Category Archives: cash envelopes

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cash envelopes, frugalism, Gardening, Lake tahoe, Pantry by

It’s been an okay week budget-wise.

I got gas at Costco since I knew we’d be driving to Sacramento and then the next day to Rocklin. Gas here in town is almost a $1 more so it does save $$.

We did go back into Costco after Sacramento and picked up avocados, butter lettuce, milk( B is drinking a lot of milk in his protein shakes), cheese, and I can’t remember what else. That came to a little over $100 which I used cash for. I also, on a separate checkout, bought 3 Christmas gifts one of which was Chocolates in a 3 pack that I can separate for gifts.

That was it in spending so I think it was a good week.

Today is one of my Dex days so I’ll do stuff around the house although I feel kind of off. I bought a wood step stool from Amazon so I can sit on it and go through my pantry boxes. I just can’t sit on the floor for any length of time. I’ll check it out today and see if it works otherwise I’ll send it back.

I started my annual rereading of LOTR. I finished The Hobbit, and am 1/3 of the way through Fellowship of the Ring. I also picked up my holds from the library so I have a nice stack of books on my bedside table.

My daughter harvested the delicata squash and oh my, there must be 20. That will make some tasty fall/winter dishes. Everything in the garden is done. The tomatoes are done. There are still some jalapeno peppers out there but not a lot. I’d say the only thing I missed were cucumbers for pickling. But that’s not something I do a lot of anyway. She’s going to put in a fall garden with radishes, lettuce, and maybe chard. Our cilantro seeds itself so that should be coming up soon too.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, cash envelopes, cooking, frugalism, home stuff by

This week I did another Costco trip. This one had TP, bread for the freezer, half and half, and other staples. It came to a little over $200. I had $130 cash and then put the rest on the debit card. When I do that then I take that amount off my food $. I still need to do another cash run so I’ll figure out what I have left in the budget. I did buy B his Sierra Nevada beer even though he’s not really drinking much. But he gives me the money back for that.

I also went into Winco for salad stuff and that ended up under $30.

All the bills for September are in and accounted for. Our Allstate insurance notice came and again prices are crazy. My son’s Subaru is on our policy( he pays for this though), and it’s a 2008 and almost $700. Why?? I will pay when the actual bill comes in but I think I’m going to pay in installments. I really don’t want to add to the CC.

It’s been hot as I mentioned but it cools off at night with all the windows open.

Today is a no walk day so I’m doing some extra chores. The biggest is the outside windows. I also processed more tomatoes for the freezer and will do all of them(3 bags) later this fall.

I stuck to my menu plan this week except tonight is pizza night and I don’t think that’s what I’m doing. First, I don’t have any dough made, and second, no one feels like a pizza in this heat. I’ll figure something out.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, California, camping, cancer, cash envelopes, frugalism, Lake tahoe by

First off, I want to thank a reader, NW, for a very generous donation that took me by complete surprise. I do have my Paypal linked to my blog but haven’t thought about it in years. It was such a kind thing to do and will help most certainly with the trip to Stanford, gas, lodging, and food. So thank you again for such kindness. Honestly, I was blown away by your thoughtfulness.

My dentist appt was a cleaning and then x-rays. It was pricey and I had to put that on a CC as my cash envelope had been emptied when B went to the dentist. I hope by the next appt, I’ll have my envelope fully funded. Oh, I have a tiny cavity she(The dentist) wants to fill so I’ll do that in October. We need to get through these appts of B’s and see how that goes.

I went to Costco after I had my doctor appt in Sacramento. Yikes, the traffic going into Sacramento was awful and took over an hour. Usually it’s 45-50 minutes. So coming back out it went smoothly swung into Costco. I spent $188 total. $15 was nonfood, $20 was wine, and the rest was food. I used my cash envelope.

We filled up the VW this week and that was $45.

We went to the nursery and bought 2 bags of potting soil and 3 pots and that ended up $60.

After that was a stop at Panera, and that was $28. I had cash in my coffee date envelope but forgot to use it so I’ll need to move that to back to the bank. Although I haven’t put any money into dining out for this month so I could wait and deduct that. I usually only do $50 as we don’t really eat out that often.

Overall, a frugal week. I didn’t need gas in the Santa Fe so that was nice.

Today I do plan on swimming as I haven’t been all week and I can feel it. I don’t need to get gas or get anything from Winco( across the street from the pool).

Next week is open with no appts so we’re thinking of driving up to Tahoe which we had planned on doing for our anniversary. After Labor Day is the start of the off-season although September is still busy up there. We still have our Nevada Beach reservations for the end of September but the Stanford trip is right in the middle of that week, so I’m guessing we’re going to have to cancel. We could trailer up and stay 2nights, but then we’d have to come back down for Stanford 2 days, and I just don’t see us able to go back up for 2nights. We just don’t have that kind of energy. I don’t want to cancel yet in hopes we’ll get a cancellation at Stanford. I love it up there at the end of September. The air is so crisp and the lake so blue. Plus, we get the annual parks pass discount so where can you go on vacation in Tahoe for $150 for 6 nights. But if we don’t get into Stanford sooner then I’m not sure it’ll work.

Being in limbo with all this is pretty tough and I have to say my anxiety is fairly high. I guess since we can’t really control these things, I need to let it go some. Easier said than done.

Enough of that, I made a frittata last night to use up that spinach I had. Tonight is pizza night. I think I have one last dough ball in the freezer I can use.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cash envelopes, cooking, Gardening by

Costco $153. food 140, wine 13. I just love this new Costco.

It is so easy to get into and the registers are always open. I haven’t had to wait once. I think what I like the most is doing smaller shops. Usually, before shops were $300 or $400 and loaded up the cart. Now I am just picking up maybe 15 things. So yesterday, was tofu, block of Tillamook, cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, black bean burgers( a new product I thought we’d try for an easy meal), Bonne Mamam jam in the EXTRA jar jar that I’ve been looking for forever, oh, another new item, potato and cheese pierogis, oh, and the gallon zip lock freezer bags on sale. I always try and buy the things on sale as that is where Costco excels.Plus the Kirkland Pinot Grigio and Kirkland Sauvignon. I think there was something else but I can’t remember now. Oh I remember, it was another new product of pretzel bites!! We love pretzel bites so it was a no brainer!

Dinners have all been homemade and easy this week. The start was the honey garlic tofu. I still have half the block frozen so I may make that again tomorrow. Tonight I think I will make a homemade pizza. I have dough in the freezer so that’ll be easy to do.

Since I’m on Dex for the next 3 days I’ll add some extra things to do. I’d like to spruce up our one entryway by the sun porch. Maybe switch out the faux flowers on the wreath to fall stuff. I had a nice red geranium out there on the table but the deer ate the flowers:(

Here are a few pictures of the front yard. Lots of morning glories which just seed themselves every year and this this delicata squash was a self seeder from the compost that we added to that bed. My daughter came up with the idea to grow it on this old trellis that was going to get thrown out. Works great and we’ve never had that many delicatas ever.

My next batch of tomatoes I plan on freezing and can later this fall. Tomatoes came in so early this year I guess with all the heat we had. Our peppers didn’t that great though for some reason. Which is odd since they love heat too.

Thankful Thursday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cash envelopes, Gratitude, velcade by

Even though I slept terribly, I still got up at 5:15 to walk. I’m thankful I have the energy to do that. We got to the park at 5:40 and the two ladies were there. They are nice and don’t bother me. By the time we were almost done 6 more people had showed. I’m not sure what the story is about more people early as the weather is not hot and the sunrise is almost 6:30. I guess this will change soon as it gets darker. However, the one older lady that I’m not super fond of is the one last year that came at 6. It was dark and she never used a flashlight even when I asked her to because you can’t see people. oh well, people:(

I’m thankful my drive to infusion was uneventful. The other day on Hwy 65( the one I take) there was a horrible accident with a pedestrian. I’m glad I didn’t see it.

I’m thankful that I have some extra money in my cash envelopes because we need it till the end of the month.

I’m thankful I’m not losing hair like I was. I probably lost half my hair. So now when I comb it there’s a normal amount of hair. I think it was Dex, but it may have been Velcade too or both.

There’s a lot going on with B’s cancer and I’ll do an update soon. I’m still a little shell shocked so I need a day or two to get a grip. But I am thankful the doctor pursued a long shot and she was right. I’ll explain later in a separate post.

I’m thankful our kitties are safe and bring us joy. It is sad when cats go missing and I’m sure the neighbor is upset.

I’m very grateful Mr Owl left me this. B found it!!

Frugal Friday

Posted in books, bread, budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, cash envelopes, Credit cards, frugalism, husband, reading by

It’s been a frugal week for the most part. All the birthday gifts, cake, and food were budgeted in my envelopes, so that was good. I did go to Costco for the burgers, rolls, etc but that too I had in my Costco envelope as well.

We are stretched really thin with money this month due to a few extra things. I’ve done really well with my envelope cash system but bigger bills are still catching up with us and we still have a cc balance from two car registrations, and some other bills from June. I hate having to carry a balance so I’m putting anything extra towards that and thus a very stretched thin budget. We’ll get there but not as soon as I’d like.

We had a nice date lunch of pizza(cash from my dining-out envelope) and it’s always nice to get out of one’s box. This month is our 54th wedding anniversary and although we usually don’t do gifts or anything extravagant we will do a lunch out. At this point we’re planning a drive up to Tahoe to see the lake and get coffee at our favorite Tahoe House. With everything still up in the air with B it’s hard to feel very cheerful. He is and always will be the great love of my life.

I didn’t feel great this morning so decided not to go to either the pool or the gym. I’m not sure if it’s stress or just feeling low energy. So I made a loaf of bread and did a few random chores.

B did get an appointment( we just found out) for next Friday for a second biopsy. It’ll be done at UCD hospital again so I can wait in the cafeteria. That will be a Dex day but I can wait and take Dex when I get home so it should be fine. He also sent a very detailed message to the doctor about some of the PET scan results and about the CUP diagnosis( that we are theorizing will be the case.) That’s called cancer undiagnosed primary. We’ll see what her response is.

My daughter and I went to the Pet bookstore yesterday and I hit the jackpot with Craig Johnson books. There were 5 on the shelf. For some reason, even on eBay these go for a minimum of $5 a piece. And most are more. I also picked up 2 more in the Baldacci series I’m reading. It’s the Atlee Pine series. She’s a great character. I also picked up Cooking for Two from the Cooks Test Kitchen. I saw a recipe for manicotti which used lasagna noodles rolled up so I may make that tonight instead of pizza.

The weather is cooling off and that’s a relief but there are lots of fires going on. One over where blogger I read lives. Hope you’re safe Donna and Dale!

Well, that’s it from this blogger. Anyone on a limited budget and how do you plan things, like big expenses. Do you ever carry a CC balance even if you don’t want to because you have to.? I’m hoping by this time next year we will have our envelopes fully funded for the big expenses but it does take time. I’m also concerned about our house insurance going up because of the California Fair Plan. A lot of people have been posting on Next door neighbor about some serious increases.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, budgeting, California, cash envelopes, home improvement, home stuff by

A lovely walk this morning. Quiet and no one there to begin with. One person showed up later but we were leaving by then.

I got another loaf( baguette style) of sourdough ready to go. I put it in the oven and set the timer so B could take it out. I was heading into the Auburn gym. I did my usual 30 minutes and then went over to Target. I rarely shop at Target anymore but I need stainless wipes( I use Weiman’s and think this is the best product I’ve tried) and their sliced cheeses are also very good and affordable. I think ice cream snuck into my cart because it was on sale. Usually, I just call all this a Target trip but this time I’m going to separate the categories and subtract them from my cash envelopes. I think that’ll keep the categories more accurate.

After I got home, I checked the bread and it came out great.

I do have a baguette pan so that does help.

The only thing I did differently is I didn’t add that much more flour after the first rise. I added maybe a cup.

I think I’ll try this one next.

I found this really fun cookbook at the FreeLittle Library and it’s a gem. Lots of stories and the book is divided by cities and regions with lots of history.

Last night I made Tucson Crispy Tacos. They were yummy. This recipe calls for frying the corn tortillas till crisp and then fold over. It actually worked great.

Tonight I’m going to make Chile relleno casserole. I have made recipes like this before. That seems like a lot of cheese so I’ll probably do 1/2 that.

B got the trim off the bathroom window. It did, as with everything, take longer.

Those boards are the original when the house was built and are all rough-cut fir. They are not standard sizes and very thick. It looks like there had been some water damage previously but I don’t think B is going to try and pull all that out. that would be too involved and mostly it looks like surface damage. He may try using some Tyvec.

Anyway, it’s a start!

We have another warm sunny day here in Northern California and it’s quite lovely.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgets, California, camping, cash envelopes, frugalism, home stuff, travel by

Overall, a frugal week with just the basics being bought. I didn’t go to the store after shopping last Sunday at Holiday Market. I think I spent $80 including wine, lunch stuff and to use the 2 coupons for free stuff for April. The coupons were for a salad pack and olive oil. B went to Safeway the other day for milk and cream.

Today after the gym, I was going to go to Taco Tree but decided to just come home and have leftover lasagna.

All our meals were used and tonight is homemade pizza ( I think). I’ll get it ready( defrosting the pizza dough) but I might change the plan to something lighter.

I’ve got May’s budget almost done. I just need to tweak a few things. Rubi’s insurance is due in May so I need to put that in. I didn’t have that figured into my cash envelopes so I’ll add one for that for next year.

In May we only have 1 camping trip to Tahoe and that’s at the end of the month. We’re still planning on going ahead with the bathroom so that will have to be accounted for. We’re starting with a new window and then we’ll go to the one wall that needs to be opened up for a plumber to do piping. Of course, that means the claw foot tub will need to come out. When that happens, we’ll have to be using the RV shower. I imagine the whole thing is going to take longer than we think especially since B will be doing most of it.

This weekend is open and I won’t go to the pool tomorrow. I’d like to go to the nursery if anything, to get some plants.

The cherry tree has really exploded into bloom!! the bees are loving it and the whole thing is humming.

Thankful Thursday

Posted in books, budgeting, budgets, cash envelopes, Gratitude, Lake tahoe, library, swimming by

I am very thankful this was a week with NO appts and no Dex. Boy, did that do me in last week. I guess I’ll go back to taking dex after I get home and not in the evening. maybe that’s the difference or the BP spike has been there all along and I just didn’t take my BP and notice. We’ll see.

I’m thankful we had a beautiful day in Tahoe with picture-perfect weather.

I’m thankful that all the month’s bills are accounted for and are in the budget. Slowly, I’m getting more envelopes set up for the annual bills. Even though I didn’t have the full amount, I did have something and that helped. As I think of different line items for our budget I add an envelope. I also bought on Amazon a binder that is for the 100 envelope challenge. Lots of cash envelope budgeters on You Tube have this as a way to do an extra savings. It’s not a quick thing as each envelope is numbered 1-100 and you put that amount in each one. I do like having these little challenges to keep me focused.

I’m thankful I got to swim on Monday but it was one of the few times it wasn’t pleasant. First, the pool was packed which I thought odd but then realized that it was a holiday. Second, I don’t circle swim( when there are more than 2 in a lane), but some woman plopped into the lane I was sharing with 1 person and proceeded to circle swim. I was not a happy swimmer. I go too slow and at some point, she cut in front of me and almost kicked my face. Anyway, at least I got my 30 minutes in.

I finished all the books I got from the library (8 books) so today after the gym I’ll go in and see if I can get a few things off the shelves to take to Capitola. The new Kellerman book ” Ghost Orchid’ is okay. I like his writing and the 2 main characters are well developed. So far all the Craig Johnston Longmire books have been great. Definitely worth reading the series although I haven’t read them in any order.

Simple Sunday

Posted in California, cash envelopes, cooking, Flylady, meal planning, simplicity, Uncategorized, Walking by

We started to go walk in the park when the rain came in so we turned around and came home. I actually like walking in the rain but not pouring rain and we didn’t have on any rain gear. We still have our Frogg Toggs but haven’t used them in ages. Oh well, I’m planning on the Auburn gym this morning so I’ll add some treadmill if my knee is up to it.

Today, I need to do my PT exercises, go to the gym and make a menu for the week. Yesterday I pressured canned chicken broth and got 6 pint jars. I had soaked some Rancho Gordo cranberry beans and then put them in the crock pot. I used the recipe from his book( “Vegetarian Cooking)for Pasta Fagioli, and it came out very good. There’s plenty left over for lunch today.

Tenative menu:

cheesy potatoes and chicken or Quorn Chicken and salad

quiche with Bourison cheese with salad

Soup night of some sort maybe french onion

freezer meal, I have a rice and turkey one that needs to be used

Pasta of some sort with my canned tomato sauce

chicken pot pie( that’s what I’m planning for tonight)

Mex night, either bean tacos or ?

Flylady zone is the Living Room and all I need to do is dust some and vacuum. I’ll probably also tidy my office some too.

We just got a notice from UHC, which is our supplemental health plan, and it will increase 11.7 %. That’s quite the increase, but honestly, what choice do you have? That’s almost a $400 increase for the year. Geez, everything is crazy expensive and living on a fixed income with no other sources of income, does make it tough. I guess all we can do is see where else we can cut some budget items. April will be expensive with Allstate due and property taxes. We also have the Santa Fe to smog and do registration. Although I didn’t get my envelopes fully funded, there’s some in each one and that will help. My goal is by next year to have these fully funded. Even if I only get half that will be a good amount so I’ll keep going. I really like the envelope system and it definitely is working for us.

Some spring flowers and a sleeping kitty. That’s Cherry!

We all decided we need to order lots more daffodils and different varieties for this fall. I especially like the ones that are ruffled. The yard looks very pretty with them in different places.