Frugal Lunches for the week

I'm off work for the holidays but my husband will be going to work this week. One thing that I've been doing for a while now is making sure we have our lunches ready to go for the week before we go to bed on Sunday nights. It's one thing to say " we'll take leftovers" or " I'll come up with something in the morning". But what happens is that did not always happen and we ended up purchasing a lunch here and there and blowing our budget.

This nice little meal consists of a bean and cheese burrito, chicken flavored rice and pickled jalepenos that I put up this past summer. The entire lunch costs less than $1.50 TOTAL. I also had enough left over for about 2 servings of rice that I can eat for lunch sometime this week or we can use it for leftovers or in a soup or something for dinner and 4 bean burritos that I wrapped in foil and put in the freezer for a quick lunch or dinner down the road.

Here we go- five, frugal- yummy lunches that will ensure that my husband has a good lunch and we don't spend money on food we weren't planning to!

 

What are your go to lunch preps?

 

Happy Homesteading guys!

Earning Amazon Gift Cards for Christmas ( or whatever else you would like)

My husband and I have three kids and of course Christmas comes round once a year. So this year I tried to earn a few gift cards here and there through a few sites to save some money for the holidays. The great thing about Amazon is that they have toys of course, but also pantry supplies and I've purchased things like coffee and toilet paper from there before. The main site I use is

Swagbucks


The main ways I earn are from the daily poll ( 1 point) and then the searches. You get random amounts for searching through their search engine. They have games and such called Swago ( like Bingo) they do sometimes and if I have time then I'll do that- but it adds up nicely. You can cash out with as little as 300 points which is $3. Besides Amazon they have a ton of other options, and I cashed out $25 to Target around back to school for school supplies.

The next site I use a lot is Bing
www.bing.com
I'm pretty sure I don't get referral bonus points for when my friends sign up- but it's a super easy site so I wanted to share with you all anyways. You can earn up to 150 points a day searching and they have some bonus opportunities for earning through daily polls etc. It's super easy and I cash out 1-2 times a month for a $5 Amazon code.

The next site I use is Ibotta

When you sign up I get a $5 bonus and you get $10! You need $20 to cash out and you get paid for items you purchase at the grocery store ( or other stores) and then you scan the receipt with your phone. They have some offers that are called " any brand" so you may get 25 cents for a loaf of bread- it doesn't matter what brand. A while back they had a great deal on a particular breakfast sandwich my husband likes at Sams. They were on sale for $9.98 ( from $12.98) then for each box you got $5 from ibotta! It doesn't take long to rack up that way.


I hope some of these sites help you. There are several more I use but these are the easiest and faster I've found to earn money.

Please note there may be affiliate links in my post. Thanks!

October Financial update- lets talk numbers

It's been a while since I've posted about our debt free journey. You can read about the mountains of debt we have here and here. 

So you may recall that at the beginning of this year we started really trying to get out of debt and pay off our debt aggressively. I'm not exactly sure what happened with that. The first few months went well! Like really well. But then around April we started to slip. I say we, but really it's mostly me, which is another hard pill to swallow. My husband has a debit card, but really only uses it for gas. He does not spend money for anything for himself really. It's mainly going over on our grocery budget, going out to eat, fun stuff like movies for the kids, clothes that we probably don't have to have etc. So we started to kind of started a slow decline of not paying as much as I had hoped on our debt. So the good news- NO NEW DEBT.

That's a start right?

So actually from January 1st until today we have paid off $6,580 which brings our non mortgage debt to $144798.

While my husband has been " on board" with debt payoff I think he kind of just left it to me and did whatever. I pay the bills, I pay for groceries, I pay for the kids stuff etc. So he just kind of didn't know. But we had a long talk and I told him that I really needed more support in this. I needed him to be a cheerleader and be much more present in our budget, our finances etc. He is more than willing- I think I've just never really expressed to him my desire for his help.

So that's where we are. We haven't gone up, but not as much progress as we have hoped.

I really want all of debt paid off by the time I turn 40. I turned 36 last month, so we have about 47 months to work with. Sigh.

How are you all doing on your financial goals? Are you saving for a rainy day? Trying to pay off debt? Have a saving goal for a vacation a car? I would love to hear how it's going for you all!

Productive- Frugal Sunday

Happy September. I am a lover of all the months- but Fall, in particular, is my favorite. It's not quite Fall yet- but it's coming. Summer was pretty much a hot mess for our finances for a variety of reasons, but September hopefully is bringing calmness and more of a routine.

I love Sundays for many reasons. I got up early this morning with some coffee and time to reflect and pray. Then we all got around and went to Church. Our church starts a "new year" the first Sunday in September so the kiddos all went to a new classroom. They were excited to "move up" and were excited about their new teachers. My husband and I are still in the "30- 40" year old couples class and will be there for a bit longer :)

After church we came home and had a nice lunch.  Sunday's are normally a bit lazy for us and we don't go to town if at all possible.

We will have enough leftovers for dinner tonight.

I also made a big batch of Hurst Bean Soup in my instapot- which I love by the way... and put into small batches that my husband and I will take to work next week and maybe even eat tomorrow for lunch.

I need to do a whole post about this because it is soooooooo yummy and frugal and easy. For real like under $4 for probably 8-10 servings. Many people will spend that or much more on one meal out at lunch at work! So I try to make bean soup pretty often as we all like it.

I also made a batch of no bake oatmeal chocolate cookies and a batch of chocolate chip muffins for snacks, lunches , etc.

I know many people see Sunday as a day of rest- and we do in a sense. We try to chill out, hang out with the family, maybe take a nap etc. I do enjoy cooking though and while many times I do some food prep on Saturdays, sometimes I like to kind of do it on Sundays.

What all have you done today to get you ready for the first full week of  September? Are you looking as forward to Fall as I am?

Christmas in July?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

Not actually LOOKING like Christmas- and certainly not FEELING like Christmas around the homestead but being the frugal planner that I am I've started really thinking about it.

We always pack Operation Christmas Child boxes and we've been collecting things for that throughout the year and are getting quite a bit together.

I've started putting some money into my budget for Christmas gift cards now. I've gotten a $15 Taco Bell gift card for my brother ( LOL) and have put it away.

I also just cashed in my Ibotta for a $30 Kohls card! I may use that for back to school purchases if we decide there is something we need like underwear or socks or shoes- but I'd like to save it for Christmas.

Speaking of Ibotta- It is super easy and of course FREE. Once you sign up here you simply scan your receipts via an app on your phone for items that you purchase at stores. There are things like " any brand bread" or " any brand milk" and each one may be .25-.50 cents. I normally make about $7.xx on each weekly shopping trip so it doesn't take long to get enough ( $25) to cash out. You can get gift cards, amazon or paypal. I hope you all find it useful.

I've gotten a few "free item" coupons from Bath and Body works in the past few months and have bought 4 small hand cremes that I'll put in small gift bags for the kids teachers.

What all are you guys doing prepping for Christmas?

Frugal Happenings: 7-8-18

Well I totally just skipped June but here is it what has been happening around the homestead this past week.

Kroger had a sale on their butter- $1.99 a lb so I got 5 lbs to put in the freezer.

The garden is insane: salsa, pasta sauce, ketchup, pickles of all sorts, relish of all sorts, ( see my hot pepper relish recipe)  pickled jalepenos etc. I'm running out of jars fast so I think I'm going to have to start freezing some stuff.

Kroger had a promotion for Bass Pro Shop gift cards: buy $50 get $10 off your groceries. I always use Bass Pro Shop cards at Christmas time and had some money in my Christmas budget so thought this was a win win.

I received some dryer balls a while back and kind of forgot about them, however I dug them out and have been using them for about a week now.

Sold 4 dozen eggs last week ( $2 a peice). I let my oldest daughter keep half then we put half towards their food. They are all still laying well so we have plenty to eat ourselves plus a little bit leftover to sell.

The girls are going to church camp (free our church pays for it) but they needed some cool skirts and a waterbottle- the Goodwill had everything we needed! The water bottles are really nice ones for $1 a peice and the skirts also look brand new and were $4 each, so $10 total plus tax from the goodwill. I looked up one of the water bottles and it was $17.99 at Target new so I would say I scored!

My dissertation is coming along. I need a draft to my professor in about 2 weeks so I'll be busy doing that, canning and raising the kiddos :)

What all have you been doing lately?

Also- any tips on freezing tomatoes especially?

Frugal Happenings: April 2-6

Oh what a week. It was pretty busy coming off of Spring Break just a week or so ago, advising has started for summer and fall, I'm of course still studying for my qualifying exams and I'm finishing up 7 hours of coursework from this semester which will complete all my required courses for my doctorate! Whoo hoo!

A few ways we stayed frugal during this busy week:

-No eating out.
-I made corn bread muffins from scratch several times- which the kids and my husband and I all like 
-The only grocery shopping we did was 1 gallon of milk.
-A former student sent me a nice thank you note and a $15 Sonic gift card to me- so I see some slushes in our future this summer.
-Our church has a beautiful singing on Wednesday night- free entertainment and just a wonderful service.
- It was my turn to bring snacks to the 4H club for my kids on Thursday. Normally I would have went to a cute local bakery and buy little cupcakes or petit fours. But this time I made homeade cookeis with ingredients I already had and whipped up some country time lemonade- the kids gobbled them up and I save probably $20!
- So many eggs I don't know what to do with them! Very thankful. We are getting between 14-18 eggs per day. I donated 6 dozen to our campus food pantry ( we put them in half dozen size cartons and the students love them). We still have had plenty to eat for ourselves.

What all have you been doing around your places this past week?

March updates: 1/3 of the year is finished! How did we do

So.... we are one third of the way through the year.

You may recall that this year we are focused on getting out of a tremendous amount of debt. We've had our ups and downs but here is the breakdown so far:

Paid off January: 1474
Paid off February: $2773
Paid off March: $2619

For a total of $6866 Paid off in 2018!

We are pretty proud of that figure and hope to keep up the momentum. This we did in March to help with the budget

1. Skipped spring school pictures: I normally buy pictures for each of the kids but to be honest they just go in a box in the closet. I put a few out to display- but figured I could skip these this one time. ( saving $60 along the way)

2. No clothes were purchased for myself, husband or the kids. Again- I do not think this is sustainable as the kids are growing but this past month we did not purchase anything!

3. We ate out just once the whole month!! We went on a small camping trip locally for Spring Break and there is a Steak and Shake close to where we camp and the kids love to eat there. We spent $24.xx for the 5 of us and enjoyed it. Eating out just once this month was a huge accomplishment for us.

4. Free entertainment by playing outside a lot, going to a park about 15 minutes away a few afternoons, playing cards at my parents house, participating in Free 4H activities etc. We had a full March and we all had fun.

5. I earned $183 from a local children's consignment sale called Rhea Lana's that happens in our area twice a year. It took some work to tag and enter all the items in- but I enjoyed the pay day! All that money went strait to our next debt.

6. I just listed a book on ebay. It's a text book I used last semester for school- so hopefully I'll sell that. It's listed at $43.xx.

Our original goal was to pay off $25,000 in debt this year, but it looks like we might even make $30,000!!!!

How are you guys doing? Having a nice frugal Spring?

I need your help- Rhubarb issues- any thoughts?

Well not issues really- but Rhubarb is out of my wheel house and not super common around here. I'm not sure what to do with this. I planted a small pot of it last spring. I didn't harvest it last fall, but I'm not sure what to do about it.

As you can see it's very bright and green and growing!

What's going on top here? 

On the top right you can see the "original" stalk, the center left are some of the newer smaller stalks. 

So should I transplant into a garden bed? Into a bigger container? Will it spread if I leave it here? Any tips or advice on what to do? I would love to harvest some rhubarb this fall for some pies, jam and jellies!

Spring Around the Homestead Part 3: The GARDEN

Don't forget to check out the previous two posts examining what's going on right now.

Part 1: Blooms and Flowers
Part 2: Animals

And now- lets see what is going on around the garden!

A row of about 35 cabbages, broccoli, cauliflowers. 

A bit sad- but a few little asparagus babies coming up. I've not been super lucky with these. 

More cabbages. 

Some green onions. 

Tilled and about ready for some corn to be planted .

 In the next week or so I'll be putting in corn, lettuce blends, kale, more onions, radishes and beets.

What do you all have going on right now? Have you started planting yet?

Spring around the Homestead: Part 2- Animals ( chicken overload)

Don't miss yesterday's post: Spring Around the Homestead: Blooms and Flowers

Today I wanted to show you a few of our animals. Chickens are just fun and I ended up with a ton of pictures from them. We are up to about 30 or so chickens. While we do sell a few eggs here or there ( maybe $10-$15 worth a month) we mainly keep them for fun, for our own eggs and my kids show some of them at the fair.

This is our frizzle rooster. He is so fuzzy! He is a bantam breed so super small. 

This girl is a bantam breed Golden Seabright. We have a pair of these girls. We used to have a rooster in this breed but he got so mean we had to give him away. 

These honestly are just the cutest!

Not a great picture but this is a Golden Campine. We have a pair of these and the girls show them at the fair. 

And we can't forget the goats. Clifford we've had for gosh probably 10 years- he's just like a puppy dog. The one in the front is Trail Mix and my oldest showed her last year. Now she is just a pet. If my kids decide to show this year we will need to be getting some new ones soon.

We do have 3 rabbits right now as well- they didn't make the photos somehow. How are things around your homestead? Any new babies? Expecting anything soon ?

Spring around the homestead: Part 1- Flowers and blooms oh my

After a rather dull winter - it was colder than normal but no "big" snows and some rather dreary days- it is beginning to look like SPRING. On my walk this morning I noticed how lovely everything seems to have just exploded with color over night- so I ran back in to grab my camera. I hope you enjoy.

Some lovely pink blooms. 

One of our beautiful pear trees! I love the contrast with the beautiful blue sky and clouds. 

Close up of the pear tree. 

I'm not exactly sure what these are. But the yellow is super bright and there is a burst of purple/pink next to it. It's been here as long as I remember. 

The only ones bloomed so far- but just so beautiful .

Some beautiful daffodils and I thought the wagon wheel behind it looked neat. 

What kinds of colors and blooms are you all seeing? Don't miss tomorrow and the next day when I show you Spring with the animals and spring from my garden! A wonderful time of year indeed!

My visit to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds!

It's my favorite time of year ( outside of Christmas) :) - that's right. Garden time! We took a quick trip up to Mansfield, MO to Baker Creek Seed Company to get some of my favorite seeds.

It's such a fun little place to shop- and we try to venture that way in Spring.

This year I'm doing the basics, so far I've got cabbage, green onions, sweet onions and broccoli going! It won't be long until some of the other goodies I picked up will go into the ground. Look at the goodies for this year from Baker Creek!

YAY! Later in the season I'll buy some seedlings from a local greenhouse and I would like to pick up a few more blueberries if I can find some that fit within our budget!

I'm super excited to start getting some fresh fruits and veggies. I'm hoping to can and freeze a lot this year as well. I can almost taste a fresh cucumber, chilled with just a tiny bit of ground pepper on it. A nice crisp salad of mixed greens with a home made dressing.. Oh my- like I said, my favorite time of year.


What all have you gotten into the ground so far? What are you looking forward to most this gardening season?


Excited to say this post was featured on a great blog I love to follow!

What I've been reading lately

Around here it's been pretty rainy, cold and otherwise yucky outside so I've been inside quite a bit.
I am in my last semester of coursework for my PhD- so I've been studying for my qualifying exams as well as working on my dissertation in my "spare" time, but I still do like to read for pleasure when I can.

I wrote about my 2018 Reading Goal and am on par to read my 50 books this year.

Book #6 was 

I enjoyed the style of the book, the writer herself was good. It was an easy read. I'm not sure that I totally understood or perhaps buy into some of the content, but it was worth a read. One of the things I'm working on is just learning how to communicate better, be a better leader at work etc. I felt like this gave me some good perspectives to think about for sure. I would recommend this book.

Book #7 was 
This book has been around for a while and is on a lot of lists of "must reads" for managers, leaders, etc. Again- since I'm responsible for about 11 other faculty at my current job- I am trying super hard to learn how to best lead. This was a very fast read. Like probably 2 hours and you are through. It was light and had some good points. Would recommend if you are in a leadership position and want to learn to communicate better.

Book #8 was 
I could read Christmas novels at any time of the year and when my library gets a new one in I tend to scoop it up. This had a lot of my favorite components; historical, Christmas and just a nice feel good story. There were of course some sad parts ( Civil War time period) but overall was a very nice book. I found it nice to cozy up with and would recommend.


Have you guys read anything good lately? What have you been eyeing at the library to read next?

February Update: What we did and didn't do

You can read about our January successes ( and failures) here.  

So how did we do in February( we paid off $2,773) in debt!

1. I got a brand new ( looking )pair of running shoes. My friend was at Goodwill and saw a pair of running shoes that looked brand new. She texted me and asked me my size and then got them for me. They were $4, however I give her a lot of outgrown clothes from my daughters to her daughter, so she said no need to pay her back. Karma for the win!

2. Purchased some nice Spring clothes for the kids with a Gift card I received to Old Navy. You can see that post ( here) . For $5.02 out of pocket I got 3 pairs of shorts, 1 nice dress and 1 shirt for my kiddos.

3. I wish I could post we did not eat out at all in February but I have to be honest with you guys. We did- we did three times actually and I'm not proud of it. That money came out of our debt snowball and our grocery budget so it wasn't a good use of our money. I don't think it's terrible to eat out, however when you are in debt as much as we are- it's counterproductive!
We ate out once for my daughters school fundraiser- it was at a local pizza place that donated the proceeds to the school if you ate there on one evening. I convinced myself it was for a good cause and I do love pizza so.....
The second time was for my husband's birthday. He didn't ask , but I offered and the kids wanted to go to his favorite steak house. Grand total for that one for the five of us was $56.xx. OUCH.
The third time was going out after church with my parents. We should have said no, but we didn't. So we have to plan better and be sure to have something going on at home to eat after church so we can say no more easily.

4. We played cards with my family one Saturday night- which was fun and free. One Saturday night there was a free singing at church that we enjoyed and one Saturday night there was a Men's Wildlife dinner thing at our church that my husband and son went to. It just cost me a few potluck dishes of things I had on hand and they had a nice time.

How did your February shake out to be? Any wins to celebrate? Any losses ( like going out to eat three times when you planned for zero times?????)

Happy Homesteading y'all!

February Update: drum roll please

You may remember that on December 31 2017 ( might as well say January 1st, 2018 I guess) we tipped the scales at a whopping $152,852 worth of consumer debt. Read about that here.  However we started utilizing a budget, really keeping an eye on finances and we paid off a total of :

$1474 in debt in January - you can read about some of the ways we did that here in my (January recap post)

So how much did we pay off in February?????

$2773!!!!


That brings our grand total of debt that we have paid off in 2018 to $4247.

$4247 paid off in 2018

So, I wish I could say that the February pay off was $2773 was something we could do every single month. Alas, it is not and we received some tax return money back that went straight towards debt reduction.That is not something we will get every single month.

We received a total of $1678 back from our federal taxes. $563 of that went towards a plane ticket to fly to Texas where I have to take my qualifying exams for my PhD program. The good news is that 1) we paid cash for the ticket and #2) I am one step closer to finishing my doctorate ( well if I pass that is).

The other $1115 left went strait to debt. The good thing about that is that 1) in the past we probably would have spent that money on this or that and just kind of frittered it away- without a plan, and 2) we are $1115 closer to being debt free!!

So we just keep on trucking. It's nice to get some traction under us. We paid off one 401k loan in February so that freed up $21.08 that is now going towards our next debt. It's nice to get a letter in the mail that says PAID IN FULL.

How are you guys doing on your financial journey? Your homesteading journey?

How to keep your grocery shopping under control: Make your list of staples

I know maybe some of you are looking for ways to get your grocery budget down or to save a bit of money, pay down debt etc. So are WE!

In January we spent $472 on groceries for a family of 5 ( read about that here) I'd like to get that even lower.

One thing that helps me is to make a "Top Ten" list if you will. When money is tight and you are trying to really make those nickels and dimes count- it's good to just make a very very basic list of what you can get by with for that shopping period. Now I realize that you could live off of beans and rice if you had to ( or whatever else you have in your home) but I'm talking about really thinking about what your family eats and what it would take for you to have a variety of meals for a month. Some could be staples you already have in your home so you would need to buy those items. Then whatever money is left after you buy your top ten list you can then prioritize other things your family would love to have. Mine looks something like this ( please note that we have all the eggs we can manage because we have chickens, so I don't ever buy eggs at the store.) We also have an abundance of deer meat and sausage from deer and boars that my husband or daughter harvested this past year- so I don't buy meat at the store either.

1. Tortillas (I realize they may be easier to make- but we like the convenience of having them read all the time. We use for breakfast burritos, bean burritos and wraps.

2. Pinto beans  ( dry and in the 25 lb bags from Sam's- I use to make beans, refried beans, chili etc.)

3. Flour- for baking and such again buy in bulk from Sam's

4. Butter- sometimes my Kroger has these on sale for $1.99/ lb. I'll buy 10 or so then and freeze them.

5. Coffee- my husband would disagree but for me this is certainly in my top 10- I like a brand that I buy in bulk from Amazon using my Swagbucks and other point type of rewards. I haven't actually spent money on coffee in quite sometime.

6. Milk- for baking, cooking, for the kids to drink etc. I buy skim milk from Sam's for $2.25 a gallon- cheapest place around here

7. Rice- long grain brown rice bought in 25 lb bags from Sam's- used in soups, stir fry, burritos, casseroles

8. Peanut Butter-  stock up when the Kroger brand goes on sale- kids eat with apples or bananas, I use in baking etc.

9. Apples- I try to buy apples as all the kids eat them, take them to school for a snack, my husband and I take them to work for snacks etc. We have no preference on variety and I just buy what's on sale and looks tastiest- we have a few small trees that haven't started producing much yet but normally get about 20 apples per tree in the fall. Not a lot compared to how much we eat.

10. Spinach, salad greens, lettuce etc. - I buy whatever appears to look freshiest, be on sale etc. We actually can grow a lot of our own greens from Spring to early Winter but when we don't have any they make my 10 ten list. We use the for salads, to top burgers or sandwiches, in wraps, tacos etc. We normally always have some sort of green in the fridge to munch on.

I also freeze and can a lot of fruits and vegetables from the garden during the summer- so we normally have quite a bit of frozen corn on the cob, jelly and jam, salsas, tomato sauces, frozen strawberries etc. I realize not everyone has those on hand.

So what do you think? What is your in your top 10 that didn't make mine???

Spring Break Vacationing while getting out of debt?

We love to vacation. And since I work the same schedule  that the kids go to school we normally always do a full week of vacation for Spring Break. Last year we went to St. Louis- which was awesome. The year before that we went to the Smoky Mountains- even more awesome.

But we are trying to get out of debt and we realize that a full week of hotels or another vacation rental, plus all the food, eating out ,gas, activities etc. will just cost too much.


BUT we do still plan on having a ton of fun this Spring Break. We like to camp and go pretty often, so this year we are planning 4-5 nights in a State park that is local to us and just hike, and play, and cook food that we bring and enjoy some fun time together . We already have the equipment, I'll use our normal grocery budget, and our normal gas budget. The nightly site fee and maybe a tiny bit of other expenses will be all we have to spend.  Nightly fees range between $18-$32 depending on the park and the site.


I actually already have one night credit for camping because we were camping last year when there was an issue at the park and they gave us one night credit to use on our next trip.


We should have our tax refund back by then, but instead of using that bit of money to go on a huge trip, I'm going to budget $200 to go camping on Spring Break.  ( Last year our hotel bill alone was over $1100 for Spring Break- OUCH).

Could we use that $200 to pay down more debt? YES!
Could we get out of debt sooner if we did not go camping? YES!

But my husband and I have talked about it and opt to spend that $200 for a fun week with the kiddos, and since we normally spend SOOOO much more we feel good about the decision.

Anyone else planning a frugal Spring Break?

My Shopping Spree at Old Navy ( for $5.02)

So you may recall that we are in a load of debt that is insanity. Read about that here if you are so inclined.
You may also remember that in January we did NOT spend one cent on clothes for the family but I thought we might have some needs for the kiddos for this spring and summer.

So I received an email from Ebates that it was time for my quarterly cash out and that I could earn an additional 20% on my gift card balance if I cashed out with Old Navy. An extra 20% sounded nice and when I started looking at Old Navy I found several items that would be good for the kids this summer.

Side note: Ebates is a free site I would encourage you to sign up for where you get cash back online for your purchases. You then get money back either in paypal or in a gift card form. I would encourage you to sign up if you haven't yet and then use it whenever you shop online.

So I took my gift card and did some shopping. Old Navy was having 20% off any purchase and if you spent $50 then you got free shipping. My gift card was for $52.02.

I got the following items:
3 pairs of cotton elastic pull on shorts for my son. 1 in red, 1 in black and 1 in gray. That should be good to match little tshirts and he can wear them to school come spring and summer. He literally had ZERO shorts for this upcoming season so this was nice.

I got 1 print shirt for my daughter -
who again is growing like a weed and will need some tshirts.


I then also got a very nice dress for the girls for spring/summer. They have 3 dresses between the 2 of them, then 2 skirts also that they share. They could use a good dress. 

Then I still had a few dollars left on my gift card and I needed to get it up to $50 to get free shipping. So I added 2 pair of fuzzy socks. I will put these in my "gift tote" in our closet. This will either go to my girls stockings at Christmas, used for a gift for my kid's friends etc.

So out of pocket was a total of $5.02. I feel like even at the Goodwill ( one dress is $5.00) that this was a good deal. I wasn't expecting the gift card and thought this would be a frugal way to use it.

Then on top of that I earned cash back from Ebates for shopping at Old Navy in the amount of $4.62. So that puts my NET price to be about 40 cents!!

In the past it would not have been anything for me to take the kids to Old Navy and buy each of them several outfits, myself a few things I didn't need etc. I'm proud of these purchases and feel like they will be put to good use!

What are you all doing frugally this week?

So How much did we spend on groceries for January??

So for the month of January:

Family of 5 ( myself and husband) kiddos ages 12, 11 and 6 , eating every meal at home/from home and the grand total is

$472.01

I feel like that's a good start. I am trying to stay under $400 for February and should be able to. You may recall that I made these breakfast burritos ( and I still have several left) so that's nice.



The first trip of January started with a trip to Sam's club which you can read about here.  We still have some pancake mix, chocolate chips, hashbrowns and olive oil left from that trip. I also still have about 15-18 frozen quiches  in the freezer- that I have made this winter when we had an abundance of eggs. Sometimes I would put in pieces of ham or bacon if we had it and would not put in dill or asparagus- I just put in what we have- but the base recipe is the same. Regardless I have a lot of that frozen. We also still have deer meat and some sausage in the freezer so I need to try to utilize that.

We really love fresh fruits and veggies in this house though- but that can sometimes be difficult to do in the winter, in our climate especially while trying to stay out of the grocery store and use what we have! So for this month of February ( it's a short month right) I am going to shoot for:

$400

What are you shooting for in February? Any freezer meals or tips you would like to share? 

Happy (frugal) homesteading Y'all!

January Update- what we did and didn't do!

So you read yesterday that we have so much debt!!! Read about it here.



January was interesting and in a sense super fun. The weather was cold and rainy so we stayed inside a lot. The kids and I went back to school ( and work) after our long Christmas break.
Some of the highlights from January:

1. No eating out!!!! We did not eat out at all the entire month of January. I actually went to two different lunch lectures at work which were free, my husband had a lunch or two free from work but we did not eat out at all where we paid for it! That may not be much for some of you- but for us it was an accomplishment.

2. Saturday night card nights with my parents and brother and sister in law. On New Year's Eve we went to my parents and had snacks and played cards with my parents and my sister in law and brother ( Rummy). We had so much fun! So each Saturday since then we have went over to their house and played cards! We each bring a snack or something small and have a super fun time. It gives us something fun to do and is a frugal way to have fun and hang out with family. We hope to keep it up in February.

3. We did not buy a single piece of clothing. No socks. No underwear. No shirts. NOTHING. With three growing kids this is also something I'm super proud of. We just used what we have and no one is naked. We will of course have to buy more clothes for the kids soon, especially for summer as I don't know that any of them have shorts that fit- but I hope to find them at yard sales or Goodwill.

4. We got some wonderful new chickens! There was an email that come across through our local 4H group that a lady had some chicks she wanted to give to a 4Her when they hatched- for free. So we called her and visited her and she blessed my daughter with 8 rare breed chicks. She was glad to give them to us and we felt so thankful that we could be frugal and still do some neat things around the homestead.


What are your highlights from January? Any moments your proud of?

This is the post I hate to write.... how much debt do we have??

Oh. My. Goodness.

If you have followed me for very long you may recall that we are up to our eyeballs in debt.

I've debated putting out here how much we owe- but I have a feeling someone else may be struggling with debt as well. I hope it's not to the magnitude that ours is- but I have a feeling some of you may be struggling yourself.

So on December 31, 2017 we started with:

$152, 852 worth of debt.

$152,852


This is NON Mortgage debt people. Sigh.

Even though I thought we were frugal  over the last few years - we weren't seeing any progress. So starting Jan 1st 2018 we did a budget ( www.everydollar.com) followed it and did not buy ANYTHING at all we did not need. I have another post coming up about that soon, but just know that as of today January 31st- one month later we have paid off $1662!

$1662

That brings our non mortgage debt down to $151,378. It seems like only a drop in the bucket- but we have paid off more in one month than we did all of last year. That makes me both nauseated and hopeful all at once.

$151,378

It's our first month and I realize that 30 days isn't that big of a deal but it does give me a glimmer of hope.

Some of you may be saving for a trip, or trying to pay off a loan of some sort, or saving for your kids college- but please feel free to join me on this journey. I'll be updating you monthly on our budget, our debt, etc. It is way outside of my comfort zone to put it out there- but I think I'll be more accountable to you guys and also maybe someone will find some encouragement through this blog.

Follow along guys! It's going to be a journey for sure around the homestead!

Prepping Breakfast for the Week: Frugal Breakfast Burritos

A few things are going on here: 

1: we have so many eggs coming in that we can't keep up- I've made and frozen quiches ( recipe here) and we eat eggs of course fried, scrambled, hard boiled etc. But this is another good way to make a good use of them. 

2: we have gotten a few wild boars this year and processed them so we have yummy sausage

3: it's rainy and cold here so I thought it was a good day to make some of these burritos for the freezer

4: My husband loves these and takes a bag of these to work and then eats one each morning after he goes to the gym. Quick ,easy, protein, cheap and ensures he eats a good breakfast

So  I assembled the ingredients to make breakfast burritos. 

Eggs- from our own chickens

1 lb sausage- we harvested and processed ourselves

tortillas

canned jalapenos - from our garden last year

an onion

taco seasoning - ( it's in the clear container) I buy it in bulk from a local Amish store

cheese- from a local farm ( wish we could do our own cheese)

Let's chop that onion up ( I love my Ulu knife, by the way) 

Brown the sausage then add the onion and taco seasoning. 

Add the dozen eggs and start scrambling them together. 

Add the chopped jalapenos ( fresh are great here too, we just don't have any fresh ones right now). I use bell peppers when making for the kids. 

Shred some cheese to add to the top. 

Wrap that baby up- then roll in foil. 

And here we go. A nice batch of breakfast burritos to add to the freezer. We use a lot of our own ingredients, and also I buy super cheap tortillas- you could probably make them but I can get 10 for .99 cents at Kroger. I have calculated each one costs about .22 cents. 22 cents for breakfast is not bad!! I do write "breakfast" on these with a permanent marker on the foil, because I do make lunch ones as well and write "lunch" on those so we don't get confused!

What all are you guys cooking, prepping, baking and freezing this week?