Last year around this time, I submitted a claim to be part of a antitrust settlement regarding our purchase of potatoes. As usual, I don't remember the requirements. But today we received a check in the mail for $30.49!! That's a big amount.

Just for kicks I went back in our records and found we have received $202.28 from class action settlements since the beginning of the year! Nice snowflakes hanging out in our savings account.

I believe I have become aware of all of these from

this website. I don't fill out any that I don't legitimately have claim to.

We've met another milestone with our retirement accounts. We now have $370,000. If the market appreciates another 6% I might be able to meet the $400K milestone. That would require our additional contributions to be included as well. I would be shocked if the market earns another 6%, but one never knows for sure. We will just keep moving forward!

This probably won't be a well thought out post, but I just need to write out some thoughts. We have seven years until my husband can retire from the Army with a paycheck starting immediately. He will be 54. I will be 51.

According to military retirement calculators his retirement pay before taxes would be $4,572 per month or $54,863 per year. So, theoretically, our goal should be to have expenses less than $4,572 per month. At least if we didn't want to pull any money from our retirement savings. I'm pretty sure we could live on less than this, even while doing some traveling.

If he can get into a particular position in the next two years, he may be willing to continue to work until 60 for the Army. Which gee, at that point, isn't really early retirement! I'm not sure he cares, he does like to be busy. The retirement check would be $8746 per month or $104,959 per year. That's less than he makes now, but not by much.

One issue for me in thinking about retirement is our living situation. We have around $40K that came from selling two homes. Thus enough for 20% down on a $200,000 home. I would be fine buying a home in that price range or less. We are currently renting, so we are not building any equity. I can tell our savings has increased in the last six months, by around $7K. I think this is better than if we owned a home.

Honestly, I'd love to buy a house with cash at the time we retire. Of course, that feels overwhelming to think about when we only have $40K specifically set aside as house money. If I were to make that happen, I need to be much more diligent about saving cash to make it happen. It's not that I'm unwilling, I'm just not sure what I'm aiming for. I think we would move back to the midwest, which is where family is and likely both of our daughter's will be (although one never knows on that for sure).

We are currently in the middle of paying for college for our daughter's. We have some savings. Scholarships have been helpful so far. And we have the Post 911 GI bill that I expect will cover half the cost of each of them to attend college. The best case scenario is that they leave college with zero loans. Worse case is they leave college with one years worth of loans. Our oldest is going to be a sophomore this year in college. Our youngest is going to be a junior in high school. Thus they should both be out of college at the time my husband would retire at the earliest.

I feel we are currently living in a home with too much space for our needs and we are paying too much as a result. The home is 2800 sq ft, four bedrooms, three full bathrooms, two living areas, two dining areas, a kitchen, screened in porch, and very large yard. We pay $1800 per month in rent, which is the going rate for this size property. We are not overpaying for the property itself, but probably paying more because we have a home larger than our needs. Most of the time it's just three of us living here, with two cats. We could probably move elsewhere in the area, but I know that is disruptive to our daughter. It also costs some money to move, even in town.

Another thought I have, that may or may not be related to retiring early is buying rental property. Specifically, thinking about buying a home in the college town our daughter lives in so that she could live there rather than a dorm. Not sure if this would involve roommates or not. We wouldn't be living in that town thus as owners, that could be an issue. Although, our daughter would likely learn some things about home ownership through the process.

We max out our Roth IRAs, and put 10% in the tax deferred TSP. We would save 15% on taxes if we put that Roth money into IRAs instead, yet, I'm not sure that is really smart if we would want to use that money in early retirement. That would be $1650 in our pockets each that could go towards the saving for a home. I know we could easily save $1000 a month, which is $12,000 a year. In 7 years time, that would be at least $84K, preferably more if invested.

Again...random thoughts. I would really like to simplify overall and have some clear financial goals going forward. We save what we can for retirement and college, but I've been lazy about the plan for the next seven years. If I want to make something happen we need to start making it a focus. I don't want to only have $40K set aside in seven years for a home.

Feel free to chime in with thoughts or questions. I don't have all the answers yet.

I've written about our Ooma home phone before. It works over the internet and costs under $5 a month, varying by local tax laws. At the point we don't have kids at home, I expect we'll get rid of it, but it sure beats paying $30-40 a month for!

The current offer is

here. Thanks for checking it out. I do get $50 credit if you buy. Today is the last day for the offer so act fast!

We have a $7,500 CD maturing next month. It's been earning 3.5% for the last 14 months. I'm thinking of rolling it into a 1.05% 12 month CD, but if I could find something better I would jump on it.

I noticed I have an offer on my American Express account to open a Gold card. Spend $2000, get 50K reward points. We did this for my husband earlier this year. We haven't even redeemed the points yet! I will probably open it, but I've been wanting to reduce cards, so this flies in the face of that idea!

I purchased THREE 27 roll packages in March for $15.99 a piece with a $15 coupon involved. We ran out of this huge stock pile of toilet paper more than two weeks ago. We bought a 12 pack and it felt like we quickly ran out again. I realized I really like being stocked up on toilet paper!

So I went looking for toilet paper to stock up on. I will admit that I was specifically looking for Scott's 1000 toilet paper. I found a deal at Boxed.com. I hadn't known of this company before. They were selling 36 count rolls of Scott's 1000 toilet paper for $23.99 with free shipping. I could get 15% off my first order. I decided to order four packages! My total was $81.57 after the discount.

Even better, I found out I could use my American Express card and get $20 off if my total was $50 or more. In the end I got 144 rolls of toilet paper for $61.57 delivered. That is $0.43 a roll. I think this will last us at least half a year. Although originally when I ordered I thought it would be a full years worth, but looking back at my notes for the last purchase, I think 6 months is more likely.

Boxed.com does have lot of items that one could stock up on. And there is some sort of point system, although I haven't figured out how great that is or isn't yet. If you want to place your own order for $10 off your first order, please use my promo code QV6LX.

I'm tempted to order another four more packages using my husband's American Express to get another $20 off and count us as stocked for the full year. I do have the storage in the garage, so that isn't an issue.

What do you like to be stocked up on?

Since the market was high again, I made a point to transfer the full amount of my oldest daughter's educational savings account to a money market account. We are likely to use most of the funds for this upcoming school year. I should have taken the money out much sooner, but it was difficult to pull it all when I knew the market was down. It's now safe from market swings.

We still have our younger daughter's ESA invested in the market, but she still has two years before college, and since we don't know what scholarship she will receive we will leave it for now.

So, I'm really, really considering Ting for our family. Our contract with Verizon was up in May. Our bill has been lowered now that we aren't paying for the phones. A couple of us have started having small issues with our phones, likely needing an upgrade in the near future.

We currently pay around $140 with Verizon for four phones. The last time I checked with Ting based on our usage we would pay between $75-$85 a month. We do a pretty good job of limiting data since we use WiFi at home.

I think the hard part will be making the actual switch! My first thought is to get SIM cards and keep our current phones and numbers which I believe can be ported over from Verizon.

After that I think we would slowly switch each of us over as it becomes clear our phones are really dying. So far, all the issues have resolved themselves usually with restarting the phone a time or two.

My main concern is the actual switch. Will our ability to get service change that much? We will be getting service through the same towers we currently do right? In some ways we are only changing the billing method.

At one time, I understood that Ting used Sprint towers. I hesitated to switch as Sprint towers in our previous town were horrible according to users and Sprints own map. I think now if we use GSM SIM cards we will be on Verizon towers (not sure this makes sense, but it's how I understand it).

Also once I have the SIM cards in hand and INSERT IGNORE INTO our phones, how long until they are active? Less than a day? This is actually a good time of year to switch as we are home a lot more and not using our phones as much.

I'm sure I can find some more information on Ting's website, and I will start looking. I'm just hoping one of you Ting users can encourage me and answer some of my questions.

Thank you in advance!

Our total interest earned in June was $78.55. It sure helps that some of our cash is earning around 3% interest in CDs. These are are all with Navy Federal Credit Union. I think one ends in August, but hopefully there will be something new around that same time.

We also put $25 into our NFCU savings account from my husband's pay. This is part of the agreement to earn the 3% interest. I think I'm going to increase it to $100. I don't think we'll miss putting more into savings! And if needed we can always take it out.

It's been a bit since I've posted here, although I've been reading and commenting. I don't have any real exciting updates as of late. No new snowflake money to report. We haven't spent any major money. We are still saving what we don't invest or spend.

The market drop because of Brexit is a bit hard to take. I haven't actually looked at our balances because I know I won't like them! At least the market had an up day again today.

We have decided not to go to Washington DC this summer. Our youngest daughter is taking an online German class this summer. It started a week ago Monday. It goes through the first two weeks of August. We were hoping the course work would be light enough to work ahead. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that will be the case. We could shorten our trip to three days, but we feel that wouldn't be enough time to do what we were hoping to do. My husband is also in a class for work and has deadlines every week in July as well. He said he was relieved that we had changed our plans.

The vacation fund has $1100 in it. We were going to drive and use Marriott Rewards points for the hotel nights. This money would have been for transportation, food, souvenirs and any other admission fees. I think for now I will leave it there, as I know we will also have some plane tickets coming up in the next six months.

June has been unusually inexpensive. Not as cheap as our No Spend Month in February, but definitely closer. I like when we have less spendy months!!

I'm loving watermelon right now!! So good for you and tasty.

My youngest daughter is out of school for the summer, but starts band camp next week, and then her online German class! She is going to be busy...hopefully not too busy, so we can still get to Washington DC in July.

I got a class action claim check in the mail from Tom's of Maine for $30.59! Wow, I sure wasn't expecting that! But I did know just what to do with it. I deposited into our savings account right away!

My husband's tablet (Samsung Galaxy)stopped responding to touch commands a few weeks ago. We decided to research if it was a part we could buy and replace ourselves. The answer is yes! We actually bought two screen digitizers at $21.99 each. The second one works!! The first screen digitizer was just a bit hard to reattach and after we did it didn't work quite right. And then to top it off we cracked the screen. But those errors did help us get it just perfect the second time. So for less than $44 we were able to fix something that would have cost us around $400 to replace new. My husband is super happy to have it back!!

It seems that class action claim check helped cover some of our costs! I like that.

I recorded the balances in our retirement accounts as this past Friday, June 3. We have surpassed the $350K mark for the first time! It's taken us 21 long months to increase our accounts from the last milestone of $300K. I was sure that we would hit $350K in 2015, but that just never happened. We made it to $330K at the end of 2015.

We have contributed 8K this year, so even though the market is somewhat flat, we have had market gains. I haven't thought about where I would like us to be by year end. The only part I can control without leaving the market entirely is what we contribute, so we'll keep doing that.

How are you doing with your retirement plans and goals?

Our rental insurance is due for renewal in two months. I had received the most recent policy and was reminded that we had Valuable Property Protection attached for jewelry up to $2500. It is $28 a month. The only jewelry of significance we have are our wedding rings. And those probably cost us less than $2K when we bought them twenty years ago. The truth is we have cash to replace these if we were to lose them. We don't need to be insuring them. So $28 saved.

Our renter's insurance was $443 last year. I didn't realize our deductible was only $250! It is scheduled to renew at $432, so it did go down. However I changed the deductible to $1000, the highest allowed. Our premium will be now be $404. Not a large savings, but little amounts add up.

Overall savings is $67 a year!

I expect we will get a little refund for making the changes before the policy actually expires. I will count those dollars as snowflakes!

I received credit for a Pinecone survey yesterday. I think I'm due for another one today. At least $3, but maybe $6.

My husband was also refunded for some conference fees, not sure why exactly. The amount was $32, and was sent to my Paypal account, since after 60 days the government can't send it back to the credit card account...or something dumb like that. Turns out better since he doesn't use that card much and currently has a zero balance.

I'm putting these snowflakes in our savings account. Savings feels good!

I know I mentioned the Brinks Prepaid Debit Card recently and how it changed. It seems it is required to have $500 Direct Deposited in order to qualify for a Brinks Preferred account. And you can only get the Savings Account paying 5% if you have the direct deposit. So there is a much higher threshold for making this work, than I originally understood. I think I understood you just needed a small deposit from your own account, rather than from an employer. So, I think I'm opting out of this one, unless I can figure a way around.

I did find a

link from Maximizing Money about the Brinks Prepaid Card that probably explains it better. It also seems to back up what I understand from the website and the inserts that arrived with the card.

I initiated a $10K transfer from our money market account to the savings account at NFCU. The bank indicates that the money will arrive on Tuesday, May 10. At that point, I can put the application in for the 3% CD they are offering.

I requested a payout from Pinecone to my PayPal account two days ago. I thought I would receive it yesterday, as is usually the case. Once it does get deposited, I'm moving it and the Diet Bet money to our savings account.

I purchased matinee tickets for my daughter, husband and I to see Captain America Civil War on Saturday. Paid $16.50 with my Discover card. I will get 5% back in rewards for that purchase. A whole $0.83! It all adds up though.

It's military appreciation month over at Navy Federal Credit Union. One of there offers this month, that I'm pretty sure we will take advantage of is a 15 month certificate at 3% interest. We can put up to $10K into the certificate.

If anyone is currently a member or has the eligibility, you can check out the other offers

here.

There is some fine print that is important, including the need to have a DFAS allotment or DFAS direct deposit of net pay. We have another certificate that requires this so we have $25 deposited as an allotment to our savings account at NFCU each month.

We currently have two certificates at NFCU equal to $10,000. We are earning 3.5% on one through the middle of August, and 3% on another through October of this year. This will help replace those great rates that expire later this year. Hopefully, there will be another offer later in the year so I can get some more of our money into higher interest CDs.

I did order the Brinks Prepaid card with the intention of taking advantage of their 5% offer. Unfortunately, it seems the conditions have changed a bit since I read about it online. I can be more specific later (I just don't have the info in front of me at this moment). I'm going to try NetSpend instead, if anyone has a referral for that one, put it in the comments for me.

The interest on all of our accounts for the month of April was equal to $61.67. I'd rather have ten times that amount!

We saved $25 automatically from my husband paycheck last month. It's a requirement for one of the CDs we have to have a payroll deposit.

I have paid all credit cards in full since payday occurred on Friday. All spending and saving categories have been funded. The emergency fund received a boost by $458.

My husband bought two new uniforms, a pair of boots, t shirts and PT uniform this week. He's been putting off changing over to the new one since it isn't required for another year. He finally gave in to peer pressure primarily. Everyone else is switching over. Granted he has had his current ones for quite a few years now. It's just time. He is having new name plates and rank sewn on as well. In all he spent $528.12. I'm sure he'll be wearing all these items for several years, so we will get our money's worth.

We went shopping for new end tables for our living room. We bought the couches and chair in December. Last week we bought a rug (the room didn't have one before). Now we need tables, since we don't have any at all. It sure is hard to find exactly what you want at the right price!

Our youngest daughter has $23K invested for college and we are still adding to it. We expect to put in another $5500 before she turns 18 in just over 2 years.

I'm getting concerned we have too much invested. Of course, I don't know that for sure. It's just based on how well things are going with our older daughter cost wise.

If we have cash leftover from our older daughter in her Education Savings account we can roll it to our youngest daughter, thus she will have even more money!

If we have too much money invested and go to withdraw it, we will have a penalty of 10%. I was thinking of changing the last amount of contributions for our daughter to our Roth IRA accounts. Actually, I would increase my husband's TSP retirement contributions which would lower our taxable income. We already maximize the Roth IRAs thus why I would put the money in the TSP. If we needed to withdraw that college money I would take it from the Roth IRAs since contributions are always available tax and penalty free.

I did a little looking while writing the post though. It turns out for both ESA and 529 plans, extra funds that can be contributed to having received a tax free scholarship can be with withdrawn and the penalty waived! Thus far my oldest daughter does have a large tax free scholarship that would easily help her withdraw and excess tax free.

Since this could be the case for our youngest daughter, I'm going to leave it be for now and just continue as planned. If anyone has any other thoughts though let me know.

Finally, with the market going back up the retirement totals are going back up! Ended last year with $330K. We are now at $343K. Total investments thus far are around $5K in the first three months of the year. The next milestone is $350K which I really, really hope to see this year. It doesn't seem impossible if the market can stay a bit steady. But who knows!

I did receive the Brinks Prepaid card in the mail. The wording doesn't make me confident that I can get the savings account without a direct deposit of $500. I don't want to do that. I might try the NetSpend card instead.

I did reconcile our accounts on YNAB yesterday. I did find an error in a payment I recorded for our credit card. I showed us making a payment for $36 more than we actually did. That was because I transposed the numbers. Luckily, I did make the right payment and it's not a big deal in the end. No bounced checks or anything. I was also missing the recording of two transactions. Both were from the last week or so. All up to date now.

On Friday I will make payments on the all the outstanding credit card bills we have. Believe it or not, I have six with balances. The biggest one is Marriott Rewards, since that is the primary card we have been using. Three other cards have regular payments made on them, thus the balances until payday. I used the Southwest Visa to charge the airline tickets purchased for my niece and mother in law. And finally, I used my American Express card for a Amazon purchase that was around $30. I have enough points to redeem for $25 statement credit reducing that purchase to about $5. YNAB make it really easy to see what needs to be paid. And we always have the cash to cover our expenses! Yea.

I checked our retirement balances as of yesterday and we are looking much better than we were at the end of last year. I suppose most of that the contributions we've put in since the market isn't up much since the end of the year. I have a mental goal of where I'd like to see us end up, but it depends on how the markets go really!

I redeemed $6 from Pinecone recently. It was in my PayPal account. I made sure to transfer it to our savings account yesterday so it won't melt.

Yesterday, my oldest daughter reminded me we needed to pay the final housing deposit for next year. It's $200. The best part is I already had that money set aside because I knew it was coming. She is going to have a single room next year. Sounds expensive doesn't it? It is just because it is dorm housing and it isn't because the price difference is relatively small.

As a returning student living in the same dorm she is eligible for a discount of $342. With her 7 day meal plan included we will pay $10,704. If she doubled up, with the same meal plan, we would pay $10,104, which is a savings of $600. In the end, after the discount her single room will be $10,280. The difference between the double vs single is then only $176. We decided that the extra $176 is worth it for a single room. She loves her sleep and often goes to be before 10pm, she will sleep so much better without a roommate making noise or being frustrated by the lights still being on.

This past year housing was our biggest expense because nearly 90% of tuition and books were covered by scholarships. We used our own cash and money saved in her ESA account to cover those remaining expenses.

Next year, we plan to use my husband's Post 911 GI Bill to cover all tuition and most of the housing. We will need to pay for the housing up front, but we will receive a monthly housing allowance while she is in class. That housing allowance is $1080 per month. It is prorated, so will equal about 4 months worth of housing, or around $4320 per semester.

In the end we will have some costs to pay out of pocket, but we expect these will be manageable. We are extremely grateful (and amazed) at how well we have been able to manage the costs of college.

I definitely encourage all families expect children to go to college to save something! You won't regret it. And of course, help your child be the best they can be by taking challenging classes, participating in something extracurricular, study if needed for ACT or SAT, and put in some volunteer time. It does pay off!

March 2016 Snowflakes

eBay Proceeds $26.32
Pinecone Research $12.00
Discover Rewards $1.49
Templeton Rye Settlement $23.00
Chase Rewards $20.00
Ibotta (iTunes gc) $25.00
Total $107.81

I may have had more, but I'm not going to go looking for them. I sure can't complain about having an extra $100+ in our pocket. I'm going to make sure this money gets into our second savings account when I earn it. I rarely touch that money, so it will become savings that won't quickly melt.

I checked our American Express rewards the other day. We each have about $45! We had been using those exclusively since the beginning of the year, until sometime last month when we switched to a couple new cards for bonuses. We can only redeem in $25 increments, so only $50 is actually really available.

I believe I have some money in my PayPal and Pinecone accounts to redeem. I'll get that taken care of and count it for April!

For March we earned $30.09 on around $10K worth of CDs. Those rates are pretty good that we got through Navy Federal Credit Union. I wish there were more! Both these CDs will come due in the second half of the year.

We still have a big stash of cash in our money market account earning about 1%. We earned $33.47 on that money last month. Better than nothing, but I think I'm finally convinced to try some of those prepaid card accounts where I can open a savings account and earn 5% on $5K. I'll start with one account first, but potentially we can open two more for me, and three for my husband, investing $30K earning 5%.

How much interest did you earn in March?

We have Verizon for our cell phone service. And yes, I've been aware of the other options such as Ting and Republic Wireless. We seem to live in areas were the service those companies provide isn't as good. My husband feels strongly about keeping Verizon as a result.

I was aware of Verizon's newer plans. Today I received an email from them stating I could save about $9 each month. I checked it out and yes for the same 6GB on the current plan, we can switch to the new plan sharing the same 6GB and spend $9 less. But with the change comes reduced line access. Instead of $40 a line, it is $20...so a savings of $80 for the four of us. That is huge.

So instead of a bill of $240, it will be closer to $150. Verizon is quoting $131, but I don't think that includes taxes. I'll take the savings while I can get it.

I do think I looked at changing awhile back, but the access fees were going to be the same. I need to look and see if they have been reduced because of the time we been on our plan. Two more months and we could renew. I don't really want them to jack them back up again.

I just bought a portable piano (keyboard) online for our oldest daughter. She will be home for spring break and needs to practice keyboarding homework. We don't own a piano or keyboard! She will probably need to keep up the skills over the summer so she can be ready for the second semester of classes. I decided it was worth it. I spent $171 on a decently rated Yamaha. I figure it can probably be resold at some point to recoup some of the outlay.

I've been blogging here at SA for 8 years! I was reading for a couple years prior. I'm definitely glad I started. I know that blogging helps me focus on our financial goals with much more clarity than if I didn't. And the encouragement from others helps tremendously too!

Since we are now renters, we have zero debt. I'm sure we will own a home again once my husband retires. Our retirement accounts are just a little more than four times the balance they were in 2008 (of course, the market was way down then).

The next several years will be about handling college tuition and housing. After one full year, we can say we have met that obligation without debt. And we are thankful for the scholarships and our savings for making that happen.

A lot can happen in eight years! Let's see if we can do just as good in the next eight.

Actually, I'm just watching the market right now. I paid our daughter's spring tuition/housing in early February out of our savings account. Her college fund is still invested in a balanced mutual fund. Thus with the market down and cash on hand I just couldn't bring myself to sell. This is really why we shouldn't have the money in the market at this point. I should have transferred it into a cash account. So for now, my goal is to wait and watch what happens. When it gets even better, I plan to withdraw the amount equal to what came from our savings. At some point, I'm going to start slowly transferring the balance to a cash account.

If we use my husband's GI bill for the next two school years, we won't need any of those funds. It would be nice to have it grow, but I also don't want to lose anything either. So cash it will be it seems.

In other news, I redeemed $12 in Pinecone Rewards yesterday, along with $17.90 from recent eBay sales. I'm using these funds, and Amazon gift cards, to buy a few items on Amazon. Needs. Primarily engine and air filters for our vehicles. I also bought a shower cover for our drain. It was clear it was needed after cleaning the drain recently. I like that I could make these purchases with non income cash!

We paid $0 in interest. No mortgage. No personal loans. No credit cards with balances. Yippee!!

We earned $59.44. Boy do I wish that was more! But it is better than nothing.

It may have seemed as though we spent $0 based on the original title to my post yesterday. I edited it. We did spend money in February on needs to the tune of about $900. And of course, we paid our bills like rent, electric, trash, water, cell phone, life insurance. And we saved around $3700 in cash, plus $1662.33 for retirement and $166.66 for college.

I picked up three large packages of toilet paper at Target. Each was $15.99 with 27 double rolls. I added on some Windex to get my total over $50 so I could use a $15 coupon off a $50 purchase. I think we are stocked up on toilet paper for at least half a year!

I've spent some money. On needs. I picked up highlighters and a pencil sharpener for my daughter last night at Staples (who I feel is overpriced). Outflow was $5.34.

Today I went to Walmart and picked up pencil lead for my daughter, all purpose flour to make pizza, and shaving cream for my husband. Outflow was $7.28.

Now I suppose I could nitpick a bit and suggest my husband could use soap for shaving for the rest of the month, or that my daughter could use the one color of highlighter, or even I could make half a batch of pizza dough. But that isn't exactly the point. To go extreme. The point is to make conscious choices.

I was able to browse in both stores, but felt no real to desire to buy anything than I went in for. It is much more satisfying to leave knowing you only went in for needs and survived doing it!

I also have to admit I have a few things on a list, that probably could be considered needs, that I will probably purchase in March. Two of those are a new trashcan for my daughter's bathroom (it's cracked on two sides), and curtain rods for at least two bedrooms (we currently don't have any here, but can install if we remove and repair before we move).

Another free thing to do during a no spend month: delete old emails and computer files!

P.S. We received our tax refund of $359 today from the IRS. We're going to set that aside in savings.

We purchased our groceries needed for the next week at the commissary today. We spent $42.09, purchasing 16 items. Seven items were fresh vegetables and fruits. Otherwise, we picked up things like lunch meat, eggs, milk, two kinds of cheese, a loaf of bread. The two items probably not considered needs were tortilla chips and a box of crackers. I bought these because I know the household needs snacks to have and we already had salsa and block cheese on hand.

Tonight we are having chicken enchilada's. I purchased most of those items last week and already have shredded chicken in the freezer. Tomorrow we will have homemade pizza. On Tuesday, we are having an egg casserole (I had planned to make this when my friend was here, but turned out we didn't need it). I'm trying to make sure we eat up things we have in our cupboards and freezer, which means I expect I will be eating steel cut oatmeal for breakfast, and tuna sandwiches for lunch. I do like both, so I will be happy.

I realize I'm calling it no spend, but there still will be spending on the necessities. The goal is to spend the least amount possible so we can set some money aside for upcoming expenses, such as plane tickets.

I'm thinking next weeks grocery bill will be higher, but we will see won't we?