January 2013 Goals - Final Update

Well I didn't get everything done that I wanted too.  But at least I got half of it accomplished :)  I think this list will just carry over into February.




1. Put away all Christmas items.

2. Plan monthly menu + snacks - I have this all planned out for the month. I will have to make another grocery run next week, but it should be a small one, for produce and a few odds and ends to complete the last of the meals.

3. Deep clean kitchen, living room, bedroom, Kid # 5's bedroom

4. Try 4 new recipes from Pinterest - I have posted about this here and here

5. Call and see what can be done about Cable/Internet/Land line bill

6. Make breakfast burritos for freezer My hubby made breakfast "hot pockets" instead of burritos. He is on his 3rd week eating them so they have lasted a good long while :)

7. Purchase small note book for price book to keep in purse - I did this yesterday. Now I just need to start writing in it :)

8. Find a good way to menu plan - either by adding to home management binder or getting separate planner. I bought a separate planner for this yesterday. I have already started planning my January menu in it.

9. Sell enough unwanted items to make $100 -I have sold $10 worth of items so far.

10. Track spending

11. Caulk and touch up paint on kitchen baseboards.

12. Install transition piece for back door

13. Clean out from under bathroom sink so husband can snake the drain which seems to be clogged. - did this one last weekend :)

Have I told you all???

that Kid # 1 and daughter in law are pregnant again and due July 4th?  Well today they found out I will be having a...................





GRANDSON!!!


It's a BOY!!


I was kinda excited before but now I really am.  I am confident that we will not have a repeat of last June!

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1.  Started my price book. This I hope is going to help me cut our grocery budget down and be able to compare prices easily so I can make sure I am pay the best price.

2. Had 3 stay at home days this week

3.  Found something at Goodwill that I had almost  bought online because I could not find it in any of our stores around here.  I will post about it soon!

4. I bought a dish pan to use for rinsing dishes so that we are not constantly running the water.

5. Used up some leftover chicken from dinner earlier in the week for soup later in the week

Food Waste Friday

Every Friday The Frugal Girl, has posted pics of her food waste in order to hold herself accountable.  Today it is being hosted by Simply Being Mum.  Anyway, I am trying to participate in this more often so that I to am accountable for our food waste. 

This is what we had this week

This is one piece of Pepper Jack Cheese that was moldy and 3 pieces of Bologna that nobody ate before it got slimy and gross.  Not to bad I suppose for the week.  But would have been better to have nothing to post about!
              

                                               

Command Center

Since moving my office/craft room downstairs I really have felt the need to have a command center for easy access of info.  I didn't really feel like taking up and enter wall space for one.  We have always used our refrigerator to hold important info that we needed to see regularly.  So I just elaborated on that.

On the front of the frig is our dry erase calendars.  I use to have a whole month calendar but decided it was just to hard to keep up with a whole month at a time.  Now we do two weeks at a time.  I also hang any important invites that I need to remember for the calendar on the front also.

 

On the side of the refrigerator is the main command center.  I have two dry erase boards.  One is for the grocery list and the other is for the weekly menu.   The silver magnet containers hold safety pins, paper clips and binder clips.

 

 

In between the two dry erase boards I have a roll of tape I glued magnet strips to and a calculator I did the same with. 

 

 

 

   Under the dry erase boards is a note pad I made myself, using Kid #5's recycled school papers.  Anyone else think the amount of paper work that comes home with an elementary age child is unbelievable?? 

 

 

I also have the school lunch calendar and a magnetic basket to hold pencils, pens, dry erase markers and a pencil sharpener.

 

 

 

 

 Last but not least in my command center are the magnetic boxes I made from some recycled boxes I wrapped in wrapping paper, glued heavy duty magnets on and added labels too.  One is for the junk mail that goes int the recycling bin and the other is for the bills that need to be taken car of or shredded.

 

 

 

 

So here it is just one more time

 

 

 

 

So far it has been working well for us.  I am sure as time goes by I may add to it or take a few things way, we will see :)

January 2013 Goals - Update

Here is what I have made progress on so far.  Not to bad I don't think considering there is many things to do on my list :)



1. Put away all Christmas items.

2. Plan monthly menu + snacks  - I have this all planned out for the month.  I will have to make another grocery run next week, but it should be a small one, for produce and a few odds and ends to complete the last of the meals.

3. Deep clean kitchen, living room, bedroom, Kid # 5's bedroom

4. Try 4 new recipes from Pinterest - I have posted about this here and here

5. Call and see what can be done about Cable/Internet/Land line bill

6. Make breakfast burritos for freezer  My hubby made breakfast "hot pockets" instead of burritos.  He is on his 3rd week eating them so they have lasted a good long while :)

7. Purchase small note book for price book to keep in purse - I did this yesterday. Now I just need to start writing in it :)

8. Find a good way to menu plan - either by adding to home management binder or getting separate planner. I bought a separate planner for this yesterday. I have already started planning my January menu in it.

9. Sell enough unwanted items to make $100 -I have sold $10 worth of items so far.

10. Track spending

11. Caulk and touch up paint on kitchen baseboards.

12. Install transition piece for back door

13. Clean out from under bathroom sink so husband can snake the drain which seems to be clogged. - did this one last weekend :)

Food Waste Friday

I am hopefully going to start participating in more of these Food Waste Friday's hosted by The Frugal Girl.  I think they help me to be more accountable for using up our leftovers.

I threw away a very small amount of leftover Santa Fe Soup that I made a few weeks ago and no one ate.


 

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1.  I bought my husband some sweaters for work at Goodwill and only selected the ones that were 50% tag sale.  I bought him 4 sweaters for $1.75 each. He should be good for the rest of the winter.

2. I got called and asked to work at the very last minute.  I could have said no but wasn't really doing anything anyway, so I went.  Extra money made!

3. Only left the house to go to work or drive a kid to an activity.  Saved on gas and my sanity :)

4.  Cooked dinner at home, used leftovers each night for my husbands lunches.  Still have plenty for a leftover night on Friday's

5.  Stopped in Kroger on my way home from work to buy chicken breasts, eggs and coffee.  All of which were on my stock up price.  They were out of chicken breast but had alot of other mark down meat.  I bought 15 lbs of boneless skinless chicken thigh pieces, 1 family pack of country style pork ribs ( which will make us 2 meals)  1 pork butt roast ( which will make us at least 3 meals) 2 eggs and 2 cans coffee.  Spent $45 and it is still within my budget for the month :)

January Goal # 4 Has Been Reached

One of goals for 2013 was to try a new recipe that I pinned on Pinterest once a week.  For January, I set the goal of trying 4 new recipes.  I posted here about the first two recipes I tried.

Tonight we had Jolean's Cheese Potato Smoked Sausage Casserole.  Now I didn't have any smoked sausage. But I did have some leftover diced up ham in the freezer.  So that is what I used instead.  My husband really like this casserole and asked if we can have it again :)  We have enough leftover for at least one of his lunches and probably another dinner.  This was a hit!

Monday night,  we had Stove-Top Tamale Pie.  This was not a hit :(  I really liked it but the rest of the family was not thrilled by it so it will not be making the rotation.

One evening last week we had Honey Garlic Chicken.  I like this because it was a crock pot recipe and very easy.  This one went over well also and will probably make the rotation of meals.  I seem to always have every thing to make it.

So there you go there is my #4 goal for January.  I'll post more recipes as I try them :)  Maybe it will be helpful to someone.  I feel like we eat the same things over and over sometimes.

Random things that happened this week

This was my husbands first week at his new job.  In spite of the long commute he says he loves it :)

I worked two days this week and I am scheduled for two days next week.  I have got hours every week since I got the job, which is going to be great for us!

My pay check is going to come in handy since we just depleted most of our ER fund when Murphy came to visit on our car my husband needs for work.  Ugh!

Before we can start saving now to get my husband a different car to drive to work, we will need to build back up our ER saving which only has about $700 in it.  I really like it to sit at $2000 or more.  Good thing I realized along time a go that $1000 ER fund was not gonna work for us cause our car repairs and new tires cost us about $1800 :(  Good thing is we had the cash!

Things will be tight around here until we reach our saving goals.  But that is OK, being debt free is great and I would rather have things tight then be in debt :)

Having a meal plan for this whole week has made getting dinner on the table so much easier.  I love the new planner I bought just for meal planning.  I will post a picture of it soon.

Somethings I have noticed about my husband now having a day job, less dirty dishes, less lights on all the time, less water used to clean the dirty dishes, less cleaning of the kitchen and other areas of the house during the week...........hum I really think I will like this working during the day!

Today, I am doing laundry and preparing for the week ahead.  My meal plan is done since I planned for all of the month of January.  My husband is making some muffins and breakfast pockets ahead of time for him to eat on the drive to work.  I have our schedule posted on our calendar already.  I have a few claims I need to submit to the FSA account today, but other then that it should be an over all easy day.

Happy Sunday Everyone :)

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. Followed my menu plan and cooked at home

2. Did not go grocery shopping, we had everything we needed.

3. Shopped around for the best price on gas in our area, since my husband now has an over 2 hr commute everyday.

4. Had a few stay at home days

5. Ate leftovers one night for dinner

January Goal # 4

One of my goals for January that I posted about here was to try 4 new recipes from Pinterest.  In the last few days I have tried out  2 new recipes.  So I am half way to completing that goal!

I didn't take any pics of what I made but I do want to share the links with you.  The first was a ham and cheese braid that I found on Pinterest but it is originally from A Bear in the Kitchen .  I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  First off I made my own bread dough.  Then I didn't have a ranch dressing packet so I just used garlic butter.  I also used some left over ham that I had from the holidays.  This was good and pretty easy to make.  My family ate it all :)

Next up I made some homemade chocolate sauce similar to Hersey's.  The link I had led me to this blog but I don't think that is where the recipe originally came from.  This chocolate sauce was super good and easy to make.  I will be making it from now on instead of buying.

So there you go, only 2 more recipes to go to complete this goal for the month :)

January 2013 Goals

1. Put away all Christmas items.

2. Plan monthly menu + snacks

3. Deep clean kitchen, living room, bedroom, Kid # 5's bedroom

4. Try 4 new recipes from Pinterest

5. Call and see what can be done about Cable/Internet/Land line bill

6. Make breakfast burritos for freezer

7. Purchase small note book for price book to keep in purse - I did this yesterday. Now I just need to start writing in it :)

8.  Find a good way to menu plan - either by adding to home management binder or getting separate planner.  I bought a seperate planner for this yesterday. I have already started planning my January menu in it.

9. Sell enough unwanted items to make $100

10. Track spending

11. Caulk and touch up paint on kitchen baseboards.

12.  Install transition piece for back door

13. Clean out from under bathroom sink so husband can snake the drain which seems to be clogged.

Goals for 2013

I had a whole post wrote out with a long list of goals I hoped to accomplish in 2013.  Honestly, though with my husband getting a new job, that will require a long commute and is for less money, our #1 goal is to continue to live within our means.

Our #2 goal is to purchase with cash a new to us fuel efficient car.  Hopefully this will happen by mid summer.  We hope to be able to do this by saving, saving, saving!!  Which leads to our #3 goal.....


# 3 - track our spending.  We have gotten lax at this and I know there is some seepage that we need to plug up

#4- save on groceries.  I plan to do this by meal planning which will include snacks,  cooking ahead as much as I can, using coupons and playing the drug store game and creating a price book.

#5 - I would like to try one new recipe I have pinned on Pinterest each week.

#6 -  Continue to sell our unwanted items and my craft projects.  Once the car is purchased I hope to transfer this money to a Christmas fund.

#7- Take a good look at our bills and see what it is we can really cut and do without. 

#8 -  Set small monthly goals in order to achieve these yearly goals!

I think that all of these goals are attanable as long as we continue to pay attention.

Happy 2013 everyone!