Goals for next two weeks

Financial

All bills paid ahead and taxes finished.

Hoops jumped for insurance to pay for my biologic meds to keep my costs DOWN.

GOD willing, that we win the bid on the livestock trailer that is at auction on April 6th. We have set the highest amount we are willing go even though actually the trailer is worth about 1/4 more than we are willing to bid. IF we get the trailer it will almost double our income from hauling as E has told his he would drop the hauler he is using now because he over charges, like 4 times the amount others do and charges different prices for the same work depending on who you are. He doesn't have a good rep even with the Englishers that use him.

Savings of 2-3 months income and rebuild to a year.

Garden

All seeds started including seed block, potting soil etc. MAYBE depending on weather, grow bags for potatoes.

Hubby needs to spray dorminate oil on apple trees (if the freaking rain would quit for a couple days )

I need to prune and spray Neem oil on the grape harbor once again rain interferes.

Remove all limbs that we trimmed off trees and bushes that we left sit due to high winds.

I need to figure out where I am starting the compost pile. I am thinking of just trenching in the garden like my Daddy did.


Home

I am starting the spring cleaning. I will start in the kitchen/dining room as they are open floor plan. That way if it takes me the whole time I have before possible surgery that area where I spend most my time done plus it's the area that will drive me bonkers if not clean. I will then do bathrooms, mine before Hubby's and then move on to another room depending on what is going on and how I feel. I figure the kitchen dining room will take at least 10 days. Bathrooms should both be able to be done in a day each.

I am getting better at keeping to a daily routine of cleaning that means less decluttering. Unless it's paper and it breeds in drawers or boxes in the barn they breed also.

I would like to have at least the baby freezer in the barn, defrosted, cleaned and restocked, organized and inventoried. Then when the asparagus comes on I have a place to put it and not bury it in the other freezers.

FOOD

Hubby is concerned with the weight he has picked up  so after lots of thoughts and such tossed around we decided on the "plan"

Breakfast is going to be our main meal... which means that we have to be up at least 2 hrs before we eat (remember, his bfast for over 30 yrs was my supper since he worked nights so that big meal is what he is used to). I will start doing prep work for bfasts the night before.

He wants and I agree to protein, grain, fruit, dairy and possible veggies thinking of omelets, frittias, zucchini bread pancakes,bfast burritos etc. He isn't one for dairy unless it's cheese or ice cream, I am trying to add yogurt to that rotation for him. He does okay with it with granola or as a topping on fruit/dessert. I plan to make pancakes and waffles for the freezer. Maybe some muffins or fruit bread or both for the freezer. Put in one servings sizes so we can have choices.

Lunch will need to be able to be eaten in 30 mins. that's about what the Amish do so I am looking at casseroles or 1 dish meals that I can prep that morning or night before and finish at lunch. E's wife, M told me she does a boiled pasta(with butter.) a vegetable and a meat, usually bologna or summer sausage and some dessert for lunch.

Supper will either be something on the grill, soup, salad and sandwiches. I am thinking of having him put the grill on the front porch until we get the deck put on this summer. I REALLY have missed the grill.

I also noticed he will eat bread daily if it's a different type of bread, this past week we had pretzel buns(Sister of my heart gave me frozen ones) store bought frozen rolls, homemade rolls and artisan bread loaf. He mentioned he would like toast and French toast this coming week so I will make a style of bread for that. PLUS tortilla wraps. I would like English muffins and want to try to make bagels for Hubby.

I want to put a variety of dough for 4-6 loaves of bread dough, 2-3 dozen rolls in the freezer  and a 3-4 dozen tortilla wraps. Some pie also... maybe hand pies or what some call lunch box pie. As Hubby does cook, will bake cake or cookies ,would put bread/rolls to rise and bake and bake pies but don't ask him to make the dough LOL.

Instead of prepping meals for the freezer to be reheated, I decided to "gather" the rest of the odd's and ends, list them and we eat them while I am in recovery. IF I get the baby freezer defrosted, I can put all of it there along with the extra ice we are getting from the frig( I use 50-80 lbs a week while blanching in the summer).

FRUGAL FRUGAL FRUGAL

I think I am going to get a tattoo (not frugal LOL) that says that.

What has been frugal ?

We have ate from home, been some really weird meals but we aren't going hungry because neither of us has an appetite or energy. So it's what every odds and ends are in the freezer...frugal in 2 ways, we are not eating out....and it's using up what is in the freezer instead of it getting freezer burnt and tossed.

I now have all the appts I am to do for the rest of this month. Next month will fill up when I get the CT scan results back. I have rearranged errands and what other appts I could to lower the cost of gas for said trips as none are closer than 1 hour and 15 min away.

We had pancakes due to coworker of Hubby's giving us maple syrup he just made. Extra pancakes in freezer.

I talked again to the Hospital financial services lady who did some digging to find out for sure what the policy was about if we had a balance and was current on payments could we get a discount on the next hospital bill since I am looking at surgery... the answer was no if we rolled it over to the payment plan even if we paid 50% of the bill. We would have to pay the bill off completely with the one we have now would be okay to pay have and still get the discount on that half. SO since I make less in interest with my savings acct I will pay this bill off and get the 5% discount. We will then make "payments" *as she told me what they would be* into my savings acct. By time I get through the next testing my deductible will be paid in full (Hubby's won't, in 25 yrs it has been 1 time). Not touching the cost of surgery.

We will finish paying the taxes owed this week so there will be no late fine etc on that. We actually got back enough in federal to pay the other and I did file a complaint that Fidelity didn't take the state taxes out at the rate we requested (our tax person told us what to have taken out) and we ended with a hefty bill plus a penalty for owing over a certain amt. I was not a happy camper.

Hubby has 2 wks left on his seasonal state job. He was thinking of doing summer seasonal, I have left the choice up to him but did sayI think it will cause more stress(which spirals me downward) and could have him sick again like he was last Sept after working 2 jobs when we bought this house. Especially since we have to have the gardens as large as we can this year to bring more income in.

 He decided to not do summer seasonal and then today (which is Saturday) after we had our 3 month blood work done we have 4-5 people looking for him needing him to haul Saturday afternoon and again this week. He was laughing about it because he chose to NOT do the summer's seasonal because of me might needing help in the gardens in the spring and it looks like he might be shuffling the hauling times around me instead. He had 3 different Amish men tell him that if he needed to do something at home or help me all he had to do was say something.Two of them already said something about couldn't leave until a certain time because they had to help their wives when they were arranging hauling times.

I baked rolls and a loaf of bread from the dough I had in the frig. Frozen one loaf of dough and 4 rolls of dough for while I am in recovery(Yes I am saying I will have the surgery even though right now it's waiting on the Ct scan to say yes I will, best to plan for being down instead of hauling butt because I didn't plan it)

I hung laundry on the drying rack.

We have found the grow light cart puts enough light out we can read on the couch so we aren't turning on a light there any more.

We changed our filters to furnace and whole house water. Hubby said he will check the water in 3 months when he does the furnace but it looks like it could go longer , at least another month. IF we can go to 4 months on that alone it would save $12 a  year.

We checked our smoke alarms, they don't take batteries but we still tested them. That batteries in them are suppose to be good for 10 yrs. Since Hubby has now been through 2 house fires, he still like to check them.

We had a prime rib steak( bought on sale at Christmas time) (I only 3 ounces of it) that we split along with sauteed bell peppers,onions and mushrooms. I should have cooked about twice as much of the veggies as I thought I could use the left overs for other meals. I have enough left that Hubby can put it in a couple tortilla wraps(which I will be making today) to go with the turkey I am roasting for today's supper.(Update stopped and took Amish family to their dad who was in hospital and not being released. Spent entire day GONE from home ...MONDAY)
He is only working today, Tuesday and Thursday and Friday of this week.

Next week he is working half day on Monday( 3 month check up at doc for both of us), Tuesday and Friday... Looks like Wednesday is going to be a hauling day for him and Thursday is my scan.

I will be glad to see him not working with the state. Working 1st shift causes issues with appts.... plus hauling... They did tell him to this coming fall to come in and talk to them , they might be able to just put him on night shift (after 30 plus years of night shift, we do night shift better than 1st) and only for snow plowing. He did mention yesterday he feels like he gained weight, he does have an issue with keeping it off because of the amount of sitting he does. His old job in the factory had him walking OVER 10 miles a day. He doesn't want to have the issues that his parents and his maternal grandparents have/had with their health due to weight.

Even though he got home late and I got home a couple hours after him we ate at home. Today and tomorrow is going to be late meals also that I need to deal with to keep the costs down.

We have decided to bid on a livestock trailer, wasn't going to buy one this year but the one at auction is only been used 3 times, it's an older trailer and it does need new tires from sitting so much. Amish neighbor, E has done the cleaning all 3 times because it was his draft horses being hauled. He knows the trailer well. He also knew what the guy tried to sell it for in the past. So hopefully we will get the bid as if we do get it, we will have jobs lined up immediately with E. We also know what we would have to make each month to cover this year's bills.  Not counting hospital bills.

How was your frugal week?

Blessed Be