February $100 Grocery Budget 2021

I really challenged myself this month to spend as little as possible on groceries and I think I did an amazing job.  We went into the month well stocked in our pantry, freezers and refrigerator so the first two weeks of February I didn't do much in the way of grocery shopping.  Just a handful of loss leaders. By the end of the third week the crisper drawer was pretty much empty so I stopped into Fred Meyer for a few things as well as some loss leader sales items.  I did the same thing at Albertson's and we were topped right back up well enough to see us through the rest of the month quite nicely.

 

I was all about the markdowns, coupons & sales items this month

I think I did a good job with my $25 non food budget this month as well.  I was able to find items at rock bottom prices that allowed me to top up our linen closet supplies.  At Dollar Tree I stocked up on a few bottles of acetaminophen and ibuprofen for the medicine cabinet and picked up two packages of toilet paper on sale for $3.99 a package at Albertsons.  At Walgreens I purchased four jugs of laundry detergent on sale for 99¢ each!  I am now fully stocked with enough laundry detergent for the entire year.  My grand total for nonfood items came to only $14.94.

 

Once again loss leader sales and markdown items ruled the day while shopping and I only purchased things I knew we needed and would use.  I didn't really stockpile anything or add to our prepper pantry as it wasn't necessary.  Despite our super low budget we ate some great meals and even enjoyed a couple desserts.  All healthy and nutritious too.

 

I stocked up on laundry detergent

I began my $100 grocery budget this month short $1.13 because I went over budget in January.  I rolled that over to February which gave me a starting total of $98.87 to spend on food.  I used up the remaining $12.51 onmy Albertson's gift card and spent a total of $51.30.  I won't complain about that!  This left me with $.47.57  I plan to roll that amount over and add it to my $100 budget for March.  That is a pretty good amount to start off with next month!

 

Revisiting An Old Post - Pocket Money

 

Last week I mentioned I was working on Low Or No Spending in 2021.  My goal this year is to spend less so I can save more in preparation of my retirement goals.  Last year my big goal was to work my way toward debt freedom.  In order to do that I gave up my pocket money for the entire year of 2020 and looking back it was entirely worth it.

 

This year I decided to reinstate my $20 of monthly pocket money.  So far I have spent some of it on treats for me and my girls like chocolate, ice cream and I even bought myself a bottle of wine last month.  Nothing over the top or extravagant but it is really nice to have this little bit of money to spend on a whim and completely guilt free.

 

If you would like to read more about my decision to add pocket money to my monthly budget you can read my original post by clicking here.  Let me know if you do anything like this and what you like to use your pocket money for.

 

Prepping In 2021

As most of you know we began a prepper pantry last spring and it has been great.  Not only was it a fun project for us to take on but we now have the peace of mind that we are much better prepared for whatever life might throw our way.  Because, honestly, one never really knows what the future has in store. 

In a previous post I talked about managing our food storage and how we plan to utilize a pull and replace method so items do not go to waste.  Right now our pantry is designed for three adults to provide us with two go sized meals daily.  Most of what is in there is considered long term storage with long shelf lives.  Other items like condiments and canned goods have shorter shelf lives and will be “shopped” more often.

 

As far as expansion goes, I do not have a lot of plans for expanding as in the next couple of years I’ll actually be downsizing.  A lot of what I currently have will go to my girls so they can get a head start on their own pantries.  Until that happens however I will be in maintenance mode except for one area that I do have plans to expand.  I want to dehydrate more foods.

 

Dehydrated foods are impressive.  Simply by removing the water content you extend the storage life far beyond that of canned or frozen.  You can also store a whole lot more food in a smaller space (like an RV for instance).  And I’ve started to really enjoy adding dehydrated foods to my regular cooking, especially onions which dehydrate and have all the same flavor and texture as if I had freshly chopped them.

 

As I come across really good buys on produce or find things in the markdown bins I plan to bring them home and prepare them to dehydrate.  Then once they are done I can store them in canning jars with oxygen absorbers or vacuum seal them for the prepper pantry.  I find dehydrating food is fun and interesting.  And cooking with it is very convenient.  I’m sure another 50 pounds of onions will be in my near future.  I chop them and dehydrate them for regular cooking plus once they are dry I can whiz them round in my mini food processor and make my own onion powder.  Which smells just heavenly.

 

The other area to expand for the prepper pantry will be our water storage.  I have an area in our garage set up for it and I’ve been working to purge and reorganize the area next to it so I can add more stored water.  Water purification processes is another area I wish to explore as well as alternate power supplies.  Mostly this year it will be dehydrating more foods and expanding our water storage though.

 

So there you have it.  That is what I have planned for prepping in 2021.  Are you planning any additional preparations or stockpiling at your home?

 

 

 

 

 

Selling Stuff Online

 

One of the ways I supplement our income is by selling stuff online.  I have an Etsy shop as well as an eBay account that I've used for years.  The beauty of online selling is that you can do as much or as little as you want.  Sometimes, as has been the case this year, I simply go through my house and garage and collect items I no longer need or want and list them.  Other times I may actually go to thrift stores and yard sales and search for items I can resell.  In that case I purchase items I am personally interested in and like.  I find it is much easier to sell items I enjoy and have some knowledge about.

 

Some of the items I sell on eBay and in my Etsy shop are usually vintage or retro in nature such as Pyrex or Corelle.  I love, love, love vintage dishes, have done a lot of research about them over the years and I own quite a few pieces.  When it comes to vintage kitchenware I'm a complete nut about it so it makes sense that I resell those types of items.  By selling items I like it makes the process that much more enjoyable.

 

Another item I sell quite a bit is sewing patterns.  I enjoy sewing and find that reselling patterns, particularly children's patterns has been a nice staple item to include.  Now I know I'm not going to get rich off of selling patterns, not by a long shot.  They are slow to sell, but steady and as long as I can get them for pennies I'm able to make a profit, although it isn't a lot.  But nonetheless it is still a profit and it adds up over time.

 

When setting my prices I will check out what others are selling similar items for and then decide if I want to do a set price or an auction.  I keep my prices reasonable, often setting them just under what the average is so I have a better chance of selling.  Because I am careful and don't spend a lot on items to begin with my profits are still really good even at a lower price.

 

In order to keep my online selling as profitable as possible I try to streamline the process as much as possible so I'm not wasting a lot of time.  I will photograph all my items at one time, then write up my selling descriptions and get ready to go online and start listing.  I find, for me, that listing or acquiring inventory only on Saturday and Sunday works best so I'm not overwhelmed trying to do things during my regular work week.  I also am careful not to list too many items at one time too.  I also keep my inventory small so I'm not having to manage a lot of stuff and it doesn't take up a lot of space in my home either.

 

I am careful to make sure I list the shipping fees accurately so I'm not paying extra to mail sold items and I do my best to not pay for shipping materials.  Shipping materials can be expensive to purchase so I gather up bubble wrap and boxes whenever I can and store them in a small area of our garage.  Whenever I get something in the mail I will often reuse the packaging.  I use priority mail quite a bit and the post office will supply you with free envelopes and cartons for using their services.  I will go to the post office and stock up on those from time to time.  You can also order them online and they will deliver them to your door free of charge.  I use packing tape I purchase at Dollar Tree for a dollar and print my mailing labels off on scrap paper I bring home from work.  As long as I can keep my costs for mailing minimal I'm able to pass that savings onto my customers.  Low shipping prices give me an edge over other sellers so I always try to keep the fees as close to my cost as possible.

 

I would encourage you to try your hand at online selling if you have an interest in it.  I've found it a great low impact way to add extra income to our household budget.

 

Last Weeks Of Thrifty Moves

So sorry that I missed my Thrifty Moves post last week.  This month seems to be flying by at a rapid pace.  It is already the last week of February!!  I do hope all is going well with all of you.  For me the past two weeks haven't be too overly eventful, just peculiarly busy.

 

In the past two weeks we've seen winter finally hit our area and drop a ton of snow, not unlike a lot of areas across the U.S.  We shoveled it off the driveway before watching our piles melt away when it warmed back up again and began to rain.  For the brief time the snow was here it was quite beautiful.

 

We spring cleaned the chicken coop and filled it with fresh bedding and the shredded paper from our new paper shredder.  I added the old bedding to our compost bin and we've been getting an egg every now and then which tells me spring is on its way.

 

The youngest and I did a little bit of treasure shopping at a few thrift stores.  I even found a few things to resell online.  She found a book and I purchased a vintage cookbook, which oddly enough I had donated one just like it thinking it wasn't something I needed, then regretted it.  Now I have another copy and I plan to hang onto this one.  I also found a replacement lid for one of my vintage Pyrex dishes.  I did a small amount of grocery shopping, mainly markdown items, sales with coupons and loss leader deals.  I have been very careful with my spending lately enjoying a low spend month.

 

THINGS WE ATE LAST TWO WEEKS:  lemon pepper chicken with asparagus, steak with steamed vegetables; taco salad, chicken & noodles, grilled cheese sandwich & tomato soup (love!), chicken fried rice.

 

THINGS I CLEANED IN 15 MINUTES OR LESS: 

Laundry Room & Half Bathroom - vacuumed floors.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Kitchen & Dining Room -  Vacuumed & spot mopped floors.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Bedrooms & Main Bathroom - Cleaned sink, super scrubbed shower tiles, vacuumed & dusted, mopped bathroom floor.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Other - four large loads of laundry.  Vacuumed & dusted living room, hallway & mopped both entryways.  Swept and tidied up the garage.

 

THINGS I DID TO SAVE A SMALL BUNDLE OF $$:  I washed out a few Ziploc bags to reuse.  I bought my daughter new snow boots at the shoe outlet.  I printed off some coupons I downloaded from coupons.com.  I made some foaming hand soap solution to refill our dispensers.  I used my fuel rewards card to save 3¢ a gallon when I filled up my truck.

 

THINGS I DID TO EARN EXTRA $$:  I had to get a new prescription filled so I took it to Albertson's and was able to get a $25 grocery gift card for doing that.  After my fifth refill they will give me another $50 gift card.  I sold some more things on eBay and from my Etsy shop.

 

How was your thrifty week?

 

 

 

Thank You 2020

I am incredibly grateful and feel very blessed and fortunate for the year we just had.  It was definitely a year like no other filled with new experiences, concerns, fears and even some of the same old ones too.  2020 taught me a lot.  It challenged me in ways I did not expect.  Although it started out on a familiar note I can definitely say 2020 was not the year I had expected it to be.  And all I can say about that is - Thank you.

 

I began the year hoping to get on top of some lingering debt and entertaining the possibility of paying off my car even though I had a 0% interest rate on the loan.  At the very least, my goal was to have it all paid off by the time my youngest daughter graduated from high school in the spring of 2023.  A reasonable goal to be sure and quite manageable as long as nothing else cropped up in the meantime.  I had already been derailed twice before by unforeseen medical bills, but nonetheless I was hopeful.  Then the pandemic hit.

 

The rat race that was our life and had been for the past ten years game to a grinding halt.  As a mom with two very active and busy children August through June represented me orchestrating and coordinating more schedules, homework, tests, drop offs, pick ups, payments, fundraising, concerts, events, competitions, conferences, festivals, practices, games, tryouts, sports physicals, dentist and orthodontist appointments, uniform fittings, etc. than seemed humanly possible for one person to do.  But I did it.  Religiously and without fail my girls made it to every appointment and obligation they had and somehow we managed the expenses to go along with all of it.  All while I worked a full time job and managed our house and a boatload of home improvement projects.

 

On Friday March 13, 2020, yes that was a Friday the 13^th, our lives changes in a VERY BIG way and I am so glad that they did.  We moved my oldest out of her college dorm and back home and both girls waited while their respective schools scrambled to get online schooling up and running.  While they waited both got jobs at our neighborhood supermarket which was also scrambling due to all the recent panic shopping and sudden shortages.  I immediately stopped running around like a chicken with my head cut off, stood back and just breathed.  Things were happening all around me with a lot of chaos and uncertainty.  The news was going crazy with all kinds of misinformation and contradiction.  It was enough to make ones head spin.

 

It took a couple of weeks for the dust to begin to settle although there was still no toilet paper on the shelves to speak of, but in that time as we headed into lockdown I realized just how uncertain life could be.  On a very grand scale.  Because I work in the medical field as a patient care coordinator I wasn’t concerned about losing my job, but I was very much aware that it could happen.  No guarantees.  And that knowledge spurned me into action.  I had to be prepared to take care of myself and my family because at the time things were a little bit out of hand.  The vast majority of people, or so it seemed, were out of control, driven by fear of the unknown and a strange virus they had never heard of before. Our government was at odds with each other over exactly what we should be doing, the media was sensationalizing everything, virus related deaths were beginning to grow and people were losing their jobs at a rapid fire rate.  It was pretty scary.

 

I could have bought into all the panic and fear mongering.  I could have joined those people glued to their TVs, laptops and cellphones freaking out over everything they were hearing and seeing.  I could have watched the rioting and protesting that started up and been overly affected by the hostility and negativity plaguing our large cities.  I could have joined in on the deplorably bad behavior that was being demonstrated and gotten really, really angry.  I could have become selfish and rude and mean and thoughtless and careless.  I could have felt sorry for myself or become depressed.  But I didn’t.  I didn’t do any of those things.

 

Instead, I turned to a higher power and I asked for His guidance to help me navigate the days ahead.  Because this thing was far bigger than what I could manage on my own.  And I thanked Him every day, multiple times a day in fact, for all that I had and all that I was given as each day unfolded.  And I seriously got my shit together!  I didn’t sit back and wait for something to happen.  Or for someone to do something.  I was that someone and I did something.  I acted.  And we made it!   We made it through 2020.  And because of everything I did and everything I learned about myself in the process I know what is truly important and how I want to live my life moving forward and what I need to do to make it happen.  So I say a big resounding THANK YOU to 2020.  I couldn’t have done it without you.

 

  

Making Things Better #3

 

My next project to make things a little nicer for myself was to organize and protect my card making supplies.  Although I’ve managed to acquire the vast majority of my papers, envelopes, dies and so forth as gifts and on a very thrifty little budget by shopping around and buying things online from sellers on eBay as well as in thrift stores or craft stores using coupons, it is still an investment and I don’t want things to get damaged.  Plus I find I am much more productive when I’m organized and it is easier to find the things I need.  Who doesn't, right?

 

I used some clear mailing labels I had print labels off the computer

The drawers are proving to work out very nicely

It took me a little bit to figure out my best system and while I was doing that I made do with items I already had on hand.  Once I was able to determine my workflow and how I liked to have my supplies arranged I was ready to invest in a few things to make it a more permanent and workable situation.

 

This matte protects the table and gives me a great surface to work on

I started with a couple of the plastic paper storage drawers to organize my stickers, embellishments, gems, etc. and was surprised at how quickly I filled them up.  I decided to go ahead and purchase a third one to store my embellishing folders, dies and die cutting supplies in.  I was able to get all three drawer sets on sale for  $10.99 each plus I had a 20% OFF digital coupon too.  I used containers I already had to keep my special pens together, a couple canning jars to store scissors and other crafting tools and a few boxes I’d cut down and used to keep my recycled greeting cards in as well as to temporarily store my card bases and extra envelopes.  The cards and card bases as well as the envelopes get used up quite quickly so this seems to be working rather well for the time being.  At some point I will likely upgrade these items too once I figure out exactly what I want to have, but until that time I am quite happy using my customized boxes.

 

The 12" X 12" paper bins are wonderful for organizing my papers by type
The gray bins hold extra supplies and my recyclable greeting cards

I use this box to keep all the Christmas themed greeting cards in

With all of the little pieces taken care of I moved on to the larger issue which is figuring out what to do with all of my 12” X 12” papers and card stock.  After much searching and contemplating I decided on a set of 6 plastic storage bins made exactly for this purpose.  The set was nearly $40, however I had a credit on my Amazon account so my out of pocket ended up only being $17 once all was said and done.  I originally had in mind some type of shelving unit, but the prices on those are far more than I was willing to spend and they didn’t really provide a lot of storage.  Once I’d ordered the bins I still wasn’t completely sold on them until I realized how nicely they would work once I had them loaded.  They hold a lot.  They are even better than I initially thought because now all of my papers are really portable, which means I can load my stuff into Laverne and take off and make cards anywhere I go.  Whoo hoooo!  Once I came to that realization I was super excited about these bins.  And I do find they work just perfectly for me.

 

This shelving unit I bought off Facebook Marketplace for $20 in 2019
It has been a great piece to hold all of our craft stuff and now some of my card making supplies

 

This card stock scrap binder has been a big game changer

Scraps, now that is a monster all of its own.  What to do with all those scraps.  Well, my youngest came up with a brilliant storage solution for all of my cardstock scraps which I like to organized by color.  We place those into page protectors and they are now stored in a large three ring binder.  I just happened to have the page protectors and an extra binder in our school supplies bin.  That made it not only easy, but basically free. 

 

Ribbons fit perfectly in this shoe box

The die cutting station

The rest of my scrap paper scraps went into plastic shoe boxes with lids that I already had.  I have one for Christmas and one for everything else.  So far that works.  Other miscellaneous items were sorted and went into a divided plastic container I had.  Another identical container was used for all of my die cuts.  And that seems to be working rather well at the moment too.

 

I still have my sewing area

I put one of the shelves back up for my dolls to stand on and watch me work
I love to come in here and get creative

Now my papers are organized by type and theme, I know where all my little pieces and parts are and I feel really good about this room whenever I come in because it isn’t chaotic and everything has a place.  I will continue to work with and tweak my crafting center as time goes on, but right now I am extremely happy with it.  And while this project was a little more of an investment then some of my others I feel it was definitely worth it.  Craft room organization can get very expensive, but I figured out a good way to do it by spending less than $50 out of pocket.  That is a small investment I can easily live with.