We are really eating up the leftovers this week or making use of some of our free items (like eggs, blueberries, gifted jelly). I froze some of the leftovers a while ago and have thawed them to get them eaten up. I only count the cost of something the first time I serve it, even if it does not all get consumed as it is too hard usually to break the price down into individual servings of casseroles, soups, or stews.

Breakfast:
Free eggs (from our chickens)
Milk $1.50
Cornbread Muffins with (free) blueberries .79

Total: $2.59

Lunch:
$3 DS Hot Lunch
DD Peanut butter and apricot jelly (free, homemade from aunt) sandwich .75
apple .50
small baggy chips .50
DH leftover pizza (free)
Me porkchop (.75) and salad (.25) with cheese (.25) and basil infused olive oil (.10)

Total: $6.10

Dinner:
Milk $2.00
Leftover ravioli and leftover lasagna (free)
Leftover meatballs (free)
green beans ($1.00)
salad (.50) with dressing (.50), cheese (.50) and sunflower seeds (.25)

Total: $4.75

Grand total: $13.44 Doing well today because of all the leftovers. No temptation to break the No Eating Out challenge today, but boy did I want to yesterday.

I don't use coupons much, because quite frankly I find them time consuming for itty bits of cents off here and there, mostly for items I seldom use (processed foods, expensive not environmentally friendly cleaners) and we don't have the wonderful toiletry specials around here that some folks on the blogs get at drugstores (right with you PNW Mama). So except for the Organic Valley coupons I print out each month to save on milk, I rarely use them.

But in the mail today came a coupon for a free razor and a $2 off coupon for replacement blades. I know where they get you is in the blades (and I use electric for my legs and disposable Gilletes for underarms so they last a long time anyway). DH uses a rechargeable electric razor. But free is free and I can make that one last a long time for just underarms. It doesn't specify any store so I can pick it up anywhere. I will likely only use the free razor and not buy the blades.

My mom is going in for knee replacement surgery in a few hours. I'm a little nervous about it as she is 72. Please pray for her if you pray.

After a year of working 3 on/3 off, DH will start working 2 on/2 off when he returns to the slope after this time home. While this is good news, it is going to screw with the budget I had figured out through the end of the year. And it means he'll be working through Thanksgiving and Christmas this year instead of having them off.

2 and 2's are way better emotionally and financially in the long term, it's just that it would work for our budget so much better if he worked 3 then had 2 off instead of having 3 off and then working 2 for the changeover. I guess I'll see how far things will sretch. Again. Don't know what I'll do about January if he has to stay home that extra week. Maybe we will still be able to swing it. I won't be able to make maximum payments on anything though, which will be annoying.

This will definitely help with the no eating out challenge. We simply won't be able to waste any money at all until the end of November. On the bright side (and I always try to find one of those), DH will be home for my next follow up trip to Virginia Mason. I was going to try it by myself, but now I won't have to.

I think we'll continue eating as much as possible from the pantry and the freezer to try to cut grocery waste. I am really glad cucumbers, cabbage, bananas and lettuce are cheap at the moment. I think that's going to have to be the main produce for now. And pretty soon the cheap oranges will be in as well. And DH is going to have to cut back his milk consumption, too. No more going through 3/4 of a gallon on his own, per day.

I need to do some serious meal planning so we can figure out the best way to save money on that. Today will be spaghetti and meatballs, and then not sure for Wednesday since DH's flight gets in at 6. Maybe I can make a lasanga since I will have sauce leftover from making the spaghetti. I'll just do up extra meat for that. I can always grill up some boneless, skinless chicken thighs on the George for my diet.

I am still going strong on the no eating out challenge, though today was, well, a challenge, as I totally forgot to put a roast in the crockpot. We almost always have roast on Sundays and I didn't even think about it today until 3:30. And the kids were wanting McDonalds and I was very tempted because of the buy one get one free quarter pounders. But I did not give in to this.

Instead I looked in my freezer and saw some beef ribs. It took about 15 minutes to thaw them and a little over an hour to cook them. Dinner was still on the table by 5. The nectarines have been lovely right now so we had those and I had a salad and the kids had green beans. They are not really lettuce eaters, though DD will have it in tacos or on a cheeseburger. DS hates lettuce, but will eat baby spinach and cabbage, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Anyway, I'm glad I didn't give in. I'd really like to make it to the end of the month without eating out at all. Starfishy, are you going to join me for another week? Or anyone else, if you want to. It's nice to have at least one other person doing it with me.

We went to The Market to buy the additive free deli meat for lunches. I actually did it by the slice this time. This is such expensive meat and I am tired of having it get to Thursday and having to throw a little bit out because there are no preservatives and it goes off. So I asked the kids exactly how many slices they use per sandwich and then added it up and had the deli girl slice me exactly that much. The girl laughed at my specific requests but cheerfully did it, commenting that a lot of people aren't that smart about it. I wish I had been sooner. I also got milk while I was there.

Tomorrow I have physical therapy, so that will be $60 out. Then I should not have to spend any more money until Friday.

I had to buy a music book for DS's orchestra class, so that was $9.32. I had .68 in change from that and put it in the coin jar. That leaves me with $5 in cash for the rest of the week.

I bought my produce yesterday and the deli meat for the kids lunches. I have $10 left in checking for the week after I pay the PT today and the tournament fee tonight. That's okay. I have a full tank of gas and I don't need to buy anything else before Friday. DD will need $5 to buy a ticket to the homecoming dance and DS has pictures next week so I need to budget a bit for school fees next week.

I am happy not having the money because it will help me stay on my no eating out challenge and my eat from the pantry/freezer challenge. I know it seems tight, but it was the way I could send the most money possible to the credit card Friday.

I've been on my controlled carb diet for 13 days now and so far have lost 9 pounds. And that is 35 pounds lost since the surgery. If I stick with this, it's interesting to think that this time next year not only will my finances be in order (no CC debt), but so will my body. I do need to start swimming again, though. I've been lazy about exercising and I know my immune system could use the boost as I am still stuffy from the cold last week.

DH ran the numbers on what our tax refund will be next year. We're looking at around $3500, depending on how much we can deduct for the HSA (I think we may actually hit the full amount). We'll only be able to deduct $600 for our kids though. This is the second year he's made enough that they don't let us deduct the full amount for our kids. But the $3500 will definitely put the final nail in the coffin of the Evil Empire (BoA) so that is good.

Well, it took some serious number crunching, but it looks like if we are careful and are a little more conscious of our spending between now and the end of the year, we will be able to set aside $1000 a month, which will give us $3000 extra if DH has to take an extra week off in January. It's about 3/4 of a full week's salary. There's a possibility of more, but I decided to do it with setting aside $1000 a month for medical (and $500 a month for next year's deductible). If there are no more large bills to arrive from Virginia Mason then that money will be there if we need it to get through an extra week off. And if we don't need it for medical, I think I'll put it into the Emergency Fund. It's nice to know we can swing this without dipping into the emergency fund.

I've calculated in the costs of Christmas presents and another trip to Virginia Mason (a half tank of gas @ $30, a meal in the cafeteria @ $7, parking @ $10) in December. I may do an overnight in the hotel ($119 plus tax) as well if I end up having to go down by myself, so I can split the drive into two days. I'm confident enough now to do the drive by myself at that time of day, but that many hours driving in one day makes my knee hurt and my back hurt. If I do stay in the hotel I will also have to plan two more meals there (approximately $15 total in the cafeteria) and additional parking time ($12).

It'll all work out. Definitely won't be able to pay off our CC debt until the end of March though. *sighs*

So I inventoried my cupboards today and I have a lot of pasta noodles--angel hair, spaghetti, macaroni and egg noodles. And I have a lot of hamburger in the freezer. I like making one skillet meals if I can get away with it so I decided to look and see if I could find some homemade hamburger helper type meals. My kids really like these, but we can't use the normal type, we have to get the more expensive Gluten Free Mrs. Lepers. That gets expensive even getting it relatively cheaply buying a case at a time from Amazon.

Well, I found a great blog post on making your own from scratch.

http://chickensintheroad.com/cooking/homemade-hamburger-help... It breaks it down very easily with one version and then lists a bunch of variations at the end. Plus you can pre-measure your spices and pre-measure your pasta and have it all ready to go ahead of time for those busier nights. I am looking forward to trying several of these in my attempt to eat from the pantry and freezer as much as possible for the rest of this pay cycle.

The ones I am most interested in are the lasagna, chili cheese, chili mac, cheesy macaroni, and cheesy beef taco. Pretty much all I would have to do is add a salad or other green veg for a balanced meal. I am looking forward to experimenting some, too. Maybe with ground lamb and herbs de provence. Should be fun and I'll end up with some new meal time regulars that don't cost too much.

I talked to DH last night and we figured out what was going on with the paycheck. They took the full amount of medical out of it instead of just half. It has to do with how his funky 3 on/3 off work schedule falls during a month. But the next paycheck will be higher since there will be no medical taken out at all and there will be no Social Security taken out because he hit the cap this week. We'll have an extra $1000 coming to us this cycle which will go directly to Virginia Mason, really. But having it for medical bills is great because it means we don't have to divert it from somewhere else.

He did say there might be an extra week off around the Christmas holidays as things slow down. I hope not. I don't think we can slide things for 3 weeks with no paycheck without wiping out our entire emergency fund. He doesn't get any kind of paid vacation or paid time off, so there's nothing that would cover it. He could get unemployment for that time period, but I feel like that would be abusing the system and also it wouldn't be very much, especially since he'd have to do it based on Alaska and not based on Washington even though he'd file through Washington. It in no way would come close to matching the lost income.

At least he gave me a few months' warning that it might happen (he just found out and so far it's only a maybe). I will try to channel at least another $1000, two if I can swing it, into the EF between now and the end of the year. It'll be tough but if I stick to my goals of no eating out for health and weight loss, I think I could manage.

Maybe on top of my No Eating Out Challenge, I should add an Eat from the Pantry Challenge where (with the exception of milk and produce and salad dressing) I buy nothing else this pay cycle and we just eat up what is in the cupboards and freezer. I could probably save an additional $300 doing that. I would have to go and get the kids' additive free lunch meats though and freeze them because I'm not going to feed my son something he is allergic to just for a challenge. I'll have to reinventory stuff and see where it all stands and think about it a bit before deciding.

DS is willing to take peanut butter and jelly or peanut butter and honey sandwiches twice a week and only have meat sandwiches three times a week. That would cut things down a bit as the additive free stuff is pricey, as well. DD said she'll take leftover cold homemade pizza or if I get her a soup thermos, leftover stews or soups or whatever. DS piped up that he'd take chili if he had a soup thermos. So maybe I'll pick up a couple soup thermoses if I can find then now that rush for back to school is over. I think Freddy's carries them year round.

I spent about five minutes going through my grandma's button box (Mom inherited it) finding something to match a button that had come off a shirt and gotten lost. I found a close match, you really can't tell which one is different, and sewed it on. I also sewed up a ripped underarm seam in a t-shirt and closed a hole in the toe of a sock. So a few minutes of time hand-sewing and I restored 3 items of clothing from the can't wear pile to the wear pile. (Or the dresser and closet since I don't actually have a wear "pile."

I put new insoles into my shoes because I can't for the life of me find new casual shoes that I like and that fit my foot properly. I'm thinking about getting them resoled at this point, though I am going to look online and see if I can't find that exact pair somewhere. I've bought this pair of shoes 3 times over the past fifteen years so it is possible. Just haven't found a new set in since I got these ones 8 years ago. I think it may take me as long to find new shoes as it did to find a workable purse, bu I hope not.

I love the ability to manage my library account online. I love the fact that I can go on to their website and renew a book and not have to waste the gas to run down there and do it in person. I also really like that I can look up my holds and see what place I am in the queue. Currently there are six people ahead of me for The Help and four people ahead of me for The Silent Girl, the next book in the Rizzoli and Isles series. When I put them on hold they were 122 and 115 respectively and that was less than a month ago.

I am halfway through two books right now. One is a mystery that involves geneology research so I'm pretty much loving that to pieces and the other is one that was recommended on

www.thesimpledollar.com (which is a blog I have been devouring) and is by John Robbins and called The New Good Life. He is the son of one of the founders of Baskin Robbins and he walked away from the family fortune to make it on his own. It's a very interesting read so far. I am glad the library had it and I get to read it for free.

One of the things we decided not to do while we are living here is to buy books. The number one reason for that is the space factor. We simply do not have room for stacks of books to take up residence and we have a bunch of unread books in storage. The second was the expense of any new book. As much as I love to own books, right now it is not practical. Anything that comes into this house takes up space that might be better used by something else. So it's been nice to be able to use the library so much, now that we only live 2 miles from one.

It's not like I don't have any owned books here. I have the Little House books, the Harry Potter books, the Narnia books, five books that I need to read before they go to storage and are replaced by five books from storage that haven't been read, and some cookbooks (about five or six from our collection). But I can't justify the space to have more than that here. A temporary stack from the library is just fine and fills my ficovore needs perfectly.

Today was a long day and I completely overdid it and was useless from six o'clock on. But in the meanwhile, I did have enough ham broth to make both egg noodles (with ham and peas) and ham and gnocchi soup and the kids were doing cartwheels over the taste, so yay. A few weeks ago one of our stores started carrying inexpensive shelf stable gnocchi in the pasta section, and none of the stabliziers were ones my son is allergic to. I don't score that very often so I bought some. The original plan was to find a copycat recipe of Olive Garden's chicken and gnocchi soup, but this worked out just as well. There's enough soup left over for two more meals. The noodles vanished completely.

And there is still about a pound and a half of ham left. DD is going to make a pound of it into a tater tot casserole for tomorrow's dinner. I've cut up some for putting into eggs and onto pizza and the rest for sandwiches. I am really proud of how much we got out of this ham. When all is said and done it will be at least six family size meals, as well as ingredients in a couple others. Plus I've got a couple of recipes to try next time I make one, which won't be for a while. The next big crockpot meat will be a potroast on Sunday so now I need to come up with ideas for the leftovers besides hash. Meanwhile good old cheap chicken and a homemade pizza will be the order of tomorrow's day.

Today is definitely a use it up sort of day. I'm a firm believer in shampoo is shampoo (except for my shampoo, of course!) and so when I saw several bottles that all had about an inch left in them, I set them up one at a time with a funnel and put them all into one bottle. Presto, a new bottle of shampoo. Now these are all the same type of shampoo, moisturizing, so it's not like we'd have dry hair clashing with oily or color-treated. But we will have purple clashing with green or pink. My daughter and husband don't really care much. I've done it before and only gotten one comment about the multiple layers of different colors. I also got half a bottle of conditioner this way, but it is all white.

I've got a ketchup bottle upside down on the counter draining into another ketchup bottle. Ditto the last of one syrup bottle into another. I shredded up two bread heals and put them into a baggy and froze them for future meatloaf.

There are leftovers in the fridge being eaten up today as well. Leftover spaghetti with leftover sauce. Leftover pancakes. Leftover chili with leftover hamburger combined to make a sort of sloppy joe thing on a leftover bun. DD is going to make milk that has hit its sell by date into pudding and the rest of it into a homemade cream of chicken soup she found which will also use up our leftover chicken.

She wants to make a tatertot casserole recipe this week and needs cream of chicken soup to do it, but with DS's allergies we can't use standard soup. Thankfully TJ's has a clean cream of mushroom soup, because I can't find an easy recipe for that. Hard ones, yes. I found a very simple cream of chicken soup recipe online so if it is good I will let you know as I know a few of you also have to deal with food allergies or like to cook as naturally as possible.

We cancelled the trip we were planning to take to Seattle this coming weekend to spend the day at the Science Center. I know DH is disappointed, but with DS's tonsils as big as hockey pucks, he is just not going to be well enough to go. The Star Wars exhibit will be gone before we have the chance to go again, and not gonna lie, I'm glad of it. Wading through the Harry Potter exhibit was really tough last time. It was overcrowded, hot, and smelly. And we had to pay extra for it. So I wasn't looking forward to a repeat performance with Star Wars, even if I am walking now and don't need a wheel chair again.

It was a lot of expense that we just don't really have the money for at the moment. I had to squeeze hard to pay off the Master Card, what with both income taxes and property taxes being paid off this month, so it was just a bad month for it. Throwing a long day trip on top of that would have been expensive. $45 for the tank of gas for a round trip, $12 for tickets into the exhibit (we have free membership to the center but special exhibits are extra). At least two restaurant meals for a family of four, so $60 or so. We packed our lunch last time we went, but no one wanted to eat it. We were all so tired and a cold lunch on a frigid day just didn't pan out, so I won't fool myself on saying we could pack a lunch. But anyway, it's saving over $100 that we didn't need to spend to not go.

I had to cancel my physical therapy yesterday to take DS to the doctor. We are waiting on the 3 day strep test results to come back. The instant one was negative, but sometimes it takes a few days and the doctor didn't like the way his throat looked. Anyway, I saved $90 by not going. Of course, we will have to pay the pediatrician in full instead, but that bill won't come until next month when things are way less tight. At least this should be the last super tight month we have.

Well, the cost of my favorite pizza, the Montague's All Meat Marvel from Round Table has gone up from $27.11 to $27.16 for an extra large. 5 cents isn't too bad. Some of the prices have gone up higher because there is a produce shortage on some of their toppings. We get one about once a month and it's been a long time since the cost has gone up. The XL is big enough to provide 3 meals for the 3 of us (DH is away), so it breaks down to $9.04 per meal. Not too bad. Not as good as my homemade one which costs around $10 and also lasts for three meals. Obviously we did pizza tonight.

Today was the first day since October that all three of us were well enough to go the gym. Basically DH was the only one making use of our gym membership. But we went back today and used the pool. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to swim 13 laps, which is 1/4 mile. I had gotten up to 40 laps (a touch above 3/4 mile) before we started getting hit with all these cold and flu germs. I felt pretty decent at the 13 lap mark, like I could go for longer, but I didn't want to overdo it my first day back. Right now there is a pleasant achiness in my arm muscles, but if I'd pushed it I doubt it would be a pleasant one. I didn't time myself on the laps. I used to, but since I'm so out of shape from not exercising, I figured it was more important to swim than to see how fast I could do it.

Going to the gym a few times a week should cut down on the gas usage (gas dryer and hot water tank), since we will be showering there and using their towels so won't need to wash as many loads here. It pretty much cut it in half before.

I need to get gas. The little light came on telling me there are only two gallons left. It's in the $3.60's. That's likely going to be over $45. Good thing I only fill up about once every three weeks. I'll do it tomorrow when I make my Costco run. I'm out of oranges so want to buy a case and also get some toilet paper and olive oil. Maybe a couple of other things. I have to go through the cupboards tonight and check my inventory. I'm pretty sure I'm out of tomato paste. And I need more flour.

I seriously am having a hard time believing how much food I got out of one 5.78 pound chicken. Last night for dinner I roasted it and it fed four. I then picked off all the remaining chicken and ended up with four and a half cups worth of shredded meat.

I put the carcass in the crockpot overnight with a couple of chopped onions, a head of garlic, minced, a couple of chopped carrots, 2 stalks of chopped celery and all the leaves from the inner bits, 1 bunch of parsley, chopped, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, 1 tsp of salt and a TBSP of black peppercorns. This morning I had stock. I drained the liquid into another container and threw out the veg (into the compost, I have issues giving the chickens veg cooked in chicken stock.

There was enough stock to make two batches of soup plus have one cup leftover, so I made egg flower (or egg drop) soup and chicken noodle soup. The egg flower soup was made with this recipe:

http://blogchef.net/egg-drop-soup-recipe/ and it was so delicious. It actually tasted like the stuff from the Chinese restaurant we love. I've tried making it before with other recipes but this is the best it's ever turned out. I did add some finely chopped carrots and some peas because the kids like it that way. I sauteed the carrots first to make sure they were soft and the peas came from a can (1/4 of it) so they were soft anyway. We had that for lunch today.

The chicken noodle soup I made by putting the extra stock (minus one cup I was saving) back in the crockpot and chopped up two fresh carrots, 2 stalks of celery, one small onion, 1/2 can of peas. I cooked that for a couple hours in the crock until the veggies were soft and then added half a one pound bag of egg noodles and cooked until soft (about a half hour). I added salt and pepper to taste and 1/4 cup of leftover chicken. That soup is currently sitting in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch.

For dinner tonight I took 2 cups of the cooked chicken and made TexMex Chicken and Rice. This is a very simple recipe. I made up a double batch of brown rice (you can use white) and it yielded 8 cups finished rice. I sauteed a chopped, yellow onion in a bit of olive oil with a 4 ounce can of mild green chiles. I then took half of the rice, stirred it into the onions, added 2 cups of homemade salsa (but you can just get the large jar from the store), and then added two cups of leftover chicken. I stirred it all together until the salsa and chicken were hot, about five minutes.

For lunch tomorrow we are making chicken quesadillas with two cups of the leftover chicken. Take four whole grain tortillas, spread 1/2 cup of chicken on each one, sprinkle with cheese, top each one with another tortilla. You can then nuke in the mircowave until the cheese is melted or you can do them one at a time in a dry skillet over medium heat until the cheese melts. Flip it so both sides get lightly browned. Cut into wedges with a pizza cutter. (I'll add some kind of veg and fruit.

That leaves us 1/4 cup of chicken. So I will make this for dinner tomorrow as a side dish. Heat a wok or skillet with some peanut or sunflower oil in it. Throw in peas (I had 1/4 can left from making the soups) and some diced carrots, and a little fresh, peeled ginger if you have it (maybe a diced tsp) cook until soft. Throw in a handful of bean shoots. Add leftover quarter cup of chicken that remains. Stir for a minute or so. Add leftover rice and the last cup of chicken broth. (If you didn't have fresh ginger, here would be a good place to add a tsp of ground ginger if you have it). Stir until chicken broth is absorbed by the rice. Variation: If you are out of leftover chicken or just want more protein, scramble two eggs into veggies before adding rice.

There will be leftovers of both the rice dishes so some of that will go into something else, probably eaten in rolled up tortillas for breakfast or lunch.

Who knew you could stretch a chicken so far?

Yesterday after school I stopped at a different grocery store to pick up scallions because I needed them for the two types of soup I am making this week. Well, something prompted me to go back to the meat department and check for any sales. They had 2 pound chubs on for $2.49 a pound and five of them had $1.50 off stickers on them with a sell by date of today and they still smelled good. That made them $1.73 a pound which was such an excellent price I went ahead and bought them.

I am lucky if I can find it on sale for $2.29 a pound and have grudgingly began to think $2.49 was a good price. But $1.73 had me practically doing cartwheels. I still miss .99/lb hamburger though. But anyway, $17.30 for ten pounds of meat is awesome and that will be anywhere from 10 to 18 meals worth of protein, depending on whether or not DH is home or away at the time.

DH finally got around to taking care of the Verizon refund. They sent us a $50 debit card instead of a check a while back and in order to get a check you have to then call the number on the card and ask them to send it to you. I don't know why they can't just do it in the first place. Debit cards are no good to me if I want to put the money in a savings account, which I do, my laptop fund one. Anyway, they said 3 to 5 business days so I should see it by Tuesday or Wednesday.

The refund from the loan should hit our account tomorrow. They said no later than Friday, but I was hoping maybe it would be there today so I could send it to the MC. Oh, well, I can wait another day. I just get impatient sometimes.

I entered both refunds into my spreadsheet that tracks those things. I also updated my freezer inventory spreadsheet with the meat I bought. I love that thing. It was quite a bit of work when I made it, but now that I have it and can just add or subtract from it and automatically know what I have in the freezers at all times with out looking, is an awesome meal planning tool.

I am in a weird mood today, craving lettuce like it is going out of business so my meal planning (at least for my meals, not the kids) reflects this. Also DS is home sick again.

Breakfast:
(Everyone) Homemade beef sausage patties ($1)
(Just me) Lettuce dressed with E.V. olive oil and salt (.30)
(Just kids) Hashbrowns (.50)
(Just kids) Milk ($1)
(Me) Water
Total: $2.80

Lunch:
DD
Leftover pizza (free)
apple (.50)
baggy potato chips (.50)
water

DS
Half a chicken quesadilla
--3 ounces leftover chicken (free)
--1 tortilla (.30)
--1.5 ounces of cheese (.30)
Pineapple Juice (.50)

Me:
Ribeye steak (4 ounces, I cut up a big one, on sale for $3.99/lb over a holiday weekend) $1
Lettuce dressed with e.v.o.o. and salt (.30)
water

Total Lunch: $3.40

Dinner (for 4):
Baked potato soup
--potatoes (.80)
--8 ounces extra sharp cheddar ($2)
--Half a package of bacon ($2)
--8 cups whole milk ($2)
--16 ounces sour cream ($2)
--Half bunch scallions (.40)
Salmon (was on sale for $5.99/lb)--$4.50
Broccoli/Cauliflower/Asparagus ($2)
(Just Me) Yogurt ($1)
water

Total Dinner: $17.70

All meals $23.90

Dinner is very expensive tonight but there will be several servings of soup leftover (we'll eat about 1/3 of it tonight) and lots of veggies leftover for future meals this week. So I'm making planned overs which will bring the cost of the rest of the week down quite a lot. It's more about the average for the month than the daily average anyway.

I went up to Walgreen's after school with DD to see if they had that Organix Renpure shampoo that some of you were talking about that was buy one, get one with a rebate attached. My daughter was out of shampoo and she can't use mine because it is for oily hair only (and I'm very possessive of it, because it is super hard to find unless I order it online and incur shipping costs). Her dad's shampoo is too harsh for her hair and smells very masculine, and her brother's special chemical free, fragrant free, allergen free stuff is too expensive for anyone else to use.

She's good about using whatever I buy, but it has to be available. Usually I just get the 99 cent bottle of VO5 in strawberry, but this works, too. Two bottles of shampoo for the eventual cost of just a stamp, envelope, and sales tax sounds good to me.

I ended up spending a total of $38.12 there, $6.99 of which will be reimbursed. They had the VO5 conditioner on for 79 cents on sale in Freesia, which she likes the smell of. Also got cheap hairspray, a package of headbands for DD because her head is too big for the ones she's had for years, 100 count Excedrin PM, and a thing of Vick's Sinex because I ran out. That nasal spray is expensive and I never see coupons for it. The register printed out a coupon for a free bottle of Afrin nasal spray or up to $7 off, so I will use that the next time I go. I prefer Sinex, but Afrin is one of the few other types that works on me.

I set up a spreadsheet when we got home to track rebates and filled out the form and got it ready in an envelope to send off tomorrow. Rebating only works if you remember to do it! I'm not sure that I'll get into it too much, but doing it once in a while when I find out about it and it takes no effort on my part, then I will.

DD and I also had a talk about why we are pinching so tight right now in some areas, like eating out, so we can finish getting out of debt and save up for a new house. I find it helps to talk to her periodically about it, because sometimes she forgets and thinks she can't have anything she wants so doesn't ask for it at all. She does get what I think is a quite adequate allowance of $10 a week so she has plenty of her own spending money. She does a lot for it, including making dinner a couple nights a week on her own, and helps me almost every other night unless she has a ton of homework.

And if she babysits her brother for any serious length of time (more than an hour) she gets paid for that, too. There was nothing my sisters resented more when I was growing up than being forced to babysit me for free when they could have been babysitting the neighbor kids for a profit. It isn't much, just $3 an hour, and it's pretty rare, maybe once a month that it happens.

I found a recipe online today for pita bread. I looked through several until I found one that looked easy and still made pockets. Most of the easy ones were flat and didn't puff. It is more simple than making English muffins which I've done before. We're getting bored with buns all the time for sandwiches so I thought I'd change it up. It'll be cheaper than the bun recipe to make, even accounting for the fact that it only makes 8 servings, so I'd have to make two batches in a week. If it works well I will post the recipe.

I called the old homeowner's association to make sure that they received the dues since they still haven't cashed the check we left on 1/31 or sent out a receipt. The girl at the desk said that yes, they'd received it, so now I just have to wait for them to deposit it.

I paid the mortgage payment today of $386.14.

The propane bill for the old house came today and ouch. It was just over $400. This is the first fill up we've done since July. I'm going out to the house Sunday to finish packing up the laundry room and the one kitchen cupboard, maybe finish the living room, and put out the rubbish bin. We've been keeping the temp at 60 so the pipes don't freeze, but it's been around 45 outside for the past month, with no snow since mid-January, so I am going to drop it down to 50. The house is pretty energy efficient and the thermostat may not even kick on unless it drops below freezing outside. Come the end of March we can turn it off altogether.

I haven't been setting money aside for propane but that will change with the next paycycle. I'll start putting aside $80 a month. We may not need to use it but at least it will be set aside. I used to do that, budget for bills that weren't monthly, but I got out of the habit. I've set up a new spreadsheet for the budget that goes into effect on the 18th. It has categories for these non-monthly payments.

Okay, now food today:

Breakfast:
Eggs (free from chickens)
Hashbrowns ($1)
Milk ($1.50)
Total: $2.50)

Lunch:
2 kids
Orangic deli meat sandwiches on homemade buns ($3.25)
orange (.50)
apple (.50)
baggies of plain potato chips (.50)
water

Me
Leftover bowl of TJ's chicken noodle soup (free)
Chicken leg (.50)
salad (.25)
water
Total: $5.50

Dinner:
Homemade pizza:
dough ($1)
cheese ($2)
sauce (leftover from homemade spaghetti sauce, so free)
herbs (.25)
2 ounces pepperoni (.75)
2 ounces salami (.75)
4 ounces ground beef with sausage seasoning (.60)
1/4 chopped yellow onion (.15)
Homemade breadsticks:
Dough ($1)
Parmesan cheese (.25)
Can of Pineapple ($1)
Can of green beans ($1)
Milk ($1.50)
Total: $10.25

There will be an extra ball of dough for a future pizza out of this as well as leftover pizza and breadsticks so that will make a future meal or two this week, especially with DH gone and not eating it. With that in mind the $10.25 is not as expensive as it first appears.

Total $18.25 for the day, so under the goal of $20 a day.

The wind is blowing like crazy today so I made sure we had our flashlights located and found a supply of fresh batteries I knew we had in case of power failure tonight. We've also got those rechargable things that plug into outlets and when it gets dark or there is a power failure they come on, so we are set.

Added $1.91 in coins to the change jar.

I hate it when I don't sleep well at night. It just throws me off for the whole day. Especially when I have a cold. I was just starting to feel halfway decent and today I've been sneezing and having a runny nose like I was three days ago. I'm taking something to make sure I sleep tonight so that I don't go back downhill. I really don't want to have to buy another box of cold medicine to manage my symptoms. It is getting expensive to buy and I don't have any coupons.

Today was a busy day. I had my physical therapy appointment today so that was $90. I will be so glad when my deductible kicks in, but they raised it this year to a ridiculously high $1,250 per person or $2500 per family. Well, I'll definitely make up the bulk of that. The kids have each been to the doctor once this year, but probably won't need to go again this cold season. They will have to get physicals before camp. But mostly it's going to be me.

They did start an HSA though so DH is going to start having them take out $300 a month pretax for that since we easily spend that much on my medical alone and I am likely going to have to have another surgery in the next couple of months. I see a specialist on the 15th. Our out of pocket for the surgery, if I need it, will be about $2000, since it's just a laproscopy and will be done in office as an outpatient. Glad I decided to keep a decent sized EF. We'll try to swing it without touching it, but it's nice to know it's there.

Just once I'd like to go more than a year and a half without a visit to the slice and dice boys. My last surgery was 12/07/09. This has been going on more or less since I was 33. I'm turning 41. That is a lot of surgeries to have. On the bright side I might get my jury duty postponed again, which would be nice, as it's scheduled for a time when DH is supposed be gone for most of it. If I could postpone it for two weeks it would be perfect since he doesn't work when he is home.

We got gas for the car, so that was $38.02. It was running on fumes. It's a twelve gallon tank and it took 11.89 gallons so definitely don't want to cut it so close again. DH has been doing a lot of running around without me this week so I hadn't kept as close of an eye on it as usual and DH doesn't pay much attention to it.

I paid $4.46 on BoA MC #1, the one we paid off, but the last bit of interest came through. I also transferred off the autopayment for our credit monitoring service to the other card so nothing more will be put on that card. It has been put away. Once the second MC is paid off we will cancel it entirely.

DH called today to get a refund of the $218.18 we overpaid on the Gold Star Loan that we paid off last month. They said it will be in our bank account by Friday and to call them back when we get it and they will officially close out that line of credit and will report to the credit bureaus that it has been paid in full and the account closed by us.

I'm trying to get our available lines of credit down lower well before we are ready to buy a new house. Our credit score is at 780, but it says because we have so much available credit it will not go above 800 until we get rid of some of it. I know it'll take a dip first, closing accounts always does, but that is why we are doing it so far in advance of buying a house, to give it time to bounce back up again. The loan line of credit is $41,000 available and the MC is $3000. I think I might have them lower my AMEX limit, too, since it is $15,000 and we never use more than $2000 at a given time with it and we pay it off in full each month. So maybe get them to lower it to $7000 or something.

I spent $35.79 at the grocery store today on organic milk and orange juice (very much a luxury but I like it when I am sick), veggies, some organic deli meat, and the giant jar of peanut butter that's the size of a tub of Crisco.

I took DH to the airport as he flies back to Alaska for work. I won't see him again until the 2nd or 3rd, I believe. I don't remember if he comes home on Tuesdays or Wednesday now. Which means he misses my birthday on Saturday, but then he usually does. He will be home on both my son's birthday and our 16th wedding anniversary in March so that is much more important to me. I will go this week and pick up my two birthday presents on my own, a giant coffee table sized cook book (that I got my niece for Christmas and coveted greatly) from B&N and season 4 of Lost. I have the money set aside. At first I was tempted to just add it to my laptop fund, but decided I really want to have something this year.

Meal planning for today:

Breakfast:
TJ's Crisped Rice cereal ($1)
Milk ($2)
Bacon ($2)
Total: $5

Lunch:
2 Kids
PB&J sandwich (.50) (free homemade jelly from aunt)
PB&H sandwich (.50) (free honey from Mom's bees)
apple (.50)
banana (.25)
hard pretzles (.50)
water
$2.50

DH
Leftover pot roast (free)
Leftover potatoes and gravy (free)
Leftover green beans

Me
Leftover spaghetti (free)
Orange juice ($1)

Total: $3.50

Dinner:
Me and kids
1 can of TJ's chili ($1.50)
1 can of TJ's chicken noodle soup ($1.29)
Can of Green beans ($1)
Oranges ($1.50)
Milk ($1.50)
Homemade cookies ($1)
Total: $8.79

DH will eat at the airport. That is part of his work travelling budget and does not come out of the grocery budget.

$14.29 for the day and there is a bowl of leftover chicken noodle soup so I will have that tomorrow for part of my lunch. With DH gone and work providing all of his meals for the the next 22 days, our meals should cost much less. We should easily be able to hit the goal of keeping it under $20 a day. Probably under $15.

So in my quest to save money on food by meal planning I put several books on hold at the library. Another one came in on Friday and I just had a chance to finish it up today. It's called How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy, Balanced Diet with Very Little Money...and Hardly Any Time, Even if You Have a Tiny Kitchen, Only Three Saucepans (One with an Ill-fitting Lid), and No Fancy Gadgets--Unless You Count the Garlic Crusher.... Well, with a title like that you have to read it, don't you?

It's by Gill Holcombe, who is English, but the book is written in American (no extra u's or re's), only they forgot to translate for dollars so stuff is still in pounds. And there are a few foods mentioned that I'm not sure they even have here, and a couple of things I had to look up on

www.britsfood.com. Might as well have kept in the u's and re's then, silly publishers, thinking we can't read British English or something.

The author has a great sense of humor as you might recognize from the title. The organiztion of the book leaves a lot to be desired since the recipes are scattered throughout the very wordy (but funny) chapters instead of neatly organized and there are no photos (I do like photos in a cookbook), but I did find a few promising recipes. One for hashbrowns and one for making a small amount of tomato ketchup if you happen to run out of it and need some in a pinch. It's 3 tbsp tomato paste, 2 tsp vinegar, 1 tsp brown sugar, and 2/3 cup of boiling water. It's all stuff I keep on hand and I am tempted to try making it anyway since ketchup has gotten so expensive and we can't use the brands with corn syrup in them. Tomato paste is still relatively cheap. If we like it I can make it up and just pour it into an old ketchup bottle in the fridge.

It also had a recipe for Lancashire Hot Pot which is a lamb dish that looks so good. It's meant to be cooked in the oven as a sort of layered casserole but I think it could very easily be adapted to the crockpot. Lamb is forever being marked down here. The stores carry it, but never seem to sell enough of it that there isn't always some in the discount bin that needs to be used or frozen that day. So I will make that if I find some marked down lamb and let you know if it's any good. Also will make the hashbrowns and report back on them.

I found a few recipes for cakes and a simple fudge that I am going to write down and try later on. I don't like to make those unless there is a birthday or something, but we've got two coming up in the next six weeks. The recipe for ginger beer (ale) looks promising and would be simple to make the next time I have a stomachache and don't feel like running to the store for ginger ale (the kind without corn syrup). Though I have six bottles at the moment so that might actually be a while.

I haven't gotten around to roasting that chicken yet and using the extra for enchiladas and the carcass for soup stock. Maybe Tuesday. The chicken is still frozen. Yesterday was eggs and pancakes for breakfast, leftover spaghetti for lunch, and tacos for dinner.

Today's meals are--

Breakfast:
Blueberry pancakes made from Jiffy muffin mix (.79)
Eggs (free from chickens)
Milk ($2)
Total: $2.79

Lunch:
Leftover spaghetti with leftover sauce (price already taken out the day I made it, so free)
Hamburger ($2.29)
Bananas ($2)
Salad (.50)
Total: $4.79

Dinner:
Beef pot roast ($5.69)
Mashed potatoes ($1)
Green beans ($1)
Homemade gravy (.50)
Biscuits (.50)
Milk ($2)
Total: $10.69

It's a pretty large pot roast and there will be leftovers of it and the potatoes and gravy so there will be at least most of another meal out of this for 2 of us, probably Monday's lunch for me and DH. Maybe more, but it depends on how hungry everyone is tonight at dinner. Mom will be eating with us tonight so this will feed five people instead of four. Mom drinks her own milk that she buys herself so I never count that in our food costs.

Even though dinner is pricier than usual, lunch and breakfast are lower than usual and I still came in under $20 a day which is what I'm aiming for at the moment. If I can get to $16.50 per day as an average I'll get the monthly grocery budget down to $500. If I can get it down to $15 a day it'll be $450. But those are goals for later months. $13 would put me just under $400 by ten bucks, which is the ultimate goal. Right now just keeping it under $20 is good for February.

I didn't feel good enough on Monday to do my usual baking. I didn't really feel good enough to do it today either, but DH is home until the 8th so he did most of the work under my directions. He's good like that. I'm probably too contagious to really be touching the food anyway.

We made two batches of hamburger buns today because we decided to make up a bunch of cheeseburgers to freeze. We had gotten into a habit of buying 20 of the cheap double cheeseburgers at a time from McD's and freezing them for days when things were just crazy. Each one costs $1.29 with tax for a total cost of $25.80. I figured we could do them cheaper from scratch, but the other way was just more convenient. Well, today DH grilled up 20 hamburger patties and then we assmebled 20 cheeseburgers for the freezer, wrapped them in plastic wrap and then into two large tupperware container made for transporting cakes. Total cost was $12 (including wrap), so a savings of $13.50.

Normally a batch of hamburger buns is twelve, but we made smaller dough balls this time on two of the batches and just let them rise for 3 hours instead of 2. So each batch made 18 instead of twelve. This left us with the usual twelve leftover to use for the next several days worth of sandwiches and rolls.

Then DH made up two batches of biscuits. To one batch we added garlic powder, parsley, and a handful of cheddar cheese and brushed the tops with butter and they taste pretty close to the Cheddar Bay Biscuits that Red Lobster makes. DS loves them and I figured they'd be pretty cheap to make at home. We froze half of each batch for later in the week.

When DD got home from school today she made a batch of her sugar cookies so we will have some sweets this week. I like having sweets when I'm sick, though I tend to limit it to one serving per day.

Meal planning is really hard to do when I am this sick, mostly because I can't cook and DH is so limited in what he can cook. So I have to tailor it around what he can do.

Breakfast:
French Toast with real maple syrup ($2.50)
Milk ($2)

Lunch:
2 kids
PB&J sandiches ($1)
Apple ($1)
Orange (.50)
baggy potato chips (.50)
baggy natural Cheetos (.50)
water
$3.50

2 adults
Chicken and vegetable soup ($2)
Grilled ham and cheese ($2)
water
$4

Total Lunch: $7.50

Dinner:

Beef stir-fry
-beef ($3.50)
-1 pound bag of mixed veggies ($2)
Can of pineapple ($1)
Biscuits (.50)
Milk ($2)
$8 total

Oh, my gosh, going through the freezers was a pain in the neck (and back), but it's done. I am wincing at how much we had to throw away due to freezer burn. Some of those items from the bottom of the freezer were from before we moved here in January of 2010. Yes, a year old! Ugh. I estimate we threw out $200 worth of food. And an additional amount of frozen garden produce that if purchased probably would be about $50. We will have to pay for an extra garbage can pick up because of it. *sighs*

We took an inventory of what was left and I made a spreadsheet of it. Remember my estimate of being able to go three weeks without buying any new meat? Way off. I think we will definitely be able to go three months without buying any new meat. Maybe even four. It's almost ridiculous. We live near a grocery store now. We don't need this kind of a stockpile. Even for serious carnivores like us.

I am going to have to come up with some new ways of cooking boneless skinless chicken thighs (25 pounds!) other than grilled on the George or made into homemade nuggets or we will all go crazy. I am currently watching a cooking show called Chinese Cooking Made Easy put out by BBC2. I'm hoping she'll do something with chicken soon so that I'll have something new and interesting to cook. Most of what she's made so far I'd have to buy ingredients for, although I did have some langastino in the freezer and she made that.

I plan to go through the cupboards this week as well and sort out what we've got in the way of canned and boxed goods and make another spreadsheet for that. That will help immensely with the meal planning. In the meanwhile, my plan for tomorrow:

Breakfast:
Waffles with homemade blueberry jam ($1)
Eggs (free, chickens)
Bacon ($2)
Milk ($2)
Total: $5

Lunch:
2 Kids--
Nitrate free Deli Meat and cheese sandwiches ($2)
Apple and an orange ($2)
Baggy Natural Cheetos (.50)
Baggy plain potato chips (.50)
Water (free)

2 Adults--
Tacos ($3)
Can of Pineapple ($1)
Water

Total: $9

Dinner:
Egg fried veggie rice ($1)
Homemade chicken nuggets ($3)
Milk ($2)
Broccoli ($2)
Ketchup (.50)

Total: $7.50

I rolled up the coins in my coin jar and ended up with $53.50. And then my son asked, "What about the other coin jar?" and pointed to one on a different shelf. It was a mayo jar and it was half full. I wasn't about to count up any more coins at that point though, so hopefully I'll get to later tomorrow (well, technically today). That all goes to the laptop fund.

Made it through another day of no eating out. Meal planning is really working for us. So Sunday's meal plan for the four of us will be:

Breakfast:
Chicken sausages with sundried tomatoes and provolone ($4) and homemade biscuits (.50), sausage gravy (.25) and milk ($2), so $6.75 total

Lunch:
Club sandwiches (homemade whole wheat bread (.25), tomato (.90), lettuce (.30), bacon ($2), roast beef ($2), ham ($2), turkey ($2), condiments (.25)
Cucumbers ($2)
Oranges ($2)
$13.70 total

Dinner:
Pork Chops ($4)
Potatoes ($1)
Green beans ($1)
Carrots ($1)
Milk ($2)
$9.00 total

Lunch is a little pricier than normal since the meat is all nitrate free, but it's also something we can make easily with a toaster and microwave. On Sundays we can't use the stove to cook at lunchtime because Mom has a Bible study meeting in the kitchen during that time (started when she couldn't get out to go to church due to her fall and she just continued it afterwards because it was easier) and our wing of the house doesn't have a stove. Usually I put something in my crockpot and make instant potatoes and veg in the micro, but we are out of pot roasts and picnic hams. Still, it's far cheaper than the old option which was grabbing meals at McD's ($25 for four of us) or Olive Garden ($75).

I have enough lunch meat to make it through the next three weeks of school sandwiches in the freezer, so my goal for the next 3 weeks is to not buy any new meat. We have all kinds of chicken, hamburger, beef stew meat, steaks, lamb, and a turkey in the freezers so we are going to work on getting that down. For all I know there are some pot roasts buried in the bottom of the chest freezer. I even have three bags of shredded turkey leftover from Thanksgiving that could go in enchiladas. Maybe DH and I should make an inventory of what we have in the freezers. Maybe in the cupboards, too. I'm forever buying stuff and coming home to put it away only to realize I already had some.

If all I have to buy in the next few weeks is milk and fruit and veg, it should give me substantial grocery savings to bank. Quite frankly, we could probably go six weeks without buying any meat, but I like having a bit shorter goals than that. I can always add on to the end of it.

Last night DH found a Verizon rebate card that we'd misplaced several months ago and it's valid until 8/11. It is for $50 and we can go online and have it direct deposited to our account, so that is going into my new laptop fund. I also emptied my purse on Friday before going to the CU to get this week's money out. I have a new rule that anything less than a $20 goes into the laptop fund. I had $13 and some change. I also pilfer ones through out the week. Monday I will go and make a deposit. Right now I am just stuffing the money in an envelope and the coin jar. I've got quite a lot of change I need to put through the CU's change counter.

DH opened his mail finally and found that his new work had sent him a $40 gift card for Christmas. The only place it is good for around here is Safeway, which is a 30 minute drive away, but none of the other stores even exist in this part of the state. So we'll swing out to Lynden the next time we visit his parents. Even if they don't have anything we want (son's diet makes it difficult to shop without reading every label in the store), we can at least buy fruit, veg, flour, sugar, yeast, honey, molasses, and other baking supplies. I normally buy the 25 pound bag of flour from Costco as it's cheapest, but I could get two ten pound bags this time instead. I don't think I'd buy meat there as I'm not sure about their policy on antibiotics and growth hormones and injecting meat with flavor enhancers or BPA packaging and I don't want to take the time to find out.

DH also has a $75 gift card from his previous employer that he needs to use, but it's on him how he spends it. I told him if the places it is good for don't have anything he wants we can always give him $75 cash and I'll use the gift card at one of the stores to buy clothes for the kids. The one thing he wants is $35, so the extra may just end up in his savings fund. He wants an electronic book reader of some sort.

Last night I made pizza for dinner. It was so good. The crust was perfection. It cost about $8 for all the ingredients and we topped it with cheese, Canadian bacon, pepperoni and leftover hamburger from spaghetti night. A pizza that size with that many toppings would cost $25 at our favorite pizza place. There was enough left over for lunch today.

Tonight's dinner is cheeseburgers with homemade buns and baked french fries. We will open a can of pineapple for fruit and have cucumbers for veg. With milk and condiments that'll come to $7.50. We've almost made it through two weeks without eating out. What a difference that makes to the food budget.

DD is home from school and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Can we go out to eat?" *sighs* I told her no and she was all, "But we always go out to eat when Dad comes home." My response was not anymore. I think I'll have to sit down with her and talk about it and explain why. That we are pushing hard to get out of debt and then to save up a downpayment for a new house to add to whatever we get for the old house. And that the sooner we get the money saved the sooner we'll be out of here. She really doesn't like living here very much and now that Mom needs minimal attention on a daily basis we don't technically need to still be living in the same house with her, so the sooner we are in a position to really save, the better. She loves her grandma, but they are too alike to get along very well and really, a house nearby is much better than sharing living quarters, even in a house this large. Buying a new house before the old one sells just isn't an option, though.

We are going to go down to the Science Center some time in the next three weeks (we are members), so we will pack a lunch and snacks, but we will have one planned dinner out and it will be our only fancy restaurant meal this pay cycle. Well, I say fancy. I mean Red Lobster. *laughs* We'll stick with our water only drinking rule and no desserts. And since we will have the cooler with us it will be easy to take all the leftovers home for additional meals. We can usually get 3 meals each out of one of their feast type meals. Well, DH gets two, but the rest of us can get three.

I went to the doctor today and am still infected, so $20 copay, 2 new prescriptions, and a referral to a specialist, oh, joy. I've an appointment with the specialist on 2/15, soonest I can get in. Bummer. I hope this doesn't mean yet another surgery. I am sick to death of being cut open, thank you very much. Plus it'll be another $2000 or so out of pocket and put debt repayment back a couple of months. Still I can't go on like this. I have jury duty in April so I would have to plan around that or at least defer it. I've already deferred it once when recovering from knee surgery/issues so I don't know how cooperative they will be at the court house if I try to do it again.

I haven't gone to pick up the medications yet, so will probably just come back and edit this post later with those expenses. They are both generics, so it shouldn't be too bad. While I was at the doctor DH went around the corner to make a payment at the dentist office. $182.60. Ouch. Our medical may be good, but our dental sucks.

Well, DH and I talked it over and we decided to go ahead and pay off the AMEX card on Friday. I'm still getting the hang of the new budget and the higher income, but it looks like I'll be able to come up with $1000 of the payment just out of the paycheck and only have to dip into the emergency fund for the just under $500 of the remainder. I feel a lot better about that. I really didn't want to take the whole amount out of the EF. It'll be a little tight doing it this way, but I'm used to living on tight. And anyway, it'll make things less tight from the end of February onward.

The car payment came out of checking today so that was $490.70 for that and then I bought some groceries today at $37.47. We also filled up the gas tank for $37.09. There was no other spending today.

We are on day ten of no eating out. Today was the first day that the kids really fussed at me about it. Their dad came home today and in the past we have usually gone out on that day. Instead we made spaghetti and hamburger for dinner. We had a little leftover hamburger from last night and then did up another pound. Between the milk, spaghetti noodles, the tomato sauce, the herbs, and the hamburger it cost about $8 to feed the four of us. Going out to Olive Garden like the kids wanted, even with drinking only water and having no dessert, would have cost us between $65 and $100 with the tip. Pretty darn good savings, methinks.

I made homemade blueberry jelly with my mother yesterday. We took frozen berries from the freezer. The berries were free since they came off her bushes this summer. So just a bit of money for the sugar.

Planning for tomorrow, breakfast will be eggs, milk, toast with jelly, and bacon. Eggs are free-ish from the chickens and toast is pennies because I made the bread myself. Bacon is $3.99 a pound for the nitrate free kind and we will go through half a package. So breakfast will be about $4 with the cost of the milk. Not bad. We're really starting to get the cost of breakfast down.

Lunch will be club sandwiches all around to use up the rest of the bacon and the nitrate free lunch meat that has one day left on it. Plus we've got 3/4 of a tomato that needs using up and a bit of lettuce. The kids don't mind eating them cold in their lunches, but DH's and mine will be delightfully warm. I use Dijon mustard on mine instead of mayo for a bit of a kick. We've got some carrots that need using up so will add that and some bananas that have just ripened for fruit. We drink water at lunch. Not quite sure on the price range for that, I haven't sat down and done the calculations yet.

Dinner will be baked chicken ($4.29), green beans ($1.50), potatoes and gravy ($1.00), corn bread (.79 Jiffy mix) and oranges ($2.00) and milk ($2.00). Mom will be eating with us so that will feed five and we should have two pieces of chicken and some potatoes and gravy leftover for later meals. Possibly some cornbread but probably not. So $11.58 plus leftovers, not too bad.

Tomorrow is my second baking day of the week so I will make buns, biscuits, cornbread and possibly pumpkin bread if I still have the ingredients and the time (I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow so may not have as much time as usual). I think I saw a can of pumpkin kicking around last time I went through the cupboards. I think I'll try to talk DD into making sugar cookies tomorrow after school if she doesn't have too much homework. She's got it down pat and they are so good.

I just signed in, spent almost half an hour composing a long and detailed blog entry, went to post it and got a notice saying I am already signed in as me. Yeah, duh, I know, what's your point? Give me back my entry. Of course it's gone into the ether. Between that and having to sign in every single time I come here this week instead of it saving it like it's supposed to when you hit remember me, it's getting really frustrating. I don't even have the energy now to recompose the whole thing. Too bad, for it was light and witty and would have changed your world. *snerks*

So the basics for yesterday:

Medical--$20 co-pay doctor visit
Medical--$11.81 prescription for kidney infection
Allowance (six weeks) kid #1--$60 @ $10 per week
Allowance (six weeks) kid #2--$30 @ $5 per week
Utilities for my mother--$300
EF deposit--$100, bringing total to $8,100.00
Parking meter at library--$0.25

Added all the ones in my purse to the coin jar for the computer fund and dumped out all my change save a quarter for the meter.

Got another hold from the library yesterday. This one is significantly more useful. It's called $3 Meals by Ellen Brown. A more appropriate title would be $3 per serving Meals, but otherwise I'm quite happy with it. I think I might be able to cut out about $50 a month from my grocery budget using her strategies. It was published 2009, too, so it's not terribly outmoded when it comes to how much stuff actually costs. I just wish it didn't rely so much on some of the things we're allergic to here like vinegar (allergic to grapes and apples so wine and cider based vinegars are out) and mushrooms. Still it's not all beans, rice and lentils. It actually has meat, poultry, and fish, so yay. We'll see how it goes.

I have more bills to pay out of this paycheck but will do that tomorrow or Monday.

I had planned on coming back on here to blog last night but never got around to it. After I went to the doctor ($20.00 co-pay), I was diagnosed with a kidney infection, which explains a lot of why I've been so tired and draggy lately. I had to go to the pharmacy and pick up a prescription ($11.81) and while I was there I also got a frozen pizza for dinner. Lovely health benefits in those frozen pizzas. *snerks* So paid $3.99 for that. At least I didn't give in to the lure of the drive-thru. My mom's making dinner tonight since she's eaten with us three times this week, so I don't have to cook. It'll be ribs and potatoes and some veg or other. I know I have some leftover broccoli that needs to be eaten up.

I finished reading through the book The Healthy Family and while I do like a lot of the recipes and think some of them would be cheap to make, I'm still bothered by the reliance on cream of something soups. So I'll have to be very picky on what I make from there.

I got a call from the library's computer yesterday saying I had another hold in, so I picked that up yesterday since my daughter's high school is only a few blocks away. I combined it with picking her up. So that was another 25 cents for the parking meter since not only were both of the five minute drop off slots full again, a specialized transportation bus was double parked behind them letting off someone in a wheel chair, since all the handicapped slots were filled, too. So even if the drop off slots had been empty I would never have gotten near them.

Anyway, I spent last night reading the book I checked out which is called $3 Meals by Ellen Brown. It would be more appropriately titled $3 per Serving Meals, but otherwise I really liked what she had to say. She shares my opinion about cream of something soups, too. Even calls it the same thing.

It's divided up by categories like shopping (peruse your own pantry before shopping to see what you have so you don't buy duplicates, telling you the cheapest cuts of meat to look for and how to shop the store against its set up) and cooking strategies, the basics of making your own stocks, sauces, dressings (not just the easy vinegar and oil ones, but things like 1000 Island and peanut sauce) and such, soups, fish, poultry, meat, vegetarian, and baking. It was a breath of fresh air not to see another cookbook that could supposedly save you money and then all they serve is lentils and beans.

My only real complaint is my usual one with most cookbooks, the reliance on vinegar (my son is allergic to grapes and apples, so no wine based vinegar or apple cider vinegar) and mushrooms which I am allergic to. It is easy enough to leave mushrooms out, but it is harder to leave out the vinegars and I'm not sure what I'd replace them with. Wine I always replace with broth, but vinegar is an acid. I'd think lemon juice maybe, but the amount couldn't possibly be the same.

Aside from that there were plenty of inexpensive recipes I can try for keeping the grocery budget down. I think I might be able to trim at least $50 a month using some of her ideas. Maybe more, but I'm keeping my estimate conservative for now. Definitely a book well worth the read.

Other money spent yesterday was a check I wrote for $300 to help my mother with her utilities. I still have a few bills to write out but probably won't do that until tomorrow. I added $100 to the EF fund and emptied all the ones in my wallet into the coin jar. They will go to the computer fund. I also paid the kids six weeks worth of allowance (we are on a six week pay cycle), so that was $60 for my daughter who makes $10 a week and $30 for my son who makes $5 a week.

They both do a significant amount of chores. They both help with meal prep including dividing up meat for the freezer, chopping veggies for the week, peeling potatoes or carrots for dinner, making the salad (or when we make homemade fish or homemade cheese sticks breading the fish or cheese. My daughter even does the cooking twice a week on her own, now she's fourteen. I've even found her putting the ingredients for bread dough into the bread machine before she leaves for school if she has extra time in the morning without being asked.

Both kids make their own lunches for school and keep their rooms clean. My daughter does laundry and my son helps fold. Daughter takes out the trash and my son is in charge of the recycling. My son vacuums the floors and scrubs the bathtub while my daughter scrubs the shower stall and higher parts. I still can't convince either one of them to scrub the toilet though!

They both also help my mother with whatever she needs done in the house and in the chicken yard. Usually that means mucking out the coop and replacing it with fresh hay.

And my daughter babysits her brother at least two hours a week when otherwise I would have to hire someone, so I won't skimp on allowance when we have the money to afford it. They also know not to ask me for anything. Whatever they want (that isn't a basic) has to come out of their allowance. My son bought his own DSI this way, even though it took him several months. He treats it better having earned it himself. Sometimes I think I don't give them enough, but my mother thinks I give them too much, so...eh. It's probably just right.

My son has his own recycling business as well. He goes around to all the neighbor houses with my mom for company and collects their aluminum cans once a week. He can usually earn about $20 to $30 every six weeks or so doing this and he only has thirty houses on his route. People use a lot of soda pop and beer around here. He wants to expand his route this summer to add another block but he would need a cart of something to do it. I'll be on the lookout come spring for one at a garage sale.

Well, there's no school today as we got a bunch more snow dumped on us. It's not anything like in other parts of the country, I think there's only about eight inches total, but there's a lot of black ice under it and the plows are having a hard time. Plus it's very cold and they are using a little common sense this time about closing schools that the majority of kids in the district walk up to a mile to get to. I am glad I bought milk last night.

I think I will bake today. I usually bake on Thursdays but with the kids home it will give them something to do. I've got the ingredients for pumpkin bread and can have my daughter make cookies since the stock in the freezer is almost gone. Then of course the dinner rolls and buns. I won't need to make any more bisquits as I did that on Sunday and there are enough for the week.

Today will be an enforced no spend day, though I had no plans to spend any money anyway. There's plenty of time for pancakes and eggs and fruit for breakfast and the kids have been bugging me about fast food type food so I'll probably make cheeseburgers with fresh buns and fries for lunch. I got a great deal on ten pounds of frozen organic french fries a while back and we are slowly working our way through them.

Dinner will be leftovers as we have two pieces of chicken, a couple of salmon patties, and two servings of pot roast left still to eat. I just need to add veg and starch. I'm watching letovers very closely this week to prevent food waste. We have a tendency to throw out so much food because it gets shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten about. In an effort to cut back on the grocery budget, we will do best at managing waste first so we don't have to go buy more of something right away.

I spent a lot of time yesterday reading on ways to save money on food. Most of it was the same old/same old but I found some interesting articles that were actually helpful. I was at Kitchen Parade and found this series of articles:

http://www.kitchenparade.com/2008/07/how-to-save-money-on-gr... It's a five part series, but only the first three have been written so far. Still well worth reading though in my opinion.

I also spent some time at Get Rich Slowly which did have some nice tips, though a lot of them were things I had heard before. I did come away with some new information though, so it was worth the read.

My food budget is the easiest to cut as it has the most fat in it. I just really have to be on the ball about it and not be lazy. Laziness is the number one killer of the food budget in this house. If we are not lazy this month, I think I can squeeze out $200 for savings or extra debt payoff.

I put some books on hold at the library. Mostly cookbooks on healthy eating or making restaurant style (Chinese, Japanese, Mexican) food at home from scratch. Hopefully they won't take too long, though one of them had 2 requests before mine, the rest I was the first requester for.

Well, I did it. I went down and paid off the Gold Star loan in full at Bank of America. They were kind of impressed. The teller was like, "Wish I could do that," grumble, grumble, sigh. I messed up my numbers the other day and had to go back and correct them.

$182,783.95 total starting debt (minus car)
- 38,323.87 payoff amount
-----------
$144,460.08 total ending debt (minus car)

Take that Evil Empire of Creditors! It feels marvelous to see such a huge drop like that!
That leaves just $29,133.45 of interest bearing unsecured debt left and I really do think we can pay that off this year if we are careful with the budget. 18 months tops if we leave a little more wiggle room. On Friday I get to pay off Master Card #1 in full. Yay! Then the money that has been going to pay that will go to the next credit card we will pay off.

On my quest to not eat out I had leftover potroast/sweet potato hash in a tortilla and for dinner tonight I am making salmon patties from canned salmon in the pantry (just egg, green onions, garlic, salmon and a bit of salt and pepper). Easy peasy. I'll probably open a can of green beans and a can of corn as well.

I found 2 more pennies in the snow in the parking lot at the physical therapist's office. That makes $5.05 this month.

Wrote a check to the physical therapist for $90 as well. That is the only money I will spend today.

Edited to add: I forgot about the fact that I paid the mortgage today as well, so $375.86 was also spent for that.

I am very glad I went grocery shopping yesterday as we woke up to snow this morning. Hard to believe there is so much of the white stuff still out there when the sun is shining so brilliantly, not to mention blindingly. I'll have to go out and clean off the car before the sun goes down so that I don't have to do it in the morning when I drive the kids to school.

I found $5 in a wad of ones in the middle of the Trader Joe's parking lot yesterday. There was no one else around who could have dropped it so I took it and put it in the coin jar when I got home. I don't understand people who don't put bills in their wallets. It is so easy for money to fall out of your pockets, especially when it is so cold that you have your hands in them a lot.

Today has been the kind of day where I am very glad I put a pot roast in the crock pot this morning and pizza dough ingredients in the bread machine this afternoon, because otherwise I would have been extremely tempted to order a pizza delivered. A $27 x-large all meat pizza, plus tip. I really do not need to do that when I have all the makings for a great pizza (ham, bacon, ground beef, homemade sausage, salami, pepperoni, proscuitto, onions, peppers, tomatoes, sauce, herbs and cheese) in the freezer, fridge or pantry. I won't use all those toppings on one pizza, I just have the choice to do so. Well, two pizzas as the crust recipe makes two large (or three smaller) crusts, but I usually just freeze the second one for later.

The pot roast had enough meat for two meals and I made microwaved sweet potatoes and a can of green beans to go with it. I think I will make a sort of beef and sweet potato hash with the leftovers. I like to do that and eat it in whole wheat tortillas with a salad added for a later meal. It is surprisingly good and I never would have thought of it except my ten-year-old has been going through a phase of wanting to eat everything in tortillas this year. There will be plenty of leftover pizza for the kids to take in their lunches for school. I am so glad they will eat cold pizza. They didn't use to eat any leftovers cold, so they have come a long way.

The ducks are mad because their little pond froze over and have no trouble expressing their displeasure with the situation. We had to put some hay down for the chickens. They are so funny to watch walking through the snow, but they really do need a hay path to have a break. They need to eat more feed in this weather to produce well. Most days this winter have been around 40 degrees, which is still warm enough for them to forage for most of their food, but during these cold snaps they need grain. We are getting seven eggs a day which is still more than we can use, especially with DH in Alaska. I should probably make up some meatloaves for the freezer to use up some of the excess.

I should probably go ahead and make buns and biscuits for the week, too. I've gotten lazy about making bread and just tend to make rolls and buns instead. Well, it is part laziness and part making the right portion sizes so someone doesn't hack off a huge chunk of bread to eat and suddenly it is all gone. The kids don't care what their sandwiches come on so long as it's homemade (or tortillas). They really don't like store bought bread of any kind anymore. I usually do that on Mondays and Thursdays, but I have an appointment tomorrow with the physical therapist and may be too exhausted afterwards.

My goal for the week to save money is to not grab anythng out to eat. No drive-thru meals and definitely no sit down restaurant meals. Our biggest wasted spenditures are from eating out too much. So today is day one of that.