Tag Archives: cash envelopes

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, cash envelopes, frugalism, Uncategorized, Walking by

Our weather has turned to the cooler side. Actually, the house is quite chilly but I refuse to light a fire. I have some house plants on the wood-burning stove platform so I don’t want to have to remove them to start a fire.

I didn’t walk this morning as I went to the gym yesterday and had on my new gym shoes. Anytime I get new shoes my feet and back take a hit till they adjust. So my legs were sore and my low back. I’m wearing them around the house today to help break them in and adjust.

On the frugal end of things, B is using our free dump pass to take a whole truck load of crap to the dump. Honestly, I don’t know where it comes from. It seems we just took a load and here we are again. Well, this was free so maybe he just loaded everything he could.

The plumbing is still not fixed but B has all the siding off and has access to the pipe so that’s a start. He and son are planning on fixing it this weekend. Fortunately, it’s not a gusher and just a slow leak. But I suppose it will save money doing it himself.

I did the Walmart order and a Trader Joe’s so I’m set with groceries for a few weeks. I came in at @ $200 altogether. I do need to do a Costco trip for coffee etc. but will wait till next week. The week after we’re in Tahoe so I wouldn’t be able to do it then.

I’m still doing cash envelopes for groceries, dining out, misc, Home Depot, and fun money. It seems to be working well and I like to have the cash available. It helps me with my budget and then I’m not debit carding everything.

Next week is my daughters birthday so she will pick where to get dinner. I figure about $100 for all four of us. So not frugal but it’s part of the birthday gift.

Friday things

Posted in budgets, California, cash envelopes, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

Another nice walk without being too cold. Sunrise is 7:20 am and was the same yesterday.

Today is just a pottering day and tidying things up. I’m not sure why things look more ‘untogether’ around Christmas. Maybe it’s the Christmas tree and the few decorations I have around although I even put a few away as I felt it was too much visually. Maybe it’s being stuck inside a lot with the rain and cold.

We’ve had fun with the ‘ugliest’ tree ornament game again. So far the pink sparkly dinosaur is winning but it’s a close runner-up with pineapple face. <>!!!!

I’m debating going to the pool tomorrow. I want to go but I’m not sure about the traffic on Christmas eve day. I guess I’ll wake up and see how I feel. I need to check the hours too as I think I saw something about that on the way out the other day but didn’t pay attention to it.

Tonight we’re ordering a pizza so I won’t have to cook. That’ll be nice.

My January budget will go from Dec.26 to January 25 approx. I do think the cash envelopes are helping with some things like Home Depot, bird/chicken food, groceries ( to some degree), and, misc. For now, I’m going to keep doing it. January will be a low spend month with no extras. I plan on holding off on Costco till we need coffee. The biggest change is going to be saving from SS the extra increase so we can use that for annual bills. Plus whatever other money we can put towards that fund from anything else.

Frugal Friday, I guess.

Posted in budgeting, budgets, cash envelopes, cooking, freezer cooking by

No, just kidding 🙂 It’s been a fairly frugal week except for our 2 year Septic pumping. This house only has a 900-gallon tank(which is now illegal but back then was acceptable.), so we need to have it pumped every 2-3 years. It was $575 so not too bad really, and we have that in our annual bills account.

But food-wise, it’s been a low-spend week. I have plenty of things in both the fridge and freezer to use. This past week I made baked herb chicken with our cherry tomato compote, veggie sausage bake, cheese toasties with avocado and tomato, and pasta with tomatoes, and mozzarella. Tonight is pizza night and I’m not sure that’s what I’m doing. It’s early yet so I have time to think about it. First thing this morning is to blanch and freeze some local corn. I haven’t seen the sales for 10 for $1.00 come up. Maybe I missed it. So this was 2 for $1.00. I got just 10. Then I have more tomatoes to process but I may wait and do that tomorrow.

Barclay was supposed to get his port out this morning ( a milestone after 3 1/2 years) but he got a rash ( we think from his Shingrex shot) and the doctor said he should wait for it to be gone. He’s going to call his team nurse this morning to check on it.

We went out for a coffee at the local cafe and had iced americanos. That was $10 with a scone and came out of his personal money. Since we are doing cash envelopes again, he’s getting $100 a month for fun money. That’s working out very well. Also, he’s in charge of the cash envelopes for chicken food, and home depot. I’m still working out how much those should be REALISTICALLY. A budget only works if it fits what you need to spend and have the $ to fund the line item. So far, I have Tractor Supply at $50, and Home Depot stuff at $200.

We are going to have to take my VW to the shop as the coolant is still leaking. Hopefully, it won’t be too much. I don’t really keep a car repair fund so I guess I better start that.

I just finished the corn and got 3 small baggies of shucked corn. So maybe 20 more ears of corn.

Friday things

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

Today has been mostly tidying the house and catching up on a few things. I returned a small handheld label maker I had ordered a couple of weeks ago from Amazon because the ink was skipping and after trying a bunch of times just gave up. I’ll look for a different kind of label maker when I feel like it.

I’m planning on using my cash envelopes for August for a few things like groceries, Target, Home Depot and, a few others. I feel like we need to be a bit more focused on where the dollars are going. I know our daily budget but lots of time I just say to B to get it at Home Depot and then he buys whatever. It’s covered in our checking but I feel like we need to say there’s this $amount and that’s it. I’ll focus on August and see how it goes. For some things like gas, I won’t do cash so that’s the debit card. But I will have an index card with the amounts as ‘virtual cash’. All our regular bills are automatic.

Today is our last really hot day and then we start to trend downward into the low 90s. Maybe we can start eating dinner out on the patio again.

After my gym workout, I went into the library and picked up my holds. Two were canning books but they weren’t quite what I was after so I guess I’ll just have to buy the Ball book again. ( I gave it away a few years ago because I hadn’t used it). Most recipes are on- line but I’d still like to have a copy for reference mostly. I was excited to get the new Anne Hillerman book. I still love all things Santa Fe and New Mexico and appreciate the native culture immensely. The pinion pines smell amazing and the sky is incredibly blue. I’ve bought pinion pine incense and it’s lovely.

Tonight is supposed to be pizza but alas, it’s too hot so we’re going to have a brown rice salad. Last night I made zucchini fritters from the farm. I’ll probably go out there later this afternoon for a few things.

Not much else going on here.

A goat cheese quiche:

Garlic herb butter

corn from the farm.

Five on Friday

Posted in budgeting, California, decluttering, home stuff, simplicity, Uncategorized by

I like to do five on Friday occasionally as opposed to Frugal Friday although this was mostly a frugal week.

  • We did get the Santa Fe serviced so that was not cheap but car maintenance is just part of annual bills. Our next big bill will be the spring property tax and our car insurance.
  • We haven’t eaten out at all since the end of January so maybe this weekend we’ll do a Panera date.  We spent quite a bit eating out in January. I think we got Round table twice and that’s not cheap even if it is just pizza. I’m using cash for groceries and trying to keep it with $100-$125 a week. I’ve actually used quite a bit from the freezer and dumped some stuff that was just too old.
  • I walked almost every day, except Monday. Since my foot fracture 2 years ago, I try not to be too compulsive about walking EVERY day.
  • I  started another minimalist declutter game. That’s the one where you do one item on day one and then 2 items on day two and so forth. I usually get thru to day 30 but sometimes it’s just little stuff. I went thru 4 drawers in my office area and did get rid of numerous pieces of junk.  I’m going to go thru the closet pantry and declutter any food I haven’t used or probably won’t. I don’t keep a large stockpile so that should be easy. I used to try the stockpiling for the apocalypse and decided it the apocalypse comes we’ll just have to die. ( haha).

I need to wash the sunroom windows soon too.  In memory of Kirk Douglas, we’re watching “Spartacus”. It’s really amazing what they did with sets in those days. No CGI!

The weather is a little warmer and it’s nice to get outside some. I think today we’re hitting 60 which is not too bad for February.

I want to get to the nursery soon too and get some potatoes to put in the garden. My daughter has planted the garlic and onions so hopefully, we’ll have a good crop of those. Potatoes do well in our soil so.  I’m hoping we get apples this year to make applesauce. Last year the tree was in it’s not producing year but the year before was a blockbuster year, so that makes this year a production year( I hope).