Savings and Goals Journal #49

Blogging has again fallen by the wayside. Between Grampy’s shoulder surgery and my gall bladder surgery, I’ve been busy playing catch-up both indoors and outdoors. But now I have a little time to share an update of what’s been happening here at our little house.

While resting after my surgery, I found that I really like to do jigsaw puzzles. I found one at a yard sale. When I’m finished with this, I have a simple cross-stitch project I’m going to start. It’s a cat, of course. 🙂

The Budget

I am a girl who thrives on routines. And the last couple of months have been anything but routine. Grampy was off work for six weeks after his shoulder surgery. We seemed to spend a lot of time going to town for this or that. Those little quick meals in town added up to far more than I wanted them to. We also had some home repair and maintenance expenses. April was an expensive month. May was better. I’m hoping June will be the month we get back on track.

I am absolutely loving the budgeting spreadsheet I purchased from Etsy. I was behind on entering expenses for the month of May, but it was quick and easy to do the entire month at once. We were even $14 under budget for the month. 🙂

I am finding that this is a much better tool for me to use than my old paper and pencil method. I have still have some fine-tuning to do, but I feel that each month I will do better with it.

In the Kitchen

Our younger daughter who lives with us has taken over the task of cooking dinner. She is an excellent cook and has become much better about using what we have in the freezer and pantry instead of going out and buying things. I so appreciate her doing this as it frees me up to work outdoors. She is also doing better about planning meals ahead. We decided that we would cook all the food for the weekend on Friday. We had a large pork roast in the freezer, so it will become pulled pork sandwiches. We will also make a batch of sloppy joes. This will get us through until Tuesday. If I’m feeling industrious, I might make a batch of homemade hamburger buns. Sides will be veggies or salad. The temperatures are nearing the 90s, so we’re trying to have cooler meals. By planning ahead, I hope to avoid restaurant meals for most of the month. We will go to Texas Roadhouse for our anniversary this month, so I’m trying to save the majority of our “meals out” budget for that.

In the Garden

I am so happy with my small garden space this year. The raised beds are so easy to manage. I am enjoying not having to pull weeds. Our tomatoes and peppers are settling in and starting to grow. I planted seeds for spinach, zucchini and winter squash, but so far only one zucchini has sprouted. My seeds are older, but I’m hoping the rest will come up over the next few days. If not, I’ll try again.

I shared about my rescued raised bed planters in my Garden Plans 2022 post. I think they look better all painted. I used some mis-tint paint from my stash and a stencil I bought for $3 at WalMart. I did purchase landscape fabric to keep the dirt from coming out the cracks but I have tons of it left for other projects.

I made over my planting/workbench that is next to the garden. It is a huge workbench that was here when we moved here. I cleaned it and stained the shelves using some stain I found in the shed. Then I painted the legs with some mis-tint paint I had in my stash. The biggest change was that I took the old wood off the back and made the grandkids a giant chalkboard. I used a piece of plywood my older daughter had bought for a project and never used. My only expense was a quart of chalkboard paint ($14). The grandkids are having a great time drawing and writing. Our goal is to create a fun and engaging play area so that we don’t need to go to the park. Next, we hope to make a mud kitchen.

I am happy the flowers are starting to bloom. My daughter has been making sure we have at least two arrangements of fresh flowers in the house. So far, the peonies are my favorite. I wish they bloomed all summer. The roses my dad had planted along the front fence are blooming beautifully this year.

We’ve planted wildflower seeds in several areas to encourage the bees to visit. We have a tree near our parking area that is currently blooming. It’s a very busy place! My daughter took a video.

Home and Family

I am almost finished painting the frames and shelves for the gallery wall. I seem to get distracted easily from that project. I am going to finish them this afternoon so that Grampy and I can hang them up this weekend. I still have lots of furniture to paint for the house: our bedroom furniture and end tables for the living room. I’m stuck on choosing colors.

For Mother’s Day, my gift was a painting class. There is a cute shop called Tomorrow’s Treasures in the next little town. I went and learned some chalk painting techniques. Our project was a table riser. I think it turned out pretty well and the class was a lot of fun.

My daughter is planning to redo her bathroom. I found a roll of vinyl flooring for $30 at a yard sale. She will paint the walls using paint I have left over from painting the hallway. So far, her makeover is very economical! We will need to buy paint for the vanity.

Grampy supervised (since his arm was in a sling after surgery) and I replaced a part of the subfloor in our living room. In mobile homes, the subfloor is made of particle board. We had a couple of soft spots in a high traffic area. So we purchased plywood in the same thickness as the subfloor. I cut out the parts that were soft and replaced them with the new plywood. I was exhausted by the time I was finished! We were going to replace the entire subfloor and put down new carpet, but after checking it, we found that the rest of the floor was fine. Also, with a three- and four-year-old living here, I don’t want new carpet yet. 🙂 So, we just pulled back the carpet, fixed the floor, replaced a bit of the padding and put the carpet back down. It would have been very expensive to do the project as we’d originally planned. I’m glad we chose the less expensive option for right now.

I hope to have some furniture makeovers to share soon.