Last Call for Winner Carol Sue!

My giveaway winner has not contacted me yet.
If you are reading this CarolSue you have 24 hours from when this entry is posted on the blog to email me your full name and mailing address!

♡♥♬ Carolsue ♡♥♬February 28, 2017 at 4:11 AM

I lost my tweezers -- I could use some new ones!!
Digicats {at} Sbcglobal {dot} Net

ReplyDelete

If I don't hear back from her by them I'll pick another winner.
I think 4 days is a sufficient enough time to wait for someone to claim their prize, yes?

Sluggy

Net Worth.....March 1st Update

We are up almost $8k from the February 1st net worth overall(only liquid cash/investments/bonds, as I don't count housing or car values).  The retirement accounts were up almost $6K for March 1st 2017 from the February 1st 2017 calculations and the cash reserve/non-retirement accounts were up almost $2K.

We are up $71,857.19 from one year ago, from the March 1st of 2016's net worth snapshot.  

We are still in acquisition mode and Hubs still has a good income. Last month we were at a reduced pay for half the month due to Hubs disability/accident. This month we are back on our regular income/pay. 8-)

Life happens and is expensive so save as much as you can for those rainy days no matter your age or how close/far away you are from retirement.

Did you increase your net worth last month?
Do you have a retirement plan in place?

Sluggy

Grocery Deals This Week at Weis

Here are some of the best grocery deals I got at Weis(PMITA)Markets this past week/sales ad.

These 6 items were part of the Mix N' Match/Buy 6 Items Get $3 Off Instantly Deal.

4 x Dole dippers(fruit covered in chocolate)
2 x lobster ravioli in sauce(ready made dinner)
Regular retail on all this is $31.94

Sale prices this week for all was $24.94
Deduct $3 for buying 6=$21.94
Deduct $4 in coupons I had for the Dole products=$17.94
Deduct $6 for the 2 x $3 Instant Discount stickers on the ravioli=$11.94 for all 6 items.

After sale/deal instant/instant discount stickers the lobster ravioli were $2.99 per package, much better than the $7.99 they usually go for.
Now I know these aren't usual items in my menu-the ravioli was a bit of a splurge meal and I have been wanting to try those chocolate covered fruit things. 8-)

I picked up 3 1 lb. packs of mushrooms marked down 50% off($1.99)and 1 bag of shredded carrots also marked down 50% off($1.24).
We love mushrooms here but rarely find them 1/2 off.

A trip to the Day Old Bakery rack yielded Garlic Bread($1.50), Bagels($1.24), Oatmeal Cookies($2.50)and Muffins($2).  All 1/2 off.

Daughter requested Pop-Tarts. Since they were on special for $1.67 this week(Must buy 3 to get that price)and I had 2 x $1/2 IPQs for them, I got her 4 boxes for $1.17 each.  This should keep her sweet tooth in check for quite some time.

A wander down the condiment aisle and I saw these were on clearance for 50% off...Masterpiece BBQ sauce($1), Sweet Baby Ray's Special Sauce and BBQ Mustard Sauce-SC style bbq($1.09).
With grilling season coming I scooped these up.

Gorton's seafood was 50% off this week and when you bought 3 items you also got an instant $2 discount your order.
3 x $6.99=$20.97-$10.50 off=$10.47-$2 instant discount=$8.47-$2 in ManuQs I had=$6.47 for 3 bags of fish/shrimp or $2.16 per package.

New England Coffee was BOGO this week and Hubs and the Daughter wanted some plus I had a $1.50/2 ManuQ so two bags cost me $6.99 or $3.50 per bag.  A bit more than I like to spend on something I don't drink. lolz

These individual Minute Rice fried rice cups are regularly $2 each but on sale for 3 for $5 or $1.67 each this week and I had a $1/2 ManuQ so $1.17 each after sale and Q.
Hubs or Daughter can use these for quick lunches or I can send them to College Boy as this is something he can heat up in his room for a quick bite to eat.

Discount Sticker meats were plentiful when I went to Weis this week.
I got these end loin pork chops, regular price was $15.08-$6.55 for sale price=$8.53 and there were 2 x $2 instant discount stickers=$4.53 for both packages.  These totaled 2.85 lbs. so $1.59 per lb.

And my best deal were these 3 packages of 90% lean ground beef.  They had a sell by date of that day but that's just because it was the last day of the sales ad and I suppose the staff doesn't want to have to repackage and relabel all that meat.  This stuff goes for over $5 per lb. usually.
$38.35 reg. price these packages-$20.16(the sale price)-$9 in Instant Discount Stickers=$11.16 for 6.74 lbs. of ground beef or $1.66 per lb......for 90% lean!!!
I would have bought ALL the packages at that price except I have no room in the freezer for it.

Anyway, this trip was $70.55 and $164.88 reg. retail price so I saved $94.33 with sales/coupons/instant discounts. or a 57.21% savings rate.

Except I used one of those discounted Weis gift cards I bought on Raise dotcom last December for 10% off face value.
So IF I had paid for the gift card this year I'd have saved another 10% on this transaction(paid $63.50 for all)but since I paid for the gift card with last year's money I essentially spend $0 out of pocket  on the whole transaction.
Sweet.

Working the angles and working the deals to save us money here at Chez Sluggy.

What good deals have you found on groceries this week and where?

Sluggy

February Giveaway Winner

50 valid entries for the February Giveaway and random dotorg picked the winning comment.

And the winner is..........

Carol Sue!

♡♥♬ Carolsue ♡♥♬February 28, 2017 at 4:11 AM

I lost my tweezers -- I could use some new ones!!
Digicats {at} Sbcglobal {dot} Net

ReplyDelete

Congrats to the winner!
Please email me your mailing address and full name so I can get this package on it's way to you.

Thanks to everyone for playing along.
Be sure to check back in a week or so for the March Giveaway to begin.

Sluggy

Living Your Financial Life Responding or Reacting

As I start adding all the numbers for the month,  it looks like February will be a good savings month for us this year.
I am still waiting for the interest to post on our accounts but as of now we are over $2K saved out of our regular income.  And that's on a reduced income for the month since part of February ]was with disability pay.  Some substantial bills were down in February from January's amounts....water, electric and groceries.  Even with a lower paycheck we we still have "leftover" pay.

But March is not going to be so good for savings as we hit our $3K medical high deductible for the year by February 10th due to expensive prescriptions and the Daughter had her back injections on that date.  And Hubs had another eye injection late January too so we have paid/been billed OOP $3K + at this point for all medical charges to date.

Remember the $1690.34 I had saved in December 2016 but reserved to put toward medical in 2017?
$920.73 was spent this month toward medical bills, so there is $769.61 left to put toward medical bills in March.
At this date we have $1865.98 in medical charges that haven't been billed yet(but have been submitted to insurance so I have EOBs on them). The bills for these will be arriving in March.  After I apply that $920.73 I need to find $1096.37 more in our March income to cover these bills.

Usually I'd just pay irregular bills like these medical ones as income comes in.
But we also have property taxes due the end of March(I pay them early to get the discount on them.  I could wait and pay more later.).

Between this total of $2468.22 in irregular bills that will be due in March AND what I have estimated our normal/regular bills will come to for March applied against the estimated regular income in March it's going to cut things very close.   "Less than $200 between income and outgo for March" close.

So I am going to hold back about $500 of the leftover income that would go into the Savings Challenge for February to use toward irregular bills in March.

I know that if I pay the bills now or later really doesn't matter for us.  I could just take the Feb. excess to savings now and then maybe go negative for March, or hold back $500 for Feb. so we don't go negative in savings for March.  It would be just a temporary setback on paper vs. juggling the money for a bit.

It's not like it will mean having to pay interest or having overdraft fees because we went negative in the bank accounts because we have a cushion of extra cash in those accounts anyway.  I can handily cover any overages in our accounts.

Hubs doesn't get why I get so worked up and track everything so closely. This coming from the man who NEVER balanced an account before we got married and use to write checks for cups of coffee at school. ;-)

I just like to know where everything stands at any given time.
OCD, anal retentive?  Maybe.

I just like the way it feels month to month when I can cash flow things and not have to pull from savings for bills one month and then replenish those accounts the following month.
Just thinking ahead I can see where trouble might happen and deal with it rather than reacting to what life throws at me.
I guess it's a difference between RESPONDING to life events rather than having to REACT to life events?

Peace of mind maybe.
My financial life flowing smoothly.....not three steps forward, one step back.
Are you that way too?

Most people live a life of reaction.  Reacting to crises, waiting for something to happen and then dealing with it.  Life runs smoothly for a bit longer until the next crisis.....and the next and the next.

I find this type of living exhausting.  Being organized no matter the arena(your job, your money, your home, etc.)makes your life run smoother.

Maybe THIS POST or THIS ONE might explain what I am talking about better.

Overall, everything will get paid and savings will happen at Chez Sluggy.
And I'll continue to respond with my money and not react to it.

Sluggy