Here we go.....




Sunday, January 30, 2011

Beach Vacation


I am not sure how I ended up being landlocked. If I don't go to the ocean multiple times a year I'm not a happy camper.

We are spending 7 nights in Myrtle Beach with my Mom. The room and gas charges will be split. That makes a cheap vacation for both of us.

They were running a special, for an extra $20 for the week, if we moved from the side of the building to the front. Our beds also went from double to queens. Yippppeeeee

This is my estimate so far:
Room = $604.96/2 = 302.48
Gas - $50 (extra on top of the weekly amount)
Eating out - $45 (3 $15 meals)
Groceries - $0 - I'll use our regular grocery budget. More than likely I'll bring 2 complete dinners frozen and Mom will do the same. Then we'll do milk and cereal for breakfast then sandwiches and fruit for lunch.
Misc- I think my mad money will cover anything weird. We go to MB so much, we don't have any unexpected expenses.
-----------------------------------------
$397.48

Friday, January 28, 2011

Spending - Week Four (Jan 22-28)

Ok so here it is in all it's glory (more like gory glory lol)

  • First - I returned some unopened princess dresses that I didn't give DD at Christmas for $35. Instead of sticking that money in my misc fund, I spent it hehe I bought two more dresses for next winter for DD (see below!), 1 pair of tennis shoes for now, 1 pair of tennies for about a year from now, 1 pair of tennies to give to a friend and a Dora umbrella for $42.16. So I'll take $7.16 from the clothing column. I really hope I have little kid clothes out of my system now. I have 4 more outfits than I planned for. Bad Kim!
  • Wedding - I bought my wedding gown the day after we decided to get married on Ebay for $108 shipped (NWT Galina - woot). I bought Natalie's dress at Belks for $19.70 this week. I didn't have a wedding column before and now I do so here these are.
  • Groceries - 43.75 - meh - I am going to try monthly meal planning this month to see if that helps. My main problem? I just like to shop for groceries! But I can barely close my freezer!
  • Mad money - honey & containers - 22.49
  • Taco Thursday spilled over into taco Tuesday too. But I won a visa giftcard at work that I used on the meals. Yes, I should have used them on something useful like gas for my car, but I like tacos.
  • I also went out for Chinese with mom - 15.46. Can you see what happened this week? Meal plan, meal splan.
  • McDonalds - twice, 3.72 and 3.29 (sigh)
  • HBA - $3.28
  • Dollar General for Christmas supplies - 9.31 ...everything was marked down to a quarter. I bought stuff for me and Mom.
  • 2 cokes @ work - 2.50
  • gas 38.14
  • Consignment store - $2.19
  • Daycare - $20
I squished all my eating out categories into one because sometimes we do eat something different than McDs, Chinese or tacos.

Picture time! Blogs without pictures are boring!


Thursday, January 27, 2011

Groceries - Trip #2


Boredom is a very dangerous thing here. I picked the little one up from school yesterday and went to the grocer again.

I guess it was worth it, I got the brats for just 1.29 a pack and there are 19.something ounces in each one. Quick someone do the math - that's about a buck a pound right? lol I got 6 of them and I left three of the mexican sausage ones for someone else. I also left the same person (a single guy who looked longedly into my cart at MY marked down brats- in my head I was going na na naaa naaa naaaaa) have the big frozen pizzas and the marinated roast. The pizzas were $1 each and were deli style. But you know what? That's just junk food in a different form. The roast might have been fine at 1.49pp but it was HUGE and who wants to buy 4 pounds of meat that they might not like?

Let's see, lettuce was normal at 5.99 for a pound. The mayo was on sale for $1.99. I also picked up more bread rounds at the outlet bread store on the way home. I had the thought that maybe this was a limited time thing (my favorite things tend to disapear) and I should buy more. So I have two packs in the freezer now and we are working our way through a new one.

$16.19 at the grocer and $2.15 at the bread store. I'm over. Again. Oops.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

*~\ I got a raise /~* (<--little happy flags)

This is what I've decided to do with the money:

  • add a wedding column to the budget. I won't be pulling this money from my investment account now (which was a dumb idea anyway, a wedding doesn't make a marriage and you don't sacrifice your future for a party)
  • fix the ballet column. I have 4 months at $43 then she goes into the $45 class in the fall for 4 months. In the fall I plan to enroll her into a second class so it will be times 2. I pay ballet monthly.
  • added to the gymnastics column. Tonight was her first advanced class and she rocked it out! The advanced class is a little more a year then I get a discount on a second class and another discount for paying a year ahead. I'll owe $256.80 next week and $888 in July (I pay gymnastics yearly because of a 20% discount).
  • adding the last 678 to my mad money. That way I can stick it in whichever column that needs it the most lol
I had a hard time deciding where to put the money. Part of me was tempted to slap the entire thing into my "extra income" that I'm trying to earn. But I have like 500 hairbows to sell now and all my consignment sales. I'm confidant that I'll be able to come up with the $2200 (plus actually a lot, but that is a different post). Then I was tempted to rebook our Disney trip (which I canceled in lieu of a beach trip). Then I was like KIM! Grow up! LOL

Monday, January 24, 2011

My Mad Money for this week

I blew a nice chunk of my weekly mad money ($22.49) on things to help our new lifestyle. I'm attempting to add more organic foods into our diet, grow some food to cut down on transportation & packaging and to remove BPA from our diet.

We had a thread on DS about BPA that skeeved me out (and skeeved is my new favorite word, I say it every day).

BPA is a chemical in plastic that is super awful, like breast cancer awful for you. They banned it from baby bottles. You also aren't suppose to microwave anything in plastic.

Plastic is also used to line the inside of canned food. Imagine this...you have a can with this lining....the canner dumps hot food into the can....the chemical leeches into the food....you open that can and nuke it in a plastic bowl....tada! You've just created a toxic stew for your family.

yuck

So anyway, the first thing I've done is stop using canned goods. That is really hard. I have probably 60-70 cans of stuff in the pantry that I can't bring myself to eat. In the next week, I'll be rehoming those cans to someone who doesn't give a flip about BPA. Part of me is like toss them. The other practical part of me knows canned goods with plastic lining will always be purchased and my canned goods are no worse that what is on the shelf now. So my compromise - give it to a food bank type place where it doesn't go to anyone I know!

(Another added benefit of getting rid of canned goods - my stockpile will be practically zilch and I'll be able to make an inventory book of everything I have. That makes my little planning soul super happy.)

So onward to the organic things. I buy organic lettuce already but that's about it. Truthfully, I've not paid a lot of attention to organic stuff. But this week I added 10 pounds of organic carrots to our diet.

The carrots were only 6 cents per pound more expensive than buying them by the pound from walmart. They came in 5 pound bags, 2 of them for $7. I think they were on sale, that is something I forgot to check.

What I first noticed about the carrots is how well they were trimmed. Not a single piece of green stuff on the tops which is thrown away and adds to the poundage (so really, these were probably the same cost and regular carrots). The second thing that struck me was how clean they were. I guess when you pay more for your food, the companies take a little extra time in presentation and get the dirt off of them. Third, about 10 of the carrots had bug bites on them. Honest to goodness bug bites. It took an extra millisecond to nip those out while I was dicing them up to blanch for the freezer. It made them seem more real!

Oh wait, so back to my mad money. I purchased 12, 16oz plastic BPA reusable canning jars for the freezer this week. They were $3.89 plus tax for 4. I really like the size. I really like how they stack. It's just a good product. I blanched all 10 pounds of those carrots and got about 9 pounds into those 12 plastic jars. I wish I had been able to get another 4 pack but I bought them out. So I just kept the extras out of the freezer and we'll eat the two Japanese meals this week tonight and tomorrow.

My other mad money purchase was for organic raw honey to sweeten my tea. I'm a white sugar junkie which is probably why I feel like crap a lot. I am hopeful to find a local source but for now, I paid $8.99 for a little jar of honey. Boy did that hurt lol


So here is my mad money. I hope to add containers every time I see them for a good price at the grocer. If we like the honey and can't get more locally, I'll look into bulk purchase options online.

(coming soon - Kim makes bread - I hope I don't burn it, the organic flour was $3.50 a bag!)

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Meal Plan Monday January 24, 2011

(this is the new 7 ft kitchen countertop, an no, its not done yet lol)

I spent $25.41. Now that I look at what I got, it looks pitiful lol. I do have like 12 pounds of chicken breast in the freezer. I also have 10ish pieces of fruit already. So it sounds better now huh?

Guess what's going to start us out on the list? Spaghetti! You know the stuff I've been trying to make and eat for three weeks now? I am going to make it a date night at home* so I won't have an excuse.

Meal 1 - Spaghetti. No really. With garlic bread.

Meal 2 - Japanese chicken. I want to learn how to make sesame chicken, like what our local Japanese grill makes. I'll also make carrots & brown rice with shrimp sauce.

Meal 3 - I'm craving shrimp something awful. I am going to try to make shrimp like how they make it at the Japanese grill. We'll do broccoli with this plus brown rice.

Meal 4 - bacon cheese omelets (another craving! mmmm bacon)

Meal 5 - sliced bbq chicken and mixed freezer veggies

Meal 6 - some kind of chicken breast on bread rounds & fruit

Meal 7 - chicken breast with carrots, bacon crumbles, eggs etc on salad greens

Have a good week :)

* attempting to cut down on dating expenses so he is more comfortable with tripling his retirement contributions. If he doesn't do it, we'll be screwed next year at tax time.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Spending - Week Three (Jan 15-21)

I'd like to just tag this week as "oops". I think I'm over in a lot of weekly goals LOL I keep thinking, my goal is yearly, not weekly or even monthly. Keep the eye on the prize Kim lol

Eating out
My dear boy paid for 2 meals for us this week. I've been sick and puny and he fed me. I think I'll keep him.
Chick-fil-a - $6.40 for a combo tonight before a birthday party.
McDonalds - $2.19
tacos with the little one - 10.13
- what I didn't spend - my weekly taco money. I missed work on taco thursday.
mad money - work snacks, 3.05 (this kills me, just 3.05 but it was soda and chips)

Real food (as we call it around here)
Walmart* - 34.00
Target (just half and half) - 1.77
breadstore - $14.20

Clothes - wowsa. To my defense, I did finish up Natalie clothes for winter 2011. But I think I said the same thing last month haha
white tights for ballet, a set of new not needed but super cute PJs, a sweater for next winter and a 10 pack of socks - 22.68
Belks - 49.77 (pictures below - I love little kid clothes pictures)
Gymboree - 5.48

Misc
cats - 11.11
HBA #1 - 3.28
Birthday - $4.47 (pink dress up shawl) 75% off booyah!
Etsy store - $35.67 (all that ribbon and 250 business cards to attach the bows to)
Ballet - $86.00 for Jan & Feb (I overalloted $18 a year for ballet and we aren't going in may so I'll have $61 to roll into her new advanced class uniforms in the fall)
HBA #2 - 30.62 (um ya, $15 a month isn't going to cut it here. I forgot about things like dishwashing detergent and TP)


I'm over on groceries this week because I stockpiled cheese and brown rice. Brown rice is cheaper per pound in the 1 pound bags at Walmart. Unfortunately, everyone knows that. So when I saw it in stock, I got three of them. Most stores, brown rice is twice the cost of white. At Walmart, is is just 7 cents more a pound. My other stockpile item was Kraft cheese for $1.50 a block. I can't recall it ever going lower than that and the blocks I bought had 20% more for free. So that's really like getting a regular block for $1.25. Last week I made the mistake of buying walmart brand shredded cheese and it was super gross. Dried out and every piece was coated in white powder that stuck to your tongue. Never again. So that is why I jumped on the Kraft stuff :)

I went shopping, twice. Both times I was in a bored, lets roam around and see what's going on type of mood lol That is never good for trying to stay on budget. lol

Groceries bought:
27 fiber one bars
2 packs of whole wheat no HFCS bread rounds
2 loaves of raisin bread
milk
a generic diet coke
pickles (stores are so sneaky - the days of $1 pickles are gone I think. When I compared per ounce, the huge jar was so much cheaper. That is how I blew $3 on $1 pickles lol)
3 pds brown rice
saltines
1 pd carrots
1.14 pd bananas
butter
coffee creamer
taco seasoning
5.10 pounds of cheese
a big thing of half and half

And on to the little kid's clothes. I let her pick them out, she was so happy :)

It's hard to see, there are silver stars on the purple dress on the left. At least i think it's a dress, she'll wear it with pants either way lol


I love this dress. Ralph Lauren corduroy, 75% off. Gives me a little high just to touch it lol It is fully lined with crimline inbetween the layers. The skirt and sleeves are sewn in a bubble style with the lining totally enclosed. And look at all the detail on top. I love love love it.


She's all about the purple. I'm good with that, fewer pairs of shoes needed! I am particularly fond on the flapdoodles outfit on the right. Her future cousin got the same outfit so we are going to do pictures. It will be really cute.

This striped christmasy dress looks better in person. My camera made the green kinds smear into the white. The pink top was just $4.99 at gymbo and I already had the old navy new cargo skirt that I paid $2-3 for.

Whew I think that is it. Bye!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

:)


Natalie is being moved to the advanced gymnastic class next week and is being moved in older girls in ballet in the fall. I'm a wee bit proud of her lol

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Chicken Comparison - informational and a little boring

I've always wondered this...now I know.

Food City had bone in chicken breast for 88 cents a pound. I bought 18 pounds even for .95 a pound with tax.

My normal sale price for boneless chicken breast is 1.99. Historically, once a year, it will go down to $1.69. But 1.99 is more common. $2.16 with tax.

So is the savings on cleaning your own chicken worth it with these prices?

What I discovered is:
  • Each breast portion had a breast and a tenderloin on it. Tenderloin is $3.50+ a pound. But I'm not going to divvy it up because I wouldn't buy tenderloin compared to regular chicken breast.
  • There are several chunks of meat in weird little spots on the ribcage that I couldn't get off. I used knives, I used kitchen shears. They just didn't come off.
  • Removing the breast and tenderloin from the rib cage was really easy. There is a little spot towards the top. If you get you fingers in there the right way, it pulls off in one piece.
  • De-boning chicken is messy.
  • When I cleaned the meat I was able to snip off all bad parts with my shears to make a perfect piece of meat. Even with "boneless" chicken, I am constantly cutting off big wads of "stuff" all over it. And I often have to sip off little bones around the edges.

What I ended up with...
  • 18 chicken breasts
  • 18 chicken tenderloins
  • or 13 pounds of boneless chicken placed into 26 bags for future meals.
Math time!
17.11 / 13 = $1.32 a pound or of 61.11% of the regular cost.

I am happy with that price. It did take me an hour to debone 18 pounds but that included wrapping it in meal sized portions.

But wait, there's more...
I also had 18 chicken rib cage leftovers. With hunks of meat on them. You know what I did with that?

Chicken stock/broth...woot!

I snipped the rib cages with all those meat chunks on them until they fit in the crock pot. Then I filled it with water and went to bed. In the morning I drained all the liquid and filled it back up and set it on high again. The first batch was really strong, the second was a little weak. So I mixed the two.

I ended up with 1.75 gallons of chicken broth. And since the chicken was additive free, it's a salt free, spice free, preservative free stock/broth (is it stock or broth? I used both meat and bones - I'm undecided lol).

Store brand chicken broth in a can is 14.5 ounces for 54 cents. My scraps made 15.54 "cans" of stock for a savings of $8.39.

So I saved 19.36 on the whole deal for an hours worth of work. I ended with two high quality items. Plus I enjoyed doing it.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

$30 well spent....


on Etsy loot. Check out what I bought for $30, including the cases :) Most of the ribbons are full spools and there are 129 of them!

I can't even guess how many hairbows these spools will make. My first bow sale is the last Sat in jan so I'd better get back to work!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Meal Plan Monday January 17, 2011

Third week of the new year already? Wow time is flying!

This week we'll need 6 dinners. Last week I did pretty well except the spaghetti didn't get made. That baja stuff lasted forever and my BF took us out for an extra meal. So I'm pushing it to this week.

  1. Spaghetti, made with the meat/veggie mixture I froze a week ago
  2. Spaghetti leftovers (I so hope this doesn't extend past 2 dinners)
  3. chicken veggie dumpling stew - made with frozen chicken stock from my chicken experiment
  4. raisin toast french toast and fruit
  5. ham/bean soup
  6. kung poa chicken
Shopping list
Milk
rice
fresh fruit
butter
pickles
cheese
celery if it is a good price (a nice addition to kung pao but not required).

I ran to the bread outlet today and picked up almost 20 fiber one bars, 2 bags of raisin bread, a bag of hoagie buns and 2 packs of HFC free whole wheat bread flats for about $14. So for breakfast we'll be eating through the raisin bread (plus oatmeal/cereal & eggs I'm sure), and for lunch we'll have sliced chicken breast sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, and hummus on toasted bread rounds.

And for once in my life, I am going to freeze things in advance. We can't eat 8 foot long hoagie buns so I am going to slice them and put them in the freezer for french toast. We also can't eat 2 loaves of raisin bread (it was a penny for the second loaf) so that is being divided and frozen.

Dress Progress


It is easier to visualize once it's cut huh? The three ruffles are almost down to her ankles. She has requested the skirt to be poofy. I'll end up with three spare ruffles. I know one is going to trim out the cape I'm going to make from the lining. The other two will be a detachable train (tail).

As for the top, I'm currently trying to take the padded top off of the fitted ribcage area to see what I have. Its hard to take apart fancy stuff without things unraveling and making a mess.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Birthday Plans for my little Natalie

My little one turns 4 on Feb 1st. It seems like she was just a little baby yesterday. But seriously, the older she gets, the better she gets. Sure, baby drooling Natalie was pretty darn cute but she pooped in her pants, cried for no reason, got carsick, and threw her toys. 4 year old Natalie is 95% self sufficient, brilliant and 100% verbal. Fun too!

Last year we visited the mouse, not the good mouse, the cheap mouse, chuck. We had 10 of her little daycare friends there. I blew like $100 on tokens and food and make tutus for everyone as a party favor. It wasn't a bad use of money, I certainly couldn't have fit that many people in my house.

So I was going to mix things up this year and take her to a bounce house type place with 2 little friends (her BFFs forever don't you know). Then I found out I couldn't bring in cupcakes. She almost cried when I told her that so we are back at the mouse again this year. She is thrilled. Me - meh - lol

I have $120 allotted for her birthday. This is what I plan to spend/have spent:

  • $16.73 on 2 Leapster games. Dora was discounted for like a day on the Leapfrog site. Yay leapfrog! :) I also got a word building game.
  • $0 on the shoes I've already bought and counted in the clothing allowance. I am so cheating.
  • (Stephen has bought her a tag book, stickers and a hoppity ball. Nana has bought a Leapster. So even though my stuff isn't a lot, she is getting quite a bit.)
  • $3 cake mix and frosting. I already have the sprinkles she likes.
  • $0 decorations - last year I did a princess theme. I have one pack of plates left and another pack of solid purple Halloween plates to supplement (25 cents booyah!). I also have extra party hats, a pack of napkins, goodie bags and a tablecloth. I also have regular pink balloons. I asked her if still liked these and she was like oh ya. Score!
  • $4.38 on mylar balloons from dollar tree, one for each year.
  • $1.10 wrapping paper. I am out of birthday paper and was unsuccessful in finding solid colored Christmas paper on clearance.
  • $0 invites - I used facebook - is that cheap or hip?
  • $5 princess party favors (a post all by themselves!)
  • $50 - 2 $25 coupons packs. Includes 2 large pizzas and 150 tokens.
  • $5 - I'm probably not supposed to, but I am bringing some organic juice boxes.
I am at $85ish now. $35 wiggle room? YES! lol With 3 weeks to go until the party, this is the point where I normally add things. In my mind I'm like ooohhh I can spend $35 more? wheee!

But seriously, she doesn't need it. At this point I might make a second batch of cupcakes to take to daycare. But presents? Wowsa. She got enough presents for 4 kids for Christmas. I'm a sucker for pink glittery kid things (Santa and Nanaclause are too).

Sewing Fun

So this is the prom dress I bought today. We went to my fav consignment store to just wander and they had 100ish formals marked down to $10.

Almost every dress had flaws. This particular one has a lot of beading missing from the ribcage area and has a ton of loose threads. So not so perfect for a girl dreaming about a pretty prom dress but perfect for Mama fun sewing time.

My plan is to remove the skirt from the bodice first thing. Then the first three ruffles will be the main part of the costume skirt. I think for ease it will just have an elastic waist. Then the harder part is the top, I'm obviously not going to put my almost 4 yr old into a padded halter top. I envision some sort of tank top. She has also requested a cape which can be made with the matching lining. Its a lot of high quality fabrics for the $10. I'll post updates.

The skirt is pleated tulle. Doesn't that scream mermaid? lol

Friday, January 14, 2011

Spending - Week Two (Jan 8-14)

Groceries #1- 7.24 #2- 3.83
Mad Money 2.19 (valentines day stuff)
Daycare - $20
Mad Money - $6.75 for doughnuts
Mad Money - $10.95 for a prom dress to cut up to make a mermaid costume for the little one
Groceries again - 41.78*
cats - 4.50
McDonalds - $1.10
Target - $14.00 on DDs christmas dress for next year and a pair of leggings.

*groceries were higher because I got bone in chicken breast for 88 cents a pound. I bought $17.11 worth. I have plans for all that chicken but that is a different post!

Grocery wise I also got milk, half and half, cheddar cheese, a generic diet "coke", bread, 1.43 pounds of turkey deli meat, 3.33 pounds of bananas, 2.63 pounds of pears and 3.06 pounds of apples. Besides the milk, half and half and bananas, I only bought loss leaders.

After reading some super disturbing stuff about canned items and the BPA plastic liners in them, I'll be ditching a lot of our can goods this week. So at some point I expect I'll have to blow my mad money on groceries to stock pile the correct way. But I think its money well spent.

Monday, January 10, 2011

This lazy mama's way to make food for the week....

Did you notice our food this week is kinda......well......meh? It is actually better than it sounds.

How to cheat at dinner when you don't have time and your child is driving you crazy and all you really want is about 2 hours of quiet so you can finish working at your job so you can start working at your "Mom" job. (what? too long?)

In a pan, throw in..
  • 1.5 rainbow bell peppers. I buy like 100 of these every summer and freeze them in 1/2 pepper quantities
  • 2 onions
  • 5 little parts of a big thing of garlic
  • 1 pound of chicken breast
  • 1 pound of turkey sausage
  • tomatoes, can be canned tomatoes, frozen tomatoes, whatever. I personally used a pound of frozen little pear tomatoes that I paid a whole 25 cents for during the summer
Then....
  • Cook all that.
  • Then whirl it around in the food processor. If you don't have a food processor, you should get one, they are a lot of fun. Like $40 at walmart for a black and decker one.
  • Start your rice cooker. Don't have a rice cooker? Get one, they are like $15 at ross and they rock.
  • In the pan you just emptied, pour in a jar of ragu alfredo. Add a little bit of water to the jar to get that last little bit out.
  • Add in half of the pureed meat veggies thing you just made. Let it cook together for a little bit.
  • Add 1-4 tablespoons of chili powder, just depends on how you want it to taste.
  • Nuke some steamer peas for your side dish (remember you have veggies in the sauce too)
  • Pour alfredo stuff on rice - eat - yum!
The next day (or the next)...
Take the rest of the meat veggie stuff and dump it into a jar of ragu spaghetti sauce (I use ragu a lot because it goes on sale for $1).
Cook pasta, add extra Italian seasoning yada, yada..you get the idea.

It took me 7 minutes to cut up the meat and veggies. While they cooked I did other stuff (like 15-20 minutes). The whirling of the mixture, like 3 minutes. The cooking of the alfredo sauce & rice? Like 2 minutes. Peas? zero effort.

We are eating out tomorrow, eating alfredo leftovers on Wed and doing the spaghetti red sauce on Thursday (I froze the other half of the mixture.) I look forward to cooking, without really cooking, on Thursday.

Costs (your mileage may vary)
$2 - 1 pound of chicken breast
$.95 turkey sausage (I know this is cheap, but I get it all the time for the price in the mark down section)
.50 2 small onions
.75 - 1.5 bell peppers
.10 - part of a garlic bulb
.25 pear tomatoes
.46 - 1/3 bag of rice X 2
.50 - 1/2 box of linguine noodles X 2
$1 of alfredo Ragu
$1 of Ragu red sauce
$1.50 - two pound of frozen veggies, your choice
----------------------------------------
$9.01 plus tax for

4 dinners
1 lunch
2 freezer meals minimum

Or 2 dinners and 2 leftover lunches for a family of 4.

oooohhhh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I've always had a red kitchen. There for a bit, some blue was mixed in. But for the most part, red towels and white dishes have been my norm. Shoot, my dishes alone are 15 years old now.

The "new" kitchen will be done this month. And with the wedding happening this fall, I'm registering for new kitchen loot. I am SO excited.

But I can't seen to escape from red! I'm drawn to it! And its not just in my kitchen, my nursery is red too (the perfect shade of red btw with white crown molding, I love it so!).

So I got $40 in cash at Christmas. Instead of spending it on, I don't know, bills, I blew it on my future kitchen.

Behold!

Red!

I already had a couple of pieces, that only made me want more. Then the super wonderful TJ Maxx stocked hundreds of pieces of red, black and white kitchenaid stuff this past week. I was a lot of fun to mark these off my registry for a fraction of the price Amazon was charging. I love Tj Maxx even more than I love Hobby Lobby. Don't tell HL.

Oh ya...

There are 2 things I'm not going to be including in my budget this year. Both are pretty recent and occurred after I set up my budget for the year.

One - my basement is going to be finished. We are currently in a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 1040 SF house. Perfect size for 1 adult and 1 little kid. But.....

I'm getting married Oct 1st (that's two BTW). As of now (I am trying really hard to talk him into eloping), we are having a family ceremony in Gatlinburg. We've set a budget of 2K, 1K each, we are too old to ask people to pay for our wedding. I keep telling him that 2K would buy that 1020p, 120h, 50+ inch TV he wants plus the kitchenaid mixer, food processor and blender that I want. Silly boy wants to have a ceremony in front of family. poo on him lol

So anyway, back to news one - 1040 is not big enough for a man with his own household plus me and 1 little kid. And hopefully several more little kids. We are converting my unfinished basement into living space. We are also building a room under the deck and front porch. We will end up with 2365 square feet. We are both contributing 10K towards the project and will do as much of the work as we can ourselves.

Getting married in Oct will skew my budget for q4 but I guess I'll worry about that later.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Meal Plan Monday January 10, 2011

My meal plan last week didn't work at all. I am still getting into my groove on how much food to actually make so we won't throw anything away. We are really eating up the leftovers!

This week I need fewer meals.
For 6 breakfasts, we'll stick to cereal & bananas and oatmeal & apples/pears/raisins.
I will need 5 lunches
Lunch 1 - chili soup from prior week from the freezer
Lunch 2 - Tomato soup, grilled cheese and raw carrots
Lunch 3 - tuna pasta salad with peas and carrots
Lunch 4 - egg sandwiches and probably apples because we have several from last week
Lunch 5 - DD will be at Nanas during the week one extra day. That day I'll just eat soup or leftovers, I'm not picky.
I will need 5 dinners
Dinner 1 - kung pao chicken stir fry
Dinner 2 - spaghetti
Dinner 3 - spaghetti leftovers
Dinner 4 - baja chicken pasta
Dinner 5 - Baja chicken pasta leftovers

DD will be in heaven, 5 noodle dishes in one week. I'll add veggies to these meals to balance them out. We'll also snack on fruit. I'll use chicken and turkey sausage in the spaghetti & baja chicken to just get rid of it. I like to cook both and whirl them around in my food processor to blend it really well.

This week I bought.....
cheetos - $2
navel oranges (6) - 1.98
bananas (6) - 1.15
2 pounds of carrots - 1.24
OJ - 1.98
garlic bulb - .38
2 buttermilk ranch dressings (I got two because it is always sold out) - 2.36
a pack of M&Ms hehe - .50
Grand Total w/tax = 7.24 after I used the last 4.93 from my WM giftcard

I did forget bread which I'll pick up at the bread outlet down the street. I already have chicken and turkey sausage in the freezer. I wasn't in the mood for salad so I didn't get a tub of salad greens (that might change as the week progresses). We have milk & eggs too. My BF is bring 4 cartons of juice to me tomorrow that he bought us last night and another pack of bananas. Some girls get flowers, I get cheap groceries hehe

THIS is the month we eat the freezer down to ice cube status. The only thing I want in there are the diced peppers. We simply can't eat 25 of them this month. I think I can do it :)

Saturday, January 8, 2011

2 free things

One, $25 in free seeds when you request a catalog. I am doing the garden thing this year and that will buy quite a bit of seeds.

http://www.gardensalive.com/catalog_request_qas.asp?bhcd2=1294464059

I also ordered a catalog for my boyfriend so I'll have $50 in stuff. And actually, their stuff is mostly organic and cheaper than Burpee so more that likely they've bought a customer with a few packets of seed. I'm a cheap date :)

(this came from Frugal Frenzy)

Two, a free tag book. Go to the site and tell them what leapfrog toys you already have. You can choose from a tag junior or regular tag book for free. Takes 6-8 weeks. If it works (and it should, they do it every year), I'll use it in DD's Easter basket.

http://www.leapfrog.com/en/freetagbook/book.html

Friday, January 7, 2011

Spending - Week One (Jan 1-7)

Daycare - $20
Mad Money - $18.50 for 2 pairs of wool longies. I couldn't help myself. Darn you extra fluffy DS chat board! lol
Vacation - Beach room deposit 107.58. (Beach trip info coming soon)
Gas - 35.63
Groceries - $7.83 Kroger - I had to buy apples for the preschool party that I totally forgot about. I also got a pack of ramen (because seriously, who doesn't love ramen every so often?), a super crappy lean cuisine that I am going to write them about (the pizza is super gross) and a can of gourmet chili that was on clearance. I was hungry and I was bored. I'm lucky I came out as low as I did LOL

For our main groceries & HBA this week I used $45 of $50 worth of GCs for walmart. We got them for Christmas and I don't like hanging on to things like that. I spent about $35 on groceries (I bought some eggs for my Mom and juice we really didn't need for $5ish, that is why I was over). I'll spend the other $5 next week prob. HBA wise, I got shaving cream and bar soap. DD also scored a light up Tinkerbell wand for $3.50. She sleeps with it, she loves it.

Good stuff that came in my mail...
A check for like $2.40 from linkshare - I'll take it!
A secret shopper opp for my bank. All I have to do it go through the drive through teller which I need to do anyway. That is $10.
2 $2 off coupons for purina cat chow because I asked :)
(my goal for 2011 is to make an extra $2200 this year from selling stuff, freebies or unexpected things like the coupons....I'm $16.40 there!)

Do you notice what is missing from my list this week? Fast food! I'm SO EXCITED and a little proud of me! I have a wicked McDs breakfast addiction. I can just think of their stuff and start to drool. But you know what? Their food is horrible for you. So I'm laying off the sausage biscuits (drool drool). I also didn't go to Taco Thursday with the girls at work because it snowed and I worked from home.


Sunday, January 2, 2011

Meal Plan Monday January 3, 2011

I am making edits as the week goes along. This is the last week I'll assign a certain meal to a certain day.

Greetings! To start off the new year, we are going to play the "what can I eat out of my freezer and pantry"game. I have several bags of frozen veggies, turkey sausage, ground beef, chicken breast and ham in the freezer. I have too much stuff to even list in the pantry. So here we go...

What we'll be eating:
Monday
Breakfast - cheerios & bananas
Lunch - leftover creamy spaghetti and a freezer veggie
Dinner - baked potatoes with chicken/cheese/ranch & cooked carrots - leftover creamy spaghetti and a freezer veggie (dd really likes this)

Tuesday
Breakfast - oatmeal or cereal plus fruit (I am going to try really hard to skip our Tuesday mcDs breakfast
Lunch - leftovers for me, DD is at Nana's
Dinner - meatloaf hamburgers & cabbage from freezer - I can't even remember what I made for dinner this night. DD ate at Nanas and I think I ate cereal?

Wednesday
Breakfast - oatmeal or cereal plus fruit
Lunch - egg/sausage/grit/cheese casserole (we'll eat breakfast anytime!)
Dinner - date night - went to family's house for cards

Thursday
Breakfast - oatmeal or cereal plus fruit
Lunch - I'll eat at work (taco day) DD will eat at school
Dinner - tuna steak, rice & frozen veggie baked potatoes with chicken/cheese/ranch & cooked carrots

Friday
Breakfast - oatmeal or cereal plus fruit
Lunch - egg/sausage/grit/cheese casserole (freeze leftovers)
Dinner - baja chicken pasta (freeze half of sauce) & frozen veggies tuna steak, rice & frozen veggie

Saturday
Breakfast - oatmeal or cereal plus fruit
Lunch - hummus, crackers and raw carrots
Dinner - I have 2 small lamb chops in the freezer that I'll turn into soup

Sunday
Breakfast - oatmeal or cereal plus fruit
Lunch - hummus, crackers and raw carrots
Dinner - at Moms

What I need to buy
2 bags of shredded cheese
1 pd carrots
1 gallon of milk
juice
eggs
fruit (whatever is on sale plus bananas)
crackers
1 can of black olives
clove of garlic
1 pd hamburger