$60K Savings Challenge OCTOBER Totals.....Amazing Progress!

I have posted my OCTOBER End of Month 60K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the side bar to your right(near the bottom) for the specific numbers.


Reversely, as badly as September's numbers were, October's totals are amazingly incredible!


Unlike September, I have to report that we finished up October in the Black.

The amount we ended the month of September with was......sit down for this......$4,099.02!
Woot!


The electric bill went up $7+ from Sept.'s bill.  Not bad considering that the heat went on(now & again) halfway into the month.

The water bill saw a decrease of $10+.   Don't know what's up with that but I'll take it!lol
All other regular bills...Cable, Internet, Phone, etc. are the same each month.

The Food Budget costs for October are in another post, which is located HERE.  Food/Toiletries spending in October was my lowest monthly total for the year, once you figure in the flea market money I earmarked for Food/Toiletries Budget and the rebates that arrived.
With Thanksgiving fast approaching and Christmas shortly after it, plus a pretty good Catalina Deal at Acme and Weis this week, I hold no grand illusions of staying out of the grocery stores this month.lolol
Face it, I am a Catalina Deal 'ho. ;-)
If things go as planned(and they never do in my world), I will come out of this week with mega Food Bank donation material....and a detailed blog post to follow.   This shopping trip(s) will take a piece of my food budget however since the coupon coverage on the deals is spotty, so I'll be using some $$ to get it rolling and there will be costs on each transaction, albeit small.  But the end result will be so worth the cash spent. 8-))

So, what did I do right in October to come out of it with over $4K extra?

Firstly, I spent more in September because I paid some bills quarterly, so garbage and sewage are done for the year.  No October payments on those...$200 saved for the month.

Secondly, we stayed out of restaurants and I didn't do as much running around in the car, saving gas and shopping expenditures.  That was reflected in the low credit card bill in October.  We also didn't have any large charges on the cc bill.  The cc bill(which is paid off every month-NO BALANCE)went from $2333+ in September to $845.49 in October.  That's a BIG difference!  About a third of that $845 was for a bed for my son who outgrew his old bed.  Savings difference from last month of $1488.

Thirdly, we had no local/state/school taxes due in October, like the $1800+ we paid in September.
We did have some non-regular monthly bills, like a $160.80 car repair and a $72 vet bill but nothing big enough to put much of a dent into the savings for the month.

Fourthly, Hubby tried very hard and was able to keep his Cash withdrawals lower in October.  I guess he read my September rundown.lol  He's been taking his lunch to work more and not spending so much on incidentals and impulse purchases.  I am so proud of him! 8-))

Even though saving a dollar here, a dollar there may not seem like it helps you save any substantial amount of cash, in the long run, when you add those pennies and dimes up, they turn into dollars...and when the dollars start piling up, it can turn into a HEAP of $$!

We are Ten Months into this $AVING$ Challenge, and we have a Savings Total of $18,571.08 for the year.

What's ahead for November....

I keep handy my previous year's check register.
Why?
Because by referring to what checks were written last year in November, it gives me an idea of what expenses we will be seeing this November.  I see that there are no large recurring quarterly/yearly charges coming due this month, so if we can keep the current spending/bills low & no unexpected bills pop up, I see the potential for another good savings month.

The variable expenses need to be monitored carefully though....the cash withdrawals,  the food spending,  and the credit card usage.  We are under $500 on the cc bill with only 6 days until the statement closes for 'our' month(which runs from the 10thish to the 10thish), so that expense should be low.  The food spending(with my dealaholic tendencies)is my Achilles heel here.

Besides hubby's paychecks, I'm jumping back into eBay this month, and I am waiting on over $300 in rebate checks and expect at least $250 worth of them to arrive this month, so we have a good potential on the income side.

Income up, expenses down....it's looking promising.  Cross your fingers we can all get through November financially advantageously!  December will be a whole other hedonistic holiday ballgame....

Be sure and check out how others are doing with their finances this month at Money Saving Mom.

So how was your October financially?  Leave a comment and share with us what you did with your money, both the good and not-so good.   Do you have any tricks or tips that help you to end your month before the money runs out?  Let us know!

And what are your plans for your money in November? 


Sluggy

Everything I Know about Bread I learned from the ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES

Not only was Vincent Price a pretty good actor in his day(with a Yale education to boot), but he was also an avid art collector and  gourmand.  He, with his second wife Mary, wrote a few cookbooks which have become quite collectible.

I have an original copy of  "A Treasure of Great Recipes" that was given to me by my mother. (There were 2 copies in our family but I don't know whatever happened to the other copy.)  This cookbook has some of the (at the time)world's foremost restaurants specialties' recipes adapted for the American homecook.  Published in 1965, this tome is quite the 'hoot' now with it's full color photographs of Mr. Price and his wife in some of the classiest Restaurants in the civilized world, the food and replicas of menus from their travels.

As a young newly married wife in the early 1980's, I drew inspiration from many of it's recipes, as it was the only cookbook I owned and this was long before the days of instant recipes via the internet.
I had the nerve to attempt recipes like classical French Onion Soup, Beef Wellington with Yorkshire Pudding, Coq au Vin, Steak au Poivre, Bookbinder's Cheesecake and more.   I wasn't intimidated because being a novice, I didn't know any better, so I just cooked what sounded good and most of them came out ok if not very well.  And that's the point....don't be afraid to try something new or difficult.

This cookbook has a yeast bread recipe that Vincent Price used to make for his house breads.  It makes a very good loaf, whether you make the classic French Bread batard shape or plop it into a loaf pan to make a conventional American shaped loaf.  I use this bread recipe as a starting point for all my yeast breads(except for sweet dough breads, brioche, danish or coffee rings).

Here it is....

YEAST BREAD
makes 4 loaves, 4 dozen rolls or 4 coffee rings

1. Soften: 2 packages active dry yeast in 1/2 cup lukewarm water.

2. Scald: 2 cups milk and pour into a large mixing bowl. Add: 4 Tablespoons sugar, 4 teaspoons salt, 4 Tablespoons shortening*, and 1.5 cups likewarm water.  Cool to lukewarm. (*I use vegetable oil instead of Crisco or solid shortening.)

 
3. Stir in: 2 cups flour.  Add the softened yeast.  Then add: 4 cups flour and beat with a wooden spoon until batter is smooth and elastic.

4. Add more flour(about 6 cups)to make a dough that is light but does not stick to the hands, beating it in until the beating gets rough, then working it in with the hands.

5. Turn dough out on a lightly floured board, cover and let rest for 10 minutes, then knead until dough is smooth.  

Shape dough into a ball and put it in a lightly greased bowl. 

Brush surface of the dough with melted shortening, cover, and let rise until double in bulk, about 2 hours.  

6. Punch dough down and divide into 4 equal portions.  Shape each part into a smooth ball, cover, and let rest for 10 minutes.

7. Shape each part into a loaf, put loaves in greased bread pands(3 1/2 x 7 1/2 x 2 3/4 deep), cover and let rise for about 1.5 hours, or until sides of dough reach top of the pans and the center is well rounded above it.

8. Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for 50 minutes.

To make this Yeast Bread recipe into traditional French batards(the long think loaves), when you get to Step 7, do this....
7. Shape the dough into long thin loaves. 

With kitchen shears, make gashes on top of the loaves about 3 inches apart and 1.5 inches deep.  

Place loaves several inches apart on a greased baking sheet and let rise until double in bulk. 

Brush tops with slighly beaten egg white....

and bake in a preheated 425 degree F oven for 40 minutes.  If desired, brush again with egg white and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds.  Return to the oven for 10 minutes longer, or until seeds are brown.

The finished product you want to AVOID!lolol

Sluggy

Baking Day Check-In #4 I'm Done...Some Success & an Epic Fail

Well, this update is late.  After getting home from Date Night with hubby, baking off the rest of the breads and cleaning up the kitchen(sort of), I was too pooped to write & post this update....so it's posted now, on Wednesday.

I baked off the French Bread dough loaves before leaving for dinner....

Before.....

And After.....

Then we had to leave for dinner.
When we returned 2 hours later I went to prepare the batards to bake(slash the tops and egg wash them).
Here is what they looked like when I left....

And here is what I came home to....

When a recipe calls for letting a bread rise for 1.5 hours, they expect you to bake it promptly at this point.  Since my loaves(which I baked off before going out) needed to bake at a different temperature than the batards I couldn't bake it all together before I left, as there wasn't enough time. And I didn't trust the kids to turn off the oven and take bread out if I had started baking the second batch and went out before it was done.
So my batards continued to rise until they filled the cookie sheet.  Not being in a pan with sides, like the other dough in the loaf pans, the dough had nothing to grab onto, like the sides of a pan and climb it.  They did have some height when I took the kitchen towel off.
Then, since the batards were too full of gas bubbles/air, when I brushed on the egg wash, they crashed like the Hindenburg....oh, the humanity!!
I could have punched the dough down and reformed the batards and left them to hopefully rise enough a third time to have a better product.
But....oh well!  I just baked them off as is.....

Nice and toasty French Flat Bread!lol 
Now I've been bread baking off and on since the '80's.  In my previous uptight self I NEVER would have shown anybody this Epic Fail disastrous bread!!  But life is all about learning and taking the good with the bad.  And if some new homemaker who is attempting their first try at baking bread sees this and sees that ANYBODY can SCREW it up, even someone with many yrs. of experience, so they shouldn't feel too badly when something they try doesn't come out right, then I have done my job here. 8-))
And by the way......this monstrous mutant cojoined loaf still tasted fine.
Especially warm.
With buttah!

Then I put the Brioche in the oven after a quick brush of yolk/sugar wash.....

And I took it out later looking like this....

Good enough to eat!

This was my first time baking in this oven since getting it this summer.  I've discovered that it is runs hotter than the temp. dial indicates(thank you oven thermometer!)so most things came out a tad darker than I like(plus my camera tends to make dark pictures).  Hopefully I've made adjustments to my temp/timing for any future baking.

I still have half a can of pumpkin puree to use, so I'll do the pumpkin/chocolate chip bread later today after my errands.  I never did get to the Scones, Brownies or Bread Pudding.  I just had my hands full with the yeast breads.  Between that and the Pumpkin Rolls, I had fewer items to show for my Day of Baking, but what I did make were the labor intensive items on my list.  I think in the future, if I do a whole day of baking again, I'll stick to 1 labor intensive(yeast bread) product, 1 or 2 quicker products(like muffins/quick breads and pie)and a couple of easy/simple items(bar or drop cookies and cake).
I need more items that are definitely more forgiving if you have to leave them to sit for hours when something comes up or you run out of time.

So, what have you baked lately?  Tell us in the comments below...

Sluggy

Baking Day Check-In #3

While the Bread Dough was rising I mixed up the Pumpkin Roll batter.  Here it is in the pan....before adding the walnuts.

It was baked at 375F for 15 minutes.

After it cooled, I carefully removed it from the pan onto a clean kitchen towel.

Oops!  It cracked.....

Since it cracked I decided to divide the sheet of pumpkin into 3 strips.
I then sliced each strip, so I had 2 layers.  I had to do this because I had doubled the recipe(because of the size of my pan).  Unfortunately, that made my cake too thick to roll.  So I had to split it to make it thin enough to roll.

This gave me 6 pumpkin sheets to roll......well, actually it gave me 4 sheets to roll and 1 thick sheet that cracked. 

Each split sheet was placed on a clean kitchen towel.  Then the sheet and towel were rolled up together.  You have to do this while the cake is warm and let it cool rolled up.  If you don't and then try to roll the cake after it's room temperature with the filling and nuts on, your cake will crack badly.
Leave your cakes rolled in towels to cool.
Then unroll carefully.

 Each sheet gets covered with the filling of cream cheese, butter, vanilla and powdered sugar.
Then chopped walnuts were added.

A sheet of parchment paper was laid down on the table and the towel with the filled pumpkin sheet was placed on top.  Now began the tricky part--the rolling.
Using the towel for a guide, reroll your cake, but this time, don't roll the towel with the cake.  It's kind of like making sushi rolls....the towel is your bamboo mat.

 Rolling in progress.....

Roll some more.....

Almost done now....

Ta-Daa!!
 Now for some powdered sugar on the outside.....

Doesn't that look good enough to eat?lol

Then you roll the Pumpkin Roll up into the parchment paper it's on.  These are destined for the freezer, so I then rolled mine in a sheet of foil, crimped the ends and labeled the outside whether it had nuts in it or not.

Four Pumpkin Rolls all done and ready for the Holidays ahead.

So what to do with the 1/3 of the Pumpkin Sheet that cracked?  Cut squares, put the filling on top and sprinkle with nuts.....a plate of Pumpkin Bars to enjoy now.

While I was playing with Pumpkin Rolls, the French Bread and Brioche finished rising.
These were divided and shaped into 4 balls.  Covered and left to rest for 10 minutes.

Then half the dough was put into loaf pans(2 balls=2 pans) and the other half of the dough was formed into batards....the traditional French Bread shape....on a greased rimless cookie sheet.   The tops were snipped with kitchen shears.

All loaves were covered and left to rise again for 1 hour or so.

The Brioche Dough was also formed into balls and plopped into greased rectangular pans to rise again under their kitchen towel covers.

I cleaned some major baking messes and I am off again to check on my Bread loaves and hopefully pop them into the oven, as it's been about an hour since they were left to rest.

Sluggy

Baking Day Check-In #2

Ok, here's what I've got done....

Two bowls of dough resting for 2 hours.
One bowl of a Yeast Bread recipe that will become French Bread(4 loaves), and the other bowl of Brioche Bread dough.  I doubled the Brioche recipe.  I know the kids will desimate the single recipe batch and I need a batch for the Brioche French Toast with Caramelized Bananas I plan on making for dinner later this week.  I'm sure I'll have to hide that second batch of Brioche.lol

Off to clean up a bit, have some lunch and start on the Scones and Pumpkin Roll.

Sluggy