Wednesday, March 27, 2013

A night out on the cheap!

On of the local bars does 20 cent drafts on Tuesday nights and a usual cover charge of six dollars. I happened to have a coupon for no cover charge for both of us so we decided to go have a good time. I drove so I only had 2 beers but CH had about six... Overall cost for the night was 8 dollars with tip. For 5 hours of dancing, drinking, and having fun with our friends it was awesome.

How does your family have fun in the frugal way?

Sunday, March 24, 2013

I love productive days!

I feel like I did a ton today which is a good thing because it is my last day until my full time work schedule kicks in. Remember all of those peppers from the last post? I chopped those (all but 4!) and put them in the freezer to be used in fajitas and other yummy things. I also made a months worth of dog food and froze it bags that will last a week each. I went to the grocery store and went over budget for the week including all of those bell peppers I ended up spending about $85 dollars this week but next week should be pretty low since we are stocked up on everything. I hope everyone has a great Sunday night!

Friday, March 22, 2013

Enough until they start to grow...

I ran into my local grocery store to grab a few things and I noticed a big sign that said "Today only ALL bell peppers 3 for a dollar!". So I went a little over board and got 24 of them. My plan is to cut and freeze all but the ones that we will eat this week. I figure I will have enough to last until my garden starts to give me my own... Or close anyway. So no you will not be seeing any of these babies show up in a food waste Friday post!

Food Waste Friday!

I dont know why I put the exclamation mark, I still managed to waste some spinach (again!)....



Simply Being Mum

Like I said last week I am doing this to be more aware of what I am wasting and home that I can curb my waste to nothing, but geeez the spinach! Maybe I should not buy any this week hmm...

Anyway here is what I have
-About 1/4 of a tub of spinach
-A tiny bit of chipotle mayo that got forgotten
-A little but of left over guacamole from some enchiladas this week
-Half a bunch of green onions(I know they don't look to bad but trust me they were!)



I don't think i had a terrible week but it would have been better if I had nothing to show.
What did you waste this week? 


Thursday, March 21, 2013

How long could you go without buying food?

While cleaning and going through out pantry, cabinets, and freezer I realized we have a lot more food than I thought...

I believe we could go a few months at least without buying any food (except fresh fruits and veggies). I guess this isn't necessarily a bad thing because if anything bad happened like the loss of a job for example we could live off that food.

My issue is I am trying to eat a better diet with more whole foods and less processed foods and what we have in the pantry especially, is mostly processed. I think I am going to try and use this stuff up and replenish my stocks with better food. Another option since I hate wasting anything isto donate it to the local food bank. I am not fully sure what I am going to do yet but I should figure it out because a bunch of the stuff I found while organizing looked really tempting ;p.

On a side note if any one knows of any "whole food" blog feel free to share them with me!



Wednesday, March 20, 2013

We need to get rid of some clothes!

As I was going through our closet today I realized just how much clothes we have (and my we I y really mean my husband!). For me my everyday clothes are also my work clothes so I have one small set of clothes, probably 10 full outfits. My husband on the other hand has a uniform for work and home clothes.

I decided that as I was organizing the closet I would count how any shirts we has for just a home. I found 38 shirts! I couldn't believe it, now I just need to convince him to donate a bunch of them. He tends to like to hold on to clothes but really some of the things in there I don't think I have seen him wear in 2 or 3 years...

Maybe I will just donate them when his isn't home ;)

Anybody have a husband that has way to much clothes???

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Cleaning Day 2 complete!

So far I have deep cleaned the kitchen and the living room which is pretty much the whole downstairs except for a half bathroom and it looks great, I wish I always had this much time to get stuff done!

In other news today is CH's birthday and I made his a basketball cake because my mom get him some tickets to go see a Nuggets game, I think he is going to like it and since I had everything I needed to make it, it was free haha

Other then that things have been pretty lazy here the last few days

Hope everyone is having a good week so far!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Homemade Dog Food

This post really has nothing to do with saving money and more to do with heath. My bigger dog the french bulldog has a lot of issues with food he seems to be allergic to every commercial dog food that I have tried even the good brands (Nutro Ultra, Blue buffalo, etc...) After eating, his paws turn red and he starts licking them like crazy until they get really irritated. After striking out on 6 plus brands I have decided I am going to try to make my own dog food and see how that turns out.


Here is the recipe I am going to use, I will put approx. cost next to the item if anyone cares.

This will make 20 cups which is enough for my two guys (French Bulldog and Mini Dachshund)

-12 cups water
-2 pounds ground or diced meat (I got chicken but it can be any or whatever is cheapest) $3
-4 cups of brown rice $2
-1 (16 oz) package of mixed veggies thrown in food processor $1
-2 eggs with shells ground in coffee grinder (for calcium) .25 cents

PLUS 1 dog multivitamin a day approx 5 dollars a month or 1 dollar a week

Total cost is $7.25 a week which is close to a dollar a day or about $30 dollars a month, we have been paying 55 dollars for a 30 pound bag that lasts us about a month and a half so really is is quite close in cost.

As I said be before though it is really more of a health thing than I money thing.

I will update you later how or if this worked for use. I plan on starting sometime at the end of this week when the bag of food we have runs out.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Food Waste Friday




I found this idea on The frugal girls blog and thought it was a great idea.

Here is what she says about it on her blog, "Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. Why do I do this? Because in March of 2008, I finally got fed up with the amount of food I was wasting, and I thought that showing my waste to other people would motivate me to use up my food instead of wasting it. Because this often embarrassing practice was so helpful for me, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born"


I am so excited to try this out because I know if I have to post it for everyone to see I will be much more likely not to waste food (and money!).

So this week I ended up wasting (Shown above)
-4 chunks of pinapple
-A serving of fresh green beans
-1/3 of a bag of spinach :(
-1/2 a bunch of cilantro

How was your food waste this week?



Thursday, March 14, 2013

Deep cleaning the house (Spring Cleaning list)

I try to keep my house super clean but I don't always have the time, having a full time job and other responsibilities sometimes get in the way. This coming week at my job I am going to be only working part time about 25 hours due to some special circumstances. My plan with this time is to deep clean my whole house because it needs to be done. Here is the plan...

Monday-Kitchen

  1. Pull out appliances and  and clean under them plus vents on the fridge
  2. Clean and de-clutter cabinets 
  3. Clean out oven
  4. Clean off glass top on oven 
  5. Comet and shine the sink
  6. Wipe walls and doors
  7. Clean trash can
  8. Organize Pantry
  9. Mop floor
Tuesday-Living Room
  1. Dust and Polish all tables
  2. Clean doors and walls
  3. Vacuum
  4. Clean dog hair off couches
  5. Wash dog bed 
  6. Clean windows
Wednesday-Bedroom
  1. Vacuum floor and under bed
  2. Wash bed set
  3. Organize closet
  4. Dust and polish dresser 
  5. Wash upstairs dog beds and kennels
Thursday-Bathrooms (My favorite part...NOT!)
  1. Clean toilets
  2. Clean showers and tub
  3. Clean sinks
  4. Clean and organize drawers
  5. Vacuum and wash all rugs
  6. Mop floors
  7. Clean mirrors
  8. Wipe down doors and walls
Friday- "Man Cave", Office, Hallways, and Stairs
  1. Vacuum all the floors
  2. Wipe down walls and doors
  3. Dust and Polish tables and desks
  4. Organize linen closet
  5. Organize laundry "room" (more of a closet)
And done! Doesn't that look like tons of fun? Usually I do about a 30 minute cleanup every day (dishes, picking up whatever gets set down where it shouldn't, throw clothes in washer, wipe down counters etc...). I expect to spend anywhere from an hour to three every day but the house will look wonderful. What do you do for spring cleaning? 

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Ditching paper towels

This post is a bit delayed because we started doing this a few months ago but I figured why not.... We used to be paper towel hogs we would go through a bounty big roll in a week. This was an expensive habit I would spend 5 dollars for two big roles twice a month. So 10 dollars a month and 120 dollars a year on just paper towels. That obviously needed to change because really that is just outrageous. I looked around and saw that I could buy some nice ones that snapped around the paper towel holder  (Not good enough at sewing to sew them myself) but they were pricey and I didn't even know if we would use them.


I decided that I would stop by Walmart to see if they had anything that would work. I found an 18 count washcloth set for 4 dollars and decided to try it out. Well it works fine and we have been using them ever since. I still have a roll of paper towels on hand for if we have company but we have had the same roll out for 2 months now and it is 3/4 full still.

My mom asked me if I really save money since I still have to wash and dry them, well yes I do. I throw them in with our on towel load we wash every few weeks so I don't run any extra loads for them. To dry them I usually line dry them unless its bad weather so usually I don't pay to dry them either.

We keep the clean ones folded next to the sink and the dirty ones go in a reusable bag that I have in the cabinet under the sink.

An easy way to save 100 dollars a year. The only question is how long will they last? I am  not sure but 2 months in I see no viable wear so hopefully a while. I will update when I need replacements.

(Another comment from my mom: Please don't tell me you are going to switch to reusable Toilet Paper too... Ummm no I couldn't handle that nor get hubby on board but more power to you if you do it)

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Planning my vegetable garden

Recently we moved, from a small apartment with a patch or soil which I threw a few strawberry plants on to our house with a fairly large yard. My husband being the nice guy he is told me to take as much space for the garden as I wanted  and we would plan the landscape around it. Needless to say I am pretty excited. So here is what I plan on growing...

Not in raised boxes
-Blueberries
-Strawberries
-Blackberries
-Apples (2 dwarf trees)
-Corn

In raised beds
-Lettuce
-Spinach
-Kale
-Swiss Chard
-Tomatoes
-Bell peppers
-Jalapeno Peppers
-Carrots
-Potatoes
-Onions
-Garlic
-Assorted Herbs
-Tomatillos

I am planning 4 beds that are going to be 4 by 8?

I need to do a little more research on the bed sizes though since I have never done this before I am wondering if that is enough space for all of the veggies listed above for 2 people.



*Not mine found on Google


I am hoping that they will turn out something like the ones seen above.

I cant wait to have all of these home grown veggies, especially the bell peppers!
What are you most looking forward to in your garden this year?



Monday, March 11, 2013

A little of this and a little of that

I dont really have a real blog post for right now but I will share a few "budgetty" things

-We are on pace for out grocery budget, I spent $54 dollars last week

-My moms birthday was last week and we took her out to a nice place so our eating out budget is over for last week at $45 dollars

-We got the electricity bill and it was $24 dollars less than last month, which was pretty easy since all I did was make sure no extra lights were on and that TV got turned off if we were not watching it, no more unneeded  background noise.

-Emptied out all of the wallets and pockets and added $5 dollars to the change jar. *Every time it gets full we take it in and get cash and split it half for something fun and half to and extra payment on something. Last time it was full it had around $140 in it.

My menu for the week is going to go something like this,

Tonight- Lasagna
Tuesday-Leftovers
Wednesday- Lentil Soup I didn't make last week
Thursday- Homemade pizza
Friday-Cheese and Spinach enchiladas
Saturday-Eat out
Sunday- Grilled Cheese and Homemade Tomato Soup (Husbands Choice)


Hopefully I will have a more interesting post for you later tonight!




Friday, March 8, 2013

Surprise!

Sometimes I think that CH never listens to me but apparently he does. At work he overheard a co worker say that for her wedding they had received duplicates of many different things. He decided to ask what she had received two of one of the things she sad was a bread maker. He knew I had been wanting one so he offered to buy one from her and she agreed. 25 dollars late and I am the proud owner of a brand new bread machine. My first loaf is cooking now and I could not be more thrilled. I love my husband! I know I will be using this a ton! Now if I could get him to listen to everything I said we would be golden! (Just kidding he really is a wonderful guy). Now I am going to have some yummy warm bread when this snow hits tomorrow. Hope everyone else had a great Friday too!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Yummy ( and cheap) potato soup

I found a recipe recently on the Internet for some crock pot potato soup... And then I lost it....

So I made up my own from what I could remember, I also put how much I paid per item

2.5 pounds of potatoes cut in 1 inch cubes ($1)
2 chopped medium yellow onions (.75 cents)
3 crushed cloves of garlic (.25 cents)
4 cups of broth ( I used veggie broth) ( $1?made my own)
1 brick of cream cheese ($1)

Put all of the ingredients in the slower cooker except creme cheese on low for 8 hours.

Once it's been 8 hours blend well with immersion blender, throw in the creme cheese and mix until its all melted.

Enjoy!

A yummy easy meal for $4, and for us it made enough for two meals.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Food waste

I hate the feeling of throwing away food that I didn't eat in time. Its like throwing away money. My biggest issue is fruits and vegetables. I tend to think that we are going to eat more than we do. Just this last weekend I needed spinach and the organic bags were only 99 cents more and BOGO free plus they were 3 oz more. Of course that is a great deal so I do it. Today I opened the fridge and with a bag and a half left I doubt we will eat it all. Maybe I will switch out one of the meals I was going to make and some spinach enchiladas instead. Anyway the point here is that I need to watch more closely what I am buying and really ask myself will I eat this all? On one of my favorite blogs http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/ she does a food waste Friday where she posts everything she wasted for the week in order to make her accountable. Starting this Friday I going to start doing this too hopefully then I can stop throwing money away. What do you do to curb food waste?

-Renee

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Debt

Me and CH have 4 main sources of Debt and  obviously the main goal is to get rid of them.

The first thing is 800 dollars for a surgery our rescue dog had to have. We are currently paying 110 a month on that and will have it paid off before the promotional period of  0% interest is up. (Goal: Paid off by Sept)

The second thing we have is a best buy bill totaling 1000 dollars for the TV CH just HAD to have, he of course made this purchase while I was away... Anyway we pay 50 dollars a month on that but once the vet bill is paid off it will be 160. (Goal to be paid off by the end of the year)

The third is student loans which we will have to start paying off next year, and I am currently saving a little for those but hope to increase my saving to put towards those.

Lastly we have the house which is currently 176 k and change. We recently bought the house and most of the payment is going towards interest, I have been paying 300 extra a month on that and hope to continue. (Goal: Start putting even more principle down a month and have it paid off in 10 yrs.) 

Here is to eventually being debt free!





(Who could say no to this face anyway?)

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Grocery budget

This week I got all of my groceries for $38 dollars which included tons of fruits and veggies and 300 multivitamins for $8.50 which will last us 6 months. Also in the spirit of saving money I turned off the heater this morning because it has been a beautiful day today. The house has stayed at about 65 all day. Last night I made some re-fried beans and some homemade English muffins which both turned out good and saved me about 6 dollars at the store today. Everything adds up, have a great rest of your Sunday!

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Thanks Google, plus a menu for the week.

While trying to find recipes to go with what I have on hand I found this site, which highlights 50 delicious crock pot recipes. I think I am in heaven they all look so good I think my crock pot will be receiving some love this week.

My menu this week is going to be,

Monday- Slow cooker baked potato soup
Tuesday- Lentil Soup
Wednesday- Stuffed Peppers
Thursday- Homemade Veggie pizza
Friday- Chicken Fajitas
Saturday- Dinner out
Sunday- Husbands choice of what we have on hand (Usually always spaghetti....)


Also going to make
2 loaves of homemade bread (freeze one)
1 attempt at homemade English muffins found on this site 

For breakfast we usually have eggs, cereal, or granola bars
For lunch I usually have/pack leftovers or sandwich and C.H. gets free lunches at work 3 days a week and packs something easy the other 2.

                                         P.S. Doesn't this potato soup look amazing?? (Found here)




Friday, March 1, 2013

The budget and some goals

I have finally decided to write the long awaited  budget

Our take home income is 3000 dollars on an average month

Our mortgage is 1150 and that includes taxes and house insurance (1850 left)
Our water, gas, electricity, sewage, and trash are 250 a month on average ( 1600 left)
Our cell phones are 90 a month (1510 left)
Car insurance for both cars is 110 a month (1400 left)
Gas is 350 a month because CH commutes daily (1050 a month)
Cable and Internet are 110 a month (940 left)
Dog food for both dogs is 40 a month (900 left)
Attempted grocery budget is 240 a month (660 left)
Eating out goal is 80 a month (580 left)
Credit card bills are 135 a month (445 left)
and last 145 dollars for everything else (entertainment, oil changes, hair cuts, etc..)

Leaving us with a gland total of 300 dollars to put away in savings, which is clearly not enough.

Goals
1. Cut both food categories to 200 a month while still eating good and healthy.
2. Lower gas and electricity by 30 dollars
3. Cut the everything else budget to 100 dollars

If the goals are accomplished it will save us 155 dollars which I will apply to paying off the credit card bills, which total 1800. (We are not currently making the minimum on either of them but I would love to get rid of them, especially because one still has 0 percent interest for 5 more months)

I need to find a way to make a little extra income on the side, does any one have any (legal!) ideas?