Well, today has gone (and will continue to go) in an excellent direction. No one has even been tempted to ask to go out to eat, because we made up a yummy menu plan this morning.

Breakfast:
Poached eggs (free from chickens)
Whole wheat berry bread (.15)
Homemade blueberry jam (free, from Mom)
Milk ($1.50)

Total: $1.65

Lunch:
Meatball sandwiches
--Hamburger, 1 pound ($1.37)
--1/2 cup 5 cheese blend ($1.00)
--Homemade sauce
----2 tomatoes (.85)
----half a large yellow onion (.25)
----1 tbsp minced garlic (.10)
----basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme (free from garden)
----salt and pepper (.05)
----2 cans organic tomato sauce ($2)
----1 small can organic tomato paste ($1)
--Homemade hot dog buns (.25)

Total: $6.87

Dinner:
Leftover meatballs (free)
Leftover sauce (free)
Whole wheat spaghetti ($1.00)
Milk ($1.50)
Green beans ($1)
Corn on the cob ($1.50)
Butter (.10)

Total: $5.10

Grand total for day: $13.62

Guess I can still get a day under $15 once in a while!

I am baking homemade buns, a pan of cornbread, and some biscuits this afternoon for meals this week. DD is making sugar cookies for her brother. She can't eat them herself anymore, except maybe one cookie a week, but she still likes to bake.

Anyone care to join me on a no eating out challenge? I'm aiming to start tomorrow (Saturday) and go for two weeks without going to a restaurant or getting any takeaway or delivery from one. It's been getting out of hand lately and I'd like to get it back under control.

I've decided to start posting meals and meal costs again because that was such a good tool for me when I was doing it before. DH is away so it's just me and 2 kids and sometimes Mom joining us for dinner.

Breakfast:
Scrambled eggs (free from chickens)
pancakes ($1)
Real Maple syrup ($1)
Fresh strawberries ($1)
Milk ($1.50)

Total: $4.50

Lunch:
Clam chowder ($1.50)
Chicken Noodle soup ($1.50)
Bananas (.50)
Sweet potatoes (.50)
Fresh cherries ($1.50)
Water

Total: $5.50

Dinner:
Homemade fish sticks
--cod fish ($4.79)
--panko, flour, corn starch, eggs for breading (.50)
Onions and Bell Peppers ($2)
Corn on the cob($2)
Milk ($1.50)

Total: $9.79

Grand total $19.79

My goal right now is to keep meals to under $20 a day. Because of DD's pre-diabetes and DS's allergies, I no longer have the luxury of keeping things under $15 a day. And with the rising cost of fresh food due to gas prices I simply will do my best with the sales, buy produce in season, and hope $20 a day will do it. That's about $600 a month. Far cry from the $450 to $500 I was doing, but also still better than the $800 we were spending last year.

I paid my dental bill today when I took DS in for his cleaning, $345. I also took DD in to get second cervical cancer vaccine, which was no cost, at least up front. DD has a dentist appointment tomorrow and I have one Thursday morning to have two cavities filled before DH and I head down to Seattle for our overnight before my appointment at Virginia Mason. I will probably have to take hydrocodone for a couple of days again. Oh, joy.

DH comes home tomorrow and I will be so glad to see him. I am so stressed out right now. I'm not sure why because everything is running like clockwork, but it may just be it's been a super long three weeks with him gone this time around.

I added $5.71 to the coin jar today. I just need three more quarters and then I can roll them and then I will make a deposit into the local safety net portion of the EF fund.

I spent a little money at the grocery store getting some milk and a rottisserie chicken. DS has a concert at 6:30 and has to be there at 6:10 and his dental appointment lasted until almost five so I didn't really have time to make anything, since I didn't exactly plan ahead. Which I should have done, but oh, well, I will stretch that chicken to within an inch of it's life, and it will become enchiladas and quesadillas and soup.

Well, I managed to pay all but two of the medical bills I've received this month. The ones that are left are due on the 22nd. DH is supposed to susepend the Toyota payment this month (we're ahead), but he hasn't e-mailed me or texted me that he has done it yet. I asked him again last night so hopefully he did do it and just flaked on telling me. So I'm leaving enough money in the checking account in case he forgets or doesn't get it done on time. If he gets it done then I will be able to send that last bill out. Otherwise it will have to wait until the 20th. But it is a local bill so mailing it on the morning of the 20th means it will be there by the 22nd.

$159.64 my doctor
$148.00 my specialist
$137.00 GE Money Bank (3 months same as cash, glasses)
$_62.17 Imaging
$+_9.03 Strep test lab fee
----------
$515.84 Total medical out

I still owe $274 to GE Money Bank for our portion of both my daughter's and my new glasses. We have two more months to pay that without interest. The other medical bills wwill be $96.51 and $31.71, so a total of $128.22.

I did a major grocery shop yesterday. I spent $86.88 at Trader Joe's and $209.04 at Haggens. Haggens had sales on beef chuck roasts, beef ribs, and chicken legs. I also got 8 pounds of hamburger at TJ's. We should be set for protein for the rest of the month and a bit into June. Got lots of produce, too. Blueberries, blackberries, cantaloupe, cucumbers, lettuce, sweet potatoes, pineapple, and purple cabbage and orange juice. We should be good on everything but milk (after the milk I just got is finished).

I spent 2/3 of our alloted grocery budget, but I think it'll be fine because we needed the major stock up on protein. There hasn't been any really good meat sales since Easter and that was just on ham and there's only so much ham a person can eat.

DS is doing really well. He didn't take painkillers at all yesterday during the day and only took a dose at bedtime (more my idea than his, but I didn't want him waking up in pain in the middle of the night). He is eating almost normally again. He goes back to school tomorrow. It's an early release day so it couldn't work out more perfectly for him.

I think I might have to buy a new crockpot. The ham I made yesterday got a bit dried out. Low has functioned as high for some time now, but I think it's gotten even hotter now. Hopefully the roast I made tonight will be okay. I am keeping a sharper eye on it, since I am home this time.

My daughter is adapting to the new pre-diabetes diet far better than I thought she would. After 36 hours on it she says she already feels better within her body. She isn't find it difficult to stay within her alloted carbohydrate and calorie levels. I think this diet is going to actually lower our food budget because she is becoming far more satisfied on far less calories and eating a lot more produce and a lot less meat. I know it's early days yet, but I certainly hope it continues.

After my son recovers from his tonsilectomy I am going to join her on the diet, I think. I've known I am insulin resistant for years, so it will benefit me as much as it does her.

It'll be a lot easier to cut out restaurant meals now, since they will be so difficult to calculate compared to home cooked meals where I can weigh portions on my little digital scale. Eating out is and probably always will be my weakness. It really messes with the budget, because I don't really plan for it and then we go anyway and then I have to shuffle everything to make up the difference.

DS wanted ribs for dinner tonight since he won't get to eat meat for a few days after his tonsils come out. Sort of a last supper sort of thing.

Dinner tonight:
Beef ribs (seasoned not sauced)$3.96
Green beans $1
Corn $.89
Baked sweet potatoes (.39)
Milk $1.50

Total: $7.74

Money out today on autopay:

$142.00 to storage (a day early, hmph)
$-32.70 Life Insurance (me)
$-35.90 Life Insurance (DH)
--------
$210.60 Total

I'm a tad bit miffed that storage came out today as it is supposed to come out on the 5th. I hadn't transferred the money out of savings and into checking yet, had planned to do that today. So I have a $2 transfer fee because the CU did the transfer instead of me doing it. I knew I should have done it last night, but I was so tired and it's just not supposed to come out today. On the bright side is that I had money in savings to transfer to checking so I didn't get a $13 overdraft.

I am going to make sure I transfer the money for security and cell phone at least three days in advance. Although Verizon has never jumped the gun on taking things out, security has, and there's a first time for everything.

I need to write out and mail the check for the power out at the old house. It's $23 something. It's usually $19 something, but we spent a lot of extra time out there last month, packing and cleaning, so had the hot water tank on.

The meeting with the dietician went well yesterday. It's a radical change in thinking and diet. DD can only have 1400 calories a day arranged over the course of 3 meals and 3 snacks. Each meal can have no more than 45g of carbohydrate and each snack can have no more than 15g of carbohydrate. And she has to have protien at every snack or meal. Which is harder than it sounds when you are keeping calories low. Protein is the high calorie food.

We sat down and filled out some index cards with calorie and carb counts so we could figure out some meals and then have the cards for quick reference. It takes a lot of planning, but once it's done that makes it easy to just flip through the cards and calculate the meals we want to make. She's also keeping a meal log, so some of these meals will repeat and be even simipler to figure out because the math will already be done.

I don't think it will affect the grocery budget too much. The only major changes are a different type of peanut butter, spelt tortillas instead of flour, and flourless sprouted wheat berry bread from Trader Joe's. I'll have to figure out how to make that eventually because it's $4 a loaf, but for the time being I'll buy it. Both kids like it and it's not got any allergens in it that my son has a problem with.

Once I've got my daughter firmly on track (probably a week), I think I will try to go on the same diet. I've got insulin resistance, too, but mine's never been as bad as hers. Still, I could stand to lose weight and eat even healthier. And I think it will help her to have someone doing it with her. (Dietician said I could have 1800 calories, though, because of my exercise schedule).

I added 78 cents to the coin jar.

Very little going on today. Car insurance of $95.61 and house insurance of $41.00 came out on autopay today. Tomorrow or the next day life insurance will come out for both DH and myself. On the 5th storage autopay will come out, and then nothing until the 12th.

I will mail off the electric bill tomorrow and pay the AMEX online.

I paid out $90 for physical therapy today. DH gassed up the car before I took him to the airport. It was $3.99 per gallon at Costco and he got 8 gallons for $31.92. We also put a smidgeon over 4 gallons in his dad's truck last night, but that was at $4.03 a gallon and was $16.20.

I went to the grocery store and got milk, strawberries, and medication from the pharmacy. Altogether it was $71.17.

We are making up strawberry/banana/orange/pineapple smoothies and freezing them in rocket shaped Popsicle™ molds so that DS will have some dye free, artificial ingredient free, homemade Popsicles™ after his tonsilectomy. Mom is also going to make some homemade ice cream for him to have.

The new chicks are growing so fast. They already have distinct personalities. The cuteness factor is off the charts.

Today has been one of those days where I just feel like I've been behind on everything. Hence the staying up until one a.m. to get it all done. I am going back to the dentist tomorrow, they are going to do more cleaning, but I don't think any more dental work unless it's to fix the tooth that has been hurting since they filled it last week. It's a dull pain, but I don't think it should still be there. I hope it doesn't cost extra because it's their fault it didn't get done right the first time.

I'm planning out my shopping for next week. It's going to have an inordinate amount of expensive ice cream, dye free jello, dye free fruit bars (that are also free of apple or grape juices) and TJ's pudding on it, since my little allergy boy is getting his tonsils yanked. I bought a big bag of potatoes for mashed potatoes and we have eggs to scramble. I figure that'll make up the majority of his diet for the first few days and then we'll move on to soup. I've got a turkey carcass that needs boiling down soon and then I can freeze the broth for making soup next week.

Mom went and bought some more chicks, say they are under the heat lamp in the rarely used bathroom's bathtub. Good thing there are four bathrooms in this house. They are cute little things, but not quite as cute as last time when they were only a day old. Not quite as cuddly at four days old and with some of their feathers showing already.

I don't know what they are, but they aren't the same as the red one and the black and white one that are grown. The chicks are yellow (3 of them) and light brown with a black stripe down the center (the other three). They don't mind being handled either, but then the chickens never did. It was the ducks that were against it and we won't be getting more ducks.

I just really hope the chicks and the older chickens will get along when they are introduced. That won't be for at least several weeks though. I'll try to get a pic to post as they really are very adorable.

Not much to blog about yesterday so I didn't. First day I missed in a long time. DH went out to the house with his dad to work on the shower stall. He ended up having to come back into town for parts and then go back out again, so he used 4 gallons of gas instead of 2. That'll throw things off a little bit. Glad we aren't making a trip to Seattle this month after all.

DD went to a birthday party. I gave her a twenty so she could buy a present and the change she brought back was $3.25, all in quarters, so it went into the change jar.

The people that fixed the plumbing on Friday came back to take away the broken up blacktop from the part of the driveway they dug up to get to the pipes. The backhoe is still here and will likely remain here until Monday.

My mother decided not to repave that part of the driveway and brought some good dirt/compost in and is going to plant potatoes there. The sewer and gas pipes are eight feet down so the plants shouldn't interfere with them like the honeysuckle roots did. 3 feet of pipe was just jamemed with honeysuckle roots almost in a solid mass.

I'm not crazy about the idea of her planting veggies there because the part of the ground where the overflow pipe comes out spewed sewer water for three days. That can't be healthy. Hopefully she'll just avoid that area, since they actually dug up thirty feet and there is plenty of ground that didn't get contaminated.

As for today my daughter is making the entire dinner. I said I didn't want to do anything, didn't want to be involved in making an elaborate meal and was happy with spaghetti, but she wanted to do something so I told her to go ahead.

We had a turkey at Christmas that we didn't use. We had ended up celebrating Thanksgiving a couple weeks late since DH was in Alaska on the actual holiday, and so nobody was in the mood for making another turkey so soon. So it sat in the freezer since Christmas, but it looked good when we thawed it out this week. So basically we are having Christmas dinner for Easter. She gets to turn it in as a missed lab in her home ec class, too.

I didn't see a price on the turkey so I can't really do a breakdown, but I'm sure it was close to $30 since it was a free range organic bird. Only a 12 pounder, though. And we'll be eating off it all week so that definitely brings the price down on everything.

Okay, this is a second entry mostly just because I don't want to talk about food and plumbing in the same post. Major ick factor.

Anyway, DH and I went to the store today and bought five picnic hams at $1.29 per pound. We spent $41.89 for 32 and a half pounds of meat. They are all the perfect size for the crockpot. We will go back tomorrow and get more. We cleaned out the ones that were the appropriate size, but there were plenty of medium and larger sized cuts left. They probably won't go on sale again until Thanksgiving time, so I am doing a major stock up. Ideally I'd like to have about 20 hams in the freezer.

I'm borrowing $100 from the laptop fund to purchase more hams and will replace it out of next month's grocery budget. It is just too good a deal to pass up, but I don't want to totally wipe out the food budget for the next 3 weeks.

DS is starting to feel better. His tonsils are still swollen, but they are going down finally. He probably still won't go to school tomorrow, but will likely go on Friday. The long strep test came back negative, too. So we don't have to worry about that anymore, except paying the lab bill when it comes.

Breakfast and lunch today was eating up a bunch of leftovers, though we did drink milk at breakfast so $2.

Dinner:

Chicken ($5.21)
Corn (.89)
Purple cabbage (.69)
Milk ($2)

Total: $8.79

Total for day $10.79

...or why does paying a large amount of taxes feel like death? It felt awful to do it, but it had to be done. I transferred the tax money from the ING account to my local CU so that we can send in our tax bill on Friday. I am grateful we had the money to do it, but I hate how low the emergency fund is now.

This is the first year we have ever had to pay extra taxes and it does not feel good. Even though we knew it was coming because of the contract buyout, I still don't like it. Still, at least we are prepared and that's more than half the battle. And on the bright side this shouldn't happen again. It was a unique circumstance.

And when May comes I will be able to put a decent amount back in the EF and get it out of the triple digits and back into the quadruple digits. It'll be a few insecure weeks until we do. Especially since we pay property tax on the 30th and that means another reduction in cash on hand.

I keep forgetting to post my meal planning, but I am doing it. Here is today's:

Breakfast:
Pancakes (.50)
Homemade syrup (.05)
Eggs (free from chickens)
Milk ($1.50)

Total $2.05

Lunch:
--2 kids
deli meat sandwiches ($2)
orange (.50)
apple (.40)
plain potato chips (.50)
water

--Me
TV dinner ($2)

Total $5.40

Dinner:
Turkey legs ($6.43)
Baked sweet potatoes (.69)
Broccoli/Cauliflower (1.29)
Milk ($1.50)

Total: $9.91

Total for day: $17.36

There will be leftover turkey and veggies for future meals.

DH comes home tomorrow so food expenses will go up for the next 3 weeks.

Just received a bill in the mail from my son's eye doctor visit. Insurance covered the visit and the frames and lenses, but it did not cover the 1 year anti-breakage insurance, so that will be $32.54. He's eleven and tends to be careless. The anti-breakage insurance will more than pay for itself.

I need to make eye appointments for my daughter and myself as we both need new glasses badly. Neither of us need the anti-breakage insurance because we are very careful with our glasses. DH on the other hand always gets it because he does stupid things like sit on his glasses (or step on them).

Took my daughter in for her fasting blood draw this morning. They are testing her for diabetes and for a malfunctioning thyroid. Made an appointment with a dietician for May 3. We will be talking to her whether or not DD is diabetic or not. She is insulin resistant so changing her diet is a necessity either way.

I still need to set up a therapist appointment for my son. I still haven't heard from my own specialist about going to Virginia Mason. Sometimes I feel like everything is converging on me all at once and I just wish it was easier to sort things out. I tell my husband all the time that what I need is a wife. *laughs* Or a personal assistant.

Payday is tomorrow. It will be nice to make some progress on paying down debt.

No money spent today.

Meal planning for today:

Breakfast:
Fruit smoothies ($2)

Lunch:
Leftover spaghetti (free)
Leftover chili (free)
Milk ($1.50)

Dinner:
Leftover pot roast (free)
Leftover broccoli (free)
Leftover cauliflower (free)
Baked sweet potatoes ($1)
Milk ($1.50)

Total for day: $6

I was cleaning out my dresser tonight as I have two drawers in it that I've been using as a temporary filing cabinet until I got around to actually filing or shredding some papers and when I got to the bottom of one, I found a stash of loose change. It was mostly pennies, but it amounted to $1.82 so I tossed that in the coin jar (after rolling up 2 rolls of pennies). I had totally forgot it was there, but once I saw it I had a perfect memory of scraping a bunch of change into a drawer before we moved here from the old house, so it's just been sitting in there since January of 2010.

Since DS wants to go to "his" CU tomorrow to deposit his allowance (he's saving up for a Nintendo 3DS), I figured I may as well make a deposit myself into the laptop fund since it's in the same CU. With the two rolls of pennies, a 50 cent piece, and all the ones I have in the coin jar, it will come to $12.50.

Not too bad. Sometimes I feel a little silly for making such little deposits, but then I remind myself that little deposits add up and if I end up paying for my laptop with pennies and ones than so be it. I've been managing to scrape up about $100 a month doing this, rebating, and adding what is leftover in my purse each week. At least it will be paid for with no interest due.

Here is today's menu planning which I tried to post last night, but the internet ate it:

Breakfast:
pancakes (.50)
eggs (free from chickens)
homemade brown sugar syrup (.20)
Milk (1.50)
Total $2.20

Lunch:
Leftover spaghetti (free)
Fruit smoothies ($2)
Total $2

Dinner:
Homemade pizza
--dough (.50)
--leftover homemade spaghetti sauce
--pepperoni ($2)
--Canadian bacon ($2)
--mozarella cheese ($2)
Milk (1.50)
Total $8

Total for day: $12.20

Tomorrow

Breakfast:
Blueberry muffins (.50)
Bacon ($2)
Milk ($1.50)
Total $4

Lunch:
Leftover pizza (free)
oranges ($1.50)
Total $1.50

Dinner:
Beef pot roast ($9.89)
Broccoli ($1)
Cauliflower ($1)
Can of corn ($1)
Milk ($1.50)
Total $14.39

Total for day: $19.89

There will be leftover pot roast and possibly leftover broccoli and cauliflower as well for another meal, so even though Wednesday's food is higher in price it will reduce the price of one of Thursday's meals.

We cleaned out the car (all but the trunk, because it started to rain) today and I found 38 cents so that went into the coin jar, allocated to the laptop fund. Hopefully the weather will break tomorrow so we can finish it. I've been waiting for a clear, sunny day so that I can use the tree sap remover to take some sap off the car. It's bugging me, but not enough to stand in the rain and chill while taking it off.

I forgot that the storage autopay comes out this week when I did all the bills earlier, so that $204 I had left is going to be more like $64, plus the $49 in cash until Friday. That's okay, though, I don't foresee me buying anything but milk until Friday anyway, and maybe not even that. What I have might last.

Okay, so with the grocery budget tight this month so that I can pay off the MC and still have the money needed for medical, I have got to stick to my meal plans. I've made them up for tomorrow and Wednesday.

Tuesday Breakfast:
Pancakes (.50)
Eggs (free from chickens)
Milk ($1.50)
Total $2

Lunch:
Leftover spaghetti (free)
Leftover chicken (free)
Leftover chili (free)
Fruit smoothies made with strawberries, bananas, and blueberries ($3)
Total $3

Dinner:
Homemade pizza (using leftover spaghetti sauce)
--dough (.50)
--mozzarella cheese ($2)
--salami ($2)
--pepperoni ($1)
--onions and peppers (.50)
Milk ($1.50)
Total $7.50

Total for day: $14.50

Wednesday Breakfast:
Homemade Blueberry Muffins (.50)
Bacon ($2)
Milk ($1.50)
Total $4

Lunch:
Homemade corn dogs
--batter ($1)
--hot dogs ($2)
Fried potatoes (.50)
Oranges ($1.50)
Total $5

Dinner:
Pot roast ($8.59)
Broccoli ($1)
Cauliflower ($1)
Can of corn (.79)
Milk ($1.50)
Total $12.88

Total for day: $21.88

There will be leftover potroast, it's quite sizable.

Today is a no spend day. I cleaned out my purse and found $2.12 to put in the coin jar. That will go into the laptop fund eventually when there are enough coins in there to roll them. I also added $11 in ones.

Tonight I will sit down and balance the checkbook and then finish doing the rest of this week's bills. I did about half of them on Friday, so need to stop procrastinating and do the rest of them. I will do that after we get back from the pool and have had supper.

I really need to start posting my meal planning again. I won't do today's since it was all leftovers except about $4 worth of milk. But I need to plan out tomorrow's food. It'll be less than usual as DD is spending the day with one of her friends. It's spring break. So she will eat lunch and dinner there.

I finally got correspondence from the courthouse today. 4 days before the date of service. Not the greatest way to operate, county of mine. My jury duty has been deferred to 11/28. The heart of cold and flu season. Ah, well. Hopefully by then everything will be resolved with the surgery and if I push vitamins and get plenty of sleep next November I'll actually be well and in the right place in my healing to do it this time. At least DS will be in middle school then and DD can walk over there after the high school lets out and walk him home (or hop on the city bus) if DH is in Alaska then or Mom can't pick them up.

My flu is finally going away. I woke up today feeling about 80% decent. Still a ton of congestion and drainage, but no brain fog at all, no joint or muscle aches, no chills, no headache. Still have a fever of 99.5 and still pretty tired (but more of a general tired than the I need to sleep for a week and that still might not be enough tired), but feeling much more capable of actually living my life.

I went to the dentist today, another finally. I haven't been since 2008. Which was incredibly stupid but it was impossible almost when I was still homeschooling and living in the county to go. I should have at least got in there in September when the kids started school. Better late than never I suppose. Unfortunately I have 2 cavities. I haven't had a cavity in about 15 years. Darn it.

Anyway, they are going to do some major cleaning and fill the cavities in three weeks, both while under ansethetic because a couple of teeth in the back have some serious issues. Nothing that can't be fixed, but it will be painful without anesthetic so the dentist figured he could kill two birds with one stone. I really like him. This is my first time with him though DH and the kids have been going to him and his wife for a couple of years now.

They gave me an estimate of my portion of the dental bill for when I have that done. It'll be just shy of $367. Well. I'm definitely going to have to hold back some of the money I was planning to send to Master Card after all. So be it. At least I will have the money to pay it and not have to charge it. Or maybe part of the VISA payment. Yeah, actually, that's a better idea. DH only made minimal charges on the VISA this month. If I pay what he charged plus the interest, plus $100 extra to principle, I should have about $500 (out of the normal $1000 paymetn) I can spend on medical/dental instead.

Why didn't I think of that before? Then I can go ahead and pay off the Master Card in April just like I planned. Then things should really ease up. We'll have debt left only on the VISA.

I'm making spaghetti tonight with my special homemade sauce. Mom's providing hamburger, though probably just the kids and her will eat that. I tend to get pretty filled up on my spaghetti sauce and noodles without protein. I generally don't like to eat such a carb heavy meal without protein to balance it, but I had a very protein heavy brunch today and I'm not sure I could face a hunk of meat tonight to be honest.

I'll try to get back to meal planning for real this weekend. Since I'm squeezing an extra $100 out of the grocery budget to set aside for medical, I really need to be on the ball with it this month.

I went over to the CU that has the kids' accounts today and deposited $5 in each of their accounts. My daughter's account was in danger of becoming dormant and being closed and sent to the state so I needed to put something in it to make it active. I put an equal amount in my son's account to be fair. He's the saver of the two kids so his account was still active. He's saving up for the new Nintendo 3DS. All of his allowance and most of his recycling money.

That's also where the laptop fund is so I added the shampoo rebate check and the propane rebate check to that account. I also got it set up again so I can do it online. That way when it comes time to make a payment on the laptop I can just go online and transfer the money from savings to checking.

I finally found where DH put the packaging for the Brita stuff and got the two UPC codes so I can send in that $10 rebate tomorrow. That will eventually go to the laptop fund, too.

Payday tomorrow. I need to finish setting up this month's budget spreadsheet. It'll be nice to actually start paying on some stuff again after this two week pause. Geesh, I never thought I'd be excited to pay bills, but this is a big month for us.

So I've been thinking. My plan for April was to pay off the second Master Card, but now I'm starting to get concerned about the medical bills I know are coming soon. I haven't gotten any yet, but with a $1250 deductible per person and several visits to the doctor this month and last, I'm afraid what's going to happen is that I'll pay off the MC and then all the doctor's bills will come in. They will likely come in the first week of April, after being processed on the 31st. I am wondering if I shouldn't hold some money back that I had planned to send to debt repayment.

Maybe I'm just being a little paranoid. My budget calls for me to set aside $500 each month for medical expenses which will probably be enough. I just want to get ahead on saving for the medical expenses since I know that I'll have to pay a good chunk of the upcoming surgery and if all of April's money goes to regular doctor's visits and prescriptions, there won't be anything to save for the future. On the other hand, none of the doctor's charge interest until you are 90 days past due. So I could use my $500 to pay as much as possible and then wait until May to pay off the rest.

Also the pediatrician wants DS to have his tonsils taken out because they are so big they are blocking a significant portion of his throat even when he's well and she is afraid it is causing sleep apnea. He doesn't get very restful sleep so this is possible. Not to mention that the school counselor wants him to have a few sessions of therapy with a psychologist before starting middle school next year, to give him coping methods for his OCD and help him to learn some of the social cues he's missing.

Pediatrician also wants us to meet with a dietician for DD who is borderline diabetic and might actually be, but we won't do the bloodwork until Saturday to find out. Even if she's not diabetic she will benefit from a lower carb diet. Seems like it is just one expense after the other.

But despite all that I still have this whiney little voice inside me saying, "But I want to pay off the Master Card and be done with it." It is also stomping its foot. I don't know, maybe I can squeeze some other money out of the budget. MC isn't due until 4/17 so it's possible.

I found a package of ham in the freezer last night so I did not have to drive across town to get the special deli meat for lunches. I ended up not making the pizza yesterday, but am making it tonight instead. We'll have leftovers for a couple of days from it.

I am feeling a little better today. I'm still very much congested but the brain fog is definitely lifting. I feel much more a part of the human race. I really hope that means the last of this flu is on the way out. I think it is the worst one I have ever had.

Not much going on here. I was hoping DH and I could go out tonight to celebrate our anniversary but I still don't feel well enough so I guess maybe next month we'll go. I don't know. Probably by then I won't really care about celebrating. It's not like we do so normally anyway.

The house that we really like had an open house today and DH wanted to go, but I didn't see the point in it. We can't buy right now anyway. I don't mind looking at model homes, but going to a house someone is actually trying to sell right now when you have no intention of buying just doesn't feel right to me. Besides, if I'm not well enough to sit up in a restaurant for an hour and a half, I'm certainly not well enough to walk around a house or climb stairs. I get too dizzy. This flu can be gone anytime now, please.

I have to remember to transfer money from the holding tank portion of savings to checking, as the car payment comes out on autopay tomorrow. Plus a bit for groceries, too for this coming week.

DH has taken over the cooking right now. Not sure what I'll do when he leaves on Monday night. DD is almost well so maybe she can take over the cooking for the rest of the week and then hopefully I will be on my feet again.

DH actually made up his own meal plan for today last night with a few grunts of acknowledgment from me.

Breakfast:
French toast with powdered sugar ($1)
Milk ($2)

Total $3

Lunch:
One package of Trader Joe's hotdogs ($3.99)
Homemade buns (.50)
Oranges ($2)
Chili ($2)

Total $8.49

Dinner:
Leftover chicken (free)
Leftover pot roast (free)
Leftover mashed potatoes and gravy (free)
Leftover broccoli (free)
Milk ($2)

Total $2

Total for day $13.49

Well, I just went through my wallet and DH's to retrieve one dollar bills like I do at least once a week and I found $4 between us. I also emptied both of spare change and had $1.72 for the coin jar. It looked like I had enough quarters for a roll and I did, and I thought I'd count pennies as well and had exactly 50, so that's another $10.50, so altogether I have $14.50 to add to the laptop fund. Doesn't make up for the $50 I had to take out for DH's carelessness, but it's a start.

Tomorrow's meal planning:

Breakfast:
Pancakes with real maple syrup ($2)
Eggs (free, from chickens)
Milk ($2)

Total: $4

Lunch:
DS--
PB and H sandwich (.50)
orange (.50)
rice cereal bar (.50)
water

2 adults, plus DD (too sick to go to school)
Chicken noodle soup ($1.39)
Chili (.79)
Grilled cheese sandwiches with ham ($3)
1 can pineapple ($1)
yogurt ($2)
water

Total: $9.68

Dinner:
Tacos
--lettuce (.50)
--cheese ($2)
--hamburger ($1.73)
--taco shells ($1.39)
--homemade seasoning (.50)
Milk ($2)

Total: $8.12

Total for day: $21.80

First, my friend is still missing in Japan. There has been no news, but communications are seriously damaged in her area, so I hold out hope. I have to. I don't want to think about what it means to not.

DH and I went out to the house today and we cleaned out the top floor of the shed and half of the bottom floor. We ended up filling up the garbage can. Rats got in at some point, probably back when DH was always forgetting to shut the door and lock it up after putting the lawn mower away when we still lived there. He had a box of MRE's leftover from his Civil Air Patrol days that he had stored in there. I did not know he had stored food in there or I wouldn't have let him do it.

Anyway, they got in and they chewed through those suckers. If you've ever seen a MRE you know that their packaging is pretty darn heavy duty so it took a lot of effort on the rats' part. Fortunately they were not on the top floor at all. It would have been very hard for them to get up there.

We took a load to storage and I still think everything is going to fit. We've got about two loads of stuff left to pack up and take there. And DH needs to do a dump run very soon. We also need to find out if there is a recycling fee on old microwaves, because we have a couple broken ones. Hmm...I wonder if I could donate them to the technical college? They have an appliance repair class.

We ran out of checks yesterday. I had ordered some but they haven't arrived yet. On Monday I will go to the CU and get some free temporary checks. They will give me 8 and they print all the information on them so they are just like regular checks. Then I can send out the rest of the bills. Thankfully nothing is due before the 22nd so plenty of time to get them sent.

Everyone ate leftovers today for all meals so I'm not doing a meal plan for today. Basically it was leftovers and $4 worth of milk.

Tomorrow's meal plan was picked by my son who will be turning 11:

Breakfast:
Pancakes with jelly ($1)
Eggs (free, from chickens)
Bacon ($2)
Milk ($2)

Total: $5

Lunch:
Leftover pizza (free)
Leftover spaghetti (free)
yogurt ($2)
bananas (.50)

Total: $2.50

Dinner:
Beef Pot Roast ($5.89)
Mashed potatoes with gravy (.25)
Green Beans ($1)
Homemade birthday cake ($1)
Milk ($2)

Total: $10.14

Total for day: $17.64 My mother will be eating dinner with us, so dinner will feed five instead of four.

Have you ever walked into the store for one thing and then walked out again with everything but that thing? *sighs* I did that today. Okay, I had planned on picking up other things, but the main idea was to get the heartburn medicine which was on sale and I had a good coupon for. DH will pick it up later when he goes out to gas up the car. One of the side effects of my current medical cocktail is heartburn and I'm out of them.

I am slightly annoyed that the Jiffy mixes (the only boxed mix besides Krusteaz that doesn't have allergens in it so it's safe for my son) are no longer all .79. I've finally wiped out my stash this morning so I went to pick up two blueberry muffin and two cornbread mixes. Blueberry muffin mix is now 99 cents a box. On the bright side Cornbread mix has dropped to .59. Technically it's a wash. I paid the same amount overall for four boxes of mix that I used to, but it still rankled a little bit. It is probably the cost of blueberries. I live in blueberry country and last season was erratic to say the least.

I went and parked myself at the doctor's office today. Since they don't feel like returning my phone calls, I decided to go be difficult in person since I was out of medication and they did not call in my prescription on Monday like they were supposed to. Being out was not fun. My body immediately reverted to how it was before I started the med. Anyway, they gave me two weeks worth of samples and supposedly are calling it in. There still has been no word on an appointment with the specialist at Virginia Mason. I don't even think they've called them.

They were supposed to have put that in motion when I had my appointment on the 15th of February and he decided I needed to see a surgeon who specialized in operating on scar tissue at previous surgical sites. I really think that 23 days is well and truly enough time for them to get their act together and do what they are supposed to so I can move on with my life, please, 'kay, thanks. I hate being in limbo.

I also made sure they were going to ask the doctor about a deferral on my jury duty. With what is going on with me I'm simply not going to be capable of serving. I need this surgery first and to heal or it will simply be unbearable. The official resummons came in the mail yesterday and I am running out of time. April 4th will be here before I know it. If I have to go sit in their office every day until I hear from them I will.

I had to cancel my dentist appointment this morning because my symptoms were so bad without the one med. I've rescheduled for next Thursday. I am glad they were able to get me in so soon. At my old dentist if you had to cancel it could be months before you got back in.

I went ahead and paid $1500 on the BoA VISA today. We were going by the bank anyway. Even though we will have to go back tomorrow to pay the Master Card with the extra money from payday and I could have just waited, I figured if we did it today it might actually post by tomorrow and I'd get to see that balance go back down below $20,000. It is a psychological thing. Fortunately the bank is by the high school so it is not out of the way to go there. I will have to wait until Monday though for the MC to post. *pouts* Don't know why they can't do same day posting when you do it in the morning. They used to.

Okay, I feel like I am doing a disproportinate amount of whining today so I will stop now.

Meal planning for today was:

Breakfast:
Cornbread Muffins (79)
Eggs (free from chickens)
Milk ($2)

Total: $2.79

Lunch:
2 kids--
PB and H sandwich (.50)
Turkey ham and roast beef sandwich ($1)
plain potato chips (.50)
banana (.20)
orange (.50)

2 adults--
leftover spaghetti (free)
yogurt ($2)
orange (.50)
apple (.30)

Total: $5.50

Dinner:
Salmon (free, from Mom)
fried potatoes (.25)
broccoli/cauliflower leftovers (free)
Milk ($2)
Biscuits (.50)

Total: $2.75

Total for day: $11.04 Woo hoo!

Today was a really long day, but I feel like I got a lot accomplished. And dinner was fantastic. It has been an age since I've made my garlic cheese meatballs. Usually when I make the fancy sauce from scratch I just don't bother with adding protein to the meal because it is a pretty hearty sauce, but we had a pound of hamburger thawed out leftover from making cheeseburgers last night and the kids had been asking for these so I did, with the idea that there would be leftovers for tomorrow night to make meatball sandwiches with. Umm...I'd forgoten how good they are. Suffice it to say there was exactly two meatballs leftover which is not going to make anyone a sandwich, but at least can be crumbled up and thrown on pizza when I make it this week.

DH and I went jeans shopping for him. Unfortunately we only found one pair that fit him right. There were four pairs in his size, but only one brand fit him right. I kind of wish clothing manufacturers woiuld be more standard. So we might have to wait until next month to buy him the other two pairs, but we will check back next week in case new stock came in.

While we were there, totally unexpectedly, I found the perfect swimsuit for me. I was going to order one off a website, but was hesitating because of the price. The suit I found at the store was $20 less. It was just what I wanted, in that it had thick shoulder straps instead of tying behind the neck, a good built-in bra that doesn't show off more than I'm comfortable having the world see, and a skirt that wasn't so long it gets in my way when I do the crawl stroke, but was long enough to cover what I wanted covered. We got a $3 catalina coupon for health and beauty that is good until mid-April at the check-out.

The suit is a little...loud, but not garishly so and most swimsuits are these days. Just more than I would normally wear. Looks like confetti all over a black background. I will have to cut these goofy bows off that serve no purpose and then I will be completely happy. I've been making do with a suit that's too big for a while now, (wore it when pregnant with my almost eleven year old) so I'm glad I'll have something that fits better now that I swim so much more than I used to. I'm going to start swimming again tomorrow. I hate to see what kind of shape I'm in. I was doing 40 laps when I got sick and quit. I think I'll be lucky if I can do 10.

We went to Lowe's and bought replacement filters for our Brita faucet filter and my mom had us pick up a filter for her, too. They had a $10 rebate for if you bought a replacement 2 pack and a filter. Mom doesn't rebate so I got it and I will send it off tomorrow. It also came with a thing that if you sign up at Brita for reminder emails for replacement filters they will send you a $2 coupon.

We got a gallon of Darigold milk today that was marked down to 99 cents because it's sell by date was tomorrow. My son's special milk was on special for $5.29 a gallon (usually $5.99) with a sell by date of March 23 so we got two of those. I also got some bananas that were 48 cents a pound. Normally the best I can get them for is 59 cents a pound, so yay.

We went to the pharmacy and got 2 prescriptions for $14.92. I was afraid that the drug part of our medical plan had changed, but it hasn't. Very happy about that. I am still waiting on the one doctor to call in another RX. I will have to call tomorrow. I called on Monday and they said they'd call it in but haven't. I only have 2 samples left so they better get a move on.

I'm going to have to make more bread tomorrow. I usually only do it twice a week, but we seem to be eating more than previously. Or maybe my mother is filching more than she used to. She does like fresh bread. DH is probably snacking on it without telling me. I've noticed a big dip in the peanut butter jar, too. I'll have to ask him as I'll want to account for it in my meal planning if he is.

Meal Planning for tomorrow:

Breakfast:
French toast with powdered sugar ($1)
Milk ($1.50)

Total $2.50

Lunch:
2 kids--
PB and Honey sandwich (.50)
Turkey ham and roast beef sandwich ($1)
banana (.20)
apple (.50)
hard pretzels (.25)

2 adults--
All meat chili ($3)
Cornbread (.30)
bananas (.40)

Total: $6.15

Dinner:
Chicken legs ($3)
Mashed potatoes and gravy (.50)
Broccoli ($1)
Cauliflower ($1)
Milk ($1.50)

Total $7

Total for day: $15.65

The buns I made turned out beautifully, but my bread fell. My mother was up there banging around, slamming cupboard doors, so of course it fell. She's worse than my ten year old sometimes. It's still edible, tastes good in fact, but it's just a lot shorter than I was expecting it to be. Oh, well. I'll try to bake it when she's out of the house from now on. She wasn't even mad or anything she's just a slammer and a stomper by nature. Some people sound like a herd of elephants walking down the stairs. She's one of those.

If it hadn't have been good I'd have just used it to make bread stuffing or French toast or something other than for sandwiches. I would not throw it out even though it's only 50 cents to make it. The good bread (the kind without corn syrup or raisin juice for sweetening) is just too expensive at $4.50 a loaf. Even on a really good sale it's 2/$5.

Prices have taken a big jump this week, I noticed. I'm sure it has to do with gas prices skyrocketing. I'm glad we have plenty of potatoes, onions, carrots, apples, and oranges right now. We do have to pick up bananas tomorrow but they are still (fortunately) on sale. We may have to cut our milk consumption back to once a day if the milk gets too much higher. I've got a lot of cheese stockpiled so I'm not too worried about calcium.

I'm also glad we have plenty of chicken, hamburger, fish and pot roast in the freezer and lots of canned goods in the cupboard. I don't have to buy any of that at least until April. I will definitely really be keeping an eye on the leftovers and meal planning with the best of them. I do need to buy flour though and soon.

Tomorrow's meals:

Breakfast:
Blueberry muffins (.79)
Eggs (free from chickens)
Milk ($2)

Total: $2.79

Lunch:
2 kids--
1 PB and Honey sandwich (.50)
1 turkey ham and pastrami sandwich ($1)
1 orange (.50)
1 apple (.50)
goldfish crackers (.50)

2 adults
DH--
Egg salad sandwiches (.50)
banana (.25)

Me--
1/2 can leftover TJ's chicken noodle soup
orange (.50)
1 PB and homemade blackberry jelly sandwich (.50)

Total: $4.75

Dinner:
Spaghetti with homemade sauce--
--1 pound spaghetti (.99)
--2 tomatoes (.97)
--2 cans tomato sauce ($2)
--2 small cans tomato paste ($1)
--1 cup onions, diced (.25)
--1 tbsp garlic, minced (.25)
--herbs (.25)
Meatballs:
--hamburger (1.73)
--1 tbsp garlic, minced (.25)
--1/3 cup cheddar (.75)
--1/3 cup parmesan ($1)
--1/3 cup romano ($1)
Milk ($2)

Total: $12.44

Total for day: $19.98. A litle high but there will be at least two days worth of spaghetti leftovers for lunches for me and DH and there will be leftover sauce and meatballs for making meatball sandwiches for dinner one night.

I guess the 18 months same as cash deal for the laptop comes with a credit card, not just a line of credit, because I got a Best Buy Credit Card in the mail today. I immediately put it into the drawer with all the other unused credit cards. I have no intention of using it. I'll make my first payment on Friday, $75 more than the minimum payment of $25 a month. $100 a month is a much better number for getting it paid off well before the 18 months are up.

Costoco AMEX sent me out a new card. I'm not sure why since the one I have doesn't expire until 7/14. It's got the same number on it. Maybe it's because we bumped up to the executive level at Costco being as we've already earned enough this year to pay for it and then some when rewards time comes around. I guess I can thank high gas prices for that. I'm a little miffed as I finally just got around to having my photo put on the old AMEX and now I'll have to do it again. *sighs*

I had physical therapy today but had to cut out early. I started getting really queasy about ten minutes before the end and ended up throwing up in a garbage can. That was fun. I don't even know where it came from. One minute I was fine, the next, blech. Anyway PT cost $90.

DH spent $21.37 picking up milk and yogurt with live cultures (we've all been on too many antibiotics lately). He also spent $8.73 for two big rolls of packing tape with a dispenser, 2 permanent black markers and a box cutter. It came in a kit and was cheaper than buying it all seperately.

There was no school today so all meals are at home. I forgot to send in my meal planning yesterday but I did do it.

Breakfast:
Pancakes with the last of the huckleberry jam we bought on vacation in July ($1.50)
Eggs (free, from chickens)
Milk: ($2)

Total: $3.50

Lunch:
Chicken noodle soup ($2)
Tuna sandwiches ($2)
2 bananas (.50)
2 oranges ($1)

Total: $5.50

Dinner:
Hamburgers ($1.73)
Homemade buns ($.25)
Cheese slices (.50)
tomato (.50)
lettuce (.25)
condiments (.25)
diced onion (.25)
French Fries ($1)
1 can of green beans ($1)
Milk ($2)

Total: $7.73

Total for day $16.73

We're doing much better than all those $20-$22 days now. I'm glad I did most of the baking and the dough making this morning before PT because I wouldn't feel like doing it now. I made one batch of hamburger/hotdog buns, a loaf of bread, 1 batch of biscuits, 1 pan of corn bread and a batch of blueberry muffins. The buns and bread have finished rising and have just gone in the oven, but everything else was baked earlier. I may have DD put in the ingredients for pizza dough into the bread machine for making pizza later in the week (after my stomach settles down).

I need to remember to call two of my doctors today for medication refills and see what is going on with the referral to Virginia Mason. It's been 3 weeks and I haven't heard anything yet.

I did absolutely nothing financial today. No money in, no money out. Didn't leave the house and didn't even think about finances. Just a lazy day spent reading and playing on the computer. Well, and doing five loads of laundry.

Tomorrow DH and I are going to our storage facility to rearrange things and repack some smaller boxes into larger ones for better stackability. We've still got to fit about three truckloads in there to finish emptying the house and the shed. There's room, but only if we move things around. Speaking of storage, that goes up by $11 next month. *sighs*

Menu planning for tomorrow:

Breakfast:

Pancakes ($1)
Homemade brown sugar syrup (.25)
Boiled eggs (free, from chickens)
Milk ($2)

Total: $3.25

Lunch:
2 kids eating at grandma's house (free)

2 adults (leftover pizza from tonight (free)
oranges ($1)

Total: $1

Dinner:
Pot roast ($5.89)
Mashed potatoes and gravy (.50)
Can of green beans ($1)
Homemade cheddar garlic biscuits (.50)

Total: $7.89

Total for the day: $12.14 A nice low day after some spendy ones and there will be leftover beef and potatoes and gravy for lunch on Monday. I don't know if it'll be enough for all four of us, though. The kids have the day off for a teacher work day or something so they will be home.

All right, so I've balanced the checkbook (to the penny, I might add) and I've stuck the $3000 into the holding tank portion of my savings. $1500 will be held to go to BoA VISA, $1009.25 will be held to go to BoA Master Card, and $490.75 will be held to go to the car payment.

That leaves us with $282 until next payday. $90 of that will pay for my physical therapy on Monday, $70 for DH for work jeans, $60 for my son's birthday present and $90 for food (though I don't think we'll need it all since I have plenty of produce and protein on hand, so probably just buy milk and any extra will be saved for later groceries). Oh, and I took money out earlier before I balanced the checkbook so I also have $40 in cash for anything unexpected.

The small paycheck next Friday (with just two days worth of wages on it will cover the cell phone bill, food for two weeks, old house phone, internet, two weeks of physical therapy, and garbage. I should have just under half of it left over, and when the first paycheck of the new cycle arrives, anything I have left over will go to the Master Card.

DH and I had a finance meeting tonight so I could explain where everything stands and so we are on the same page. He finds it boring, but he agrees that he doesn't want to be one of those clueless spouses who just hands over the paycheck and doesn't know where everything goes. We've decided to do this once every six weeks.

Now, on to meal planning.

Breakfast:
Chicken sausages ($3)
Blueberry muffins (.79)
Milk ($2)

Total: $5.79

Lunch:
Leftover ribeye steaks (free, already calculated)
Salad ($1)
Bananas ($1)
Homemade garlic and cheddar biscuits (.50)

Total: $2.50

Dinner:
Homemade pizza
--dough ($.50)
--leftover spaghetti sauce (free)
--leftover meatballs, crumbled (free)
--pepperoni ($1)
--proscuttio ($2)
--mozzarella cheese ($2)
Can of green beans ($1)
Milk ($2)

Total $8.50

Total for day: $16.79

Breakfast:
Bacon ($2)
Homemade biscuits (.50)
Eggs (free, from chickens)
Milk ($2)
Total: $4.50

Lunch:
2 kids
PB and H sandiwch (.50)
PB and J sandwich (.50)
bananas (.50)
goldfish crackers (.50)

2 adults
1 can cream of mushroom soup (.79 + .50 for the milk to make it)
1 can Healthy Choice Chicken Noodle soup ($1)
1 can tuna fish ($1)
salad dressing (.25)
Lettuce (.50)

Total $6.04

Dinner:
Ribeye steaks (were on sale for $3.99/lb during superbowl week and will be leftovers for Saturday's lunch) $5.99
Baked potatoes (.50)
Can of green beans ($1)
Oranges ($1)
Milk ($2)

Total: $10.49

Total for day: $21.02

I am ridiculously anxious for Friday to get here so I can pay off more debt. It's almost silly how much I am looking forward to seeing those balances drop. Meanwhile, trying to get those grocery costs to stay under control, so here's the plan for tomorrow.

Breakfast:
French Toast with real maple syrup ($2.50)
Homemade beef sausage ($1.73)
Milk ($2)

Total $6.23

Lunch:
2 kids
PB& Honey sandwich (.50)
Turkey ham sandwich ($1)
Apple (.50)
Orange (.50)
baggy potato chips (.50)
baggy natural Cheetos (.50)
water

2 adults
Leftover spaghetti (free)
bananas (.50)
water

Total $4


Dinner:
Homemade meatball sandwiches
--Homemade French Bread ($1)
--Pound of hamburger ($1.73)
--Cheddar, parmesan, romano cheeses ($2)
--Garlic (.25)
--leftover spaghetti sauce (free)
Milk ($2)

Total $6.98

Food for the day: $17.22

It's going to be a lot harder to keep the costs down while DH is home. We tend to have more protein then. Still if I can keep it under $20 a day when he's here, that's still pretty good.

I've noticed that since I started slacking off on posting my meal planning that I've also been slacking off on keeping the meals economical. Part of this has been due to illness, but part of it has been due to laziness as well, so I'm going to go back to posting the meals and relative prices, or otherwise I'm going to go so far off track that I won't even be able to see the train. DH gets home tomorrow morning so he'll be accounted for in these meals.

So for tomorrow:

Breakfast:
Pancakes ($1)
Real Maple Syrup ($1)
Scrambled Eggs (free, from chickens)
Milk ($2)

Total: $4

Lunch:
2 kids
Organic Deli meat sandwiches on homemade rolls ($3.25)
Orange (.50)
Banana (.25)
Baked goldfish crackers (.50)
water
$4.50

2 adults
Chicken and vegetable soup ($2)
Grilled ham and cheese ($2)
Bananas (.50)
water
$4.50

Total: $9

Dinner:
Spaghetti ($1)
Homemade Sauce:
Onion (.40)
2 cans tomato sauce ($2)
2 small cans tomato paste ($1)
2 large tomatoes($1)
Garlic (.25)
Basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, salt and pepper (.50)
Milk ($2)
Total: $8.15

Total for day: $21.15

It's a little high, I usually try to keep it closer to $13 to $15 a day, but there will be enough spaghetti for leftovers for a few days for me and DH for lunches, so that will bring lunch costs down this week and it will all even out. There should be extra sauce beyond what is used on the leftover spaghetti so I will likely make a ravioli, sauce, and cheese bake with some leftover frozen ravioli I have.

I was reading an old thread in the forums about whether or not it pays to buy in bulk and whether or not it pays to have a membership to a warehouse club. For the majority of the posters they didn't find having a membership was worth the price. I don't know about places like Sam's or BJ's, we don't have them here, but for me Costco has been well worth the membership price. And since we bumped up to the Executive level, we will more than get back the cost of membership when we get our yearly cash back from the club. In fact, we've already spent enough this year to have earned back most of it.

So what do I buy at Costco? My number one purchase would be gasoline. And with the Costco AMEX I'm also getting 1% cash back on every gas purchase. In our town Costco and the other cheapest gas station (cash only one) have the same price on gas. I do check some of the other less expensive places, but I've never found any place to be cheaper here.

Toilet paper. Because of my son's allergies there are only three brands of toilet paper he can use. One of them is available at Costco, and often the Costco booklet that comes out each month will have a $3 off coupon for it. I have, on very rare occasions found a sale, that combined with a coupon will cost less, but it is usually only if I buy the 4-pk. I'll get it, but then I'll still turn around and buy the 36 roll case from Costco. I'd rather not be shopping more than once a month for toiletries and the 36 roll pack lasts six weeks.

Flour, yeast, and sugar. We bake. A lot. Again, because of my son's allergies it is almost impossible to find bread products that don't have one of the ingredients he is allergic to. So we buy the 25 pound bag of flour and the 10 pound bag of sugar and the 2 pound bag of yeast. I've never found yeast cheaper. Flour and sugar I only find cheaper at Christmas time and shop accordingly. We have a large, plastic, airtight bulk bin that holds 20 pounds of flour and one that holds 10 pound of sugar. The extra five pounds of flour goes into a canister for my mother to use.

Butter. My son cannot have margarine and the health risks they've found related to it makes me unwilling to buy it. Butter, while a fat, is a natural fat and tastes so much better. Buying the bulk one pound cubes tends to be cheaper than even the best sales on butter, with coupons. Even at Christmas. And unsalted cubed butter for baking is also far cheaper than in regular stores.

Extra virgin olive oil. No contest.

Cheese. If cheese is on a really good sale at the regular grocery stores, it might be cheaper, but it seldom is. I keep an eye on the sales, but it's rare to find a better deal. At best I can find the same deal. Also Costco sells shredded cheese at the same price as unshredded cheese, which seems to be rare in the grocery stores around here. Because we make our own pizzas and casseroles that use cheese, and use it on sandwiches a lot, I don't mind getting five pounds at a time to save money, but I do make sure I freeze the excess (shred before freezing or cheese will just crumble).

Oranges and lemons. We go through oranges by the case in the winter and for lemons we use them year round and make our own lemonade from scratch. Although I will buy them elsewhere on good sales, I find that the quality of the ones at Costco tend to be far superior and the size of the fruit is consitent (so four lemons will equal one batch of lemonade every time). That doesn't mean I won't open up the box and check every single orange for mold spots. One bad one will ruin the ones around it and then you are wasting money.

Potato products. Hashbrowns, french fries, and organic mashed potato flakes. Costco happens to carry brands that don't interfere with my son's allergies and at prices that beat the regular stores on sale with coupons. I will buy actual potatoes there at times, but only when I can't find a sale elsewhere. If I get the 20 pound bag I make my own french fries out of it.

Peanut butter. There are only a few brands it is safe for my son to use. We don't like the oily ones, they are too much of a mess to deal with so this leaves us with Jif. We go through a lot of peanut butter so we often buy it from Costco, but on really good sales it can be cheaper elsewhere so I do pay attention to the sale ads.

Cashews. Even from the bulk bins at the grocery store I cannot find these cheaper and these ones don't have anything added to them that I have to worry about. It's just cashews, peanut oil, and salt. No additives, no preservatives, no coating.

Boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Unless it is marked down for quick sale, the price on these is hard to beat. And they come in a six pack of meal sized portions for our family of four. We make our own chicken nuggets so one of these tends to be perfect for us, with a bit left over to throw in the stir-fry bag in the freezer because of uneven sizes. Most other meats I can find cheaper elsewhere on good sales, even seafood. I used to buy the organic eggs there, too, but that was before we had chickens.

Aluminum foil, wax paper, plastic wrap, garbage bags, and Ziploc bags. Sometimes I can find the Ziploc bags and the garbage bags on sale for cheaper with a coupon, but it is really rare. I won't buy the cheapy garbage bags because they break too easily so if I do get a non-Costco brand of garbage bags it will be Glad or Hefty, not a store brand. Store brand is not worth it if it shreds on the way out to the rubbish bin.

Canned green beans, pineapple, organic tomato sauce, organic diced tomatoes, and orgainic tomato paste. Unless someone is having a case sale, it's hard to beat these for price anymore. I will have to find another source for green beans though as they have switched from S&W to Kirkland (store brand) and green beans are something we are very finicky about, since we eat a can almost every day. I have a few cases left, but when that runs out I'll have to get them at the grocery store (either S&W or the Haggen store brand).

Sea salt, peppercorns, chili powder, minced garlic, basil and oregano. Most other spices I get at the reglar grocery store where they have a larger selection and smaller bottles. But for the things I use most in cooking, the bigger, cheaper bottles (one pound) are the way to go.

Vitamins, Ibuprofen, and cold medicine. I don't quite pay as much attention here on prices as I should. In this case I want them in bulk so I don't have to buy them every month. Sometimes they run cheaper, but not if there is a good sale on. I stick to Naturemade on the vitamins because they have a rewards program.

Krusteaz pancake mix in the 10 pound bag. I have tried to make my own baking mix but it honestly doesn't save me any money and isn't worth the hassle. We can't use Bisquick because of my son's allergies. We make pancakes and waffles and biscuits out of this and it is definitely well worth it. Pretty much anything you can make with Bisquick you can make with Krusteaz, which is great because there are a ton of Bisquick recipes out there and very few Krusteaz ones.

By picking and choosing what I buy there, I save money, more than make back the price of membership, and seldom run out of anything so meal planning is a breeze.