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Archive for August, 2012

Last Week a Costly Week, Another One Coming Up

August 26th, 2012 at 08:17 pm

It's a good thing I had a plan on how to spend my "extra" pay this month instead of just spending it willy-nilly because I get paid ever 2 weeks rather than twice a month. The first thing involved the fact that we had a water filtration system hooked up to our kitchen faucet and had had for most of the two years we have lived in the house. The water from the filter creates too much pressure in the faucet and so it leaks. The first thing the plumber told was that we will definitely need to replace the faucet, but first he hooked up the filter to a separate water line which involved drilling a hole in the stainless steel sink to the left of the faucet. That stopped the cause of the leak and it works great. It cost $150 and that came out of the money I had planned on putting into the house savings account for last payday. The plumber said if we buy a Delta faucet, it will have a lifetime warranty and will probably cost around $150, maybe less. We will get that with my next payday on the 31st and can install it ourselves. In addition, our dishwasher died last week. We bought a new dishwasher with our credit card #1. We also have to pay to have it installed. I will work hard to get cc #1 paid off quickly. To help that along, I will use what I planned on being an extra principle payment to the mortgage to go towards cc#1. In addition, the $40 that is auto deposited to regular savings on payday I will divert to cc#1 in addition to the $150 payment I was going to send anyway. Because we are a little skinny on our bank account, I decided to do what I could with our meals to use up what we already have. The hubby also specifically requested we eat entirely meal-sized salads for our dinners, which made this even more of a challenge. It is really weird of him to request salad at all, but for every dinner meal is odd. I am not complaining, though, as he is not a veggie eater.

1) Eggs and ham - 3 meals

2) Oatmeal. Side of grapefruit with stevia. Side of ham. - 4 meals (I already had oatmeal.)

3) Chicken salad with apples, ginger, mayo, ginger, onion, and celery. - 3 lunch meals for me (I already had mayo and chicken.)

Text is http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-salad-my-way/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=chicken%20salad%20my%20way&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page and Link is
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-salad-my-way/detail.asp...

4) Kale salad with beef, olive oil, cider vinegar, strawberries, walnuts, and salt. - 1 dinner meal -
Text is http://allrecipes.com/recipe/kale-and-feta-salad/detail.aspx and Link is
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/kale-and-feta-salad/detail.aspx (I already had kale, olive oil, cider vinegar, and salt. I am leaving off the feta cheese because I am allergic and substituting strawberries because I could not find currants. I will add some beef strips.)

5) Flat Iron Steak and Spinach Salad - 1 dinner meal -
Text is http://allrecipes.com/recipe/flat-iron-steak-and-spinach-salad/detail.aspx and Link is
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/flat-iron-steak-and-spinach-sal... (I already had red onion, olive oil and red wine vinegar instead of wine. I left off the cheese. This one was delicious. We had it last night.)

6) Thai Salad with whole grain rice and chicken. - 1 dinner meal -
Text is http://allrecipes.com/recipe/thai-salad-with-whole-grain-brown-rice-and-chicken/detail.aspx and Link is
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/thai-salad-with-whole-grain-bro... (I already had olive oil, garlic, onion, chicken, and peanut butter.)

7) Green Salad with Tomatoes and Squash, and either chicken or ham - 1 dinner meal - (I just made this one up. We already have lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, ham, and chicken to make it.)

8) Quinoa and Chicken/Tuna Salad -
Text is http://allrecipes.com/recipe/carons-kickin-quinoa-salad/detail.aspx and Link is
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/carons-kickin-quinoa-salad/deta... - 1 dinner meal (We already have the quinoa, mayo, lemon juice, black pepper, chicken, and tuna. I haven't decided whether to make it with chicken or tuna, but either way, it should be good.)

9) Leftover Baked Chicken. Cucumber Tomato Salad. Side of apple. 1 lunch meal for me.

10) Grilled Chinese Chicken Salad Slaw.
Text is http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/grilled-chinese-chicken-salad and Link is
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/grilled-chinese-chicken-s... 1 dinner meal - (We already have the ginger spice, and olive oil. We are substitution lemon juice for lime juice and white onion for scallions.)


Meal Planning Done for the Week, Lunches Made

August 20th, 2012 at 02:25 am

Hello, everyone. Seeing Wowitsawonderfullife's entry about lunches and meal planning made me realize I had not posted my weekly post about meals. It helps to keep me on track with food expenditures.

No show of the plumber yet, so our faucet is still leaking. Hopefully, he will show this week.

Later, this week, I will place an order for some health supplements and probably send more dollars to cc #2. Other than that, it should be a low-spend week.

Here are the meals I have planned for this week:

1) Braised Beef With White Beans - 2 meals each for dh and me -

Text is http://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/recipe.aspx?id=1421 and Link is
http://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/recipe.aspx?id=1421

2) Broccoli Slaw With Chicken (a combination of broccoli slaw, chicken, mayo, and a pepper) - 3 meals

3) Chicken and rice - 2 meals

4) Spaghetti with quinoa - 2 meals

5) Hamburger patties with steamed veggies - 1 meal

6) Eggs and ham. Side of oatmeal. - 3 meals

7) Oatmeal. Side of Ham. Side of grapefruit. - 4 meals

8) Spinach salad with ham, black beans, tomatoes, and a pepper - 1 meal

Payday is Tomorrow

August 17th, 2012 at 01:38 am

Well, hello everyone. Payday is tomorrow. I wanted to get a head start to make sure I make my goals. Just to reiterate, I have 3 paydays this month, so I planned out in advance what to do with the "surplus." I add that I made a mistake in listing lawn mowing twice, so I deleted the duplicate. Here is my plan. I noted in red what I have already done.

$00 to regular savings
$100 to house savings - this will actually go towards repairing our kitchen faucet
$100 to car savings
$150 set aside for cc #2 (not paid til later in month) - $100 paid Friday
$200 set aside for mortgage - DONE
$240 for groceries - spent about $130, $110 left
$30 gas for car - spent about $20, $10 left
$152 electric bill - actually $159 - check has been mailed
$40 lawn mowing - allocated in the checkbook
$37 trash bill (billed bi-monthly) - actually due at end of month, so will put off until next payday
$7 cigarettes - did tonight
$45 chiropractor visit - allocated in the checkbook
$100 Miscellaneous - $48.00 left
TOTAL $1141.00

It's a good thing...

August 8th, 2012 at 10:21 pm

It's a good thing that I organized so well this payday. We had to have a couple of trees trimmed today because branches were leaning on a power line. $275.00. Ouch! About $90 will come out of checking, but the rest will come from regular savings. I must remember to save more for this kind of stuff, but apparently, tree trimming people are expensive.

Payday Today

August 3rd, 2012 at 07:36 pm

Hello, everyone. Well payday #1 for August is here. So, here it goes as far as my progress so far. I have already paid the phone/internet bill and the gas bill. I made a $111.21 payment to credit card #2. $11.21 of that is rebate money from mrrebates when I order stuff online. I discovered that I didn't have to delay til later in the month to pay it. Because it is the same bank as my checking, I just basically make a transfer. That's cool and it will save me time and interest.

$40 is automatically deposited to my regular savings every payday. I transferred that to the car and savings accounts immediately. I need to beef both of those up a lot. I will also put more in tomorrow by check. I have also already made set asides for 1/2 of the mortgage, lawn mowing, and a chiropractor visit.

$00 to regular savings - DONE
$100 to house savings - $20 DONE
$100 to car savings - $60 DONE
$150 set aside for cc #2 - $100 DONE (plus $11.21 rebate money)
$200 set aside for mortgage - DONE
$240 for groceries - DONE
$30 gas for car - WAS ONLY $10.00
$57 gas bill - DONE
$7 cigarettes (not mine, hubby's) - DONE
$45 chiropractor visit - DONE
$40 lawn mowing - DONE
$100 Miscellaneous
TOTAL $1069.00