Last Week's Thrifty Moves

 

Good Morning!

 

I slept in until 7:00 on Sunday morning but since it was daylight savings time I was actually up at 6:00 by the time I got all the clocks changed.  That was just fine with me because I was very happy to add the extra hour to my day.  I started off by brewing a fresh pot of coffee and while I waited for my first cup I made up some handsoap solution and refilled my Halloween dispenser before storing it away until I need it again next year.  My morning was spent sipping coffee, writing a bit and then putting away all of our Halloween decorations.  I'm always saddest to put away my little ghosts so this year I decided to put them in my china cabinet with all my other little treasures.  It really made my heart happy to put them in there instead of the bin I store in our garage.

 

It seems like October sped by in a flash!

I did not go grocery shopping Sunday morning as we didn't need anything.  My trip to the store the Sunday prior was enough to keep us going for two weeks.  That allowed me to enjoy more time at home, which I absolutely love.  Instead I did some paper decluttering and tidied up the space next to my recliner. After that I got a load of laundry done all while I watched some TV.  I've been watching more TV lately which I've been enjoying.

 

Tuesday was election day here in the United States so I was sure to head to the polls after I got done at work and vote.  Kind of crazy how this has all played out but I was just fine with whoever our president ended up being.  This is the first time I didn't have a strong opinion over who I wanted for president.  It made choosing one to vote for a little difficult though.

 

All ready for the next Halloween season

Friday the young one and I worked out in the yard raking leaves and cleaning up yard debris.  We gave the hens two full trash cans of leaves in their coop to spread around and play in.  They loved it and seemed to be having a really good time.

 

I sold some cards in my Etsy store and one of the dolls I had refurbished sold on eBay.  I think I might put some of the dolls in my Etsy store too.  I am super excited with all the interest the greeting cards have been generating.  I spent the majority of my Saturday making some Thank You cards and listing those in my shop that evening.

 

Our weather warmed up quite a bit and stayed above freezing so we didn't require much in the way of supplemental heat last week.  I turned our little electric fireplace on in the mornings just to maintain the temperature inside and then off when I left for work.  That was pretty much all the heating we needed.  By Saturday that was slated to change and later that evening we got our first snow.

 

I received this beautiful handcrafted bookmark in the mail from one of my readers
I was thrilled to pieces to receive it. I will definitely treasure this and put it to good use

I'm not sure if it inspires you if I post my weekly housekeeping tasks or not so let me know if you want me to continue.  It definitely does help me stay accountable (who doesn't need that?) but if no one is interested in it then I will stop.  I didn't list out my housekeeping last week and I'm not entirely sure anyone noticed.  If you do like it let me know.

 

Yes, I really did have all of this crap piled up next to my recliner
This is what happens when I try to do too many things at one time

Much!  Better!

Some of the 15 Minute Chores I accomplished to keep my home in order: 

Laundry Room & Half Bathroom - cleaned the mirrors, vacuumed floors.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Dining Room - vacuumed & spot mopped floor, washed the window & sill, dusted the light fixture. 

Kitchen -  vacuumed & spot mopped floor, scrubbed & bleached sink, cleaned cabinetry. 

Bedrooms & Main Bathroom - vacuumed & dusted.  Cleaned mirror, scrubbed tub & sink.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Other - two large loads of laundry, washed living room, laundry room & kitchen curtains, vacuumed & dusted living room, hallway & entry.  Swept the front porch & garage.  Raked leaves.

I did a little extra cleaning last week.  In an additional two 15 minute sessions I cleaned the book shelf & mirror, cleaned living room & laundry room windows & sills, wiped down baseboards, polished the wood furniture, bopped the cobwebs.

 

I will often set a timer so when my 15 minutes is up I stop and go do something else.  Most of the time now I find I don't even need a full 15 minutes.  By staying on top of things on a routine basis housework is fast and easy!

 

How was your thrifty week?

 

 

Debt Freedom

 

Having a mortgage on my house and the utility bills that go along with my house are expenses that do not bother me.  We all need a place to live and whether or not we rent our homes or are in the process of buying them the vast majority of us will have debt associated with that.  Even once a mortgage is paid there will still be costs, such as insurance, property taxes, and utilities required to keep that home and that is debt.  And again I am completely fine with that and am not bothered one bit, at all.

 

What bothers the heck out of me and what I am not fine with is consumer debt and that is what I have worked very hard this year to be rid of.  Fortunately I was able to take care of all those costs and expenses and now, as far as I am concerned, I am free.

 

I am now able to get up every morning and feel confident that I have attained a debt free status and those in my circle would heartily agree.  Not only that , but they really would like to be in my place and as a result I've been able to inspire some of those close to me to get on the bandwagon and GYST.  For me it is super exciting to inspire people but even more so to see their excitement as they make headway and are able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

We all have different ideas and perspectives of what debt freedom means to us.  For some it is to pay off all of their debts completely, for a lot of us it is simply to have only a mortgage and utility bills, and for some it is to go so far as to be entirely off the grid and owe nothing to no one.  Whatever you decide is your debt freedom I respect that completely.  And, if you are not already, I wholeheartedly encourage you to get there.  It is a wonderful place to be.

 

 

I Lost My Glasses

Somehow, just over a month ago, between leaving my desk at work and arriving home I lost my eyeglasses.  I have never lost a pair of glasses in my life and I’ve worn glasses since the sixth grade.  I typically follow the same routine day in and day out so I have no idea how I managed to lose my glasses.  I retraced my steps, thoroughly searched through my car, my cubicle at work and checked with the receptionist to see if they had been turned in.  For the life of me I cannot figure out what happened or how I lost them.  They’re just gone.  Poof!

 

I shared with you once before that I have lived with anxiety issues my entire life.  As far back as I can remember anxiety has played a prominent part in nearly every aspect of everything I do.  It’s my sidekick.  And before anyone makes this asinine assumption (such as one of my trolling siblings) I do not in any way blame my parents, my upbringing or anything else for that matter for why I am this way.  It is how I am hardwired and I accept that this is simply how it is for me.  I am very strong and very capable, but anxiety is definitely my Achilles heel.

 

Controlling my anxiety is a big part of my life as well and a constant struggle for me.  I’ve done all the right things, accepted professional help, get plenty of rest, exercise and eat a healthy diet, and so forth, but the majority of the work I have to do is mental.  With anxiety I do the best I can to take it one day at a time.  Sometimes by the hour, sometimes moment by moment.  And then sometimes it gets away from me and I lose control of it.  Anxiety will overwhelm and consume me to the point that I actually get physically ill.   When that happens I have to take a giant step back.  Reset, refocus and then start again.

 

Losing my glasses was the final straw for me last month.  Followed by the colossal nosebleed and a few other things that took place around the same time.  Once I realized what was happening and saw where I was headed I threw up my hands and said to myself “STOP”.  And then I took a big step back, took a big deep breath and told myself it is time to reset and refocus.  I have managed to accomplish that and now I’m ready to start again. 

 

This time around I realize that, due to my age (totally hate to admit that one), I really need to slow down and pace myself a bit more than what I have done in the past.   I know that I tend to push myself really hard and that I don’t need to be a massive task master anymore.  My greatest source of stress right now is my job and I’m taking steps to alleviate some of that.  It is a rough one to balance but I have a great boss who is willing to work with me and help as much as he can to make my job a lot less stressful. And I am incredible blessed have a great team.  We work really well together and have grown close over the years.

 

Moving forward I will continue to take things one day at a time. It is the best I can do right now and know I’ll be fine.  Life will carry on as it always does and I am very glad about that.

 

 

Our Latest Two Week Meal Plan

 

Once again I made up a quick two week meal plan which included nine suppers and a short list of items to make for breakfasts, desserts and snacks.  The idea was that the nine suppers are made in a quantity that would include leftovers to be used for one additional meal plus a lunch or two.  And once again my two week meal plan morphed into a third week which I absolutely love.

 

On the menu this time was some delicious cool weather meals including beef stew, which I had not made in eons (and I made it Keto friendly) as well as spaghetti & meatballs (using meatballs I already had in the freezer), chicken enchiladas, egg roll in a bowl, broccoli beef  & rice, chili con carne (home canned and in our pantry), chicken vegetable soup, turkey club sandwiches and coconut curry soup.  Not a bad assortment of meals, I think.

 

Along with the main dish I included ideas for sides such as steamed broccoli, a green salad or green beans.  And for my girls a couple things like biscuits to go with the stew and cornbread to go with the chili.  The leftover biscuits performed double duty as breakfast with some homemade sausage gravy and the cornbread with honey and butter is also one of their breakfast favorites.

 

Speaking of breakfast I also made Keto waffles, pancakes and scrambled eggs.  Oatmeal and cold cereal were also some options or us.  Snacks were simple and easy.  Veggies and dip, home popped popcorn (in a pan, no microwave), nuts, fresh fruit and cheese sticks.

 

I baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies for dessert for the girls as well as made some Keto cookies for myself.  We don't do a lot of desserts but it is nice every once in a while to indulge in a sweet treat.

 

That sums up our latest meal plan.  Let me know if posting these meal plans is of interest to you and if you find them helpful or inspiring.  If so, I'll keep doing them as long as I meal plan which is usually throughout the school year.

 

 

Wrapping Up A Thrifty October

 

Hello everyone!

 

October was a very good month for us financially.  On the first I had $55 left in my checkbook and $3 in my wallet and still had an eighth of a tank of fuel in my car.  Payday was on the 5th so I was able to pay our electric bill, top up the gas tank on the car and dump the rest right in my savings and retirement accounts.  I didn't need much in the way of groceries so what I had leftover in my checking account covered that quite nicely.

 

On my next payday which was the 20th I paid the rest of our monthly bills, our mortgage two plus weeks ahead of its due date (heartily recommend doing this), did some grocery shopping, picked up two more bags of chicken feed and put the rest into my savings and retirement accounts.

 

Can I tell you how much I love debt freedom?  Oh my goodness, it is wonderful!  To be back to having only our basic living expenses to cover each month is such a huge relief and I pray we get to ride this wave for a good long time.  Please lord, no big surprises.  😍

 

This month we found we pretty much had all of our needs and even our wants covered.  There were no big purchases and really not many little ones either.  I did go to Dollar Tree one day to pick up some new craft supplies they had in stock and I had a bunch of Bath & Body Works coupons which allowed me to walk out with a bag of stuff for only $17.  I won't need shower gel or lotion for a very long time.  Other than that we were pretty much good to go.

 

As we head into November which is birthday central around here as well as Christmas gift month, I like to get that all done by Thanksgiving, I am feeling very optimistic.  What is left on my gift list is relatively small and most of what we need for the holiday meals and baking I already have on hand.  I think November will be a slam dunk!

 

Voting Day!

 

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

 

I seriously missed you guys!  I really did and while it was nice to take a break and focus my attention on other things it is also very good to be back in the swing of things.  Needless to say we've been a little busy around here and I will be sharing some of what has been going on in a few upcoming posts.  But the most important thing is that you all know how appreciative I am for your kind words and how much you all mean to me.  With that in mind, let's get back to this blogging thing!  Shall we?

 

Last week on Sunday morning we awoke to our first hard freeze.  So far we have been keeping up just fine with our infrared heater that resides in our downstairs hallway during the winter and the fireplace in the living room to heat our house.  I've been hoping to be able to wait until November to turn on our main electric baseboard heating.  One thing I can say about our little house is that it is very well insulated.  And that little electric fireplace does an amazing job heating up our main floor.

 

I got myself dressed and out the door with a hot cup of coffee in hand.  I hadn't done much in the way of grocery shopping so far this past month but the sales were good and I had a list as well as some coupons to use so I headed off first to Winco to pick up produce, Keto bread (best price) and a couple pantry items.  I then went to Albertsons where I was able to pick up some beautiful New York Strip steaks on sale for only $4.99 a pound!  Best price I've seen so far this year.  Now our Christmas dinner is in the freezer.  Yay!

 

Holiday dinners!

The youngest and I enjoyed breakfast for dinner Sunday night with sausage links and French toast.  Absolutely delicious.  I'm always so pleased with how wonderful the simple meals we prepare taste.  And I am so grateful they make Keto bread now so I can still enjoy French toast on occasion.  After we ate our dinner we cleaned up the kitchen and then I gave my darling daughter a haircut.

 

Monday I did some Christmas shopping.  I spent $20 from my Christmas Fund and everything I purchased was on sale.  I am almost finished with my holiday gift shopping which is pretty exciting.  I've never been this far along this early before.

 

I did one of my $10 preps.  All of this was on sale + I had coupons.
Surprisingly, I ended up not spending the entire $10! Yay!

The rest of our week was the usual go to work, go to school and try to keep up on it all as we went along.  I had cooked quite a bit over the weekend so we were able to fix ourselves a lot of quick meals by simply reheating leftovers most of the week.  There was plenty for lunches too and I made a nice big green salad to have along with our meals.  Sliced leftover chicken on top of leftover salad became one of our meals as well.  It was a very good week for food at our house.

 

Banana Bread

We made sure to get all of our bins filled up with yard debris and set at the curb for collection on Thursday morning.  With our big yard cleanup project this year we are trying to get it all done without needing to take a trip to the dump.  So far, so good.  With the good hard freeze we had all of our trees are really dumping their leaves right now too so we'll be pretty busy for a while.

 

I think I've made a few cards

Thursday evening I photographed all of the greeting cards I have made so far since I got the die cutting machine for my birthday in September and put them all up for sale in my Etsy Shoppe.  If you are at all interested in any of them you can click here.

 

My photos don't do them justice.  These are so pretty.

Friday was a vacation day for me so I could enjoy a nice three day weekend.  I am planning to have more of those in the future and I'm quite excited about it.  While my daughter was in school that day I worked out in the yard some more before moving inside to work on the crafting projects I have going.  Same thing again on Saturday, while she worked I went outside and got quite a bit more done.  I still have a long way to go, but it feels really good to be outside in the sunshine and fresh air while making progress on yard work.

 

The girl and I spent our Halloween evening watching movies.  We watched the new Terminator -Dark Fate movie for free using our Amazon Prime membership and then the original 1984 movie The Terminator from our own DVD collection.

 

I was gifted a bag of apples at work.  Because they were a little soft they weren't much good for snacking, however just fine to make up a batch of apple butter in my slow cooker.  And the chickens loved the cores and little bits I'd cut off.

 

We have dug out all of our winter gear - coats, gloves, hats, scarves, boots, fuzzy socks, winter pajamas and begun to use it as our temperatures have dipped dramatically this past week.  Our beds are made up with flannel sheets and warm blankets and there are plenty of cozy throw blankets about the house.  As the week progressed it did warm back up quite a bit, but for how long is hard to tell.  I do know the cold weather season is on its way and we are ready.

 

It is so good to be back after my little break.  How was your thrifty week?  Anything exciting happen while I was away?