Feb goals/ 209 update

First 209 update. We signed loan papers as our mortgage guy held them when he found FHA was increasing amt allowed and he redid them...COOL .Him doing that saved us $5000 down payment and over $20,000 in interest in the long run.FHA home inspector is being scheduled along with HUD appraiser so closing is going to be close to March 6th. We spent 3 hrs with our contractor today going over the project binder I put together for him that will also be at the site.It was great to hear I love this, I am so happy you did this repeatedly as he said it will make his job a lot easier.. He had salvaged a 1950s Crane sink and is going to have it refinished for me. He will be either building a cabinet or reinforcing a boughten cabinet which ever is cheaper plus he helped me pick out a counter top that is more into what I am looking for that can handle the heavy sink.We set the budget for what we have on the have to buy list for the house and are looking at Habitat restore shops. Charlie (contacter) is also going to look through his warehouses to see if he has somethings that he savaged that is "Cheaper" for us and suggested I let his crew paint our ceilings as I am still having issues with my arm. Gave us the price with us buying the paint and supplies.  We stopped on the way home at one Restore home and got a fan for half the price it would have been new and it works.

Grocery... after seeing the % of what I bought in dairy in Jan I have decided to keep the $250 as the Food money for Feb BUT lower what I bought of each. We eat a LOT of cheese. SO if I am keeping with having snacking cheese , then the cheese in the food needs to be  lowered. I can increase the milk or yogurt.as we use cheese to replace protein at times. Junk food was higher than normal but that's because I bought Daughter's 2 Pepsi as it was on sale. I bought corn chips ( I can't eat corn chips) for walking taco's and tortilla chips for nachos bellegrande .Daughter eats tortilla chips with guac as her breakfast and late night snack. More guac then chip and she buys the guac.

I did get some black bean hummus that I will like to make from scratch. I have the list of ingredients that was in the mix to play with.

I am waiting to see what the electric bill is with Daughter 2 using a space heater to heat her bedroom. She's good about keeping it turned low or even off once she gets the room warm. This past week she's had to keep in on all night due to having one of the dogs with her and us having to shut the staircase door which stops heat from going up at all from propane furnace due to Charlotte being in heat. We know that Wilbur doesn't spend the night HOWLING if he sleeps with me and Charlotte sleeps with Daughter 2. Charlotte whines a bit with Daughter 2 but she's not a barker or howler and snuggling her will calm her down to sleep. Rascal sleeps with me or on the loveseat in the front room.

I have to sit down and figure things.

Blessed Be

Jan grocery budget results.

The tracker I uses goes for Jan 1st to the 31st. So even though we only get paid once a month around the 15th. We will be running the grocery budget by month  instead of half months.

I set the budget for Jan at $420  with the goal to come in closer to $250.

Shelf costs of food bought       $437.19


coupons                                    $ 14.13



discounts                                  $194.55



total savings                            $208.68 (47.73 %)



Out of pocket                         $228.51

30 % is fresh produce, 50 % is dairy and the other 15% is a mix of ingredients for special meals,5 % junk food as I also bought Daughter 2 pepsi since it was on sale.


Out of this  amount I spent in Jan ,$160 I just spent the 31st for the month of Feb.


SO I decided to set Feb budget for $250.