Debt-free By 33's Personal Finance Blog

Below is my April recap:

Item: Spent (Budgeted)
BOA Savings: 25 (25)
Capital One Savings: 30 (30)
Netflix: 8 (9)
Insurance: 84 (84)
BOA CC: 32.66 (33)
Navient Loans: 152 (152)
ACS Loan: 170 (170)
Phone: 127 (132)
Wells Fargo: 50 (50)
Target: 50 (49.60)
Food: 19.32 (50)
Gas: 77.75 (50)
Clothing: 58 (0)
Pets: 0 (0)
Miscellaneous: 192.32 (67)
Entertainment: 83.37 (0)
Taxes: 0 (0)
Chase Freedom CC: 875 (148)
Chase Slate CC: 25 (260)
NFL Points CC: 60 (60)
Mariner: 100 (100)
Car: 413.60 (0)
Apartment*: 1400 (1400)

A couple of things...My miscellaneous category went way over because I paid off two medical collections to improve my credit report. I also had an unplanned car expense (my windshield) and some unexpected entertainment expenses (an alcohol purchase and a girls' night out). Lately, there have been a lot of purchases to the Chase card either as a placeholder to using our account or for my mom. I try to pay these back pretty quickly to get that spending under control (more on that later).

I forgot to mention this, but I lost my dietbet yet again. My weight has been consistent, but I've been so busy that I haven't been able to focus on actively losing. On the plus side, I won one of the weekly weigh-ins, so I received my polar heart rate monitor yesterday! Since I already have a fitbit, I decided to give the heart rate monitor to my mom for mother's day who has been trying to lose some weight. One negative side effect of losing weight is that I'm always freezing. If it were up to me, we wouldn't have the air on until June, but the dogs get really hot, so we have to run it.

DD2 is adjusting to her new schedule. It's really hard though because as it turns out, there is a carpenter bee nest in our patio. Two males hover around protecting it all day. I know they're harmless, but they still scare the cracker jacks out of me and DD2 doesn't like to be out there alone. She will go if I get there quick enough to let her out when she goes to the patio herself, but if I take her out to wait for her to go, she gets anxious and starts barking/jumping on the door if no one else is out there. I put a training pad in front of the door and she does go around it. She just doesn't always actually pee on it.

Yesterday, I hit up the grocery store. We've been spending too much on eating out/eating easy since things have been so chaotic. I spent $80 and got enough to probably get us through when SO leaves. We also bought some alcohol for a mini cinco de mayo celebration which was about 60 for tequila and rum and margarita mix. The last thing we got was the Omaha Steaks package for the barbecue. We went with a build your own combo for $129. With free shipping and a $15 coupon, we got 6 bacon-wrapped top sirloins, 16 burgers, 8 bratwurst, lasagna, 2 trays roasted veggies, 6 caramel apple tartlets, 10 potatoes au gratin, 4 hot dogs and 4 pork chops for $115. I also had a free reward, so we got chorizo salami. This will not only cover the barbecue, but also probably spill into the rest of the month. SO's parents offered to bring stuff, so they're bringing shrimp ceviche and guacamole. I told my mom she didn't have to bring anything, but if she wanted to, she could bring deviled eggs. That should more than cover the 10 or so people we're expecting.

I didn't get a chance yesterday, but I'm hoping to be able to do April spending and May budgets write-ups soon!

Things are okay, but really crazy. My brother went home Friday, so SO and I are trying to adjust to having DD2 around with just us. You'd think since she sleeps so much, it wouldn't be so exhausting, but it is. SO and I also got our first glimpse of what it's going to be like when we have real children. DD2 was fussy, so we got her settled in her crate with a treat toy. We climbed into bed just to talk and enjoy a few minutes quiet time when DC comes up meowing and wanting attention. We cuddle with her for a bit. She runs off to play, so we start talking about our weeks (yes, it's been so busy that we don't even know what's been going on with each other). And then we hear peeing noises. Apparently DD1 really had to go to the bathroom and even though he'd tried to hold it, he couldn't anymore. By the time, we'd cleaned up, it was dinner and play time for all the animals...

Saturday, we did get to spend some time together. His parents had extra free tickets to see the big fight at a casino about an hour away. I tired out the dogs during the day, and we put them to bed a bit early and headed out. Neither of us are boxing fans, but it was still fun. We decided to go a bit crazy (for us) and take out $100 to gamble (50 each). By 4 am, we each still had $20 which we decided to just keep and go home. We ended up getting food though which took one of the twenties. All told, we had a really great time and it was the first solid block of time we'd had together since getting Riley.

This week starts our new schedules. SO's doesn't really change, but I adjusted mine around his to take care of DD2 who can't be in her crate more than 4 hours at a time. I woke up at 530 this morning. So far, I'm okay, but I have a feeling naps will be a regular part of my afternoon.

DD2 is growing and learning very quickly. She's got a few commands, mostly goes to the restroom outside (including going to the door to let us know she has to go), and is already tall enough to reach DD1's water bowl (at the beginning of the week, she had to jump up to drink out of it). She's definitely showing more husky personality, so even though she understands things, she doesn't follow them unless she wants to. She went in the house 3 times yesterday because it was too hot for her to go outside...

I haven't really stayed on top of finances, so I'll have to check in tonight to see where I am. Barbecue is Sunday and everyone's confirmed except one of my brothers.

We did pick up chicken yesterday from a local restaurant for $20. I have to say, it was totally worth it as SO and I are exhausted. My brother had also never had this chicken and he loved it. This week has been so tiring. My brother is here to stay with DD2 during the day, so she kind of gets used to a schedule. Both SO and I are crazy busy at work. SO hasn't gotten home before 930 one night this week, and I usually get home about 7 and immediately take over doggy duty. It's been an adjustment having to balance chasing her around with giving DD1 plenty of attention and ensuring DC isn't too stressed. I think we're settling into a routine though.

The other expenses are DC's litter (about $10ish). and a computer chair for my brother. I was planning to pay him for spending the week up here with DD2, but he needs a new computer chair, so I'll be getting that in the next two days as a thank you.

We also still need stuff for the barbecue. I'm hoping that the second half of May will be very low spend as SO will be gone for training.

So the cards may be delayed a bit longer. My windshield ended up coming out to $415 and DD1's emergency appointment was $160. I also need to pick up DC's litter and we have the barbecue to pay for. I made some adjustments to our May budget to accommodate the extra expense of entertaining.

DD2 (Riley) has been home for one day, and she's already exhausting. She learns very quickly but can also be a bit stubborn. She already knows sit, but doesn't like to use the bathroom outdoors. She will go in the vicinity of the potty pads indoors, so we'll just keep at it. She rides really well in the car and did very well at the vet. She's a little squirmy, but overall does great when touching her paws, ears, faces, nails, etc. Her vet visit was less than I thought which is great given what happened Friday...

Coming home from DD1's weekly play date, I stopped short and DD1 slammed into my winshield - hard enough to completely crack it. I'm going to get it evaluated, but am almost positive it'll have to be replaced. DD1 is fine. Took him into the vet Saturday morning. They saw a small blood clot at the back of his left eye and gave him an anti-inflammatory, but otherwise, they said he looks good. He's shown no signs of even a mild concussion (although it's likely that he had one). Needless to say, part of our pet spending this weekend involved seat belt harnesses for both DD1 and DD2. I haven't looked at the numbers yet, but I think we stayed well within our $800 budget.

I also turned down the part-time cheerleading coach position. With DD2 and SO's crazy work schedule/training, it just didn't seem feasible. I did let her know I'd be interested in being involved in a sort of volunteer capacity - that way I can stop by when I can but am not actually committed to 6 days/week, 3-4 hrs./day.

I'll leave you with a couple of pics: The first two are Riley girl. The last one is DD1 and DC - both of whom are handling DD2 like champs.

Just chugging along over here. I've been feeling down lately and really wanted delivery yesterday, but I sucked it up and made dinner. Better for both my wallet and waistline!

SO is fine with me taking out the $790 to pay back to my credit card, so I just need to actually do that. Everything is still on for the pet adoption this Sunday.

Thinking ahead to May, we're going to try and host a barbecue for Mother's Day to introduce our families. Any frugal ideas? We're leaning towards one of the Omaha Steaks packages $60 for a variety of meats, but we'll still need sides, a dessert or two, and possibly some table decorations. My apartment is a little small, so 10 people, a lab, a new puppy, and a cat is going to be crazy, but I'm actually looking forward to getting everyone together. There actually is a park relatively close by, but I don't think there's a grill over there...

Our average daily balance is official 1592. I plan to take out $685 to pay back to my Chase Freedom card. This weekend will be very spendy as we'll be getting everything we need to get little Riley set up. I upped that budget to $800 because we will probably also pick up a few things for DD1 and DC so they don't feel neglected. That will leave me with $325 on the Chase card. I want to pay this off by the end of April as I believe I start accruing interest next period which starts May 10. I will pay $220 to it with my paycheck tomorrow. The last $105 will also come out of our account as part of the money that needs to be paid from Dec./Jan. spending. That leaves $395 remaining to be paid back.

Our May budget currently has a $800 deficit, but that's because I have no idea what (if anything) SO's commission may be. I'm confident we'll make most (if not all) of it up. Not to mention, I think May spending will be significantly cut back in the second half of the month because SO is away for training. All of his meals are covered, and I will just be home when I'm not working spending time with my fur babies.

My last small CC is Chase Slate. Right now, I'm aiming for payoff by the end of June. However, depending on May spending, I may have enough to pay myself back the last $395 which would wipe out the card in May. After that the focus becomes the couch ($800 left from our joint account) and my last CC ($5600 - balance transfers).

Had a very nice weekend. Grilled with SO, got to visit with my mom, learned to sew, found out we're approved to take Riley home, and had an amazing dinner out after a hike. My only cost was gas to go home. SO lost a bet last week, so he owed me dinner. I chose Red Lobster and it was amazing. Except that I forgot how big and filling eating out is. No wonder I had gained so much weight! I took home two boxes - half of our lobster pizza appetizer and half of my meal with some salad and biscuits.

With all the food we have in our fridge, I don't have to make dinner tonight or probably tomorrow either! I told SO I have to really focus on my dietbet because I've just been maintaining rather than losing. To help, we went running this morning. He's my own personal drill sargeant

Apparently, the cost of going on autopilot is about 3.50. I went to visit my mom today and usually fill up my gas tank near her as it's about .30 cheaper. However, I was very low so I planned to put 5 bucks in to get me home and then fill up. When I got to the gas station, I just went into autopilot mode and let the whole tank fill up. That's an unnecessary 3 bucks I just wasted.

In much happier news, the foster mom emailed that she heard we'd been approved!! We still have to wait until next Sunday, but the puppies are back with the foster mom and my girl kept climbing the crate to get out of her puppy pen. So far, I've definitely seen pieces of both the husky and German Shepherd in her.

Once the transfer clears tonight, we'll have a $1500 buffer in our joint account. The money is showing as available, but it's still pending. Once our daily balance is back above $1500, I will begin pulling money out to pay down my credit card. We had put some of our pet purchases and food spending on my card, so that will be repaid down.

New puppy should be going back to the foster mom today. The adoption has been pushed another week as they got sick again. The home visit went really well, so now I just anxiously await an email on whether or not we've been approved.

SO got paid today. He got his normal check and his commission check. While it was significantly lower than I had thought, we'll still be able to accomplish some stuff. If my math is correct, it covers the deficit from April and gives us an approximate $3500 buffer. Since rent, gas, and verizon all take out before any of our income for that month comes in, this is a good buffer. After those payments come out, we'll have about $1700 in the account until that month's income comes in. Since I have to maintain $1500 in the account to avoid fees, this works out great. I'd like to get us to living off the last month's income for this account as it would be easier to track.

We went and visited potential new puppy again last night. She was obviously feeling much better. She's pretty adorable and I'm already attached, so I'm really hoping the adoption goes smoothly. I've read horror stories about families being so excited to take the puppy home only to be denied with no explanation. Fingers crossed everything goes well!!! We have about $750 remaining budgeted for her set-up which includes an adoption fee of $375 and a vet visit. I already have a crate, bed, and puppy pads (free courtesy of a coworker), so we'll just need food, collar, and toys.

I'm always on the lookout for side jobs related to working with kids or cheerleading. Awhile back, I had heard about an opening for the head coach at a local high school (it happens to be SO's alma mater). After speaking with the student activities director, it seemed way out of my league, but perfect for the head coach I worked with at my last high school gig. I let her know about it in the hopes that if she got it, she'd take me on as an assistant again. She interviewed yesterday and it seemed to go well. So if that goes through, then she'll look to hiring myself and possibly some of the other coaches we worked with.

Had a very nice (relatively) low-spend weekend. I went to see the cherry blossoms in DC on Saturday. Before I left, it occurred to me to pack lunches for myself and my friend so we'd be less tempted to spend money. Since I drove and provided lunch (sandwiches, chips, bananas, and cheese sticks), my friend graciously offered to cover parking, so in all nothing out of pocket other than gas and food already paid for. Saturday evening, SO had one of his half-season games. He gets 4 buddy vouchers, but since he wants to use those for his dad and best friend, he offered to pay for my ticket if I wanted to go. We took snacks and drinks out of our entertainment budget, so that was $35. We also had his best friend's birthday party Saturday night. On Sunday, I spent the afternoon at the dog park. Trying to get in as much time with DD1 as possible before new puppy comes in.

On Sunday, my allergies hit pretty darn hard. I have terrible allergies year-round and take 4 medicines (plus an inhaler as needed) regularly to control them. It still isn't doing the trick. I looked like Rudolph and was miserable. Here's hoping today is better. Although I already have a headache...

I think the stress is getting to me. Despite eating well and getting a fair amount of exercise, my weight isn't dropping. I'm also losing my motivation to do anything and even got spendy these last few days. I dropped $57 on new clothes (5 blouses and a jumpsuit) and $67 on a living social deal for a car detailing. My car is now fully mine and is excessively dirty given how much I live out of it during the winter. Detailing my car has been something I've always wanted to treat myself to yearly, but this is the first time I'm doing it in 4 years. I think once I get all of the junk out of it, I'll feel much better.

On a happier note, heading into DC tomorrow for the Cherry Blossom Festival. It should be a nice day, and I've never seen them so I'm excited about that.

(Potential) new puppy is feeling much better. We won't get her until the following Sunday, but I was really hoping to finish out the approval process this week because that would be a huge weight off my shoulders to know we're already approved. However, since they knew she was ill and not going home this week, the volunteer delayed getting to me, so our home visit is next Thursday instead.

Easter weekend was nice. My mom made it safely to the Phillipines. She was worried since there was a typhoon near there when she was leaving, but all is well. SO had to work both days, so I planned a little fun for Saturday night. We have food coloring and 4 dozen eggs. I decided we'd channel our inner child and color eggs since we eat the hard-boiled ones anyway for breakfast. SO hadn't done this since he was about 8. His eggs were very childlike, but adorable He also worked on Sunday. I'm a little peeved because it was a gorgeous day, and his was one of the only places open for Easter. The GM, who decided to stay open, didn't even bother to come in which really upset me because that just seems like terrible leadership. I think SO felt bad about it because he suggested we walk the dog over to the nearest shopping plaza and have dinner out. Since we rarely eat out and we were walking, we decided to indulge ourselves a bit. We also left the waitress a sizable tip as we were the only outdoors customers, and she was so kind both to us and our dog.

We also met the potential new puppy. The one I'd had my eye on based on pictures and what the foster mom said, wasn't feeling well. She was curled in a ball and sleeping, so we met another one of the females. She was very cute and sweet. However, when the foster mom roused the one we wanted to see, things changed. SO was holding her, and he just pointed at her and said 'This is Riley.' This week we'll go through the process which involves an interview and home visit. If we're approved by the board, we'll get to take her home next Sunday. I'm a little concerned about the home visit. This agency is really adamant about placing dogs with the right homes, and so can be a bit selective when it comes to approvals. My concern is that our apartment is a bit on the small side. While there is definitely space for another large dog, I can see where some people may disagree. My feelings on it are that because the apartment is small, I am forced to make sure they get out and about to expend their energy. We have already set up her crate and plan to make sure the person doing the visit understands that we know what we're getting into. SO and I both raised large dogs from puppies, so this isn't our first rodeo. And by the time, she's fully grown, we'll only be a couple of months away from moving into a larger home. Fingers crossed it all works out!

I lost this month's round by .3... .3 lbs!!! I was bummed but this is about long-term. Realistically, I only have 3 more lbs. until my 10% and that is my end goal weight. It's actually a bit under where I want to maintain. Those last few pounds are always the hardest, but I'll keep plowing away.

SO and I went bulk shopping yesterday. I increased our food budget to $400 for this month. We spent $300 at BJ's. The goal is to use the remaining $100 to round out our meals each week. In future months, I expect to put our grocery budget back at $300. We got laundry and dish detergent and paper towels on this trip which account for about $50 of the total amount. SO and I each get one 'throw-in' during joint trips. SO picked a pretty expensive item, so we'd have been even better had he not gotten it. It was meal replacement bars. While expensive - $20 for 12 - SO loves them and often does not have time to eat the lunch I packed him. I'd much prefer him have these on hand rather than come home 12 hours later having had nothing since breakfast (which he's done several times).

Below are my budgets for my own account and our joint account:

My Account
BOA Savings: 25
Capital One Savings: 30
Netflix: 9
Insurance: 84
BOA CC: 33
Navient Loans: 152
ACS Loan: 170
Phone: 132
Wells Fargo: 50
Target: 49.60
Food/Gas: 100
Misc: 67
Mariner: 100
Chase Freedom CC: 148
Chase Slate CC: 260
NFL Points CC: 60
Apartment*: 1400

Our Account:
Rent: 1650
Electric: 140
Gas: 80
Verizon: 96
Couch: 1020
Groceries: 400
Entertainment 75
Misc: 0
Pets: 900

The apartment under my account is my contribution to our account. For my account, I added in a miscellaneous fund for those random things that keep popping up.

The big changes are to our account. Our budget is much more than normal due to SO's stellar month. The three big goals are to have $1500 in our account after all of April's budget is deducted, pay off the couch, and fully fund new puppy. Any additional funds will go towards paying me back, but there's not too much urgency in that. May and June may be a little tight because SO will be at training and not working per se, so I think the higher we can make our buffer, the better.

Our numbers:

Item: Spent (Budgeted)
Rent: 1573.62 (1650)
Electric: 122.37 (140)
Gas: 69.59 (80)
Verizon: 126.36 (127)
Couch: 150 (150)
Groceries: 343.39 (300)
Entertainment: 78.88 (75)
Misc: 166.85 (0)
Pets: 69.85 (200)
Total: 2481.06 (2722)

Our numbers came in well under. However, I still haven't started putting aside the deficit from the $200 pet budget for future emergencies. SO had a really amazing month, so his next paycheck should give us a legitimate buffer in the joint account. The one we'd had in there sort of disappeared because February was a really tight month. My first goal for his paycheck is to put in $1500 plus whatever deficit is needed to ensure our account covers our $3540 budget for April (more on that separately). If there's anything left, I'll begin paying myself back for Dec./Jan. spending.

Here's how March shook out...

Item: Spent (Budgeted)
BOA Savings: 25 (25)
Capital One Savings: 30 (30)
Netflix: 8 (9)
Insurance: 84 (84)
BOA CC: 32.67 (0)
Navient Loans: 175 (175)
Amazon CC: Closed!!
ACS Loan: 170 (170)
Phone: 159 (157)
Wells Fargo: 50 (50)
Target: 0 (0)
Food: 148.11 (50)
Gas: 92.58 (50)
Clothing: 11 (0)
Pets: 15 (0)
Miscellaneous: 73 (0)
Entertainment: 24 (0)
Taxes: 13.74 (0)
Chase Freedom CC: 454 (226.47)
Chase Slate CC: 105 (330)
NFL Points CC: 60 (70)
Mariner: 100 (100)
Apartment*: 1400 (1400)

Next month, I will be making a few adjustments. I'm going to budget a set amount for variables which will include Clothing, Pets, Misc., Entertainment, etc. My budget is very bare bones and outside of required payments, I only budget $100 for food/gas. I always have expenses in those other categories, but never really knew how to budget for them, so I think I will try having a single variable line item, but still track spending in each category, so that I can better refine my budget in a few months.

I ran out of our food budget about two weeks ago. I actually went a few dollars over on our last trip, but definitely better than the $350+ I've been averaging. I had made a meal plan for dinners through tonight, but what I hadn't accounted for is how much of the basics we'd run out of. We are currently out of sandwich meat, bread, sliced cheese, butter, eggs and bagels. I've definitely had to get creative, but we made it. Tonight is pasta, meatballs, and sauce. And tomorrow, we get to go shopping. We have a 60 day trial to BJ's that we're planning to spend the majority of the budget on, so we'll have to see how that shakes out for the rest of April.

This will be one of the busiest weekends I've had in a while. For starters, the pet expo is this weekend. I had brought a groupon last month, and since the cold will be back, I plan to take DD all 3 days, so he can get out and see something new.

SO and I have been like ships passing in the night this past week, so we are flexing our meal plan to make tonight Date Night after the pet expo. I have a groupon for a really good Mexican restaurant that his friend happens to own, so I'm hoping for less than $20 bucks from our entertainment budget.

Tomorrow and Sunday, I will be visiting the dog adoption fairs where DD2 (hopefully) is supposed to be. I want to see how she interacts with others as well as myself, SO, and DD.

Also tomorrow, I will be going to visit my mom to drop off the meals for my brother and wish her well on her trip. She lives 1.5 hours away, so it's not exactly a quick trip.

On Sunday, SO is off. In addition to visiting DD2 and the pet expo, we will probably price out things at BJ's. We're trying to avoid buying anything else until April, but it's literally going to have to be 4/1 as we're running dangerously low on stuff. Sunday evening is the finale of The Walking Dead (my all-time favorite TV show!). SO is making stuffed baked potatoes, and we may invite his best friend over to join us. (Side note: I totally just had the idea to dye the stuffed baked potatoes red like zombie guts which is kind of gross, but also a great theme idea...)

Today, I am going to go have the parking pass removed since the weather is nicer. My complex charges $40/mo for garage parking, but street parking (which there is plenty of) is free. The garage was a godsend in the winter, but now that it's warming up, I can deal with street parking. That $40 comes out of our joint account, but will be more than repurposed for the pet charge for DD2.

The other area I was able to save is my phone bill. As you may recall, I pay the full bill for my family. About a year ago, I switched to mobile share bringing us down to $160/month. Last month, I switched again during a special. I'm not sure what the final average price will be, but this month, it was $132! That's including 7 gigs up from the 3 we had before (realistically, we use just over 1, but pricing wise, it's actually cheaper to have the higher rate plan). I'd still like to eventually be only paying my bill, but while my mom is still working on cleaning up her own stuff and with my little brother just entering the work force, it's nice to be able to continue helping them while saving a little.

My boss sent out a link to NY&C who's having a huge sale. I even added 5 dresses to my cart, but when the discount codes didn't apply to the clearance dresses, I decided not to buy any. Each dress was only $20, but I ended up deciding not to purchase. If I do win more than $300 on my 6-month dietbet, I may put aside $50 for some new clothes.

The extra nice thing was after I talked myself out of it, my boss ended up buying me one since they were only $20 bucks.

The scale finally moved! 2.3 lbs. to go by next week to win this month of my Transformer dietbet.

I haven't really been posting about this, but SO and I have been looking at getting DD2. This one will be a female as we've learned it might be better to integrate a female dog into our pack. There is a great Pyr mix that turns 8 weeks early next week. We are 90% certain we are getting the all white female with black raccoon eyes. Her name will be Riley. All 'startup' costs associated with her will come out of our joint account, particularly SO's commission for the month. After that, we are done on the pet front. 2 DDs and 1 DC

I've been reading into the concept of once a month cooking. Anyone have any experience with this? Pros...cons? Tips for starting out/handling it with a small freezer?

I've been working on my credit cards recently, but when I last checked my credit report using CreditKarma, I noticed something else dinging my score...old medical bills.

For several years now, I've been dealing with LabCorp regarding a $538 medical debt. My EOB from that visit stated my owed amount as 32.32. A few weeks after receiving the first bill, I sent in the EOB and requested an updated bill. They continued sending a full bill, and with everything else going on, it just dropped off my radar. After seeing it in collections on one of my reports, I finally decided to deal with it. I called the Collections agency and explained that I had never paid it since I'd never received an updated bill. She requested I send in the EOB again and call the next day to verify it. I forgot the next day, but just called and was told my owed amount is now 32.32. There is a $5 processing fee to do it over the phone, so I will send in a check instead. I also requested that they remove it from my credit report once the account has been settled.

My other credit report has a $90 collection on it, but that was fairly recent and just a dumb oversight on my part.

Hopefully, paying these will help bump my score up.

Also, SO is shaping up to have a pretty great month at work, so hopefully I'll be able to use some of that to still make a sizable payment to my CC. (Just fyi, this is money we spent on getting the apartment ready/pets/groceries before SO's paychecks were more consistent. I track it in our budget to be paid back as we get extra funds.)

I have one remaining magazine subscription for Cosmo and Elle that was a combined deal. Since it's coming up for renewal, I recently cancelled Cosmo thinking it would also apply to Elle since I got them as a combo deal. However, the other day, I noticed a $15 automatic renewal charge for Elle. I immediately cancelled and got a notification that I would be issued a $15 refund for all unsent issues. Imagine my surprise when today, I had a $20 renewal charge from Cosmo. I repeated the process. I'm writing both here and made a note in my budget spreadsheet to monitor these refunds.

One of my biggest grocery busters is our alcohol expense. Both SO and I enjoy unwinding with a drink or two several nights a week. While we could definitely be better about cutting back on this, it's really the only splurge in our grocery budget, so we're hesitant to take it away. Enter the luck of the Irish!!

My company celebrated it's anniversary yesterday on St. Patrick's Day, and ended up with a huge cooler still full of beer at the end of the evening. Since I'm one of the few people that assists with planning and execution of company events, I was able to snag 12-15 of the older beers (leftover from our last company event) since we had to clear out the fridge to make room for these new ones. I also got a huge container of fresh fruit for morning smoothies!

On Saturday, I went shopping for the make-ahead meals for my brothers. While I spent nearly double what I intended ($130 rather than $70), a lot of it was for our own pantry/apartment. I had around $60 left in the grocery budget, so that will be it. The good news is that I believe I have enough on hand to make it through the end of March. I had forgotten about the HelloFresh subscription which came last Friday. I reworked the meals for this week to include those 3 which pushed the meal plan through midweek next week. I can easily survive on pantry food for the last half a week, so going to do my best to not do groceries.

This weekend, I got hit with the spring cleaning bug. We have a list of tasks on our fridge to get done. I managed to cross off quite a bit. Cleaned the bathroom and entryway floors. Changed the tablecloth and washed placemats. Washed bathroom and kitchen mats. Cleaned the stove top and decluttered the kitchen counter. Caught up on laundry.

Plus, I hit my 10k steps both days. I really need to start pushing harder during the week to hit it. I have less than 5 lbs. to go to my dietbet goal this month.

Last night was stir-fry using the leftover rice and a bag of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots mix. To accomodate SO's taste for meat, I cut up my last piece of lemon pepper chicken and threw that in there along with a couple of leftover roasted veggies from Monday. We then threw in some soy sauce, duck sauce packets from previous chinese take-out nights, and scrambled two eggs in the middle to mix in.

It. Was. Delicious!!!

That was the first time I've ever just completely made it up and it worked perfectly. Tonight is also leftovers, so I get to relax a little.

Plus, my lunch today is free

I've been really happy with the progress I've made in terms of cooking. It really helps that SO seems to enjoy everything I make which boosts my confidence. Some of my better meals have been a quinoa, broccoli, chicken casserole; bang bang shrimp pasta; and last night, lemon pepper chicken with brown rice and cheddar bay biscuits. I even carved out a meal plan to get us through the rest of this week and next week since my food budget ($300) is pretty much gone. I'm hoping to make it through most, if not all, of the rest of March with only 1 or 2 trips for staples (I'm running low on milk and eggs).

Out of my own account, I will be shifting some priorities around. I'm going to pull $100 from one of my credit card payments for food. My mom is going to the Philippines next month to bury my grandmother. My brothers will be on their own for two weeks for food. While they will cook some small things on their own, I imagine they will rely a lot on fast food/take-out. Since one brother doesn't work and the other makes very little, I anticipate phone calls asking for money for food. To make this a bit easier on myself, I have decided to make ahead 4 meals that they can quickly pop into the oven and will last 2-3 days for them. This and their simple home-cooking skills should cover most of the 2 weeks. I will be making the aforementioned quinoa/broccoli/chicken casserole, crunchy tex-mex casserole, enchiladas, and baked mac & cheese with cut-up hot dogs and peas. My intention is to double-up on these meals where possible, so that SO and I can also enjoy them at home. It wouldn't come out of our own account's grocery budget, but would help us make it to the end of March.