2016 Menu Planning and Grocery Budget.

Mmm, yes, soaking Beans.  I am home today so I thought I would make some bean and ham soup with some cornbread for dinner. Such a hearty meal and just right for this time of year.  And, we have been eating these cookies for dessert.  Easiest Recipe Ever, although, not very healthy. Yum.

Recipe:

Any flavor box cake mix
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs

Mix all ingredients together, roll into one inch balls, dip in powder sugar and bake on greased pan in a 350 degree oven for around 7 - 9 minutes.  That's it.  So good.


So, it's the New Year and instead of resolutions, I usually give myself goals and challenges.  One of my challenges/goals will be to reduce my grocery budget.  In 2015, I averaged around $108.34 a week for groceries, which for a family of four adults doesn't seem so bad.

But, I have some pretty large savings goals I put in place for this year (I will talk about in another post), so one of the best areas to cut back in is usually the grocery area.  I was wanting to do $50 a week, but that might be to constricting.  After all, there are some weeks where I need to buy a lot of basic items that are larger items and eat up the grocery budget like, coffee, laundry detergent, cat food, kitty litter, toilet paper, to name a few and then there is the bulk buying items, like going to the farm to stock up on meat (we like to eat organic, so we get our beef from a local organic farm) and so I try to stock my freezer every quarter with beef and chicken; and I try to alternate those buying times so that they don't both fall in the same month.  I stock up on on bulk butter, oats, flour, sugar, other baking items and some specialty items at Sam's Club/Costco, whichever I happen to be a member of.  Most envelope systems give themselves $50 a week and when the money is gone for that week, no more shopping.  I am not sure that will work for me, so I just average the money out monthly.

On that note, I have taken the Month of January and divided 31 days by 4 and that gave me 7.75 days in each grocery shopping week that I would need to make dinners for.  I don't necessarily make breakfast and lunches, but we do eat eggs, oatmeal, bagels, hashbrowns, cereal, leftovers and sandwich items.  I only write out a dinner menu plan.  So for the first week of January, this is our meals and I have spent $49.48 on groceries.  I use what I have on hand to help fill in the menu.  But this coming week, I will need to go over that $50 mark due to needing the extras.

We started our New Year's Eve out with a nacho....homemade breadsticks and...

homemade cinnamon rolls (Pic is without the frosting).  I am also gone a few nights out of the week, so the Dinner the night before usually becomes the leftover dinner for the nights I am not home.

Saturday, January 1 - Went out to Dinner.

Sunday, January 2 -  Chicken/Veggie Wraps and Steak Fries

Monday, January 3 - Spaghetti, Salad, homemade breadsticks

Tuesday, January 4 - Chili and homemade bread in the breadmaker, leftover salad

Wednesday, January 5 - Tuna Melts and leftovers from above

Thursday, January 6 - Bean soup with leftover ham (I had the ham from Christmas in the freezer) and Cornbread.

Friday, January 7 - Cracker Chicken and Fettucini Noodles.

That was our first week.  Hope it gave you some ideas for dinners.

Dumping Debt and Remodeling

I have been needing to do a few things around the house here to get us back on track.  I find that when we are all working and running around do the Holiday thing, the house just becomes a mess and it seemed like finances were a payday to payday issue, so I needed to take control.

First off, I wanted to get our finances under control.  I was getting many sleepless nights or anxiety attacks wondering how I was going to get everything paid, have a Christmas and feed my family at the same time. We needed to make some changes.  We needed to eliminate some debt.  We needed to eliminate some things that were sucking up our money.  I started thinking about the items we could sell.  We had a motorcycle that was never going to be ridden and my Jeep with it's blown engine that was never going to get fixed.  I was still making monthly payments on it and having to keep full coverage insurance, which amounted to around $270 a month.  That's a lot of cash. However, I still owed close to two grand on it, but with a blown engine, I am not going to get very much money for it.  But, I figured between selling the motorcycle and the Jeep, I could possibly pull paying it off and free up $270.

Update:  I did sell my broken Jeep, and with the money I got from its sale, the motorcycle and some cash in my bank account, I eliminated this altogether.  I am now sharing my daughter's car and helping her with her payment instead.  So that is a savings of $133 a month, instead of $270, because now I am helping my daughter with her payment, but I do need a vehicle to drive, so this is a good plan.

Next, I will be calling all of my expenses, by way of utilities, cell phone and internet/landline companies within the next week to see what I can get lowered.

Update:  I did call our internet/phone company and I was able to get our bill lowered by $50 a month for the next twelve (12) months, that is a savings of $600.

I have also been going through each room in my home and doing the "spring cleaning" and eliminating clutter. I dislike clutter.  I have been able to eliminate so much stuff and sell some of it on craigslist and the facebook yardsale pages in our area and have made some cash.

My laundry room has been a catch all for so many unwanted items.  So, I really needed to revamp this area. Luckily, I already had the paint, the cabinet which I have redone to work better for us and make my laundry room feel more like a place I want to be in.  This project was a free project and it looks much nicer. I am still tweaking this area and cleaning items out, but at least it is starting to feel a little more organized.

I will do an update as to my year end totals and my totals for Christmas and how I saved.

52 Week Money Challenge - Christmas Fund.

So an update on my 52 Week Money Challenge - the Christmas Fund.

I have not been following this idea as it shows on the label wrapped around the jar, where you deposit a certain amount each week.  I have done that in the past, where I was able to save enough to purchase a hot tub for the Cottage, which you can read about here.  Instead, I went and opened an account at a local bank that was offering a cash incentive.  So I have been depositing my money twice a month, before the 15th and after the 15th and at the end of three months, I will get an additional $150.00 cash incentive deposited into that account.  It came with a debit card (which I have not activated yet).  Once, all my money is deposited and possibly starting around Thanksgiving time (black Friday weekend), I will start my shopping and use the debit card associated with this account to purchase gifts, or pull out cash for those shopping excursions (like craft fairs, vintage shops, etc.) that take cash only.

Now, onto making my Christmas List and setting a budget.

Meal Planning, Grocery Shopping and Food Budgets

Let's talk food.  We all need it to survive and eating healthy, wholesome meals on a budget can be daunting. I do use coupons, but only for the items I am looking for.  I am not an extreme couponer, although the thought has crossed my mind, but, we live a simple life here at the Cottage, and only use certain items, so stocking our shelves with items that we could get for free, but never use, just didn't seem like a good use of my time, so instead, I try to get the most for my time and money, by using many different ways to put food and household items that we like and will use on our shelves.

So last year I spent $5,643.38 on groceries, $452.56 on household items and $119.86 on water softener salt, totaling $6,215.80, or $119.53/week.  So for a challenge to myself, I decided that I would give myself $100/week ($5,200 for the year), saving me $1015.80.  That is a nice chunk of change.  I decided that I would just combine them all because keeping track of them seperately was becoming time-consuming.  Then, there is the eating out category which totaled $1,097.96 for the year, or $21/week.  I have cut that cost to allow myself $10/week to use however I want to.  For coffees, pop, eating out, a magazine, whatever I want, and so far, this has worked out great.

I usually make a menu of dinners for a week at a time, kind of just roughly, wrote out on a piece of paper, and then next to that I would list my ingredients for each dinner, kind of like this:

As you can see, it is just loosely put together.  I make myself notes, like by the Lasagna.  I made it with Lasagna noodles, but because I had some leftover cheese ravioli in the freezer, I added that as a layer in the Lasagna.  I would normally buy ricotta cheese for my Lasagna, but didn't have to because the cheese was in the ravioli.  I also had some Rhodes rolls leftover from the Holidays still in the freezer, so I thought using them as the dough in a cupcake tin to make individual pizzas would be a great idea, and they turned out awesome.  I try to use up what is in my freezer and cupboards from week to week, while taking advantage of sales when I am at the store to stock up on items.  So once I make my list and the ingredients, I will check to see what I have, write down what I need and look for coupons for the items on my list to buy.  I also try to plan my menus around what is on sale and the coupons I have on hand.

Here are Week 2 and Week 3's dinner menus.

As you can see, I write myself notes on my menus so I know what I may need to use up or do throughout the week for each dinner, or if I plan on eating it the next day for lunch.  I highlight the meal once I have made it.  I keep my menu plans for ideas in the future on some dinners to make in the future and not to keep repeating the same thing over and over.

I also grab regular items at the store, like bread, bagels, milk, eggs, butter, mayo, fruit and veggies, etc.  Stuff we can use for breakfast and lunches.  A lot of times, we just eat leftovers for lunch.  So far, I have come in under budget, so planning is the key.

It really doesn't take that much time.  I only go to the grocery store once a week and it helps to have the dinner menu posted on the front of the refrigerator.  I don't assign a day to them, cause each week changes with my families work schedule, so if I know we are all going to be home in the evening together, I will make a more time-consuming dinner.  If we are sporadic on our schedule, then I will make a dinner that my kids can take to work for their dinner or heat up when they get home.

Restoring the Beach Cruiser

Well, I think I just figured out what to save my change for.  This beautiful Beach Cruiser my husband saved from someone's garbage pile and brought home to me last year for my birthday.  I live one mile from our cute little town which hosts quite a few different festivals throughout the year.  Plus, we have some cute shops, coffee and bagel houses and restaurants to meander into.  I also live a short distant from my summer beach job and this would really come in handy, along with all the trails that are around the Cottage from living so close to a State Park.  It would really be fun to ride my Cruiser around this summer.  So, as soon as the weather starts to peek out the springtime, I will be working on this project.

And, in the meantime, I will save on gas and get some exercise.  Totally in the budget.

It needs a bit of cleaning.  There is rust on the handle bars and the light fixture.  Someone suggested using oven cleaner, or coke and baking soda.  I heard that ammonia does a good job if you can wrap the areas with plastic and leave a little ammonia in the area wrapped, it will just pull the rust off.

So, because my time is usually limited and I don't like to spend a lot of wasted time trying to clean and fix stuff, I will see if I can get some plastic wrap and zip lock baggies to put around the areas and add some ammonia and let sit overnight.

If there are any results, I will figure out how to move onto the other ideas for cleaning them.

I do, however, love the color of the bike.  It is like a Khaki Camo Green color which is the same color as my eyes.  I am going to change the tires out and put on something more colorful and vintage looking.  There are tires with white walls or just a hint of color, but adding color just might be the way to ride.





What fun projects are you working on or if you know the secret to cleaning off rust, tell me in the comments below.

Setting the Budget, Fun Savings and the somewhat Dave Ramsey style.

That is one long icicle.  This was actually from last winter when we broke every record for most snowfall and polar vortexes.  I can see the yard stick in the snow on my table.  That was a long winter.  Well, onto the budget.

It is the beginning of a New Year and it is time to set the Budget for the Cottage.  I try to keep my bills at a minimum, so I can enjoy my life.

I know that Dave Ramsey says "live like no one else, so you can live like no one else", but I have a different take on that.  While I think that Dave Ramsey has a lot of great ideas, like having an Emergency Fund.  I really do think this is the key to not going into debt, so yes, I have an Emergency Fund or should I say just a plain ole savings account, which I have money directly deposited into twice a month from one of my jobs.

So, I set my budget on my other incomes.  I have a few different sources of income, which I can go into in another post.  So, Dave Ramsey also says pay off your debt with the Debt Snowball.  Okay, I am working on that.  I am paying on my debt and I have some debt I need to track down that I stopped paying on and get them back into the snowball of things, per se.

But, while Dave Ramsey says get gazelle intense and "live like no one else so you can live like no one else", well that scares me.  I mean, we are not guaranteed to be here on any given day and our life could end at any given moment.  So, I really believe that you have to not put your life on hold to get rid of your debt.  You need to live, you need to have purpose, you need to be happy.  I have heard that "Money can't buy happiness" and it's true, you have to make happy happen.  Although, money could probably help.... I just don't think it is the answer.

So that is what I do.  I make my life happy.  Yes, there will always be the challenges and sad times in life, loved ones getting sick, funerals, cars breaking down, you know life gets in the way.  But, you have to be happy, right.  I think I will do a different post on happiness in the future.

I have set my budget up to have just minimal payments on the stuff I own.  I like being a minimalist.  I think that making memories is far more gratifying than owning stuff.  Afterall, I have one set of sheets for each bed.  I take them off, wash them and put them back on, all in the same day.   But, I live in a fairly small beautiful cottage, around 1600 s.f., that I have been lovingly restoring over the past 16 years and is very, very affordable.  As a matter of fact, I could not live anywhere else any cheaper, I believe.  So here they are, my household expenses.

Basic Expenses:
*Mortgage (my taxes and homeowner's insurance is included in this)
*Consumers Energy - Gas
*Detroit Edison - Electric
*Sewer bill

Added Fun Expenses:
*Comcast - Internet service only (we use antennas for our tv viewing or watch it online)
*Netflix
*Cell phones
*Jeep payment
*Vehicle Insurance
*Life Insurance
*Discover Card (dreaded - really going to try to kick this out this year.  I owe around $5,000, but my summer job might be able to help kick this to the curb)
*Groceries (Food, household, water softener salt and cat items)
*Gasoline

So, yeah, that is kind of it.  I have a couple "sinking funds", like our Membership to our local Beach/Boating Club (which is my summer job), Vehicle Registration/Tabs/Maintenance and Outings (like festivals, weekends away, movies, etc).

So pretty basic stuff.

Other than having one of my income sources directly deposited into my savings accounts, I like to add some fun savings.  The ones I can touch and feel.  The ones in front of my eyes, the ever-growing kind.

The 52 Week Money Challenge and the Change Jar which I drop into this cute Tobacco jar (No, I don't smoke).  The 52 WMC jar I will use for Christmas this year.  Last year, I used it to buy a Hot Tub.  So, I actually do not go the whole year saving.  I save up until around Black Friday or week 48, which gives me $1,176.00 whopping dollars.  I do, however, shop throughout the year, if I see a deal I cannot pass up.  But, I keep track of my purchases and stick the receipt in the 52 WMC jar along with the cash.

The Tobacco change jar, well, it doesn't have a job yet.  I am just saving it for something.  Maybe to buy chemicals for my hot tub, or a small weekend vacation with my Honey.  I just don't know.  But, something will come to mind, so I just keep adding to it.

Do any of you do any fun savings.  If so, tell me in the comments below.

Maintaining the Water Softener

I bought my cottage 16 years ago.  My cottage was built in the 1930's and after I bought it, I put on two additions, a new furnace, central air conditioning, a new well and changed over most all the electrical to a larger panel.  It came with a Culligan Water Conditioner which worked awesome up until a few years ago.

After having the Culligan man out to tell me that mine is shot and I need a new one or a newer used one, I had to get creative with making the one I have last until I could save for a new/er one.  For some reason, it will cycle the salt, but it doesn't return water to the brine tank.  So every few days, I put a couple buckets of water in the tank before the next cycle day.

Well, I am still babying my water softener and decided that I would add a household water filtration system.  It looks like this, to add to my water softener system.  Now to find someone to install it.  I do see that Kmart/Sears carries water softeners systems for $300.   I wonder if I can put one in layaway.

The filters to this system cost $11 each.  They are charcoal filters and are supposed to last a couple months each, so I think this is something I could add to my budget.  Even if I had to change it every month, it is only an extra $5.50.  I hope it helps.