Savings and Goals Journal #44

Do you have a favorite season? I’m one of those people who happily anticipates the arrival of Fall. It’s my favorite season, and October is my favorite month. The mornings are crisp but not cold and the days are cool enough that I’m not chased inside by the heat by lunchtime like in the summer. I’ve even gotten to where I look forward to the shortening of the daylight hours. I love cozying up in our little house earlier in the evening. I think it’s because the summer is so busy, Fall seems a little slower. I am making myself wait to put up my fall decorations until September, though. As tempting as it is to do it now, it feels a little early!

Here are the ways we saved a bit of money lately:

In the Kitchen

Avoiding restaurants is still our best way to control the food bill. Grampy and I did have one meal at a taco place. Our total was $11, so not bad. Otherwise, we’ve been eating at home and our grocery budget is benefiting greatly.

I’ve noticed I’ve been having a hard time finding something I want for breakfast. I made a batch of Baked Oatmeal. It’s so easy to heat a piece in the morning, and it’s very low-mess.

I’ve also noticed I’ve been having some not-so-great snacks. Sometimes I’ll grab one of the grandkids’ prepackaged snacks. So I made myself a batch of Protein Bites using this recipe with some modifications to use what I had on hand. I find one or two of these are the perfect mid-morning snack to have when I’ve been working hard outside.

I’m working my way through the freezer trying to use up what’s in there before we purchase anything else. I’m watching the grocery ads for good deals on meat. Lately there haven’t really been any. I’ve been making good use of the slow cooker to save heating up the house with the stove. Grampy doesn’t really like soup, stew or chili in the summer, but I’ve been sneaking some warmer meals into the menu plan. I made Crockpot Southwest Chicken to use up a couple of chicken breasts from the freezer. In the fall and winter I make lots of soup, stew, chili and casseroles. They’re filling, comforting and usually inexpensive.

This week’s meal plan:

• Sunday: Crockpot Southwest Chicken, rice
• Monday: Leftovers
• Tuesday: Beef with Mushroom Gravy, rice, carrots
• Wednesday: Leftovers
• Thursday: Leftovers
• Friday: Hamburger patties with sauteed peppers and onions, calabacitas
• Saturday: Leftovers

I was happy to incorporate some of our garden produce into this week’s meal plan. I used zucchini and peppers in our meals. I also used some zucchini to make a zucchini cake and I was even brave enough to try Cucumber Limeade. It’s different, but I really like it.

And I thoroughly enjoyed my first tomato sandwich of the year!

In the Garden

Our garden this year is smaller, but we have been enjoying our harvest. My Garden Update for August can be found here.

The cucumbers are starting to produce like crazy. So far we’ve been able to keep up with the cucumbers by eating them fresh and making cucumbers and onions. And cucumber limeade. 🙂

My four little bell pepper plants have been blessing me with many bell peppers. I was able to freeze four cups of chopped bell peppers and four cups of bell pepper strips. These will be so good to use in the winter.

Home and Family

We went to several yard sales over the weekend. My daughter found two shirts she loves. I found two sets of pillow covers for my throw pillows in the living room. I like being able to take the covers off to wash them. I also found a couple of seasonal decor items.

My decluttering journey is continuing at a slow but steady pace. We’ve listed and sold three more items on Facebook Marketplace. And we took one very large load of things to the thrift store. I was also able to fit four bags of trash from the sheds into my stepmom’s dumpster on trash day, saving the fee from the landfill.

Once I’ve finished the decluttering, I will be doing some major rearranging in the two sheds. They are insulated and in our climate they are quite comfortable for a large portion of the year. In one I plan to set up a better office area to do bookkeeping for my stepmom’s business. I plan to turn the second shed into a “she-shed,” so I have a place to blog, read and relax. Our house is very busy with two grandkids living here and sometimes Granny craves a little quiet time! 🙂 I should be able to finish this project for little to no expense, using things I have on hand to create spaces I am happy with. Often I find just the act of cleaning and getting rid of unnecessary things can make a huge improvement all on its own, and it’s free! 🙂

Here is one of my ideas for arranging things in my she-shed:

I hope one day to make over a small camper into a fun, creative space for myself, but right now I can’t bring myself to spend the money on it while we are working to build our savings and pay down debt. Once I finish my she-shed, I may not even want a camper anymore!