January Grocery Challenge update: January 4th

 Well, we are just 4 days into January but we are doing great with our $60 challenge. You can read about it here. 

The last time I went grocery shopping was December 15th, and I plan on only spending $60 between then and Feb, 1st. So far we haven't spent any, and if that is the case for the rest of the month, that'll be great! I'll take that money and put it towards our next debt. 

Sunday, we had brunch right before church at about 10:45. Right now we are having services from home, as COVID cases have gotten pretty high in our area. But we had pancakes and turkey bacon. I buy the pancake mix in 10-pound bags and we prefer turkey bacon. I grew up on pork bacon, and my husband and I still enjoy it if we have some from a wild boar we may process, or if a farmer friend, gives us some, but we don't typically buy it. 

$5.98 for 10 lbs from Sam's

Then for dinner, we had Trader Joe's Orange Chicken, a bag of potstickers and a bag of broccoli. We have Trader Joes about 35 minutes from our house, and normally buy about 5 bags of Orange chicken and potstickers when we go. My family loves it! And it's a very special Chinese dinner for only $10 or so, even adding in the broccoli. 

We normally have 1-2 servings of this left for a lunch next week. 

For New Year's Eve, I thawed out some frozen strawberries from this past spring and made Strawberry Shortcake. I still had some of those thawed strawberries left which we had for a snack. We still have milk, and probably 4-5 pears, 5 or so oranges, a few apples and a few clementines as far as fresh fruit. We have a ton of frozen strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. As well as applesauce and canned fruit too. 

The kid's started school today and my husband is back to working ( from home). I have a few more weeks until my new semester official starts ( January 20th) but am doing some things around the house, some things for my classes to be ready etc. 

Do you all have a Trader Joe's? Anything there you LOVE?

Rebates, settlements and more

 I recently received a settlement in the mail for $16.15 from Kotex ( Kimberly Clark). I'm not exactly sure what it is for, but with a family that includes myself plus 2 teenaged daughters, I'm sure we have purchased Kotex in the past. We normally use disposables, but we have on occasion purchased Kotex products. 

So I put that money directly into my bank account and set up a debt payment in that amount. I think one way my thinking has shifted in the past. Normally I would think " woo-hoo" and maybe bought a book or something from etsy. But now, that I'm really into paying off debt and my purchases are minimal, that money is going directly to debt. 

My challenge for you this year is to set up a process for what you will do if you get these little bits of money here and there. If you follow Dave Ramsey's plan they are called snowflakes. But the point is, that they can add up over a year. In fact, I added another page in my debt spreadsheet for 2021 Snowflakes. I'll put little bits and pieces of money in that spreadsheet ( including what I did with that money) and keep a tally. Just for fun. 

What are your plans for your snowflakes this year? Any ideas for more little snowflakes this coming year? 

January Grocery Challenge: $60 or less

 The last few years I have been doing a $100 grocery challenge for January. I normally spend $400 for my family of 5 ( ages 15,13,9) and my husband and I. My husband and I both work full time, however due to the pandemic he is working 100% from home, and when I go back to work on January 21, I'll only be working 1 day in the office- the rest online. 

Not only is January going to be a low grocery month, but it's going to be a NO SPEND month in general. I didn't budget any fun money for any of us. ( Normally, we do $50 for my husband, $50 for me and $50 for the family). We are hoping to jumpstart our debt payoff with a bang come this new year. 

How can I keep our groceries so low?

We hunt.

My husband and oldest daughter and son more than me. But our family hunts. We have a freezer full of deer meat and some sausage as well. We have wild boars on the hunting lease we have and that makes some delicious sausage. So we have plenty of ground deer and sausage, as well as a few packages of deer steaks. One of our favorite ( warning, not healthy) meals is Tator Tot Casserole. 

We have chickens. 

We don't eat them. But we love their eggs. I guess we would eat them if it came down to it, but normally we just use their eggs. So we are getting about 6 eggs per day right now. So will have that this month. 

I can and freeze. 

A lot. I have 6 quarts of homemade veggie soup left, and one quart of that plus a pan of cornbread will be dinner for us. I have plenty of pickles, jams, jelly, relishes and such. I have a few quarts of green beans left from the garden, as well as frozen black-eyed peas and corn and about 5 quarts of frozen pesto. 

I can cook from scratch. 

I can make bread and soups and all kinds of goodies from scratch. And in November we did a pretty big Sam's trip with flour, sugar, yeast, rice etc. So we will be good for sure. 

We have quite a few fresh apples and oranges leftover from the holidays, and I have canned pineapple and other fruits. We also have lots of potatoes and sweet potatoes ( from our gardens) and onions and garlic and carrots ( not from our garden) but are fresh.  I plan on using the $60 for things for the kids lunches if we need it, and milk. I do have some boxed shelf stable milk, but keep that for a true emergency. If I don't spend all $60 I'll throw it at our debt. 

Are any of you planning on a no spend or low spend January? 

Some wonderful things happened in 2020

 Yes, I know for many 2020 did not turn out as you had hoped. I can honestly say there were things about it that did not turn out like I had hoped. Many have lost jobs and lost loved ones. It's been rough. But I would like to challenge you to think back on some things in 2020 that were good, some things that did work out. 

1. I became a PhD!

That's right. I graduated. I defended my dissertation in May ( via Zoom) and then actually graduated ( again virtually) in August. I am ALL DONE! My PhD is in Family and Consumer Sciences Education and my dissertation dealt with empathy towards food insecurity. It was an exhausting2 journey, but again, it's over. 

Pictures from my Graduation Finally Finish Fish Fry- my family had for me when I graduated. 

2. I completed a half marathon. 

I didn't say I RAN in, but I did complete it. This was in January of 2020 and it was cold and sleeting and a trail run, so lots of hills and valleys and all the things. It was HARD. It was VERY HARD. But once I started I couldn't stop. So I am very happy to say I finished. 

3. My oldest daughter ( now 15) started schooling from home. 

This was not the typical virtual option that many schools are doing. Our public schools actually have had a "normal" school year where students attend in person. However, we have told our daughter that when she got into 9th grade, if she wanted to do a virtual school or even homeschool we would let her. The school we went with is a public charter school that has been around for over 20 years. It has been WONDERFUL for her. She's quite advanced for her age and she was spending the majority of time in school reading anyway as she got her work done so quickly, so this has worked out so great. She is very independent and can manage herself, she is getting to take some options that our local , small rural school doesn't offer like Marine biology and German! It really has been a great experience for her and we are so glad we finally took the leap of faith. She is like a different child. 

Some lunches packed for my hubby and I while we still worked at an office

4. We paid of over $38,000 of debt

I wrote about there here if you want more information. But we buckled down, stuck to our budget and did a great job paying down our debt. We cut back on even more items  ( like we changed to Consumer Cellular, reducing our cell phone bill by $85 a month) , we reduced our car insurance slightly ( $13 per month less) and just stayed away from stores, cooked from home etc. 

So while, I know that it was hard. Let's try to find a few good things we can celebrate from this past year. Anything you all had that was worth celebrating?

Last Financial Update of 2020

 You may recall that my husband and I have been trying to get out of debt for some time now. It started with  $152,852 in debt in January of 2018 which is when we decided that was enough. You can read about that here. 

We have made some progress and had some downfalls, but we are on the right path. As of today, December 30th, 2020 we are down to (insert drumroll in your head) $85,575. That means that THIS year alone we have paid off ( drumroll again please) $38,269. That's HUGE for us. So how did we do that?

1. COVID helped. 

Covid forced us to stay at home, and I tried very hard to stay out of stores, my husband and I both started working from home around March ( my husband full time) I went to work 1 day a week most weeks, but the gas we saved from his commute was fantastic. We weren't of course vacationing or taking day trips or traveling for anything really. We stayed. at. home. And I rather enjoyed it. I have a few posts from our "early" social distancing days here on my blog if you want to see what we were up to:

Social Distancing Day 20

Social Distancing Day 11

Social Distancing Day 10                 

So all of that did help save us money. 

2. All EXTRA money went to debt. 

We had a few "snowflakes" this year- meaning money we weren't planning on. In the past, we might put half to debt and half towards something else, or half to debt and half into a kid's college fund or something. But this year- it was GAME ON. All extra money went towards our debt. That helped of course with the balance quite a lot. 

3. I picked up some extra work. 

Not a ton, as I still have a full time job, and a family to take care of, but the opportunity arose for me to teach an online course for a Christian University and I applied for it and started in October. So I only taught one course for them this past year, but it went to our debt, and I'm hoping ( and praying) that I get more courses next semester starting in January. I'll know about mid-January if they are going to need me or not. I also have been working on another project ( editing some test bank questions for a textbook published) which I won't get paid for until February. But again- that helps. My husband used to fix personal computers for people he worked with for some side money, but since he has been at home, he hasn't been able to do that. 

4. We stayed on budget!

Cute picture of our rooster for fun. 

For most things... Christmas was budgeted with cash we had saved, and we stayed within budget. We stayed on budget with our groceries and our other spending as well pretty much each month. It's amazing what keeping to the budget will do. 

5. I amped up my Swagbucks and Bing rewards. ( read about those here)

I made more concentrated efforts to earn gift cards, which I saved in our Amazon account and used for things like birthday gifts, school supplies, and things we needed for the house ( exciting items like batteries and light bulbs). So that was super helpful in keeping our budget on par. 

I'm excited for this new year and what it holds. We have been blessed beyond measure and are looking forward to 2021. I do want to add ( and please don't think I'm bragging) that throughout this time we have continued tithing 10% and just have prayed for wisdom with our money and have asked the Lord to help us be good stewards. I feel like he has certainly blessed that prayer and our faithfulness to tithing. 

Debt Free journey update

 Hello friends, 

Just to rehash, my family and I started with $152,852 in debt in January of 2018 which is when I decided that was enough. You can read about that here. 

Since then we have paid off a total of $59,810 which brings our new total to 

$93,042!

We are under the $100k mark which is fabulous and I'm hoping to get below $90k before the end of the year. 

We are still only spending $400 per month for a family of 5 which includes all the toiletries, food, personal items etc. That's my husband and I, three kids ( 14,13,8)- and we are good eaters! I have posted many of our recipes on the blog and you can find a list on my Recipe page. 

We are very pleased with our progress and wanting to see more progress of course! 

I also have finished my Phd!!!! So will have more time to devote to my blog and I hope to start updating more regularly. I'll post more on that soon as well. 

Please let me know how you are doing. It's been a busy time with the virus and shut downs and my graduation, and several other things but I'm excited to get back to the blogs I follow and updating regularly. 

Social Distancing Day 20

We are all still safe and at home. My husband and I are working from home and the kids are doing their school work from home. My son is getting speech therapy via Zoom conferences as well. We allow our older two girls to do zoom with a select few friends so they can still interact with their friends. They are 14 and 12 and don't have their own phones, however we are letting them use ours to do video chats with friends.

I've planted a row of corn and some lettuces, spinach, radishes, leeks, onions. cabbages and broccoli. A friend brought over some Early Girl tomatoes that were looking pretty rough, but I went ahead and planted them and tried to love them back into existence. We shall see. We still have plenty of food. I'm beginning to have to be a bit more creative with our meals, but we are very blessed and doing fine. What I wouldn't give for some fresh produce though right now!

We are trying to stay positive for the kids- but with the death and hospitalizations and all, it's scary. We are staying home and hopefully, that will protect us. I know others aren't able to stay home, and my heart goes out to them. But for now, we are just trying to make the best of it.

How are you all doing amidst the chaos?