Monthly Shopping Goals: July 2015

I can't believe it's July 1st already (and Happy Canada Day to our friends in the Great White North!).

So it's time to make shopping goals for this month.  I'm still trying very hard to save money somehow (if things would quit breaking and we stop having dentist and doctor's visits that'd be great), so my shopping goals for this month are once again going to be pretty conservative...well kind of.  I'm trying really hard to rebuild food storage on top of saving money, so I do have some loftier goals in the hopes I can make some of them (food storage with allergies:  Food storage ain't cheap).

I managed to get everything on my shopping goals list for last month with the exception of garlic stuffed olives and adding machine tape.  The adding machine tape, since I can do math by paper and pencil, is going to wait I think until a time when I have more wiggle room with money.  The garlic stuffed olives, however, are going to be a priority for me this month as my son does like them.

So, here we go!

Shopping Goals for July 2015:


Bulk Stores:

• 1 Big jar garlic stuffed olives (I saw these were a LOT cheaper in bulk, so I'm hoping my son will go for them)
• 1 Block of cheddar cheese (this I might try and do three trips through Carrs for as they are on sale for 5.99 this week with an in-ad coupon, I believe, but that will depend on gas and how motivated I am to go into a store that much).
• 1 flat canned peaches
• 1 jug of olive oil
• 1 container of lemonade (my husband and I find we really like lemonade as a good alternative to water with dinner).

Regular Stores:

• 12 cans each cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup 

I don't buy Campbell's because of various reasons, but I like the store generic brand at Carrs, so I'll be going with that.  I figure I'll break this down into 4 cans of each per week, so it won't make me feel odd spending like nearly 24 bucks just on canned creamed soups.  I love to have these around, though, for casseroles and such, so I like to buy about a year's worth a time.

Amazon.com:

This is iffy, but if I have some wiggle room I want to get...

• Freezer Bags
• Crystalized Ginger (Amazon carries a brand called GERBS, which is top 10 food allergen free, yeah for peanut free!).
• GERBS Dried Banana Chips (I've tried to dry my own, but they always come out way too sticky and I end up with a glob of dried banana instead of chips.  I'm figuring on just ordering some instead).
• Dried Figs (if the price is right, otherwise I'll watch for sales locally).

Local Farm Stands:

• Potatoes (a lot of the farms are liquidating last year's potato crop in preparation of getting THIS year's potato crop, so I'm hoping to run into cheap potatoes)
• Any deals on cheap fresh fruit (I keep hoping to repeat the miracle of cheap apples from last winter.  I've also run into crates of fruit going for decently cheap in the past, so I'm hopeful anyway)

And so, there are my shopping goals for this month.  Some of them are probably more realistic than others, but we'll see how it goes.

Menu Plan (Not) Monday: Menu for Week of 6/29/15

Wow, I'm behind this week!  I'm super busy with events and just generally trying to get things done (which I am on very little sleep, so hey at least there's that right?).

I didn't post this Monday because it was my Anniversary Monday and I was at a loss of what to make seeing as how my freezer is pretty much just chicken central right now and we're kind of sparse on specialty ingredients.  I finally decided to just make dinner like I do every night, but went out and picked fresh lettuce right when my husband got home for dinner that night.  Really fresh lettuce did up the quality of the meal and even my husband mentioned how delicious it was, so hey, I'm good!

Yesterday ended up being busy just because I was exhausted for 90% of the day and then ended up with an emergency sewing project to do last night, so I was doing that till 10:00...you get the idea.

Menu Plan for Week of 6/29/15

Monday:  Baked Chicken, garlic bread, salad

Tuesday:  Ham (from freezer), Au Gratin Potatoes, Salad

Wednesday:  Mustard Pork Chops, biscuits, salad

Thursday:  Ham salad sandwiches

Friday:  Honey Chipolte Chicken, mashed potatoes, salad (seeing a pattern with the veggie *laugh*)

Saturday:  4th of July menu  (coming later)

Sunday:  Leftovers (of which there will be plenty I'm sure) 

Monthly Goal Update and This Week's Goals

This week actually saw a decent week in productivity around here.  I still had to run the air conditioner a couple of times just to pull the humidity out of the air, but the last couple of days we've seen a blessed reduction in the heat wave we've been having.  Now I'll just pray for some rain to help the poor fire fighters who are fighting fires in our state.

So, anyway here's what I got accomplished on my goals list this week.

1.  I had a good amount of productivity on the sewing front.  I made two table runners (one you can see in my Frugal Friday post further down the blog) one of which is a patriotic tablecloth for the Fourth of July this coming weekend.  I was rather proud of the star table runner, as one of the things I wanted to avoid was trying to sew the stars on one at a time with complicated seams, so I just made the stars out of denim and went with a fray starred effect.  And it worked fabulously!

I also made four place mats (only two are seen to show off the table runner a bit better), four cloth napkins (seen), a few handkerchiefs and two dish towels.  I've been needing to get the place mats, napkins (still have more of those to go), handkerchiefs and dish towels done, so it was a good feeling to get those checked off my list.  I still have more to go, but at least I made a dent in the pile of things I needed to get done.

I also made four napkin rings (seen above).  I keep looking for cheap napkin rings at the used stores but haven't found any that I was interested in getting, so I figured, "What the Heck" and made some out of good old fashioned plastic screening and yarn.  I've been making things out of plastic screening since I was little, so I was able to make four napkin rings in an hour with a break in between to get my son drinks and such.  I want to make some more out of different colors (I have a huge package of plastic screening I got, oh geez, two years ago or so?) so that I have a versatile selection of napkin rings.  I might get creative if I can find some different colors of yarn around here as well.

2.  I planted turnip seeds where the other potatoes I had planted didn't sprout and I'm waiting to see if the seeds take or not.  Since I'm having to just water them by hand, vs. letting the rain do it's voodoo and I'm not sure if the birds get in the garden or not, we'll see how well it goes.

3.  I made some progress on my hallway closet and sewing area.  I put the majority of bulk cloth I had into the hallway closet, kind of just pushing things out of the way to get it done, but it's in there.  I managed to get the majority of the sewing area cleaned up as well.  For the time being I'm kind of using the top of the TV cabinet we got as a mini cutting table as I just couldn't find a good way to reorganize the room to get the yard sale stuff out of the way without making the room impossible to play in, which wasn't going to fly with the kids.  So, I'll just make do with the area the way it is for the time being.

And yeah, that's about all I've gotten done this week.  Doesn't seem like much, but I was happy with the work I got done.

My goals for this week are:

1.  Hopefully muck out 40' van some more (weather just didn't agree with my plans this week, or the kids).

2.  Work on shopping goals for next month.

3.  Make jam, weather (temperature) permitting.

4.  Make some more cloth napkins and some more handkerchiefs.

5.  Darn husband's socks.

6.  Mend four other items.

7.  Bake bread, cookies (I keep promising my daughter that we'll get to the chocolate chip cookies and I just keep finding other things that need to get done first.  I really need to get this done).

8.  Harvest kale and prep huge amount in fridge for storage in freezer.

9.  Make out menu for 4th of July and work on fun themed thing for the holiday.

10.  Work on son's curtains (I keep putting this off.  I hate doing curtains *laugh*).

And there you are folks.  My goals for this week.  Here's hoping I can get some of it done!

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

This was a good week on the saving money front.  So, let's just jump right in shall we?

1.  I harvested LOADS of lettuce and kale from the garden this week, as well as parsley, oregano, chives, sage and rosemary.  I was also able to harvest two more pieces of rhubarb from my yard, which I cut into pieces and froze in the same bag as the last two pieces of rhubarb I harvested went.

I actually harvested so much lettuce that I was able to give some to a friend of mine, who is also a therapist for my son, so it's always nice to be able to give her some lettuce during the summer to say, "I appreciate what you are doing for my son."

I did an inventory of the rest of the things in the yard that I want to harvest this year.  The raspberries aren't looking too promising this year.  Between a winter that was all over the map for weather, but not a lot of snowfall, the raspberries would already be kind of sparse, but than we had really young and obnoxious moose that was in my yard through a good part of the winter and ate every single raspberry bush he could find down to nothing.  So, I'm down about five raspberry bushes this year as they just plain died.  I have managed to find four remaining, but they are fighting with massive amounts of underbrush for nutrients and what little rain we're getting, so I'm not sure how great they are going to do this year.

The fireweed (a local wild growing flower) is kind of late getting started in my yard this year and doesn't seem half as prolific as normal, but I'm still hoping to get enough blossoms harvested this summer for a decent amount of jelly.

The wild rosebushes in my yard, however, are going absolutely insane this year, so at least, if nothing else, I'll be able to harvest rose hips to make jelly out of.

The garden is doing well.  The lettuce is ready to be harvested again (thank goodness we love salad with dinner *laugh*) and the kale is nearly ready to have some more harvested off of it too.  The tomatoes are getting bigger, so I'm really optimistic that I'll be able to get some decent sized tomatoes this year and both plants are still flowering like mad, so we'll see how many tomatoes I can get during our short growing season.

2.  Other than my son's therapy sessions, we kind of stayed home and chilled this week.  Both kids are still fighting off the last effects of the cold we had and I've been busy with at-home things like pantry organization and such, so it was probably for the best that we stayed put.

3.  Our local car dealership sent out another mailer in which we "won" a 5.00 Wal-Mart giftcard (they have promotions where every mailer is a winner, which is the 5.00 gift card, which is what we always get *laugh*).  I went in while the family stayed in the car as you have to sit through the, "So, are you considering buying a new car anytime soon" speech, which was actually kind of nice as the salesman I got was not only funny, but also really nice about getting me out of there.

4.  I cashed in some Swagbucks, got some Amazon giftcards and went and got my daughter a couple "Fancy Nancy" books.  I'm not big on doing schoolwork obsessively over the summer, but these books have been wonderful to encourage her to read, so even though it's taking up Swagbucks and Amazon giftcards by association to do it, I find getting the books more than worth it.

5.  I made all of our meals at home, which saved us money and I've been, as usual, careful to make sure that I use up our leftovers so things don't go to waste.

6. 

I scored free mayonnaise today!  Just as an FYI this works without a coupon for the local peeps.

Carrs, our local Safeway affiliate has mayonnaise on sale buy one get one free for certain brands, so I was figuring I'd at least get some of that to get cheap mayonnaise.  I ran into the squeeze bottles of Canola type on clearance for 50% off (they have lots of others on sale for the 50% off down the condiment isle.  This was at Palmer Carrs, FYI).  I grabbed two, figuring at 50% off at least I'd get two things of mayonnaise for like .90 a piece after the 50% off and the B1G1 promotion were taken.  BUT, the computer takes off the original price on the free item, so you end up with two 50% off coupons being applied on top of that, so you get two things of mayonnaise for free plus overage just with the store coupons and the sale!  If I had known it was going to work that way I would have bought a couple more containers of mayonnaise, but that's okay, I don't need tons or anything and this way I save the deal for others too.

I was also at our local bulk store earlier in the week where they had a container of mayonnaise for .99.  I had a 1.00/1 coupon from a thing my mom sent me, so I was able to get a container of mayonnaise for free.  I also had a personalized price of 2.99 for Miracle Whip this week at Carrs, found a container for 50% off so once the 50% off got taken off my personalized price it came down to 1.50, about.  I then had a 1.00/1 coupon I'd gotten printed off at the register a while back that was about to expire, so I got a container of Miracle Whip for .50!

The Crest I got for .25 after a 1.00/1 Catalina/Store print out coupon that I had that was about to expire.

So, yeah, as store freebies and sales went I felt pretty good about today.  Can't beat free when you are trying to make shopping goals for the month :).

7.  I sewed two dish towels, some handkerchiefs and two table runners this week, one of which is seen above.  There will be more on that in my Monthly Goal Update as I'm hoping to get a few more things done before Sunday, but I feel good about what I got accomplished so far.

So, that's what I accomplished on the money saving front this week.  How did you do? 

Thrifty Thursday: Yard Sale and Thrift Store Finds

This week turned out to be a good week for yard sale and thrift store finds.  My husband was especially happy with his Father's Day present, although he's already talking about buying oak planks to redo it, so yeah...it might get kind of expensive to get it restored (my husband has been longing for a good project to do, though, so I'm glad for him).

So, here's what we were able to find this week.

1.  We went to one of our local used stores first and the man who was running the counter that day (the used store is owned by a married couple) laughed as he heard me gasp in excitement.

I found a vintage 2 1/2 quart casserole in the Verde design (the bottom casserole seen above) for 8.00.  Not the cheapest find in the world, but it is so rare to find casseroles with their lids, especially the colored casseroles, that I had to have it.  I use my vintage Pyrex dishes constantly, so it was well worth the investment.

2.  Father's Day we went yard sale hopping to see if we could find any cool things.  I had my daughter give my husband her surprise gift early, instead of for Christmas, and he loved the custom designed mug she made for him with pictures of her and my son on it.  I got my husband a print of an old time world map.  It was smaller than I would have liked, but after I put it in a frame it came out looking pretty good.  My son had made my husband something for Father's Day at school, so I figured that Father's Day was taken care of.  Ahhh, but then we found the cabinet at a yard sale (seen above).

It is a combination TV, record player and stereo cabinet.  It is old enough that the TV has replaceable tubes in it.  The guy who was selling it had gotten it from his mother and when they ran out of space he'd put it in storage.  They were having to move due to lack of another needed bedroom, so he decided to sell the cabinet for 30.00.

The top of the cabinet needs work/needs to be replaced as the veneer that was originally on it has seen a lot of abuse, is chipping away and is out and out shot.  And the planks below the veneer aren't much better.  But the guts of the cabinet are good and the front of it is actually in decent shape other than the spot seen above in the lower left quadrant is going to need some added sealing as the finish got something spilled down it and got eaten away.  We've got to replace a tube in the TV (oddly enough, still available) and the record player needs some minor repair work done on the wiring (luckily my husband knows how to do all of that).  For 30.00, though, it was a nice find.

3.  At the same yard sale I was able to pick up two vintage casserole dishes in the cornflower blue pattern (the blue flowered dishes in the pile there).  I was able to get both with the lids, which was an awesome find.  Paid 1.00 a piece for them, which was a great find to top out the day.

In other news, I swear the way it is going I'm going to have Pyrex/Corelle/Corning Ware from every single line by the time I'm old.  I never seem to run into the same pattern twice *laugh*.  Love it all, though.

And there you are folks.  My thrifty finds for this week.  I hope you had some fun, too!

Menu Plan Monday: Menu for week of 6/22/15

Um, so yeah, last week I didn't have a menu plan, so much as a plan that went something like this, "Step One:  Feed family and make sure to feed them so they are content eating what you serve.  Step Two:  Refer to Step One."  And, while not the most organized plan in the world, it did work.

This week you'll probably notice what seems to be repeats in the menu plan, but nope, they are actually recipes that I ended up not doing on the menu plans of the past due to the husband's work schedule, something not defrosting in time, etc.  So, we'll see how well I can do THIS week to keep on the menu plan.

I'm trying to use the crock pot as a time saving device more.  Right now my son is in summer intensive therapy (twice a week Occupation Therapy and twice a week Speech Therapy) and I'm seriously considering upping him to three times a week in speech until school starts up again.  So, some days I'm feeling like I have wheels instead of feet.

Menu Plan for Week of 6/22/15

Monday:  Leftover tacos (any left overs from tacos make into brown bag burritos and put in freezer).

Tuesday:  Honey Mustard Crock Pot chicken, salad, rice

Wednesday:  Hawaiian Meatballs (potentially in crock pot), salad, mashed potatoes

Thursday:  Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, salad (use leftover meatloaf for open faced meatloaf sandwiches for lunch)

Friday:  Balsamic Chicken, garlic toast, kale

Saturday:  Pork chops, rice, salad w/ home made vinaigrette

Sunday:    Crock Pot Pesto Chicken, pesto pasta (serve chicken in pasta), salad, garlic toast

Desserts:  Jello w/ whipped topping, apple crumble, Apple Brown Betty

Monthly Goal Update and This Week's Goals

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there!

Well I can safely say *holds finger aloft with purpose* that I got next to NOTHING done on my weekly goal list last week.   Please, please, hold the applause.

Seriously though, between the head cold, then the antibiotics and then the heat, I was happy to just get through the week.  Luckily, the heat has broken a bit now, although the humidity is high, but no rain as of yet, so I am kind of grumpy as I go out to water the garden when it keeps looking like it is going to rain.

I slept later today than I have in a long time and was still dragging myself out of bed when I got up, so I'm hoping that means I'm going to start doing better here as I am, whether I like it or not, getting rest.

I manged to get a few minor things done on my monthly goals this week, anyway.

1.  I finished my current embroidery project (seen up top).  The doily was a stamped kit I found at the used store, but without thread or instructions, just the stamped cloth.  So, I thought it might be fun to do.  I made my own color pattern and went with it.

Three weeks later, doing the work  on and off during my son's therapies and such and I finally got it done this week since one of the few things I was up to doing was sitting on my behind.

I have to say, as kits go this was harder than I thought it would be.  Mainly because the cloth was so loosely woven compared to what I like to work with when I do my own embroidery projects.  The thread kept getting lost among the woven fabric so I'd have to do the same line of stem stitch two or three times in places to have the work show up.

Overall:  I like the finished project.  Will I be doing another kit like this?  Probably not.

It does make a nice landing platform for my desk lamp though, so I'm not complaining.

2.  I cleaned out some more on my hallway closet and placed my tablecloths and what few cloth napkins I have in the closet for easy access (obviously it still needs work).  I've still got a ways to go on the pantry and hallway closet areas.  My final plan, I hope, is to move all of my food based things down into the pantry and then use my hallway closet as  linen cabinet, a mini appliance barn and a spot to put extra fabric for my sewing projects (more on that later).

3.  I ended up tearing down my entire cloth storage area in my sewing area in my den because my husband found a TV/stereo/turntable cabinet that he really liked for 30.00 at a garage sale today.  My husband and I both love vintage things, but my husband is way more into vintage electronics than I am (but, hey I'm way more into vintage dishes than he is so it's all good).  There had been a stereo/turntable cabinet at a used store that was going out of business last year for 75.00 that ended up getting away from him because we didn't have the money and he's regretted it ever since, so when we saw that cabinet at the yard sale for 30.00 I couldn't say no to getting it.

I've got to redo my den this week to see if I can clean out the final destination area for said stereo cabinet cleaned out (under where we hang out coats in the den) so I can set back up my sewing area, but even when I set it back up, I've got to get a better system of organization going for the sewing area as it was looking kind of bad with things just stacked anywhere there was room, etc.  It'll be a challenge for this week as we have a ton of stuff in the den right now that I've already gotten out of the 40' van in preparation for a yard sale, so space in the den is most definitely limited.

4.  I managed to sew a second table cloth this week and got it folded and put away.

5.  I did manage to prune the tomato plants and they are looking nice.


So, here are this week's goals:

1.  Get sewing area set back up and organized better.

2.  Make some dish towels.

3.  Make some cloth napkins.

4.  Make handkerchiefs for daughter.

5.  Start on husband's birthday gift.

6.   Work on curtains for son's room.

7.  Work on mucking out 40' van and prepare for yard sale.

8.  Bake bread and cookies.

9.  Hopefully reorder time and space to find time to make jam, weather permitting.

10.  Plant turnip seeds where other 3 potatoes did not grow (the package says 50 days to harvest...we'll test that theory).

And there you are folks.  My goals for this week.  How did your week go?