Hello!

Hello! It feels like months since I have been in bloggy world. The house we were going to buy fell through. It was a short sale and the buyer was not being very cooperative when it came to the inspection and the agent said they had a back up offer ( which ticked me off) so we walked ( they had already not lived up to the terms of the contract). A week after we walked away the agent tried to get us to come back and was going to renegotiate a even lower price but it was to late for me.

Then we found another house. It was a bank owned property that had just come on the market ( on a Friday) but by Monday 4 people had put in offers and we had come in second. Sigh. I really liked the second one, even better then the first. It really only needed windows to make it ready to move in. They were gone because someone had paint balled them out while it sat empty. This was in a very, very nice area.

So, we are working, keeping our home spotless and waiting. I could live with my house always clean but not as bare as it is now. I feel naked with the rooms so empty and all my stuff packed away. We have had 6 showings, 5 left very positive feedback, 1 left no comment. We had one ridiculous offer so far and another who said they were interested but had to sell their house first. We live in a semi rural area where homes do not move to quickly so I am feeling pretty good about the number of showings we have had.

We had been looking only at cheaper homes but may consider a sideways move. We have also found someplace to rent in case that becomes necessary.

Ugh, I hate having a home on the market. I hope I never have to move again after this :)

I hope you are all doing well, I am just starting to get back to reading blogs and I hope I can catch up on what everyone has been doing.

Still waiting....

Its been crazy around here. Way to crazy for me to compose my thoughts enough to blog :)

We are scheduled to close on a house at the end of the month contingent on our financing going through and the home inspection going ok. Our current house goes on the market this weekend. If the other house does not work out we will still be putting our home up for sale. I have been working for the last 3 weeks and will continue to work until we only have 1 house payment to deal with although we do have someone interested in renting our house if we don't sell by June.

Adapting to going back to work ( 4 days a week, 32 hours) has not been to bad but trying to quickly get the house cleaned, decluttered and staged while working and negotiating on another house has been exhausting. I am working opposite hours of my husband so we have to make sure we are on the same page all the time.

I really, really, really want to tell you all about the other house but its not ours yet so I am trying not to get too excited until the home inspection is done. It most definitely needs work but it has so many of the things we want.

I am excited even if we don't get it though because my husband and I have really realized what we want down the road and we will be working towards that goal.

I will be back soon with details.

I would appreciate if you all would keep us in your prayers :)

We may be moving!!!

We may be moving. I don't know for sure and we will be super busy preparing just in case. I'm super stressed by not knowing. The situation is scary and exciting at the same time. I will blog about it as soon as we actually know something :)

Freezer goodies for the lunchbox.....

Yum. Mexican food. I think we had it almost everyday this week :)












It was also a good time to make extra for burritos. I started parttime work this week and thought it would be a good idea to make some lunch items.


We like spicy rice with beans and cheese in our burritos.






Some things to remember for freezer burritos-

1. Make small batches until you learn what flavors/textures you like.
2. Find a good brand of tortillas that will roll without cracking. Look for ones that are not to dry.
3. Don't make them to large.Most items you freeze should be smaller so they will reheat well. If you make them to large they will dry out when you cook them and still be cold in the middle.
4.Get all your supplies ready and set up a assembly line. Enlist help if you can.
5. Freeze items on a tray or cookie sheet until frozen solid then place in ziploc bags or another freezer safe container so you can take out just what you need.
6. Most items will heat better if thawed somewhat, so they do well in a lunch box where they will have a few hours to thaw.





Here is the tray we made :)

I purchased the tortillas and a restaurant size can of black beans at GFS and cut costs by getting cheese at Costco. Cheese is only about 2.28 lb in big bags at my Costco.












We also made twice baked potatoes. I don't use a recipe any more but used to use this one saving most of the cheese for pressing into the top after they are assembled. I freeze them on a tray and then place them into ziploc bags. Just don't make them to thin :)

Back in the swing of things......

We are easing into a new schedule around here. The first week went really well but we only focused on one part of it. Next week I am going to add on to it and continue tweaking, hopefully having everything worked out by the end of the month.

It was a odd week here in the kitchen with DH doing a variation on low carb to jumpstart the new year. I tried to plan ahead but the first week is always really hard ( and expensive). I ate pretty much what he ate all week but allowed more carbs for myself as I lose weight faster than he does. I would just like to lose a few pounds but I really do feel better when I eat low carb, it makes me wonder if I have a sensitivity to one of the foods I end up eliminating. When we both do it, he tries to avoid most carbs while I try to eat more healthy carbs.

Why the picture of muffins then? Well, I also made muffins for the kids this week, quickly getting them into the freezer to avoid temptation. Little muffins for the toddler and bigger muffins for my daughter for breakfast. These are applesauce muffins off of recipezaar. My daughter is not a morning person and does not like to eat breakfast so the muffins are a treat to go along with her new morning routine. The little guys has stopped eating all his favorite foods so the muffins are also meant to help me out with that this week. Luckily he has decided he really likes steamed broccoli and carrots so he wont be eating only muffins all week :)

Hello 2009...

Wow. Time flies.



Change is is the air. My homeschooler just switched to a online charter school and the the change has been quite a adjustment. We will see how it works out.



We are rethinking our house. Its a big expense made bigger by our 30% drop in income and honestly its not my dream house. Its actually bigger than my dream home and while very nice I have come to realize a few things are missing that are very important to me. Privacy would be a big one. I live in a subdivision and while the lots are pretty nice sized its still not private enough. I don't want worry about what the neighbors or our HOA thinks about my yard or what I do to my house. Of course, its not a great time to sell so we will be staying put for awhile but still planning for a move someday.

We have also been thinking for some time of trying to find a new church closer to home and I think we need to try harder to do this. 2009 could be a year with a lot of changes. My focus right now is on prayer and keeping things simple so we will be ready for whatever happens.

...and of course my I want to lose 10 pounds and get more organized :)

Goodbye 2008....goodbye stuff...

DH has been home helping for over a week and you can actually see my basement floor! The garbage men are starting to dislike me, the curb crawlers are making a regular pass by my home and the people at goodwill recognize us as we pull up. I can barely breath through my nose from sorting through 16 plus years of dusty toys and collections....but I can see the finishline. Its located somewhere on the other side of a garage sale, a few craiglist and ebay listings and another few trips to goodwill but its there in the distance :)


I hope everyone had a great New Years!

What a nice week.....

I had such a nice week. Way to much yummy food but a wonderful week. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas :)

Its been really quiet. DH is home, he usually works a lot during the holidays but not this year so we have been working on projects and making plans for next year. DH works in the automotive industry so we have also been working on the "what if.." scenario.

We spent more on the kids then we planned. The 3 oldest all received the same thing for a total of $90 each. The little guy was much less.I did try to get the best deals on the items I bought.

The breakdown:

$50 Best Buy card ( got $10 back for each at Kroger and charged to reward card)
$27 Sansa 4 gb Mp3 players ( from black Friday, used ebates)
$12.50 Ohio State Hoodies from Finishline.com (originally $35, also used ebates, free shipping)

Hoodies are like gold in our house. I don't think I should even bother buying cute shirts anymore, no one ever sees them under the sweatshirts.

The kids were not expecting much and were really happy. The little guy got 2 toys from Amazon.com, a pair of 6.99 Skechers from Kohls and some clearance Cars cups from Meijer. He was so cute he did a happy dance the whole time he opened his presents. I wish I had a video of it as it was adorable.

This has been a inexpensive December comparably. We had a lot of blessings. Gift cards for restaurants as gifts, $125 from Craigslist, survey money, a $50 Meijer gift card reward from a credit card, the kids made $140 pet sitting, etc.

I did not hit my new grocery budget ( $300) but did stay under the old budget ( $400) while still splurging for the week of Christmas and making a Costco trip to stock up on items I only buy once or twice a year and buying many things that will last into January. I am torn between spending as little as possible in January or stocking up to be prepared for bad weather or loss of income. I am going to aim for as little as possible but not pass up any awesome stock up prices.

I made pita bread this week!I used the recipe over at http://www.tammysrecipes.com/ and it was really good. We had it with pan fried chicken breast, seasoned oven fries, hummus, greek salad, a lemon garlic dressing, and cucumber sauce. Yum, between that and beef tips for Christmas dinner, I ate way to much.

Well, I'm off to enjoy a fire in the fireplace and some list making. My to-do list today is pretty long, including a little kitchen zone recovery and some decluttering. If you have been following my packrat adventure, I am finally to the point where we are going through old boxes of toys. 16 years of rubbermaid boxes full of toys is A LOT of toys :)

If you have the gift of the ability to easily look at a item and decide to toss it or give it away, feel blessed, some of us were not born with such a gift ;)

Grocery shopping....

I have learned a new grocery shopping rule. It seems the last few times I have hit the bread store before going to Aldi, then guaranteed Aldi will have marked down their bread to .25 and buns down to .33.

I still like the bread store for Texas toast. It makes the best garlic bread. I bought 6 long loaves to make garlic bread for the freezer. Kroger also had parkay tubs on sale for .25 after coupon so it will turn out to be a pretty cheap batch. I also bought sandwich bread and buns, 2 nicer loaves of Italian bread, wheat for DH and 2 packages of Italian buns for future dinners. This was before Aldi so I ended up with a lot of bread as I could not pass up the loaves for a quarter. I now have a freezer stuffed full with 29 packages of bread. The hamburger buns are mostly for breakfast sandwiches.

I stayed on the new budget this week (reduced from $100 to $75) even with a small trip to White Castle. I hit Meijer, the bread outlet and ALDI. $15 of the budget went towards items for Christmas so I don't have to go over budget for the holidays.

Today to get ahead I need to make up and freeze all the garlic bread, cook up and bag 5 pounds of spicy sausage, and organize the pantry. I have used up a lot of things lately but I still have 40 pounds of spicy sausage in my freezer. It was a mark down at GFS but I have been slow to use it because it is in 5 lb. blocks. I pulled one yesterday to thaw so I can cook it up and bag it in meal size portions. It will be appearing on the menu 2-3 times a week over the next few months. Mostly as spaghetti, cabbage stir fry and as a topping for pizza or eggs. Hopefully during that time chicken goes on sale :)

*Just a note about all that bread. I usually don't have enough room for 29 packages but my freezer was pretty empty.

It's begining to look a lot like......every other day?

My tree is still not decorated. Its up but still bare. I can tell I'm just not feeling it because every time I start to think about decorating it, I feel exhausted. Like I just want to go back to bed until spring.

So I'm going to blog about it so maybe that will light a fire under my half-hibernating tooshie and I will just go in there and get it done.

:)

Menu Plan Monday....

A little late but I decided not to go grocery shopping so I had to change things up a little.
Last week we ended up about $20 over budget after a $11 trip to White Castle and a weekend trip to pick up sour cream and taco chips. I want to make sure things average out to less then $100 a week for the 6 of us so I skipped my usual Monday grocery store trip. I think I will pick up some items by the end of the week because I will need cabbage and there are a few sale items that I want to buy for Christmas Dinner.

Last week I managed to get a few batches of chili and taco meat into the freezer as well as about 2 dozen burritos. I made the empanadas from last week also but they never made it into the freezer :)

Monday- A hard to describe but super yummy mexican style spicy chicken and cheese croissant sandwiches.
Tuesday-Spaghetti and garlic bread
Wednesday-Breakfast for dinner
Thursday-Shanghai noodles -Sauteed shredded cabbage, carrots and garlic in sesame oil, seasoned with pepper flakes, soy sauce and ginger powder served with thin spaghetti noodles
Friday-Chili ( In the freezer from last week)
Saturday- Pizza and Wings, my sons birthday dinner, bumped from last week because he couldn't eat that day :(
Sunday-Bean soup with smoked sausage and fresh bread

Visit Menu Plan Monday for lots of great meal ideas!

The newly frugal.......

Thank you for your prayers. Jason is doing well and is up this morning ready to tackle chores so he can enjoy his day off from school with some video games ;)

I'm noticing more people interested in saving money either out of necessity or fear. I'm always wary to offer to much advice because most people really don't want it. Retailers are smart and will take advantage of this, I would not be surprised to see a slight increase in the cost of generics and ground beef because people will often buy on the assumption that these are always good buys.


So where would I suggest someone start?

Find something that motivates you, that presents information in a way that appeals to you. While I love The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn, its not for everyone. Dave Ramsey motivates lots of people to get out of debt. Sometimes it takes a book that really hits you where you live and makes you think about money, Your Money or Your Life by Joe Domingez and Vicki Robin has a lot of information meant to change the way you view money.

It can also help to tackle your finances from a different angle. Focusing on simplifying your life can lead to a more frugal lifestyle. Sometimes when I want something lighter to read I like to pick up Simplify Your Life by Elaine St. James. Its a small book and presents things simply and won't offer anything new to die hard tightwads but it's a fun little read.

Prayer request

My soon to be 16 year old is having his wisdom teeth pulled tomorrow. His birthday is also this weekend.

He's not worried but since they will be making him sleep through it I would appreciate any prayers that things will go well and he will heal quickly. My own wisdom teeth removal did not go well at all and I would hate to see my baby go through that.

Thank you so much :)

Adventures in grocery shopping.....

Meijer trip-

I dropped pot roast from the menu after seeing the sale cuts but luckily I found marked down ground beef. 10 lbs for 14.38! There are plenty of veggies and bananas hidden off to the sides including 3 bunches of bananas, apples, a avocado, green onions, radishes and cilantro. I bought 3 packages of flour tortillas for extra freezer burritos and a 100 pack of corn tortillas for taco chips, strips for salad, and enchiladas next week.

Total: 44.77



Giant Eagle

Plenty of sale pop ( usually the only thing other than gift cards that I buy there), cat food, a 2 jumbo packs diapers.

Used $5 in coupons
Total: 46.40
+ $4 off next order

Kroger #1

Plenty of marked down breads including .39 hot dog buns, .69 rye loaves, and .50 english muffins. Also a single serve Vault not shown :)

After $10 off coupon from different deal: $1.08

This kroger has a clearance section where I found some impulse buys, $2 dandruff shampoo, .50 place mats, .50 scrubbers and $1 bags of candy bars.

The bagels were to get the total to $10 to use the a coupon. Total after $10 off: .41

I had time while DH was at the dentist to hit 3 stores before he was finished then we hit a store across the street before we headed home. I'm happy we made that last trip because we found a bunch of marked down items.

Total so far: 92.56

I still need chicken wings for a birthday dinner but all the wings I saw were those ugly oversized squishy ones. Most ran about $8 for 4 or 5 lbs. I found some beautiful tiny ones when I went to GFS to see if they had any markdowns but they are $12. I think I will probably go back and get the $12 ones later in the week when I run errands.

I made a big batch of chili today using half the ground beef and plan on using the rest to make taco meat.

Menu Plan Monday

Wow, its been awhile since I joined in for Menu Plan Monday. I need it. I could get away without doing a menu for a few weeks because all the items in my freezer and pantry but many things including the flu wiped out most of my favorite pantry items. I need a menu so I can stay under budget in order have money free to stock back up. We have a busy week with a birthday, outside activities, wisdom teeth extraction and to much to name so as always the menu is subject to change :)

Monday- Ham salad plates (to use up leftover ham) with pasta salad (make extra for lunch boxes) and fruit.

Tuesday-Pot roast (make extra) seasoned potato wedges ( make extra) green beans

Wednesday-Chili (make enough extra to freeze 2 dinners) Try new cornbread recipe

Thursday-Beef burritos ( using pot roast, hopefully enough to freeze a few) beans, rice, salsa and chips

Friday-Spaghetti and garlic bread

Saturday- Iron Chef night (leftovers)

Sunday- Pizza and wings (birthday request)

Also on the menu this week:

Empanadas - I have some premade pie crusts I did not use for Thanksgiving so they are going to be used for lunchboxes.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Thanksgiving was nice......

The cookie tray came together nicely. I still have some scooped dough left so I think I will throw it onto the freezer for lunchbox goodies.

Instead of spreading cool whip across the the whole cake, I prefer to cut it, put it in muffin liners and then garnish. That way it is easier to serve and continues to look nice after people start taking desserts. I always seem to manage to forget to bring extra serving utensils anyway.

The mini Boston cream pies came out pretty well. They are still on the cutting board in the picture. We ended up having to leave early so I did not get to get a picture after I had put them on serving trays.

Everyone had a good time, especially all the grandkids. We will be staying home for Christmas and it will be just us. We have not had to many traditional dinners the last few years, usually preferring to have Mexican food or beef tips. I'm not sure what I am going to do yet. My 15 is having his wisdom teeth pulled this week followed by his 16th birthday 3 days later. We usually go out to dinner on birthdays but we are cutting even special occasion eating out, so far he is thinking he wants pizza and buffalo wings. Sounds good to me :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!


Wishing you and yours the best this Thanksgiving.

Maggie

Ok, trying to throw things together

I needed to do the bulk of my shopping today, I had originally planned to go Tuesday but this weeks schedule is getting very full. My list was only half done so I had to guess on a few things.

I spent almost all of this weeks budget on holiday baking supplies but I should have enough for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I probably went a little heavy on the butter but it was on sale so I will just freeze the extra.

So, I spent the morning dealing with paperwork and phone calls, tried to finish up my grocery list, hurried to be first at the cheap haircut place, rushed through Meijer, hit CVS for some on sale hair color (yay, plus coupon!) and made it home just in time for naptime giving me time to color my hair. DH was with me for the first half of the day so things moved quickly. I'm glad I have a few things scratched off my list.

So for Thanksgiving desserts I'm considering the following:

Cookies tray
Peanut butter cookies with kisses
Chocolate chip cookies
Snickerdoodles
Dark chocolate cake mix cookies with peanut butter chips
Oreo Truffles (Double batch, they disappear first)

Dessert Tray

Store bought pumpkin pie and apple crumb pie ( only 1.99 this week!)
Decadent cake -ok, it's actually called Better than *** cake but I change the name :)
Some kind of mini boston cream pie style cake ( seems like a easy idea)
Lemon bars- this is a recipe I have never tried but if I'm gonna spend a couple days in the kitchen I want to try at least one thing new.

I made a really good carrot cake last year but not everyone likes carrot cake and it is a little more effort so I decide to skip it. I may still drop the lemon bars if something comes up or add something if things go well.

I'm going to make the cookie doughs on Tuesday and refrigerate them until Thanksgiving morning. Then the kids can scoop them for me and I can bake off fresh cookies. You can save time and dishes by making up multiple batches of cookies working from lightest to darkest so you don't have to wash the bowl over and over.Scooping them ahead of time is great if you have multiple events you need to cook for. Just keep a tray full of pre-scooped cookies in the fridge and pull out what you need.

I did make one impulse purchase at the store. Containers of key lime flavored cheesecake filling were on sale so I grabbed one thinking I could make some easy mini cheesecakes but I have since decided the package only contains enough for me :)

uh-oh....

I thought I was bringing a dessert for Thanksgiving but it turns out I am making the desserts, all of them.


Thanks honey for clearing that up .

Mini Cinnamon rolls

Certains things are a great deal this time of year. Make sure you pick up a extra tube of on sale crescent rolls to make these easy yummy mini cinnamon rolls

They would also be a great addition to a tray full of homemade muffins if you are expecting any guests for the holidays.

Pizza Biscuits

Pizza biscuits are a hit around here, all they are is a biscuit base and pizza toppings. We made a few different combinations and sizes. A muffin tin works well but I really prefer to use a mini loaf pan. I included 2 pictures of some that had been made in a mini loaf pan and also some mini "2 bite" buffalo chicken pizzas that were made in a mini muffin pan. I used a regular muffins pan to make some with the works but did not get a good picture.

We don't eat many biscuits around here but coupons are pretty common for both flaky tube biscuits and bisquick mix. Combined with a sale and a store that has double coupons they can be really cheap. You could of course use your own biscuit recipe or copycat baking mix recipe.

I prefer my pizza to be mostly topping and very little biscuit. If using tube "flaky" biscuits I carefully pull them apart into 2 thinner biscuits or use kitchen scissors to cut into 4 pieces for a mini muffin pan. I usually use bisquick though and just use enough to cover the bottom. I have also used pyrex rectangles to make larger pizzas but you have to be careful not to use to much dough and to leave it in the oven long enough to get it fully cooked. Top with a little sauce, cheese and your favorite toppings

Some tips:

-Go very light on the sauce
-Sprinkle with italian seasoning for that wonderful pizza smell
-Great to use up leftover spaghetti sauce and veggies
-Cool completely for easier removal
-Freeze for quick snacks and to use in lunchboxes

-

No menu plan this week.....

We had a really successful grocery trip this week. Meijer was really great, I ended up with a bunch of coupons that matched up with what I needed this week and some great produce deals. I went to Costco for cheese (only 2.28 lb) but did add on romaine lettuce and DH added on a package of bourbon chicken. We also bought pop and a Sunday paper at Giant Eagle. I'm switching to ice tea but DH still needs pop to take to work.

I did not buy much for our main meals this week instead trying to buy items to stock up on lunch needs, buying cheese for the freezer and taking advantage of a few coupons. I'm still trying to use up the odd stuff in the pantry and freezer.

The plan this week is to make twice baked potato halves, pizza muffins, corn dog muffins and some ham and cheese spirals. I used up all the homemade convenience food when I was sick and ended up buying school lunches by the end. If I can get those done and then make burritos next week then I should be good for the rest of the year. These are things that I like to have handy but not use everyday. I try to use the lunch boxes to use things up like leftovers and the last bits of this and that but a few grab and go days are nice also. Lunches are usually a main dish or sandwich, a side and a fruit or vegetable. I include sweets when I have them.

Dinner tonight will probably be twice baked potatoes since they are on my to-do list anyway. We will probably have broccoli on the side. The rest of the week will be based on those things that have been sitting around to long like half empty boxes of pasta and noodles.

Next week is Thanksgiving and we are eating at my MIL's home and I just need to bring a double batch of Oreo balls. They always send so much food back with us that we won't need to cook for another 2 days :)

Over the weekend...

I had a pretty productive weekend. I am trying to challenge myself on the grocery budget. Instead of baby steps, I wanted to take a giant leap and go straight to saving as much as I can. DH is on board but struggled with not having his weekend junk food or Saturday night pizza ( although he did get a small one Friday on his way to work).

Weekend goal #1:No trips to the store, gas station or to buy carry-out food

My weakness is Coke Zero ( switched from diet Coke). I HAVE to have it, and it really adds up. If I buy it on sale and stock up, I drink to much, if I don't stock up, I end up running to the gas station and paying double for a 12 pack. I drank home brewed ice tea all weekend to avoid running to the store. I did drink a regular Coke this morning (already in the pantry) to drink with 2 Tylenol to fight off a headache. We do not live close to the grocery stores we shop at so impulse trips cost up to double.

Saturday DH really wanted some sweets. We had some ice cream left over but it needed a little something to satisfy DH's craving. Luckily I found a easy chocolate sauce on recipezaar that had very few ingredients and we made banana splits. Wow, that recipe is a definite keeper! It would be great with brownies.


Weekend goal #2: Organize pantry

I finally got a chance to play with my new kitchen cart. The extra space led to a re-evaluation of how I use my storage. So far I have cleaned out and organized half my kitchen. I needed to make some changes anyway. I actually have a good amount of cabinet space but I cant reach a good deal of it without a stool and I really have to much stuff. Kitchen items are a huge weakness of mine but I did manage to weed a few things out. I took a good inventory of what I have on hand and set aside some things to make sure I use them up.

I used up a few things over weekend. We had some apples that were really tart so I made apple pie muffins for Sunday. Digging through the freezer I found a large bag of green beans that I really did not care for as they were kind of stringy. I steamed them for longer than I usually would with then tossed them into a pan with garlic, crushed red pepper, and ginger, added some precooked spicy sausage from the freezer and finished with soy sauce. They turned out really good. We ate them over ramen noodles.

I need to restock on some items for lunches this week. My basic grocery list is pretty small but I am out of cheese. I buy it in bulk and freeze it so that will be a big part of my budget this week. DH and I are going shopping today (hopefully!) so I better go double check my list and get ready :)

The sun is shining...

Its really pretty out today. I'm finally feeling better. I don't think I have ever felt that sick for so long. The body aches were terrible and I could barely move my neck from side to side. I was feeling pretty run down before I even got sick so maybe that contributed to it. I started feeling better yesterday and today it seems to be holding. My neck is still sore but I'm miles ahead of what I felt like a few days go. I think I was sick for almost 2 weeks. DH even took off a few days from work and I think I slept 20 hours a day those days.

Anyway, we will be giving up a few of our extras around here as we are looking at a 25% cut in income next year. I really thought my husband would be safe because he is in the last group of people whose overtime gets cut at work but they just came down and cut everything. It could of course always be worse as my husband works in the auto industry.

We spent this years bonus check on a new dishwasher and washer, a kitchen island and a Wii fit. It would have been smarter to bank the money to prepare for the next year. On a positive note we needed the dishwasher and washer and they are paid for and did not go on a credit card. The Wii is a early family Christmas present. Christmas will be very simple other than that.

I'm gonna post a few posts reviewing our budget. Things we have done, things we could have done better and things we are prepared to do if necessary. We are also going to be simplifying the menu a bit. I am going to go back to a basic rotating family menu not only to help keep on budget but to free up some time so we can work on other things. I keep a basic menu in my binder but its a little out of date. I probably won't stick to the menu 100% but it will certainly make it easier for me start cutting back.

I have plenty of housework to catch up and a grocery list to write so I think I will grab some lunch then get started :)

I have a docters note...

Well, I am still sick. I did not make my 21 days of blogging. Actually I have not been doing much of anything. I did have a flu but now its turned into something else and I feel horrible. I'm taking 3 kinds of medicine including a antibiotic but my head and neck still hurt terribly and I am exhausted.

DH is off for a few days, I just pulled enough food from the freezer to get through the weekend and I have no plans but to take my medicine, drink lots of water and sleep.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Shopping is exhausting.....

I have spent a lot of time shopping recently. Every time we have gone out to shop I have tried to stop off and price check on items. That plus lots of time surfing to compare prices and I wonder after all is said and done if I saved enough.

I have been watching for deals on kitchen carts/islands. DH is buying me one for Christmas. It will be Christmas in November because it is coming tomorrow! Thanks Heather for pointing me towards http://www.allkitchencarts.com/. I tried searching for one on Craigslist and found a few that were ok but nothing that would work. I actually found some really beautiful custom islands I would have loved to have purchased but they were all to big for my space, all the small ones were to flimsy. I found many islands in the $500 plus range on the internet but that was to much and usually did not include shipping. Heather suggested the above website and I finally decided on this one. The price includes shipping.

DH also decided to look into replacing the rusty dishwasher and half broken washing machine. We went to our local scratch and dent/overstock appliance store to look for a washer first. I had found a washer on bestbuy.com that was on sale and had free shipping but wanted to find a better deal. We did not find any washer deals but did find a nice dishwasher. The dishwasher was actually more than one on sale at best buy but it was a much nicer model. We figured we would go ahead and get the dishwasher and wait a little longer on the clothes washer and we loaded it up and took it home. Of course, since I live in the appliance Bermuda triangle so guess what happened the exact same day? The washer stopped working!

I was going to go ahead and order the 3.6 cubic feet front loader but we decided to check Lowes and Home depot one more time and we found a 4.0 cubic feet model of the same brand for cheaper but we have to wait 3 weeks for it. I decided to buy it anyway and go to the laundry mat but luckily DH managed to get the washer working enough for me to do laundry, so I am trying get all the washing done before it dies again. It has a moisture issue, a bad belt and now a small hole in the drum so its leaking a little and I want to hurry up and get it out the house before it fills up with mold.

In the end, I love the cart and I got new appliances that I really loved and I am confident I saved more than enough to pay for the 5 year warranties I ended up buying. Everything is being payed for with DH's year end bonus. I know it would be cheaper to buy used but I am so done with dealing with appliances. We also plan on moving in 3-5 years and would probably need to replace any really old appliances before we put the house on the market anyway so I might as well as get the use out of them. I am so grateful that DH wanted to use his bonus in this way, he has worked so hard this year that I would have been supportive if he would have liked to buy a bunch of man toys or take a vacation.

Unless he wanted to buy a motorcycle. I'm not that supportive.

I caught a bug...

I ended up spending 2 days sleeping this week. I caught one of those flus where you ache all over, have a high fever and can't stay awake. Luckily only 1 other family member got it and they did not have it as bad.

So I spent this morning catching up, cleaning up and getting in a little grocery shopping. Now I am getting in some computer time and looking through next weeks Meijer ad for inspiration. In a few hours I will have a house full of teenagers. They will probably be here till 10:00pm.

I'm looking forward to 10:01 pm. :)

Catching up/getting ahead

Yesterday was pretty busy. DH had his permanent crown put on while I shopped at Meijer. I power shop and it does not take long so I walked around the store for awhile before putting groceries in my cart. I'm glad I did because I found some nice clearance clothing items for the kids. 95% percent of the time when I shop I follow a list and I list things in groupings and in order of how I walk through the store. Even when we buy large quantities things go quickly. Usually DH goes with me and drives the cart, entertaining the little guy as I throw things in to buy. I take the same route every time heading to the back to the dairy aisle and shopping the outside rows of the store only visiting the center aisles to pick up loss leaders and ending in produce which is usually the longest part of the trip. I stopped at GFS on the way home to use a coupon and pick up items for a teen party this weekend. I did buy a few impulse items here. Yum, the chipotle monteray jack that screamed my name turned out to be really good!

I don't have a menu yet but yesterday was the best day to go to store so I picked up a few needs and sale items and I will finish my menu today. I did prep a bunch of food yesterday evening for snacks and lunch boxes, even managed to get some pictures so I can finally update my lunchbox blog :)

Today will be another day of catching up and trying to get ahead. I have a lot laundry to do, I tried ignoring the troubled washer for a week hoping it would just go away but that didn't work.

Love this kitchen :)

I love this kitchen!

I have perfectly good but not so attractive oak cabinets. I really like what this person did, I think I would prefer a different backsplash but I really like everything else.

What do you think?

On the menu...

I'm over budget this week. If I cut out the pet products I am pretty close but my menu needed a little extra to keep DH from wanting to eat out so I spent everything without much stocking up. There is not much point in me cutting out the extras if DH is just going to buy Chipotle, pizza and Angus burgers. I "splurged" on guacamole, 3 lbs bacon, good wraps, extra pop, and tip steak. I don't think I have ever bought tip steaks before, the cuts actually looked so good that I think I will go back and buy more for the freezer before the end of the week. Most of the time when Meier has cuts of beef on sale they are not trimmed very well so I rarely buy anything other than ground beef or a occasional chuck roast. The 2.69 lb Angus tip steak looked so much better than the 2.49 lb chuckeye steak which looked like it was 50% fat.

I did end up splurging on a restaurant size portion of chicken and dumpling soup from GFS. DH's dentist visit did not go well on Monday so on our stop on the way home to pick up bacon and pepperoni we grabbed the soup so he could eat chicken and dumplings over mashed potatoes for 2 days. Luckily he was feeling better within 24 hours.

So the rest of this weeks dinners are:

Turkey,swiss and bacon wraps
Beef fajitas, rice, beans and all the fixins
Southwestern style grilled chicken salads
Bean soup with smoked sausage and cornbread
Lasagna, salad and garlic bread

Notes-
*Turkey and swiss are both on sale at our awesome local deli for under 2.90lb
*Having two mexican/southwestern style meals will help make the prep easier and will hopefully leave enough extra to throw some burritos in the freezer
*Making 3 lasagnas at once, 2 will go in the freezer

Fruits this week are mostly bananas and grapes. Strawberries are on sale but they just did not look good. We always have mandarin oranges and pineapple on hand for when we run out of fresh fruit.

I think DH may veto bean soup on Saturday in favor of carryout pizza if he can get home in time for football. He has to work 7 days this week so I hope he gets a chance to get home and get a break.

Monday notes..

-Need to hit the grocery store. DH has a appointment so I am going to drop him off, shop around the corner and then pick him back up.

-I still have not made a dent in our FSA money. CVS and Walgreens both have deals on tylenol ( ECB's and register rewards) this week. If I can try to combine some of these deals over the last few months of the year to get a few bonuses that would be nice.

I'm feeling a little challenged by menu planning lately. We are working on some food issues with one child and DH has been wanting to eat carryout and comfort food lately. His schedule is horrible right now and I think he is stress eating. This and the fact we are just going through a ton of food right now. Where do teenagers put all that food? My oldest son is so thin you can count his ribs, he is literally the skinniest kid in the whole highschool but can sit down and inhale 2 to 3 plates of food in minutes. DS#2 works at school and gets free lunch if he wants but can't eat it because it makes him feel so terrible. I know he has issues with sugar but it must be something else also.

I have to leave in a hour so I better get my list finished :)

Craigslist and the kitchen island search....

I love Craigslist. Last week I bought a bag full of 18 mth-2t PJ's for the little guy for $5 and a bunch of newish shirts for $1 each. My DH has been wanting to buy more window fans ( the ones with 2 fans side by side) and we found someone selling 3 of them for $25.

I have been searching for a new-to-me kitchen island for awhile. We had a stainless steel cart that I loved but it had sharp edges on the bottom and at the seams so we had to remove it during childproofing. I am currently using a $3 garage sale find that is functional but extremely ugly. So far everything I have found that I really like is still to expensive. I am hopeful about going to see one tomorrow that may be just right.

While my kitchen is good size, the counter space layout is not good for having multiple people work. The largest area is at the corner between the stove and the sink but all the glasses, plates and silverware are located in that area so its a constant traffic jam. I also prefer a area a little shorter than the standard cabinet height because I am on the short side. My mother was just over and mentioned she thought the cabinet we were using was a little to short. I'm 5 ft 3 in shoes and shes 5' 11 barefoot. :)

I thought it was kinda funny she did not notice the pretty stainless steel cart was shorter but she did notice the ugly recycled cabinet is not tall enough.

I plan on putting the boys' old twin bed frames on craigslist to cover the cost of a new island. They are captains beds which worked great when the boys were little but not so much now they are teenagers.

I know a lot of people that have enjoyed using freecycle for items as well and there are also a lot of yahoo groups but I have not found them to be as easy to search. I have been watching sales also because it seems some items that are in demand go for almost as much used as they could be had for if bought on sale.

Anybody have any other ideas or suggestions for finding a nice kitchen island/cart?