Well, it seems like I rather suck at blogging anymore. I just tend to pop up from time to time now with an update and that's about it. So much has changed in the past year it's ridiculous. Things are slowly coming down debtwise. I am seeing real progress being made in some areas. There's still a lot of debt left though. And we had to pay for more surgery which added to our debt.

$ 94,400.00 left on medical debt
$ 23,139.75 left on the mortgage
$ 42,100.00 left on personal loan
$ 30,000.00 left on unsecured debt over 3 cards
------------
$189,639.75

Considering we started out at around $250,000 when I started this blog we've done well. We do also have around $23,000 left on our car loan.

All of our debt should be paid off in 6.5 years if we continue at this rate. If we sell our house, which may or may not happen any time soon, we could take a large chunk out of it. With the market the way it is I am not counting on it.

We are still living with my mother. She's taken a couple more falls so I really do not regret my decision to move into town and take care of her. She's still mostly self-sufficient, still has her mind, but she really needs someone to just be here for the bad times. I'm not sure we'll buy another house after the one we own right now sells until she's ready to go into assisted living or a nursing home and that's probably several years away. This house is huge and it just makes no sense to move away from her right now.

It's a good school district here. After two years of homeschooling I've got the kids enrolled in the public school system again. They are both thriving and getting good marks. My daughter is a freshman and well on her way to honor roll. Probably five A's and a B. They do weekly updates online and also every three weeks, so I can check it obsessively and make sure they aren't screwing her up.

Things are a little up in the air at DH's work. Contracts are up in December and they aren't being very forthcoming on whether his company is even going to get the subcontract from the main company this next year or not. We've had job security for 14.5 years and not having it anymore is a little unnerving. DH isn't as worried about it as I am. He's got feelers into several companies just in case and says he's gotten positive responses so hopefully if his company doesn't get the contract he'll simply be able to switch to the one that has it. It'll mean no medical insurance for a few months, but it'd be work and that's important with a debtload like ours.

I'd feel better if I could work. I'm pretty much disabled these days because of my knee and the pain I'm in all the time. I am working to strengthen it with swimming, but it's a slow road. The rest of me is getting fitter, but it's still very difficult to walk. Standing still is even harder. I can cook sitting down, but I don't think they'd let me do that in a restaurant.

I am doing what I can to cut back again. We were getting really lazy there for a while with eating out because it was hard for me to cook when I was in so much pain, but I've been teaching my daughter and between the two of us we are managing a lot more home-cooked meals.

Last night I made my special spaghetti sauce from 3 fresh roma tomatoes, 1 chopped onion, 2 tbsp minced garlic, 2 14.5 ounce cans tomato sauce, 2 6 ounce cans tomato paste, basil, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Tomatoes and herbs came from the garden. The kids and I made parmesan breadsticks from scratch (dough made in the bread machine), and homemade spaghetti noodles in the pasta maker (had it for years, but have rarely used it). It was really good, better than a meal at The Olive Garden and cost about $8 altogether, as we all drank a glass of milk as well. It would have been about $50 for 3 of us if we'd gone out for that same meal.

Today I'll be making a beef potroast in the crockpot and microwave baked potatoes and green beans and tomorrow I'll be doing up a big pot of Texas style chili. There will be enough of that to freeze for several meals. I've got all the ingredients on hand and am focusing on cooking from the freezer and the pantry this month as much as possible. Chris comes home on Thursday and hopefully he'll be on board with this whole not eating out thing. He claims he likes my cooking best anyway, but we shall see.

Not too much going on around here this week. I sent off $2600 to credit card debt, paid off my surgery debt of $863, and paid the phone bill for the old house (have to keep the line for the security system).

The most excitement I had was chasing three ducklings and one chick who refused to go back into the chicken coop after their airing. It took three of us to catch them all. It's a far sight harder catching those ducks now they weigh two pounds then it was when they could fit in the palm of your hand and only had a bathtub to race around instead of a yard.

I've finally gotten a medication that seems to be killing this sinus infection I've had forever and am feeling a little better. At least I'm able to breathe through my nose again which does wonders for my ability to sleep through the night. I have been eating out too much though this last week when I was feeling miserable. I was getting the cheapy fast food meals which was better for my wallet, but not great for my health. I did eat up the pre-cooked frozen meals first though at least.

Because of the eating out I had $8.46 in change to add to my change jar. No, I still haven't gotten around to taking it into the bank.

$79.84 starting amount
+ 8.46 amount added
-------
$87.94 ending amount

I think tomorrow I will feel good enough to start cooking again so my goal is no more meals out for the rest of the week. One of the nice things about being so sick was that I did manage to get off Pepsi. My soda habit was getting expensive again and even if I was drinking the Throwback instead of the stuff with high fructose corn syrup, pop is just never healthy. I can already see improvements in my sleep pattern and in my skin tone, both of which always suffer from the combination of caffeine and that much sugar. I think I will start adding the $15 a week I was spending on soda to my EF. And that's about it.

Yesterday was payday so I sent off $1200.00 to the credit card and the autopay for the car payment came out of 490.75 and we are down to having three years left until the car is paid for.

I did a bit of grocery shopping, not a lot, just for things like milk, tortillas, bananas, sour cream and scallions. They also had a special going where if you bought one beef roast you got the second one free along with a five pound bag of potatoes. Now, it wasn't really a great sale. You paid about as much for them as you would have if you'd bought two roasts on a regular sale, because they jacked up the price of the first roast you had to buy to get the rest of it free. It was still a good deal, but definitely not truly "free." But accepting that, the potatoes truly were free. Since I want to make baked potato soup tomorrow and we always are making pot roasts in the crockpot it felt like an acceptable sale for our needs.

When I got up this morning I assembled all the ingredients I would need to make dinner and put them in the crock pot. I've been devouring a blog on slow cooker cooking that Monkey Mama linked to a few days ago, and she had a recipe on there for orange chicken. Orange chicken or pineapple chicken is pretty much my all time favorite "fast" food from the polynesian takeaway place we have here in town. But we don't eat there anymore because of T's allergies. It's full of all kinds of chemical goodness so it's off the list of places we can go to and with us cutting back on going out anyway, we just haven't been there in ages.

I made a lot of changes to her original recipe for orange chicken: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2009/09/slow-cooker-orange-chicken-recipe.html

And basically ended making my own version with what I had on hand. It turned out perfectly and I was completely thrilled, because it tasted better than the takeaway place and cost about half as much to make from scratch.

I didn't have any frozen OJ in the house so I substituted frozen pineapple juice.

Here's my version of Pineapple Chicken. I doubled her recipe because I wanted to make some for the freezer as TV dinners.

3 pounds chicken wings
1 cup of flour for dredging
2 tsp kosher salt (her 1 T was too much for me to even think of putting in, especially considering I'd have had to double it)
1 12 ounce can pineapple juice concentrate, thawed
6 T brown sugar
6 T ketchup
2 tsp apple cider vinegar (I didn't have balsamic)
olive oil

Dredge chicken in flour and brown in a bit of olive oil, just long enough to make sure the flour sticks to the chicken. Dump the chicken in the crock pot. Mix all remaining ingredients in a bowl and then pour over chicken. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. I pulled mine out at about 7 hours. I had a couple little containers of sesame seeds so I dumped some on my portion because I like them.

I had some frozen, cooked brown rice in the freezer so thawed that out and warmed it up and ate it mixed with the sauce and chicken. Added canned green beans for a veg. A good meal all around and there was enough left to package up 8 TV dinner meals for the freezer.

I really like cooking in the crock pot. It's nice to make something in the morning when you have energy and have it ready for you in the evening when you don't. Or even to do it before you go to bed and have it ready for you to deal with in the morning. I like cooking once and having enough leftovers for several meals down the road. It saves energy, it saves time, and it seems to save money as well.

Today I was trying to think about all the things that I do to save money that require little to no effort on my part. Of course the things I do to actively save all quickly spring to mind, but what about the little things? What about the things that have become so automatic in me that I do them most of the time without thinking at all.

Well, since I was in the shower at the time, I started there. With hair as long and as thick as mine I can't exactly skimp on the shampoo or conditioner, but I know how much I need and I am very careful to not let it come pouring out at a fast rate of speed. Accidentally ending up with a huge handful of shampoo doesn't do my hair or my budget any good.

All of my bottles are kept upside down. Shampoo. Conditioner. Shower gel. Gravity is always right there, helping me get as much as possible out of the bottles. And when gravity is done doing it's part, of course I fill the bottles a quarter of the way full with water, swish them around, and use them once or twice more if the stuff clings to get out the final drops.

I go further with the shower gel, starting from the beginning of the bottle. For the price of a 50 cent shower pouf, I can make a dime size drop of gel lather into enough for a full body wash. Try doing that while putting the soap directly into your hand. Doesn't work, does it? A 16 ounce bottle of gel that could easily be gone through in a few weeks in a nondiscriminate manner, lasts me and my family of four (we all have our own poufs) a couple of months.

Gravity again does it's job in the kitchen. At any one time you can open up the fridge and find upside down bottles of mustard, ketchup, barbecue sauce, and chocolate sauce. Things that can't be put upside down without getting stuck in the lid get the spatula treatment. This generally falls into the category of round bottled condiments like mayo, salad dressings, jelly and peanut butter. The spatula also works well on scraping out the last bits of tomato sauce or paste, chili, stew, anything that sticks to the side of a tin can.

Probably the only thing that a spatula doesn't work well on is that poorly shaped mega bottle of Kraft Miracle Whip my husband insists on eating. Square containers with indentations? Really, Kraft? Who ever thought that was a good idea? I prefer to buy the larger product because at cost value it is cheaper, but at actual value when so much of it stuck in those stupid indentations? I'm not so sure. Really, Kraft, go back to the cylindrical containers. Your customers will appreciate it in this economy. (End mini-rant).

I'll let the last drops of olive oil in the bottle drip out onto a salad for ten minutes. I've contrived a contraption for holding the bottles up out of one of those aluminum can crushers mounted sideways. Just tie the thing shut and the bottle stays in place. Then you don't have to hold it, but you can be sure of getting it all out.

My thoughts moved on to wash cloths. I haven't bought wash cloths in years. We use towels to the point of making threadbare spots, so when the time comes that a good 1/4 of it is no longer effective, I simply cut them up, hem them quickly, and I've got a new supply ready to replace the ones that I've worn down.

I had to think about whether or not I consider composting to be a passive activity. On the one hand it involves the effort of taking the fruit and veggie scraps and egg shells out to the compost pile, but on the other hand my other two choices would be running the water and the electric to put them in a disposal or taking them out to the trash. And since I don't bother to turn my compost pile and just let time and the worms do all the work and maybe once a year fork off the top layer to start a new pile and get to the good stuff, I think I can pretty much consider the making of compost passive savings, especially when it is passed along to the garden later in the year.

I keep things unplugged that do not get active use, and if it's easy to get to the outlet, things that do get heavy use, like the toaster and the microwave. Most of our clocks are small battery operated wall clocks. The digital electric alarm clock only gets plugged in and set on the nights we have to wake up at a certain time the next morning. Computers, monitors, printers, and laptops are kept off when not in use and their power strips are turned off. Same with the TV. Since we no longer have a VCR we don't have to worry about resetting it every time it gets turned off.

I'm sure there are more things that I do passively that save me money but for the moment that's all I can think of. So I'm curious. What does everyone else do automatically and with minimal effort to save on the little things?

Well, today I gave haircuts to the males in the family. I don't think my son has had one since the end of August and he was starting to really look like a ragamuffin. A cute ragamuffin, but a raggamuffin nonetheless. I think enough hair ended up on the floor to give an entire colony of birds nesting material. We'll put it out by the bird feeders tomorrow morning when it's light and then peek through the window to see what the birds are doing. It's always fun to watch them during nesting season. I also gave a touch up trim to my husband.

I invested in a good barber's razor kit a couple of years ago for $39.00 and I made the money back within three haircuts. It doesn't take long to get the hang of it at all. The first time I did it I practiced on my husband because he had no qualms about shaving his head bald if I happened to mess up. I didn't, though, and he ended up with a nice, professional looking cut. He gets the number 3 attachment because he prefers something close to but not as short as a buzz cut. And I use the number 4 for my son, which comes out short, but doesn't leave him feeling like he's been scalped. At this level he can go three months between haircuts before he starts looking like he needs one.

Included in the kit we bought was a cape that I use for both haircuts and when I color my hair or my daughter's hair. It came with a very sharp pair of hairdresser's scissors as well, which I use to cut my bangs. I used to do my daughter's bangs, too, but she's growing her hair long and doesn't want to have bangs anymore. My daughter and I do go get a professional cut twice a year and then I will occassionally trim her ends between visits.

In the past I have given my daughter both a bob and a pixie cut. They are both simple cuts for beginners, but you really must use sharp hairdressers scissors. I can't stress that enough. Dull scissors from the sewing basket or craft kit are not going to do the job right. Your bangs will look split-ended and the cut will definitely be jagged. I'd also recommend getting a book out from the library that tells how to cut hair.

We save a lot of money doing this ourselves because at the cheapest salon around here, it's $12.99 for a kids cut and $14.99 for an adult cut (no shampoo, no styling, no blow dry). The barber is $13. A bang trim is $6. It takes a bit of practice to trim bangs yourself but it really isn't all that hard after the first time or two. It helps to have a forgiving style and keep a longer bang until you get used to doing it yourself.

I reckon between the two cuts, my bang trim, sales tax, and tip, we saved about $40, so I transferred that amount into my safety net today, bringing the total to $340.48. Not a bad investment at all.

Today, well, techincally yesterday now, was a no spend day. I didn't go anywhere or do anything and didn't even have the urge to order take out. Controlling leftovers and food waste is one of the things I'm focusing on to save money, the grocery budget being one of the places where we probably waste the most money.

For lunch we made calzones out of one of the leftover pizza dough balls. We divided it into four portions and I mixed some tomato sauce and herbs with a 6 ounce can of tomato paste. Each small piece of dough was rolled into a circle and filled with leftover ground beef, diced ham, onions, bell peppers in my case, mozzarella cheese and the sauce. My mom made one with just ham and cheese in it. The dough was folded over to make a half circle and crimped with a fork to seal. I pierced each one with a fork in a few places to vent steam and laid them out on a cookie sheet, baking them for 20 minutes in a 425 degree gas oven. They were great, some leftovers got used up, and the kids were happy.

For dinner we made some of the on sale salmon, on sale broccoli, and potatoes from mom's garden (free). I did up a lot of the broccoli and extra potatoes. We have enough broccoli for two more meals and enough potatoes for three. I like making big batches because then you only use the electricity or gas once for the initial cooking and then can warm up the rest in the microwave in the future for just a short amount of time instead of going through the whole long process and the expense again of heating water and boiling food. In this case they are planned overs as opposed to leftovers. That's something I heard them called in a magazine once and it stuck.

I like having planned overs, because it gives me the incentive to use the food in the fridge instead of going out and grabbing burgers or pizza or chicken somewhere. Tomorrow all I have to do for dinner is pop some chicken legs in the oven for an hour and the rest of the meal is taken care of. Mom will probably make gravy out of the drippings because she seems to think that all meals that have meat need gravy, but that's her time and energy, not mine.

Lunch will be quesadillas made of shredded leftover pot roast, some cheese, and some tortillas that need to be used up quickly. They're additive and preservative free so I only have about five to six days from when I open the package to get them used before they go bad. Also we will have coleslaw made from the on sale cabbage I bought the other day and a carrot that needs to be used up.

Someone left the bread open this morning and it got kind of hard so breakfast tomorrow will be french toast and then I'll probably use the rest in meatloaf the day after.

I also got around to counting the money in the toy bank and scrounging up what was on the furniture to add into my coin jar counting. It's almost up to $30, so not bad at all.

$16.59 beginning balance
.38 found on dresser and nightstand
+12.08 amount in TARDIS bank
-------
$29.05 ending balance

I didn't really feel like dumping out my bank today, so I don't know how much is in there at the moment, but I did empty my purse today and gathered up all the loose change and one dollar bills.

$ 8.00 in ones
+ 8.59 in coins
--------
$16.59 in the coin jar

Tomorrow I'll take the time to shake out the bank and see what's in there and add it to the total. I know there's some loose change floating around on my dresser and night stand, too, so when I declutter those I'll add that amount in as well.

The kids have been wanting pizza really badly the last couple of days and have been begging for Round Table pizza and I almost gave in to them today because it was payday and hey, it would be easy. Plus it's one of the few restaurants my son can eat at with his food allergies.

The thing was that there was plenty of time before dinner to start mixing dough in the bread machine and we had two unopened packages of pepperoni and Canadian bacon and a 2 pound brick of mozzarella. I had herbs and tomato sauce. The pizza pan was even clean. There was absolutely no reason to go out for pizza when I could make a perfectly good one that they would like better at home. The only thing stopping me was lazinesss. I got over it. *laughs* Just one of the things I need to do in readjusting my thinking back to a better way of doing things for financial gain.

So it was 3:45 and I popped the five ingredients I needed into the bread machine, set it on the dough cycle, which takes 63 minutes, and had enough time to run to the bank drive-thru and pay the credit card bill (take that evil empire!) then stop at the grocery store for milk.

They happened to have broccoli (crowns for 69 cents a pound!) and asparagus (for 99 cents a pound) and cauliflower (79 per pound) and a head of cabbage (33 per pound) on really good sales so I picked up those and glanced at the fruit. Nothing really looked good despite the prices and we still had apples and oranges and frozen bell peppers at home, so no need to buy anything even if the green bananas were 29 cents a pound.

I made my way over to the fish counter to see if they had anything on sale. They had wild Keta salmon $4 per pound if you buy the whole fish. They filet it for you right there and since the counter was devoid of customers I didn't feel guilty about taking the time to do it. I ended up with four pounds of usable fish for $20 which works out to $5 per pound after all the discards are taken out of the original five pound fish. Not bad for what will amount to six meals worth of salmon.

Nothing else was on sale and I have plenty of meat in the freezer so that was all I bought. Between the milk, veg (I bought a lot of veg, we eat a lot) and milk (organic), I spent $48.74.

I got back home to my mother saying the bread machine had just dinged (ha, timing!) So while my son and I divided the dough and put two balls in the fridge for later this week and started stretching out the other one, my daughter preheated the oven and shredded the cheese. We added the sauce to the dough, sprinkled on basil, oregano, and thyme, added cheese and the meats and by the time we were done the oven was warm.

With everyone pitching in it didn't feel like a huge production making it, we all had fun and instead of paying $30 for a large pizza, we'll end up with three pizzas for the same price of on hand ingredients we would have paid for the other. I used to do this all the time. I used to be good at it. It's coming back slowly but surely.

Three nights ago at 6:30 p.m. I got a phone call from my mother saying that her across the street neighbors had just taken down 3 enormous spruce trees. And they were giving it all away and did we want some. Yes, we did. So we bundled into the car and got there by 7:30 and worked until the sun went down around ten.

We came back yesterday and my mom had rented a gas-powered splitter, so yesterday and today that is what we did all day long. Split the rounds, split the splits, stacked it, loaded the pickup and brought it home, lather, rinse, repeat.

We got at least six cords, which when it is dry will get us through a year of heating. We cut a lot of it up fairly small so it would dry faster. I've got two cords of dry wood already so I can always burn some green with the dry so I'll be able to use it a little sooner.

We will fill up the indoor woodbox and wood cart so some will dry faster in the house as well.

We have transferred three truckloads home so far and have about four more. It's not a full size pickup so it takes a lot less at a time. We will hopefully borrow FIL's truck Friday or Saturday to move the rest in just two trips.

We are supposed to be in for another thunderstorm tomorrow and we both need a day off from such hard work anyhow.

Anyhow, this should in the long run save us about $1000 in propane usage. Not bad for what will end up being four days of work.

Today is a no-spend day. I do like having those. I was very tempted to go down to the gas station and buy something earlier. Except there wasn't even anything I specifically wanted to buy. I just wanted to go look and "get something." How lame is that? Fortunately I recognized it for what it was, boredeom.

It was a very similar feeling to the one I get when I'm not really hungry but find myself peering into the fridge to see if anything "looks good." Again, boredom. I think I've been doing too much cleaning today so my mind is rebelling a bit.

I've got three loads of laundry hanging on the clothesline. The rain never showed up today, so hopefully its gone and I can get some more on tomorrow. Makes me feel frugal to hang it.

I need to finish cleaning up the kitchen. I made chicken soup in the crockpot this morning and I have a sink full of dishes that need to go in the dishwasher. But I'm in a real "I don't wanna" place. Dinner does need to started though and I don't want to have twice that many dishes in the sink when I finish with dinner so I suppose I'll have to.

It's 75 today. It's been quite a jump up the thermometer. I won't complain about it though or it might go away. I like 70 best. But 75 is preferrable to 60.

Tomorrow is the last day of school. It gets out early at one. And DH flies home in the morning. So its going to be a full family afternoon. Maybe we'll go for a bike ride.

I'm not looking forward to school being out. Well, Tobias is going to summer school until the end of July. His reading is behind. Both the teacher and I agree that it is because he is lazy and doesn't put forth the effort, there is no learning disability, but this program specializes in reading so I agreed to send him.

His sister was exactly the same way. It wasn't until the fourth grade when she really took off and left everyone else in her class in the dust. I'm not worried about him. And it will be nice to have him it four mornings a week from 9 to 12. He needs the structure or else he will run wild.

It is weird for me to have resistant readers because I was reading at 4 years old. But its not something I will stress about. T loves to be read to and I know it will click eventually, as it did with Rose.

Okay, I really better go tackle those dishes so I can get started on dinner.

I was able to confirm my CU this morning with ING, so I was able to transfer my vacation money over. It'll be nice to earn a little real interest on that money instead of 1%.

It finally stopped raining yesterday afternoon so I decided to bite the bullet and hung three loads of towels on the clothesline. It's sunny today and they should be dry by this evening. It just isn't very warm. It was 45 this morning. It is up to 70 now so possibly they are dry. Dunno. I'll check when the bus comes. Hopefully hanging laundry again might trim the power bill back down. Who knows?

It's supposed to rain again tomorrow. Hello, its June. Enough already.

I forgot to mention this last week when I paid the power bill, we had a big credit, despite December and all the lights. We are on budget pay and we had been doing so well that we completely absorbed the hit from the Christmas lights, which normally double our bill come January. But not this year, baby! I'm sure the timers and replacing some of the old lights with LED's helped quit a bit.

And after paying this bill we still had a credit of $23.55! That means come March when they do the refiguring, our monthly $93 payment may very well go down. Wouldn't that be something. Really goes to show just how much of an electricity hog that old dryer was before it broke.

My 4 week grocery budget is $200. 173.10 is how much I have spent on groceries so far. I have $26.10 left from which I will only need to buy milk and eggs. I have everything else I need for the month. I think this is going to work. Previously my grocery budget has been between $250 and $300 per 4 week pay cycle, so this is quite a cut for us. But with the right planning and the right management of leftovers, I think we will be just fine on this new budget.

I finally convinced DH to give up our current cell phone plan. Our two year contract expired in October, and isn't the company we signed up for to begin with, because they were bought out. Its been good service and all that but we are not heavy cell users. I'm lucky if I make two calls a month and they don't last long. DH uses his seldom also, maybe 8 short calls a month. We never even came close to using our minutes, and we were on the cheapest plan they had for two phones.

We are going to buy tracphones. $10 per phone and I believe its $9 for 60 days at the minimum for the pay as you go, which is enough minutes for us. Both Bellingham and Anchorage are in the calling zones, so this is great for us. We will have (after cost of phone) a bill that works out to $18 a month instead of one that is $72 a month.

I finally got everything cleared out around the bread machine so I measured out all the ingredients and it is busily working away on the dough and we shall have fresh bread tomorrow. This is going to be pretty good, I think. Since we only buy the organic 100% whole wheat bread, which comes to 2/$5.00 at the bread outlet store, and we buy five to six loaves a month, plus the same kind of hamburger or hot dog buns, we should save a lot of money doing it this way.

The organic ingredients came to $10.00 and should be good for about 40 loaves of bread or homemade buns, (I'll track it to be sure) which would come to $125 from the outlet store for that same number of loaves or buns. Homemade comes out to 25 cents per loaf or batch of buns.

So instead of spending $15 to $20 a month on bread products, I will be spending $6 to $8. And the kids will eat the crust off homemade bread as well as the heels. No problem.

I've been thinking a lot lately about things I can do to stay the course, or improve it. Some may call them goals or resolutions or steps and put them along with the new year, but I don't. Because I don't really like anything that starts with the new year or in any way smacks of a promise to do something better or different in the coming year, because take a wild guess what happens when I do do that? Anyone? Yeah, I don't do them.

So these are just things that I'd like to learn to do so that things go better for me as I go.

I'd like to keep my grocery budget to $200 a month, or rather $200 every 4 weeks. We have four people in this house. DH, who can usually eat a horse and drink a cow in one week's time. But he is only home 12 days out of every 28, and he is fed by work when he is up there. Me, and I eat maybe 2200 calories a day but I exercise vigorously five days a week and on my off days tend to only eat 1800 calories. My daughter, who has 1.5 hour basketball practice 3 nights a week and 2 1 hour long games on Saturdays, who tends to eat 2000 calories on work out days and 1400 on non-workout days. And my son, who is currently going through a growth spurt and eating about 1200 to 1400 calories a day depending on physical activity.

I think we should easily be able to stay within this amount if we completely stop buying convenience foods and eating out. I am wanting to eliminate all not from scratch foods anyway, as they have so many unhealthy ingredients. This should leave us with about $100 for meat protein, $30 for dairy and $70 for 100% whole wheat bread items, fresh fruits and vegetables each period.

We eat a lot of protein due to postprandial hyperinsulinemia (all of us have it except the youngest one and we feed him the same as us as he is showing signs of it, just hasn't been tested) and we don't like vegetarian meat substitues or beans of the non-string or green variety. Cutting back on protein is not an option for us to save money.

I think $100 a month should be adequate. We can usually get 10 pounds of hamburger @ $1.48 per pound, 10 pounds of chicken hindquarters @ $0.39 to $0.59 per pound, whole chickens at $0.59 per pound, beef roasts @ $2.49 per pound, tuna fish $0.99 (label must read tuna, water or tuna, olive oil, salt is okay--no autolyzed vegetable broth or any other additives), turkey legs or necks for $.0.69 per pound. We get 4 18 packs of organic omega-3 eggs a month at $2.19 per pack. If there is a good sale I will buy salmon or other seafood like shrimp or crab, but that is rare. All meat must be free of added ingredients, like a "10% solution added to enchance flavors," non-genetically modified, wild caught and not farmed in the case of seafood, no growth hormones, and free range. We prefer grass-fed and kosher, but sometimes there is a limit to what we can expect from our local grocery stores and most organic meat is out of our price range.

The most expensive thing is the sliced sandwich meats from Applegate Farms that have no additives, preservatives or in the case of ham has not been cured. The kids take that for lunches. Once it is opened it must be used within 4 days. I really need to divide these packages up and freeze the excess because the kids won't go through a whole one in a week's time. And also the organic milk is very pricey, too. DH drinks regular milk but the rest of us drink organic. DH can go through one gallon in 2 to 3 days by himself while we go through 1 in about 5 days. I can get coupons from Organic Valley dairy and I use my reward coupons from Fred Meyer as well.

I also need to start making my own bread products again. I have the bread machine, the ingredients and the recipes, but I never quite get around to it. I need to get around to it. Bread is pretty much my last convenience product but since we buy organic bread and 100% whole wheat bread, it is pricey. I can do this. I just have to want to.

This is all doable. It just needs to be done-able. Okay, making up words now. But I think my point is clear here. Just do it. I'll very grudgingly let this be categorized under goals, but I consider it more of a plan.

I have the turkey stock simmering on the stove and it is filling the house with a wonderful aroma. I also have turkey legs roasting in the oven and we will be having mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans with it for dinner tonight. I am making enough so that I don't have to cook tomorrow for dinner. I still feel yucky.

We went out for lunch today. I honestly could not face the idea of cooking earlier so I took the kids through drive-thru and spent $9.39 to feed the 3 of us. Had to drive 20 miles to get to the nearest drive-thru also. Not great. It did however give me the quarter I needed to roll a roll of quarters up, so that with the roll of pennies will be $10.50 deposited tomorrow into the savings account for the extra credit card payment.

Tomorrow I have to try to remember to call the phone company and drop our long distance service. It is only $3.33 a month, which is $39.96 a year, but we don't use it so it is wasted money. I always use my Costco calling card when I do call long distance, so there is really no point at all in having it. I wonder if that'll reduce the taxes and surcharges any at all? Probably just a few cents if it does.

Laundry room still isn't done. I am studiously ignoring it right now. Maybe tomorrow.

Today was the day of the weekly automatic deposit of $10 to savings, plus the 20 cents from ING interest, bringing the total in savings up to $1454.21.

Tomorrow is payday but I am not sure if I will have any money left for savings this week. I have to pay the $1000 medical mortgage and the regular house mortgage of $400, which should leave me with about $50 for groceries. I filled the gas tank today ($36 almost at $2.389 per gallon) and still have $17 on my Costco cash card for gas there and a $25 Shell gas card, but I don't think I will even need them. I need to make a run to town tomorrow and ones on Monday and Thursday, and that's just 9 gallons and the tank has 17 in it now, so no problems there.

The following one I definitely will have $65 to add. And the one after that I'll have $1000 to add in. I'm really looking forward to being able to do that.

DH is wavering about buying a car next year, and so am I. With gas prices coming down, its not so bad dealing with a car that gets just 20 MPG. Although, I've got it up to 20.5 now that all the soccer chairs and gear are out of the trunk. I love having digital average mileage in the car. Makes it easy. Well, I'd rather throw the money at debt but he may change his mind. It's hard to decide sometimes. I know that we could pay down close to $8000 by the end of April if we choose to do that. More if we get the Blazer sold.

I'm going to discontinue my Simply Audio subscription. I don't use it enough and the selection just isn't that much better than the library. I've already changed Netflix yesterday down to 1 movie out, unlimited, from 3 out, unlimited. I want to cut out Gamefly but without cable, DH really wants to keep Gamefly, and so do the kids.

We're going to change our family plan at the chiropractor too, to one visit per week per person for a monthly total of $130 instead of $175. So between those 3 things we should save another $70 a month. Plus save on gas as it will be one less trip per week to town. I'm also going to call the phone company and see if there aren't other options for any of the things we have.

Rose's team won their game today! First time since the jamboree where they won 2 games. And not only did they win, they slaughtered the other team 7 to 2. It would have been 8 to 2 but the ref called offsides. Kind of surprising as he didn't call it for the whole first half of the game despite both teams frequently doing it.

Tobias' team did okay. They managed to make 2 goals. I don't really keep track on the micro-fields as they always get trounced. It was really cold today. The temp was 45 but the wind was blowing so I'm sure the wind-chill brought it down.

Thankfully we had T's blanket, the ugliest afghan in the universe. DH's aunt made it a couple years ago. It is dark brown and light blue and white and looks more like a table runner than a blanket. A very thick, long table runner. A very thick, long, ugly table runner. But it makes a great lap quilt type thingy and its long enough to cover three people sitting in camp chairs, if they don't mind being seen with such an ugly thing on them. And no one cares if it gets dirty, its so ugly. Did I mention it was really ugly?

Don't know where DH's aunt's taste went when she made that. The other two we have that she made are beautiful and look like real blankets, nice colors, nice patterns. Oh, well, it has a purpose that makes it useful. And T is actually quite proud of how ugly it is. Boys.

We did not buy anything at the concession today. Not one thing. We all remembered water bottles and we all ate a good breakfast beforehand. First game was at 9:15 and second game was at 10:20 and we were home by 12:30 for lunch. We made tacos. Discovered that the Schilling taco mix didn't have trans fats or partially hydrogenated anything in it and the Mission taco shells didn't either, so yay. Had stuff on hand. I do have a recipe for making taco spice mix for future, but it was nice to not have to do it today.

Dinner will also be out of the pantry, oven baked chicken, canned corn, broccoli/cauliflower, potatoes and gravy, and fruit. Appropriate portion sizes, everything made from scratch, gravy made with 100% whole wheat flour (no white flour allowed anymore). Oh, and milk.

We are doing a fairly good job avoiding white flour, sugar, trans fats, and unnatural foods so far. I really can see that this will actually be cheaper in the long run. My caffeine headache was bad last night but is almost gone today. I feel lighter. Don't know if I am as this is not the point of eating this way, we're trying to fix our overall health.

I am sick and tired of Rose catching everything under the sun and bringing it home to share with me. She never got sick like this when we were homeschooling. She'd get maybe two colds a year. School is a giant germ factory. But it is where she wants to be. I did notice that Rose's face is less puffy today. Don't know if she lost a little weight or if she was swollen and getting the allergens out of her system made her stop retaining water. Come to think of it, my face is less puffy, too. Hmm...Well, whatever, I feel better within my body, so that's a good thing.

I haven't done the bills yet, but will tonight and do a separate post regarding those.

Deposited $10 automatically into savings today, bringing the total to $1106. $19 more and I am halfway to my two month goal of adding $250 by the end of November. Forgot again to bring the rolled coin with to deposit, but we didn't end up going to that side of town today anyway.

We went grocery shopping (DH came home from Alaska yesterday) today. First we went to the farm stand and for $17.55 we bought:

8 kohlrabi
10 nectarines
4 Italian plums
1 head of iceberg lettuce
6 ears of corn
1 package of fajita seasoning dry rub mix (no fillers, just spices)
16 ounce bag of sunflower seeds, shelled (no artificial ingredients, just seeds, canola oil and salt)
1 white onion
1 head of garlic
1 gallon of 2% milk

Then we went to Haggen and bought:

1 gallon organic non-fat milk @ $5.69
1 2.28 lb butternut squash @ $2.03
1 1.85 lb acorn squash @ $1.65
1.7 lb baby red potatoes @ $1.68
5.2 lb value pack beef chuck potroast @ $10.69
1 package of bendy straws @ $0.99
magazine @ $3.50

For a total of $26.61 spent there. The $3.50 magazine was an unnecessary expense, so I will be adding $3.50 to my savings next time I do go to the bank, well actuallly round it up to $4 as I don't like an uneven total, I like whole numbers. The bendy straws are for the sake of everyone's sanity around here. We'll just leave it at that.

We are switching our family diet over to whole foods and made from scratch foods completely now. DH is finally on board this train and I think it is best for us all. It'll improve our health and lower our food bill. I think I can keep us to $50 a week for groceries doing this. Possibly less on the 2 weeks out of every 4 that DH is living at work.

With this new method of eating, I'm going to just throw the daily menu into the blog.

Breakfast:
100% whole wheat toast made with honey
soft-boiled Omega-3 organic egg
milk

Lunch:
freshly juiced apple juice
cucumber slices
chicken on salad
plain yogurt with blueberries stirred in

Dinner:
beef potroast
corn on the cob
potatoes with gravy
broccoli
cauliflower
nectarine
milk

It seems a lot written out, but everything is also portion controlled. Rose in particular can overeat to excess even with her high activity level, so I figure if I'm dishing up everyone's plate ahead of time, she can't complain too much if the portions all look the same. DH will just add in more food for himself later on if he needs it.

I think this will save on our food bill quite a bit. We've been spending about $300 a month and eating way too much junk, so I hope it works like I think it will. I just have to plan ahead more, as it requires a lot more cooking and prep work than boxed pizzas and taquitos. I am pretty sure I can do it, I just hope DH continues to back me up on it.

Rose has lost two teeth this week, her first molars and Tobias has a very loose top front tooth. And Rose has another one that is quite loose. I don't know about these children, conspiring to part me from all my lose $1 bills. They get $2 per tooth because they so far do not get an allowance, so this is the only time they really get money outside birthdays and Christmas. I'm not sure if I'll continue the $2 per tooth once the allowance starts. Probably pretty much locked into it now.

Oh, forgot to mention in my previous posts this week, I received a 3 pack of different Jergen's lotions, more Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner, and the Shick Intuition razor. I haven't tried it yet, I can't shave my legs for 4 more days due to product testing, but it sure seems awkward in the hand. I hope it works better than it feels. If it doesn't, I don't mind pitching it as it was free, after all.

I had to fire up the wood stove last night/tonight. It got so cold. I don't think it can be colder than 45 but that is cold enough to make the walls feel cold. It was nice to make the house all toasty and warm, but if I have to start heating the house already, I don't see how what I have on hand in wood will last past January.

I'll have to get on the horn to FIL and ask him to bring out the wood he's been saving for me since the sumac blew down. He's got a truckload or so and I know my mother has a small truckload. We should be able to squeak by on that without buying any this year. I've got to get a new permit for taking deadfall from the river banks so we can get started on next year's supply for free. And hope so more trees blow down at FIL's place. He has plenty.

I cashed out a $3 PTR at ReadRevenue yesterday. I qualified for a $15 market research study, where the product should be arriving this week for me to test. This is the first one that has no strings attatched. They send me the product, I test it, take a survey, I ship it back in the postage paid packaging and take another survey a week later. I'm excited.

I also filled out a qualification survey for another market research company with the same survey company that I'm doing the other one for so I am hopeful this may become a thing. I've been filling out surveys with this company for several months now before I got to this level. They do have paid surveys about every six weeks or so where I'll get a $4 or $5 check, so I know they pay out. Like that in a company.

I received a $25 Shell gas card in the mail today from MyPoints, so I am going to take $25 out of my gas fund and put it in savings this week. I'll make that $1000 one way or another.

Yesterday was soccer and the kids played pretty well. Tobias has the four mini-games and they tied two and lost one 2 to 1 and one 2 to 0. Rose's team lost 5 to 6, it would have been 7 to 6 but two goals were disqualified for offsides. Yet, the other team was frequently offsides and the ref never seemed to see that. Or the pushing. Although he did call the kicking and deliberate tripping. But I digress.

It was a good game and the other team only got their last two goals in the last 8 minutes of the game, usually they were trailing. It was exciting and fun to watch and our girls felt really good about it, considering they all thought if the ref had been calling the plays right on both sides, they would have won. Problem with a twelve year old ref, I suppose, but the soccer club takes what it can get.

We ended up spending $31.89 for dinner out at Round Table Pizza for the four of us. We go there even though it is a little pricier because they don't use MSG in making their pizzas, which Rose is very allergic to and I don't react well to, either. We have got our eating out down to 1 time a week and I am hoping to get it down to twice a week, which is hard during soccer season, with the ultimate goal being one time out a month.

I am doing more cooking ahead and that helps, but when you have to spend all day at the soccer park and keep a cooler in a boiling hot vehicle, I still worry about food safety. Food poisoning is never fun and I've had it often enough in my life that I just prefer to avoid the whole issue. And I don't want to be dragging a cooler around the fields, either. I already have enough to carry.

Still, there has to be some compromise that won't be so pricey each week. I suppose the dollar menu at McD's maybe, but that's less healthy than pizza (at least the way we order pizza). Maybe the grocery store deli might be an option. Well, cheaper but not necessarily healthy either. I'll have to think on it some more.

Finished reading "Smart Couples Finish Rich," by David Bach yesterday. Very good information and I highly reccommend it for both members of a married couple or for anyone living as a married couple with combined finances. I didn't agree with everything he said, but I'd say about 90 percent of it can be applied to my life. DH is going to read it next.

I have learned a lot about how to invest with retirement money and how to invest beyond retirement money. I'm surprised at how clueless I really was before reading this book. Now I think I have a good foundation on which to build.

I started reading "Smart Women Finish Rich," same author, just to see where the books vary and if there might not be something even more specific to me as a woman than me as part of a couple.

Can't remember if I mentioned that we paid out $32 this week for school pictures and sports pictures, for 2 kids, each package being the cheapest at $8 a piece.

I also have to write a check to fund Tobias's lunch account tomorrow, so that will be another $30. It just makes me life easier when he has hot lunch. I know it is an expense I should cut out, but right now, I'm not quite willing.

I went to the Farmstand at a nearby farm and this is what I bought for $10.48.

3 heads of broccoli
1 head of cauliflower
6 ears of corn
6 nectarines
5 pounds of kohlrabi
1 large red pepper

Much, much cheaper than anything in the stores right now. Going to the source when you live near it anyway really helps cut down on the grocery expenses.

I am going to go down to one of the farms this week and get corn to freeze. There is this one farm that sells ears of corn 10 for $1.00, so I usually get 100 ears for $10 and do them up for the freezer. DH is allergic to corn so it is only for the 3 of us and it lasts a long time.

Okay, let's see how I did, today.

Organic milk (gal.)--normally $5.49 on sale for $4.99
Regular milk (gal.)--normally $3.49 on sale for $1.99
Iceberg lettuce--normally (in summer) .99 on sale for .49
Green grapes--normally (in summer) $1.69 lb for total of $2.64 on sale for .98 lb--$1.52
32 ounce Heinz ketchup--normally $2.39 with .50 coupon $1.89
1 container Pilsburry milk chocolate frosting--normally $1.99 with .40 off coupon $1.49
4 jars Miracle Whip--normally $3.19 per jar, on sale 2 for $3.00 limit 4
2 packages Dannon Danimals drinkable yogurt--normally $3.19 a pack on sale for $2.99 plus $1.00 coupon if you buy 2
Kroger 2 lb cheddar cheese--normally $5.99--on sale for $4.99 with $1.00 coupon was $3.99
20 cans 8 ounce FMV tomatoe sauce--normally .33 each for total of $6.60 on sale for .19 each for total of $3.80

not on sale
2 nectarines @ $2.49 lb was $2.04
Vicks Sinex 12 hour ultra fine mist nasal spray $6.49

Fred Meyer Reward rebate coupon of $3.00 off any purchase

Total regular price: $50.62
Actual price paid: $37.32
Money Saved: $13.30


But I would never buy some of the stuff at the non-sale prices to begin with. The Miracle Whip and Heinz ketchup or the brick cheese for example would be cheaper at Costco in the big bottles or brick but with the sale and the coupons the weren't. So I don't know how true my actual money savings is. My total in non store coupons was $4.40 and with my rebate coupon of $3 I know for sure I saved $7.40 over what I would have normally spent.

So for me True savings was: $7.40. But it was still fun to calculate it all out.

Now if we turn my receipt over we have 1/2 off a second sandwich if you buy a sandwich meal at Port of Subs

$2.00 off any hair cut at Great Clips

$5.00 off two dinner entrees at On Rice Thai Cusine

$18.99 for an oil change and filter at Expert Tire

And a couple other coupons I wouldn't use.

We will for sure use the Great Clips coupon though. Both DH and Tobias need hair cuts and they like Great Clips.

With that coupon, I'd say true savings is $9.40 and if we use the oil change one its about $6 off the regular price around here.

Now we've gotten rid of 2 things to cut our expenses. The first was digital cable (all cable, not just digital) and the second was the daily newspaper. I am debating on what to cut next that I consider to be a much wanted, but not needed item. I'm thinking about the 2nd phone line. That's a tough one, since I'm online a lot and we are still on dial-up. I wish our cell phones worked at our house, we have to go a mile down the road and then our reception is fine the whole way to town except a small 1/4 of a mile stretch in the valley of two foothills. That would make dropping the extra phone line so easy. Oh, well, unless they actually decide to use the technology of floating cell receiver balloons over areas of bad reception, I'm out of luck.

Oh, and even though we are not paying for cable anymore they still haven't shut it off. They were supposed to on Friday. I called to double check and we are not being charged. So, however long it takes them, I get free cable.

My freezer money savings account had dividends deposited today. 11 cents, whopee. But still. Anyway, it brings the total in that account to $227.25.

Paypal payment has not showed up in my bank account yet and I checked and they haven't put dividends in yet on that savings account. Should be, but isn't. Oh, they might have been closed today, so maybe I'll see it on Wednesday.

DH flew out tonight so I won't see him again for 16 days. Well, at least we got the pool up and the kids won't be pestering me to do it on my own.

Tomorrow I am going to make a list of phone calls that I need to make on Wednesday. I've decided to cancel the newspaper and just buy one on Tuesday for the grocery ads. I have to check first to see if they post them online. If they do, I won't worry about it at all. Mom will save the Sunday ads and coupon inserts for me.

I am trying to decide what expense to cut, now that the first one is successfully out of the way. At least mentally, in reality its done the 7th and will produce an $8 refund.

Two expenses that are convenient but not quite necessary are the daily newspaper and our second phone line.

We have the second phone line because we have dial-up cable. If we drop one phone line its a savings of $20 a month. It is nice to have two lines so if one is online, we can still get our calls. We could do call waiting and have that ability also, but last time we checked it was more expensive than the two lines. Our cell phones don't work at our house or that 2nd line would be long gone. We have to drive 1.2 miles from our house before we get a signal and then we pretty much have it all the way to town. We just happen to live between two foothills in a dead spot.

If I cancel the paper, it will save $14 a month, but since I paid for the whole year in January, this is not an expense that I am currently paying. It would reduce nothing out of the current budget. It would refund money, though, but the year is half over, so not that much, $84.

Even if I were to cancel the subscription I would still buy the paper on Tuesday and Sunday because that is when the store ads and the coupons come out. That is $3 a week. So that is $12 to $14 anyway just for that, depending on how many Sundays and how many Tuesdays fall in a month. I would not save money that way. We do recycle all the shiny paper out of the paper, but the newsprint we save for using in the fireplace. I roll the pages and then fold them into kindling sticks and they really help in starting a fire in the woodstove and getting it burning well. So the paper does have two uses, both to read and an afterlife. And I have also been known to use it as a weed barrier in the gardens. That does not seem like a good item for me to really cut out unless I cut it out altogether.

I do have another source of newspaper for the fire, both my parents and my in-laws get the paper, and my Mom will let me view her ads and take whatever coupons she doesn't want, but I am not always there before she recycles. They have weekly recycling pick-up in town, we only get it once every two weeks. So often it is gone by the time I am over there.

Another choice could be switching our ISP to a discount company like People PC or NetZero, but I hate the ads. There are enough ads on the internet with banners and sidereals on websites without adding another set of ads onto the page. We currently pay $220 a year for our dial-up, works out to $18.33/.34 pre month. We have been with them for 8 years, they are a good local company that never seems to go down. DH wants faster connection, but I don't see how. I don't want to change my main email addy, either.

I'll have to do some more thinking, but I know something can be cut. Somehow. I don't know how much longer our vehicles will last and we really have to save hard to buy a new one.

So our cable is going to be turned off in 6 days, only when DH called to ask them for directions to where we can drop off the cable box so we don't have to wait around all day for Comcast to show up and get it, they mentioned to him that we could get the local news channels for $5 a month. Okay, that's just the major networks and PBS, plus the Canadian channels that leak over the border. Now I'm wondering if we ought to get the $5 a month service.

It was my idea to get rid of cable in the first place, but I do like to watch Leno and Craig Ferguson at night, which is a bad habit I want to replace by reading more anyway, but I'm getting all antsy about going cable free completely. Which is stupid. Because to me, that just shows how bad the addiction to watching mindless pablum has become.

I don't know. It's silly. There isn't a real reason to even get those few channels. I get the news off the net, or out of the paper, and if nothing else, I can get it off the radio. So even $5 each month is too much if it isn't needed.

Okay, I think I've talked myself out of the $5 a month limited cable.

I cashed the $4 survey check I got Saturday into my long term savings account, bringing the total in there to $434.34. DH asked today how much was in there. He couldn't believe it when I told him.

The cable company will finally disconnect us on July 7, but we will drop the box off before then. They wanted to come "some time" between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., and I'm sorry but I will not wait around that long and ruin a whole day. So they have a drop off point in Bellingham we will take the box, to. Then they just have to shut it off at the pole, which we don't have to be around for. And they owe us money. We will get $8 back. Not much but its another $8 for the savings account.

Found 2 pennies today so I'm adding that to my People just giving me money/finding money total, now $1.54.

Perky's musings on why people don't often pack real food made me think about a recent purchase I made at Fred Meyer. They had all sorts of little to medium size Aladdin thermoses, most came with an attatched spoon and some came with dividers. I purchased four.

My kids will be taking real food to school next year. When I was homeshooling I didn't have to worry about sandwiches and chips or junk food that much. I just cooked a hot meal or put together a cold salad, depending on the day. My kids don't really think sandwiches are all that great, unless they are hot, toasted and contain cheese and ham. So this last school year, Rose's first back to public school after 2 grades and Tobias' first year, lunches were difficult.

Both my kids enjoy hot lunch but it is $1.90 per lunch. That gets pricey fast. I did have one thermos each for the kids and on occassion I would send ravioli or soup instead of a sandwich lunch. It always went over so much better than anything else.

So, with my kids in very loud agreement, next school year they will be able to take things like chicken and potatoes in the same container because of the divided dishes. Rose won't eat chicken cold, but if it is warm she devours it. They both want my beef stew in one compartment and a homemade biscuit in the other side. Or leftover spaghetti and meatballs, or meatloaf and green beans, or enchiladas and rice. They were so enthusiastic over the idea.

I told them they can still have hot lunch once a week if they want to, but that the rest of the week they can eat real food from home. I will still let them get the 40 cent milk at school, though. I can't beat that price really, when I send it in a container from home they never drink it all or complain it wasn't enough, or don't screw the cap back on tightly enough and milk leaks all over the inside of their lunchbox and if I'm really unlucky all over the inside of their backpacks. The school sized one is perfect for them, so I will give on that. I can get juice boxes a lot cheaper, but I'd much rather send along a fruit than a juice.

Being able to balance Rose's diet more will be great. She is pre-diabetic (long family history of diabetes) and has several food allergies. When she eats hot lunch, we never really know what is in it. We've learned through trial and error which ones she can eat and which one's she can't. And she spent a lot of time in the nurse's office with stomach and intestinal pain.

Rose has even said she would give up hot lunch from school altogether if I would send hot lunch from home every day. I think we will all be much happier next school year. And it will cut back or cut out that expense altogether.

Well, all the leftover Mexican food got eaten for lunch today. I plan to finish off the veggies and a slice of pizza for dinner. Then all the leftovers will be gone, without having been wasted.