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Archive for March, 2017

Cooking Frenzy and starting to see progress

March 22nd, 2017 at 02:22 pm

I went on a bit of a frenzy last night. I made the appetizers for dinner - Filipino egg rolls and bacon jalapeno pinwheels. I also made a large batch of rice and black beans (and threw in some leftover shredded chicken). In addition, I had some ground beef left from the egg rolls mix and some rice leftover from last week, so I threw those together for lunch for the rest of the week. I also have a bag of frozen peas that I need to add in to it.

My fridge is looking pretty empty, but we have a ton of chicken and potatoes. I'm going to stock up on rice and beans at the start of the month and try to just make a batch in the crockpot at the beginning of the week. We have a very small $250 grocery budget for April.

April will be the first month we officially live off last month's income. It's a really tight budget, but hopefully we can stick to it. I'll also finish paying off my first credit card next month and will start on one of the personal loans.

DH is being really supportive. I'm just hoping we can finally start seeing some progress.

In next month's budget, I also started putting $50 to savings. It's not a whole lot, but it's a start.

Getting By

March 15th, 2017 at 05:20 pm

I think I'm back on track. Haven't spent anything these past two days, and while I do have to spend today, I plan to keep it as minimal as possible. DC needs litter and food. I also want to get shredded cheese, bread, eggs, a bag of potatoes and one snack item.

That should last us through when DH gets home.

Yesterday, I used the last of the regular bagels (still have 5 or 6 thins) ham, turkey bacon, and sliced cheese, plus one of the bags of shredded cheese, the pepperonis, pizza sauce, and biquick mix (all on pizza bake).

For the next few days, some of the meal options include sausage pepper soup (from the freezer) with quinoa or rice, black beans and rice, chicken fried rice, grilled cheese sandwiches and fruit, and any combination of chicken and potato meals. I also have one lb. of ground beef and some cream cheese to use up during an apps for dinner night (homemade lumpia - Filipino egg rolls and bacon jalapeno pinwheels).

Yikes!

March 13th, 2017 at 12:58 pm

I really have to find a way to not let the unexpected derail me. Last week, DH ended up getting notified Wednesday night that he would be out of the country for the next two weeks leaving Thursday. While we'd known this was a possibility for a while, I just assumed nothing had come of it since no one had followed up. What followed was two days of scrambling followed by a weekend of sad eating. It was bad. We spent $50 on groceries, $10 on a wallet, used a BBB gift card for a $20 travel adapter, $45 on a gift card for dinner and alcohol on DH's last night here, and then I bought food out several times over the weekend amounting to at least $50. I turn to food to make me feel better which is terrible for both my waistline and my wallet. I got it together last night. I made soup from the leftover chicken broth and veggies and portioned it out over 4 containers of rice. That will be my lunch for the week.

My brother is staying with me these next two weeks, and I'm going to try and avoid buying groceries. We have almost 40 lbs. of chicken in the freezer, leftover sausage/pepper soup, a small container of chili, one loaf of a bread, a small amount of ham and peanut butter/jelly. I'm going to have to get creative with sides as I only have 2-3 more rice-in-a-bag packs, 2 frozen veggie bags and maybe some quinoa. I do have plenty of beans though.

A new outdoors store opened near me. I tried to go opening day to get a gift card, but it was packed. I found out later some 5000 people had attended a Thursday morning opening. They also did giveaways each morning through the weekend. I got a bag and folding stools. I couldn't go Saturday, so I paid out of pocket for the hat because DH really wanted it. It worked out well since I brought that home to him Friday and he promptly wore it out of the country. It is a really nice hat!

I'll have to see how finances work out, but I think we'll have enough to actually live off last month's income (albeit it, very tightly). DH will be getting paid for both jobs, so that should make up our grand deficit. The money won't come in until early-mid April, but I'm going to put it with the money earned in March and do my darndest not to spend any money earned in April until May.

We have a storm coming in tonight. I'm hoping we don't lose power as it just occurred to me that our house is entirely electric. If we lose power, we're in for a cold, boring time. Fortunately, we have plenty of blankets, two large dogs, and a fat cat for warmth. The basement holds heat pretty well, so we'll probably heat that up tonight, and also boost the house temp up to 68 (it's currently at 60). We also have MREs for food should we need something to warm us up.

Every little bit helps.

March 3rd, 2017 at 01:10 pm

My first new paycheck comes in next Tuesday. I think it will only be about $100-$150 increase in take-home pay, but it also means I'm back up to contributing 10% of my income to savings. Eventually, I'd like to be able to max out both of our Roths in addition to our retirement accounts through work, but that's some time out.

I had about $90 extra in my personal account and only need about $30 for one more gas fill-up, so I went ahead and sent $30 and $32 to two of my credit cards. The smallest one is now at $214. I'm so tempted to just pay it off, but I know it's better to stick to my budget and not spend money that's meant for something else.

We both got check refunds for our personal property taxes because we moved our cars to a different county last November, but both checks were for $5.50 each. I have to call and get it verified because I was expecting more. DH paid almost $800 in car taxes. Prorated for the year, he should get around 100 back, while I was expecting around 20.