A Relaxed Saturday

Today I am spending most of my day at home. Piddling around, and doing some cooking and a little cleaning.

I have cleaned the light fixtures in the bathroom and kitchen, have a beef roast in the stock pot simmering away to make vegetable beef soup with, have my sheets in the wash, another load in the dryer and am going to make a cheesecake and pizza hot dish for church tomorrow.

We still have about an inch of snow on the ground but it is melting pretty quickly in the sunshine. I am very thankful for the sunshine today. After living in Florida for 23 years, it's really hard to get use to weeks without sunshine.

This month's shopping was a little more than I wanted it to be for the budget. I went $34.00 over budget for groceries. But I did do a lot of stocking up. I stocked up on toilet paper, toothpaste, hamburger, pork, and chicken. I guess I am okay with going over by $34.00 but that is budgeting $100 a week and I really want it to be $75 a week. Even that sounds like a lot for 2 people to me, but I do prepare 3 meals a day 4 days a week 1 meal on Fri. and 2 on Sat. & Sun. and at $75 a week that would be $4 per meal for 2 people or $2 per meal each. I think I can get back to that. At the end of last year I was averaging $60 per week and that includes cat food, cleaning supplies and health & beauty. The price of things seems to be going up rapidly. Cat food has soared! There were bags of cat food last night for $17 and I am not talking the good stuff. Does anyone have any ideas how to cut back on that when you have about 8 cats?

I have kept a spread sheet on my grocery spending, rebate & survey earnings for last year, this year I added a page for other shopping. So far this year I have spent $469.32 and saved $337.60, this includes clothes, a mixer, a movie and some gifts.

I am already shopping for gifts that I will need throughout the year and for Christmas this year. With the way prices are rising I have decided that anything I can buy at the lowest price now is an investment. I don't mean that I should be buying things just because they are cheap but if I am going to buy gifts for my family it makes more sense to me to do it over the year at bargain prices than to be out in December buying things just to have a gift to give. Wise decisions usually aren't made at the last minute.

My dryer has stopped so I need to go fold and put away clothes. Have a great weekend!

Mae