Spending - Week Eight (Feb 19-25)

This is about the time of year where I give up on this blog lol The little voice in my head is telling me it's stupid to track all my money. But the practical voice is screaming early retirement! beach condo! new furniture! a greenhouse! All stuff that I can eventually afford if I stick to budget for a few years.

So anyway, my spending has been pretty crappy this week. The stock market tanked, that always put me in a foul mood (I have a 5 year plan that I get very impatient about - I know stuff will go back up). I'm being belligerent to myself, seriously, like arguing in my head. I scold myself for stupid spending (like the movie above) then the angry teen in me say to back off, it's my money and if I want to waste it I will. The voices in my head really don't get along :)

Anyway, here it is in all it's glory.

Gas at BP Thursday
Japanese on Thursday & coke 7.90 1.25
Tuesday - la caretta and a sprite - 4.87 1.25
oil change 32.94
chicken tenders 2.18
oranges 1.08
groceries at beginning of week 15.82
ice tickets - $49
cotton candy during ice show - $10
subway after ice - $7.67
movie theatre $43
march of dimes - $5
target 62.07 - 3 shirts, half and half (I need to find the receipt, this is only half of it)
taco bell 3.59
subway 7.67
chinese 11.35
walmart vday stuff - 30.16


I obviously didn't cook this week. And I'm obviously going to run out of eating out money for the year. Yay me.

Dear Movie Theatre,

Last night my future hubs, my DD and myself went to a 3D movie during matinee pricing. With a couple of cokes and popcorn, the bill came out to $43.

$43 is...
more than enough for a tank of gas
2/3 of a cruise day in the off season
3 happy hour meals at O'Charleys
39 sausage biscuits
our share of a room at Myrtle beach plus lunch
78% of what I needed to do my bulk oats order
almost 5 tshirts for me for summer
86 paperback books from yard sales
and the list goes on and on.

I feel stupid. I won't miss you.

Spending - Week Seven (Feb 12-18)

Um...well..ok so here it is. I did go out of town for a day where outlets were involved. What I can't get over is how much food I bought at the store, then turned around and ate out a whole lot. (not making excuses so much as just perturbed at myself)

McDonalds - 4.92 + 6.48 (I don't even remember eating there twice, but my CC doesn't lie)
Groceries - $41.51
vday drink for daycare - $3.60
goodies for friends $10
Cats - $10.49
Fundraiser - $100
Breakfast $3.23 (I had an hour to kill so I ate breakfast at the grocery store deli - it was delish)
dollar general - 2.76 (drinks for the roadtrip)
Kirklands - $21.93 (2 pictures for my kitchen)
Japanese - 14.29 (dinner out on outlet day)
gas - $27.50
Walmart - 75.79 - this was for valentines day stuff, 3 sets of rechargable batteries (big bucks!) and a present for my boy. I can't find my receipt and I can't account for $20 of it so I'll mad money all of it. (losing receipts and not being able to categorize my purchases - this perturbs me too!)
Carters - $9.20 - a dress for Natalie and a dress for a present.
coke - $1.50 - at the outlets
Burger King - 7.21 (for me, mom and Natalie)
Disney Store - 51.22 (booyah - see below....)

$51.22 at the Disney Store bought.....(and because blogs aren't any fun without pictures....)

4 Rapunzel polar fleece embroidered blankets

3 pairs of dress up blinkie shoes

3 mulan crowns

1 set of blinking tinkerbell wings

a tinkerbell crown

Some of it was for gifts, some of it was for Christmas and some of it was for Natalie because it was cute :)

Meal Plan Mooonn..um...February

Yet another edit - I can't plan portions to save my life. We ate tacos for THREE dinners. I guess that makes sense, there are 12 shells in a box, if I eat 3 and she eats 1, then there you have it, three dinners.

(I am making changes as I go. Boy do I stink at meal planning. And just for fun, I'm adding pictures of some of our meals.)

You know, maybe my plan should be for a month instead of a week. I mean it's not like the weekly thing is working for me lol

I'll need 23 meals this month because of date nights. I need to do better at eating dinner leftovers at lunchtime the next day. Breakfast will be standard fare, oatmeal, eggs, cereal etc.

Meals (not in any order)
chef salad w/eggs/chicken/cheese/peas
Brats/carrot/cabbage/onion stir fry (We ate this once, it could have been 2 dinners and 1 lunch. But disorganized Kim didn't get the leftovers properly froze. Boo.)
bbq chicken on bread rounds & slaw
grilled cheddar cheese & home made chicken noodle soup
chicken & rice soup for the sickies in the house (chicken stock - gone!)
Italian sausage spaghetti & salad
breakfast casserole
Japanese style chicken with carrots & brown rice
tacos

(I scraped away like half of that sour cream lol)

Ham/bean/cheese soup with garlic cheese bread
Ham/bean/cheese soup with garlic cheese bread again
chicken spaghetti & salad
bacon/egg/cheese omelets on bread rounds (this is so good, it's my fav quick meal now)
ham subs on wheat rolls
french toast and baked apples
meatloaf and frozen veggies (at moms)
chicken salad on bread rounds and pasta salad
chicken broc cheesy rice casserole
hamburger mac & cheese with peas
no bun hamburgers & chips

(this was a big hit, little hamburgers with cheddar and pickles)

raisin bread french toast
Brats/cheese/onions on buns with cheese popcorn (hey - they all can't be winners)

Kung Pao chicken with celery, carrots & brown rice

$238

I think I mentioned I've been working on my kitchen for like a year. I thought I was just replacing ugly stuff with pretty stuff. What I discovered was water damage and a lot more work.

A post or two ago I mentioned I'm trying to keep my house at a certain amount $wise. The bulk of my kitchen remodel was rolled into the original 50K that I've got in the place. So it's time to start tapping into the 20K grand remodel budget.


This is my sink! I paid $238 yesterday to have water cut off valves put in and my new sink to be installed. You can see I've really been working on the granite top too (ignore the dark spots, it was still wet). You can also see the color of the solid wood oak cabinets (minus the trim). My oak floors are a little darker but they are the same tone.

(lets digress for a minute...the person I bought these cabinets from, replaced them with maple ones...except only the doors were maple, the rest was man made wood...why..even if you don't care for the color or grain in them, would you yank out real wood and put in fake wood? Duh?)

Oak was not my first choice for cabinets. To get a real wood substitute, like maple, it was big bucks. I don't have my sheet anymore but I believe a kitchen remodel with real maple cabinets, laminate countertops, the same sink and faucet, a new stove, new microwave range unit and dishwasher was right at 12K.

You don't put 12K into a 70K house.

So my compromise:
a used stove - $100 (I had a 1960 cooktop and wall oven)
a used 3 month old microwave - $100
used cabinets - $400
granite tile countertops - $600
a new dishwasher - $400
a new sink - $200
a new faucet - $100
2 new saws plus misc pieces and parts like screws - $400
electrical outlets and wiring - $350
new copper pipes for the kitchen - $390
----------------------------------------------
I'm at about 3040 give or take a little.

I am so pleased with how it turned out, I'll post more pictures as I finish :)

$1,248.72 - ouch (and other stuff)

Eeck! lol

I've apparently had my student loans for 5 years now and my super cheap payment is no more. I have to pay $162 a month. The yearly difference? $1248.72. Um...ouch?!?!

I was talking to a guy, from who knows where, who was trying to console me about the payment. I was like....dude what is my interest rate? 2%. Then I'm good. I don't care if I pay $162 for another 15 years as long as the rate is so low. He was actually like "14 years 10 months" in a peppy little voice. Lay off the coffee call center guy!

Anyway, it seems like I'm constantly changing my spending categories. I'm not sure if that is normal or not.

My bedroom remodel is being moved into the 20K remodel project (which isn't coming from my yearly budget, it's complicated lol). So is the roof. With all repairs, expansion etc, I don't want to have more than 70K in my house. If you put on a 3K roof plus a $500 bedroom, that will push me over. I know I'm being paranoid but I don't want to price my house out of the neighborhood. It is a street of little cottage houses and my basement expansion is going to make it huge compared to most. But if I can keep it under my tax assessment (often used as a guideline in my area for appraisals etc) then I am comfortable in improving my little cottage.

I found out my medical is going to be $260 instead of $279.64 so I'll fix that.

I discovered my house for sale had a $200 credit on it's budget billing power account. So I had them move that to the house we live in. And our bills really are running $107 avg and I've got that $200 buffer, so I am reducing the power column down to $1284.

Netflix is actually running $10.94, I forgot about tax.

Just to be anal, my cable modem is 19.99 instead of 20 a month.

School Supplies/Learning Materials column got a little less complicated. My Mom can now watch Natalie on Thursday, the day I lost from daycare. So $1538 is an insane number for this section now. I know I'll have to buy classroom supplies, but I think I can do that out of my mad money. My goal was to have more columns but it seems like my misc one is getting bigger and bigger.

I think that is it. I have a lot of work to do in my sidebar.

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!