Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

Monday:
Teriyaki Beef short ribs
Acorn squash (from the garden)
Strawberries (from the garden)
Salad (from the garden)

Tuesday:
Garlic Butter Chicken
Baked sweet potatoes
Broccoli and cauliflower
Apple

Wednesday:
Beef Pot roast
Roasted Zucchini and Summer Squash (from the garden)
Baked potatoes (from the garden)
Watermelon (from the garden)

Thursday:
Herb roasted rabbit (home raised)
Fried potatoes (from the garden)
Green beans (from the garden)
Home canned nectarines

Friday:
Sloppy Hoppies (home raised rabbit) on homemade buns
Cole slaw (cabbage from the garden)
Canned pineapple

Saturday:
Spaghetti with home grown and homemade spaghetti sauce and rabbit meatballs
Garlic bread
Oranges

Sunday:
Barbecue Rabbit Wings
Leftover vegetables from the week
Applesauce

I am just a wee bit behind there.

$500.00 Loan to Mom
$400.00 Mom's Utilities
__47.86 Life Insurance DH
__44.66 Life Insurance Me
__84.32 Car Insurance
_204.00 Meat from Farm
__50.00 Allowances
__65.03 Groceries
_205.00 Storage
__48.71 50 pounds of no spray potatoes for canning
__16.00 25 pounds of no spray carrots for canning
__15.00 20 no spray bell peppers for freezing
___5.00 10 pounds of no spray onions for freezing
----------------------
$1685.58 Total Money Out

I earned $67 today selling a rabbit to the lady at the farm we buy meat from sometimes. I also spent $204 buying bacon and pork chops. We got quite a bit of it. Part of the $204 was that we put down a $50 deposit on our turkey to be picked up 11/14.

The rabbit money will go into the Christmas Fund, but I'll also be able to lower the fund goal to $950 since I already spent $50 on the turkey. I also need to track down another heritage turkey for the holidays, since I couldn't raise any this year. I think we definitely will next year, though.

I'm having to switch rabbit feed and I'm not happy about it. But I can't get it here without an exorbitant shipping cost. The only way for the shipping to even be reasonable would be to buy 29 fifty pound bags at once. I have the capacity to store 15 bags at the moment.

In order to store 29 I would have to purchase 5 more containers capable of storing 150 pounds in each. I can't leave them on a pallet in the garage because we'll get mice. They have to be in chew proof containers. And we don't have the space to store 5 more bins anyway. Even if I could, it would take too long to get through the feed. It would be very stale and have the possibility of going rancid by the time we went through so much feed.

With the buying club having gone under, I can't reasonably get the organic feed anymore. So we are switching back to the feed we were buying before, which is about 33% of the cost of the organic feed. I hate the idea of going back onto a feed that might have GMOs in it, but there is not much I can do at this point. I will investigate other options, but at least getting this type of feed will buy us time. They do, at least, attempt to get non-GMO ingredients for their feeds, they just can't guarantee it.

I do have to admit it will be nice to see the feed bill drop by so much.

Our back up refrigerator went out earlier this week. Because we use it a lot during harvest time and butchering time, which is now, it is really bad not to have the extra fridge/freezer combo. Since it went out after we had butchered 28 chickens, but before we cut up and froze the meat, it was a somewhat urgent situation. Not totally urgent because the meat was in ice and water in coolers, but that is only good for so long.

We priced new low end fridges and the best price we could find on one of those was $479 plus $42.63 in sales tax. That was way more than we wanted to spend. We went to an estate clearance place because they had a fridge for $159, but it smelled like freezer burn, which in my mind makes me think it will cause serious freezer burn. Plus it was ancient. Not all was lost there, though, because I did find a double boiler for $16.95. I have been looking high and low for one for my salve making and haven't been able to find one and didn't want to buy the expensive ones on Amazon.

We also went to a place that refurbishes used fridges, but they do a ten day testing period and while they had a half dozen fridges, they were all 1 to 3 days into the testing period.

The place that clearances previous model years were all over $500. There were quite a few on Craigslist, some for $200, some for new prices even though they were used. Most of them did not have the right dimensions for the space, though.

Finally we went to the Habitat for Humanity resale store and they had several fridges in working condition. Only two met our dimensions and one of those the freezer part was way too small. So that narrowed it down to one off-white side by side that was perfect for our needs. Grand total spent: $75. Well under what we wanted to spend and helped to support a good charity.

It works great, too. It may not be pretty, but a back up fridge in the laundry room does not have to be. And it's not ugly. It's just not pretty. I am really happy we found it. I would really not have been happy to have to have bought 2 brand new refrigerators in the space of 12 months.

It also does have the hook ups to have filtered water in the door. Obviously we can't do that here, but we might be able to do that in the future after we move. It's an option, anyway. I am very happy with what we managed to find with a lot of legwork and some outside the box thinking.

$254.81 Starting Balance
+_29.50 C1-360 Interest
+__0.20 WE CU Interest
+_51.33 WECU Interest
+_10.00 Weekly Deposit
----------------------------
$345.84 New Balance

$654.16 to go to hit my goal of $1000.

$31,500.00 Starting Balance
+__,500.00 Deposit Added
-----------------------
$32,000.00 New Balance

Also, on the money we've been holding for the guy who remodeled our old house and then immediately went through bankruptcy before we could pay him, we were finally able to make a $5000 payment yesterday and then in 21 to 28 days we will be able to make the remainder payment of $36,000. I will be so glad to not have that money in our credit union account anymore.

I mean, yes, the interest we were collecting on it was nice, but I still didn't like the situation. With the $5000 he is able to open his business account and get all the proper licensing and then when that all runs through, he can then take the additional $36,000 and put it in the business and then he can pull from that gradually as he needs income since he is allowed to pay himself a salary.

What a mess this has all been and I am really glad to see it nearly done.

Househopeful reminded me with her post that I haven't been menu planning in a while and it is something I want to get back to. Especially since we are trying so hard not to eat out. This week was a bust, though. DH and I went out to eat on Thursday since it was the 25th Anniversary of our first date. We didn't spend too much there, it was $41 including a good tip. I had a chicken quesadilla and garden salad and he had beef fajitas, rice, and beans. We went at 4:30 so we could still get lunch prices and portions, but still eat close to dinner time.

Then yesterday my fever spiked and I lost all interest in cooking and DH was still jet-lagged, so we got take away from the Polynesian place, which was almost $50. So there can definitely be no more eating out.

I have enough leftovers between the Mexican and Polynesian foods for my dinner tonight. The kids have enough leftovers from last night. I'm not sure what DH has, but he can have some of my rice and build around that. Plus there is some leftover lasagna, too.

So my meal plan will start with tomorrow.

Sunday:
Rabbit Macaroni Casserole (from the freezer)
Salad
Watermelon

Monday:
Barbecue Chicken Wings
Fried Potatoes
Cole slaw
Watermelon

Tuesday:
Sloppy Hoppies
Oranges
Cole slaw

Wednesday:
Korean Short Ribs
Sweet Meat Squash, mashed
Green Beans

Thursday:
Rabbit Stir-fry with peppers, onions, broccoli, carrots, celery, snow peas
Oranges

Friday:
Rabbit Chili
Garlic Bread
Salad

Saturday:
Pork Chops
Applesauce
Cole slaw

I haven't been doing these for a while, but felt like I wanted to get back to recording stuff in more than just my spreadsheet.

$1753.84 Travel BoA VISA
__100.00 Checking Cushion
__120.00 Physical Therapy
__203.77 Groceries (Trader Joe's)
___23.84 Groceries (Safeway)
__100.00 Cash for Week
___50.00 Allowances
__248.87 AMEX
___48.24 Pharmacy
__500.00 Down Payment Fund
___15.00 Pharmacy
---------------------
$3163.56

We will be buying some clothes tomorrow for DH and DS. I am hoping to keep it under $200.

$186.81 Starting Balance
+_68.00 Deposit (Egg Money, Coin Jar, Surveys)
---------------------
$254.81 New Balance

$745.19 to go.

$176.81 Starting Balance
+_10.00 Weekly Update
--------------------
$186.81 New Balance

$813.19 to go.

I haven't been posting much. I've been sick. I'm still sick. My biggest symptom is exhaustion. Low grade fever, mildly stuffy, a little bit of a scratchy throat. As colds go it isn't miserable, I just can't get to the point where I am not tired. The first few days I slept constantly. Now I just wish I could. Hopefully it will pass soon. It feels a lot like mono, but I had that as a kid and it is my understanding you cannot get it twice.

Finances are on autopilot. We do have to do some shopping, though. DH has lost about 50 pounds and his pants are falling down. He needs a new belt, some new jeans, and some undergarments. And DS needs the same as we never did get him any at back to school time and he's grown several inches since last year. We will try to keep the spending down, though.

I need to get some new long-sleeved shirts. My old ones are too big. I want turtlenecks to protect my throat. I will probably order them from a catalog though in a variety of colors. I hate shopping for clothes.

Sometime in the next month or so we need to get a new microwave. Ugh. I also hate shopping for appliances. Actually, I just hate shopping.

$136.54 Starting Balance
+_10.00 Weekly Deposit
+_10.00 Egg Sales
+__1.00 Coin Jar
+_19.27 Safe Driver Refund Check
----------------------
$176.81 New Balance

$823.19 to go to hit my goal of $1000.

I should be able to add to this a little more substantially either tomorrow or next Friday. Depends on whether or not they take the medical out of tomorrow's paycheck or the next one.

As a side note, I am starting a Nook Fund next payday. DH really wants one and since we have been holding on not getting smart phones and because he travels so much AND because we have been talking about it for about a year and it doesn't seem to be an impulse want, I am putting it into the budget. I will call it the Nook Fund, but I will keep track of it in the category of Laptop Fund.

And speaking of the Laptop Fund, as soon as the Nook is funded and purchased, I will begin saving for a replacement laptop for my old Windows 7 machine. So far it is doing okay, but it has a couple of glitches. If you tilt the screen back too far it shuts off. I'm sure that means a loose wire. The fan doesn't always work and the DVD player is broken. When it does work it sounds like an airplane taking off, but most of the time it won't even start anymore.

This is not a deal breaker, as I have a portable USB DVD drive that I can use with it. The only DVD player I have access to is with my computer (and DH has one in his). I have a lot of series on DVD's that we own and many we can borrow from family and we get DVD's from Netflix because not everything we want to see streams, so it would be nice to have a more functional one. We don't have a TV anymore, so we don't have that as an option to hook up a regular DVD player.

So while I will muddle on with this computer until it stops functioning, I want the money in place for when it does.

$126.54 Starting Balance
+_10.00 Weekly Deposit
---------------------
$136.54 New Balance

$863.46 to go to hit my goal of $1000.

Starting next payday (9/18) I will be able to start contributing more substantially to this fund.

I deposited a check today from Pinecone and some money from the coin jar.

$89.85 Starting Balance
+30.00 Pinecone
+_6.50 Coin Jar
+__.19 Interest
----------------------
$126.54 New Balance

$873.46 to go.

$79.85 Starting Balance
+10.00 Weekly Deposit
--------------------
$89.85 New Balance

$910.15 to go.

On Thursday we picked up 1/4 of a beef cow (yes, cow, not steer) at the butcher's. The meet itself was $475. The cut and wrap was $195.71. Total cost was $670.71. It worked out to about $3 per pound for grass fed organic beef. I also got 40 pounds of tallow. I only asked for 10, but they give it away, so now I have an overwhelming amount of frozen beef fat to render.

It is for making soaps and lotions, though, so it will all get used eventually. I might also use some for the deep fat fryer. Tallow used to be what all the restaurants used to cook their fries in before they all switched to hydrogenated vegetable oil for "health" reasons, only we know now that is far worse.

It has filled up 3 compartments in the freezer. It is amazing how little space it takes up. If I hadn't had the tallow it all would have fit in two compartments, which is 1/8 of the overall chest freezer space. It will last a long time, though.

We had the first meat from it last night for dinner and it is very flavorful.

We lost power on Saturday in the massive wind storm Western WA had. We were out of power for a little over 8 hours, so we ended up getting takeout from a place that still had power. We spent $48 for 4 people. If it had gone more than that day we would have gotten out the camp stove and started using it to cook on. We had hot water since our water heater is gas and the pilot light was still on.

I made a couple of videos from the day of the storm and the day after showing damages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FciaxrDMHtE

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7ElDGouEDk

It got pretty bad in places, but most of the county has power back as of today. We lost a bush and had a lot of damage to some squash vines, corn, and tomato plants, but otherwise came through pretty unscathed. The animals were okay, especially after we put the shutter up over the windows of the rabbit shed. All of their roofs stayed on.

The first half week of school went well for my son. Although he is already starting to pull some of the same stuff as last year. We are nipping it in the bud, though. It's not my fault if he stays up too late playing video games after being told to go to bed. He doesn't get to be "sick" and stay home and sleep because he made wrong choices. He gets to go to school anyway. And his video game machine gets to sleep in my room until the weekend.

My mom had her 76th birthday on the 28th and then my husband had his 46th birthday on the 30th, but it was all very laid back. We had too much work to do to really celebrate. We had to clean 18 rabbit cages over the weekend, plus we were canning. Farm chores and garden preservation do not stop just because someone is now a year older.

It has been raining pretty non-stop for the last two days. Since it has only rained twice prior to this the entire summer, it is very good for the area, but I feel spoiled after such a nice summer for wanting it to stop. And I'm worried it will spoil and split the rest of my tomatoes. The weather is supposed to get nice again by Friday, at least for a few days.

$49.00 Beginning Balance
+30.85 Interest Added
----------------------
$79.85 New Balance

$920.15 to go to hit my goal of $1000.

I did receive a Pinecone check in the mail today, so will be depositing that and whatever is in the coin jar tomorrow as well.

It is amazing to me that 2 3 gallon buckets of tomatoes from the garden, an onion, 2 bell peppers, and 5 cloves of garlic boiled down for 4 to 5 hours are what it takes to make 4.5 quarts of spaghetti sauce. How the heck do they sell it so cheap in the stores? I don't get it.

Even the organic tomato sauce is cheap. Yet tomatoes, even in season like now, are freakishly expensive when you don't grow them yourself. And ketchup? How is ketchup so cheap? I seriously do not get it after all the processing I've been doing.

Oh, well. I now have a total of 4 quart jars, 5 pint and a half jars, and one pint of completely homemade spaghetti sauce. And judging from the tomatoes still on my table and the unripe ones still on the plants, there is no end in sight. It tastes amazing though.

I forgot to add the weekly deposit yesterday to the Christmas Fund in the last entry and it's not letting me go back and edit it in. If I don't record it, though, my spreadsheet does not match my blog and my OCD does not like that one bit.

$39.00 Starting Balance
+10.00 Weekly Deposit Added
==================
$49.00 Ending Balance

$951 to go.

$39.00 Opening Balance

$961.00 to go to meet my goal of $1000.

This fund will pay for our heritage turkey as well as gifts, travel gas, decorations, and the bump to the electric bill due to Christmas lights.

$3555.54 Beginning Balance
+_444.46 Deposit Added
-------------------
$4000.00 Final Balance

Now I can start adding to the Christmas Fund.

It has been a very busy week for me in the kitchen. I have canned 7 quarts of dill pickles (please, make the cucumbers stop now), 13 pint and a half jars and 1 pint jar of green beans, 5 quarts of rabbit meat, and 14 quarts of Yukon Gold potatoes. I made a batch of rabbit jerky.

I have chopped and frozen several quart size baggies worth of bell peppers and onions, and made a quart of salsa from the garden today because I had several tomatoes that were finally ripe all at once.

I am close to the $800 mark on how much produce I have gotten from my organic garden this spring and summer and with these tomatoes ripening it is going to easily reach the $1000 mark. And that doesn't even take into account the numerous acorn and sweet meat squashes coming on. This was so worth the $400 it took to build this garden.

Tomorrow I have to make bone broth from all the rabbit bones and then I will need to can it the next day. I want to try to get another 20 pounds of potatoes canned and another 20 pounds of green beans. And I think next week will be the start of some serious tomato harvesting and canning, too.

We will be butchering chickens at that point, too. None too soon as some of them are starting in with mini-crowing. Nothing loud and it's pretty pathetic rooster cries, but we want to keep it that way and get it done before they start waking the neighborhood.

Fortunately I can easily can diced tomatoes and salsa. Sauce and ketchup will just have to wait until the chickens are done. Since we will have a plucker, I think we can get through 15 to 20 chickens a day. Should take us 3 to 4 days to do it. DH can butcher 8 rabbits in an hour. Chickens are more work than that, but I think we can spend about 3 hours a day on it and get it done pretty easily. Or at least quickly.

We get our 1/4 of a beef on Friday. I've made enough room in the freezer by canning a lot of the rabbit meat that was in there over the last few weeks. There will be room for our 30 chickens, too.

It will be nice not to have to buy much in the way of meat (pretty much just seafood and bacon) for the next half year or so.

$3482.54 Starting Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Deposit
---------------------
$3492.54 New Balance
+__63.00 Farm Sales and Coin Jar
-------------------
$3555.54 New Total

$444.46 to go to hit my goal of $4000.

I am struggling a little bit with wanting to eat out right now. I don't want to do it because it is expensive and I'm trying to save money. I know it is simply a reaction to being in pain. Well, it's more a reaction to having an almost constant headache.

Between the broken nose and the mild concussion, it just almost never goes away except when I am sleeping and that has more to do with the narcotics the doctor gave me knocking me out for the night. Headache pain has always been much harder for me to deal with than any other type of pain because it always makes me feel like I'm not myself.

It is really hard to want to make meals from scratch when you feel sick, but pain is even harder, at least for me. But I don't feel up to driving either. I had to drive Thursday to go to my doctor's appointment and my son's doctor's appointment. I don't want to drive again for a while. It takes too much focus. So that is keeping my spending in check.

Since I am fundamentally against paying extra to have food delivered to my home, and not much delivers here anyway, I am trying to focus on simpler meals, or meals my daughter can make while I am nearby for help or reassurance. I have been teaching her to cook more things this year, but she lacks confidence to do it without a lot of hand holding yet.

The doctor says the break still looks straight, but the swelling isn't fully gone and we can't determine everything until it is. So far it is looking good enough he doesn't think I will need to go to an ENT doctor. Now that there is a lot less swelling I can actually feel the break when I touch the bridge of my nose. There is a little ripple there that was not there before. It's nothing you can see, though. The abrasion has almost completely healed. I really wish I didn't wear glasses right now, though. I know they are adding to some of the discomfort.

More concerning are the concussion symptoms, at least to me. The doctor doesn't seem to be worried, though. I am a little forgetful and find myself searching for words a lot more than usual. And I feel like a space cadet. Just a lot of brain fog. I am not used to having headaches. I haven't had them since I took all of the additives and preservatives and MSG and stuff out of my diet several years ago, except on very rare occasions or with a sinus or kidney infection or lack of sleep or my neck was out of alignment. And those were quickly remedied.

I know I will get better with time, but it is hard to push through right now. I am getting as much rest as I can. That is what the doctor said to do. But I still have animals to take care of and a garden to keep under control. The kids are helping, but I can't just check out like I could if DH was home. He will be home the day after school starts so I won't have to do too much driving in the early a.m. when I am not alert and am very foggy. In fact, if DS rides his bike the first 2 days of school I won't have to drive at all. Hopefully it won't rain.

So far I am managing to stick to my meal plans. I know I haven't been posting them, but I have still been making them. They are generally easier foods, though. No one is up for super complicated.

I do find that I'm not eating much outside of dinner. It's too much work. I'll grab a string cheese so I can take my medicine without it making me queasy, but that's about it. Not very healthy. I ought to make up some hard-boiled eggs so I'd at least have something a little more substantial during the day. I do have my electric egg cooker and it turns off when done, so I don't have to pay attention to it. Maybe I should do that.

Okay, this is getting long and rambling and may or may not make sense. I am not the best judge of that right now. So I'll stop babbling for now.

$3472.54 Starting Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Deposit
------------------
$3482.54 New Balance

$517.46 to go to hit my goal of $4000.

I have been trying to come up with ways to stay motivated when I'm saving up and not paying down. I saw a neat thing on someone's blog (Debt Free Charts on blogspot) and while they were mainly focused on paying off debt with their charts, I took the idea and made up my own chart for my down payment.



The idea is to mark off a line every time I have added $500 to the down payment fund. This way I can have a visual representation of our savings account growing that isn't just a number. I set the goal at $80,000.

I think having the chart to fill in will motivate me. I really want something to. I put it on the back of my bedroom door so I have to see it every morning when I get up and every night when I shut the door. It will have a real presence in my life. I don't know if that presence will lead to urgency to save or not, but I have to think it will have more of a chance of doing that than doing nothing at all, right?

I was able to do a little more today without completely feeling like my head was in outer space, but I kept my son with me or my mother with me while I did things. I had top pick green beans, about 3 pints worth and then I pulled out the spent vines, which was about 1/4 of them and fed them to the birds who will love me forever for it, or at least until tomorrow.

I picked 3 jalapenos and about a dozen strawbrerries and a yellow crookneck squash and then watered the 3 large beds for the day.

Then I took my son to the front yard and had him pick the zucchini and our first front yard yellow crookneck squash. I still can't bend down without getting dizzy and in the front yard I can't sit down at a chair to work since everything is in the ground and not raised beds.

Then he picked a bucket full of cucumbers. There are cantaloupe coming and loads of acorn squash and the sweet meat has squash on it, too, now. One of the vines had climbed up a stalk of corn and was making it's way across the top of several other stalks so we had to unwind and disconnect it, then redirect to the ground. These squashes will get too heavy to be airborne!

Then after a break he brought the 8 rabbits that had been thawing in the fridge to the freezer and I cut the meat off the bones of all the back legs and back pieces. We had half the front legs for dinner tonight and I refroze the other 8 front legs for another night when we want barbecue "wings." The rib cage pieces are soaking in a brine and we will have them for dinner Thursday night as southern fried rabbit.

I took the meat that I had deboned and it filled 5 quart jars and then I canned them. That will make for some nice stews, enchiladas, and pulled rabbit for future meals this fall and winter. Tomorrow I will roast the bones and then start another pot of bone broth going that I will also can. It'll have to be after my doctor's appointment tomorrow, though. I will also can the green beans I picked today. I should have 2 pint and a half jars there.

I need to pull out 8 more bags of rabbit meat to defrost from the freezer. I am trying to get as much canned as possible between now and when our 1/4 beef share is ready at the end of the month and also have room for the meat chickens we will be butchering in September. And then make sure there will be room for the turkeys we will order. We will be canning some of the hamburger and some of the beef roasts as well. Having so much canned meat on hand makes the school year go so smoothly where meals are concerned.

I need to try to make it over to the canning sale as well. 2 stores are having one and it's about the same so I'll go to whichever one I am closest to. I also want to buy some carrots to can. What I grow won't be enough. I'm down to 3 or 4 jars of carrots so it is very low.

The only thing I'm lower on is potatoes. And from the looks of what Mom dug up today, I will probably need to order potatoes to make up for it. Probably 50 pounds and then again 50 pounds later in the season. I'd really like to have 104 quarts of potatoes on the shelves before I'm through. That will allow us to have potatoes twice a week. 156 quarts would be more ideal, but I'm not sure if that will happen or not.

It sounds like a lot to be doing, but the kids will be helping me and so will Mom. We'll get it done and I will take rest as I need it.

Yesterday DH and I went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. I am hoping not to have to shop again except for milk and bananas for about 3 weeks. It is pretty hard to do with the pain and fogginess from my broken nose and what actually probably is a mild concussion. Or else just a reaction to the pain medication. Hard to say, but I feel very out of it.

I spent $162.71. We got a few packaged meals and some other things that will make it easy to fill in around the produce coming in from the garden and the meat in the freezer.

We have canned a lot this week. My husband has done a lot of it under my supervision simply because I get dizzy a lot right now. But between the two of us we have canned:

7 quarts and 1 pint of beef
6 quarts and 1 pint of rabbit
6 quarts of zucchini and summer squash
3 pint and a half jars of green beans
13 pints of rabbit bone broth
6 pints of bread and butter pickles
6 quarts of garlic dill pickles

We also made a batch of rabbit jerky with the abdominal flaps that can be very chewy and basically are only good for being ground or making jerky. Some people make bacon with it, but I feel it is too chewy for bacon.

We plan to can hamburger and more beef chunks today and more rabbit tomorrow. I need to do another batch of garlic dill pickles as the cucumbers are getting ridiculous.

I have an order in with a local place for 20 pounds of no spray green beans. We are having issues with the pole bean crop so I wanted to make sure I had enough green beans canned for the year. I think between that and what we do get from our garden it will cover it. I will be buying some carrots soon, too. We are down to 4 quarts of canned carrots. The ones I am growing are more for fresh eating and a little dehydrating as they don't get very big.

We also have an order in for dill since the stores keep running out. They don't seem to be stocking very well for pickling season this year. They do have those super expensive little plastic packets, but one of those costs about as much as a huge bunch of fresh dill.

I bought a garlic braid since my garlic crop failed. It has about 40 heads of garlic on it, which will meet my needs for the year. I have 5 or 6 left on last year's braid so am going to slice up the cloves, dehydrate them, and grind into powder.

Fortunately a lot of this stuff I can do sitting down. I do have to be careful not to push too hard, but it is difficult when there is so much to do to get ready for winter.

I heard the other day that our beef share should be ready on August 28th or thereabouts. I am getting 1/4 of a grass fed, organic beef. It will work out to $4 per pound. We will can most of the roasts and some of the hamburger. I will also be getting 10 pounds of tallow to render for soap making and lotion making. Beef fat is very good for those things and very healthy for the body, as opposed to a lot of the chemically laden soaps and lotions.

Next month the meat chickens will be ready to butcher as well, so I'll be putting 30 chickens in the freezer. We'll also have 3 rabbits ready to butcher then, too. So lots of work coming up, but it will be so worth it to not buy much meat for a year at the store. And in the long run we save a lot of money buy buying in bulk and preserving or raising our own and preserving.

We will still have to buy sea food since DH's big fishing trip fell through. I was pretty disappointed as they were going to be fishing for King salmon and one of those would have been around 35 pounds, plenty for a year. But life happens and there is nothing we can do about it now.

I lost 10% of my body weight over the past 6 months with an initial bet at dietbet of $125. My winnings for the 6 months was $289.18, netting me a profit of $164.18. Not bad for something I was doing anyway, losing weight. I more than doubled my money. And having money in the game has been the most motivation I've ever had not to screw up my diet. Losing money was not an option for me.

I also have some money in there from doing a couple of monthly dietbets as well and winning them. So there is a total of $324.04 sitting in the account. I have more than doubled my investment.

I am going to take a month off, I think, maybe two (of the dietbet, not the diet) and then do another Transformer. With the broken nose I won't be able to exercise like I have been and so I'll wait until it heals enough to resume that kind of activity before putting money down again.

I am not 100% sure what I will do with the money, but I am leaning towards putting it towards a barrel chicken plucker for the farm.

$3247.54 Starting Balance
+_225.00 Monthly Deposit
---------------
$3472.54 New Balance

$527.46 to go to hit my goal of $4000.

I should be able to hit this goal by the end of September or the first week of October. Then I will use the weekly and monthly deposits and the coin jar and farm sales money for my Christmas Fund. Christmas is going to be pretty low-key again, like last year, so we should easily be able to have enough money for that by the end of the year.

The other big milestone for me, is that we have hit over $50K in savings. Between the Emergency Fund, the Farm Down Payment Fund, and the other smaller, short-term funds, we have gone over $50K in the bank for the first time. I am not counting the money we owe the contractor as I consider that his money that we are holding. We have never had that much money in the bank before. It's really nice. I know it will drop down in January when we need to use the JMF, but it won't take too long to get it there again after that. We should have it there by April.