My husband and daughter considered going to Jumanji yesterday. I did remind them it was a no spend month. In the end we did some clothes shopping for our daughter, which was more of a need. We also visited the kitties at the pet store. So cute...and tempting!

Three shirts were bought at Target, spent about $60 on those (not frugal), in addition to lotion, laundry detergent and windex. I had a $50 gift card, used two cartwheel offers and there was 15% off clothing if I used our Red Card. So, out of pocket we spent $25.80.

Today we went grocery shopping. Final total at the commissary was $151.26. Pet food was $21 and Vitamin C was $8.77. The rest was food. We bought salmon and chicken this week, so that wasn't exactly frugal. We also needed lots of veggies which are key to our healthy diets.

Still no alcohol has been purchased! That's three weekends in a row. My husband did mention it last night, but he is committed to the diet for the month.

We are on our second snow day. Yesterday, could have been a school day as the snow didn't start falling until after 7pm. Yes, rain earlier, but temps didn't drop until much later as well. I guess other northern areas of the county did get snow earlier. That means no driving for me or my husband to go into work. Of course, since the temperatures dropped the heat pump is running constantly.

My husband picked up some more Diet Coke and snacks at the store. Husband and I are limiting snacks and he was just suppose to get one thing for our daughter. Instead three snack items came home. He spent $17+ at the store. Snacks should last awhile because we are not mindfully putting our hands into the package. We measure it all out.

I did purchase several kinds of Vitamins for my oldest daughter. I buy a couple different ones for her and she was basically about out of all of them. I spent $49. That was not budgeted, although she did mention needing them soon. I was hoping to wait until February. It is what it is. We can afford it.

The other cash spent was on my husband's haircut. He spent $13.70. I had budgeted for this!

I'm losing track of what I have reported for snowflakes. Did I mention that I redeemed Chase Freedom rewards for $24.28? That was deposited into our checking account the other day. I listed some items on eBay. No luck on selling yet, but that doesn't surprise me as I'm sure many people are shopped out after the holidays.

I also added $63.15 to the Big Goal. This is the current after tax increase in my husband's paycheck each pay period. I expect the amount will change with the new withholding changes.

Oh, I received notification from Verizon that they gave us a $10 credit for recycling my daughter's old cell phone. Not much, but we'll take it considering it was a 3.5 year old phone.

Keeping busy on the snow days getting cleaning done, updating financials and tax planning, as well as decluttering. Oh, and watching YouTube videos for recipes! All free activities at home.

We have a bill that will be sent out in the next week for our University expenses. The final amount, including books that we were charged is $4,383.69. All of that is housing for the second semester. And we will get reimbursed from the VA over the next few months for just under that amount. Specifically we will receive $4,336.80 to cover housing.

I currently have $5,854 set aside in our college category in our checking account. So there will be no issue paying the bill when it is due in early February. After the bill is paid that will leave $1,470. I expect to need at least $3,700 to cover two online classes this summer. The bill will be due early June. My goal is to pay those out of pocket, and I have been setting aside $410 per month to make that happen. It does appear we are on track!

I increased our younger daughter's Educational Savings amount to $333.33 from $166.66. The maximum amount you can contribute each year is $2000. She turns 18 in July. At that time you can no longer contribute to the account. I increased it in order to get the full amount funded by her birthday.

You add those two amounts up ($410 +333.33) and we are setting aside $743 each month for college expenses. That is what saving and cash flowing look like. And if we had car payments like so many American's it would be even more difficult to make this happen. So happy my 2007 Honda Odyssey with 130K miles still looks and runs great!

We have a bill that will be sent out in the next week for our University expenses. The final amount, including books that we were charged is $4,383.69. All of that is housing for the second semester. And we will get reimbursed from the VA over the next few months for just under that amount. Specifically we will receive $4,336.80 to cover housing.

I currently have $5,854 set aside in our college category in our checking account. So there will be no issue paying the bill when it is due in early February. After the bill is paid that will leave $1,470. I expect to need at least $3,700 to cover two online classes this summer. The bill will be due early June. My goal is to pay those out of pocket, and I have been setting aside $410 per month to make that happen. It does appear we are on track!

I increased our younger daughter's Educational Savings amount to $333.33 from $166.66. The maximum amount you can contribute each year is $2000. She turns 18 in July. At that time you can no longer contribute to the account. I increased it in order to get the full amount funded by her birthday.

You add those two amounts up ($410 +333.33) and we are setting aside $743 each month for college expenses. That is what saving and cash flowing look like. And if we had car payments like so many American's it would be even more difficult to make this happen. So happy my 2007 Honda Odyssey with 130K miles still looks and runs great!

I added more money to our Everyday Spending Budget Categories for the month. I thought you might want a peek!

I do have these funded with frugality in mind for the most part and some reality in mind as well. The reality is my husband is very likely to spend money on coffee at work. And he will record it in the Restaurant category. I also put some more in spending thinking I might switch him to cash, so I don't have to see how he is spending that money $2 a time. I'm going to see what he does this week first.



And you may notice we already have groceries taken out for this week, so the remaining grocery money is from January 21 to 31. Although we shop on Sunday's so that may end up covering just through January 28.

We just put fuel in my van on Sunday. I don't expect to do much driving this month. Stay home and out of the stores! So maybe most of that balance will be for my husband to go to and from work. Maybe not all of it.

Clothing and Household were added with just in case money. I don't expect any clothing to be bought. Although my younger daughter mentioned more clothes for next fall when she is at college. And now would be a good time to look for long sleeve shirts and such as those will be going on clearance. We'll see if it comes up, but I'm not rushing out now to take care of it.

I added to gifts. I found a sweater for my older daughter at Target and paid for with a gift card, so will need to mail it. And my sister's birthday is at the end of the month. We have stopped exchanging gifts in recent years, but if something comes to mind that is right for her I may buy and mail it. I'm starting to think that may not happen, so less would be spent there.

I added $35 for personal care. I know my husband will get another haircut $13.70, I will buy shampoo and conditioner $10 and the remaining is just in case.

And finally the pet category. We usually don't spend $50 in one month on our cat, but we stocked up on litter and will need to buy a new bag of dry food, which is like once every six months. And I will need a few more cans of wet food before the month is out. But we don't usually splurge in the pet category so those are all needs.

So after spending on Sunday, we have $490 left that we budgeted for January. Let's see how we do!

I thought I'd share what our Everyday Expenses look like at mid month when my husband get's paid. I basically make the budgeted amount equal to or greater than the amount spent. I subtract from some category amounts to add to others to make this happen. Often there is much more padding in the budget for all the extra spending we tend to do in a regular month.



So you can see there is still money left in Groceries and Fuel. Everything else is balanced to zero now.

In reality, that extra $22.62 was zeroed out as well. I found out when balancing our credit card statement to YNAB that a charge from December 29 in the amount of $22.42 was not recorded in YNAB. That overage then flowed into January. And, of course, it was for alcohol. Ugh! I ended up adding that amount to the budget in December so it won't show up in January...since I'm trying to keep it as accurate as possible for sharing here!

So yes, we really did spend $782.80 in the first half of January on our Everyday Expenses. Spending money probably shouldn't be counted entirely as $142 is allowances for our daughters. I probably should split that into it's own category and put it in Monthly Bills. So that really brings the every day spending to $640.80.

What is really neat about YNAB is that you can click on the outflows and get a pop up box that shows all the transactions that make up the total. So helpful! I do have the offline, version 4, so this may be different than current versions.

Very proud of us for avoiding spending on alcohol and entertainment!

I'm annoyed. December electric bill was once again off the charts during our time living in this rental home. Electric heat pumps are not efficient with single digit temperatures. And we have two units in our home that are sized too small for the square footage. Builder grade units that have been limping along. I'm not even going to share the amount. I can't wait to move out of this place. It's a nice home, but the air and electric are sub par.

Bill is due in early February. Will put some of our savings from our Uber Frugal January towards the bill. I look forward to March where I hope to see it drop significantly.

I'll be honest, I know we are not being as frugal as we could be. We are not doing bad at all, but there would be a little room for improvement.



Whoops...sorry didn't include the category names. They are in this order: Groceries, Fuel, Spending Money, Restaurants, Clothing, Household Goods, Alcohol, Entertainment, Gifts, Personal Care and Pets. I did include a screenshot at the bottom.

Payday was yesterday, so I'm going to close out the spending for the first half of the month looking like this. Notice the $915.67 left to budget at the top. Yep, I haven't put that money anywhere yet. I just wanted it to hang out there while we kept our spending low. There is no way under normal circumstances we would have spent that much in these categories. Most of that will end up in short term savings...college and car repairs for example.

More grocery spending. We checked out the new Sprouts store in our area yesterday, while picking up more baby spinach, himalayan salt, avocados and a couple treats. Spent $19.85. The original total was nearly $50! One of the treats that was $1.49 rang up as though we bought 20 of them!! Luckily I caught that error while at the store.

Just this morning I ordered my daughter more generic Zyrtec for her allergies. A need that I wasn't aware it was about time for. However, I see I did order the bottle this time last year, so it was time. After the balance of a gift card was applied, I spent $13.52. That was noted in the Personal Care category.

So you can see if I balance all the categories to zero we still have $22.62. We did make it within the budget that I put forth, but the categories were not as planned. And that really is how budgets can go at times. If you were doing a cash envelope, you would move money from one to another to make it work.

I'm really happy to report no spending on alcohol! It has not bothered me one bit not to drink. My husband is doing great, but when he is bored the urge is there. I'm committed for the full month of January and at this time do not plan to fund that category.

Also no out of pocket entertainment spending. We did rent a movie on Amazon last night. We used an Amazon.com gift card balance to rent it. Out of all the free content, my husband chose one to purchase. His desire to spend low is not as strong as mine!

We also spent some money at Target that is not reflected in the budget because we used gift cards. We picked the needed bar soap (bought a 10 or 12 pack), and added on a six pack of Diet Coke, a sweater on clearance for our oldest daughter and a dress for our younger daughter. Amount spent was $48.32, with most of that being clothing.

I will probably post again tomorrow with what the spending categories look like after I add to them for the second half of the month. Here is what they look like balanced to zero, or in the case of groceries and fuel a little bit left!



Oh, yes and if you see that that totals don't add up that is because we went over in Groceries, Personal Care and Pets in December, and it rolls over to the following month. All of those overages happened on December 31. We had already been paid for January, but the transaction at the commissary was in December, but it really is part of spending for January. Or at least that is how I have it set up in YNAB.

Here's an update on how our spending looks by category for the first half of the month. More money will get added to these on the next payday, which actually may be tomorrow. Yep, just checked. It is pending for deposit tomorrow. I probably won't add to the categories until Sunday or Monday though, in hopes we can stay in budget.



Over in restaurants, due to eating out and buying of water and Diet Coke. Even since the water bottle was purchased, he bought water because the post had a water outage, which was fixed, but then the water looked bad, so he bought instead of refilling from the tap.

Over in Household, and amazingly it is by the exact amount of the dryer part we purchased.

Over in Gifts, underestimated the amount of postage I would need to pay to send a package to my daughter.

And finally, over in Pets because apparently the price of litter went up. I thought we paid under $10, but this 40 lb box was $12.61. But I did just go back and look...we've been paying $12.99. I guess I wasn't paying attention. So I guess this one was on sale.

I will adjust all overages to even before budgeting for the second half of the month. I did buy fresh ginger at the store yesterday for $0.38, I paid with cash on hand which originally came from the spending money category.

Used up frozen fruit today for my smoothie today. Didn't feel so great yesterday, so food plan went out the window as far as leftovers I thought I would eat. We still ate things on hand, no eating out.

Patient Saver commented on my last blog post this morning pointing out that not all carbs are bad for you. She is absolutely right. I didn't specify in my last post that I'm eliminating refined carbs as much as possible. I am still eating lots of vegetables and some fruit at every meal. I like bread too much and because my daughter practically only eats refined carbs as the basis of her diet, I eat them too. So working on eating less of those and even more vegetables. We actually did really well in 2017 adding more vegetables into our daughter's diet. The stuffed peppers from the other night...new to her. She was willing and scarfed it down before her pasta.

Today, I'm making a Pumpkin Lentil Soup for dinner to use up some mini peppers that are slightly past their prime but still good. I also have a can of pumpkin on hand and will use up the rest of my red lentils.

As I'm writing this I'm eating one of six halo oranges that have been around from the holidays. Between my daughter and I we should have no problem eating them before they go bad. I'll make some eggs later to round up my breakfast. I just checked the fridge and I probably should have the leftover taco meat for lunch. I will likely end up eating them with tortillas (refined carb). If I still had romaine, I'd make a taco salad.

Last night we had apple spiced pork chops with mixed vegetables and corn bread. That used up a wilting apple and the mixed vegetables and the last of the corn bread mixes. I only ate one corn bread muffin. There is a leftover pork chop. I will offer it to DH with his soup tonight. If not I have two choices, freeze it or eat if for lunch tomorrow.

So far the only spending since Sunday has been gas for my husband's car. Although he hasn't entered the receipt so maybe there is other spending. I will need to buy him shaving cream today, but I'm going to buy that at Target and use the gift cards we have on hand. I think I need one other thing, but otherwise no other spending.

Also, I think there has been some spending on textbooks and , but those have been budgeted for and can't be helped in a uber frugal challenge. Other than renting or buying used. Not sure what my daughter has done this semester, but she is not officially in the challenge.

I found out my parents are coming to visit. Arriving on the last day of this month, and they stay for 11 days! They won't be here the entire time (also visiting friends that live the next state over), but I think this means that the challenge for me will likely end at the end of the month. I originally wanted to go through the first week of February. That will just be a bit more difficult with guests. So three weeks to go!!

How are you doing eating all the food? How do you feel you are doing with the Uber Frugal Challenge?

Much to my surprise, my husband told me that he had been drinking and buying more Diet Coke recently at work because he needed a new water bottle. This was true. His last water bottle cap melted in our dishwasher a couple weeks ago. And the place where he would buy the Diet Coke has a $3 minimum to use a debit or credit card, thus he would pick up a water AND a Diet Coke. So we bought a water bottle on Sunday for $12.95 at the Post Exchange. If I had known ahead this was all the reason I would have shopped around or purchased one at Target where I had gift cards and didn't need to spend out of pocket. But in the end the cost of the water bottle will be recouped by the NOT buying water and Diet Coke for four or five days! And we didn't buy ANY Diet Coke at the grocery store. We both have really cut this back in recent years, so it was a bit of a surprise he was on a kick with it again.

I'll try to share as much as I can about food I use up this month. Yesterday, I used up 1/8th of a white onion, last of the white rice. I also ate the last chicken sausage dog with a salad that used up romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, mushrooms, cauliflower, and half a cucumber. I actually have half of that salad left that I will eat today for lunch (with something else I can scrounge up)!

The good news is the first week on my diet was very successful. I lost 6.6 pounds. That is not a normal amount of weight loss for me in one week, but I have been trying to eliminate carbs and eat a little more healthy fat. I did better, but there is room for improvement.

Saw my husband's net pay for the first paycheck of the new year. Increase of $63.15 per pay period or $126.30 per month after withholding. I suppose it will change when the new withholding amounts are determined in February. I plan to sock this money away towards the Big Goal, so that will add $1,515.60 for 2018!

What did you use up today?

Yesterday before I made our grocery list and meal plan I wrote down everything we have in our pantry, fridge and freezer. It was actually quite a bit of stuff! I would list it all but it really is too much.

I then got quite overwhelmed (yes, a few tears) trying to make my meal list. I was trying to balance what we need to use up with what my husband and I would prefer to eat on our diet and with my daughter's food preferences. I was also overwhelmed with the amount of leftovers that I feel are only mine to take care of. My husband and daughter rarely eat them. Although without saying anything my husband did eat a leftover stuffed pepper and a chicken sausage dog after grocery shopping. Hooray!

I finally decided my overwhelm was trying to get it perfect. I let that perfection go. I know there may still be some food waste. But we will do our best.

We spent $88.42 on food for the week yesterday. Had to go to two stores as the commissary was out of salad greens! I'm sure a weather issue getting produce to the store.

Last night we used up five hard taco shells, a tomato and some lettuce. We used up half a can of refried beans. I froze the rest.

This morning for breakfast, I ate the last stuffed pepper with two eggs. For lunch, I will likely eat the chicken sausage dog and make a salad. I have romaine, a cucumber, fresh broccoli some sliced mushrooms and diced tomatoes to use. For dinner we will have fried rice (using veggies from the freezer and the last of the rice) and tilapia that I bought at the store. My husband and I are increasing our protein during our diet.

I'm hoping to use up more things as the week goes on, so will try to remember to share. I expect maybe next week grocery planning will be easier with less things in the pantry, fridge and freezer to use. At least I will have a little more time to think about it than I did on Sunday.

Are you eating all the food? Are you making sure to buy only what you will eat?

Our daughter has returned to college. She flies out of a town an hour and a half north of us. The flight was at 7am on Saturday. So we decided to get a hotel and stay over the night before. We had points, so the hotel was free! It was good to go a little early on Friday because our area had had snow earlier in the week and temperatures had not warmed above freezing, so we had some concerns on the roads.

I had budgeted dinner out on Friday night. We went to Noodles & Company and spent $43.84. I also decided since the included hotel breakfast would not be available at the early hour we left the hotel we should pick up bagels from Panera. We spent $10.20. I did NOT budget for this. I didn't think about breakfast when I was doing the budget. And on Saturday morning upon leaving the airport at 7am we stopped by Starbucks and spent $7.76 on three hot beverages. So we are now over budget in our restaurant category by almost $6.

My daughter had a new debit card arrive on Friday (after we left for the airport) so we decided to get that in the mail to her she she will have it as soon as possible. I picked up three snacks to include in the package. Spent $3.89 on those plus $7.50 for priority mail. I had budgeted $10 for this expense, but went a little over once again.

On Saturday afternoon I ran to the store for four ingredients we needed for dinner. I spent $13.80 on food, including a Diet Coke for DH. This all came from the grocery budget.

After dinner, my husband wanted to go to Best Buy to use his $20 gift card for a camera case. Case was $19.99 plus tax. We spent 1.39 out of pocket.

We also stopped by Target nearby to pick up a sympathy card, a candy bar for our daughter, and a six pack of 20oz Diet Cokes. No money out of pocket because I had a gift card.

Today we will be grocery shopping. The budget says we have $134. I will be checking the fridge, freezer, and pantry before I make my meal list. I want to use up all the things we can. I do have a little bit of a problem because my husband and I are also watching our diet, so specific foods are important. However, some snacks are eliminated, so that is likely a plus. I'll let you know how it works out. I think I will also check the grocery ad for the local store and see if anything we are buying is cheaper there than the commissary.

Have you been working on eating all the things?

The spending has been pretty slim these first four days of the month. We had a snow day yesterday with my daughter home from school and my husband home from work. And school is closed again today, which is good as there is a lot of ice on the major road near us.



Food transactions
$6.40 for shredded cheese, sliced mushrooms, and a Diet Coke (DH)
$8.50 for snacks, more Diet Coke (DH again 2 days at work)

Restaurants
$4.16 Coffee at Work (DH)

Spending Money
$20 Cash taken out to cover airport parking and commissary tips. We have not spent any of that yet. The other spending money is allowances as mentioned before.

Household Goods
$31.02 Dryer part (see previous post)

Personal Care
$43.70 Three haircuts with tips

The dryer part was not planned obviously, and we are over budget in that category. I will eventually adjust that category, so it breaks even. I usually do this on PayDay. I like to see what I budget and if we go over or under until that point.

Yes, my husband is still doing his regular spending. I may talk to him about it and see if he wants to try to cut back. But I did put some extra into restaurants to cover the coffee spending. I wish he could plug in a coffee maker at work! When he worked on another floor in the General's office there was a private kitchen so he brought his own coffee to brew in the pot provided there. Others would also drink it (usually without compensation) but boy that was cheaper than $2 a day. He tried a thermos we bought for $40 for about a week when he started his new job on another floor. I think the issue was it was too much to make two pots of coffee here at home, in order to fill the thermos, have some for breakfast AND leave some for me. I think he really should just cut back on coffee!! I guess I could skip coffee if one pot would work. Sorry. I'm rambling just thinking out loud while I type.

And there are those three haircuts we budgeted for!

Just a reminder these budget amounts are just for the first half of the month. Next pay period I will add to them.

It may actually snow today where I live! They are expecting an inch, so school gets out two hours early. As a Midwesterner I have to laugh, but the truth is they don't have the equipment here, nor do people know how to drive in the stuff!

After school lets out, I'm taking the girls to get their hairs cut. We use Great Clips. I usually tip $2 to each stylist, so the cost is $15 each. My husband is getting his hair cut today on post. I think the cost is less than $10, but he usually tips $4! As a percentage, we are both overtipping, but we do think our service people deserve it. These were budgeted in our personal care category.

I received $3 from Pinecone Research yesterday. It is sitting in my Paypal account now. I was notified we will receive an $10 AutoZone gift card for a rebate on headlights we purchased. And after getting our daughter a new cell phone last week, I am sending her old phone in for recycling and expect a $10 bill credit on next month's bill. I love money snowflakes!

The first two days of the year were no spend days. I made the point of going to the library to check out some books to read to keep me busy and focused on healthy eating this month. I love the library for the fact that it costs nothing to browse a book. My sister just mentioned spending $100 at Barnes and Noble recently. I do think some were Christmas gifts, but wow that is a lot of money on books! She also purchased their membership which means she plans to purchase more books there this year.

Have you found any snowflake money this month? Do you use the library?

We did a big grocery store run on New Year's Eve. We were out of quite a few things, but it feels like we overbought. That may be a good thing as we go into the frugal month.

In some ways, I'm not really planning to start until our daughter heads back to school on Saturday. I did however put cash in our Everyday budget categories and it far less than normal. The amount is $783...and that's for half the month. I know, it doesn't sound that frugal. But yet, some of those are needs, and some have a little fluff in them that I hope not to spend at all.



Groceries are lower and I hope to come in lower than I budgeted. My husband and I are dieting this month, so I expect that will help our food budget. Less snacks!

Fuel is the about the same, slightly higher as we have one trip out of town. I also expect a toll bill this month. I hope to keep myself out of stores, thus only driving will be to school and grocery store.

Spending money is normal. Most of that is allowances for the girls. One gets $17, the other gets $125. The remaining $20 should be for the month to cover parking and tips to baggers at the commissary.

Restaurants is at $60 because I expect one meal out for four people when we are out of town. My husband is also using this category for coffee at work. Not happy about this, but the thermos plan didn't pan out, so he buys a cup for $2 almost every day.

Clothing is at just $25. I'd rather put something in there than nothing. If I find some clearance shirts within that budget, I may buy them for my daughter, but for the most part, I am not going shopping. In the end I hope it is saved.

Household goods is at $20. I know we will need dishwasher detergent and dish soap. Most other household items we should be stocked up on.

I did not put anything in Alcohol or Entertainment. We will not be paying for entertainment in the month of January. And I am committed to no alcohol in the month of January. I think my husband is as well.

Personal care is for haircuts and personal care products. We are well stocked at this point. The only thing that could change is the need for some vitamins, but I do have Swagbucks to redeem for Amazon gift cards, so those could be covered that way.

The gifts category would only be used for postage. I may sew my sister a gift for her birthday late in the month, so that is money I would need to mail it to her.

And the Pet category is a need. I bought our cat food for the month and we will need another box of litter.

Now as I said that is really only for half the month. I will replenish groceries and fuel at the mid month payday. And as you can see some balances are less than budgeted that is because some items purchased (like groceries) were bought on December 31 and but came out of the January budget.

It's cold here in the Southeast! Cold enough that school start times are on a two hour delay today. Cold enough the Army is on a two hour delay! As of 8am it is 14 degrees, and feels like 8. Now I know that those of you in the midwest are far colder, and you are still having school and work!

I'm not looking forward to our heating bill. I'm sure many of you feel the same. We were quite mild though for part of the month, so maybe that will help spread out the cost.

This post may be a bit all over the place...several money thoughts on my mind this morning that I simply want to share.

We bought a new camera just before Christmas. We have been without one for about two years. I personally could probably have passed, but my husband seemed very interested. He has made a great point of using it over the last several days, getting pictures and video of our family. We took a family picture to send out on Facebook. The cost of the camera was $299, plus tax. He also bought an HD SD card. I was mad about that part initially, but I do see it has some better features than some older cards we have, so I will deal. I applied my husband's birthday money that he hadn't yet spent, and the remaining Christmas budget to cover most of it. After that I just took some cash from other budget areas so we can make it work.

We shopped for some grocery and personal care needs at Target yesterday. I used a $2 coupon along with the gift cards I bought for 10% off after Thanksgiving. So no new money out of pocket for things we needed. I was thinking of going to the store again, but I think I'm going to see if we can make it through Friday or Saturday night and just get our regular groceries for the first week in January.

Our final 2017 education and retirement contributions have been made. We added $2K to our youngest's Coverdell account and maxed out our Roth IRA's. These are all on automatic investment from our checking account, so it's easy to make it happen. I will need to double our payment in 2018 for our daughter's final contributions. She turns 18 in July, after which we we can no longer contribute. I think I may actually just take $1000 from savings and put it in for January. and then continue our regular $166.66 for the first six months of the year as we usually do. I can pay ourselves back the $1000 to savings for the remainder of the year.

I'm working on financial goals for 2018, but I need more time to focus. It's a little busy around here this week, with both girls off school and my husband home from work!

Our Discover statement closed the other day. We earned $15.53 in rewards. I'm going to redeem those and put them towards the Big Goal.

I transferred $8K we had in a second checking account to FNBO Direct yesterday. They have 1.4% interest rate, which is far better than our checking account.

We are about to buy my daughter a new cell phone. Her's is 3.5 years old, barely holds a charge and the camera on it no longer works. She is going to get the same phone I have, it will cost us $13 a month for the next 24 months. Since I charge our Verizon bill to US Bank for 5% back we will also get that same discount on the cost of the phone as well, which adds up to $15 in the end. But we will take it!

And finally, we are very close to purchasing a new laptop computer for our youngest daughter to take to school in the fall. We are going to buy it from the university she is going to attend. They offer a four year warranty, a discount and no sales tax. It's a Dell that will work for her engineering study needs. Cost will be $1299. I currently have $1,047 in the budget for it. We should have the rest of the money on Friday when my husband is paid.

Thanks for sticking with me on all my thoughts!

I sold another item on eBay today. I net about $15. Not bad for a used clothing item I was no longer wearing!

That money will go to the Big Goal. More on that can be found on a page on my sidebar if you aren't sure what I'm referring to.

Spending has been minimal, except I ran to the store today to pick up some things to help my daughter cope with a cold. She arrived home from college on Saturday and was recovering from another cold. It seems she picked something else up along the way home.

In other news, we have had a few days of warmer weather, with rain coming tomorrow. I enjoy these mild days knowing it keeps our electric bill lower.

I'm working on some year end posts. More to come soon!

I just printed my USPS shipping labels for two packages that I will have picked up at our house on Monday. The cost was $32.05. It really does feel like shipping has increased a lot! Luckily, this did fit into my Christmas budget.

I've mentioned before that our Christmas budget is $600. I allocate half of that for our daughters. The remainder is split between my husband and I, my parents, two nieces, and my mother in law. This year I came in under budget, primarily due to using Swagbucks (redeemed for Amazon gift cards) for some purchases and buying some items used for my daughters. Both daughters are used to getting used. I did squeeze in a two pairs of socks for my sister and brother in law. See my Socks for Christmas post about that.

Here's what we spent:
Mother in Law $53 (check for $50 and $3 to ship it with pictures)
Sister's family $99.70 (includes $18.85 for shipping)
Parents $46.83 (includes $13.20 to ship)
Daughter 1 $115.94
Daughter 2 $44.75 (bought used and used Amazon gift cards)
Daughter's shared gift $64.65
Husband $62.16
CCF $58.38
Total $545.41

Technically, I went over budget for my husband and he went over for me. We were suppose to only spend $50 each. I bought him an extra gift of a saute pan (since he uses one every morning and we had to toss our old one out).

Now I must not have accounted for everything correctly, as the balance in my Christmas budget on YNAB shows a balance of f$103.12. The numbers above come from receipts.Maybe I lost a few. I do know of $10 that was for paper plates and lights. And I think another $20 may be for gifts I bought with Target gift cards, but were not recorded as Christmas in YNAB. So I'm slightly off above in my total spending as YNAB has to be a bit more correct.

The good news, we are under budget! I have $103 to be used for something else. I'm thinking a donation might be a good idea.

I was balancing our checkbook on YNAB today and found a transaction that should have been recorded on our credit card. Turns out it was already recorded there too! So a double recording means that transaction can be deleted. That put $140.54 back into our budget.

I should probably put it towards the Big Goal, right?

It's tempting to throw it into a few other pots for some other short term savings goals. We are probably going to buy our youngest daughter a laptop (for college) here in the next month, if I can pull the cash together.

Heck, I will put it towards the Big Goal...I can always pull it out if needed.

We are doing really well this pay period with spending. Out of about $1000 budgeted for our variable expenses this pay period we still have $230 left.

We did get pizza takeout on Friday night for $15.10. We rented a digital movie from Amazon the weekend before last for $4.27. Personal care has only consisted of two haircuts and about $20 in personal care products. Household goods spending is under $20, buying paper towels, all purpose spray, an adapter for my car charger and a few other items I can't remember. Really good deals on all of those.

Most of spending was on groceries and extras for holiday baking, fuel, and allowances for the girls. I have been buying more organic ingredients and making things from scratch like soups. I think these are expanding my grocery bill some. Does anyone here use Better than Bouillon? I use pre made stock or broth for my soups. Yes, I know you can make it but that isn't the direction I want to go. Traditional bouillon is very salty, and I understand this product has less salt.

It remains to be seen if we spend much more before Friday, but I think the leftover cash will likely go in the clothing budget which currently only has $80. My oldest daughter says she is in need of winter shirts. She swears she only has three! I guess when they are away at college we just don't shop that much! We won't need all that money, but I will put it there to be prepared. I could also use a new pair of casual dress shoes. I expect there to be some good sales in the coming weeks after Christmas.

Wow! We spent nothing yesterday. It was a rainy cold dreary day. We stayed inside the entire day. It ended up being very restorative. We didn't have anything we HAD to do.

I know many people probably spent their Saturday shopping, possibly for the holidays. However, my Christmas shopping is basically done! I do have to return two items to Kohl's that I ordered online. They sent me socks in the wrong colors! What's up with that? These are socks I plan to put in my daughter's stockings (a tradition). So those will go back to the store and I will look for something else. And then I am done!

I did make Double Chocolate Mint cookie dough. It needed to chill overnight, so I hope today to roll dough and bake them. That was fun and festive to accomplish. Baking is one of the things I look forward to at Christmas. I had all the ingredients on hand as I planned ahead and purchased what I needed in November.

We watched the Army Navy football game on television in the afternoon. It was a tough game for those players as Philly was getting snow. Army did beat Navy 14 to 13. Very exciting!!

We ate fried rice for dinner. We put shrimp in it, so it was quite filling and satisfying on a cold dreary evening. Then it was time to settle down again and watch a couple episodes of The Crown on Netflix.

My planning in November paid off with a day of relaxation! I'm expecting many more as the month of December progresses. I'd like to spend some of the downtime in the coming weeks really getting a clear picture about our financial goals in 2018. There are a lot of changes next year we need to navigate.

How was your Saturday?

I'm making a point in the next week to use up some of the food items we have that need to be used up.

In the freezer I have about 1 cup of frozen blueberries, one serving of sweet potato fries, 1/4 cup of diced onion, and diced butternut squash (three cups).

In the pantry, there is a box of pasta with at least one serving in it. Raw popcorn, enough to make one batch for a snack. I also see we have a lot of pretzels! I think we are burnt out on those...need a way to season or change the taste. Oh, just remembered I have 1/2 cup of chocolate morsels that I could drizzle over some of them. I don't want to sweeten all of them. Too much sugar this time of year.

In the fridge, there's several inches of ginger that I need to use. I think I will make a ginger tea with that. I also have heavy cream, and almond milk to use up. Heavy cream can go in coffee. The almond milk need to be used up making steel cut oats in the crockpot.

This morning I used up three slices of bread from the freezer. I toasted them and used up almost all of the apricot jam.

I think we are keeping up with most of the fresh produce, so that is good! I think I need to get moving in the kitchen this morning to get some of these things ready for eating!

Spending is high this time of year. Look at what you have that can fill in for snacks or make a meal. You might save some cash at the grocery store!

I had an email this morning that our Netflix subscription amount is changing from $11.99 per month to $13.99 a month. Sounds like their will be more programs and the ability to download for later watching as benefits. Never a fan of price increases, but we will stick with Netflix for now.

Purchased my daughter some vitamins on Amazon today. I used the Discover cash back for a credit of $2.38. Final cost was $12.36. I think I will send that cash back amount to our Big Goal. I should add in the coupon savings from Sunday, too.

I had to take a mental health break today. I had some stress and anxiety pop up on me this morning. I'm feeling better already. To help, I called my mom, went for a two mile walk, ate a good lunch, and then took an epson salt bath. Later I added some relaxing oils to my diffuser while I listed to some very nice relaxing YouTube music. I also got up and got busy in the kitchen making some muffins and hummus (not to eat together!).

I share because this time of year can be stressful for various reasons. It is okay to take a time out and take care of ourselves. And it doesn't have to cost anything! And be kind to those you meet as you don't know what their current struggles may be.

I combined three errands together to save time and gas money. First I dropped off a large box of donations at Goodwill. I stopped by Walmart and picked up lotion that my daughter said I could give as a stocking stuffer. And then a quick trip to the military pharmacy to pick up a prescription. These were all within a mile of each other but about 15 minutes from my home, so it made sense to combine the errands for one outing.

The only fail is, I wish I knew I needed a lemon for the dinner we had tonight. I could have picked it up at Walmart, instead I had to run to the grocery store just before I started cooking. We had this

No spending here at our house today. I didn't go anywhere, except a walk around the neighborhood where I ran into a friend. We walked and talked while enjoying the nearly 70 degree weather. I'd much rather be chatting with a friend then out shopping!

The pay period is winding down. I did pull $50 that I put into savings as it looked like I didn't budget quite enough for our expenses. My daughter suddenly needed water filters (yes, that is a need), and we purchased a pair of workout pants for my husband. I thought the pants were going to be a present for Christmas, but no he decided to wear them before I could wrap them! So those came out of our current budget rather than the Christmas budget. I still have $18 of the $50 in our account, so may be able to move some of that money back.

I wrapped the gifts that arrived in the mail yesterday. I can't tell you the relief I have that my November shopping and preparing have paid off. I will get nearly all of December to enjoy the holiday season. No stress. The money spent will not be on credit cards held over until January like so many. In fact, the cards I did use (and never pay interest on) will be paid before Christmas!

I'm starting to wonder if December will be a low spend month? That seems like the rarest of possibilities, but I sure do like the idea!

I am so close to finishing my holiday shopping!

I should have done some of this shopping yesterday, as I'm sure I would have saved a few dollars more. Oh well, I'm still happy with my purchases.

Today I ordered a shirt and jeans for my husband. I also added a two pack of infinity scarves for a niece and the required christmas stocking stuffer of socks for my girls. I bought these from Kohl's using a 20% off coupon and a $5 Kohl's cash. I spent $65. The jeans were Levi's, so they didn't get a discount. Free shipping and I didn't have to browse through the store. I think I just saved myself a lot of time making those couple purchases online today!

I'm heading to Walmart to pick up an item I need for dinner, and will see if I can add a few stocking stuffers in my cart! Some are food items and would probably be less expensive at the commissary, so will wait on those and purchase next week.

After the stocking stuffers are complete, I just need to order a card/board game my daughter wants. It is $20 on Amazon. I'm going to earn more Swagbucks, then redeem for a gift card and make that purchase for free!

Right now, the Christmas category in the budget has $183 in it. I still need to make another $50 deposit in December, but will actually just send that to my mother in law. I also need to mail three packages using those funds. I think we may come in UNDER budget! I will do a detailed run down of gifts and cost once I have it all done.

I briefly browsed Target.com yesterday and found they were having a sale on some electric toothbrushes. I've wanted one for awhile, but haven't wanted to spend a lot of money.

It's a Phillips Sonicare that was priced at $34.99 on sale, but there was a $10 off coupon once added to my cart. I also used my RedCard for 5% off and received free shipping. My final price was $25.40.

I briefly thought about buying one for each of my daughter's, but I think I will try it out first and consider it for future gifts.

My husband had been asking me what I wanted for Christmas. The truth is I don't need much. I just had a birthday and I don't have a lot of ideas. This will count as one of my gifts. I'll try to leave the rest up to him. We budget just $50 for each of us.

I hope you get some great deals online or out shopping today! Just don't spend more than you have or have budgeted!

I'm not nearly done Christmas shopping, although I have made a pretty good dent so far. Our budget for gifts is $600. I haven't even made the final savings deposit of $50 yet. That last one will cover the check we are likely to mail my mother in law so she can get what she wants. It's hard to buy for someone that is 82!

Spending so far is $225.68. This has primarily been gifts for my daughters and nieces. That means I have just $374.32. I do plan to stay at or under budget. I will say Swagbucks has come to my rescue this year to earn Amazon gift cards to get all the books my daughter's asked for. Retail on those would be $220. So far, I think I have spent just $40 for eight books, but I do have three more to buy.

I hope to share actual costs and what I bought after my shopping is complete. Any extra left over is going to the Big Goal!

I think the President still needs to sign the Defense Authorization Act for this next fiscal year, but it looks like my husband is getting a raise. The best one in awhile. A 2.4% increase of his basic pay. That will amount to $200 per month. I probably should save this towards the Big Goal, too.

I mentioned a few days ago that my neighbor asked me to make 6 more key fobs. A few days later, she asked to add one more on. I was quick to get the work done and yesterday she paid me $56 for the work. This goes towards the Big Goal.

In my planning November planning for Christmas, I'm making a point to stock up on things around the home. When we were at the commissary, I bought dish soap, laundry detergent, parchment paper, ziplock bags, vitamins, toothpaste and bar soap. I want to be stocked up through the end of the year, so that the only shopping I need to do in December is for food. The more I can stay out of the stores in December the easier it is to keep to the Christmas budget. I did notice I need coffee filters and toilet bowl cleaner, so I will pick those up this week.

Yesterday was pay day. All credit cards were paid off in full. I put $42 in the birthday category of our budget, $50 in Christmas, $940 in college and tuition (normal amount is about $410), and $272 for insurances and auto tags. There was money added to our car maintenance fund. It was negative after a having some recent maintenance done. Now it's back to zero. There was about $200 left, and I just dropped it into the emergency fund category for now. May need it elsewhere later in the month, but we will try without.

I have three items on eBay that I'd like to see sell soon. May need to drop the prices a bit, but a little extra cash would be nice.