Making some progress

This week has been challenging. Some unexpected things came up (I guess they always do), and we are headed to Baltimore for the weekend, so this will clearly eat into our gas money.

First, the good. Its Friday, and we have spent $70 on food. With one day left, I am fairly confident that while we will be over our $85 total for food and gas, it won't be insane like it has the last week.

Second, I wrote that I signed up for Mint.com last week. Well so far I am loving it. It shows you everything in real time. So I know exactly how much we have in savings, expenses everything. It is tracking all of our deposits, way to save transfers and food. Its annoying that when I budgeted $41 for home insurance it sends me a big red flag alert that I went over when it was actually $41.26. I will fix that.

This month with daycare now out of the picture we should save $400. That will be a nice chunk of change. I found out yesterday by talking to Verizon if we dump my husband's cell phone we can save up to $65/month. Apparently his company can take over the number since they give him a cell anyway so he can keep it, but we are not paying double. If this works out, I will be esctatic for a number of reasons. We'll see.

I haven't written our menu for this week. Here goes.

Sunday: we ate out at a friends house -- Thanks Brownies for yummy pasta!
Monday: steak (we had frozen)
Tuesday: Chicken Hamburger Helper (we had frozen and had HH)
Wednesday: I went to Bmore to visit my Mom. It was my Dad's bday, and the first since his passing. I went to Wegmans there (my favorite) and got us something for dinner. My husband ordered Chinesse from the place I told him we didn't like. He remembered later why we didn't like it.
Thursday: Scallops, Sausage, Bacon and Spinich stirfry. Had everything frozen except lats two. Total was $5 at Trader Joes. I tweaked the recipe found here on Cooking Light so both of us could eat it, YUM!
Friday: pizza
Saturday: we will eat at my Mom's house.

More later. Sorry I have been MIA, as I said this week has been a little nuts.

An even BETTER photo book deal

Look at this, Vistaprint has slashed all their photobooks by 50% and if you want the 4x6 variety, its FREE! More info, click here!

I have always been pleased with what we've ordered from Vistaprint, and when I found out my friend JC worked for them, it made them even better.

Now I am not sure where I will make photobooks. But its pretty clear my favorite Ladies on Lorian will need some books, the pictures of E, J and MFK are incredible!!!

Ok, now I really am signing off.

Winkflash photo deal -- 60% off photo books

Photobooks are 60 percent off, use code BOOKSALE60 for discount.
For more information, click here

End of the week tally...and some new insight

Thanks to Facebook (and a friend from high school who through the powers of Facebook I reconnected) I learned about a site called Mint.com Several friends of friends recommended it and it seemed like an easy way to balance our finances with the help of someone (a computer) who is more mathematically estute than I am.

So far, I am liking what I see. Once I have used the site for awhile and have seen how it works will give more information, but wanted to throw this out there for anyone looking for helpful financial information.

As for our weekly totals, well again we went overboard, but hopefully since I bought a lot in bulk, the food should last us. Here goes.

Food: $140
Gas: $20

I am happy with that gas total!! I made a more conscious effort to not waste gas on meaningless double trips or taking the scenic route for our little monkey.

In an unrelated note, our daycare center for reasons too complicated to explain but needless to say a complete tragedy for all involved was closed this week by the county. As a result we are likely going to be saving $400 a month because we are not going to send our son to a place for funsies just to get him acclaimated and then yank him for preschool next year. Having him all day means less time for planning but thats about the only downside...also means more playdates for him and me too.

Happy Saturday night...hope you are having a great weekend!

Shutterfly sale

Take $10 off orders of $30 or more, enter code N5Y4-DT69-1FBW-TXPCZ3
Also, get free shipping, enter code Ship30

Great way to save money before the holidays!

Where I buy my staples -- updated 10/4/10

Coffee: Wegman's, 39 oz cannister for $5.79
Cereal Bars: Costco, 48 bars for $11 (if you don't belong to Costco, Harris Teeter sells their generic version for $1.97/8 bars)
Chicken, Perdue boneless/skinless: Costco, 10 lb bag for $19.99 = less than $2 per pound...huge deal!

The week ahead...

I planned out our menu for the week, here goes.

Sunday (last night): we had burgers
Monday: Chicken tacos, recipe courtesy of IrishErin, easy...1 lb chix, Package of taco seasoning. Put chicken in crockpot, with seasoning and water recipe on package calls for. Place on low for 7 hours or so (I am cheating, 3 hours low, 3 hours high). Chicken can even be frozen when you stick in. You fix it and forget it...SO EASY!
Tuesday: Shepards pie. I make my own version of Rachel Rays, which can be found here.
Wednesday: steaks
Thursday: Pasta and sausage
Friday: pizza
Saturday: burgers

Most of these ingredients I already had. I was low on boneless skinless chicken, so we headed to Costco this morning and I bought the big 10 lb bag for $20.

We did a lot of shopping this am for food, food for the month. We spent $52 at Costco, including the chicken, red peppers ($5), fruit snacks ($11) cereal bars ($11)and diced tomoatoes ($3.50).

The cereal bars reminded me to update the list of where I get my staples cheapest. It can be found here. For $11 I got 48 cereal bars. My son loves them! We were buying them at Harris Teeter, 8 in a box for $1.98. But 48 from HT would cost close to $16, so this is a $5 savings.

I didn't need the fruit snacks, but we ran into a friend who had her son with her. He is just 6 weeks older than my monkey. They had the fruit snacks, and my friend opened hers mid-store for the boys to try. The Monkey loved them! I checked the label and they were good for him, so I figured what the heck. He eats so little as it is, I will take whatever nutrition for him I can get!

Finally, I usually buy the Contina (sp?) tomato sauce or diced tomatoes. They are $2.99. But when I was reading the label, the Centro was actually better by a long shot with more vitamins and protein, so I spent the extra 50 cents.

After Costco we went to Trader Joes. We spent $13 on salad stuff and vegetables for the shepards pie, minus the potatos.

So its Monday...and I have spent a whopping $65! That leaves us with $20. Lucky for me most of the food was for the long haul so hopefully it will last.