Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

Okay so breakfasts are pretty much the same around here for the kiddos. Usually pancakes and eggs for the boy and peanut butter toast or leftover something or other for the girl. She doesn't like to eat too much first thing in the morning.

Lunches for the kids during the school week are turkey and roast beef sandwiches for the boy and either ham or turkey wraps of some sort for the girl. They have their choice of taking yogurt and fruit (kiwis and pineapple chunks for either or an apple for the girl). DS usually gets hot lunch on Tuesdays (chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and some sort of fruit), which reminds me that I need to write a check for $18 for the rest of the year. I want the account bottomed out. I don't like to run it with a balance over the summer, even if I know he will just use it next September.

I am going to make myself a low carb meatloaf tomorrow for my lunches this week. I am only eating high carbs once a day right now at dinner time. It's just eggs, parmesan and romano cheese, ground beef, green onions and garlic. I'll probably post the actual recipe and amounts with photos tomorrow. The camera is fritzing still, so sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and I haven't made it to buy a new one yet. I will have a salad of mixed greens with the meatloaf.

I will probably do up a batch of taco meat, too. I often eat leftover taco meat on lettuce with cheese for breakfast when I am too tired to make myself eggs or sausage. I may also make and fry up some lamb sausage patties after lunch for breakfasts, too. I usually eat cucumber slices with my breakfast if it is not taco meat on lettuce.

So dinners:

Monday--Homemade pizza with prosciutto, hamburger (this will be the leftover hamburger patty I made yesterday crumbled up), onions, red peppers (at least on my portion), mozzarella cheese and a bit of cheddar, and pepperoni. Salad. Milk.

Tuesday--Spaghetti with meatballs. I am going to make my fancy from scratch sauce and make extra meatballs for the next day. Leftover broccoli and cauliflower will be the veggies unless I eat them for lunch, then they will be fresh instead. Milk.

Wednesday--Meatball sandwiches. I have some homemade hamburger buns to use up. I will save out some of the spaghetti sauce and use the leftover meatballs for this. Green beans. Milk.

Thursday--oven baked chicken, from scratch mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli and cauliflower. Canteloupe. Milk. (I will save some of the boiled potatoes before I mash them for tomorrow).

Friday--Bacon cheeseburgers with fried potatoes using the saved boiled potatoes. Green beans. Milk.

Saturday--Beef Tacos, sweet potatoes and whatever leftover cut fruit we have left and if none I will open up something else or we will do bananas.

Sunday--Beef pot roast, from scratch mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans. Milk.

There. I feel much better having a plan for the week.

I have had some serious food cravings this week. Yesterday it was a bacon cheeseburger, and today it was seafood. A good seafood dinner of lobster tails in a restaurant will set you back anywhere from $25.99 to $35.99 per person and that's assuming you're getting the regular 4 ounce one and not one of the fancier, larger ones, or a whole lobster at market price. Fortunately my favorite grocery store had an awesome seafood sale this week and they were selling 4 ounce lobster tails for $4.99. This is pretty much unheard of. I bought three of them. They were raw.

I have only made lobster tails a couple times in my life and that has been years and years ago and involved using the broiler. I wasn't really in the mood to heat the house up that high on such a hot day and the cookbook I used in the past was in storage, so I looked up how to cook them on the internet and I was very happy with how they turned out. It was also a surprisingly fast meal to get on the table, about 20 minutes from start to finish and that was without any help from the kids.

I started setting the oven to 450 and then I got out my lobster tails. They looked like this:



I took a good pair of poutry scissors and cut down the middle of the back of each tail.



You then have to open the cut and work the meat away from the shell and bringing it up on top of it, like how they serve it in restuarants. Remove the waste tube and throw it away and rinse the meat well. Put each tail in the middle of a piece of aluminum foil and dot the meat with butter. You can also season it now, but I like my lobster to taste like lobster and not meat seasoning so I didn't. I wrapped it loosely in the foil and then put each one in a metal cake pan.

I then started the water to boil for my broccoli and cauliflower and when the oven beeped I slipped the lobster tails inside and set the timer for 10 minutes. I quickly cut up my broccoli and cauliflower and rinsed it, then I took three leftover baked potatoes out of the fridge from a big batch I'd cooked earlier in the week and put them in the microwave to warm up (although 3 potatoes would have only taken 10 minutes of baking in the microwave and 5 minutes of steam time if they had been uncooked. When the water boiled I threw in the veggies and set them for 7 minutes.



I pulled out the lobster when it dinged and left it in the foil to stay warm, while I turned to my beautiful fresh pineapple and turned it into this:



I pulled the potatoes out of the microwave, split them and put butter on them.



Then the veggies were done so I drained them, and then put everything on the table. We unwrapped the lobster tails and they looked like this:



Although this meal might be pricier than most, I still came in at under $25 for the three of us (including milk), a savings of at least $50 if we'd eaten this food in the restaurant, more than that if we'd had drinks and not water. And that's with all the items I made being organic and the lobster being wild caught. Not bad if I do say so myself and everything tasted wonderful.

I will return to making meals that are much more frugal for the rest of the week, but sometimes it's nice to treat yourself, without going to the expense of a restaurant meal and this was my Mother's Day gift to myself!

...or at least it is if you can cook. And cheaper, too. I was majorly craving fast food today, but I absolutely had no inclination to leave the house or yard and even less inclination to spend money. So what to do when you absolutely must have that most evil of burgers (the one with bacon)? Why make it yourself. If you're lucky you'll end up with something that looks like this:



And maybe even tastes like it. I tell you that grass fed organic hamburger cooked in the fat from the bacon from the free range pigs, sprinkled with onion salt and meat seasoning on a homemade bun with organic sheep's cheddar cannot be beat. Not even by the best burger joint in town.

Of course you must have fries with that, right? So I took three leftover organic baked potatoes, peeled them and cut them up, sprinkled them with salt and pepper, and fried them in e.v. olive oil (not organic, even I can't justify that price!).

And again, if you're lucky they'll turn out looking a bit like this:



And then add some of these:



and a couple of these:



in the blender with some all natural french vanilla ice cream to make one of these:



Total cost? About $15. Amount I would have spent getting the same amounts and types of food of lesser quality for the three of us? About $30 (milkshakes are expensive!). And there's one leftover burger patty for someone's lunch tomorrow or to crumble up as a pizza topping.

I decided to make sourdough starter tonight. I haven't made sourdough bread (or starter) in several years, mostly because I didn't want to tie up my biggest glass bowl at the time. Starter has to be made in a glass, ceramic, or crock container and can only be mixed with a wooden or plastic spoon as it reacts badly with metal and you can easily kill it. Now I have a gigantic glass bowl (that came as part of a set one Christmas) and it is a pain in the butt, quite frankly. It's heavy and takes up way too much space in the fridge, but it is just perfect for setting on the counter for ages and holding starter.

I love making bread (and not having to buy expensive additive free store loaves!) but I haven't done it much of late and I really want to get back into it again. As I am getting low on yeast and want to save it for when I make rolls and buns, starter is a good way to go. It only takes 2 1/4 teaspoons and then you never need to use yeast again unless you kill your starter off. It's the ultimate in frugality if you bake every day. I end up spending somewhere around 50 cents a loaf and I love that when similar bread would cost me $4. And there is nothing like the smell of fresh sourdough bread permeating the house.

If anyone else is interested in making a sourdough starter, there are some great directions on this page:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Bread/SourdoughStarter.htm. It's pretty much foolproof if you follow the directions exactly. I am really looking forward to my first loaf, even if it won't be for several days.

Today was such a beautiful day that I finally got around to planting my lettuce. I am now the proud owner of two long window boxes full of romaine and red leaf lettuces. The starts have been sitting around in their little boxes for two weeks now and it almost seemed like they were very happy to stretch their feet (er, roots) in their new habitat.

I also commandeered one of my mother's large pots and planted an heirloom brandywine tomato plant that I bought at the organic food store today. I don't know if the chickens will bother a tomato plant or not, but I really didn't feel like tempting them by putting it into the ground. The older hens are trained not to go up on the front deck though they pretty much have free range of the rest of the property and the half grown chicks and the not so little ducks can't fly well enough to get out of their very large fenced area so they won't be going up there either.

I may end up transplanting the tomato plant again when it gets bigger. They don't tend to pick on plants that are bigger than themselves. I'd like to do some cucumbers, green beans, broccoli and kohlrabi this season, too, but I am not sure I have the stamina to weed that much ground. I haven't gardened in about 3 years and I still can't sit on my knees since the surgery. I could do cucumbers in a pot, I suppose and maybe some bush beans that way, too. Maybe I can talk DS into clearing some ground for me for some extra cash. He's willing to do extra work for a dollar an hour. LOL He's a real bargain.

I found these today:

http://www.bagthehabit.com/shop_bags and I thought that was one of the niftiest and most frugal ideas I've seen in a long time. I mean, I've been using reusable grocery bags for years, but I never even thought about reusable produce bags. We buy a lot of produce and I end up bringing a lot of plastic into the house that way.

I mean, I avoid it where I can. You'll never see me put bananas or onions in a plastic bag. Garlic goes bagless. If I'm only buying one fruit, like a canteloupe, I don't put it in a bag. But other things will get damaged if not protected, like lettuce, and some things are too difficult to manage. It's one thing if you have two onions to not bag them. Twelve potatoes on the other hand can be an issue and will irritate the heck out of the checkers, I'm sure!

So with part of my June allowance I am going to send for some of these and try them out. I've found several different companies that make them, I just liked these ones because they came in pretty colors and not just white.

I'm looking to get a new camera soon, within the next month or so, as DH's good free one that he got from work several years ago has inexplicably stopped working. The button you push to take pictures will no longer fully depress. I will take it into the camera store to see if there is anything that can be done. My own camera is so old that it can only do very short vid clips and the clarity of the photos, while state of the art at the time, are not nearly as crisp as even the cheapest digital cameras today.

So I was curious as to what the folks here on the blogs use? I just want to be able to take nice, clear photos and one minute vid clips. I don't need fancy lenses though I want the ability to zoom in or zoom out. Point and shoot is about where my abilities lie, so something simpler is better than something complicated. I don't want to spend a ton of money on it either, but I don't want to cheap out and not get a decent one either.

Right now I am pretty much confined to having DS take photos with his DSI and filching his memory card. That's okay for some things, but the aren't quite as clear as I'd like them to be.

I do like the idea of the slim cameras that you can fit in your pocket, but I've had no experience with whether those are a good camera or not. Thoughts?

I did a bit of food rescue tonight. In our effort to eat more organic produce (or just more produce), I sometimes find that I have overbought a bit (or even a lot). Tonight I went through the two produce drawers in the fridge to make sure everything was still edible. The strawberries were starting to look a tad past their prime so I pulled off the stems, cut them up, and put a little organic cane sugar on them. The sugar will act as a preservative and keep them edible for a couple more days. There is less than a cup, though, so I will encourage someone to eat them tomorrow.

I also found half a bunch of celery that was wilted. I cleaned and cut up the remaining stalks, putting the center most ones aside for the chickens. I find those ones flavorless (except the leaves which are great in stock). The other ones I put into a container with water. That will rehydrate them and they will be crispy and crunchy in less than an hour.

I performed the same trick with some limp carrots, peeling and cutting them up into finger length sections, and putting them into water. By morning they will be crisp again.

I had some rather sad looking oranges that have been in the frigde for...well, I don't remember the last time I bought oranges, but I know it was in the winter. I cut them in half. The wooden looking ones I set aside to give to the chickens and the ones that still looked like they were juicy I put on my citrus press and squeezed the juice out, so there is a quart of fresh squeezed orange juice now sitting in my fridge. We will taste it tomorrow and if it isn't quite sweet enough to be drinkable I will freeze it in ice cube trays to add to smoothies. I don't think I'll be buying a case of oranges from Costco again any time soon.

There was a canteloupe half that had gotten put into the drawer, which I figure DH did because no one else would. We (the rest of us) all know that cut melons don't go in the drawer because they can seep juice all over everything else. It was just beyond saving, not moldy but getting that tight look that changes the texture, so it will go to the chickens.

Sadly I found 2 cucumbers and a jalapeno pepper that could not be salvaged in any way, not even to give to the chickens.

On the bright side I didn't throw out any lettuce or meat. I've been staying on top of that much better. I'd like to get my food waste down to about 2%. I think it's at around 5% now.

I found a source of food dyes derived from natural sources, as well as colored sugars also colored from natural sources, things like beet powder and pomegranate. This means that I can once again make colored frosting for birthday cakes and decorate Christmas cookies with sugar sprinkles. This may seem like not much of a big deal for some of you, but we've had nothing but homemade chocolate cocoa frosting or homemade vanilla frosting on our homemade cakes for the last 4 years due to allergies to chemical tar-based food dyes, which is what things are normally colored with in the food industry.

I love the idea of having sprinkles and blue or yellow frosting and not having to worry about my child breaking out into hives. And I can make colored play clay again, which my kids (now 12 and 15) still love to play with. I could also, if I so chose, color a pitcher of homemade lemonade pink because there are some days when you just want pink lemonade. I can make green mashed potatoes on St. Patrick's Day!

It's just nice, when you are confined to making almost everything from scratch to have fun decorating opportunities again. The set was a bit pricy, for three primary color dyes and six colored sugars it was $54 plus shipping, but like all food dyes a little goes a long way and it should last for years. And sometimes it is worthwhile to spend a little bit more for a product that will enhance your life even if just in small ways.

The brand is called India Tree for anyone who might want to try it. I'll do another post about it once I've received it and used it, but I found very, very positive reviews for it.

So DH was going through his check stubs and realized one was missing for a date back in February. And his numbers were not adding up to where they should have been. So I checked with the CU and it turns out a paycheck was never deposited for that date. It was back in February and it was one of the two day paychecks. I was really sick then. That's the only reason I can think of that I didn't notice. Anyway, he's thinking the time sheet might have gotten lost in the shuffle of start up after a month long shut-down.

So he talked to his boss and his boss is going to figure out what happened there and how to submit for the lost time. The long and short of it is that eventually we'll get about $1000 net when they issue the missing paycheck that we weren't expecting. That would be enough to make the deposit on the grass fed beef and have a little left over for the freezer fund.

My check from American Opinion Consumer Panel came today. It was $20.05. It will go into emergency fund.

DH cleaned out his wallet as he flies out today and so I had $10.32 to put into the coin jar.

No money was spent today, but I gave DD $5 to pay for her field trip tomorrow.

Today was a very boring day.

After having made cheeseburgers with bacon for lunch and beef potroast for dinner, trying three of the items we bought from the farm, I am very happy with our purchase of the grass fed, organic beef. The hamburger is so lean (5% fat) it doesn't make enough fat to fry the meat in, though. We ended up just frying it in the bacon fat for our bacon cheeseburgers, which was delcious though it took away from the 5%. The bacon was lean too, but being bacon still had some fat, but I was surprised at the much smaller amount of drippings.

The chuck roast was very moist and tender after cooking in the crockpot on low for 8 hours. It was incredibly flavorful. I am glad they warned us to not have such a free hand with seasoning because half of what I normally put on was all that was needed. In fact DH forgot to put seasoning on the bacon cheeseburgers that he made (they were out when I made mine, so he made his and the kids' when they got back) and he said it didn't even need the seasoning. I thought that might be from the flavor imparted from the bacon, though.

They also told us to take smaller portions than we were used to eating because grass fed, organic beef has more protein in it per ounce and it fills you up faster. So far I have found that to be true. I ended up giving the last few bites to my son because I wanted to have room for my fresh organic strawberries and my organic mixed greens. So even though it may be more expensive to buy it, the fact that you don't have to eat as much of it to get full, might help lower the overall cost a bit.

I am really looking forward to trying the steaks and the sausages over the next couple of days.

I want to get some meat from the other farm in Bow to try. This one was black angus but the other is chiangus a cross between angus and chianina. I know I like angus, and I know chianina is supposed to be wonderful but I've never had it. If they don't sell any steaks to try, I guess I will go with the first place.

So we are back from our trip to Skagit River Ranch. We bought $255 worth of beef, a pack of their bacon, a pack of their mild Italian sausage, and a dozen eggs (since our chickens still aren't laying enough to keep up with five people).

We got to see quite a lot of the animals as we drove in, there was a lot of acreage. It's almost funny to see chickens out in a pasture, it's not the idea of Americana farmer that I have in my head, though it should be.

We were greeted by a rooster, three hens and a dog who looked like he was mostly border collie who'd been rolling around in something as he had leaves and dirt on him. He smelled okay so not something else you might find on a farm! He was very friendly and had a tail that could thump you hard with his happiness.

We went into the little farm store they had that is open only on Saturdays and we got to pick out our meat. Since it was our first time there, the girl running the shop went to get her father, the farmer, and he talked to us all about his farming practices and how he'd started farming the healthy way after he'd had serious health problems.

It was interesting and I learned a lot about sustainable farming, pasture rotation, composting, etc. He is very passionate about it and isn't that what you want in your food producer? Someone who cares about the health of the land and the animals and their vitality?

I can't wait to try the beef tomorrow. We will be making cheeseburgers for lunch and having a pot roast for dinner.

Good a reason as any to blog, isn't it? I have to be up in the morning to let the chickens out at 8, but then I can go back to sleep if I can for a couple more hours. It will be a full day. There is one open house we want to hit up on the hill. It is a rather spacious house at $262,000. No hardwood floors so I imagine it's all the carpeting that makes it so they can't ask for ridiculous pricing. We will hit that house early as we can. The open house starts at ten so we will be there near the start.

After that we will head to Sedro Woolley to Skagit River Ranch. They have a farm store that is open only on Saturdays from 10 to 6. They are a farm that sells grass fed animals. They also sell specific cuts of meat in their farm store and I would like to get some ribeye, t-bone, chuck roasts and hamburger and try them out before making a decision about buying a half a steer later this year. Mom wants to go in on it with us and buy the other half of the steer. Buying a whole cow together would bring the price down a little.

We'll see how it tastes. I am considering this farm and another one that is in Bow. The one in Bow costs less, but it's Chiangus as opposed to just ordinary Black Angus. I know I like Black Angus, but I don't know what difference Chiangus makes in taste, flavor or leanness. I am hoping to visit the other ranch on another day to see if I can buy samples as well.

Then when we get back DH has to set up the computer. The cobbled together mess DS has been using finally stopped working. They were financing 18 months same as cash, so we got an inexpensive desktop only, since our monitor is in perfect condition. DH finally took the back up laptop in to be fixed before the warranty runs out. Hopefully they won't have to wipe it because there are no backup discs for reinstalling windows. I have $200 in the laptop fund, so that money will go towards paying for the new desktop. I was hoping we'd get ahead of the curve on things that were going to go wrong and I'd save up enough before we got to this point, but the thing gave up too soon.

The kids have to have one fuctioning computer between them to write on for their writing assignments and no one wants to give either one of them one of our laptops. They are too hard on things.

It is time for DD to visit the eye doctor and if needed she can get new lenses. Not frames of course, those are every 18 months. She has been complaining about headaches and she thinks her prescription might have changed.

I forsee a very expensive spring/early summer. And sometime before fall I'll need to buy a chest freezer if I am going to get that much meat.

I added $8.67 to the coin jar tonight and $1.57 yesterday.

DH managed to break his tooth because he wouldn't stop eating hard candies. He doesn't suck on them, he chews them which you are really not supposed to do for the sake of your teeth and it's not like he hasn't been warned to knock it off. For years. Not only did he chip the tooth he broke the crown off. So now $1500 worth of work has to be done to fix it and I am very irritated because I was supposed to be next in line to get my teeth fixed and now I have to wait. I have some cracks in two of my six-year molars, just general wear and tear, but they have to be fixed before the cracks get down to the gumline or we'll be talking root canal, etc. And they hurt when I chew anything tougher than chicken, fish, or hamburger. I am trying not to be resentful about this, but I am afraid it is not working. Especially since it means post-poning paying off the last credit card. Which frustrates me even more. Our dental insurance sucks.

In our quest to eat more locally grown, sustainable, and organic foods and still try to not break the grocery budget, I stopped by a local farmstand today. I got all of this:



for $6.09. Pretty food, huh? Except for the kiwis, everything was from my state, most of it from my county or the next county over. I can't even tell you how beautifully the green onions and celery smell. Quite often I shop with my nose, even with foods that most people won't normally think to smell. It's obvious to sniff pineapple and canteloupe, but did you know that you can tell how celery will taste by the smell? If it smells bitter it will taste bitter. If it smells sweet and fragrant and sort of like parsley, then it will taste exactly as it should.

I haven't made the menu plan for the week yet, but I will do that tonight. Yes, I know it's Wednesday. Today we are having leftovers, but I do need to make one up for the rest of the week. Now that I've got a bit more produce on hand, I know what I am working with.

I added my ING interest of $2.31 to the emergency fund. This brings the EF to $1,036.03. I do dislike seeing that number so low, but I know using it to pay off debt is the right thing to do. And we will build it back up again.

I can't believe it is May already. This year is just whizzing by. Yesterday was very busy. I had an appointment in the morning, $90. DD had a dentist appointment, which will be billed to insurance and be fully covered because it is the first of the year.

We paid the property taxes yesterday for the half year on the old house, $524.75. DH took the two new toilets out to the old house. His father will help him install them on Wednesday. While out there he dropped off the water bill and saved a stamp, $144.

The money from ING showed up yesterday but we didn't have time to go over and make a payment at BoA. I am hoping we will today, but if not then that will get paid tomorrow.

We finally took the kids to The Hunger Games movie last night. We went to the 6:30 showing so we could get out and be home at a decent hour since it was a school night. I would have preferred to go to the 4:00 one, but DS doesn't even get out of school until 3:45. I was really well pleased with the movie. I felt it stayed true to the book on almost everything and only missed one tiny little scene not being included, the district 11 sending the bread scene. It should have been there as it was such a pivotal moment, but oh, well. You can't have everything in a screen adaptation, but this was pretty close.

Still it cost us $40 for the four of us to go. This is why we seldom see movies in the theater. $9.50 per student and $10.50 per adult. Even matinee prices would not have been that good. It's not like they are half price anymore. They are just a buck or two off per ticket to go at a less convenient time. I think it was worth it this time, but I miss the days of $5 movies. Heck, I miss the days of $1 movies.

So today was a major day for Open Houses for my city. They were doing a thing of some sort. Anyway, we looked at a lot of houses, and it served to reassure me that there are a lot of houses out there that would be right for us, which means when we are really ready there will still be a lot of houses that are right for us. Although almost perfect house is still almost perfect. It was really nice to see it, I really liked it, it had some problems, mostly fixing the paint would fix, but it was nice. But there were a lot of people looking at it and I did not feel bad about that or territorial or anything, so I think I am well over my irrational urges to buy right now.

We did see an absolutely gorgeous house about 3 blocks from my mom's house, too. It was truly exquisite decorating. It was like walking into a piece of art. But a comfortable, liveable piece of art. The fixtures and the floors and the wall paper and the way the walls were painted, it just was such a feast for the eyes, but not in a way you'd ever get tired of. The landscaping was incredible. You could just really tell that the people who owned it adored their home and had put a lot of effort into making it so beautiful.

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What was really funny was I ran into a man that I have not seen since high school (although we were friendly in middle school we had no classes together in high school so it felt more like not having seen him since middle school). He was friends with the realtor showing one of the houses and was waiting for him to finish up. It was so strange, because I almost never run into people like that. DH always does, but almost everyone I knew back then took off for Seattle or Oregon or California. But it was nice once we figured out how we knew each other. 24 years changes you a lot.

The had free Subway sandwiches at the last place we looked at, so I split half a six inch sub with my son and DH had one, so that took care of a late lunch. We were starving by then. I really liked the realtor who was friends with the guy I knew from school. He wasn't pushy but he was interested in helping us when we were ready. He was younger, maybe 30, but he felt honest and I got a good vibe off of him. We might decide to use him.

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The bathroom remodel is almost done. They've put in the vanity cabinet (but not the sink) and the toilet is in. The final coat of paint is on. The sink still needs to go into the vanity. The mirror needs to be put on the wall. The glass door needs to be installed on the tub/shower, the showerhead needs to be put up, and the shelving needs to be put up. We may actually have our bathroom back by mid-week. I hope so. I am tired of not having one. Of course we may have to wait for all the caulking and stuff to finish drying so it may be the weekend before we can use it, but I will just be so glad to not have the workmen in the house.

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The chicks and ducks are now allowed to go outside after they made a great escape yesterday. They tore the mesh netting free so they could get to the layer mash on the other side of the coop and then came outside after they had eaten it all, so Mom decided today to just let them go out now. They are loving it and the weather is nice so they are happy. They are big enough. They are mostly all flopped together in a heap under one of the blueberry bushes but they adventure out a couple at a time. Totally adorable.

So far today I have paid $700 to BoA VISA, $600 to AMEX, and $265.86 to Costco. We bought two new high pressure, low flow toilets for the old house, plus selected organic groceries there (and some raw sheep's cheese imported from France that they were sampling, so good, and we usually get some kind of expensive cheese when we go there). The toilets were $79.99 each plus sales tax of 8.9%. They are one piece models where the tank is part of the toilet unit, so very easy to install. We also bought gas while we were there, filling the tank for $59.56.

I figured out the budget for this week and next week's pay, and then figured out that since the car payment isn't due until 5/19 and we get paid on 5/18, I could actually skip making a car payment out of next week's check and make it on the 18th in person instead. I could then take the $800 (payment + additional principal that I always make) and put it on the BoA VISA instead. It's cutting it close, but I do still have enough money in the EF to cover the car payment if needed.

That should still have us on track to have the VISA paid off by the end of May or at the very latest the middle of June. I wasn't expecting to have to buy a new bed for DS this month, but sometimes things happen. Maybe we won't have to use the full $1000 I've set aside to have the whole house professionally cleaned. We are going to email about setting up an estimate. Then we can make an appointment to have it done. Then the only thing left to do will be to change out the toilets, get an estimate on fixing the window, and then scheduling an appointment to actually fix the window.

And then we will have to make a decision on replacing all of the interior doors and frames, or letting the house go As IS/Where IS without fixing those things. I don't think we are going to paint. I might get an estimate to see if it is worth it, but...I don't really want to put that much more money into it. I just want it clean, on the market, and not have to worry about it anymore. At least the roof is sound. We are twelve years into a thirty year roof warranty come July, and it was an excellent roof we put on.

The lawn will have to be mowed this weekend though. And probably at least every weekend from this point on, at least in the front where it shows from the road.. *sighs* It won't be too bad. We'll need the gas mower this first time, but after that I can use the push mower. And I can save the back yard for DH when he's home and he can use the gas mower for that.

I have some other bills to pay and set money aside for but I'll probably do that tomorrow. I did make a deposit to the Safety Net of $122.30.

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I forgot to post this before I left, so we took the kids clothing and bathing suit shopping after school, a planned expense, and got spring wardrobes for them (shorts and t-shirts for DS, Capri pants and t-shirts for dear daughter. They each got a bathing suit and I got one, too, though I am annoyed about it. The one I really wanted and liked the colors in various shades of green and blue of the most showed way, way, way too much cleavage even for me, and I'm pretty comfortable with that sort of thing, but dang, I would have had to pin this to feel comfortable in public. It fit so well, too, otherwise. It was an older ladies swimsuit, too. Why do they think we want to show off that much over age 40? It's like the toddler booty shorts. I mean, why? It'd be one thing if I was buying a bikini, but this was a swimdress style suit.

The one I ended up buying was various shades of pink (one of them hot pink, which I do like, but most pastels, which I don't) and brown. I am not really a pink person, but due to things that often tend to be out of my control, I have far too much pink in my wardrobe already. Usually because I just want to be clothed and the only thing left in the styles I like and my size by the time I get to shopping is the pink ones.

But it fits perfectly and supports perfectly. The skirt is a little too long for my preference, but hopefully it won't get in my way when I do the crawl stroke. I used to have one that was so long my hands would tangle in it when I swam laps. This one isn't billowy though at all. So I bought it. One nice surprise is I was able to buy it a size smaller than my other swimsuit. (I like to have two because I swim almost every day mid-spring through mid-fall, and the older one invariably falls apart from all the chlorine mid-season.

I mean, if I wanted to spend over $100 for a suit, I would order one online and get the colors I really wanted, but I don't, and a $33 suit with proper support and coverage, even if it isn't the greatest colors, is fine with me. And DH likes it regardless and says it looks good. It's just my dislike of pink, not reality. Sometimes we have to make compromises in life. This isn't a big one.

We also picked up some school supplies to replace what was worn out or used up, and some OTC medications to replace the stock used up when ill. The last thing I want to do when I am sick is go shopping for medications, so I really like to have enough on hand to treat 3 of us if we go down at the same time (DH is seldom sick).

We went to two stores and spent $73 at one (after $8 off from our loyalty card and were given a $5 gift card because we qualified for having spent over $50). At the other, where we did the bulk of our shopping we spent $265.56 (almost the exact amount we spent at Costco, interesting).

I was so tired by the time we were done, I decided to get takeout pizza instead of making some. *sighs* Willpower, thy name is not LuckyRobin. So that was $27.18. And after a quick run to the store tonight for milk and crackers I am not going to spend any money (except to write out bills) for the rest of the weekend. I hope.

Why do near perfect houses keep coming on the market in the neighborhoods we want to buy in? It's like if they all sell before we are ready, what is going to be left when we are ready? It makes me just a little bit crazy. This one is four blocks from my mother's house, right school district, right price range and appropriately priced, a gorgeous Craftsman (my favorite style) 4 bed 2 bath with hardwood floors and a yard the size of a postage stamp so barely any maintenance at all, but a great back deck. It has two bedrooms on the main floor and two upstairs, so accessibility is good, too. *sighs*

And I have to drive by it four times a day five days a week so it's going to be right there in my brain all the time. It's the shortest route to the schools so I'm not going to not drive by it and waste gas going a different way. But it is taunting me. The only really good thing about it is that it is for sale by owner so chances are it will linger on the market. A lot of folks do not want to deal with someone not using a realtor because of all the extra hassle involved. Me, I don't care.

We have $1,526.94 left to pay off to get our debt to income ratio at 45%, which is where they want it to be to qualify for a 2.9% mortgage at our credit union. Our credit scores are already in the right range. Tomorrow I will make the car payment, another VISA payment, and the AMEX payment. Then on Monday when the money arrives from ING, I will make an additional VISA payment. So we will be below that 45% range by Monday, though it may not trickle through to the credit bureaux until mid May. Not that it matters with no down payment money, but it is one more step in the right direction.

So...question. Does it make sense at all to do a 3% down loan if I am going to make double payments (not just double principal payments, but doubling the first payment with all the extra going to principal) until we've paid off 20% of the loan or is that just asking for trouble? We will have that much money available once the credit card is paid off in a month or two. Or should I stomp on my desire to get out of here and buy a house "right now" and get that 20% saved up. It will take us about a year, less if we sell our house.

How do we ever get past our wants prompting us to think they are needs? I know I could save 3% down in just a few months, but that is probably a stupid thing to do. And it's not like I've even seen the inside of this house. Gah. If we just stay here another year we will be so much further ahead. We'll be out of debt except for the car and the under $18K mortgage (which will go away when we sell the house). We'll be another year gone on the car and I'll have been making extra, extra principal payments on it, too. We'll have an EF of better quality and we'll have the downpayment saved. Life will be less stressful. Okay, I think I've talked myself out of trying to do anything rash or stupid. Trying. But not wanting.

I can do this. I don't need to throw my hard work away on impatient desire. *deep breaths*

Okay, and for the DEC, money spent today was $374.91 for a new twin mattress, box springs, and Hollywood frame for DS. We borrowed Mom's truck and brought it home ourselves and plan to put the old mattress on the curb with a free sign, so no delivery or disposal fees tacked on.

Speaking of wants, but not of wants that make me irrational, while we were at the furniture store waiting for the paperwork, etc., I sat in a lovely recliner in front of a giant screen TV. 70 inches of HDTV beauty. It was playing a scene of ocean waves crashing into a gorgeous tropical beach. I wanted to go there. It was like taking a mini-vacation in my head. I am happy with the big screen TV we have, but that thing is going on my future wants list way down the road, or something like it. We don't go to movies more than once a year usually, but we like to rent them and that thing would be great for the big sci-fi blockbusters.

It was surprisingly not horrifically expensive. Under $3000. I remember when you had to pay that for a 30 inch cathode ray TV with nowhere near this kind of quality. We never did, but I remember when. And there would be an installation fee, because that thing has to be mounted to the wall studs and we'd want it done right. It's on the dreams list, but it's not even in the top ten. And it's a much easier want to squelch than the house thing.

And is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the new article columnist seems to be very into brand names and very anti-generics? It's getting to be a theme.

Last night one of the workmen who is remodelling the bathroom asked about the Crown Victoria, which has basically been setting there the past four months with a beyond dead battery and needing about $600 worth of brake work. He is interested in buying it. Blue book if it were in perfect working order is $2000. His price range is $1500. I said $1000 would be fair considering the work it needs done on it.

He is going to talk to his wife about it and bring a battery with him the next time he comes and we can make sure it is just the battery and not the starter.

It is such a good family car and I would be very happy to see it go to someone who needs a nice, solid family car, which is what they need. She has been such an excellent car over the years. She's a '92 that we bought in Jan of '98 and have maintained well. He was very surprised to know it was 21 years old since there is hardly anything wrong with the paint, just two tiny dings and you have to know where they are to notice them. It still looks shiny and nice and only has around 134,000 miles on it.

We've pretty much been a one family car anyway since we needed brake work done, and it'll make Mom happy to see it gone. Even in the years when we've owned more than one car, we didn't use it often enough to make it really worth having two. Now, if DD starts driving regularly we might buy a second inexpensive car, mostly because I don't want her driving our expensive van without supervision. But she hasn't even got her permit yet (lack of time and interest, really), so I don't see that happening before we move out. Once our credit card is paid off I am going to start setting some money aside for a new used car, but not too much as most money will go towards saving for a down payment and some to building up the emergency fund.

If his wife does give the okay to buy the car for the $1000, we will take that money and put it on the credit card.

Speaking of the credit card, I got up the courage to transfer most of the EF today and we will be putting it on the credit card, leaving us with just a $1500 EF. That is my compromise. $1000 just didn't feel like enough to me. I'd be happier with $2000 but that interest rate is ridiculous on the card. Now I just have to wait the 3 business days for it to show up in my account.

I cashed out at American Consumer Opinion Panel for $20.05. I do kind of roll my eyes a little, because you can't cash out until you have $10, and it takes 10 days for whatever you do to even hit the account and then when you cash out it takes 1-2 weeks for them to process it, so they really make you wait for it, but then it does come through eventually and they do pay really well and have some very interesting surveys and product tests, so I guess it is all worth it even if I do roll my eyes. I just always figure payment will be a month later. They are better than many I have tried and I have been signed up with them for six years, so they are definitely tried and true.

I spent $3.38 at Youngstock's today. It is an outdoor produce and flower stand. Then I spent $72.50 at Haggen. DH is home, but we kept to the list pretty darn well. We are just a little over the amount for the week by about $5. Not bad for almost everything we bought being organic.

Dinner tonight seems a little pricy at first glance but considering that most of the ingredients were organic, sustainable, or additive/preservative free and how many servings one gets out of it, a hefty 16, it's not bad at all. It provided dinner for four and will provide several lunches or after school snacks this week. DH and DD ate two bowlfuls, but DS and I were both happy and filled up with one.

Here's my price breakdown and ingredients list:

8 organic russet potatoes $3.12
1 pound smoked, additive and preservative free bacon $3.99
1 bunch organic scallions .38
1 gallon local whole milk $2.99 of which 8 cups are used in the soup and the rest was drunk at dinner
1 lb organic and sustainable local goat's cheddar $7.19
2/3 cup butter $1.50
2/3 cup flour .10
1 lb Daisy organic sour cream $2.50 (was on sale 2 for $5)

So total spent was $21.67. Of course the price can be brought down by using less expensive cheese (but it's what I had on hand) and bacon with junk in it and non-organic potatoes, but still, not bad for 16 servings.

It is best to start with everything premeasured and cooked. I like to do the bulk of the work the day before or even earlier in the week. The potatoes were baked on Sunday and the bacon cooked earlier today. Then before I started we peeled the potateos and cut them up and chopped up the scallions and bacon just before starting. It is easier to chop up the bacon when it is cold than when it is still hot.



To start melt 2/3 cup of butter in a pan.


Add 2/3 cup of flour.


Whisk together over medium low heat to make a roux.


Turn heat up to medium high. Gradually stir in 8 cups of whole milk, then stir in 1 pound of sour cream until it is absorbed and soup base is of a creamy consistency. Add in the shredded cheddar cheese and stir in until melted. Turn heat up to high and put in the diced potatoes and scallions. Cook for five minutes. Dump in bacon and cook for 3 more minutes.


Add in salt and pepper to taste. The original recipe I worked off of in the beginning suggested 1 full tablespoon of sea salt and a teaspoon of black pepper. I find that to be too much salt combined with the bacon, but just right on the pepper. And of course individuals can add salt and pepper at the table as well.

Spoon into bowls. Dinner is served.

I have managed to hurt my eyelid and my eye has spent the better part of the day swollen shut or mostly swollen shut (it opens a bit after 20 minutes of icing). I don't even know what I did, really, but there is a nasty scratch right above the lashes that is about an inch long. They eye itself is fine. And fortunately I can type without looking so I can still post.

My mom picked the kids up from school today for me and I sent money to pick up another gallon of milk and some antibiotic ointment and bandages for my hand. It came to $14.40. No other money was spent today. I added .60 to the coin jar.

We have finished naming the ducks now, so the last two are named Noisy and Snuggles. I don't know if I mentioned the first two were Inigo Montoya and Len Tao. Snuggles likes to do just that, snuggle her head against the side of your neck and shoulder. I think Noisy's name is self explanatory. It was either Noisy or Squeaky and I think it'll outgrow the squeaky noise so Noisy won out.

The chickens are more fragile and we'll probably put off naming them for another couple of weeks except for Half-Pint and Pipsqueak the two littlest ones who got named despite us knowing the survival rate of chicks.

Three of the hens have not been laying, or at least not laying in the nesting boxes, since we moved the chicks and ducks in. They may be hiding them elsewhere. One of the few negatives of allowing your chickens free range is that sometimes they hide their eggs when they get broody, even when there is no rooster around. I think the introduction of the chicks may have made them broody. One of the other few negatives is they freak out easily when you turn a car on and streak across the driveway so I'm always afraid I will hit one.

Still, I'd never want to keep them cooped up all their lives and I am looking forward to when the little pen is constructed so we can let the babies out for an hour or two a day when the weather is nice so they can get used to the outside under supervision. Although I am not looking forward to the day when they get to run free but have not yet learned to go into the coop on their own and we have to chase them in. Fortunately the learning curve only lasts about six weeks. And with the adult chickens to show them what to do they may not be as difficult as when we started from scratch.

It was nice to wake up this morning to the smell of chicken stock simmering away in the crockpot. You know what I like about making stock over making soup? When you make stock you don't have to peel anything, you just have to wash it. And you don't have to dice it, you just have to rough cut it. It was so nice to just cut the onion into 12 pieces and throw it in. So nice not to have to peel the carrots, too!

I will have to peel and dice for the fresh veg I put in after I strain it, but that's not a big deal. I am going to put more diced celery than usual in, though, because it's starting to look a little sad, and DS is going to take one cut up stalk with peanut butter in his lunches for the next couple of days.

I was looking at enchilda sauce recipes on the internet last night and then I thought, well this is basically the ingredients in my big bottle of McCorkmick taco seasoning with tomato sauce, green chiles and garlic added, so that is what I'm going to do. If it tastes weird, I can adjust it with chili powder and cumin, but I'm sure it will be fine. And I will add a bit of cocoa powder if I don't like the color. Cocoa powder makes it more brown and less tomato sauce color.

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Yesterday for the DEC challenge, I spent $14 on a haircut for DD. That was the only spending.

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I added $1.14 in change to the coin jar.

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I am getting a massage today as my hip and knee and low back got majorly tweaked last week, so I will spend $90 on that.

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I'll be making blueberry cornbread muffins and a loaf of bread today in the bread machine Mom loaned me. I haven't used it for more than dough before so hopefully it will turn out. It's a fancy machine, way more bells and whistles than my old one had, and I'll have to recheck the manual online to make sure I do it right, since she can't find her manual.

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I got to cuddle a duck last night. It just lay there in my arms and put it's neck right over my shoulder. So cute and sweet. Unfortunately I managed to slice my hand open on a metal screen. I am going to call the doctor because it looks pretty bad this morning and I want to make sure it's not infected. I cleaned it immediately and put antibiotic ointment on it, but it still looks nasty. It's in one of the worst places, too, on my right hand just beneath the webbing between thumb and first finger. Basically wherever you need to grip to open a jar, it's in the way and it hurts.

I never ended up getting a tetanus shot for the staple I stepped on. The doctor said since it was a clean, unused staple with no rust I was fine, and I have been, but this time I know there was rust on the screen so I guess I am destined to get that shot after all. If I had got it last week I wouldn't have to worry now, but oh, well. I'm sure it won't be completely covered, most vaccines are not unless you are a child. Stupid, but it's the way things go, sort of like how insurance doesn't want to pay for orthodontia in adults. I find it very short-sighted.

I am really liking having the whole week's menues planned out. Today since I knew I was roasting a chicken, I made sure I started thawing it out in the microwave at 3:15. It was a big chicken, 5.14 pounds and is one of the chickens we got for free last Thanksgiving when DH's work gave us that Safeway gift card. Which reminds me, there is still $9 and change on the card. Need to use that.

Anyway, I got it mostly thawed by 3:45 and then put it in a cold water bath to finish the thawing process because the inside was still a little frozen and I couldn't get out the neck and giblets. They had finished defrosting by 4:15 and they came out easily. Then DS and I rubbed the chicken down with extra virgin olive oil and massaged in basil, oregano, fresh ground sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. It went into the oven to roast side by side with the turkey legs.

We did up nine potatoes (the eight I bought and the one left over) for baking and they are in there, too so we can make efficient use of the oven and the gas used to heat it. The weather has turned quite warm so heating up the house less often is a good thing. We will have the four smaller ones tonight and the other five will go into the baked potato soup I make on Tuesday.

After everything was in the oven I went ahead and cut up two heads of broccoli and one head of cauliflower, which I will start the water boiling for fifteen minutes before the food is due to come out of the oven. There is enough there to serve them for 3 meals, though DD will probably filch some to take in her school lunch as she likes to eat it cold, but cooked. It is nice to have everything going and not have to worry about it again for another hour.

I know I'll have a bunch more prep to do tonight. I'll have to pick off all the chicken that is left on the carcass so I can make stock with the carcass and have meat for enchiladas tomorrow. I will also save some for quesadillas as DS likes to have that as a snack after school. I will also pick all the turkey meat off the bones and throw those bones in the crockpot with the turkey carcass. Doesn't matter to me if the stock is chicken/turkey, it all pretty much tastes the same. I'll also have to peel and cut up two carrots, an onion, two stalks of celery and all the celery leaves to throw in the stock with salt, pepper, and garlic. I was tempted to buy leeks yesterday but it was $2.49 for 3 and I thought that was too expensive and I could make do with the onion.

I never got around to roasting the chiles or making the chili. I decided I would have too much food on hand these next few days if I made it. So I will wait until Wednesday or Thursday to make it as the whole idea of meal planning was to not waste food and money, but to have plenty of good, natural, home-cooked food on hand so I'm not tempted to swing through the drive-thru after school.

That will give me a few days with the chicken noodle soup and the baked potato soup without adding in the chili to the mix. The chile peppers will keep up to a week and I was careful to pick out the best ones with shiny skin and no wrinkling so they are very fresh. I will keep an eye on them and roast them if they start to wrinkle before I am ready to make the chili. DH comes home Wednesday so then having some extra food around, it will not be in as much danger of not getting eaten.

I think I will make a lasagna during the first week of May. It's been a long time since I've made one and it'll be a nice change. I have noodles, organic diced tomatoes, organic tomato sauce, organic tomato paste, herbs, and plenty of cheese on hand so all I'd have to buy is the hamburger and onions. I think I will double the amount of onions and diced tomatoes I normally put in so I can lower the amount of ground beef. I usually use 3 pounds of ground beef to one 9x13 pan of lasagna and I'd like to see if I can get by with 2 pounds as I'll be buying the more expensive grass fed beef. A lasagna usually feeds us for 2 dinners, plus a couple of lunches for DH. Plus I always have sauce leftover when I make it so I can freeze some for some hearty spaghetti later in the month.

I am having far too much fun planning this out, but it sure is taking a lot of the stress out of what I'm going to cook and knowing how much money I can save while still eating organic as much as we can.

Oh, I have enough leftover taco meat from lunch for me to eat a taco with my chicken noodle soup tomorrow. Leftover management...who knew I'd get such a kick out of it this time around?

All right, I almost made it through the stores with only the things on my lists. I bought chocolate at TJ's and I bought 2 English cucumbers (on sale for $1 each) and 2 six packs of lettuce starts (romaine and red leaf) at Haggen. Not too bad. I would not have bought the chocolate if I hadn't taken the kids with me, as I would not have even thought about it. But I still would have gotten the cucumbers and the lettuce starts.

They had other veggie starts, but the ground is not prepared for them. The lettuce will go in window boxes up on the porch rail, because if we plant them within reach of the chickens they will eat them and I want to be the one eating them, thank you very much.

I ended up spending $52.18 at TJ's and $21.20 at Haggen, well within the budgeted amount for the week. I imagine it will be more difficult when I have to start buying more organic meat, but maybe I'll be so good at this by the time I run out of frozen meat that it won't be too much of a challenge. I allot $600 a month for food, so I think I will be able to manage.

I never did make it to buy the chiles and other things I was going to buy the other night and I also decided I am too tired to make chili anyway. I am going to bump all my meal planning down a day and instead make spaghetti for dinner tonight. It's far less labor intensive, though I will char the chiles tonight.

We are going to go over to Trader Joe's in a bit to buy what is needed for school lunches and some produce and dried pasta. I was going to go tomorrow, but decided I just want to stay home tomorrow and have the most intensive thing I do be make the chili. I will have to go to Haggen to get the chiles though. I've never seen any at Trader Joe's. I'm lucky if I can find taco shells there. The most ethnic stuff they seem to have is regular sweet bell peppers, Naan bread, and tortillas.

So, list of stuff I'll be getting at TJ's is as follows:

8 potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
1 bag shredded cabbage
1 package additive free deli turkey
1 package additive free deli roast beef
2 pounds of Cappellini pasta
1 package of taco shells if they have any
1 bunch of bananas
3 packages of grass fed hamburger
1 package of additive free bacon
2 yellow onion
1 bag whole wheat flour

Then at Haggen I need to buy:
9 Anaheim chili peppers
1 jalapeno pepper
1 jug of orange juice
1 can of cocoa powder

I intend to stick precisely to my lists so I don't overspend but can have nice mostly organic food, and if I need to go back to the store later in the week I will. We've eaten lunch so we aren't going shopping hungry. I just wish I didn't have to take the kiddos.

So meal planning changes to:

Saturday--Spaghetti and Meatballs
(I will also be roasting some turkey legs to have on hand for my daughter who is always starving after school and wants protein. I will pick off the meat and package it up for her)

Sunday--Tacos for lunch, roast chicken, potatoes, broccoli/cauliflower, fruit for dinner (will pick off any leftover meat and throw the chicken carcass in the crockpot overnight with water and veg to make stock)

Monday--(My lunches this week will be egg noodle, veggie, and chicken soup made from the stock and chili and the kids will have sandwiches)
Dinner--Enchiladas made with leftover chicken, fruit

Tuesday--Baked potato soup (very hearty so will probably not add much in the way of side dishes, maybe some rolls)

Wednesday--Homemade cheeseburgers and fried potatoes

Thursday--Oven-baked chicken, sweet corn, green beans

Friday--Homemade pizza and leftovers that haven't been consumed for lunches.

I think that sets me up for the week nicely.