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It is going to be a busy and full year as we are in process of buying a house, buying a truck for Hubby buying a suv or car for me. Moving Daughter when she gets her own place again (LORD PLEASE SOON, the 2 hr drive the other night due to bad weather and having to drive 30mph "annoyed" (her word) her and worried the crap out of us and her brother who lives at the other end of her route.. All we thought about was the cost of gas and wear and tear on her car with driving 2 hrs a day to and from work along with driving her sons to practice and to their dad's where they are staying until she gets a new place AND packing and moving ourselves.AND add the bill we just got to do the updates required for the house (mortgage and ins requirements)..
I will try to meet my SWAGBUCKS goal every day. Since the dogs get me up early I use that time and the time right before bed to do that. Hard sometimes to do as I get knocked out of the surveries most the time.
I am doing Pinecone research still, not as many as I don't have cable or DVR or children under 18
We will use CASH for groceries or gift cards that are gotten on discount and I am looking at eating from the pantry and shopping Aldi's the most. I do have a $250 gift card from Krogers and $75 gift card from Walmart and over $200 rebate "check" for Menards.
We will use GASBUDDY for checking for the cheapest gas. Hubby uses Speedway fuel card for extra cents off and I have a Kroger's pts card but we won't be buying much at Krogers so that might not be an option at times.
I paid for the Grocery Budget Bootcamp (Tiffiny) ...yes believe me I thought about it for a week.Talked it over with Hubby, daughter and then son that visits regularly. Then I decided if it saved me $25 a month I would "break even" So I signed up and read the welcome and first class and realized a a problem in how I am managing the pantry. A tweak in the basic grocery list and what will be a week of reorganizing the kitchen will save us about $30 in a 10 day span because I won't be losing produce or tossing leftovers as much.Daughter brings home half her lunch almost daily and that's not getting ate either so she decided what she gets for lunch (she's a bartender on first shift and can not leave so she gets 50% off her meals) she will focus on something that can help extend the dinner we have the next night. A lesson that is for the 22nd is inventorying what you have...I started NOW as it will take me all this month to get that done with the other work I have.
I joined Home Storage Solutions 101 Declutter 365. I did this last year and it really helped...I didn't get it done due to surgery but with moving I really need to get this done BEFORE we move as we do NOT need to pack clutter and take it with us even though we have a huge barn we could use for storage. Daugher has offered to take donations to Goodwill as she has one right around from her work so we won't be making special trips to town and she can take it as I get it together instead of it sitting until we do go to town.
Menu planning will be USE UP THE LEFTOVERS FIRST plan. I thought about a pantry challenge... with acknowledgement that we still would eat out more than I like even with having the eating out calendar we have done extra due to being on the road at the wrong times. Since I know this "be gone so much" time isn't going to last more than a couple months we are trying to change times that we have to be somewhere. The hardest is when I have to take my meds that require me to eat a MEAL not a snack.
The biggest will be dealing with the house we are buying. I budgeted paying the asking price (actually I budgeted what it would cost to build the house we had decided on if we found land instead of a house) but HOPE they take less when offered due to the amount and COST of getting the house back up to code and qualifying it for a traditional mortgage and covereage under home ins.
That's going to be the priority for this year. It helps that Hubby can go down to the neighbors and pick up work here and there and another friend called tonight and asked if he would be interested in driving some for him towards the end of summer beginning of fall short term.
Blessed Be
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