Not so easy after all...

Sorry I've been MIA, I honestly couldn't tell you much about the last week, it seems like it's been a blur. I've have baby appointments, sleepless nights and trying to keep myself on track, with little success.

I did a small amount of shopping the other day for things that we ran out of and planned on listing those items her, but my receipt vanished and my brain is mush lately, so all I can say is that I spent around $50. I also took my mother out for a special dinner, so that was $30, but very worth it.

So, I've spent a total of $80 in the first week of my no spend month and I'm not too thrilled about it. Especially since I need to go pick up a few more things today.

We have been really bad about eating out as well. I had a very upsetting evening yesterday, so cooking was the last thing on my mind. We also have a tradition of eating at Buffalo Wild Wings after all of my baby appointments, so we splurged on that as well.

I'm hoping to start over today. Spend as little as possible to get what we are out of and not eat out again (not including the gift cards we received for Christmas that expire February 1st, as we will not be leaving home much after next week due to baby coming at any time)...

So far, I'm less than pleased with myself. But I'm only one week in and I'm not giving up. :)

Later today I will try to post again about this doing trip and mention another goal or two.

Have a great day!
~Stefanie

No Spend January!

Happy New Year!

Today is day 1 of my no spend month. Forgive me if this post is a tad short, my toddler decided that last night was "no sleep night" and he didn't even have a nap yesterday, so today has been HARD. He's napped for 2 hours and I napped with him, so I'm barely surviving until Daddy comes home at this point.

My mother has been AMAZING today and is helping me out by doing laundry. This wonderful woman is hauling everything down 2 flights of stairs, loading, unloading both the washer and dryer, then hauling it back up so I can fold, hang and put things away. At 8 months pregnant, this process would have literally taken me DAYS on my own. I love my mother!

So today is a cleaning day! I'm powering through and I still have a TON to do, but I refuse to start 2016 off on the wrong foot.

Tonight for dinner, I pulled chicken breast out of the freezer yesterday and marinaded it in a lemon juice/EVOO/salt/pepper/oregano mixture overnight. Xebus is going to grill it on the grill (I love grilled food, lol) when he gets home and I'll be tossing together a jar of Prego Alfredo sauce and some cooked pasta for a fast Chicken Alfredo! Only half the chicken will be used in this, the other half will be for Grilled Chicken Caesar Salads for dinner either tomorrow or the next night.

In case anyone wants it, here's the recipe for the lemon chicken marinade. It's supposed to sit for at least 1 hour, but as with most marinades, the longer, the better. :)

3-4 Tbsp Lemon Juice (I use 3, but use 4 for stronger lemon flavor)
1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3/4 Tsp Salt
3/4 Tsp Oregano
1/2 Tsp Pepper

Mix all in a zip-lock baggie with your chicken, smoosh it around and let it sit for at least 1 hour.

These flavors work great for meals when you don't want your chicken to over-power what you're pairing it with, like pasta or in a salad. It's also really yummy on it's own!

Well, back to work, I suppose. I haven't heard Colt yell in the last 10 minutes, so chances are I have another mess to clean up. :)

Have a wonderful start to the new year, may it be filled with laughter, love and light.
~Stefanie

Goal Number One: Saving Money

I know this wasn't first on my list in my previous post, but with where our credit card is right now, it's taking priority...

As I have said before, my $500/month budget includes groceries, paper products and misc. household items like cleaning supplies, hygiene products and virtually any/everything else.

Bulk Shopping-

We have started shopping at Sam's Club once a month for things like toilet paper, paper towels, stocking up on meat (it's usually cheaper per pound, especially hamburger) and a few random things we keep on hand (like the odd box of brownies that don't get made very often). It has really helped, especially the paper products. I'm spending $18 on a huge pack of TP that lasts us (Xeb and I, the Moms buy their own supply when needed) almost 2 months, instead of a small pack for $11 at Walmart that only lasts us 2 weeks. The trade-off is that Sam's is about 1 hour from where we live, which is why we take our most economical car (Xeb is 6'1" and drives an SUV, so we borrow his mother's Malibu) and only go once a month. It's always a few hundred in one shot, but then I have meat and paper products done for the month and can use the rest of my budget on everything else for the rest of the month.

Meal Plan-

I TRY (hehehe) to meal plan once a week. Saturdays, actually, since Xeb's work schedule is Sat-Fri rotations. I plan before my weekly shopping trip, so I can make a list of essentials like milk, bread, eggs and what is needed to make whats on the plan. If I stick to ONLY the meal plan, plus those staples, I have discovered that I save at least $20 or more every shopping trip. Shopping once a week, that's $80 I am not wasting or asking Xeb for by the end of the month.

I've been failing to do this over the last few months and it's caused not only an inflated budget, but a HUGE OVERSTOCK in our freezer and pantry. I'll be sharing my meal plan as well, when I resume my normal shopping trips.

"No Spend Month"-

Starting January 1st, I am doing something I've never done before. I am planning a "No Spend" month. I will buy NOTHING, except the bare essentials we need, like milk, bread and eggs. I will not plan any meals I can't make from what I have already at home. Our pantry is ridiculously full and I need to start shopping from there, rather than at the store. So I'm sure that by the end of the month, the meals I share are going to get a bit crazy and probably not COMPLETELY healthy. Probably a bit carb heavy to empty the pantry...

I plan on putting the money I don't spend next month away as my nest egg. In future months, I plan to put any money I don't spend by the end of the month into that fund as well. My goal is to keep and maintain that amount so I never have to ask Xeb for extra money. If I can get it big enough, I'll even give him some back to put on the credit card. But we both agreed, he'd rather me keep it if I'll need it in the future.

In my posts, I will share any money I've spent (and on what, again to keep me honest), as well as what I threw together for dinner and any fun recipes I managed to create that are worth repeating. At the end of the month, I'll share how much money I've saved and my plan for the next month.

This will be new for me, so I'm excited as well as I bit worried. I really want to pull this off to help the household, but mostly to prove to myself that I can. Seeing as I'm due on the 31st, I also thought it would be good for whoever will be taking up the reigns when it comes to cooking and shopping while I'm recovering. No real shopping to worry about and no complicated recipes to cook. Just look in the pantry/freezer and make something.

So far, this is my plan to help save money. Any suggestions are welcome!

~Stefanie

My Story

Alright, you'd think that at this point in my life, I'd have this all figured out. Or at least kinda. This whole homemaking thing isn't as easy as I thought it was and here I am, 4 years and 2 kids later, still trying to figure out where to start.

This blog IS my start, so bear with me here....

My name is Stefanie. I'm in my (late) 20s living in the South with the love of my life and our boys. My boyfriend of 4 years is Xebus and our two boys are Colt (3 years in April) and Jack Jack (who is due on January 31st-5 weeks away!)...

We have our own home and I am a stay at home mother. Both our mothers live with us due to their income limitations and health.

Over the last 4 years, I've been trying to get the hang of this SAHM thing and I'll be honest, I really suck at it. Xebus says I'm exaggerating, but I really don't think I am. Sure, our son is fed (as much as he'll eat, at least) and clothed, but the house looks like a disaster and, realistically, it's due to my procrastination. I'll free admit that I'm horribly lazy and a procrastinator by nature. We all have our flaws, those are mine and I own them. CHANGING them, however, is proving to be harder than I ever expected. Before my kids, I had no real reason to CARE. Now I want to set a better example and give my boyfriend the girlfriend (and future wife) he deserves. He a damned hard worker and I owe him so much.

So, this blog is my way of holding myself accountable. There are many changes I need to make and I am hoping this helps me do it. I also hope to let others like me know that they aren't alone.

• I need to get my act together in the cleaning department. I've come up with a master plan for cleaning, which I will go into in another post, I just need to DO it. Which is where my flaws come in and wreck my plans...

• I cook dinner and do the grocery shopping for my household of 5 (soon to be 6). Out of those 5 people, my son survives off Chocolate Milk, cereal, bananas and air. Trust me, I'll get into THAT in another post as well, kid has me losing hair from stress already... The Moms, as Xebus and I refer to them as, are the most picky people I've ever known (huh, and my son's eating habits are explained!) and not only rarely like what I make, but what the other makes as well... So it's VERY common for me to be cooking dinner for myself and Xebus, and the moms to be cooking their own for themselves. I REFUSE to cook multiple meals, so if they don't like what I'm making, there is usually 3 different meals being made at once. *sigh*
  
  So, I need to start sticking to the meal plan I make every week. I have a total household budget (food, paper products, misc items) of $500/month. The Moms will buy any extra for themselves, so not every meal I make serves 4. That being said, I do try to make things everyone likes, so I can't dedicate that budget to only feeding 2 people/month. The food plan/shopping from just the ingredients I need for it has helped me reign in my spending in the past. I need to refine it, stick to it and actually cook, instead of random trips to McDonalds. (Yeah, we kinda eat crap. That's next on the list...)

• We (Xebus and I) need to start eating better. We used to eat Paleo, with a few changes. We still ate dairy (not much, mostly cheeses), legumes (as extra protein) and Xebus switched to Pepsi Max, a sugar and calorie free version. I'd rather him cut out the soda entirely, but I'll take what I can get with him. We gave up sugar, corn, carbs like pasta/white potatoes, and fast and processed foods. I lost 20 lbs without exercise and he lost 30 lbs. We are both overweight and need to lose about 90-100 lbs together. Then I got pregnant with Jack Jack and I fell completely off the wagon, taking Xebus with me. I'm not proud of that either, I hate that my choices threw him off too. I've gained almost 30 lbs with this baby and am 5 weeks away. I hope to clean up my eating by the time he arrives.
  
  This all means we need to STOP eating out and start eating better. It'll save money, which is my next point.

• I need to help Xebus by NOT SPENDING. The last few months, our budget imploded. Between birthdays (we have 1 in Oct, 2 in Nov and 1 in Dec), the holidays and preparing for Jack Jack, we overspent. To the tune of almost $4000.... Ouch. BIG ouch.
  
  My plan, seeing as I bring in no income myself, is simple. STOP getting money from him. No eating out (save for dates from are date jar, which I'll probably explain at some point later on), no asking him to spot me for groceries, no extras at all. Sounds easy, but when you're exhausted, 8 months pregnant and don't want to cook (and are addicted to tacos), $20 at Taco Bell is SO tempting and doesn't seem like a big deal... This needs to stop. NOW.

So these are my issues. They will be addressed in their own posts coming soon. Then I'll get to my daily nonsense such as the recipe I made for dinner, what I actually accomplished that day (or what I didn't, seeing as I'm being honest here) and whatever hilarious/aggravating/adorable thing my kid said/did that day...

This blog might not be for you. Hell, there might not even be anyone reading this. It's mostly for me. Writing things out helps my brain handle it better (yep, I'm a list person) and wanting to post holds me accountable. Also, maybe someone IS reading this and actually cares. And if I can help just by struggling right along with them, well, that's worth a lot to me.

Well, off to my next post. Until then, have a great day!

~Stefanie