My Thrifty Grocery Budget 2020 - March

I began the month with a plan and I was doing really well with it.  By mid month things in the world had drastically change and grocery shopping became more like reconnaissance missions.  My plan was set aside and I had to adjust and roll with it.  I ended up buying things I never had planned to by, but simply because it was available.  I'm sure I am not alone.  Nonetheless we did pretty well and stayed on budget using up all of this month's budget and all of my surplus leftover from the previous two months.

A small haul from Fred Meyer at the beginning of the month

Honestly, once things started to go sideways in the grocery stores this past month, we probably could have gotten away with no more shopping, however I did think it prudent to not let our stores go too low, just in case.  We chose carefully and we did not do any panic buying and wipe out the shelves on anything.  Just one or two of something seemed like enough.

My free items

My nonfood budget remained intact as well.  I picked up a few sales items and a sixteen pound bag of dry cat food.  I still have $5.20 left in that budget to use later.

Non food items were under budget

Here is the list of food I bought this month:

Under the circumstance we did well

$174.89 ÷ 31 days ÷3 people = $1.88 per person per day.

I found more of this last week so that made me happy

I am relieved with how my grocery shopping worked out this month and I feel encouraged as I head into April with our rather small grocery budget.  From the total $400 budgeted so far this year I had 31¢ left.  I tossed it into my change jar and will start fresh with the $150 I have budgeted for next month.  We are doing pretty well for groceries in 2020 thus far in spite of the current pandemic and all the challenges we are facing.  I hope you are all doing well and are able to get what you need too.

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

I am incredibly grateful these days.  I am considered an "essential" employee as a patient care coordinator so I go to work every day.  My girls both got jobs at our neighborhood grocery store so they are "essential" employees as well.  The three of us are more than fine financially.  We are also healthy and doing everything in our power to stay that way.  We are working safely and when not at work we are staying home and following the rules.

We are sticking to simple healthy meals

I keep any shopping to a minimum, once a week, and I go during the early morning hours when most stores have time set aside for senior citizens and the immune compromised.  I am in and out quickly.  My lists are short and my expectations low.  So far I've been able to find enough without breaking our budget and have been able to maintain our supplies.

I found these M&Ms 3 for $1 for my girl's Easter baskets

Fortunately we were very well set for a "what if" situation.  When the panic set in we stayed home.  I've heard about some behavior that I'm happy to have missed out on.  What I notice now in the stores while I'm shopping is people are much more considerate, kind, patient and polite.  We are buying what we need at the moment and keeping our distance, but still talking and smiling at each other.  Even popping off the occasional joke.  At least among my generation anyway.

Once home I wash my hands and put away my purchases, then wash my hands again.  Since I'm a compulsive hand washer anyway not much has changed for me in this regard.  Last week I made some more foaming hand soap refill solution and topped up the dispenser in our downstairs bathroom as well as the one next to the kitchen sink.  I change out the kitchen towel and dish cloth daily as I always do, more often if I'm really busy in the kitchen.  I change out the bathroom hand towels every other day and I've been able keep to my regular housekeeping and laundry schedule.

We saved more rendered bacon fat

The streets here are pretty much like Sunday morning every day.  I'm not using much fuel in my car right now since I'm only going to and from work and my weekly shopping trip.  I'm definitely saving some money on fuel right now.

I picked up some items for us to do some car maintenance

I had planned on going to the salon for a haircut this week, however with the salons closed right now I will wait.  Instead I trimmed my bangs last week and can now get by until they reopen.  Not a big deal.

I worked on some craft projects and a new planner

I filled a bag with groceries for a neighbor in need.  Single mom with two kids and not working at the moment due to the stay home order.  I gave her a half gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a box of cereal, a big bag of pasta and two jars of pasta sauce.  Not a lot, but I hope it helps.  My daughter dropped it off for me on her way to work.  Another neighbor has directed her to a food pantry he volunteers at so she can get more assistance and a nearby school is offering curbside breakfast and lunch for her girls each day so she has resources available.

Saturday I taught my oldest how to change her own oil on her car.  She did a great job and will no longer need to take it in to be changed and can do it on her own schedule whenever she needs to rather than on someone else's.  Doing it herself also saved her about $20 which made her very happy.  We checked and topped up her fluids too.  We poured the used motor oil into an empty wiper fluid bottle and labeled it.  Our weekly trash pick up provides a service for recycling old motor oil.

Well done!

It is a crazy time at the moment, but I know we will get through it just fine and soon life will begin to get back to normal.  In the meantime we'll just hunker down and pray that all goes well.  I hope none of you get ill and stay healthy and strong.  I also hope everyone is able to weather this financially too.

Our post oil change beverages 😊

How was your thrifty week?

Financial Management

As CEO of our home another department I have is the one that manages our finances.  Financial management is critical and must be done properly.  Financial management includes my budgets, bill paying, capital expenses (mortgage, cars, etc.) and improvements, asset management, taxes, income, investments and so forth.

It helps a lot that I have a bookkeeping, tax and accounting background.  I am able to draw a lot from that experience so as you can imagine I handle all of my finances as an accountant would handle finances for a business.  I track my income, expenses and financial assets as well as project for future income and expenditures.  I also have a financial statement that shows my net worth.  Knowing my net worth and where I stand financially is important.

Home finance is one of the areas a lot of people struggle with.  It is always an area I find challenging, however since I enjoy a good challenge this is an area I really enjoy.  And since things constantly change I am definitely never bored.  In the following weeks I'm going to share in more detail some of the things I do to keep our little empire financially healthy and prosperous.

Simple Christmas 2020 - Update #2

In the last month I confess I haven't done much in the way of Christmas preparations.  I made one gift and I did tuck another $10 bill into my savings envelope so I will count that as progress.  My focus however has definitely been on other things.  And that is okay.  We have a lot of time to get things done so I am not worried about it one bit.

As I've already mentioned a lot of what I will be giving this year will be food gifts.  None of that will need to be made anytime soon.  I've got all the wrapping paper, gift tags, bows, etc. that we need in our gift wrap organizer.  My Christmas cards are pretty much completed and ready to be finished up when the time comes.  And I've updated my gift list quite a bit so I have plenty of gift ideas for my girls.

If anyone has any great gift ideas they would like to share I'd love to hear about them.  Tell me what you've done so far to get ready for Christmas.

Easy Rice Dish On The Side

Here is a simple and thrifty rice side dish that goes great with a lot of different entrees.  You can change it up quite a bit too which makes if very versatile.  It also happens to be pretty tasty.

I begin by sauteing a chopped carrot, some onion and celery in a couple tablespoons of oil.  Once the onions are tender I add a cup of rice and saute that for a few minutes with a couple teaspoons of dried parsley, some salt and pepper.  

Once the rice begins to brown add 2 cups of broth or water with bouillon.

Propping the lid open with the spoon keeps it from boiling over

Over medium heat loosely cover the pot and simmer for five minutes.  Then turn off the heat, fit the lid tight and let it sit for twenty more minutes on the hot burner.  

Fluff the rice and serve.  Pretty darned easy and it costs only pennies to make.  You could jazz this up with additional vegetables or spices and make it any way you like.

Home Management - Laundry

When it comes to laundry I keep it thrifty and I keep it simple.  Over the years I've tailored our wardrobes so that most of our clothes are the same colors.  Our towels and linens are too.  We happen to like those colors quite a bit and now we find that we no longer need to sort our laundry.  It all goes in to the wash.

I try not to spend more than a dollar for a bottle of laundry detergent, fabric softener or dryer sheets and so far I've done really well with that endeavor.  Between Dollar Tree and sales at other stores paired with coupons I've managed to buy my laundry supplies very cheaply.  I've tried homemade laundry detergent and I know a lot of people really like it along with using white vinegar in place of fabric softener, but I do not.  It is a personal preference and I prefer commercial laundry detergent and fabric softener.  I am also a big fan of bleach and I realize not everyone is.  I personally haven't found that vinegar is a good substitute and since it isn't something I use a lot of I don't worry about it.  I've had the same bottle of bleach for nearly five years and it has been serving me well.

I know a lot of people like this combo, but it didn't do it for me

I wash all of my clothes and linens with warm water and run the rinse cycle with cold water.  I use about half the amount of detergent recommended on the bottle as I find it is way too much otherwise.  So a bottle of detergent does last me twice as long as it would otherwise.  I go through approximately 5 bottles of detergent, 3 bottles of fabric softener and 2 boxes of dryer sheets per year.  I seldom use bleach in the wash and find I use it more for cleaning and disinfecting than anything else.

I schedule my laundry days.  I find if I do a load on Saturday and another one on Sunday I only need to run one additional load on Wednesdays to keep us in clothes and linens.  As long as I keep up on it I don't get overwhelmed and usually can keep it to around three large loads per week.  Every few weeks I find I only need to do two loads.  In warmer weather we run fewer loads because we wear less or smaller articles of clothing and use fewer linens.  I can also hang laundry outside when the weather is nice so I don't need to use the dryer as much and that saves us on electricity as well as heating up the house.

I love my laundry room setup
It works perfectly for us

I am always looking for ways to make our laundry processes more efficient.  Anything I can do to save money and time is always a good thing.  Not being a slave to the washer and dryer is even better.  One load of laundry is easy.  A mountain of laundry is absolutely no fun.

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

Life is much different for us at the moment as it is for a lot of people.  My girls are now home. My oldest has collected all of her things from her dorm room and turned in her key.  She will do her classes online while my youngest is on an expanded spring break.  I still go to work every day as I am a healthcare professional and there is a strong need for what I do.  Needless to say my already busy schedule is even busier and my days are long.

In the meantime I am tremendously grateful that I'm well prepared for the weeks ahead.  We have plenty of groceries and household items for the time being.  If we are really careful and work hard to stretch these things we should be good for several weeks, even a few months.

Sunday morning I gave the girls $20, a short list of items and sent them out on a reconnaissance mission to the grocery stores.  I wanted them to experience the craziness that I did that previous Friday.  Nothing on that list was a necessity and it's a good thing because they could only find half of the items on it.  I felt it would be a good life lesson for them and it was.  It also cemented the fact that when I said use the TP sparingly and make the food last I wasn't overreacting.  They now know and fully understand the wisdom in what I am saying.

While they were out I took the turkey breast I had roasted the day before and removed all the meat from the bones.  I placed the bones in my largest slow cooker and filled it up with water, the trimmings from an onion and a bunch of celery along with a carrot into the pot.  After six hours I let it cool and strained off the broth.  The remainder of the turkey carcass and meat bits I saved as our cats will eat that, especially Jack.  He really loves turkey.

I made a large pot of turkey and dumplings for my girls and a smaller pot of turkey vegetable soup for myself.  I cooked some cubed steaks, made rice and a huge salad too.  All of those items provided us with several meals throughout the week.  I still have broth and turkey I put in the freezer for additional meals.  My greatest concern food wise is my ability to stay Keto.  I may have to veer a little bit and go with a whole food diet if I have any difficulty getting the groceries I need, but I'll cross that bridge if and when I need to.  In the meantime I will do my best to keep it healthy for all of us.

In the wake of all that has been going on I'm ever so grateful to have a home that is clean, neat and tidy.  I have been easily able to manage it without feeling the need to go on a deep cleaning frenzy.  Some of the 15 Minute Chores I accomplished to continue to keep my home in order:

Laundry Room & Half Bathroom - vacuumed floors, scrubbed sink, washed decorative towels.  Daily swish & swipe.

Dining Room - vacuumed floor, cleaned dining room chairs.

Kitchen -  vacuumed & spot mopped the floor, cleaned underneath & sides of the stove, bleached sink.

Bedrooms & Main Bathroom - vacuumed & dusted.  Scrubbed sink & toilet, washed bathmat.  Daily swish & swipe.

Other - three loads of laundry, vacuumed & dusted living room, hallway & entry.  Swept front porch.

How was your thrifty week?

Bad Days? Or Challenges?

No one likes to have a bad day.  I choose not to have bad days.  Some of my days may be bumpy, but thankfully they are never a total loss.  I try not to allow it.  It's a mindset.

If I look at a bumpy day as a challenge instead of something horrible I am much better able to handle whatever situation arises.  Rather than panic or cave in I choose to look at it as a challenge.  A challenge I can handle.  Challenges motivate me to come up with solutions.

With a challenge I'm able to step aside, think about it, weigh and measure, then put a plan into place.  I'm able to be less emotional, more objective and more practical.  Knee jerk reactions rarely work out.  I'd much rather use a level head and make things better, not worse.

I have found the most important part for me to not have bad days is my attitude about things.  By simply refusing to accept that things are bad and accepting that I have a challenge to overcome I do much better.  My grandmother used to tell me that nothing is so bad it couldn't be worse and she was right.

Do you have bad days?  Or do you sometimes have a day that is just more challenging?

My 2020 Savings Goals

I have a bunch of them because right now I have a lot of goals I'm looking to accomplish in the next few years.  Big goals that will require some funds to help make it all happen.  So I've set up a variety of savings goals to help me make those other goals a reality.  It is very exciting!

Emergency Fund = $5,000

I want a larger emergency fund simply because it makes me feel better.  I used to have a $3,000 fund, but with costs rising I felt it was time to up that a bit to give me some extra padding.  Right now I am working to get it back up to $3,000 to replace what was needed in 2019.  I'm almost there and once I've accomplished that I will move onto the new goal of $5,000.

Health Savings Account (HSA) = $8,000

New for me in 2020 is a HSA account.  I've never had one before and it was an option open to me this year as part of our employer provided healthcare coverage.  I investigated it in 2019 and decided it might be the better option for me and my family.  $8,000 is the maximum investment I can make right now, although that may change in the future, and fortunately I don't have to do it alone.  This year I will be contributing $50 per paycheck to this account and so is my employer.  By the time I retire and leave the company my goal will be to have this account fully funded as I will get to take it with me.  Having an extra $8,000 available for medical expenses when I retire will be a very good thing.

Employee 401 (k) Plan With Matching Funds = The Max!

I am very fortunate to have a 401(k) with employee matching at 4.5% if I contribute 6%.  As soon as I was eligible I began contributing 6% to my 401(k) so I didn't leave any employer money on the table.  I work hard so I wanted to make sure I got it all.  I contribute 10% of my income each payday to my 401(k) and have done well with it.  This year my children no longer qualify for the Child Tax Credit so I began bumping it up 1% each month.  This will lower my taxable income to compensate for that tax credit so I won't have a higher tax debt.  Not to mention it will be a big boost to my retirement income.  I will continue to do this until I reach the maximum I can contribute and let it ride until I retire.

Roth IRA = $7,000 Annually

I have a Roth IRA that hasn't seen much action from me in recent years.  The tax laws allow me to contribute a maximum of $7,000 per year to this account.  My goal is to contribute as much as I can to this account between now and my retirement account.  If I can swing the full $7,000 each year I will do that.

Savings Account

In the process of accomplishing all of these other goals I also plan to stuff my savings account with everything I have left over after bills and other expenses.  I will need to employ a lot of thrifty maneuvers to make sure there is something to stuff in there and I have quite a few ideas in mind.  Right now I am putting $100 per paycheck into this account.  No matter what.

Christmas Fund = $100

My Christmas Fund is my easiest goal to accomplish.  Each year from January through October I place a $10 bill inside an envelope to help me with gifts and other Christmas expenses so it doesn't become a hardship or affect our regular household budget.  We enjoy simple and modest Christmases so this fund works very well for me.

Travel Fund

I won't be starting this one until next year as I want to make sure I'm on track with my other savings goals first.  Then I will add this one.  I think this fund is going to be my most favorite goal to work on.  I can hardly wait!

I am super excited about these goals and equally as excited to work on them.  I know they seem pretty lofty and they are.  But completely doable too.  I know I can make this happen because if I do I get to retire early and have the life I've been dreaming about for a good long time.  That alone, is enough incentive for me to make this happen.