cheap skate, tightwad call me what you will...

I came across something called the $21 Challenge from Fiona Lippey & Jackie Gower at SimpleSavings.net.  It is a pretty neat idea - basically how we are programmed to over-buy especially in grocery and household items.  The $21 challenge is supposed to be for one week when cash is tight.  I am taking that to the next level and my goal is to spend $50 weekly on food items (not including milk).  Somehow a good friend of mine managed to keep this up for little while!  Way to go D!  Milk usually makes up $10+ of my grocery bill so I bumped the $50 to $60 to account for that.

I am 5 weeks in...week 2 was the hardest by far.

week 1 : $56.45 - yay!
week 2: $127.50 - hubby's list was way too long - hopefully we will convert him soon!
week 3: $38.43 - making up for horrible week 2!
week 4: $85.82 - hubby's grocery list again...ugh!  Damn pistachios $7.99 a bag!
week 5: $54.72

average = $72.58...much better than my normal grocery bill

I also came across a recipe for homemade dishwasher detergent that works wonderful!  Still trying out the homemade laundry soap recipe. So far works great on towels and I have a HE washer.

Helpful tips I've found out thus far:

• Breakfast for dinner is yummy and super cheap
• Homemade oatmeal is pretty disgusting but God love hubby he is eating it every morning and not complaining!
• That year old frozen smoked shoulder was actually good thanks to the crockpot.
• Soups are another super cheap dinner, my favorite is baked potato soup.  I just need to find a good crusty roll recipe.
• Be prepared for a lot of home cooking and good old fashioned baking for anything like this strategy to work...stock up on flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, butter, eggs

my sister is doing her own challenge, see her progress at Sharing Our Shenanigans

My goal is to take this savings and apply it to finishing the rest of the house...this could take a while!

Finally done

Hey folks!  Sorry I have been lax with my blog posts.  We made great progress on our living room, craft room and mud room.  We "moved" into these rooms the week before Christmas.  It has been a bit crazy recovering from the holiday, potty training Jay and trying to get into birthday mode as my baby will be 3!

As you can see the walls are pretty bare and it sorta feels like we are living in a hotel!  My father in-law made the mantel - he has been a blessing without his knowledge and hard work I know we wouldn't have been able to complete this project.

 

Mom and I got the chairs on clearance at Home Goods.  The window treatments were from Bed Bath & Beyond and the cellular blinds which I LOVE are from JC Penney's.

 We were looking everywhere for an amish corner cabinet and decided to use the black tower/bookcase we had in the basement at the old house...looks great!

The bench was re-purposed from our old kitchen set...I painted it black and Andy upholstered it...lovin' the fabric that was on clearance for $2.22!  Total project cost = $16.76  Much better on the wallet than the $150 bench I loved at TJ Maxx!


Had to include a pic of the boys at Christmas...

Mud room and Craft room/office pics to follow soon - hopefully!

P.S. remodeling with toddlers - not a good idea

Calendar Pages

Wow...

I needed a calendar for January and found this awesome site, forthemommas.com that listed a cheat sheet of free "designer" calendars...I decided to try my hand at it and included links to download my creations...enjoy!

February link

March link