End of the Week Wrap-Up

Happy Weekend!  Did you enjoy Mr. Saver’s LED bulb post this week, and did you guess that his educational background is in the computers & engineering field?

We finished out the week with money to put back into savings.  Some will be set aside for an Amazon Subscribe and Save order that will hit in a few weeks.  For information on saving money using Subscribe and Save, see these earlier posts.  The rest of the money is for long-term savings.

The main reasons we spent less this week were simple meals at home and a return to work for me meant little time to get in trouble anywhere else.  I have to admit, being back at work after a summer off is a harder adjustment than I remembered.  It isn’t so much the process of getting out the door, making lunches, and so on, but more my own expectations about what I can accomplish at home.  I have another week of simple meals planned, and I hope I can eventually get back to making more interesting meals.  My family, however, would be happy to eat eggs, hot dogs, and pea soup for quite some time!

I did get away to the mall for a bit this week before picking our daughter up from school and treated myself with my birthday money to a really good nonstick pan from Sur la Table.  I also was pleased to buy our daughter her Halloween costume – Athena, Goddess of Wisdom.  This gal loves to dress up from any historical period.  While saving money is quite a thrill for me, I try not to let my spending muscles atrophy too much, especially when I can buy something that will be really enjoyed.

We have about $100.00 in our “Family Fun Money” budget line and are trying to decide as a family whether we want to buy the game “Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries” with it.    My daughter said she would like to go to Montana instead, but I’d say our fund is about $3,900 short on money for that.  Any Ticket to Ride fans out there? To me, a game is always a good investment.

How was your week?

What I Did This Week to Save Money – Sept 1

Beautiful Butterfly Nets

Happy September!  We’ve been busy this week saying a last good-bye to summer and also celebrating my birthday.  It hasn’t been the most frugal week ever, but we did have some money-saving highlights.

• Our front light post stopped working, which is a problem when your block has no streetlights.  Mr. Saver, aka The Reluctant Do-It-Yourselfer, tackled the problem with tenacity, battling mosquitoes and a stripped screw that did not want to budge!  He replaced the entire light that sits atop the pole.  Bravo!
• Speaking of Mr. Saver, he has been on a LED lightbulb conversion kick lately.  I hope he will pen a post for you in the coming weeks on this wise long-term investment.
• Came in under budget on our electricity bill, and pushed the surplus money into our long-term savings.
• Made an extra $ 65.00 selling items on eBay and Craigslist.
• Started back to work for fall.  Starting next week I will be working about 20 hours a week.  When working on family finances, you can’t forget to examine the income side of things.  Watch for an upcoming post on transitioning from SAHM to part-time employment.
• Sorry, you knew I was going to say it… eating from the garden!  The 3rd crop of arugula is just at the right size.  I’ve almost thrown in the towel on the zucchini… I can’t keep up with it and I am afraid to look and see what kind of baseball-bats are growing under all those leaves.
• Ran a report to look at our grocery spending this month, which was low for us.  Spent a total of $ 338.00, or about 85.00 a week.  We were home all month, and ate at home most days.  My guess is that we spent less by eating meals based on what we had at home, and using a lot of garden produce.  We had a lot of vegetarian or almost-veg meals.

We ended the week depositing a bit of unspent money into our long-term savings and also Christmas gift budget accounts.  We are so close to meeting our goal to increase cash savings!

How was your week?