Progress so far

So I would have made it gas wise until at least Thursday night which would have made a week but had to fill up before taking DD to school because DS1

 forgot his workbooks and I had to drive out to the worksite.  So I am starting this pay week with another full tank of gas and hoping to make it last until next Friday morning at least.  Soccer practice starts tonight though so that means more running.

Gas this week so far- 62.00

Mileage 125408. Says I can go 485 miles. We will see

week 1

So far this week I have spent $33.08 on fast food. That could have helped with the grocery budget. Need to work better on NO SPEND days and no TAKE OUT!

Gas - Since we normally get paid on Fridays I plan for Friday-Thurs but This week I needed gas Thursday night so put that towards this weeks gas to see how much it will take since this will be the first Full week of school and practice.

Aug 22- truck 25.02
        22-car 59.00 (filled me up)
August 24- truck 24.73

We are at 108.75 so far so I am OVER BUDGET!! already and it's only Monday morning! I was wanting to go to sams club out of town but think that will hold off.

 he usually doesn't use that much in just a couple days but we went to an auction saturday and he had to come back and get the trailer and go back again.

I budget $100 a week for gas. I haven't been tracking it lately so not sure what we have been spending.

I filled up on Thursday night and Monday morning I am at half a tank, but did make quite a few trips back and forth to the schools for fall sports night and cc meet and things. I am hoping I wont need more gas until at least this thursday.

Groceries~

So far this week I have spent $51.65 on groceries.  I still need to get stuff on my list for the rest of the meals this week, but that did include 4 12 packs of pepsi and I am hoping that we can stretch that. I drink tea but the rest of the house drinks pop like crazy. My husband takes 6 every day to work with him plus what he drinks at home, so I am making kool aid and things hoping the kids will leave the pop alone.

Meal Plan~

I HATE MENU PLANNING! Not really that I don't like cooking but it seems no matter what I make someone doesn't want it. If that someone happens to be one of my kids, I tell them oh well. They can eat it or make a PB&J, if that someone happens to be my husband and a kid, he will call the oldest and have him pick him up something! That has to stop, it's not included in our budget and money is getting wasted away. I try to make things that he likes which really puts me in a tough spot since he is pretty picky and doesn't like to try new things. He also doesn't like fish or chicken. If it was up to him we would live on pizza and steak.

I spend hours searching pinterest and recipe sites for new things that sound good because we all get sick of the same old things. And sometimes something we loved a few months ago, all of a sudden don't like it now.  I am lucky we have no food allergies but it seems it's still hard to come up with things because of everyone's likes/dislikes.

I am going to try something new at least once a week hopefully.


Monday ~ tuna casserole
Tuesday~ salad, lasagna and garlic bread
Wednesday~ meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans,
Thursday~ Chicken enchilada casserole (this is new so we will see how it goes)
Friday~ pizza burgers and homemade mac and cheese

I stopped at Friday since that is payday and will grocery shop then for the following week.

Starting over!

Kids are back in school as of last week and I am trying to get back on track and re-focus on some things.  While they were out for the summer I didn't really plan or keep track of our spending and we had a lot of fun but now it's time to buckle down and start saving again. 

It's really hard to save when you are not an income earner for the house and nobody else seems to be on board with saving and would rather spend. But it is necessary with birthday, christmas and sports/school activities coming up. 

I thought if I post my goals maybe it would help keep me more accountable for them. So that's where this blog post comes in. 

I have set a weekly gas and grocery budget and will try really hard to stay within this budget. 

That will be pretty hard to do with all the driving from and to school things I may need to adjust the gas budget some but the only place I can really cut from is the grocery budget and I have set that at $150/week, so not much room to cut there either!

I know $150/week may seem high and many people do it under that, but most weeks I spend more than that and we probably spend another $200-350 eating out and things in a month. I have not budgeted ANY money in this month for eating out and will need to adjust that too probably but I am happy to have my budget figured out and see what I can tweak to make it better next month. 

My husband gets paid every week and his pay varies so that makes it a little harder to plan down to a $0 budget but should even out at the end of the month. 

So goalwise

#1 Stick to $150 grocery budget

#2 Stick to $100 week gas budget

# put a little into savings every week

#stamp at least 2 days week

# keep up with my housework

#bake snacks for the kids lunches

#cook at home every day except PLANNED nights out. No McDonald's or pizza just because I didn't feel like cooking

#menu plan so I know what to get at the store and what's for dinner

Summer boredom - cured!

    Summer is here and with that comes tons of hearing "I'm bored" from the kids. Now normally they don't say this too often to me otherwise they get handed a list of some chores that they can do. However, I do hear it on occasion especially from my youngest. She likes to be doing something or going somewhere. Since it is my goal to save money this summer and fall for a possible trip to Disney this winter, taking a family with 4 kids to the movies, pool or elsewhere is pretty much out of the question. 

     Luckily, she likes to craft and make things. I LOVE to rubber stamp and scrapbook. I used to do all 12x12 scrapbook albums and labor for hours over one page. There is just not time for that anymore, so I mainly do a Project Life or pocket album type of scrapbooking. One of the popular embellishments for that and card making is enamel dots. They can get pretty pricey so many have taken to making their own from perler beads or pony beads. 

     It just so happens that this day my new perler bead pen came from Amazon and I wanted to test it out and make some more beads. I have made some of these before and was very happy with how they turned out at the temp used so I stayed with that. I pre-heat my oven to 290* and slipped my silicone baking mat on my jelly roll pan and set out to line the pan with the beads. This was the most time consuming part last time. I almost gave up without even trying because after taking OVER 20 minutes to carefully line up all my pretty little beads, when I stood up to put them in the oven I bumped the tray on the oven rack and knocked more than half of them over! So after taking the time and baking a few trays worth a couple months ago, I put the beads away and had not made anymore. Then I happened upon that bead pen! It seemed like an extremely ingenious idea that could make my dot making go so much faster. So even though I am trying to be on a spending freeze, I just had to order it. I mean after all, it was less than $7 and if it saved me time, that's kind of like saving money right? Plus I am trying to make the beads and use them in my Stampin' Up! business as door prizes and things, so that will help pay for it, and I have Amazon Prime so the shipping is free. Hmm. I think I may be trying to over justify this little purchase too much. 

      So here comes the test, did I waste my money, or was I totally justified in purchasing this new crafting tool? I opened the package on the bead pen at 5:33 and immediately filled it with beads and got started. At 5:44 I was putting the beautiful tray of colored beads in my oven. So in 11 minutes I had filled the tray completely! That also included refilling the bead pen 4 times and having to set some of the beads back up because in my trying to hurry, I knocked some over. Take your time and you will still save time! This thing will make my enamel dot making SO MUCH QUICKER! 

Here is my tray of beads all ready to go into the oven! I bake mine at 290* for 40 minutes and they always turn out nice. If yours don't look right, bake until the little dimple is gone from the middle.  Also, normally I do the brown, black and glitter ones on their own for 45-50 minutes as the darker ones seem to need a little extra time. You can use parchment paper but I find the silicone mat easier and it helps grip them a little so they don't slide and fall over as easily. 

    As for the intended use of putting the beads on the little shapes to make something like my daughter uses them for, that is a different story. Yes it will work but not quite as well. My bucket of beads was all mixed up so when I loaded the pen it had several colors in it. That made it hard to design the little tray the way we wanted it. It may be better if your beads are sorted. The jury is still out on that one. But regardless my daughter had tons of fun playing with it. She was no longer bored, we spent time together and I got some dots made for my scrapbook pages and cards!