This Week on the Dining Table

It's the "Using Up a Load of Onions" Edition......

I bought a 20 lb. bag of onions recently at the restaurant supply store.  I made French Onion Soup Gratinee last Tuesday finally! and used up quite a few onions from that bag.
This onion soup is da bomb! and not anything at all like that brown crap you get in most restaurants that is just a salt lick!  This recipe uses very little salt and chicken stock and not those sodium filled bouillon cubes those restaurant soup concoctions churn out.  If you love Onion Soup you need to try your hand at this recipe.

Moving on......

Onward to the meal planning!

Here's what was planned last week--

1. Sunday--Chicken Parm, Cuke & Tomato Salad
2. Monday--BBQ Chicken, Roasted Cauliflower and Potatoes
3. Tuesday--French Onion Soup
4. Wednesday--FFY aka Fend for Yourself
5. Thursday--FFY
6. Friday--FFY
7. Saturday--Probably pizza and salad

And this is what actually happened--

1. Sunday--Chicken Parm, Cuke & Tomato Salad
2. Monday--BBQ Chicken, Roasted Cauliflower and Potatoes
3. Tuesday--French Onion Soup
4. Wednesday--Leftover French Onion Soup, Salad
5. Thursday--Subway Chicken Sweet Onion Teriyaki Sub
6. Friday--Cheese Hamburgers, Cantaloupe
7. Saturday--Stuffed Pork Chops, Sugar Snap Peas, Leftover Roasted Cauliflower, Spinach Noodles

5 meals cooked at home.
4 new meals, 1 night of leftovers, and 2 nights of Take-Out(or their leftovers).

As for my grocery spending..... I spent a total of $64.93 last week.
I have spent $103.98 in all for May so far and have $196.02 left of my food budget with 22 days to go.

Leftovers going into this week......a portion of spare ribs.

Here is this week's "food plan"--

1. Sunday--Hubs bought Chinese
2. Monday--No Clue
3. Tuesday--BBQ or Seafood
4. Wednesday--No Clue
5. Thursday--No Clue
6. Friday--No Clue
7. Saturday--No Clue

This week will see 0 new meals cooked and 0 meals of leftovers or "Whatever You Can Find" and 1 meal of Take-Out and who knows what else.

What I need to buy for this menu.....nothing.  No grocery shopping this week.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Was last week's plan successful, did you go off plan or did you not even plan what was going to be eaten last week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week?

Sluggy

Weis Buys & What I've Been Up To

I managed to get up to Weis(PMITA)Markets this week and get a few deals.
They had their .88¢ wyb8 items Deal so I picked up some cheap Gatorade2s, canned tuna and dehydrated potatoes.
I spied 1 last package of those reduced chicken sausage links with a $1 off instant discount sticker so that leapt into my shopping cart along with a instant discount package of sausage meat.

I also found lovely London Broils marked down to $2.68 lb.  With more carnivore mouths to feed this Summer I picked up 3 x 2 lb. hunks.  Heck, I can't get Ground Beef for that low a price! lolz

I went into the store to get bags of coffee as 8 O'Clock brand was BOGO.  I had 2 x $1.50/1 and 1 x $1/1 coupons which made by 6 bags bought $2 per for 4 of them and $2.24 for the last 2 of them.

I got some other things(50% off salad greens and 50% off croissants among them)and left the store $57.93 poorer.
But I did do well as I saved 57% on my shop over regular retail price...woohoo!

Hubs went out of town mid-week for a conference so I've been holding down the fort and getting shit done here.

I got my car serviced.
I went to the bread outlet.
I handled the repairman coming to replace our HVAC compressor.
I dyed my hair.
I ordered/picked up some prescriptions(w/out buying anything else at Rite-Aid!).
I moved fabric and toiletries out of the "Toiletry Room".
I went through my clothes and changed out items for the season.
I called about surgery costs(that was a pointless fiasco).
I ordered Bi-Pap supplies.
I got money for the trip.
I cleaned bathrooms.
I moved dirt around the house.
I did laundry and dishes.
And I blogged a little too boot.

So that's been my week.
Got vital things done and kept from stressing out of the coming month....mostly.

Hubs is off today picking up my Mother's Day gift aka College Boy is coming home tonight. lolz

It's been raining here for a solid week and it's about time that stopped NOW! ;-)

What's going on in your life?

Sluggy

April To-Do List.....Update

So how did I do with my April To-Do List?

APRIL

*  Pay Bills  PASS  Got it all paid. go me.

*  Bike 50 Miles  FAIL  With everything else going on here(plus a foot injury thrown in to the mix), I didn't get much bike time in. sigh.  I may have done 20 miles this month but not sure as the batteries in the bike crapped out so I don't even have photographic proof. sigh again.

*  Sew and Complete 1 Item  FAIL  I did some sewing but didn't get anything completed.  Does moving piles of fabric around count with this one? lol

*  Purge Coupon Inserts  PASS  Got all the old inserts gone through for stray Qs that are still in date and the inserts pitched.

*  Read 1 Book  IN PROGRESS  I am still reading it.  Will be done with this one in the next few days.  I just don't spend a lot of time reading these days.

*  Vinyl under sink and put stuff away  PASS  

Vinyl down and stuff all put away.

*  Seal Grout in new Bathroom  PASS  Does it count if I had Hubs do this? lolz

*  Go to CB's concert  PASS

*  Sell Toiletries & Stuff  PASS  This is slow going but I've made $94 so far on selling excess stuff.  I don't think I'll try to sell much more.  I've earmarked some of the excess for future giveaways and I'm finding room for the rest in the house.

*  Hang Curtain  PASS  I changed out the curtain in the laundry room from a too-long sheer purple with white polka dots one to a white lace with butterflies curtain.  Whoopee, right?

*  Begin moving stuff out of Purple Room  PASS  I've got the closet in there emptied and all but 2 drawers in the dressers.  Now I just have to go through a pile of fabric left to move and another pile of my clothes to go through and decide what to do with.  Most of this is stuff that needs altering/repairing or is old or doesn't fit.  About half of it can go to Sallie's once I get around to it.  I am on a deadline for clearing out this room by the end of May so it will get done.

All in all, April was pretty mediocre for getting things done, even though my list was not aggressive.
Being in a funk and stressing out over other things tends to not lend much help to getting To-Do lists "To-Done".
The Biking Fail was partly on me and my May bking won't be much better due to circumstances but I will be getting other kinds of exercise this month.
The sewing will pick up in June though as I have a gigantic pile of stuff to sew now.

How about you?  Did you get everything accomplished in April that you set out to do?
Tell us about your month.

Sluggy 

Not Everybody "Hearts" Rite-Aid

I found this video by comedian Henry Rollins and just had to share it.

Yep, just call me Mutant Sluggy....lolz

Enjoy.
*Content warning-bad words.


Sluggy

2016 $38K Savings Challenge......April Update

Every year I keep a close eye on our monthly expenses and our monthly income.

Our income is mainly the salary my Hubs draws from his job.  We have money taken off each paycheck from the top to put into savings, before we even get our hands on it.  This money that's taken goes into various pots....life insurance, health insurance premiums, long term care insurance premiums, investments and retirement savings.  It's automatic so we are never tempted to NOT put it into savings or these other categories.

Once the automatic savings amounts, plus taxes and medical/dental/vision premiums are taken out, it leaves what we get to "live on".  From this amount we budget for bills, both monthly and irregular bills(semi-annual, annual etc.) and our variable bills(like food, eating out, clothing  etc.)  Anything left over once our monthly expenses are paid, I put aside into an interest bearing Savings Challenge account.

For 2016 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am raising the Goal amount to $40,000 this year, $10K more than my goal for last year.

I have reconsidered and changed my Goal from $40K to $38K for 2016.  With some things coming down the pike this year I thought it prudent to back up my Goal a couple of thousand.  8-)

On to the April report.....

I have posted my April End of Month $38K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the Savings Challenge page tab at the top of the blog for the specific numbers HERE.

I have 2 goals each month.....
The 1st is to actually finish each month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to hit the targeted savings amount of $3,166.66.

I have to report that we finished up April with a large amount leftover exceeding my target amount.
The extra amount we ended the month of April with?.......$6,190.53

Income

We had $5787.47 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.

Other monies received in April totaled $403.06.  This included interest made on non-retirement accounts, blogging revenue and items sold.

This brought us to our gain of $6190.53
Since we have no debt, this goes into savings.

Outgo

As for the expenses this April, here are the good and the bad side of things....

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

*  First off, April is a 3 paycheck month so the entire bonus paycheck goes into savings. 8-)))

*  Phone charges and internet were approximately the same as last month.
*  The April electric bill was actually down $68.78 from March's bill.  Less heat means less electricity used.
*  The cash withdrawals/spending was down $330 from last month.
*  I received a check for blogging.  Not much but it was something.
*  I sold a book on Amazon.  This was a surprise because I had forgotten I still had a few listed on there. lol
*  I also sold some toiletries from the stockpile.

HERE are the BAD THINGS

*  Water bill was up $12.95 from March as Hubs attempted to deal with a water heater issue.
*  The gas card bill was up $58.98 as Hubs put more gas purchases on this card.
*  The credit card bill was up $63.19 from last month.  I bought some clothes in April(undies and a swimsuit)so we spent a bit more than in March on the c/c.
*  The direct medical spending was up $30.92.  This was co-pays for Hubs eye issue.
*  Semi-annual car insurance premium was due for 2 of the cars.
*  I bought quite a few Summer weather clothing items as many of mine needed replacing.  I did however wait until there was a 50% off sale and I got good bargains on 8 articles of clothing including 3 dresses, another swimsuit and 4 shirts.
*  I prepaid on 6 of our hotel nights for our trip in May.  While not a "bad" thing per se, I'd rather put these charges on April's tally than on May's tally.  It helps to spread out the spending between the 2 months rather than have them all piled up on May's income, especially since April is a 3 paycheck month.

The Food Budget costs for March are in another post, which is located HERE.

April was a pretty expensive month for us.  The regular bills were very low this month coming in at under $1800, but we had car insurance, clothing purchases and hotel charges prepaid to offset that. Still, we were able to save quite a bit even with those expenses.

With 4 month accounted for, our Savings Challenge Grand Total for 2016 is $15,605.35.

Final thoughts on April---
I am very happy with what we socked away in April given the irregular expenses this month.
But compared to April 2015 we put $153.30 less into savings this April.
.
We have $15,605.35 saved so far in 2016, and we have only $22,394.65 left to save at this point in the year to reach our goal of $38K.

THOUGHTS going forward into May----

We have no big irregular yearly bills due in May.  We will have a bit larger credit card bill however but nothing really huge.
Bills will go up in May with College Boy home for the Summer.  I am not worried about the bills for May, it's the June bills I am NOT looking forward to as 2 kids will be home full time that month plus most of the vacation charges will be on that month's c/c statement(which we pay in full each month).
bleck.

Darn you "life" for making me spend so much money and not save it all! lolz

So how was your April financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in April?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
What did you do with any money leftover at the end of the month?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle or into savings, in an emergency fund or a retirement account?
Or did you blow it on a want?

If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check out your progress too and celebrate or commiserate with you!

As we go forward into 2016 why not make this new year the one were you clean up your finances and pay off your debts.
Plan to set something aside if you don't already now or increase what you bank now for your future self.
Live below your means and keep some change for a rainy day....because no matter how sunny it is in your life now, dark clouds come along and you'll be glad you have that umbrella to keep you dry.

Sluggy