Savings and Goals Journal #2

It’s time for another update of how we’ve saved money lately, and what our future money-saving plans are.

In the Kitchen

My kitchen savings haven’t been super lately. With this nice weather, I have been drawn outside and have been spending much less time puttering in the kitchen. I’ve gotten off track with my meal planning. Even though I’ve been cooking at home, I still feel I am a better steward of our food budget when I stick to my meal plan.

So, I have made a new meal plan and am ready to go for this next week with inexpensive meals using ingredients in our pantry. We are trying a new meatless meal this week, carrot soup. I think it will be along the line of butternut squash soup, which we like. Grampy is a trooper. He will try almost anything.

This week for dinner:

• Monday: Carrot Soup and biscuits
• Tuesday: Tater Tot Casserole, salad and biscuits
• Wednesday: Leftovers
• Thursday: Spaghetti w/meat sauce and veggies, salad
• Friday: Leftovers
• Saturday: Daughter’s birthday: Grilled hamburgers, baked French Fries, Carrot cake, and homemade ice cream
• Sunday: Leftovers

My goal for in the kitchen this week (and future weeks) is to be more consistent with meal planning. I know it saves time, stress and money, so I need to make sure I get it done.

In the Garden

Grampy and I have decided that as we are getting older, garden work is getting harder. So, we are going to be adding a few raised beds to our gardens. Probably one or two per year as time and money allow. We found a wonderful YouTube channel, Gardener Scott. He has great information on building raised beds, and ideas for filling them with soil inexpensively.

In light of all the things in the world happening with the Coronavirus, we are planning to have a larger garden area than usual. I have started several types of greens in pots (spinach, lettuce, chard, kale) and they are starting to sprout. The tomatoes and peppers I started are doing well, but I may have to buy a few pepper plants from the nursery if I can’t get more seeds to germinate. Even if I have to buy a few plants, growing our own green chile is less expensive than buying it from the store. I am the only person in my family who does not like spicy food. We go through a lot of chile around here.

I have several pieces of yard art in various stages of being updated or finished or put where I want them. We also have several plants we need to move before the weather gets too warm. I will be focusing on getting things finished up over the next few weeks.

Home and Family

We were given a bag of of little boys’ clothing that will be the perfect size for our grandson this fall and winter. It seems as though right when we are thinking we need to go looking for clothing in the next size up, someone blesses us with a bag of clothes. Such a big savings, as children grow so quickly the first few years!

The organizing project is going great. I have begun to tackle the mountains of paper I have no idea why I have been keeping. Using supplies I already had, I created a simple filing system for myself. I am also going to make one for Grampy and one for my daughter. This should help the paper clutter problem, I hope. And also make it so everyone can find the things they need.

We have wanted a coffee bar for a long time. And I wanted to remove the desk from the kitchen and replace it with something that has more efficient storage since we have decided we need more room for storing food. We found the perfect piece of furniture for a great price. And the lady gave us the chalk paint she was going to use on it. My daughter and I are excited to turn it into the perfect coffee bar.

How did you save money this week? Share in the comments!