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.

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.

After months of gas/electric bills in the mid-$60′s and $70′s, last month jumped and almost went over the dreaded (in our house) $100 mark. Part of it was we raised the temp on the programmable thermostat. The other part is me working from home – meaning instead of it dropping to 55 degrees from 9am – 4pm, it stays up so I don’t get sick from sitting in an icebox.

We will spend some time this weekend making sure we have plugged as many leaky windows as possible, and will re-evaluate our electric blanket/electric throw distribution and strategy as well to see how we can lower our energy use from a “green” standpoint (both environmental green and money green).

I’m also very tempted to get one of these. It comes with a ring that you install over your electrical box outside and provides real-time data on energy use and cost. We have some electrical powered space heaters and I wonder how cost-effective they really are compared to the natural gas to run the furnace. Plus, since the gas and electric are on the same bill, if we can find ways to cut costs on the electrical portion, we can lower the overall hit each month.

In other “money-saving” news, today was a trip to the vet for the cat. While her vet costs are in my “other” stack for bills and stuff and not a part of this project, I am still always pleased when I can save some money here and there. We use Banfield for the pets, and while our dog is on a wellness plan that provides free vet visits, our cat is on a pay as you go deal.  She needed a booster shot today, so rather than pay for a visit, we took advantage of Banfield’s “wellness hours” for healthy animals who just need a once-over or shots.  It’s first come first serve, but the office visit is free, all you have to pay for is the shot – a savings of about $25.

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!

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!

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!

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.

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).

So this year it will be about the personal gifts, thinking outside the box, and all that jazz.  My nieces, both 5 and under, will still get store-bought gifts, but everyone else will not.

Part of me is looking forward to this challenge; what can we do that is unique to my wife and I, and still “gifty” when received by family?  We have some ideas already, but there is still a lot of planning to be done.

The exercise also helps me think about things I need, vs things I want. When you plan to not spend much money on gifts, it is hard to ask for anything from people. So when they ask what you want for the holidays and your birthday, one’s mind quickly removes the frivolous things that are unnecessary in the current state of our lives.

Would I like a pasta press? Sure I would.  But it is not as important as other things. So my goal is if people still wish to get me stuff, to make sure it is things that fit into overall goals I may have right now – and use those gifts as a way to improve my life in quantifiable measures, or at least more then $225 would have bought me otherwise.

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.

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.

So we treated ourselves to breakfast out at Copper Dome, a place that is quickly becoming our favorite breakfast location in the Twin Cities, and then headed to Trader Joe’s – prepared for a nuthouse.

We snagged a parking spot quick, counting ourselves lucky, and then headed into the store to find…..

NOTHING!

It was almost empty. Lots of carts, lots of baskets, no screaming kids and people trying to get past folks stopped in the isle.  Nothing.

And then it hit me…our shopping excursion has been saved by the patron saint of Minnesota…Brett Farve! With the Vikings playing (and doing so well) everyone was home watching and not out shopping!

We quickly grabbed what we needed and headed to Rainbow to get the rest – finding the same empty store we experienced at TJ’s. We got 5 meals, for which I spent $15.60 at TJ’s and $10.14 at Rainbow.  Jen spent a little more but not by much.

I also spent $20 at the Copper Dome and $12.40 the night before on some food from the Chinese restaurant.

For her part, Jen is never shopping at the grocery again unless the Vikings are playing.

 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!