Saturday, May 4, 2013

AND LIFE CONTINUES ON....



Busy end to the week thankfully.  I've had two interviews.  I'm hoping that both come through and I can have a full time and part time to start working on the savings coffers a bit.  The Jeep needs to go in again too.  I can't wait until I get that thing paid off so I can get rid of it.  I have my son's wedding in December I need to save for and it's hard to do that when one is unemployed.

Matt's birthday was Thursday.  Fortunately I had bought one of his gifts before I lost my job.  It was a fleece throw with cats on it.  The orange cats pictured on it looked so much like his cat Luney that I had to buy it for him.  The professional style jack he wanted got put on hold.  I discovered while trying to find him a card that there's almost no options except Walmarts to buy cards at.  I did find one at Dollar Tree thankfully.  I need to look into keeping cards for future events on hand instead of waiting until the event.  I decided to bake his cake this year instead of purchasing one.  He definitely liked it.  Chocolate with gooey chocolate frosting.  Dinner was at Applebee's - you can't beat 2/$20 and then the $2 long island ice teas topped it perfectly.   All total I paid just over $30 for his birthday dinner so I felt good about that. Granted we could have saved money by staying home and cooking but we've been super good about NOT spending money that an occasional treat helps us from feeling deprived.

Went grocery shopping yesterday and went way over my goal budget, total was about $83.  I'm still needing to restock things which is making it more difficult to stay within the $50 target.  Matt and I both had a taste for a roast for Sunday's dinner so that was a bit of an expense.  Unfortunately I didn't find marked down meat like I have been.  We had hoped to do another Costco run when I took my mom back to the airport when she visited last month but the weather was so bad we headed home so many of the items I'm having to replace now where things I'd planned on getting at Costco.  Hopefully things will level out now.

Friday after I went shopping I was laying on the sofa reading when Oreo, who was laying on the back of the sofa, started barking.  I told her to stop but she continued.  I looked out of the window to see what had her so aggetated to see 2 huge wild turkeys taking a stroll down the side walk.  It was pretty awesome! 


Tacos are on the menu this week so I decided to break down today and make my own refried beans.  I found a recipe on Pinterest to make crockpot refried beans.  It was definitely easy to do.  I've had a large bag of pinto beans in the cupboard for a while waiting to do this.  I let mine cook for about 7 hours.  They smell great and taste good too.  I may use one of the containers to make some bean and cheese burritos for lunch this week.  I was able to get 4 pints out of the recipe.  I'm not sure what I paid for the beans so I'm not sure how much this broke down to but I'd say it's at least even with what I'd pay at the store and probably cheaper without all the additives.  Weekends are a great time to do things like this or if you have time to start them before leaving for work in the morning.

Matt took me out to buy some flower boxes to put on the deck today.  Unfortunately Walmart's didn't have enough in any one color to do the project so we'll have to order them.  It was a wonderful thought he had.  It's one problem we have here is there are so few stores to get things at.  We really need a Home Depot here to say the least but I've been told it's impossible to get larger chains like that to open stores in towns under 25,000 people.  I'd LOVE a Target store too and an Aldi's.

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