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Archive for April, 2019

Frugal Friday

April 6th, 2019 at 02:14 am

It's been a very frugal week!

I ate out of the fridge, freezer and pantry through lunch today and could have eaten another meal without buying more food, but my husband is on his way home and will want dinner. There was nothing left he would eat...not a fan of veggie burgers! So I went to the store and picked up groceries for the weekend primarily. Some items will carry over into next week.

I spent $40.65 out of pocket for some of our staples, including organic eggs, meat and almond butter. Cost was actually $50.65. I used a $10 NAPA Visa rebate from when we bought the battery for my husband's truck. I pulled that $10 from our grocery budget and put it in our Big Savings Goal.

I sold an item on eBay for a net profit of $3.73 and did a Pinecone survey and now have another $3 in my Paypal account. I also added these to the Big Goal Savings!

Other than the spending today, I did not purchase anything this week. Was your week frugal?

Update: Eating It All

April 4th, 2019 at 03:45 pm

My husband has been out of town for work this week so I made a goal to eat primarily out of the fridge and not buy too many new groceries.

I've been eating green smoothies for breakfast consisting of 1c water, 2 c spinach, 1/2 mixed berries, and 1 TBS of chia seeds. Lunch and dinner have consisted of some sort of salad, a turkey sandwich, soup or some raw veggies. I'm not eating all of these in at one meal but two or three of them.

Today, I'm actually skipping breakfast to allow for a longer fast since I ate dinner last night.

In the past I've listed what I have in my fridge, freezer and pantry and then explained what I used up. This time I'll just explain what I have used and what I had to purchase.

I bought a small loaf of bread, four bananas, three small heads of broccoli, a red onion, green onion and spinach. These were bought on two different trips, so I think the cost had to be under $15, maybe even under $10.

I made broccoli salad which I was able to add two boxes of raisins from the cupboard and use up five slices of turkey bacon. This also used up the last in a jar of mayo. I ate this along with sandwich or soup for four meals.

I used up a slice of cheese on one sandwich, added three small slices of chicken to a salad, and ate some raw cabbage as a snack. Last night I put together a

Text is Smoky Quinoa and Black Bean Salad and Link is https://www.budgetbytes.com/smoky-quinoa-black-bean-salad/
Smoky Quinoa and Black Bean Salad which used up the quinoa in the pantry, the mini peppers in the fridge and some cooked kidney beans I had in the freezer. So tasty! I will eat that for lunch later.

There was a Vegan Lentil Stew in the freezer so I thawed that Tuesday night to have with my lunches and dinner. So that is used up!

I still have fresh produce to use up. I'm putting the last of the ginger root in my water for flavor. I also have some orange slices I could do the same with. I have two apples, two bananas a few celery sticks and carrots along with spinach. Oh, I did use up all the spring greens and half a tomato. I was putting these on my turkey sandwiches.

While I love the green smoothies I think the bananas are too much sugar. I will use them up, but I will not buy any more for awhile.

I basically have five meals left to make for myself. I feel like I still have plenty even though the pantry consists only of almonds, spices, nutritional yeast, pearled barley and lentils! I will keep my focus mainly on the fridge and fill in from the freezer if needed since there is a burrito and veggie burgers in there.

It feels good to not have to go shopping for almost a week and find that there is plenty in my house to keep me full and satisfied.

If you are eating it up this week or month, how is it going? Do you feel you have saved some money?

March Big Savings Goal Progress

April 2nd, 2019 at 07:33 pm

Yay! Three months in a row I have remembered to update you on our Big Savings Goal progress.

$350.00 ($175 from each paycheck, two per month)
_$38.90 American Express CC Rewards
_$38.47 Discover Cash Back
__$5.33 Chase Freedom Rewards
__$8.55 US Bank Cash Bank
_$58.31 FNBO Interest Earned
$122.01 NFCU Interest Earned
__$5.61 USAA Interest and ATM rebates
__$20.00 Cash
$1,968.00 US Treasury Refund

$2,615.18 March Big Goal Total
$4,191.22 2019 YTD

$63,178.18 Previous Big Goal Balance
$67,369.40 New Big Goal Balance

33.68% of $200,000 Goal

We are very pleased with this progress! An unexpected tax refund is appreciated and makes a big difference. There is still a chance I will pull the refund (or part of it) back out depending on some upcoming expenses. However, I decided to go ahead and try to make it work without. I did not add any fuel savings this month, because we had $1800 in travel expenses in the last two months to cover. I simply needed that money to help make that happen. And finally, I marked $20 cash in my notes, so I'm not exactly sure where that money came from, but apparently I decided to add it to the goal.

March Interest Earned

April 1st, 2019 at 08:52 pm

Grateful for higher interest rates! The amount we earn each month keeps growing.

FNBO $58.51
NFCU $122.01
Total $180.52

Our interest earned funds our Big Goal each month!