Feb. 2012--29 days let make this a really frugal month......

[bke]

Hi everyone! I feel like I'm ready to come back and participate again after my little hiatus-I hope you'll have me! I wrote a post in the open forum detailing what I've discovered about myself so I won't bother with any details here.

To those of you who are facing health issues, I'm so sorry to hear what you're going through. My thoughts are with you.

Fidgie girl. Congrats on getting the house done so quickly! I hope the move goes smoothly for you.

Stella-you continue to impress me with your kind and thoughtful actions towards others. Your positive attitude is inspiring. I'm really going to work on playing a much more positive roll in the lives of thoses around me.

Azure-does your son go to school in Alma or is that the name of the school? . Where exactly do you live if you don't mind my asking. Obviously, only if you feel comfortable sharing. Its taken me 10 years to admit what state I live in-lol!

I guess my frugal for the day is that I've been working too much to spend money! We fired an employee for stealing (no I didn't do her bodily harm although tempted-lol!) and I've been picking up extra shifts while training her replacement.

In the process of this we re-evaluated how we do things and decided by changing our schedules a bit I can work in the kitchen one day less a week and spend it waiting tables instead saving about $50 a week in payroll plus whatever I make in tips.

[flowerseverywhere]

BKE great to see you back here.

I am making dresses for my new granddaughter. I have been determined the last several years to use up my fabric stash by making quilts and I probably have used up over half the fabric I had. I went to MIL's house and she had a stack of old smocked and embroidered dress patterns in a box that I have borrowed. I want to make smocked dresses and I can't find fabric I like that goes through the pleater so I am making dresses with a smocked insert using an old piece of batiste I have combined with cotton florals. They are really coming out cute and total expense is 0. I am even making piping for them using some old cording DH had in the basement (it was cotton so I shrunk it first) covered with fabric to match the dresses.

[Azure]

Flowers, my mother hand smocked some dresses for my DD when she was a baby. I still have them. They are so gorgeous. Your granddaugher will be the best dressed baby around

BKE, it's good to see you again. He will be going to Alma College in Alma, Michigan. We live just a few miles SW of Lansing. I had no idea you were in Michigan . My mother's family used to live in the Harrison area.

I am pleased with myself. I did go over the food budget but only by about $.32. We are out of all vegetables except 2 onions and some frozen spinach which I use for smoothies. 1 cup of milk left. I cup of flour. 1/2 cup of rice. Out of oatmeal. Nearly out of margarine. Only a few slices of lunch meat, etc etc.

There is a cup of milk left because I learned I can replace milk with 1/2 c of evaporated milk & 1/2 cup of water which is what I'm going to do for dinner tonight so Tyler can have the last of the real milk for his cereal. I am making a chicken & biscuit pie which is where I'm using the milk substitute. No chicken stock left so I cooked up some legs/thighs for the meat & stock. And went over by the $.32 to get the frozen peas & carrots to go in it. And using up the last of the jiffy mix for the biscuits.

My grocery budget is going to be really tight again tomorrow & I'm low on so many things right now that I am worried it may be too tight to get all I need.

Oh! I just found out I will be able to buy nice fresh brown eggs from Tyler's team mates mother. $2 dozen.

No spending for the last 2 days.

Ian just learned that he got the summer internship in Germany. PAID internship! I think it will be a good experience for him. I won't get nervous about it til the last few days before he actually takes off.

[bke]

Wow its a small world isn't it Azure? I was curious about the school because you've mentioned the music department a couple of times and my ds is into band. He's only 12 so college is a few years off but was curious non-the-less.

Dh and I had our first child-free evening in almost 2 years last night. Dh wanted chinese food and then to go to the casino for a while. We were lucky to win just enough money to pay for the dinner we had including tip and the coffee we had later while waiting to pick up ds after his event. So it was basically a free evening out! I had fun. I dressed up and felt good about myself. It was nice to have alone time with dh.

We stopped at a new discount grocery last night to check it out. Very basic and kind of disappointing but it will be handy for things like milk and juice which were definitely cheaper than at other places.

Between the fact that I've been working too much to think about spending, and the fact that last night was a no-cost night out, there is still enough of last weeks budgeted money left that what I earn this weekend in tips will basically go straight to savings!

[bke]

I had a little run in with a wierdo while playing scrabble on Facebook so I have deleted the info I posted here about where I live. I figured better safe than sorry.

[early morning]

Ugh, bke, hope your weirdo goes away for good. One reason I stay away from all on-line interactive stuff. I'm a coward at heart, lol. This was a pretty frugal week, with no extra spending. Knock wood, nothing broke, no one became ill - not even a cat!! - or needed a rescue that tapped our resources. My cousin gave me a 5# bag of cornmeal, so I refilled my cornmeal canister and put the rest in baggies in our new freezer. I was able to wait for a sale on the freezer, thanks to a friend who allowed us to stash about 300#s of beef in his family's freezers. I'm going to go haul it all home this afternoon and take him some fresh eggs. We saved about 10% on the freezer price, wrangled free delivery even though we are a bit outside the free area, and they hauled off the old one. Most importantly, THEY lugged the old one up the steps and the new one down. It took a while to find one that fit the available space and wasn't frost-free. DH and DD still had to move the electric box because the cord was about 2" too short, but since it was surface mounted, not a big deal. Otherwise, I've been hanging laundry out AND in the house, eating odd pantry meals due to no freezer, and taking commando showers to save water and electric. Going to a free symposium Friday on local and public history, and wondering if I can justify another Master's... it's a fascinating program! But honestly, by the time I'm done I would be 60, I love the job I have, so I guess this would be a luxury degree. The information gained would be useful, but not something I truly need, and some of it I already access on my own, but. . . I love to learn new things in the company of others who are doing the same. Stop me, before I learn (for $$$) again! Hmm, I wonder if I can get a grant...

[rosarugosa]

BKE: A scrabble-playing stalker? Truth is stranger than fiction.
Early: Good deal with the freezer, and surely there are worse vices than an education addiction!
I had a no-spend day and brought lunch from home, featuring my favorite food - salad.
Dinner out for Mom's birthday Sat was less expensive than budgeted, and we all had a really nice time. Mom had called and given me this very sweet, convoluted bit of logic explaining why she should pick up the tab when we went out. I told her "nice try, but we're taking you out for your birthday, so you'll just have to sit on your hands when the check comes; you're not allowed to pay when people are taking you out for your birthday." She said she doesn't often get to do anything for us girls, and I said that it must have been my phantom adopted mother who went with us to all those MD appointments and sat at the hospital with me while DH was having surgery, and took me shopping several times and bought my Nicorette for me . . . I'm really lucky to have the best Mom ever, and I'm glad she stuck around long enough for me to be grown up enough to realize it and tell her so. I was quite a prize in my teenage years!

[Merski]

Ending up the month with lots of frugals and home made meals. We've been eating out of the freezer and cupboards. Hubbie experimented and made a porter soaked oatmeal bread that came out great. A good month overall.

[Stella]

bke I am so glad you are back! Thanks for your kind words!

We are heading into a really spendy time where we are doing some smaller remodel projects and outfitting the kids rooms to make things more functional when the new baby comes. I made a spreadsheet, did research into what everything we need is going to cost and worked up a really thorough budget. I wrote up a schedule of everything we need to do and a week-by-week timeline of what needs to be done when. Hopefully having a specific plan will help the projects go smoothly.

FIL comes next week. A big frugal savings for me is that Zach and his dad are both construction professionals. A weeks free labor from an electrician and carpenter/cabinet maker is going to save us some serious cash.

Another thing I am making a budget for is homeschool stuff. I am involving the children in this since I am letting them have the rest of the school year to work on their own projects. Cheyenne wants to take a carpentry class and a cake decorating class and Bella wants to do indoor rock climbing. Both girls want to do some sewing, cooking and knitting projects and they want to make a "Secret Knock Gumball Machine" project they found that releases gumballs only if you know the secret knock.

Both girls have saved their allowance for 6 months and now have over $100 each saved. Originally they wanted to go to Wisconsin Dells, but that just isn't a possibiliy time-wise right now. I have talked them into going to the Water Park of America instead and just go for the day. It's $30 a person versus $200 for the hotel in WI. We'd probably just have Zach take them. Waterparks are not as much fun when you are 30 weeks pregnant. That will leave them money for other things and will still have the Wow factor that I was hoping they would get from saving their money for so long.

Also, although it is a long way off, the kids have come up with a really cheap, fun idea for Halloween next year. They want to make coordinated costumes for all of the kids so they can be breakfast. Cheyenne will be an egg, Bella will be bacon, James will be a pancake, Travis will be orange juice and Charlotte will be a plate. The costumes will be made of felt and recyclables. I hope they still want to do that come Halloween because it sounds like fun!