What can I cut

End of October I was thinking, pantry is almost fully stocked, just need turkeys, some fresh cranberries ...then my mother in law reminded me of mincemeat. Saving account looked decent, bills were paid.

Nov. 1st, daughter 4 bought a car and now has payments (she's trying to rebuild her credit after her divorce) and she had budgeted for an oil change this paycheck and 2 tires the following paycheck and another 2 tires the following week and right after she left the dealership her doctor called her to tell her she did not have a sinus infection but is going into stage 2 mold poisoning. She called the health dept and they told her to find another place to live because as soon as they contact her landlord (AKA slum lord) he will evict her. WHICH she already knew because she knew a couple of people that went through this with him. She is now saving to move along with needing the tires, did her budget and called us to see if we could provide basic groceries for 3 months (without causing ourselves problems) so she could only spend $20 a week for dog food, toilet paper, milk and margarine.

Hubby told her we could do that as this is the kid that LOVES beans and rice.

Nov 2rd our old landlord got a hold of us and told us when they pulled the carpets up they found mold UNDER the padding (figured it was from where the basement constantly had water) and thought they should let us know to go get checked for it.. so since we was in the doctor's office when they called our doctor ran blood work...yep, it showed we had had mold poisoning but we were healing (probably due to bronchitis meds) so we have to take meds a week longer to just be on the careful side

 Nov 3rd Hubby's truck starts making a grinding noise  so on the 4th he hands me a sheet of paper that had all the information of the truck he would like to buy... he has been pricing trucks for the last year... I am glad I was sitting down. He priced it out, down payment, sales tax and title, cash payment or loan with down payment and without down payment and 5 different years. Best deal is a 2015, he PLANS for it to last 15 to 20 yrs like what we have so that puts him 75 -80 yrs old and most likely won't be driving a big truck...I really didn't want a payment of $900 along with the price of the insurance which he priced also but is the worse case. There has been a couple jobs he couldn't take because it would have been too much for his truck which is a 1998.

SO back to the budget, yes we can do it but it makes it tight because we don't want to increase what we withdraw from the IRA especially when the market is DOWN since he retired. We will be going this Thursday to look... sigh.

As I went through the pantry today, making sure we had everything, refilling the containers in the dining room from the pantry etc. Hubby came in and told me to buy more turkeys than what I had planned and handed me 2-5 gal buckets of pears he had picked up out of the neighbor's yard while helping the other neighbor with his 4 yr old put a roof on the her garage. She has all she wanted so Hubby and Neighbor's 4 yr old picked the rest up from the yard to "clean" the yard up for her. Hubby said the 4 yr old ended up with 4 -5 gal buckets in the wagon and he helped him pull them home while his dad finished the garage roof.

Hubby really does NOT like pears, they taste sandy to him...but his grandma used to mix apples with pears for sauce and in pies so I will be doing that because I definitely did not need any more pears canned.

We will be going to Kroger's to get turkeys on Wed as they have them on sale for 48 cents/pound.Paper ad says you have to spend $25 and limit 2, website had limit 1 with nothing to spend... either way we will be going on Wed.

We have ate from the pantry, finished canning the last of the tomatoes, hubby gave away 40 lbs while I was in the hospital , still I ended up with 6 meals of fried green tomatoes in the freezer and 30 qrts of juice beside what we ate daily.

I sewed buttons on 2 of my shirts, Hubby darned his socks three times. Amish neighbor baked a loaf of bread again for us as we stopped at the store (not out of our way) for her and saved her 4 hrs of being away from home as she is also canning the last of her tomatoes and tomorrow will be doing pears like me.

Charlotte has been finding a way to get out of the yard when we leave, I caught Wilbur and Rascal jumping on the fence when barking at the neighbor and Charlotte started to go over it since the 3 of them can tug it down.far enough she can jump it. Hubby took old fencing wood and put it on the top of the fence so they can't pull the fence down and she can't jump over it. He also put lattice we used to use several years ago over the top of the gates because he saw she could get half way through it today. Both neighbors are watching to see if they can see her get out when we leave to go vote tomorrow and again on Thursday for our doctor appt and going to look at the truck.

We had some birds getting in the loft of the barn making a mess and since that is where we store stuff we weren't happy about it. Hubby thinks he found all the holes , said they could get in but not out that way so he plugged them up today using wood I had savaged from here when the contractors where working.

We are still slowly going through the boxes in the barn and getting things put away.

I did get my gate leg table (Grandpa built it out of ply board)in the house and upstairs as I use it to cut fabric on . I also got the table I use for sewing in the house and up stairs so MAYBE I will get to start sewing the winter curtains next week.

I am spending this week gathering my recipes of things I will now make from scratch instead of buying.

Blessed Be