Lets Try This Again

Looking forward to the weekend, we both have busy (yet separate) Sundays on the horizon, but first up is a re-do for last Saturday.  While I haven’t confirmed this with my wife yet, I hope we are going to make a second attempt at going to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore just north of St Paul. While there is nothing we need right now, we do want to see what they have for future reference.

Other then that we need to do some food shopping/planning, and I think there is some talk about Fitness Yoga at the Y (which is free for us thanks to my father who provides our membership each year as an x-mas gift).

We’ll have the week review/update tomorrow, but at this point I expect us both to come in under the $140 goal for the week despite my previous thought I would not.

David
11/28/2009 – 12/4/2009: $30.88 Remaining
Money Saved Since 11/5/2009: $46.07

End of a long week with still one more day to go. When all is said and done, I expect to use most if not all of my weekly $140 this week.  Oh well, can’t come in under every time.

What I can count on however is winter.  We have been lucky so far this year. Summer wasn’t too terrible, so we never put in the huge ac for the first floor, and relied on open windows and box fans. Fall/winter was much the same with mild temps so the thermostat was kept relatively low – and with it our bill. Or so we thought.

Midweek

David
11/28/2009 – 12/4/2009: $47.30 Remaining
Money Saved Since 11/5/2009: $46.07

What a long week. I meal real long.  I think it’s something to do with the short holiday week prior that screws me up on weeks like this.

That and the two poor nights of sleep in a row. Well, to be honest last night wasn’t bad, just not long enough. I could have slept in, but we had a 5:45 am alarm set to go to the Y and I didn’t want to skip that.

Not much else is new really. We made it through the week pretty well so far. I will need to pick up lunch today between being in the office and a mid-afternoon meeting, but otherwise I look good for the rest of the week!

Daily Jackson? Double sawbuck? Ack. Help.

We just realized the other day that your hosts are idiots—not naming names or anything, but when we were brainstorming names for this here blog, one of us asked, “Which president is on the $20 bill?” and the other one replied, “Jefferson,” and that’s how we came up with “One Daily Jefferson.”

Well, it isn’t Jefferson at all. It’s Andrew Jackson. Did anyone actually notice the flaw and was just too polite to say so?  If so, thank you.

So, we’ll need a new name at some point. Any suggestions?

I had a pretty good spending week, which made up for last week’s epic failure. As always, the data:

$24 Eyebrow wax.
$19.62 Trader Joe’s, weekly groceries.
$14.51 Rainbow, weekly groceries.
$9.99 McDonald’s run (that’d be for two people, not just me).
$0.60 Online bill pay service fee.
$1.25 Soda at work.
$19.54 Gas for the Prius.

Total of $89.31 spent, with $50.69 going into the savings buffer. Not bad!

Meal Planning Post Turkey Day

David
11/28/2009 – 12/4/2009: $51.98 Remaining
Money Saved Since 11/5/2009: $46.07

A good start to the week, we finally had the game hen on Saturday and it was excellent, followed by a meal with my father-in-law and his family last night. Today we are having soup made from the leftovers of the game hens which should be quite good as well.

For the rest of the week we have a ton of leftovers. Meatloaf, spaghetti from last night, and pasta with TJ chicken sausage.

I also made a TJ/Rainbow run yesterday. Got stuff to make egg salad and tuna salad, as well as a bunch of fruit.  My goal is to eat cheap, while still eating healthy. First up is to get rid of enriched white flour and add more fruit to my diet.  TJ helps with the bread – they have great stuff for low-cost.  The fruit I went with whole melons and cut them up – perfect when your store sells “personal watermelons.”

Hopefully I will have little else to spend money on this week and can save the majority of the $50 or so I have left!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

David
11/28/2009 – 12/4/2009: $104.00 Remaining
Money Saved Since 11/5/2009: $46.07

Weeks like this are not much fun. So I finished the week with $10.06 remaining, which usually means my “saved” number goes up.  But this is the “bad bill” month. Every 3 months we get our trash bill and our water bill. Add on to that our extra assessment bill for the streets, and I needed to add an extra $30 to the bills over what I had budgeted.  It has to come from somewhere on this tight of a budget, so the “saved” number dropped by $30.  Oh well – at least the two bills don’t come back for 3 months, and the assessment for 12.

Add into that a meal out, and we are at $104 remaining for the week, which isn’t that bad.  We have 4 meals ready to go in the house without even shopping, so our trip to TJ/Rainbow tomorrow will be minimal.

Now it’ time to head out to do some shopping. We’re gonna check out the Habitat store, followed by some initial research on ranges.

Hard Part About The Holidays

I suppose “Black Friday” is the appropriate venue to discuss holiday gifts on a budget.  My wife and I are blessed, and cursed at the same time, with a large “nuclear” family.  Between us we have 7 parents, 3 siblings, one brother-in-law, one serious girlfriend, two nieces and 4 grandparents. And that’s immediate family only.

In past years, holiday shopping has been spendy – even if you keep the price down on any one gift, it adds up, quickly. This year however, I don’t have the luxury of a good sized budget for gifts.  What I do have is $225, or roughly $12 to spend on each person (including my wife).

Happy Turkey Day

David
11/21/2009 – 11/27/2009: $22.18 Remaining
Money Saved Since 11/5/2009: $66.01

It’s the last day of the week and I’m looking good.  I still have $22.18 left for today after spending way too much money this week on cold meds.  I’m still not feeling all that great, but I’ll survive.

We have dinner stuff in the house so that takes care of that meal, so it is just what to do about lunch.  For next week, I am trying to work out a new eating plan – one that is low cost, and low calorie as I am working on loosing weight.  I have a rough sketch, and need to figure it out firmly before we go shop.

In other news, we are beginning to look into a new stove for the house. The one that came with is useless. It cooks at odd temps and is hard to keep clean. In typical “us” fashion, I am sure it will take us weeks to have the research we need to make a decision (in general, anything non-electronic that cost more then $10 takes us a month or two – or more – to make a decision on).  It’s a lot to spend, but it’s such a vital appliance for us. We’ll keep you informed.

Sunday Shopping Saved By Farve

David
11/21/2009 – 11/27/2009: $68.52 Remaining
Money Saved Since 11/5/2009: $66.01

Grocery shopping on the weekend sucks – everyone is out doing the same thing and the stores are packed. So we just naturally assumed that weekend shopping before Thanksgiving would be even worse.  But what choice did we have, if we don’t shop on the weekend we know we won’t shop at all, and it will be takeout all week.

Takeout = money we can’t afford to spend.

Jen, Two Weeks In

David has been the more prolific poster so far, but I wanted to check in with my stats quickly. The first week went fantastically well for both of us.

 I spent:

$45.88 Groceries for the week.
$6.53 Lunch on Monday when I forgot to pack one.
$1.25 A soda at work.
$14.95 My monthly Audible subscription. I keep forgetting I have this; I signed up when they had a “pay only $7.95 for the first three months deal” and neglected to cancel it when the deal ran out. I redeemed my stack of credits last night, which will keep me in audiobooks for quite awhile, and plan to cancel the account as soon as I can download the books.

Total of $68.61 spent, and $71.39 going into the project savings buffer. Not bad! 

The second week, I am very sorry to report, was less than successful. My stats:

$18.30 Trader Joe’s for weekly groceries.
$6.00 My first-ever purchase at a thrift store! More on this later.
$2.50 Sodas at work.
$30.00 Refilled my bus pass.
$101.96 Refilled my contact lens prescription.
$21.00 My sweetie has been sick with a head cold and upset stomach, and a comforting broth-y noodle soup from our favorite Cambodian place was in order.
$7.00 I overslept badly on Friday morning and needed to drive to work (it’s faster than bussing) and pay for parking downtown.
$5.28 Snack at work when I was working late one evening.

Total of $192.04 spent, over by $52.04 and absolutely nothing going into the project savings buffer. If I hadn’t needed new contacts, I would have been in great shape, but it had to be done; my contract is tentatively scheduled to end on Friday and my eye doctor’s office is right down the street.

Oh, well, onward and upward!