September Finances, Part 1

In the interest of complete full disclosure, I am going to share with you our check book register (seriously . . . register or registry?) and our budget for the month of September.  I think it's pretty self explanatory, but here's where our money has gone this month.  One of our goals next month is to cut the amount of purchases we have, mainly with groceries.  As I said here our budget is $400 per month for groceries, and we're going to try to spend $100 per week.  This week we did really great with that, spending $100.98 on groceries (if you're really paying attention, you'll notice that we actually spent an extra $40 at Walmart, but that was for toilet paper and The Avengers movie, which my son paid for out of his birthday money).  There were also several runs to local grocery stores, which ends up costing more because prices are more expensive where I live versus the 30 minutes south where there's a Walmart.  DNR is a grocery store where we buy our produce and meat, but it's also a closer drive than Pen going all the way to the other side of town for the Walmart.

I made this in a Microsoft Excel document.  The reason I didn't use the little insert that always comes with checks is because we do a lot of our spending with our debit card.  It was just easier for me to keep tabs with out money in the Excel document, but use whatever works for you! 

Again, if you're really paying attention (I'll give you a cookie the next time I see you!), you'll notice that I paid someone to clean my house.  I actually did that in August when I was having company over for the weekend.  I did that before we made the decision to change our spending habits, and I regret wasting that $30, because she didn't really even do that good of a job.

I kept on this all month, updating it every day so we always knew exactly how much money we had.  My goal was to end of the month of September with $600, but we just had too many bills to catch up on.  It's a noble goal for a future month . . . sometime . . . eventually.

So without further adieu, here is our check book register/registry for September:

Check #	Amount	Item	Date	Balance
ATM	-20.00	ATM Withdrawal, Movie	9/4/2012	465.84
Debit	-27.08	Amazon, School supplies	9/4/2012	438.76
Debit	-92.96	Cell Phone	9/4/2012	345.80
107	-106.75	Internet	9/4/2012	239.05
1131	-134.00	Daycare, 8/13 - 8/17	9/4/2012	105.05
1139	-30.00	Housecleaning	9/4/2012	75.05
Debit	-10.00	Fuel - Me	9/5/2012	65.05
1135	-10.00	Check cashed at hospital	9/5/2012	55.05
Deposit	411.06	Paycheck - Penn	9/6/2012	466.11
Deposit	3000.00	Tuition Check	9/6/2012	3466.11
Debit	-15.01	Fuel - Penn	9/6/2012	3451.10
Auto	-54.56	Dish Network	9/6/2012	3396.54
Debit	-0.33	PMH - Test	9/6/2012	3396.21
Deposit	697.65	Paycheck - Me	9/7/2012	4093.86
Debit	-2912.50	Tuition Payment	9/7/2012	1181.36
1083	-618.54	House Payment	9/7/2012	562.82
Debit	-65.00	Internet	9/7/2012	497.82
1140	-115.00	Daycare, 9/3 - 9/7	9/7/2012	382.82
1182	-33.00	School Pictures	9/7/2012	349.82
Debit	-10.00	Fuel - Penn	9/7/2012	339.82
Debit	-5.98	Groceries - DNR	9/7/2012	333.84
Debit	-51.83	Fuel - Penn	9/8/2012	282.01
Debit	-5.05	Groceries - DNR	9/7/2012	276.96
Debit	-3.25	Groceries - IGA	9/7/2012	273.71
Debit	-20.00	Fuel - Me	9/9/2012	253.71
Debit	-5.00	Groceries - Family Express (milk)	9/9/2012	248.71
1084	-5.00	Check cashed at hospital	9/7/2012	243.71
1085	-182.77	Utilities	9/10/2012	60.94
Deposit	79.20	Return from Amazon	9/10/2012	140.14
Deposit	40.00	Transfer from Mine to Main	9/10/2012	180.14
Debit	-18.74	Decorations for Party	9/11/2012	161.40
Debit	-2.05	Groceries - DNR (lettuce for tacos)	9/11/2012	159.35
Debit	-0.42	Excess from gift card	9/11/2012	158.93
1086	-112.00	Daycare, 9/10 - 9/14	9/12/2012	46.93
Debit	-28.19	Groceries - Walmart	9/12/2012	18.74
Deposit	507.17	Paycheck - Penn	9/13/2012	525.91
Debit	-1.69	Snack - Family Express	9/12/2012	524.22
Auto	-88.09	Car Insurance	9/13/2012	436.13
Debit	-1.19	Hospital - Breakfast	9/13/2012	434.94
Debit	-1.07	Snack - Family Dollar	9/12/2012	433.87
Auto	-59.76	Sallie Mae	9/16/2012	374.11
Debit	-125.48	FedLoan	9/13/2012	248.63
Debit	-2.99	Hospital - Lunch	9/13/2012	245.64
1087	-4.48	Stamps - Party Invitations	9/13/2012	241.16
Debit	-8.41	Groceries - DNR	9/13/2012	232.75
Debit	-2.48	Groceries - IGA	9/13/2012	230.27
Debit	-25.78	Groceries - DNR	9/14/2012	204.49
Debit	-2.25	Groceries - IGA	9/14/2012	202.24
Debit	-5.00	Groceries - Family Express (milk)	9/14/2012	197.24
Debit	-20.25	Groceries - IGA	9/14/2012	176.99
Deposit	48.00	Return from Amazon	9/14/2012	224.99
Debit	-48.07	Internet	9/17/2012	176.92
Debit	-3.50	Groceries - Dollar General (chips)	9/17/2012	173.42
Debit	-30.00	Fuel - Penn	9/17/2012	143.42
Debit	-30.02	Fuel - Me	9/18/2012	113.40
Debit	-5.00	Groceries - Family Express (milk)	9/18/2012	108.40
Debit	-1.69	Snack - Family Express	9/18/2012	106.71
1088	-10.00	Groceries - School Lunch	9/18/2012	96.71
Deposit	433.65	Paycheck - Penn	9/20/2012	530.36
Auto	-283.61	Car Payment	9/20/2012	246.75
1089	-115.00	Daycare, 9/17 - 9/21	9/20/2012	131.75
Deposit	705.44	Paycheck - Me	9/21/2012	837.19
Debit	-18.19	Party - Games, Favors	9/21/2012	819.00
Debit	-30.00	Prescriptions	9/21/2012	789.00
Debit	-20.00	Groceries - Walmart	9/21/2012	769.00
Debit	-32.34	Party - Walmart	9/21/2012	736.66
Debit	-7.78	Groceries - IGA	9/21/2012	728.88
Debit	-16.06	Party - Balloons	9/21/2012	712.82
Debit	-9.75	Groceries - IGA	9/21/2012	703.07
Debit	-3.21	Groceries - Family Dollar	9/21/2012	699.86
Debit	-43.26	Eating out	9/22/2012	656.60
Debit	-110.06	Gas Bill	9/24/2012	546.54
1090	-10.00	Check cashed at hospital	9/20/2012	536.54
1091	-176.55	Utilities	9/24/2012	359.99
Debit	-30.01	Fuel - Penn	9/21/2012	329.98
Debit	-30.17	Fuel - Me	9/25/2012	299.81
1092	-115.00	Daycare, 9/24 - 9/28	9/26/2012	184.81
Debit	-30.00	Fuel - Penn	9/27/2012	154.81
Debit	-6.87	Groceries - IGA	9/26/2012	147.94
Deposit	438.33	Paycheck - Penn	9/27/2012	586.27
Debit	-108.92	Cell Phone	9/27/2012	477.35
Debit	-16.54	Netflix	9/27/2012	460.81
Debit	-40.98	Groceries - DNR	9/27/2012	419.83
Debit	-99.79	Groceries - Walmart	9/27/2012	320.04

Dinner and budgets

Tonight Pen did some grocery shopping, so I wanted to make something quick for dinner that would be almost ready by the time he got home.  I decided on sloppy joes and macaroni and cheese.  I use my dad's sloppy joes recipe, which is about as easy as you can get.  Brown a pound of hamburger, then add BBQ sauce (we prefer Sweet Baby Ray's).  Friends of mine have explained their sloppy joes recipes to me, and I can't help but think that our recipe is the easiest one out there (I don't like the crap that comes in a can). 

Pen doesn't like the boxed macaroni and cheese, and I grew up with my mom making mostly homemade, so we've always had that.  In fact, the Piglets won't even eat the boxed stuff if it's offered to them.  We add three hand fulls of elbow macaroni to boiling, salted water, then cook until done.  Drain, then add about a cup of cut up Velveeta, 2 tablespoons of butter, and about a half of cup of milk.  Easy!

I've been working on out budget for the month of October.  It's much easier now that I know how much our monthly bills are!  We came in under budget for groceries and fuel, but we decided to keep those as is for a few months ($400 for groceries, $350 for fuel) and tracking it a little more before making any changes. 

Here I told you that we paid an extra $622 to catch up on bills, but I lied!  I forgot about our cell phone bill that was due today (we paid the bill that was due in August during the first or second week of September).  That brings our total to $715.  I never dreamed that we would get all our bills paid off in one month.  That just shows me how much money we were wasting! 

We've switched most of our bills to electronic bills for two reasons.  The first reason is because it's just better for the environment.  The second reason is because I generally always misplace the bills.  Instead, I've started to keep track of the all our bills and their estimated due dates in a Microsoft Word document.  I've put all our bills in the order they're due, as well as our estimated paychecks (I underestimate our income and overestimate our bills!).  I fill out the projected portion of our budget at the beginning of the month, but it helps to know when bills are due compared with when we get paid.  For this, I've included all our normal bills (mortgage, car payment, insurance, daycare, Internet, utilities, etc), as well as groceries and fuel.  This has shown me where our tighter weeks are, and where we can afford to go a little over budget when needed.

This month we're going to focus on our grocery bill.  As I said above, we've budgeted $400 per month for groceries, and we're trying to break that down to $100 per week.  Pen will go grocery shopping on Wednesday or Thursday nights and buy groceries that we need for the following week.  I make our our menus a month in advance, so the grocery list pretty much writes itself.  We were 98 cents over budget for this week's worth of groceries.  Here's our dinner menu for the week:

Tonight: Sloppy joes, macaroni and cheese
Tomorrow: Pizza and french bread
Saturday: Pork Steaks, yet-to-be-determined-side-dish-but-probably-macaroni-and-cheese
Sunday: Smoked ham, cheese potatoes
Monday: Spaghetti, homemade garlic bread
Tuesday: Tacos
Wednesday: Soup & grilled cheese
Thursday: Pork burger sandwiches, chips

Now I'm off to watch Grey's Anatomy.  And probably cry.

(Almost) One month down!

I can't believe we're closing in on the end of September already!  This has been an amazing month, one filled with challenges but great accomplishments as well.  I am very proud of my family and myself for the amazing job we've done this month in getting ourselves together.  On Sunday, I'll post our budget and our check book register (or is it registry?  I've never figured this out) so you can all see what we did. 

All of our bills for the month of September have been paid, with the exception of a medical bill I will send off in the mail today.  We have some money left over at the end of our month (instead of month left over at the end of our money), which is amazing!  We don't have enough to pay our mortgage by the October 1st due date, but we will on October 4th, which is a great improvement from previous months where we've had to wait for my second paycheck to come in!  Small victories! 

In total, we spent an extra $622 catching up on bills from previous months, including daycare, utilities, Internet, student loans, and our gas bill.  Pen has only worked one week of overtime this month, so we were able to catch up on those bills with money we already had coming in, not because Pen was getting overtime!

From last month, we saved $404 by limiting the amount of times we ate out (which will be one time in 30 days).  We've saved $80 from not buying pizza alone!  We've saved $65 in fuel for our cars by sticking close to home (that's an entire tank of gas for the van!).  We've saved $112 by not buying snacks and fountain sodas at the gas station after the kiddos are in bed.  I'm also 8 pounds down, and that doesn't suck!

Next month will be exciting.  I'm starting the 31 Days Challenge which will include how we're saving and spending for Christmas, as well as how we're decorating for fall/Halloween, throwing a birthday party and a Halloween party on a budget, and making the Piglets' costumes.  I'm also looking forward to seeing a little more money left over at the end of every week!  We'll be paying off the couch and hopefully there will be enough money to buy a new dishwasher to replace the one that's been broken the entire month of September.  I see ourselves making better money decisions, and hopefully not being so hard on ourselves when we slip up. 

What changes have you made this month, or are you inspired to make next month?  Anyone else doing the 31 Days Challenge?

Meal planning

Our grocery allowance for this month was $400.  I have no idea how much it actually costs to feed a family of four because we ate out so often in the past, so I picked $400 as a goal to stick to.  Some months we will spend less, and other months we will spend more.  I do think of myself has a thrifty shopper on a regular basis, but we have been extra thrifty in the previous 24 days.  I actually checked a sales add or two this month.  Amazing.  I envy those people who are "extreme couponers" - I really do.  I want to be you.  The time or two that I've purchased a Sunday paper for the coupons, I've spent more on the paper than I got back in coupons!  I try to use online coupons, but I always forget to send them with Pen or he forgets to use them.

Instead of couponing, we just eat cheap.  Bottom line.  We split a cow with my parents every year right after we get our tax return.  They purchase half a cow, and my brother and I share the other half.  My younger brother also raises pigs for 4-H, so we have the opportunity to purchase some of that meat from my parents as well.  While it's more expensive up front, it's cheaper overall, plus we always have something to eat in our house. 

I've been making a meal calendar for many years (not that we actually stuck to it in the past).  It's helped tremendously with grocery shopping, and I highly recommend it.  You could always look at sales ads to make your menu, but we just try to eat cheap as a general rule.

We're a big pasta-eating family.  I love pasta.  And bread.  And cheese.  But I digress.  We often have spaghetti (I was fettuccine noodles because spaghetti noodles make me gag.  They're like little worms) with garlic bread.  To get some more veg into our diets, I sometimes cut a head of broccoli up really fine and add it to my sauce.  We use our french bread recipe to make garlic bread by making a butter spread with garlic and onion power in it and adding cheese on top.

We have Taco Tuesday every week.  I shared our taco seasoning recipe with you already, and I've been using that for years.  We'll sometimes do tortilla chips with that, but not every Tuesday. 

On Wednesdays Pen normally hangs out with some friends from work, so it's just the Piglets and I for dinner.  Sometimes we'll eat leftovers, but normally we eat chicken and noodle soup with grilled cheese, especially during the winter.  I like to make my own soup, but in the case we don't have the money in the budget for that, the $5 family size Campbell's can does just fine! 

Thursdays we generally have breakfast for dinner.  This is probably our cheapest dinner overall.  I buy 12 eggs every Wednesday from a lady who comes to the hospital and sells them for $1.50.  The usual dinner is scrambled eggs with bacon and pancakes, but sometimes we have bacon and egg sandwiches.

Friday is Pizza and Movie Night (as I've mentioned countless times).  We've been making our own pizza crust, french bread, and sauce, and it's been a much cheaper alternative to eating Pizza Hut every Friday.  We've saved $60 just by not buying pizza this month (it would have been $90, but . . . Saturday happened).  We also went to the gas station and bought fountain sodas for this "event", but we've been getting a "Buy 1 Get 1 Half Off" coupons on the Pepsi Next bottles.  That's a pretty good deal!

I work until 5:00 every night and Piglet 2's bedtime is 7:00, so I have a limited amount of time during the week to vary our menus.  It's also helped us to have a routine with our meals.  Pen knows every Monday to set out a pound of ground turkey or beef, etc.  It's helped us to stick with our meals.

On Saturdays and Sundays, I have the chance to experiment here and there with our meals.  We generally do a big meal on Sunday nights (shredded pork, smoked turkey, or lasagna).  Saturdays we often grill (pork steaks are a favorite at our house - yummy and cheap!).  We also do homemade biscuits and gravy, and we try to throw in some more chicken here and there.

My biggest "secret" to eating cheap is this: Make enough for leftovers!  Sure, I cook for a family of four (or maybe five . . . six at the most, except when I'm making pasta, then I make enough for my family and 75 of our closest friends and extended family), but my kiddos are not big eaters.  We always have leftovers around for lunches for the week, or "scavenge" meals.  Pen has to take his lunch every day, and so I try to make him at least another meal or two out of what we're having for dinner.  When we're making breakfast for dinner, he'll make some extra pancakes and freeze them in aluminium foil for Piglet 1's breakfast the next day.  There's always spaghetti sauce left over, and generally there's enough taco meat for two more tacos (he fries them in some veg oil so they don't fall apart throughout the day).  We also keep frozen fish around, as that's really easy for him to make in a hurry in the morning. 

Here's one of our favorite (cheap dinner) recipes:

Chicken Broccoli Casserole

4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (we use the frozen kind in the bag for this recipe)
1 box of bow tie pasta (or really any type of pasta)
3 to 4 cups of broccoli florets (again, we use the frozen kind)
2 cans cream of chicken soup (or cream of broccoli or mushroom)
Parmesan cheese
Milk
Salt, pepper, Italian seasoning

I cut the thawed chicken into bite size pieces, season with S&P and the Italian seasoning, and cook on the stove top in butter and olive oil until done.  At the same time, I cook the bow tie pasta.  When the pasta if about five minutes from being done, I add the broccoli to the boiling water.  Once everything is cooked, I add the pasta and broccoli to the pan I cooked the chicken in (lots of good flavor on the bottom of that pan!) and add two big handfuls of Parmesan (you can never have enough cheese!) and one can of soup.  I add about half a cup of milk, then stir (I use tongs).  The soup and milk will make a nice sauce, but occasionally it will be too thin or too thick.  About half the time I end up adding the other can of soup (and some more milk along with it), but it just depends on the size of the chicken breasts.  We eat it warm for dinner with bread and butter, and cold for lunches the next day.