Tomorrow is baking day and it also coincides with a school holiday, so the kids are going to help me. I decided not to bake rolls this week, but to bake bread instead. I had to buy five pounds of whole wheat flour, because the recipe I have calls for half whole wheat flour and half white flour. We get the white flour in the 25 pound bag from Costco. I'm getting quite low on that and when DH comes home on the second we will pick up a new bag of that as well. But I can make it through the next couple weeks on what is left.

We are also going to make soft pretzels. I only do that when the kids are available because I hate rolling the dough into long ropes and they love it. If there is still time I will do a pan of cornbread as well.

It's also time to make sausage as my freezer stock is gone. Too many sausages have fillers and sugar in them and I don't like that and have made my own since even before we became aware of my son's allergies. The organic ones are super expensive and some of those still have sugar in them.

I like making sausage and over the years I've perfected a recipe that is perfectly suited to my family's tastes. I don't stuff casings, although I easily could since I have a pasta/sausage maker. It's just more work than necessary in my opinion when I am perfectly content with patties and crumbles. When I make it up I usually do several pounds at once. I do about 4 pounds of patties and one pound of crumbles for pizza topping.

My recipe is for one pound because even though I make five pounds in a session, I find that mixing it together in the smaller amounts makes a more evenly distributed ratio of herbs and spices to meat. It's hard to work with five pounds of ground meat all at once. I happen to have tons of different herbs and spices, so the cost to me is far lower than it would be too someone going out and buying the ingredients, but if you happen to have them on hand this is an economical recipe. After the initial outlay of course, the herbs and spices will last through several uses.

Anyway, here's my recipe:

1 pound of fatty ground meat (either pork or 80/20 hamburger)
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt*
1/4 tsp paprika (hot, not sweet)
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes**
1/4 tsp coriander
1/8 tsp black pepper

Add spices to ground meat, mix with hands and form into patties. 1 pound makes 4 fat patties or 8 thin ones.

*Ground pork often comes salted. If you are using salted ground pork, eliminate the 1/2 tsp salt from the recipe. **For a milder sausage eliminate the red pepper flakes. For a hotter sausage double the red pepper flakes. If you decide to use ground turkey or chicken I'd say only use half and mix the other half with the fattier pork or beef as it will be dry if you do not.

I freeze the patties uncooked and then cook them from frozen in a skillet. For sausage crumbles I cook them up before freezing them so that when I want to toss some on pizza it's already done and I just need to take a couple handfuls out the morning of to thaw.

I'm also going to make mini breakfast casseroles. I don't have an exact recipe for that as I sort of just throw in what I have. I mix up a dozen eggs and throw in either diced leftover ham, crumbled bacon, or cooked sausage crumbles. It's usually about a cup of meat. I have half a red bell pepper that needs using up and four scallions so I will chop those up as well and throw in a crushed clove of garlic. If your veggies are raw saute them until soft before mixing them into the eggs. (I've used anything from chopped broccoli, zucchini, and asparagus to cauliflower). A handful of cheese (I usually use extra sharp cheddar or parmesan) tops it off and I mix it well. (If you'd like it a bit creamier you can add cream or sour cream). Grease a muffin pan and pour 1/12 of the mixture into each cup. Bake for about 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven or until egg is set in the centers. These freeze well if you want to freeze them, but we usually have them eaten up in a couple days time.

I forgot to mention that the $218.18 refund finally showed up from BoA yesterday. It was part of the payment I made to the VISA yesterday of $1500. I can't wait until next Friday when I can send them an additional $1000. I wish they'd hurry up and post the payment I made at the bank yesterday. It probably won't post until Monday. It was after 3 p.m. when I paid it and if it's after 3 p.m. they don't post it that day, though they do credit it that day. With everything online, I don't get why they don't, same as I don't get why online banks really "need" that three day transfer between banks. It disappears from your account right away and then it's just in limbo. I think it's just an excuse to get out of paying a few days' worth of interest. They can certainly accept and add to your account a credit card purchase instantly. To me it should all be the same thing.

I went grocery shopping today and bought milk and produce. I also got a pound of sundrops. They are like M&M's only made without artifical ingredients or food dyes. They are colored naturally. My son was happy. I was happy to find them. They have them in the bulk bins at Fred Meyer. That pound should last a few months.

I spent $19.41 at one store and got a reciept that had a coupon for $4 off a car wash. It's normally a ten dollar car wash so that is a good price. I also could have my choice of very cheap pizzas, half off at the pita place, and half off at the pho place. Not that I'd use any of those, but I'll use the car wash coupon. In warm weather we wash the car ourselves but it's been in the thirties with whipping wind for months and the car is filthy so I'll definitely take it in. I'll probably wait until DH comes home. I really hate matching up the tires with those automated tracks.

I went to a second store and paid $18.43 for a large picnic ham. Does anyone have a good soup recipe made with a ham bone? I don't want anything with beans, though. My kids have textural issues and I don't like them. Pretty much any veg except parsnips, turnips, and rutabagas are a go, though. I'd like to be able to stretch the ham as far as I did the chicken. I know I can use diced ham in omelettes or breakfast casserole and the kids will eat it in sandwiches, too, but soup goes over really well here when it's this cold.

I can't find what I did with the receipt, I might have dropped it, to the other store, but it was $21 and something. I bought cans of organic chili and beef stew there. Everyone is feeling under the weather. I have plenty of food made/planned for the next two days for dinners. But if the kids get sick of them they'll have another option and I can freeze the other stuff for next week sometime.

I added $3 in ones to the laptop fund today and $2.16 in change to the coin jar. I found a quarter on the floor at the check out of one of the stores.

$432.94 beginning laptop fund balance
$+03.00 amount added
-----------
$435.94 ending laptop fund balance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who knew you could stretch a chicken so far?

I scheduled a payment last night of $400 to the BoA Master Card for today. I had to take the money out of savings, but I will replace it on Friday, which is payday. It was due tomorrow and I wanted to send a decent chunk, not just the little scrapings that were left in checking. It didn't come out of the EF, it came out of the money we set aside for property tax, so that has to be replaced no matter what. If the due date had fallen one day later I just would have gone to the bank on Friday and paid it in person, but this way works, even if I am temporarily juggling a bit of money.

My husband and I decided we were actually going to be more aggressive on the BoA VISA for the next few months instead of paying off the MC. The BoA VISA is an airmiles reward card and it's only got about $1000 of available credit left. We need to get it down so that there is about $3000 worth of available credit so it's further away from that upper wall. We've never gone overlimit, but I would just have more peace of mind this way. This is because this is the card DH uses to pay for his airfare to work and back every six weeks.

Once we get some breathing room, then we will take the extra money and get that MC paid off. We will also then be able to move the last autopay off the MC and onto the VISA. The goal for the VISA will then be to pay the autopay, the airfare, and the interest and about $50 more than that each month, while we throw the rest of our debt repayment money at the MC. The MC should then be paid off in three months time. The interest rates are the same so it doesn't matter too much how we do it, except once the MC is paid off it'll be one less payment and one bigger snowball.

Actually I should check with the health club. If we can take the monthly fee out of checking instead of having it on a card, then I wouldn't have to worry about moving it from MC to VISA. Most of our autopays are out of checking, but I have Netflix on the AMEX, because that is paid off without fail every month. We usually only buy gas on that one. Health club might do AMEX. I'll have to check. I don't want to be charging anything on the the VISA or MC that I don't have to, since the goal there is to pay them off, cancel that MC as it's the non-rewards one, and then only use the airmiles VISA for DH's work travel expenses.

I met with my son's school counselor today. We talked for over an hour. She wants to Vanderbuilt him. I called the doctor today and they'll be sending out the paperwork for that. I don't think he's ADHD, but I know he's OCD and there's other things the evaluation looks for. Bi-polar runs in the family on both sides and though I haven't really seen signs of depression in him, I've definitely seen signs of mania. Combined with his food allergies and his difficulties with peers, she thinks he probably needs therapy regardless of what the test says. I agree. I've suspected for a long time that this is the road we were headed down with him. I put a call into DH to see what our new medical insurance covers in the form of counseling. I can't find where he put the medical booklet.

The local grocery store had whole chickens on sale so I went ahead and picked one up today. It cost $5.15 and is between five and six pounds. We will roast it tonight, make chicken quesadillas and chicken fried rice with the leftover meat, and make soup stock with the carcass. I love getting 3 or 4 meals out of one base item. It's a pretty large chicken. Without DH here, I might have enough leftover meat to make enchiladas or Tex-Mex chicken and rice as well.

I love making roast chicken. I have a very simple recipe for it. Rub it with extra virgin olive oil, then sprinkle it heavily with basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Simple, but so good! For variation I will rub it with crushed garlic before rubbing it with olive oil, but I only do that when I'm not planning on making Mexican based dishes off the leftovers. I don't like the way garlic clashes with Mexican spices.

Well, I budgeted really well for this pay cycle. Because of how DH works, 3 weeks on (well 22 days straight), 3 weeks off (20 days, really), he ends up getting paid 4 weeks in a row, followed by two weeks of no pay. In the past it has been a challenge to run a monthly budget this way, but I've finally got it sorted as to how much money needs to be left over at the end of the four paid weeks to go through the unpaid two weeks.

There are five days until payday and I have $345 left. There are two things that will come due, one a cell bill of $140 (family plan, we have no landline, and this company is the only one that has reliable service in the arctic circle so we're kind of stuck with it being that high. Well, we could drop unlimited texting, but we have a teenager, and it's made my life easier, so, no, as long as we can afford it), and the other a payment for physical therapy tomorrow of $90.

I will need to buy 2 gallons of organic milk tomorrow, so that will be $12 (or $11 if I remember to print out the coupon). That leaves me with $103 left over, so barring any unforeseen money things cropping up, that money is extra for the pay cycle. I'm going to put it into the EF fund on Friday when we get paid.

We all slept in really late today. We're all dealing with the tale end of colds, and no one really wanted breakfast. I made taco salad for lunch. I used the whole pound of hamburger (the cheap sale stuff!) and there is extra leftover.

Lunch:
Homemade taco seasoning (.50)
Ground beef ($1.73)
Lettuce (.50)
Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese ($1)
Kids had tortilla chips, but I didn't. (.50)
Milk for kids ($1)
Total: $5.23

Snack for kids:
Air popped popcorn with all natural cheese powder (.25)
Apple (.30) (from fruit sale)
Orange (.30)(from fruit sale)
Total: $0.85

Dinner:
Beef pot roast($5.89)(there will be leftovers)
Leftover baked potatoes (free)
Homemade gravy made with milk (.50)
Broccoli ($1)
Leftover green beans (free)
Milk ($1.50)
Banana (me only)(.50)
Total $9.39

Food Total: $15.47

The $50 from the Verizon refund hit the account today. I had thought they were going to send a check, but apparently because we autopay out of our bank account each month they were simply able to deposit it back to our checking account. We weren't supposed to see that until next week sometime.

The $218.18 refund from overpaying the interest on the BoA Gold Star Loan however, which was supposed to be in our account "no later than Friday," did not arrive. Stupid Evil Empire. It will probably show up on Monday. I won't be withdrawing the $50 until Monday anyway so it's not that big a deal. Hopefully it will be there then.

I got my Costco AMEX rewards check today and took it to Costco to cash since I had to run out that way anyway and buy butter. This is the first time I've done this. I've only had the card for a little over a year. It was for $143.61. I threw the 61 cents into the coin jar along with a dime I found on the floor at Costco. The $143 will go into my laptop fund along with the $50 on Monday. I rolled the coins in my coin jar and have $13 for deposit to the laptop fund as well. I need to remember to get penny wrappers because I have a few dollars in pennies but nothing to roll them in.

$218.94 laptop fund balance
$050.00 Verizon refund
$143.00 AMEX cash back
$+13.00 rolled coin
--------------
$424.94 new laptop fund balance

I am halfway there, just have to put the money in the proper CU on Monday.

I had originally planned to put the BoA refund into the laptop fund as well, but have decided to use it on the MC instead because it was originally allocated for paying debt and it should go back to that. It's not like I'm going to buy the laptop before we pay our taxes in April anyway.

I am waiting for the rest of my World Points to hit my account at the end of February and then I will have enough points to cash out for a $250 refund. We have had this card for years and I had never really looked at our points balance before. I didn't even know it had a cash back system, I thought you could just get "stuff." But you can get cash, and we have 25,000 points so I will do that as soon as we can. That money will go to pay on a credit card also, so an extra $468.18 will go towards paying off the Evil Empire between this month and next.

Now for today's meal planning (I think I am going to stop listing prices at the end of February. I pretty much have a handle on the grocery budget now).

Breakfast:
Homemade sausage patties ($1)
Cucumber slices ($1)
Milk (just the kids)($1)
Total: $4

Lunch:
DD
Organic deli meat sandwich on homemade bun ($1.75)
Apple (.50)
Homemade cookies (.25)
$2.50

DS (was sick, ate with grandma)
Free

Me
Roast beef panini with tomato, lettuce, onions, mayo ($3.99) I bought it premade from the store. I was being lazy. Still it is better than McD's
Homemade coleslaw (.25)
Total Lunch $6.74

Dinner:
1 can green beans ($1)
Leftover Meat (me)(free)
Leftover baked potato soup (kids)(free)
Quesadillas made with leftover chicken (free), tortillas, and cheddar cheese (just for the kids) (.80)
Mozzarella (me)(.50)
Milk (kids)($1)
Total Dinner: $2.30

Total food: $11.54

My stomach was rebelling against milk today so I just drank water and had a string cheese for calcium.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total Lunch: $3.40

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

Total Dinner: $17.70

All meals $23.90

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

Last night when I was trying to figure out what to do about the taxes, whether to take it out of debt repayment or the EF, I went over the budget again. I was letting myself get a little panicky. I kept looking and looking for places to cut and then I realized I'd allocated $1000 for savings each month. I thought I'd allocated $100 for savings each month.

I am not used to this new pay grade yet and in my head I'd fixated on $100, but obviously when I set the budget up with the actual numbers, I'd put in what we could scrape up each month. So I'll have $2000 from that before the April 15th deadline and can take the rest ($4000) out of the EF and then immediately pay back $1000 of it to the EF at the end of April when there is a payday. Then I'll only have $3000 to payback to the EF, and with an allocation of $1000 to put in each month it'll be back up to where it is now pretty soon.

Although I didn't sleep great last night it was better than the night before and I think I have definitely turned the corner on this cold. Of course DS decided to come down with it instead. He's all fever, snot, and cough and walking around like a zombie. I've covered him with Vick's vaporub and have the vaporizer going with the inhalant poured into the litte cup thingy and he's taken two steamy showers this morning to help him breathe. Poor boy. So no school today for him.

Mom is going to watch him while I go to the produce sale later and I will pick up some saline mist for his nose. He won't use regular nasal spray or I'd be able to clear him right up. Fortunately I still have plenty of the dye free cold and allergy medicine. Walgreen's has their own house brand and even though it is dye free it cost less than non-generic cold and allergy medicine. But I stocked up on it several months ago and have a couple bottles of each on hand.

As for meal planning:

Breakfast for 3:
Soft-boiled eggs (free from chickens)
Toast and free jelly from aunt (.50)
Milk ($1.50)
$2
Total Breakfast: $4

Lunch for DD
Leftover slice of pizza (so free, accounted for cost last night)
baggy potato chips (.50)
orange (.50)
water

Lunch for Me and DS
TJ's chicken noodle soup ($1.29)
Crackers for DS (.20)
Grilled ham and cheese sandwich (split between us) ($2)
Oranges ($1)
$4.49

Total Lunch: $5.40

Dinner for 4 (Mom is eating with us):
Whole Roasted chicken (free, bought with gift card)
Olive oil and herbs (.50)
Baked potatoes (with the sale price this will be about .13 for a pound) so (.20)
Butter (.50)
Green beans ($1)
Milk ($2)
Total dinner: $4.20

Total daily food: $13.60

Well, apparently I am in a very talky mood today. This is my third entry and I guess I am doing a lot of thought organization as I go. Anywho the grocery flyers came out today. Their Valentine's savings are actually pretty incredible, way, way better than their super bowl ads last week, except on beef.

I don't tend to use coupons often on groceries as we don't buy too much in the way of processed foods because of my son's allergies to additives, preservative, stabilizers, food colorings, grapes, raisins, and apples. It's shocking how much that is healthy is sweetened with apple juice or raisin juice, unfortunately.

But there are a few things we buy like Healthy Choice chicken noodle soup if there is a good coupon or sale. I like to have canned soup on hand for those times when I just feel too sick to cook or have an interminable case of the lazies. I won't pay more than a dollar a can for HC (but up to $1.29 for TJ's). Usually it's too expensive. This week they have a special on that if you buy any ten of certain items you get $3 off produce. Well, the soup is on special 10 cans for $10 and it qualifies for the ten items. And since broccoli and cauliflower prices finally fell to $1 a pound I can get three pounds for free. My kids love both of these things, but since they've been hovering near the $2 per pound mark I haven't bought them for a while. They also have cameo apples on sale for .59 a pound. It is so rare to find apples anymore for less than a dollar a pound (even in an apple state like this one). Even if my son can't eat them my daughter can. Also organic chili powder for 3.99 for 6 ounces. I don't use it enough to buy it in bulk, but I use it enough to keep a bottle around and I'm out. The sale is on the 11th through the 14th so I will go first thing Friday morning after dropping my son off at school.

Another store is having a sale Wednesday through Sunday with a bunch of produce coupons. 5 pound bags of yellow onions for $1.48, 15 pound bags of russet potatoes for $1.98 (ten pound is almost $4 on a non sale price lately), .68/lb for navel oranges, 1 lb of fresh strawberries for $1.98 a pound (limit 2, and that's rare to find even in season from the local farms), salad blends for .98 (limit 2, but cheaper than two heads of lettuce at the moment), and .98 cents a pound for fresh tomatoes (cheaper than what I can find canned for at the moment which will mean club sandwiches sometime this week for me for lunch, yay).

They have 4 ounce lobster tails on for $3.98 per pound. Per pound not per tail. $3.98 for four servings of sea food is an awesome price. I can make lobster tails for my birthday without breaking the bank! It's a nice surprise. I certainly wouldn't have thought to get them otherwise. Valentine's Day, I guess you are good for something after all!

They also have a store coupon for Bryer's ice cream for $2.87 (limit 2) and since my son can have the Black Label vanilla I'm going to get some. That's cheaper than the ingredients (and the time effort) to make homemade. It's on for $2.49 at another store but it would require a fifteen minute drive there and then a fifteen minute drive back and I don't think it's worth the gallon of gas to go clear over there for one item to save 56 cents when gas is over $3 a gallon. That's penny wise, but pound foolish.

I'm pretty excited about the produce sale. I should be able to have enough produce in general for the next two weeks and the potatoes and onions should last a month. I'm definitely going to be under the $500 grocery budget goal this month!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I paid the mortgage payment today of $386.14.

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

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

Okay, now food today:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Added $1.91 in coins to the change jar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meal planning for today:

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

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

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

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

Total: $3.50

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today's meals are--

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

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

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

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

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

Well, on the new count we are five days without eating out, with no plans to do so before the 18th. My goal is to make it to the 20th without eating out because that will be 3 full weeks. The way I am going with meal planning and homecooking, I honestly think I'm going to be able to cut my food budget from $700 a month to $500 a month, without sacrificing quality or cutting back on organics. I would like to get it down to $400, but I don't want to push too much at first and with DS's allergies there are just some things we cannot buy cheaper.

DS was begging for nuggets today so I thought I'd change the meal plan which had called for roasting a whole chicken and I thawed out some boneless, skinless chicken thighs instead. I cut them up, saving the pieces that were too little and throwing them in the stir-fry baggy in the freezer. I try to make the nuggets a uniform size and shape so that they'll cook evenly, so there are invariably little bits leftover. The baggy is finally full enough I can make stir-fry with it next week.

I love making nuggets at home. It's so easy and they taste so much better than McD's. Plus I can make enough to feed five people for around $4. The same amount would take $12 at McD's. Here's my recipe:

1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 TBSP corn starch
2 beaten eggs
1 TBSP water
2 cups panko (I use Ian's organic, plain one)
Salt and pepper

Cut chicken into nugget size pieces. Mix corn starch and flour in one bowl. Mix eggs and water in a second bowl. Put the panko in a third bowl. Dip chicken in flour mixture, then egg mixture (letting excess drip off or it can get really thick and gummy and not cook enough), then panko. Place on a plate and add freshly ground sea salt and pepper. (You don't need to season both sides).

Heat canola oil in a wok until very hot (or use a deep fat fryer). Fry nuggets for three minutes. This amount usually takes us two batches.

I use the same breading recipe to make homemade fish and chips style cod fish pieces or fish sticks. And also homemade deep fried mozzarella sticks (except in that case I use the panko with Italian seasoning or if I only have plain add a couple TBSP of Italian seasoning to the panko).

I'll roast the chicken tomorrow for lunch. Whatever is left will be picked off mostly for enchiladas with half a cup being saved for chicken fried rice and the carcass will go to make chicken broth. I found what looks like a great recipe for egg drop soup so I will use the broth to make that on the same day we have the egg fried rice. I love it when I can get three meals out of one thing like that. Even better is it's the chicken I got for free with the gift card from DH's work. Since the chicken is free, and the eggs from Mom's chickens are free, that soup is going to be dirt cheap, just the cost of ginger, salt, pepper, which I have on hand, and scallions and peas and carrots (the latter two I have on hand) which will also go in the rice.

I forgot to do today's menu on my other post so here it is. I made a batch of Jiffy Blueberry Muffins this morning (.79). It's a safe brand for my son's allergies.

Breakfast:
Scrambled Eggs (free from chickens)
Blueberry Muffins (.40)
Bacon ($4)
Milk ($2)
Total: $6.40

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

DH
Tuna fish sandwiches on homemade rolls ($2)
water

Me (I took a nap and slept through lunch)
Snack of blueberry muffin (.10)

Dinner:
Spaghetti ($1)
Homemade Sauce:
Onion (.40)
2 cans tomato sauce ($2)
1 can diced tomatoes ($1)
Garlic (.25)
Basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, salt and pepper (.50)
Milk ($2)
Total: $7.15

True the homemade sauce is more expensive than a couple jars of Ragu, but we can't just use regular brand names due to DS's allergies. So we'd be looking more at a couple of jars of Muir Glen Organics, in which case the homemade sauce is cheaper.

I am feeling somewhat better now. My nose has mostly unclogged and I can breathe out of both nostrils again so that is a positive step forward. I still feel a bit dizzy and a little weak but I should be able to start cooking again. Today was a rough it day again, with DH muddling through. We had the other box of gluten free frozen waffles we found when we did our freezer inventory last month and scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Breakfast:
Waffles ($4)
Powdered sugar (.10)
Scrambled eggs (free from chickens)
Milk ($2)
Total $6.50

Lunch:

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

DH
TJ's brand spaghettio's ($1.50)
2 hot dogs ($1)

Me
Can of TJ's chicken noodle soup ($1)
Salad with dressing (.50)
Glass of orange juice ($1)

Total Lunch $8.50

Dinner:
Tacos
Box of shells ($1.29)
Ground Beef ($2.29)
Homemade taco seasoning (.50)
Cheddar Cheese ($1)
Lettuce (.50)
Milk ($2)
Quart of homemade canned peaches from aunt (free)
Total: $7.58

DD has the assignment of writing down and cooking a recipe for her cooking and nutrition class on Friday so she will make dinner tomorrow night but I will be there to talk her through it. We will make spaghetti with my special sauce. I've got an onion that needs to be used so it'll be perfect.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total Lunch: $7.50

Dinner:

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

I still feel pretty awful today. I don't think this cold is going anywhere fast and that's annoying because we are going to Seattle on Sunday to the Pacific Science Center to see the Harry Potter exhibit. It leaves on the 31st (I think) and we had to reserve a time and everything, plus pay $10 per person ($40) total. It would be more if we weren't members.

I don't really care all that much for HP. I mean, I liked the books and everything and the movies are okay considering how much they leave out, I guess, but I'm one of these people that read each book once, watched eash movie once, at least up through five, and then let it go.

My family on the other hand is obsessed. So mostly I'm just going for them. I'm much more interested in the upcoming King Tut exhibit. I saw that as a child on a field trip and it made such an impression on me that I want my kids to see it, too. That'll be around sometime in the spring. We are eating breakfast at home, packing a lunch for the road, and having our one fancy meal out this pay cycle (six weeks) at Red Lobster.

I did yield to temptation yesterday and order a pizza but I had DH go pick it up instead of having it delivered, so $27.11, no delivery surcharge, no tip. We made it 17 days without eating out, which is pretty darn good for us. We ate the leftovers for lunch today, including sending cold pizza in lunchboxes to school. Both kids had yogurts ($2).

DH made French toast with real maple syrup and milk for breakfast so that was $4.50.

Dinner tonight is leftover homemade chicken noodle soup which I already put the cost in for the day I made it so basically free this time around. DH is making a two pound meatloaf ($6) and we will have a can of pineapple for fruit ($1) and milk ($2), so $8 for dinner.

We found a couple boxes of toaster waffles when we did our inventory earlier this week so that will be for tomorrow's breakfast. We get a gluten free one from TJ's (not because we have gluten allergies, just because it's the one type that doesn't have other ingredients in it that my son is allergic, too). We'll eat a whole box of eight so that will be $4. We'll have it with apricot jelly (free from my aunt) and powdered sugar (I dunno, 10 cents worth, maybe), and milk ($2). I also have some sausage patties that need using up. ($1). Total $7.50.

Lunch will be homemade cheeseburgers because we have four buns that need using up.
Homemade buns (.50)
1 pound organic hamburger (2.49)
4 slices Tillamook cheddar (.50)
Chopped onion (.05)
Condiments (.25)
Baked french fries ($2)
Pickles ($1)
Water
Total: $5.79

Dinner will be leftover meatloaf (free)
Potatoes($1)
Carrots ($1)
Broccoli (1.69)
Milk ($2)
Oranges ($2)
Total: $7.69

DD was talking about making a batch of homemade brownies which generally costs about 75 cents if she makes it with cocoa or $1.50 if she makes it with Baker's chocolate. We don't tend to eat sweets more than once a week (unless we're sick and needing ice cream). We also don't tend to snack much. If we do it's on things like air-popped popcorn sprinkled with organic cheese powder, and comes in at around 50 cents.

I signed back up with Global Test Market. When I was doing them before I was making about $50 every six weeks. I don't know how well I'm going to do now that I'm 40, though. I seemed to screen out of everything, when before when I was 37 and 38, I did almost everyone. Guess I'm not in the market they want anymore. Oh, well. I'm going to look into that watching videos for money thing Laura was talking about the other day. I'd like to add to my new laptop fund a little faster.

I am terribly annoyed with The Evil Empire (BoA) today. On Jan 21st I made an online electronic payment to them to pay off the last of the loan interest that came in after I had "supposedly" paid off the entirety of the loan with their "payoff amount." It was supposed to be credited that day, but it never posted and it showed no record of payment pending. Then after that I couldn't even get into the account again for the next couple of days. It kept taking me to the VISA instead.

Finally I was able to get in there and it still showed us as owing that $218.18, so I sent DH to the bank with a paper check to pay it off. He asked them to look it up there and make sure there was no electronic payment pending first, so that we didn't end up with a double payment. There wasn't so he went ahead and paid it. Guess what just showed up today? The electronic payment that should have been credited on the 21st like the website claimed it would be! So now I'm down an extra $218.18 in the checking account. And who knows how long it'll take them to send the refund check. I am beyond irritated.

It's not like I need that extra money at the moment, I've got plenty of cushion in the account, but it's the principle of the thing. Can't these people just do their jobs right in the first place and keep a functional website and have their tellers know what they are doing?

So I still feel like death warmed over so meals for today looked like this:

Breakfast:
Joe's O's cereal for 4 ($2)
Boiled Eggs (free, from chickens)
Milk($2)
Total: $4

Lunch:
2 Kids--
PB&J sandwiches ($1)
Apple (.50)
Orange (.50)
Pretzels (homemade) (.25)
water

DH--
1 can of chili ($1.29)
2 biscuits (.30)
Leftover homemade chicken nuggets (amount taken out earlier in the week)
water

Me--
1 bowl of ice cream ($1)
1 glass pineapple juice ($.50)

Total: $5.34

Dinner:
Homemade chicken noodle soup
--onion (.75)
--2 carrots (.50)
--2 celery stalks (.50)
--parsley (free from plant in yard)
--salt and pepper (.02)
--garlic (.25)
--chicken broth ($1.25)
--half package egg noodles (.50)
Milk ($2)
Leftover chicken (amount taken out previously)
Total: $5.77

Hopefully tomorrow I will feel better and make better food for the family. DH cut up everything for me for the soup and followed my directions for putting it all in the crockpot and it turned out great. We only ate half of it despite everyone having two bowls but me so plenty leftover. Still, it was a pretty cheap food day all in all.

I am tentatiely planning better food for tomorrow but I think I'll wait until then and see how I feel and then post it for the day. I've got two written out, one for if I feel better and one for if I don't.

DH spent $5 on a box of Campfire Girl Mints. I told him they have to last for two weeks at that price. I also bought several vitamin supplements today for my immune system and because of muscle cramps in my calves. Magnesium, potassium, golden seal, echinacea, vitamin C, and fish oil. Spent around $75. I'm rounding because I don't feel like getting up and checking the receipt.

I've managed to catch a cold on top of my kidney infection. It's that awful sort of full head, dripping nose, sore throat, don't want to do anything productive cold. So my meal planning kind of went out the window. We did not get takeaway though, no matter how sorely I was tempted. This makes...16 days I think with no eating out.

Instead I opened the cupboard doors and pulled out chili for the boys and beef stew for the girls. I don't like to do that sort of thing often. I'm not a big fan of processed foods but the chili was from Trader Joe's and the stew doesn't have additives or preservatives so in a pinch it'll do. That was about $7. I also ate ice cream twice today. Not something I normally do, but my throat hurt so much I just didn't care. It's $4 a quart and I ate half of it. Yikes. Oh, well. I hope I feel better tomorrow.

DH spent $25 on a plumber's snake today and used it to clean out the dryer hose. The dryer hasn't been drying properly in ages and after going through three cycles on high heat with one load he figured out it was jammed up. It's twenty feet from the dryer to the outside vent so he bought a 25 foot snake. He got out enough lint to make a cat with. Now it's drying nicely. One thing to look for when we buy a new house is a dryer connection on the outside wall of the house. It was so easy at our old house, you just reached in from the outside and pulled out anything that was there. This house was badly designed when it comes to accessing things.

The final interest payment on the loan posted today so it is officially paid off, unless they pull something like interest on the interest. Darn evil empire(BoA).

My meal plan for Wednesday is basically Joe's O's (like Cheerios, but organic and from TJ's) cereal for breakfast and whatever DH packs the kids for lunch and chicken noodle soup for dinner. I've got onions, carrots, celery, parsley, chicken broth, some leftover chicken, and noodles and they can just go in the crockpot and simmer away for four hours.

I rolled up the rest of the coins in my coin jar, at least until I ran out of penny wrappers. I think there are at least 200 pennies left to do. DH went ahead and took the rolled coin to the CU. It was the wrong CU, but oh, well, I'll get it back tomorrow in dollars and take it over to the right CU, along with the $45 I've squirreled away for my new laptop fund. Come to think of it, there is money in the checking account over there, too. I think I'll add that to my fund as well.

$42.47 opening balance
$63.00 rolled coin
$45.00 squirreled money
$63.47 checking money
-------
$218.94 total laptop fund

I'm about 1/4 of the way there. Yay!

The payment I made online last week for the interest that came through after we paid off the big loan didn't go through and now it's not letting me access it. Every time I click on the link it takes me to our VISA instead. Fortunately the statement came in the mail today so I just wrote out the check and DH took it down to the bank when he picked up DD from high school, so that is taken care of. That was $218.18. So that should see the last of the loan. If they try to slap us with anymore interest charges I will be annoyed. The previous amount was supposed to be the payoff amount so that this wouldn't happen in the first place.

Other than that we spent no money today, although we did spend $133 last night on new clothes for the kids. My son has grown two inches since school started and my daughter has lost enough weight that all of her clothes are super baggy on her and she was constantly hiking her jeans back up. Not too bad for ten articles of clothing.

Meal planning for tomorrow:

Oatmeal ($1)
Eggs (free, chickens)
Milk ($2)
Canned peaches ($1)
Total: $4

Lunch:
2 Kids--school
PB&J sandwiches (homemade bread, homemade jelly) ($1)
Carrots (.50)
Baggy potato chips (.50)
Baggy Natural Cheetos (.50)
Yogurt ($2)
Water

2 Adults--home
1/2 a leftover cheeseburger (free)
2 leftover chicken legs (free)
oranges ($1)
leftover potatoes (free)
Yogurt ($2)
Water

Total: $7.50

Dinner:
Spaghetti ($1)
Homemade sauce consisting of one onion (.75), 2 cans tomato sauce ($1.50), 1 6 oz can tomato paste (.50), 1 can diced tomatoes ($1), garlic (.25), and herbs (.50)
Homemade Texas Toast ($1)
Milk ($2)
Dinner: $7.50

$19 for the tomorrow's food, not bad. Probably the best since I started keeping track.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total: $9

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

Total: $7.50

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miz Pat wanted to know how I make homemade hamburger buns so I'm posting the recipe. It costs about 50 cents for me to make these and the cheapest I can find them during the winter is $1.29 for eight, and that's not the additive free kind my son needs for his diet which is around $2.49 for eight. Recipe makes twelve. I make the dough in the bread machine, but you could use a stand mixer with a dough hook, or I suppose mix it by hand, but that's a lot of work.

2 1/4 tsp yeast (1 pkg)
1 1/4 cup warm water
3/8 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, well beaten
4 1/4 cups flour
1 1/4 teaspoon salt

Put in wet ingredients first, then yeast, then sugar, then flour. Mix in bread machine. Let rise one hour (or covered overnight in the fridge, will keep for four days). Pinch off into balls, place on cookie sheet, and flatten a bit with your hand so they are the shape of hamburger buns. I usually do twelve. You can make them oblong if you want hot dog buns, or you can make three smaller balls per each and put them into a muffin tin cup and make cloverleaf rolls. But I generally just make them round in the shape of hamburger buns. Let rise in a warm place at least one hour, two if you want bigger buns. Bake at 375 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes. Optional: Brush tops with melted butter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My goal for the week was to make it through without any meals out, via planning my meals well, and we did it. I'm rather proud of myself considering eating out is generally caused by personal laziness on my part and not a planned thing. I want to make it through this week, too, without eating out, but it will be harder because DH comes home on Wednesday and it is always harder when he is home because he loves eating out. Still, the kids and I are getting into a routine now and the great thing about DH is that even if he wants to go out, he won't grump about it in front of the kids. He'll grump about it privately to me, but he won't make it so that the kids start whining about it, too.

We've had some talks this month about our goals and he really wants to get the credit card debt gone by the end of the year so he has agreed "in theory" to eat out far less. Maybe one nice meal out a month and possibly go get a bag of the cheapy double cheeseburgers and freeze them for "emergency" purposes. I am hoping to eliminate it altogether, but realize that is probably highly unlikely. And what he agrees to abide by when he is 3000 miles away and having all his meals provided for him by work and what he agrees to abide by when he is at home and might have to cook for himself may not be entirely the same thing.

I used the last of the frozen beef pot roasts I got on sale a couple months ago for $1.99 a pound today. I'll have to be on the lookout for another good sale. Threw it in the crockpot and it got nice and tender. We had that with leftover potatoes and gravy from yesterday which we used up but for a little gravy, green beans (will have what's left tomorrow), some leftover biscuits from earlier in the week, and my little splurge of fresh dark red cherries for desert. We each got twelve. So delicious. Mom ate with us tonight.

There was enough pot roast left for another meal, but my kids don't like warmed up pot roast and neither do I unless I can make some sort of hash from it, so I put it into a baggy and froze it for when DH comes home. He loves making sandwiches with leftover potroast.

Tomorrow is going to be an odds and ends day for lunch and dinner since it is a school holiday. I actually got the kids to agree to it. We'll use up the green beans and the leftover broccoli and corn from earlier in the week. There are 3 pieces of chicken left, 2 biscuits, 3/4 cup of gravy, 1 pancake, 1 cut up orange, half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, half a can of chili, 1 slice of frozen pizza, salad fixings, and a cup of macaroni and tomato sauce. This will actually be the first time in ages we won't have thrown out any food in a week. Let's hear it for leftover management.

I added $20 to my new laptop fund to reward myself for not eating out all week. That's about a third of what we would have spent if we'd gone out this week as much as had become normal. The rest went to the grocery budget and whatever is left at the end of the paycycle will be saved.

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

So the basics for yesterday:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want a new laptop computer. I sort of think I need a new computer, but the truth is really that I want one. And I know it. The one I am using is still perfectly serviceable...for a while. Yes, I've worn all the lettering off most of the keys, but I've got the keyboard memorized. It's not like I need them.

Yes, the screen does have some colored, verticle lines running down it, but it usually doesn't interfere with anything I'm doing. It's on the side of the screen where all the ads usually go on websties so it doesn't really interfere with my reading blogs or articles or whatever I'm doing. It doesn't even really affect my word processing (which I do a lot of) because the closest line to the document is right at the right hand margin. I've been putting up with that for almost a year, but they are gradually creeping further to the left. It's annoying, mostly when I watch DVD's on it.

And yes, I had to superglue parts of it together when it was only six months old, because the frame was falling apart on me. It's actually held up really well since I did that. And yes, I've had to replace the power cord twice, but the battery still holds almost a full charge (which lasts 3.5 hours on powersaving mode).

It's also very heavy. Which is hard on my hands when I carry it anywhere with me. I really want a lightweight one. Something I can easily transport when DH isn't around to be my beast of burden. The one I want is about two to three pounds. It feels like a feather in comparison. And it comes in hot pink, purple, green and red. *sighs*

It'll be two years old in February and really...I just don't need a new one. Not yet. However, I think I am going to start putting money aside for one, because obviously this one is falling apart and there is going to come a time when it moves firmly into the need (as much as a computer can be a need) column.

I've got this little savings account that I call my WANTS account. It's got a grand total of $47.37 in it at the moment. So I think I'm going to find ways to add to that. I think that since I am regularly contributing to the EF with regular deposits, I am going to take any found money, all of my coin jar savings, and any little thing I do to save myself money that I normally would have spent it on, into that account. So today I cut my bangs myself. Even at the cheapest place in town that would cost me $7. So I will $7 to my WANTS account for that.

It rained really hard this afternoon and all of the snow melted. It's 47 degrees at current. Hard to believe it was a snow day! We ended up going to the library because some of our requests came in. I spent a quarter today for the parking meter. The stupid, newfangled metering system no longer has fifteen free minutes on it. It no longer has the option of using a nickle or a dime, either, and the quarter only buys you 20 minutes. And the five minute drop off slots were all full. I miss having a library with free parking. We only needed five minutes tops to pick up our holds. Holds are self serve and so is checkout. It takes hardly any time at all.

Anyway one of the cookbooks I put on hold last night was in. It's called The Healthy Family by Sandi Richard and has a lot of easy to prepare, quick to make recipes in it. It was rec'ced over at Get Rich Slowly so I thought I'd check it out. The kids were reading it over my shoulder and it looks like they will actually like at least half the recipes. That's a first. Mostly they looked pretty good to me.

I was a little disappointed in some of the recipes ingredients though because they called for things like "cream of" soups. I've never found a healthy "cream of" soup. They are all loaded with sodium, MSG, and other chemicals that I don't really think should be anywhere near a "healthy" cookbook. Those tended to be the ones the kids turned their noses up at though.

And there was almost an abuse of white rice. I mean, I know if you are going for time saving then brown rice isn't your first option, but white rice probably shouldn't be either if you're going for healthy. And with brown rice you could do up a big batch on the weekend for use throughout the week and still save time. But lot of the other recipes seem okay. Especially the Asian style ones. We'll see how they taste and I'll try to follow up if I remember. They do call for a lot of sauces and again that generally means a lot of sodium.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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