Spending - Week Six (Feb 5-11)

Not a very exciting week. Not in spending, not in living. So meh. I'm glad it's over!

• $20.65 - Groceries (gallon of milk, 2 pds brown rice, 1 pd ground round, 1 container OJ, 2 avacados, 1 container sour cream, 4 large whole wheat subrolls (fancy kind with seeds and nuts), 1 pd ham, 1 doz eggs, 6 bananas)
  
• $4.21 bread store
• $18.48 - Playdough set
  
• 31.76 gas
• $18.44 Family dollar trip, junk food and playdough toys (it was a very junk foodie week)
• $4.70 lunch @ work
• $24.89 2 tshirts for me for summer, 1 pr of pjs for Natalie for next year (75% off) plus half & half
• $3.72 - McDs breakfast
• $3.60 - McDs smoothie run
• $3.42 Kohls
• $5(ish) Burger King before gym (waiting for charge to appear on CC)
  

So this week obviously shows that when I am bored, mad, meg, blah and just general over everything, I spend money on a ton of little stuff.

We have an out of town trip tomorrow planned to outlet shop. Yikes!

Lettuce - take 2

So my first batch didn't make it past week 1. So I threw some more lettuce seed in the tub of dirt, moved it to a new window and watered it a lot more (I was worried about drowning the seeds).

Tada! Take two has made it a week and each tiny stem has 2 leaves. The other websites I've read says I can harvest leaves after 3 weeks. This stuff is going to have to take off big time to meet that timeline. But hey - it's still alive! lol

I'm feeling rather smart (and frugal)

I bought 4 awesome pillows at TJ Maxx several years ago. They were slipcover style with a duck feather insert. Super nice, I loved them.

Till my cat yaked on them. And me, being the young-non-martha-stewart type, tossed them in the washer.

Oops

Ever washed a feather pillow? Imagine a big stinky dog. Like the size of a house. So I pulled out the inserts, tossed them and rewashed the outer covers and put them away.

I never got around to getting new inserts. I had no idea pillow inserts were so expensive. I was saving up money for Natalie's adoption and I didn't have $10 to stick in a pillow. I thought I'd just stuff them with something else. Um ya, I never did that. Until tonight!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted that I bought Christmas stuff at Dollar General. They had marked everything down to 25 cents. That's my kind of sale. I bought 8 of these:


See where I'm going here? I squeezed them in the store and thought..ooooooohhh...squishy like a pillow. I flip over the bag and guess what? 100% polyester. The same as polyfill.

Score!

So I used 4 of my bags of poly fill to go from this:



to this:



For $1, my favorite pillows return! Yay me! lol

On Budget - YAY me lol

Natalie's birthday budget was $120. I know for some families that is really high. Compared to what I got, it's peanuts.

For her 4th birthday, there were three separate events I had to buy things for.
1. Preschool cupcakes.
2. Playdate to a bounce house on her birthday plus pizza for lunch
3. Chuck E Cheese on her birthday.

Broken down by $
birthday misc stuff (cake mix, frosting, cupcake liners, M&Ms, candles etc) - 24.10
minus 5.56 for felt going back to the store
Birthday Bounce House, snack & lunch -18.96
Presents - 16.73 on 2 Leapster games, 4.47 on pink fur stole
new favors - $1.07
Chuck E Cheese - 2 large pizzas, 12 drinks, 165 tokens, $53.26
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$113.03

The extra $6.97? I'll move it to my mad money - woot!

Cheap Party Favors

So I didn't make the hats. I just couldn't get a good pattern made out and I ran out of time. Then Natalie asked for a ribbon wand like Angelina Ballerina. So I thought - sticks - ribbons - glue...I can SO do that.

I spent $1.06 on wooden dowels at walmart. They came in a pack of 8 and were various widths and about a foot long.

Remember my cheap ribbon? First I picked out 4 of those spools. A couple of mine weren't full, I'd say if you were buying ribbon, you'd need 1 full spool per wand. Hobby Lobby has this ribbon for $1 on sale all the time. My cost? About 50 cents for all of my ribbon because of that fab deal.

I used hot glue to cover the dowel with ribbon. Then I took three strips of ribbon, folded them halfway and sewed them on the crease. I glued them pointing down (to have 6 streamers instead of 3) then wrapped another ribbon around the tip to hide the sewed part. The longest streamer was about 2 feet, the shortest, about a foot. It is hard to see, but I have ivory, pink and turquoise streamers and yellow on the dowel. I was trying to use up open spools.

The hairbows were from my etsy store collection. I'll be selling triple loop bows for $3 soon. I've been saying that for a couple of months now...sigh....

Anyhoooo - sticks + ribbon = 3 favors for $1.56. And they really liked them :)

Spending - Week Five (Jan 29-Feb 4)

First things first, boy am I glad this week is over. Too much stuff going on. Tomorrow is day 9 of rush rush rush. Work & home life have whipped me over the last 1.5 weeks.

Oh ya and......

新年快樂

(happy new year!)

Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year tickets - $17
Chinese fun twirling handkerchief - $10
burger king afterwards 4.16
---------------------------------------------------------------
Ross $4.37. I had a leftover store credit from who knows when. I got myself a shirt (wooohooo!) and a pair of tights for Natalie's clothes next winter.

Ross #2 $13.78 on two large photo albums. I have at least 1200 pictures printed and not in albums. They are in little sad boxes in the TV cabinet.

Target - negative $5.48. Cool huh? I bought an adorable fancy dress for $10, 50% off. Danged if it didn't got to 75% off 2-3 days later. So I brought in the dress and they returned it and resold it to me without even swiping my card. Target...I love you.

Target - $22.26. I was in a wandering mood and I have to find the receipt. I bought even more little girl clothes (thank goodness the clearance racks are empty now, I'm a crazy woman) and some shampoo. I can't remember the rest so I might have to edit this entry.

--------------------------
birthday stuff (cupcakes, party favors, candles) - 24.10
(I have some stuff to return, I changed party favors.)
Birthday Bounce House & Lunch -18.96
Birthday - 16.73 on 2 Leapster games I hadn't counted yet
new favors - $1.07
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Walmart
groceries - 20.01 (eggs, milk, pears, onions, garlic, cabbage, bbq sauce, diet coke, little french breads, paprika, taco shells, bananas & apples)
clothes - 4 prs of tights - 8.76
seeds - 5.26
cats - 21.06
Christmas (Natalie) - 5.48
The one on the right was marked down to $5, half off! She already had the left one.

Allowance - so I decided to do something that will prob bite me in the butt in a few months. They had a Melissa and Doug train set on clearance tonight. With the extra car set for it, it all came out to $76.64. I asked Natalie if she wanted it with her money (she plays with it every single time we go into that toy store) and she said yes. So I decided to advance her allowance to her. I told her she'd get less every month and she seemed ok with it. Now at four, does she really understand? I say no lol

She hasn't noticed Jan's contribution to her piggy bank was low ($3 instead of $10 down from $20 last year). So I'm thinking as long as I give her something (in dimes, her favorite), and we continue to work on money counting then we are good. I am a super wimp when it comes to after Christmas clearance sales.

Look how awesome it is :) I am going to glue the suspension pieces together so she can put it together herself.


Walmart - $17.06
I went in for wooden dowels and fray check (different post). I also ended up getting chicken, potatoes and egg rolls from the deli. And another wooden bridge for the trains set. I am sure there are a couple of other things too, I need to find this receipt. When I am stressed, I spend. Then I feel guilty about blowing money and that stresses me more.

The reason I am stressed? Daycare dropped our spot. I have the PERFECT schedule. I had every hour planned during the week and it was like a beautiful dance. Natalie has school certain hours, had art& playtime certain hours, baths were certain times on certain days. Gymnastics and Ballet were worked in the mix perfectly. My Mother went part time and revamped her schedule in order to accommodate our new one.

So daycare decided they weren't taking one day kids and we'd have to increase our days. And you know what? I'm not willing to put her in the daycare enviroment for more than what she's been doing. Her attention span (no crappy food) has increased, her attitude has been great and everything has been pretty awesome since I started my remote work schedule in August.

So now I'll have an extra $900 which I'll move to learning materials. This column will now cover any activities I plan on Thursday for her. I have some ideas and I'll need more ideas. But I'm blabber along about that on another post.

(holy cow I spent a lot this week...don't add it up)

My January 2011 Summary

Monthly roundup! Bullet style!

Jan 7.7% of total, 4 of 52 weeks reported

• Groceries 1405.60/1560 = 9.9% - over just a little bit, I'm not surprised.
  
• HBA 142.82/180 - 20.66% - oh good grief. I see my future mad money visiting this column
  
• Mad Money - 2171.57/2238 - 2.97% - really? excellent lol
  
• Gas 706.23/780.00 - 9.46% but I have half a tank of gas right now so it's right on target
  
• Daycare 900/960 - 6.25% - I was sick one day and kept the little one home with me. I pay per day. Not cool that I was sick, but cool I was sick on a day I could save money LOL
  
• Cat - 404.39/420 - 3.72% - that is pretty good. I am sad to say I've not seen three of my strays for most of the winter. I home they have found nice warm homes with lots of cat chow.
  
• Clothes - 471.07/600 - 21.49% - I knew I'd spend a lot in Jan on clothes with the clearance sales. Hopefully I can restrain myself until the end of summer clearance (which should happen in May right? Don't you hate when stores have clothes out?)
  
• Eating out - 418.26 /460.55 - 9.18% a little over. If I can keep our eating out to 460.55 for the year it will be a small miracle.
  
• Christmas - Other - 290.69/300 - 3.10% - this was just for bags, bows, paper etc.
  
• Birthday - Natalie - 115.53/120 - 3.7% - the bulk of this expense will be in Feb.