Food & Toiletries Spending.....April Update

 Onward to April's food spending report.......

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for APRIL 2014.

I have posted April's totals on the Total Grocery Savings for 2014 Page located HERE and have updated the Yearly Totals there.
I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in April.  If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals Summary.

My spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Pet Supplies, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 4(3 at home this month)& 1 dog. No kids under 18.
******************

BAKERY OUTLET
OOP  $13.98
Value  $44.56
Savings   68.63%

BROOKSHIRE'S
OOP  $23.94
Qs/Ads  $11.35
Value  $35.29
Savings  32.16%

MAINE SOURCE
OOP  $62.34
Qs/Ads  $44.02
Value  $106.36
Savings  41.58%

PRICE CHOPPER
OOP  $91.77
QsAds  $60.89
Value  $152.66
Savings    39.88%
 

RITE-AID
OOP  $3.46
Qs/Ads/+Ups  $98.73
Value  $102.42
Savings  96.40%

SAM'S CLUB
OOP  $42.77
Value  $68.37
Savings  37.44%
 

SHURSAVE STORES(small local independent affiliated stores)
OOP  $75.47

Qs/Ads  $65.41

Value  $140.88

Savings  29.44%

WEIS MARKETS

OOP  $156.84

Qs/Ads  $56.80

Value  $213.64

Savings  26.59%

*********************
My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Rite-Aid at 96.40%,  the Bread Outlet at 68.63% and the local Grocer at 46.43%.  My WORST savings rate was Weis(PMITA)Markets at 26.59%.
I shopped at 8 different stores this past month. (2 of them new ones while on vacation.)

TOTAL Out of Pocket........$470.57

TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$393.61

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased............$864.18

TOTAL Savings of...................................45.52%

Without counting the Rite-Aid shopping, my savings rate was 38.39%.

This closes out the April food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....

I went into April with no expectations, which was a good thing since we spent well over $400 this month.  We did a bit of stocking up on loss leaders and took some food/toiletries to my daughter in Louisiana. I shoot for a monthly savings rate over regular retail of 40% and we surpassed that with the Rite-Aid spending included.
While I get good value for what I spend(my OOP vs. the regular retail price)I am finding it difficult to keep the actual spending low.
I sucked at being frugal on food/toiletries in April.
bleh.



LOOKING AHEAD TO MAY......

After a runaway food spending month in April plus the road trip expenses I'll be trying to reign in the outgoing cash in May.  I want to try to keep food spending to $300 or so.
We don't have any celebrations with food related costs for May so let's see if I can keep the spending down.

Of course after saying all this, I went out and spent $89.54 at the grocer store this week.
I suck.

 

If you have other ideas or guidelines you follow please leave a comment and share yours with us all.

Total spend on food/toiletries so far this year.....$1,511.46

The average monthly food/toiletries spending this year so far is $377.87.

 

How much did you spend on food/toiletries in April?
Do you track your yearly food spending?
 

Sluggy

Hidden Savings When Sending a Kid off to College

I can't wait for August to get here!

The reason is that #2 Son leaves for college that month.
In a way I am sad to see him go(ok, stop laughing Sonya Ann!) but our budget will draw a modest sigh of relief.

The bulk of the expenses he generates will transfer from our regular monthly income onto his college fund money(except for those times he is home on breaks).

Ok, so while in college he probably won't cost us less, at least we have college money set aside for his expenses once he hits the dorms so our day to day expenses here will go down.
His expenses will be drawn from a source other than our monthly income.

 I guess if you don't have money put aside for your kids' college like us, there really is no savings when your offspring head off to those hallowed halls of higher learning(and partying). ;-)


I've been doing a quick calculation of possible savings on our monthly budget once he leaves home.

*  No longer paying for his long, lingering hot showers(multiples per day sometimes), savings on the water bill of at least $10 per mo.

*  No longer paying for the computer upstairs to be on 24/7, running the a/c 24/7 in his room from June to September, lights left on, and running the dryer to "fluff" the outfit he wants to put on, savings on the electric bill of anywhere from $50-$75 per mo.

*  No longer paying for private music lessons(will be included in the tuition we pay from college fund), savings of between $120-$200 a mo.

*  No longer paying to feed him, savings of between $50-$75 on the food bill per mo. AT LEAST!

*  No longer paying for fast food or his eating out,  savings of $20 per mo.  WAAAY UNDERESTIMATED! lolz

*  No longer paying for gas in the car to get him to school, savings of $35 per mo.

*  No longer paying for car insurance, inspections, registration or repairs for a 3rd car, since we'll ditch it when he leaves.  Savings there but no way to tell yet how much we'll save on this score.
If he needs to go somewhere while on break or during the Summer, he can use my car since I don't need it much.
Once we ditch the car, we save $36 in registration fees, $75 in yearly inspection fees, about $300 in insurance, so $411 before you figure in repairs(which exceeded $3K on this car last year!).

I figure once he leaves for college we'll realize at least a $435 a month savings on our monthly day-to-day living expenses. (With a monthly estimate for car repair bill costs.)

That doesn't even begin to cover all the odds and ends we spend on him.....costs associated with school, like Prom tickets, Band costs(new band shoes and clothes, trips and fundraising), etc.
We'll still be covering the cost for new clothing & shoes(but he'll have to get use to buying "not name brand"), toiletries(I still have quite the stockpile of freebies on most items)and rxs and doctor visits out of our regular budget.

Of course not having him home means our trip taking gets curtailed(because no one is here to watch the dog)or trip costs go up(if we have to kennel the dog).

Aw well.....everything in life is a trade-off, ain't it?

But keeping that extra $5,200 or more a year from our budget and kicking it into savings will be grand!

Now to find a way to send him packing before late August.....hmmmmm...... ;-)

Sluggy



 

The Battle of Old Men & Young Boys

My oldest son, the history nut, will be coming home for a visit at the end of June and to take part in a high school friend's wedding ceremony.

It's too bad he won't have more time as I wanted to take him on a short trip to Virginia, to where many of our ancestors lived.  Hubs isn't interested in going as he isn't "into" family history/genealogy, even his own family's! 

June 25th of this year marks the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Staunton River Bridge.
This was a crucial win for the Confederates at that time, as the successful defense of that bridge and the railroad line there, kept the supply line open to the Confederacy and troops in Richmond and Petersburg and delayed the end of the War of Northern Aggression.

This battle was part of the Wilson-Kautz Raid by the Union to try to destroy supply lines. 
After 3 days of Union raiding forces tearing up the Confederate rail lines, they were stopped in their "tracks"(pardon the pun)by the forces assembled at the Staunton River Bridge near Randolph VA, over the Staunton River.
You can read more about this specific battle HERE.


Captain Benjamin Lyons Farinholt and 296 Confederate reserved troops were warned of the approving Union forces to Charlotte County VA.  Fairnholt sent out couriers into the adjoining counties to muster up volunteers to come aid the troops in holding the bridge.
Fairnholt also ran trains non-stop on the rail line there so it appeared to Union spies in the area that reinforcements were amassing in great number to confront the advancing Yankees.  In reality only 642 reinforcements arrived-150 regular army and the rest were comprised of old men and young boys from the surrounding communities.
They successfully held off 4 attacks of Union forces that were 4 times their size.

Benjamin Lyons Farinholt, born 1839 in Virginia, he attended Randolph-Macon College. Farinholt, enlisted July 1861 as a 2nd Lt., 53rd VA Infantry Regiment.  He saw action during the Peninsula and Maryland Campaigns, at 2nd Manassas, and was captured at Gettysburg (July 3, 1863).  He spent 7 months in the POW prison on Johnson's Island, Ohio before escaping and making his way back to Richmond to reenter the war in May 1864. He was regimental Captain by June 1864 of the 53rd VA, when he defended the Richmond & Danville Railroad at Staunton Bridge with a troop of wounded veterans, reservists and old men and boys from the area.  At wars end, he was a 26 year old Colonel, C.S.A.  He died 24 Dec. 1919 and is buried in West Point, VA

This Battle was the only one fought during the Battle Between the States in Charlotte County VA and it was fought near where many of my mother's family's ancestors lived in the 1860's.

Unless your ancestor was a regular Confederate soldiers it's very hard to find or prove they took part in this battle, other than oral history or written personal journal entries of participants or their family members.

So far in my digging, I have only found 1 ancestor that is proved to have been at the battle that June day in 1864. (Though in the partial list of the regular troop roster there are 4 or 5 men with my family's surnames who I may be related to as well, but is not proved yet.)

I found a memoir written by my 5th Cousin 1 x removed.  In it he recounted that his Great Grandfather, Lafayette Hale Mason, Sr. was among the defenders of the Staunton River Bridge the day of the battle.  The story was handed down in his family's line.

Lafayette Hale Mason, Sr. is my 2nd Cousin 4 x removed. Lafayette Mason was born sometime between 1816-1820(according to census records) and died in 1890.  At the time of this battle, he was in his mid to late 40's.
In the 1860 Census he is shown living in Charlotte County Virginia with his wife Judith Irvin(Irvine) and their children John, Susan and Lafayette Jr.  He was a farmer.


Confederate Patriot Lafayette Mason, my 5th Cousin & I share an ancestor, John Mason III, born 1741 in Surry County, VA. (Many genealogists show him as being born in Sussex County, VA, though up until 1753 this county was part of Surry County, VA.  Pre 1652 Surry County had been part of James City(or Citie) County as well.  John Mason's birth predates the formation of Sussex County.)

At any rate, this June, the weekend of the 21st and 22nd there is to be a commemoration of the Battle of The "Old Men & Young Boys" in Staunton River Battlefield State Park.  I would have liked to have gone to the descendants medal ceremony to be present as the service my ancestor(and probably more ancestors that I am unaware of at this time)performed for Virginia and the South was recognized and acknowledged.
And watching the re-enactors and the cannons being fired would have been cool too.

And I think my son would have gotten a charge out of attending as well.

Sluggy




 

About the Current Retirement Plan & Moving Away

First off, I grew up in the South so it's a place I feel more comfortable as a general rule.  I understand the Southern mindset.
Though I've lived in Yankee land since 1984, most of my married life, I had hoped to return
below the Mason-Dixon Line at some point.
Retirement might just be that point and Louisiana just might be that location.

No matter where we move to I'll be fine.  I am a master at being alone.  Big difference between being lonely and being alone and many people don't understand that.  I am comfortable with myself enough to enjoy lots of alone time.  I am good company. ;-)  I have always been most productive when left alone.  If the community we end up living in is unfriendly, I can deal with it, because I've dealt with it for many years already.

I HATED living in northeastern NJ the almost 3 years we were forced to be there.  I met some
lovely people while there but mostly it was a horrible experience......too many pushy people, too noisy, too polluted, crazy drivers, too expensive and full of pretentious *A*holes.  You get the idea.

When we moved into our first house in the Pocono Mountains. of PA, by comparison,  it was heaven.  A community with few year round residents at the beginning, natural beauty and
unspoiled vistas.  A serene place to live and much cheaper.  The drawback was how far we
were to services, stores and having utilities go out in the winter.  AND the winters.......averages
of 100 inches per Winter Season(in a light precipitation year).  Hard to dig out(especially with
just shovels)and hard to get to a job.

In a way I loved the isolation at that time in my life(this was before the internet too)but was also
able to make a few friends.....until they either died(the older people I was friends with) or left to go back to the Metro NY/NJ area because they missed living there so much(which I just can't even imagine! lol)

Then that place changed as we were invaded en masse by New York City-ites and eastern New
Jersey-ites, looking to relocate their families to an area away from crime and expensive living,
while they toiled away at their NYC jobs with large salaries.  The employed in these families
would stay in the city during the week and come home on weekends.

There were nice families among these newer transplants but the migration also brought the big
 city problems of crime, drugs, noise, et cetera with them.  I didn't mind going to the community
pool and never hearing English spoken the whole time(lolz) but some of these new residents thought themselves above the PA laws and because our sleepy little town had little police protection all
kinds of shenanigans made itself known and disrupted our lives on a daily basis.
These transplants brought their big city problems and big city ways along with them.

Wild parties into the wee hours every weekend in good weather and new or unlicensed hunters
with no gun learning using our development to take pot shots at wildlife, which brought up the number of "accidental" gunshot victims.  Then there were the "Summertime only" residents
from NYC and Metro NJ who would invade our hometowns and as many folks on vacation are
known to do, leave their brains at home.
Hey, I grew up in a Tourist town so I know this type of behavior well. lolz

It all got to be too much for our little growing family(who wants to worry about letting their
young kids go outside in a private community-not in a game lands area, in the Fall even with
wearing Orange so some idiot doesn't mistake them for a deer and kill them?!).
Plus Hubs wanted a shorter commute to work so we moved further into PA.  While this put
distance between us and the obnoxious/entitled metro NY/NJ behavior folks, we moved right
into the midst of provincial small town PA behavior.

We've lived here almost 14 years now and I STILL don't fit in.
That's what happens when you move into a small close knit town where everyone has lived
here for 5 generations(at least).
These folks keep to their "own kind" and after 14 years I am still not accepted.
Lord knows how I tried, at least for the sake of my kids so they'd have friends.
I have extended invitations and put myself out numerous times just to be rebuffed.
But I refused to be miserable, so I kept to myself and threw myself into my family and some online activities/groups and had a happy little life.  Well, except for the overspending and hoarding phase...lol

I joined stuff here like the PTA, I was a room mom(what a disaster THAT was! lolz), I volun-
teered for things,  I let them have those kid birthday parties and pool parties, whatever I could do so they would "fit in".
I hope the little shits appreciated the crap I went through...... ;-)

And I tried NOT to influence the kids with my very negative view about the folks I interacted
with in this town.
Even with all I did, the funny thing is.....all 3 of my kids couldn't WAIT to move away from
this town. 
Two did and as soon as he's out of college, the third will be joining them.
They all have maintained very few, if any, friendships with the kids they grew up with.

As my kids left home I have had less need to interact with the people who live around me.
And that suits me fine.  I don't need anybody here to be happy.  With my 3rd kid almost
graduated high school, besides the cashiers at the stores and the bank tellers I'll have no need to
interact with anybody around here anymore. 

I may have been a hermit in a previous life, as that type of living arrangement suits me fine for the most part. 

4 more years and I am out of here!  I am sure we can find a friendlier corner of the country
to live in.
If I could survive in Metro NY/NJ and then here for 14 years(and counting)I am sure I can adapt
and get along most anywhere. 
I don't need a grand house, or even a large house.  Just leave me be, to be who I am.

So even though we are looking at houses/properties in a part of the country we have little
experience in, I am sure we can be happy there, whether or not it's a welcoming community
or not.  I'll patch together some sort of support system and be perfectly content being left alone
by the folks in that town/area.
As long as I have all my long distance friends......

Sluggy

 

The Spring Boring Blog Box Giveaway Reveal

And the winner of this box of goodies........

Is.......

"Longtime Wife"!

Congratulations Longtime Wife.
Please email me within the next 48 hours of posting this message to claim your prize(and provide me your full name and mailing address).
If you fail to reach me within this time limit I'll draw a new winner.

And thanks to everyone else for playing along.

Sluggy