I Meaded This!

Last Sunday we finally had a nice day here.
By nice I mean sunny.....I don't mean warm yet. lolz
I really needed this excursion out......or should I say I "meaded" this?! 8-)

Anyway, Hubs had a Groupon I gave him for Christmas and we finally got a chance to travel down to Allentown to use it.

It was for a tour and tasting at a Meadery...The Colony Meadery.

If you don't know what a Meadery is, it's like a Brewery but they make mead, not beer.

Mead is a very old beverage.  It's been around in some form since prehistoric times.
It's still made close to it's original form in places like Ethiopia and Egypt to this day.
Of course, mead, or tej as it's called in Ethiopia is very different from the modern versions of mead.

       #getbuzzed on the back of their tasting glasses.....too cute
Mead was one of the first products humans knew to ferment.  Honey and water were combined and the natural yeasts pulled from the atmosphere ate the sugars in honey and turned it into alcohol for our enjoyment.  Of course, we learned during the tour that there isn't enough nitrogen present in honey to complete the process to make it drinkable for a modern audience.  Often what you end up with is similar to tej, which is a thick viscose overly sweet "liquid". 

Recently home brewers have been experimenting with how to keep the yeast working.  This involves lowering & maintaining temperatures artificially in brewing vats to adding other forms of yeast and/or ingredients to keep the yeast happy and eating until you have a more acceptable product which people enjoy drinking.

Dan with his 2 new girlfirends, "Bertha" and "Agnes".  I love how they name their vats. lolz
Colony Meadery is currently using smallish food grade plastic vats.

They have these big bad boys on site and will upgrade to them and a higher production output soon.....

Meet "Matilda".  Off to her right and behind is my favorite, "Otis".....hehehe

Many commercial brewers add grapes and wine yeast to make their mead(Chaucer's and Bunratty).  These are technically Wine-Meads and much sweeter than a good mead.  Mead when crafted well has much more complexity than these brands. (Plus it isn't as sweet.)

Anyway, the operation we visited "The Colony Meadery" has only been around for about 2 years and it still in it's infancy.  But they are already making a taste line of products and are winning medals.

Yes, like beer and fine spirits, there are competitions for mead makers.  There are 3 mead only Events held in the US, one each in New Hampshire, Michigan and Colorado.  In fact the MAZER CUP, the Colorado competition was held the week before our visit to Allentown and The Colony Meadery won a few medals, a Silver for this interesting mead version called "Mo-Me-Doh".....

It's a lime and mint infused mead and the name plays on the cocktail called a Mojito.  8-)

We also learned all about the art of beekeeping and more than you'd want to know about honey and bees.  The Colony Meadery only uses orange blossom honey that has been minimally processed.  The type of honey is very important in mead making since the sugars in honey are converted to alcohol so your raw materials(used by the bees to make the honey)can impart good or bad characteristics to your finished product.

We even got to take home these spiffy glasses.


When the folks at Colony Meadery began there were only a few meaderies in PA.  Today there are 40 and more coming down the pike.
The revolution in making mead came a few years ago when someone posted a recipe for making mead on a craft beer home brewers group and people started experimenting in earnest with making modern verions of mead.

But enough of all that edification, soon it was time to taste the good stuff!

 The selection of tasting bottles and Greg, one of the owners.

We ended up bringing home a case of various meads we enjoyed..........

They also do growler fills though Hubs hadn't brought any of his along this trip.
There is a small craft beer brewery next door called "HiJinx" so we will probably be making another trip down there later this year, maybe when our craft beer crazed son comes home for a visit.  ;-)

 

A shout out to Todd and anne marie-- this isn't too far away from where you live and I think you'd enjoy this....at lest the tasting part. ;-)

If any of my readers are going to be in the Allentown PA area, HERE is a link to the Groupon for The Colony Meadery.

Sluggy

$28K Savings Challenge.....March 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 2015 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am raising the Goal amount slightly to $28,000 this year, $4K more than my goal for last year.

On to the March report.....

I have posted my March End of Month $28K $AVING$ 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 $2,333.33.

I have to report that we finished up March with a good amount saved.
The extra amount we ended the month of  March with?.......$3,797.12

Income

We had $2,296.14 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.
 

Other monies received in March totaled $1,500.98.  This included interest made on non-retirement accounts, dividend checks from stocks held plus a partial refund on the money we paid out for our daughter's wisdom teeth surgery.  Also included is the 2014 Tax Refund we received.

This brought us to our gain of $3,797.12.
Since we have no debt, this goes into savings.

Outgo

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

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  Phone charges, internet and  were approximately the same as last month.
*  Water bill went down $2.04 from February's bill.
*  Credit Card bill went down $283.70 from February's bill. 
*  Gas charge card went down $37.66 from February's bill.
 

HERE are the BAD THINGS
.
*  Cash withdrawals went up $130.48 from February's withdrawals.
*  The electric bill was up $22.24 over Febuary's bill due to more heating.  Actually maybe this should be under GOOD Things since only using $22.24 more in energy in the middle of Winter is a "win".  This new efficient heating system is killing it! in terms of lowering our electricity usage.

*  We had a LOT of irregular spending too in March--we paid the sewage bill for the entire year in one chunk, additional tax was owned to the State, there were 2 small charges on store credit cards which were paid in full, and the local property taxes which was by far the largest amount paid out.I
In all there was $1809.34 in irregular bill spending this month.
 

The Food Budget costs for March are in another post, which is located HERE.  I actually came in under budget on food/toiletries for March.
 

The 2015 TOTAL.....
With 3 months accounted for, our Savings Challenge Grand Total for 2015 is $8,695.38.
That averages $2800+ a month so far and is about $500 more than we need to put away every month to reach the $28K goal for the year.

THOUGHTS going forward into April----

Irregular bills coming in April.... The only non-regular bill may be 2 dental bills as Hubs and I went to the dentist in Feb. and March so I am figuring at least one of those bills will come in during April.
There will be a cataract surgery bill(if I go with an upgrade)and we may have to foot that one instead of taking it out of the HSA fund as it's quite low after paying all those high deductibles for the year recently.

We will also be receiving an insurance bill in April for the "new- used" car we just bought.
If all the "regular" bills stay about the same as they were in March, those should amount to $1800.
Add in about $450 for the new car insurance charges and $300 or so for the dental bills and our nut in April will run about $2,500(not counting any cataract surgery costs).  April is a 3 paycheck month for us so next month's amount saved should be awesome!


With 3 months behind us we have $8,695.38 down and $19,304.62 left to save in 20015.  That breaks down into $2,144.96 per month for the next 9 months of the year. I think we can easily do this number each month.
 

 

So how was your March financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in March?
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 something you wanted?
 

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 with you or commiserate with you!

Sluggy

Shopping Day

With the sun shining I set off to do a bit of grocery shopping.
First a quick stop at Rite-Aid.......yes, I said Rite-Aid.......

With my 20% wellness discount this was $4.23.
Then I stacked 3 coupons.....a $1/1 ManuQ(sunday paper), a $1/1 R-A in-ad Q and a $2/1 VideoValues Q from March.
$4.23-$4=.23¢ = .02¢ tax=.25¢ OOP.

I didn't even get to use any of these +Up Rewards I still have.

Next it was to Maine Source, the local restaurant supply store.

No photo of the goodies since I forgot to take one before I put them all away, but I got......
1 Gal. no-calorie peach iced tea
1/2 Gal. milk
2 lb. block of Cheddar
1 lb. liverwurst(hubs lunchmeat)
1 lb. asparagus
3 lb. bag red onions
5 lb. bag red potatoes
3 12oz. packs of mushrooms
3 1 lb. packs of strawberries
1.30 lb. salmon fillets
1 pack of grape tomatoes
1 English cucumber
2.32 lb. sweet potatoes
4 large lemons
2 lb. bag of raw shrimp
2 dozen eggs

After the emailed $5 off $50 order Q I paid $60.02 OOP.
Regular retail of $93.27 on this haul.

Then it was over to Target.  I had a $10 gift card wyb $50 of food Coupon and I needed a ham......

3 x McCafe coffee on sale $6.99=$20.97
1 x Archer Farms spiral ham $1.99lb=$19.14
1 x Archer Farms coffee on sale=$5.99
1 x Edwards key lime pie on sale=$4.99
2 x dozen eggs on sale=$1.98
1 x box cake mix clearance=$.62
1 x  bottle cooking wine clearance=$1.32
SubTotal.....$55.01

Coupons Used
3 x $1.50/1 McCafe IPQ from 1st Taste Kraft program=$4.50
1 x $1/1 Archer Farms coffee Target IPQ=$1.00
1 x .75/1 Edwards pie IPQ=.75¢
Coupon Total.....$6.25

$55.01-$6.25=$48.76

I used $15 in Target gift cards in my wallet and paid $33.76
I got back $15 in new Target gift cards($10 wys $50 and a $5 wyb3 McCafe products).

$33.76 for $67.17 worth of regular retail groceries so savings rate of 49.74%.
Not too bad.

I spent $93.78 on groceries.
It's just the 1st of the month and I only have $206.22 left for food in April already.
It sure goes fast......the money that is, doesn't it?

I don't/can't eat ham anymore but I guess 1 slice on Easter won't kill me.  I'll pack some of this up with the relatives when they leave and Hubs can have ham sandwiches for lunches.

What are you serving if you have Easter dinner at your house?

Sluggy

Are You Kidding Me?

Happy April 1st!

And no, this isn't an April Fool's joke unfortunately!

4 new inches of snow which started yesterday..............

That whiter patch on the deck is the last of the Winter's accumulation before it began snowing yesterday late morning.
We are almost snow-free and we get 4 more inches.
Sigh.
And it's suppose to hit 63F here tomorrow.....crazy!

So over it.

At least it's sunny today so I will go out after I get my March numbers finished.

Sluggy

 

2015 Food & Toiletries Spending.....March Update

*I am posting this a day early since I am done shopping for the month.*

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

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for MARCH 2015.

I have posted March's totals on the Total Grocery Savings for 2015 Page located HERE and have updated the Yearly Totals there.  I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in March.  If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals SumMy spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 3(2-3 at home this month). No kids under 19.

******************

BAKERY OUTLET
OOP  $8.50
Value  $40.72
Savings  79.13%

RITE-AID *(see below)
OOP  $6.33
Qs/Ads/+UPs  $421.39
Value  $427.72
Savings  98.52%

 

SHURSAVE STORES(small local independent affiliated stores)
OOP  $33.74

Qs/Ads  $18.86

Value  $52.60

Savings  35.85%

SURPLUS OUTLET
OOP  $39.48
Value  $63.45
Savings  37.18%
 

WEIS MARKETS

OOP  $180.83

Qs/Ads  $124.01

Value  $304.84

Savings  40.68%
 

*********************
My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Rite-Aid at 98.52%, the Bakery Outlet at 79.13% and Weis Markets at 40.68%.  My WORST savings rate was the Shursave affiliate at 35.85%.

My Bakery Outlet savings rate increased over last month's trip because they lowered their prices so my $8.50 went a whole lot further.  The had increased their prices awhile back but I guess that was the tipping point for bread products in this area, as they sold too few.  Last month my same $8.50 outlay only bought $17.66 worth of products.  I, as a consumer, am glad to see the prices lowered for a change.

I shopped at 5 different stores this past month. 

TOTAL Out of Pocket........ $268.88

TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$620.45

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased............$889.33

TOTAL Savings of...................................69.76%
TOTAL Savings WITHOUT Rite-Aid.............43.12%

This closes out the March food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....
I went into March wanting to do a $300 monthly spending and actually accomplished that goal for a change.
Yay me! 8-)

The monthly savings percentage went up by 9.46% in March to 69.76% compared to February's 60.30% average.
Next month, without all that low OOP at Rite-Aid shopping, will most probably affect my average and it will plummet like a rock into the 30-40 percentile.
sigh

The savings rate for the year so far now stands at 68.70%.  That's a .46% increase in savings over February's YTD total.   It's quite high all things considered but I fear it will be the highest savings percentage I see in 2015 now that the "Salad Days" of Rite-Aid are over.

LOOKING AHEAD To APRIL.........

I want to continue to eat down some of our stockpiles of food and empty out the freezer a bit more. It's just 2 adults for April but we are going to host Easter dinner and invite 2 from the family here to eat.  I have two large shops coming up this week(totaling about $100) so April will start off with a shopping bang!
The rest of the month will mostly be eating all the stocks up and reigning in the spending on food.  I don't forsee any toiletries spending(once my +Ups are used up by 4/11).
 

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

 

*  How much did you spend on food/toiletries in March?
*  Do you track your yearly food spending?
*  What was your savings percentage buying on sale and/or with coupons vs. buying at regular retail price last month, if you track that sort of thing?
 

Sluggy

The Last Hurrah at Rite-Aid

I went up to Rite-Aid Saturday for my last +Up Rewards shopping excursion.

I'm too sad to break this all down, so here is one shot of everything I bought in 4 transactions on various Wellness cards........

4 x Dove Shampoo/Conditioners
2 x Tresemme 'Poo
2 x Tresemme Stylers
2 x Gillette Shave Gel
2 x Old Spice Body Wash
1 x Gillette Razor
2 x Jergens lotion
1 x Biore cleanser
1 x Jergens body Butter
2 x CeraVe lotion
2 x Tic Tacs mints
3 x Cadbury eggs

I spent/rolled my $24 in +Up Rewards.
I earned $20 new +Ups Rewards that expire on 4/11.

I spent a total of $1.71 OOP on all of this.

$0.00, .07¢, .38¢ and $1.26=$1.71

1 of those Cadbury Eggs puchased will give me a $1.15 back through Saving Star(which already arrived in my account), so total OOP spent today is .56¢.
8-)

I bought home a total of $109.54 worth of regular retail in goods.
For .56¢.

Man, I am really gonna miss me some Rite-Aid.

8-(

Sluggy
 

This Week on the Dining Table

The "The Behemoth was Moved Edition".....

Woke up Sunday morning to find that the Behemoth across the street NOT in it's usual position blocking the sunlight.  It's usually parked here on a driveway that is not long enough for it.....

But it got moved overnight to here.......

Parallel to the street on their lawn past their driveway.
Hhhmmmm, I wonder what's going on here.........

Anyway, onward to the meal planning!

 

Here's what was planned last week.......

1.  Turkey, stuffing, corn, cranberry glop leftovers
2.  Lasagna, salad or collards leftovers

3.  Irish Stew leftovers

4.  Rueben Sandwiches using corned beef leftovers
5.  Sloppy Joe sandwiches, cole slaw

6.  Kielbasa on Rolls, cabbage leftovers
7.  Salmon, leftover assorted veggies, cole slaw

 

And this is what actually happened--

1.  Turkey, stuffing, corn, cranberry glop leftovers
2.  Lasagna, salad or collards leftovers(I had collards & a grilled cheese sammich, hubs had lasagna)

3.  Chinese Take-Out(I just couldn't face another night of leftovers on Friday. lolz)

4.  Rueben Sandwiches using corned beef leftovers
5.  Sloppy Joe sandwiches, cole slaw

6.  Kielbasa on Rolls, cabbage leftovers
7.  Salmon, Brussels sprouts, cole slaw

Everything went as planned except the assorted leftover veggies were gone by the time we had the Salmon so I made Brussels Sprouts that night.  I didn't have any lasagna so there is a helping of that left still.

Last week I made 2 trips to the grocery stores and spent $23.62 OOP on $41.84 worth of reg. retail groceries.

I had 6 transactions at Rite-Aid last week and spend $2.56 OOP on $171.24 worth of toiletries.
(If you take off the $1.15 I got back at SavingStar already, it's $1.41 OOP.)

For the week, $26.18 total spending on $213.08 worth of food/toiletries/HBA.

$268.88 spent of my $300 March food budget, leaving us $31.12 for the last 2 days of the month.  I won't be going shopping again until April 1st so this amount will roll over into April's food budget kitty.

Leftovers going into this week are--cabbage, lasagna, sloppy joe sauce and rolls, cole slaw and Irish stew.  I also made a pot of broccoli cheddar soup using some leftover broccoli on Friday. 

Here is the plan for this week.........

1.  Broccoli Soup, Salad(We had steak out for lunch so not so hungry at dinner time.)
2.  Irish Stew, leftover Cabbage

3.  Grilled Fish, Roasted Veggies, Coleslaw

4.  Mushroom Quiche, Salad
5.  Sloppy Joes(leftover),

6.  Coq au Vin, Potatoes, Carrots, Asparagus
7.  Easter Ham, Deviled Eggs, Mac & Cheese, Green Beans

I don't eat ham any longer(too much sodium!)but we are having company and if I make a meatloaf or something it won't go over well so I'll get a small ham, eat 1 slice and let Hubs make ham sandwiches for lunches and/or pack the rest of the ham off with the relatives when they leave.

3 nights of leftovers(soup, stew, sloppy joes) and 4 nights of new dishes.
I may need to shove the lasagna leftover in the freezer for later in the month.

 

What I need to buy for this menu......Asparagus, Mushrooms, Ham, Green Beans, Milk and maybe cheese for the Mac & Cheese but I'll wait until Wednesday and the new month to start to go shopping.

There is a deal at Target this week, buy $50 in Food/Beverage and get a $10 gift card.  I don't buy groceries at Target but I may go Wednesday and see if I can scare up $50 of food there.  I do need to buy a ham so that will help, plus I have $15 in Target gift cards to spend so I'll only have to be OOP $35 for this deal.

 

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 that week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week?

Sluggy