today i played hookie...

and it's been sooooooo nice!  Today was my Bible Study day which I love, but I woke up this morning feeling very frazzled due to self-imposed to-do's.   Yesterday I'd planned on tackling a bunch of stuff, but ended up doing 7th grade math & science instead!  (Why is it that I feel like I'm in middle school again?!?)  So, a 3 hour chunk of my day was spent helping out with homework.  By the way, I really do love helping with homework...it's one of the reasons I make sure I'm home in the afternoons, but yesterday took a bit more time than I'd expected.  Anyhow, I woke up this morning knowing that I had a 3-hour Bible Study ahead of me, for which I hadn't yet completed my homework...(maybe I could get my 7th grader to do my Bible homework?!?), and decided to play hookie.  I have to admit, it's was just what I needed.  I've been at home all day with no distractions and have calmly gotten through many of my To-Do's.

Many times I freak out over all that has to be done, when really none of it has to be done...it's just what is on my list!  And I hate leaving things on the "list" without them being crossed off!

So, today has been a day of getting things done without any pressure and it's been lovely!!! 

If you had a day to play hookie, what would you want to accomplish?

frugal living for dummies

I finally finished reading this book...much to my husband's chagrin!  He kept asking me, "Why are you reading that?!?"  I kept telling him I was afraid to put it down because what if the best tip was on the last page?!?  So, I kept reading and reading and reading.  And truthfully a lot of the tips I will probably never use.   But there were some tips that I did like!!!  And that made reading the book worth while.

My favorite parts of the book were the chapters about reducing your grocery bill.  I'm always looking for ways (and inspiration!!) to do this.  Here are my favorite ideas:

Bulk Cooking:  Cooking or preparing several meals at once and then freezing them.  One specific way to do this would be to prepare the meals based on the main ingredient.  For instance, if chicken is on sale, stock up on chicken and then prepare as many meals as you have time and space for.  You might marinate pieces of chicken and just freeze that.  Make a couple of chicken casseroles.  Cook chicken and chop it up so it'll be ready for soups or stir fry.  You get the idea.

Planning for leftovers:  When planning your menu, instead of planning to eat actual leftovers as your left over, instead plan to use last night's leftover chicken in today's soup, salad, chili or sandwich.  Plan to have Roast Beef for meal #1 and have Shepherd's Pie, roast beef sandwiches or stir-fry for meal #2. 

And a "Cooking Co-op" was a fun idea too...IF you had willing participants.  Let's say you have a group of 10 ladies.  Everyone makes 10x their recipe and then exchanges the meals at predetermined place/time.  The author suggested getting together ahead of time and everyone bring 3 recipes that they'd be willing to prepare.  The group votes on which of the 3 recipes they'd like you to make.  By making 10 of the same dish, rather than 10 different dishes, you save money and time.   You make one meal and come home with 10 different things.  I LOVED this idea!  I just need to find some friends who love the idea too!

Now -- for the parts of the book that I didn't like so much.  I'm pretty sure that I'll never  go to the card shop with my husband and pick out a card that I'd like to buy him (but won't because I'm saving money) and read it to him.  And I'd never be able to go the book store or library and find books with love poems and read them quietly to my hubby across a table. (not with a straight face anyway!)

After reading the book, I was surprised at how many things I already am doing!  I have to admit, I was happy to get some confirmation that I am actually frugal in many areas!  I buy candy when it's on sale to save for Halloween, Easter, Christmas stockings and Valentine's Day.  I reuse Easter baskets and eggs.  I use coupons and rebates. I have a budget.  I don't have credit card debt.  We do regular maintenance on our yard and house.  And I shop at thrift store along with doing several other frugal things!

Have you read any books lately about frugal living.  What were your favorite tips?  And what tips would most likely never do?

mid-month update

I can't believe it's already the middle of September!  This is one month I wish would slow down!!!  I've been plugging away at the goals I set for myself this month and have been pretty good staying at within my budget.

Since my son was sick Labor Day weekend we didn't go on his scout trip and that saved us some money.  Also, we had planned on going as a family to the Tour Championship that is at the end of September and it sounds like the boys would rather spend the "entertainment" money on something different.  So, that will give us some wiggle room as well.  Here is how we're doing so far.  {This post is more for my sake than yours, as it's forcing me to take a look at how we're doing!  :)  }  The first # is the budgeted amount and the 2nd is where we are as of today!

	Budget	a/o 9-15
Utilities	800	869.21
Groceries and household items	900	630.08
Gasoline	350	130.52
Clothing	200	0
Restaurants (incld fast food/pizza)	100	58.51
Insurance	136.5	136.5
My Blow Money	100	5
Entmt/Rec	175	20.28
Gifts	25	35
Guitar lessons	100	25
Date Night	75	0
Haircare	100	98
Golf	75	0
Boys Commissions (Potential…)	80	27.5
Subscriptions	25	77.18
School lunches	50	0
School expenses	200	57
Dry Cleaning	30	8.72
Boy Scouts	147	0
Vet Bill - surgery	2300	2284.72

We are over by $10 in Gifts because the Room Mom for my son's class is collecting $10 from each family ahead of time for the teacher's Christmas and End of Year gifts.  (I love that it's paid and I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the year!)   Subscriptions is way over!  It was time to renew my Norton software on my computer -- I thought I had another month before it was time to do this!   My grocery spending is a little higher than it ought to be.  But I still have $370 left for 2 weeks...that should be more than enough!

Thank you for the comments from my post on Tuesday.  I'm not sure if you see my replies when I reply in the Comment section or not, so I thought I'd reply this way:                

Sharon - I usually keep my apples from turning brown by sprinkling them with Fresh Fruit.  These apples were on sale though pre-sliced (and "pretreated") so I didn't have to do anything to them!

Carla & Canadian Saver -- yes!  It's a huge time saver in the mornings!  One less thing to worry about.

And in reply to the "Italy" post:

Canadian Saver -- We are flying on Delta and had to pay the taxes and fees at $79.20 per ticket. Not too bad for 2 first class tix to Italy! :) And yes! I can't wait to move onto the FUN planning!

sft-- last time we went to Italy I was about 20 pounds lighter. I don't want to lose 20lbs, but would love to be much smaller and try to look as great in pictures as I did 10 years ago! 

                              

the way we do lunches

Most days of the week my boys take their lunches to school.  My oldest takes his everyday right now because he's saving the money that would've been spent on cafeteria food to put towards his school field trip.  And my youngest takes his lunch about 3-4 times a week.

I had been buying all the fixings for their lunches on Sunday and then by mid-week, the kids would have eaten for a snack the cookies or chips or yogurts that were intended for lunch!  So...in an effort to "save" the food for lunch kits, we started packing all of their lunches on Sunday.

This is our "new way" of doing it!

After I get home from the store I'll separate the fruit, chips, pretzels, desserts, etc. into individual baggies.  I then lay everything out like an assembly line.   Each boy gets 5 giant baggies (or however many lunches they're taking) and picks 1 chip/pretzel item, 1 dairy item, 1 fruit, and a drink.  Their names go on the outside of the baggies and they're stored in the refrigerator.  Each morning I'll make them a sandwich (although they've been on a tortilla roll up kick lately!), grab their baggie and pack up the lunch kit.

It's been a great way for me to save money on lunches and snacks.  Whatever is unused for lunches they can have as a snack, but once it's gone, it's gone and won't get replenished until the weekend.

What have you found that helps you make the snacks last longer in the pantry?

inspiration

My youngest son's kindergarten teacher was...and is!...one of the most amazing women I know.  She is the sort of teacher and person that you pray will come into the life of your child at some point during his or her education.  I truly feel blessed to have had her in our family's life.

We also had the privilege of getting to meet and know her mother and her sister.  And after meeting them, we learned that the entire family is amazing.  My son's teacher's sister YaKima has started a blog and if you would like to read something inspirational today, I encourage you to take a look at Extraordinary Inspiration.  It will definitely lift your spirits.  So far she's posting about once a week, but I hope she'll find time to post more!

Extraordinary Inspiration

we've got tickets to go to...

Italy!  

Vacation Plans - April 2012

And I'm super excited!  Some of our dear (military) friends were sent to Rome and will be stationed there for a year.  Since we LOVE Italy, and next year is mine & Mr. Steady's 20 year anniversary, we thought it would be the perfect excuse to go visit them in Rome!

All we have done so far is book our airplane tickets.  Have you spent much time trying to book international flights using "points"?!?  Well...it can be a nightmare.  We had enough points (300,000) to fly first-class.  But, some days I'd look and the ticket would be 200,000 points each.  Some days it would be 250,000 and others it would be 125,000 or 150,000.  Finding the perfect flight was harder than I imagined and I spent about 40 hours on-line looking, and constantly refreshing my search.

But, it's done and I can move on to other projects.  Our plan is to fly into Florence and spend a couple of days there.  Then we'll spend about a week in Chianti and then go down to Rome and spend a couple of days seeing our friends and then fly home from there!

One of my goals since booking this trip was to lose weight prior to going in April.  Not only do I have this vacation as a motivator, but I also have the fact that I need to lower my cholesterol motivating me as well to lose the extra weight that I'm carrying!  And, for those of you who remember that I wanted to log 10 hours of lessons using Rosetta Stone...now you know why!  :)

5 a day update - day 10

I have not been the best participant of this challenge I have to admit!  While I am certainly getting in more fruits and veggies than I would be without the challenge, I haven't been diligent about meeting my daily goal of 7 and of checking in with Carla with my progress!

I'd say I'm averaging 5 a day.  Most of my 5 are coming from fruits and I need to do better about adding vegetables into the mix!

On of my favorite snacks (when I'm prepared with the ingredients on hand...) is to take Melba toast, smear a bit of low fat Laughing Cow cheese on it and then top it with with tomato and perhaps a small slice of turkey.  Adding some green onion to it is also a good way to add some extra flavor.  That and a handful of grapes will usually count for 2 fruits and veggies.  And around 3:00 in the afternoon it's a perfect pick-me-up!

But have I had this snack lately?  no....

Last week I went to my GP for my annual blood work.  I "suffer" from high blood pressure and I have a hypo-thyroid.  I got a call back from his office yesterday saying that my thyroid count was higher than it should be (even with the Rx I take...) and that my cholesterol count was 230.  I was very surprised that my cholesterol was this high since I've kinda been watching what I'm eating and have been exercising more.  But...apparently kinda isn't as good as it needs to be!  This may be just the kick in the rear that I needed to get back on track with having a healthier lifestyle.  I go back in December to have it all rechecked.  So...until then, I will have to be even more diligent with what I put in my mouth and how I'm exercising.

Shortly after we moved here three years I was extremely successful at losing weight (I lost about 10 pounds in 3 months).   I was even about 3 pounds away from my "dream weight"!!  I went to Weight Watcher meetings weekly and I ran, ran, and ran about 5 days a week.  Then...I started playing tennis.  Tennis interfered with my WW meetings and it cut out 2 days of running in the beginning, and then I stopped running all together and hung out on the tennis courts.  While playing tennis is great exercise, unfortunately I don't burn enough calories for my body to lose weight.

My plan is to re-adapt (is that a word?!?)  my way of eating and exercising from 3 years ago when I lost the weight I wanted to lose.  I will find a Weight Watchers meeting that works best for my schedule and will actually follow the plan.  Just following the WW plan will force me to get in all my fruits and vegetables!  And...I will exercise more.  One of my goals for September was to exercise an average of 30 minutes a day.  Another goal was to lose 3 pounds.

By being disciplined and working on these goals, I feel confident that I can lower my cholesterol by my December appointment.

follow-up to comments:

Carla & Sft - Thanks for the encouragement!

jpkittie - not having my wine at the end of everyday is a tough habit to break...but I've gone without for 3 days now!  Am counting down the hours until the weekend!

Sharon - I'm new to the Rosetta Stone software, but so I far really like it.  It's nice to have the flexibility of doing it at home (I can do as many "lessons" as I have time for in a day).  There is a microphone that comes with it so it corrects your pronunciation of the vocabulary words.      I wish I was 142# also!!  Am hoping that cutting back on my wine and increasing my exercise, that I'll be there by the end of the month!

september goals

I had a lot of time this weekend to think about my September goals!  I've broken them down into 4 groups:  Financial, Personal, Health, and Home.

Here they are!

FINANCIAL
Use cash  for everyday purchases
Leave my American Express and debit cards at home
Stay within my budget
Complete house refinancing

HEALTH
Lose 3 pounds and get to 142#
Track food and water intake
Drink more water...a goal of 1664 ounces total from 9/5-9/30
Exercise a total of 780 minutes from 9/5-9/30
Have 16 no wine-days from 9/5-9/30

PERSONAL
Log 10 hours (from 9/5-9/30) of Rosetta Stone Italian lessons
Finish 2010 scrapbook
Make chalkboard using foot board I purchased in the spring
Make drop cloth pillows for fall
Sew on badges to scout shirt and take picture of son
Keep up with my Bible Study homework
Finish Maine scrapbooks
Complete 2 lessons with youngest for God & Family
Read The Glass Castle
Read The Happiness Project

HOUSE
Make bed daily
Only start laundry that can be finished, folded, hung up and put away before bedtime
Clean the house weekly
Clean door frames and doors
Clean the wall on the staircase
Clean the ceiling fans
Replace burned out lightbulbs
Put out fall decorations
Put screens on living room windows

So there they are!  I want to learn how to make the side bars on my blog to keep track of the progress I'm making on my goals...both long term and short term tracking would be a nice visual!  I'll work on that this week!

weekend update

Happy Labor Day everyone!  I hope you've had a great long weekend!

My weekend didn't exactly go as planned.  I was supposed to leave town Friday around lunch with my youngest to go here:

 The USS Yorktown in Charleston, South Carolina

and sleep here:

right on the carrier!!

We were going to drive down to Charleston Friday afternoon and stay at a hotel.  Saturday morning we were supposed to report to the USS Yorktown at 9am and would be staying on the carrier until 9am Sunday.  We'd eat all of our meals on the carrier and sleep on it as well.

But...as you know...we can't plan when our kids are going to get sick.

So I was home...

 Taking care of my dog who came home Friday after having knee surgery to repair a torn "ACL".

and

Taking care of my youngest who came home from school Thursday 

with a fever, double ear infection and a sinus virus.

Not exactly what we'd planned for the weekend.  I'm sad for my son to miss out on such a fun trip, but am thankful that he got sick at home and not after we got there.  We're about 5 hours away from Charleston, so it wouldn't have been a fun drive for him!  Most of the trip had been prepaid.  I should get 50% of what I paid for the scout portion ($116) and won't get any back for an excursion that we'd pre-paid to do on our own ($27).  On the positive side though, I saved money on our Friday night hotel ($92) and for 3 meals that we were going to need to eat out on our own.

I also got to have a quiet weekend and was able to write out all of my September goals which I will share with you tomorrow.  Luckily, Charleston is close enough for us to plan a "make up" trip and I'm sure at some point in my son's Scouting "career" he'll have the opportunity to take the trip again and sleep on the carrier!

How was your weekend? 

hello september!

I am thrilled to be able to say GOODBYE to August.  It is one of my least favorite months.

It's hot.

It's long.

The kids start back to school (boo homework!).

There are no holidays.

But...on the bright side -- it's September now!!!  Fall is my absolute favorite season and it's the one season (except for Christmas) where I decorate my house accordingly.  Each year I tend to put out the pumpkins earlier and earlier.  You know how you go into Hobby Lobby or Michael's in July and they have their Christmas decorations/crafts displayed?  Sometimes I feel like my house is like that for the fall season.  I just get so excited!

And I may be dating myself, but do you remember growing up and getting the Back to School issue of Seventeen magazine!  Oh...it was the best!  My sister and I were always so envious of the people who lived up north and actually got to start school wearing the cute clothes that were in that issue.  Living in Texas, we didn't get to wear anything like that until November!

But - that's not what my post is supposed to be about today.  I'm just so dang happy that it's no longer August!

I challenged myself to spend waaaayyyy less money in August.  And you know what?!?  I did!  August was our 2nd lowest month for expenditures for the year.  (January was our lowest!)   I'm excited that we stayed on track and are moving in the right direction for ending the year where we want to be.

So, we're entering the last part of 2011 and I have a budget made up for our September-December expenses.  For 2011 we have a $$ number we want to reach for our savings account balance.  We are $4758 away from reaching that goal.  Luckily, for the rest of the year we don't have many unusual expenses coming our way, so we should be able to reach that number!  Also, I have about a $1500 cushion built into the budget over the next 4 months that I pray we won't have to use and can apply that to our savings and end up above our goal!!!

I need to sit down and write out my non-financial goals for the month!  I really want to be more disciplined this month with my eating, exercising, housework/chores and how I'm spending my free time!  Will share my goals with you as soon as I've thought them through!

As far as finances for the month are concerned, I don't think I've ever shared the details of our budget before and I'm a bit uncomfortable doing it (it's so revealing!!), but here it is for September!

Utilities	800
Groceries and household items	900
Gasoline	350
Clothing	200
Restaurants (incld fast food/pizza)	100
Insurance	136.5
My Blow Money	100
Entmt/Rec	175
Gifts	25
Guitar lessons	100
Date Night	75
Haircare	100
Golf	75
Boys Commissions (Potential…)	80
Subscriptions	25
School lunches	50
School expenses	200
Dry Cleaning	30
Boy Scouts	147
Vet Bill - surgery	2300

So what about you?  Are you as thrilled as I am that August is now a memory?  What are your goals for September?

5-a day challenge - day 1 update

Just a quick update to say I ate 5 1/2 servings of fruits and veggies yesterday.  It was Day 1 of Carla's 5-a day Challenge.  My goal is to eat 7 a day, so I was short by 1 1/2 servings.  Will have to make it up today!!

discipline & eating right

I've been thinking about my goals for the remainder of the year and what my goals will be for 2012.  I've got goals for our finances, for my health, for my personal and home life, and for my spiritual life.   I will go into details on a different day as to what exactly my goals are, but without some discipline in my life, I won't be able to achieve any of them.

If you're like me, you know how tough it is to maintain weight after losing it.  Like getting out of debt, the fun is reaching your goal, not staying there!   I find that when I'm eating right and exercising consistently that I don't care as much what my weight is because I feel so darn good!   As a result of eating right and exercising, I usually do weigh less, but it seems the importance of the number is lessened by the awesomeness of the way I feel.

I've been a bit slack the last couple of months with my healthful eating and exercise.   And I could stand to shed a few pounds.  Carla over at My Half Daily Dozen is having a challenge over the next two weeks to eat more fruits and vegetables.  I'm joining her in this challenge (it starts today!) and hope to eat at least 7 fruits/veggies each day.  My goal, more specifically, is to eat 1-3 servings of fruits and 4-7 servings of vegetables.  If you want to join in the challenge to, just go her site to see the details! 

my prize

Last week "SFT" over at My 101 Challenge wrote about "keeping your eye on the prize" and asked what people are willing to put their money towards.   Is it to travel?  To pay off debt?  To save up for a wedding?  Basically, what is most important to you?

I didn't have to think about it long or hard because everytime I work to stay on budget, or everytime I see money going into our retirement account I think about my "prize".

Want to know what they are?

 First, we live frugally now so that we will have money saved AND be able to cash flow college for both of our boys.  Our goal is to pay for their tuition to any college, in any state, that they would like to go (and, of course, where they are accepted).  Scholarships would be nice and if they are fortunate enough to receive them, well...that would just mean we had more money to put towards our other prizes!

After the boys are in college, Prize #2 is to live part-time in Italy.  Italy is one of our absolute favorite places...Tuscany to be more specific.  We don't want the responsibility of international home ownership, so our plan is to find a place we love that we can rent for a few months at a time.

And then none of this would be possible without Prize #3 which is Financial Freedom.  To have the kids out of college without student loans and to have our mortgage paid off would be the best prize ever.  Because that would allow us to give our money away as freely as we want and to spend our time doing what we love most.

The year 2026 is our goal date to achieve this.  Of course, I'm not sure if Mr. Steady will be ready to retire by then, but if not, it'll sure be fun knowing that the date will be just around the corner.

What about you?  What are your prizes?  Do you have a goal date for getting it?