Savings and Goals Journal #51

I’ve not been very active here on the blog lately, but I’m hoping to get back into a routine. Life has been busy, but happy. We are still settling in after moving last year. It is taking me a very long time to get organized, but I am making progress, and that’s what counts!

As far as our budget goes, I’m really at a point of starting over. Since moving and having my husband retire, our bills and our income have changed significantly. I’m still figuring it out and the last couple of months have been better as far as money management. Small progress is still progress! One nice thing about the little town we moved to is that there are not a lot of places to shop. No Hobby Lobby, TJ Maxx, Ross, Bath and Body Works or Target. Those are the main places I was tempted to spend money, and now I don’t live by any of them. And I don’t even miss them that much. 🙂

In the Kitchen

Weekly Meal Planning and Shopping

Once a week, usually on Friday, I sit down with a pen and a notebook and plan our meals for the upcoming week. First, I ask Grampy if he has any special requests. Sometimes I’ll suggest something if I have something I want to use up. In this case, it was two meals we had frozen: Sweet and Sour Meatballs, and Chicken Taco Soup. Grampy is pretty agreeable and not very picky, which makes meal planning much easier.

If we don’t have things in the freezer I want to use, I check the grocery ads for sales, mostly for meat. There wasn’t anything this week that we really needed.

To begin my meal plan, I make note of any special occasions for the upcoming week. This weekend is the SuperBowl, and it was requested that I make homemade pizza, so I filled that in for Sunday. Then I just filled in the other days. Sometimes our dinner the night before becomes lunch the next day for the daycare kiddos, but these aren’t really meals I’ll serve them. For this week, I’ll make other things for them.

Our menu for the week:

Planning Daycare Meals

I only plan dinner for our family, but for the daycare, I plan breakfast, lunch and two snacks. I am on the Food Program, which reimburses me for two meals and one snack per child per day. Following their guidelines isn’t really too hard and being reimbursed really helps my daycare budget.

For breakfast, I have kind of a pattern, with variations. Monday is oatmeal, Tuesday and Friday I serve eggs. Wednesday and Thursday I rotate pancakes, cereal and French toast. I change the fruit I serve based on what I have on hand or what’s on sale. Lunch is sometimes leftovers from our dinner or I also make some specific meals for daycare lunches. One of my parents loaned me a cookbook and I have two meals I made from it in the freezer, so I’ll be using those this week. My grandkids are always here on Fridays, so we make homemade pizza for lunch on Fridays. Then I just fill in the other days with foods I know they will like.

Snacks are the hardest for me to come up with. I always make quick breads or muffins for the freezer. They like cheese and crackers. I try to work in fruit pretty often. I try to keep a balance of things I know they like with a few newer or less familiar foods for them to try.

When I’m done I print the menu and post one on my fridge and one for my daycare parents.

I like to meal plan because it’s just one less decision to have to make each day, several times per day. Since I plan ahead, I have what I need on hand, so it helps me make fewer trips to the grocery store. As I am making my meal plan, I jot down what I need as I go, so doing my grocery order is very easy. I also keep a running list on a white board in the kitchen to note anything we are running low on. We are on a budget, and meal planning helps us stay on track.

Home and Family

Thrift Store Purchases

Since we are watching our pennies, I find that visiting thrift stores is a great way to find things we need (and some things we want) for a good price. My daughter and I visited several thrift stores last week and I found some things I’m very happy with! I’ve been looking for a few more Valentine’s decorations and found two pretty pictures for $1.00 each.

I paid a little more than I’d like for this cat print ($8.00), but I love it. I’m not sure about the frame and mat colors, but I’ll figure it out.

At a second thrift store, I found ten items of clothing for my grandkids. Children’s clothing is 75 cents per item there. Later we were at Walmart shopping for a birthday gift for my granddaughter and I saw a shirt that my grandson would look so handsome in, but it was $10. I was happy to have spent $8.00 on ten very nice items of clothing, rather than $10 on one thing that he will outgrow quickly anyway.

At that same thrift store, I found a small play kitchen for $5.00. I like it because it is shorter than the one I have now. I’ll clean it up and try it to see how it works with my daycare kids. They’re under 2 years old, so I think the height will be better. If they like it, I’ll give the larger one I have to my daughter. She’s been looking for one for a while and my grandson loves to play with it when he comes over.

Valentine’s Decor

Decorating my home is hard because I do daycare in our living space, and so I’m not able to have décor down lower where I can enjoy it more. But it works for me to have a few things on the shelves above the windows and out on the front porch. I bought one thing at Dollar Tree and one thing at Walmart, plus the two little pictures from the thrift store. So I spent around $6.00 on Valentine’s décor this year. I actually like the thrift store items more than the things I bought new.

DIY Projects

I’ve been working on redoing our pantry for several weeks. If you’d like to see my progress on the pantry and how I updated my closet, I’ll link my Home Updates playlist on my YouTube channel here. I’m very happy with my progress and very happy with how budget-friendly the makeovers are turning out to be!

When I’m finished with the pantry, I’ll be moving on to the linen closet in the hallway and the built-in cabinet and drawers in the grandkids’ room. They’ve just been catch-all areas since we moved here (a year ago already!) and they are in desperate need of a serious decluttering. I’ll also be painting them and figuring out good storage, in much the same way as my closet makeover. As always, I’ll be trying to use what I have and keep it budget-friendly!

See you later!