to my savings account. That total is now at $558. I will deposit $15 in rolled coin today. I ended up using the Sacajewea dollar to pay a fine of my husband's at the library. But I will replace that dollar along with the $5 I found in the McD's parking lot that I ended up using for gas (because I'd left my Shell cards at home) on Friday when we get paid.

I forgot about an auto payment that will come due one day before payday so I will put the check from SendEarnings in my regular account and then move that amount to my savings CU on Friday also.

I took the weekend off from doing click-thrus so I won't be cashing anything out this week, I don't think.

Oh, the $1.71 from cashforaction finally showed up in my paypal account today so I transferred that to my CU. I am still waiting for the $5 from the other one to show up at paypal.

The big check came today, $52.85. Of course, it came on a day I can't deposit it! One of the new click-thrus, the one I cashed out last night, showed up in paypal today. I am still waiting on the $5 one that was supposed to have a 72 hour turn around. I cashed it out on Tuesday so I guess they are not legitimate or they are really, really slow. If it hasn't shown up by Monday, I'll send them a query.

I haven't been able to get into my online banking today to see if any of the paypal transfers came through there. They are doing maintenance. Gee, why can't they do it in the middle of the night like everyone else does?

It's way too hot again today. 82. We are going back out to the pool now.

I found $5 in the parking lot at McDonald's today. So not only did I not have to pay for our meals because of the gift certificates I found earlier, but I came home $5 richer. And quite a bit saner after the kids played in playland for 3 hours. The change of scenery was just what they needed to stop their fighting. The rest of the day has gone smoothly. I meant to mow the lawn but I just kind of didn't do it. LOL At least I added chemicals to the pool so it can be used tomorrow. It's getting hot again and we will want to get in tomorrow, I'm sure.

I will add the $5 to the $16 of rolled coin so one of these days will be adding in $21 to my savings account. Which will bring my total to $569. I'm not sure I'll get there before next Friday at the rate I'm going, and by then some click-thrus will have been deposited and I may have the big check, and of course the next $10 auto deposit. I'll hit well over $600 soon.

I cashed out a click-thru today for $2. Seems so piddly, these little amounts but they add up. So far August is shaping up nicely.

I figured out where the "extra" money in my savings account came from. Yesterday was Thursday and that is the day of the auto deposit to savings. Can't believe I forgot that. Silly. So yes, it is supposed to be there, the total is $548.

Had a $3 deposit come through to paypal so transferred that. Still waiting on a $5 deposit that should have come through today as I cashed it out on Tuesday. It's a new one that I haven't cashed out before so hopefully it does go through.

No checks in the mail today, though I really wasn't expecting the one from SendEarnings until around the 7th, as that is when it came last time. No samples either. I do hope that those coffee samples start showing up soon. I signed up for some in April and May and so far not one has appeared. I don't drink coffee, but I was going to put together a gourmet gift basket of coffees for my FIL for Christmas, but now I'm starting to think they won't show at all. Has anyone else gotten any of the coffee samples yet?

While we were cleaning the other day I ran across some gift certificates to McDonalds so we are going to use those and go there today. The kids have cabin fever and are driving me up a wall with their bickering, so a change of scenery may do us all some good, plus its air conditioned. We may stop by MIL's house afterwards for a short visit and maybe use the whirl pool tub (they don't keep it very warm in summer, but the jets feel good).

I checked my savings account this afternoon and it has $10 more in it than I think it should. I probably just didn't write down a deposit, I'll track it down tonight after the kids are in bed. So for now, the account says it is at $548.

So far this week I have cashed out on and $13 worth of click-thrus. $5 of it showed up in paypal this morning so I transferred that.

I ended up sleeping through a focus group offer I got earlier this week. It was $20 for 90 minutes, darn it. But I must say I felt better for the extra sleep and how often do both kids sleep in on the same day I need it? Never. DH flew out Monday, so no him waking me up early either.

I still have not made it to the bank to deposit that rolled coin. It's burning a hole in my purse. Not to spend it, mind you, but to deposit it in savings. I still marvel at the turn-around of that.

As I am currently planning, I won't be in town until Tuesday, unless the big check comes in and I go to deposit it. But I will only do that if I can get MIL to watch the kids so I can also go birthday shopping for Rose. I won't drive all the way in for just that one thing.

The mail has brought a lot of samples this week. 1 ban deoderant, 1 dove deodrant with $1 off coupon, 1 downey with whitening, and a face cream from Olay.

I got a free stuffed puppy from Febreeze for buying their bathroom plug in thingy at the store, which I had a good coupon for, plus it came with 8 other Febreeze coupons. I have been wanting something for the bathroom the kids and DH use the most, as the smells can get quite bad in there since the fan broke. It only has a teeny tiny window so it doesn't get much air circulation.

Not really too much going on today. We are about to go swimming and we opened the blackberry preserves, the highlights of the day, LOL.

I have been struggling with my computer the last few weeks. It is finally admitting that I am in charge now and letting me have my way most of the time. I found out that it did not have a legitimate copy of Windows so I had to send for a conversion kit, which I was finally able to load over the weekend and then spent 3 days getting Norton installed and working properly. The first time I installed it, it didn't install Live Update. Hello? What good is it without that? Got that sorted, installed the 42 updates needed, got a couple of trojans off the computer and I have proper speed again.

Oh, for Jenelle, I did finally get those links sent off to you last night, a full 24 hours later than I expected. On the bright side, no trojans and worms were in the email, LOL.