Savings and Goals Journal #48

I am hoping that Spring is here to stay. As I am writing this, we are supposed to have a high of 70 degrees. I’ll be enjoying some yardwork.

I finally purchased and downloaded the new budget spreadsheet I mentioned earlier this year. My new system will begin on April 1. I think this new spreadsheet will make tracking our spending and budget less time-consuming. I know it will take a few months to work the bugs out. I’ve been busy inputting our monthly expenses. I was happy to see that there is a video tutorial about how to use the spreadsheet linked in the instructions that came with it. I can do this! 🙂

In the Kitchen

Eating at home has been the name of the game the last couple of weeks. Grampy and I were getting into a little habit of lunch out somewhere every weekend. So we’ve scaled that back. It’s very easy for us to grab something in town while we’re working on a project. Since I knew we’d be spending a weekend painting our bedroom, I planned ahead and had easy things at home to fix. We only had one small meal out ($14) over the three days we worked on the bedroom.

Some meals we’ve enjoyed lately were:

• Roasted rosemary chicken, glazed carrots
• Smothered bean burritos (everything I needed was in the freezer)
• Bratwurst, sauerkraut, baked beans
• Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, Irish soda bread (for St. Patrick’s Day)
• Chicken and Rice Pilaf, Normandy blend veggies
• Tacos
• Baked potato bar, salad
• Sausage Onion Pepper Potato Bake

Grampy had a Italian-themed potluck at work and was given lots of leftovers. They provided lunch for us for two days. For his potluck contribution, we made this Marinated Olive and Cheese Ring from Taste of Home.

In an effort to spend less, I’m getting back to using grocery pickup instead of going into the stores. To make this work even better, I need to do a quick inventory of the pantry. We’ve had trips to the store for “just one or two things” that we were out of. Often we come out with more than just the one or two things. I need to be more thorough when I do my orders to be sure we have everything we need.

In the Garden

I can’t wait for the warmer weather to come and stay. It’s still quite chilly for a good part of the morning, but we’ve had many warm and beautiful afternoons.

I have a mini garden growing on my kitchen windowsill. I have my ranunculus (buttercups) and a small pot of chives. I also cut some forsythia branches to force. They are in a jar on the windowsill and are blooming away.

The chickens have finally started laying. I have 23 older chickens. I’m getting about 6 eggs each day. We are eating more meals using eggs. Breakfast for dinner is going to become a weekly thing.

Some of my bulbs (tulips, daffodils, hyacinths) are popping up. I’ve been cleaning last year’s garden debris from my raised beds and flower beds to get them ready for spring planting. One snowy afternoon, I took a cup of tea to my she-shed and planned our vegetable garden.

I think I said this last year, but I really am going to try not to buy many plants this year. We will need to buy pepper plants and a Chocolate Sprinkles cherry tomato. I am going to start all our other veggies from seed I already have. It’s the flowers and shrubs that always tempt me.

Home and Family

I shared in a post about my she-shed that we’d gotten a new couch for the living room. Just when I thought I’d never find one, the perfect one popped up on Facebook Marketplace. We had priced loveseat hide-a-beds new and they were over $1000. The one we found was in great condition and cost $200. Now when our daughter visits we have a place for her to sleep. And our old loveseat is now in my she-shed.

Our bedroom makeover is moving along. We got the walls painted. I’m currently painting the headboard I remodeled. Grampy didn’t like it because it took up a lot of room. I didn’t want to get rid of it because my dad had given it to me years ago. So I made it into something new. I even have plans for the little lights that were on it.

To finish our bedroom makeover, I’ll also be painting two dressers, a bed frame with drawers, and a mirror frame. I am hoping to do all of these with paint I already have. I also need to come up with some storage solutions for our closet. I will also replace the trim around the door and paint the door. Painting the old things we have is much less expensive than buying new things. It’s a good thing I like to paint!

We are planning a gallery wall in the bedroom for some of Grampy’s photos. I’ve started looking for the frames at yard sales. Since I get to decorate the rest of the house, the bedroom is Grampy’s. He has some firefighter memorabilia and some photos he’s going to display. It’s okay. I have my she-shed to make all frilly and girly. 🙂

Happy Spring!