Quick Grocery Budget Update

It is half way thru the month and I thought I would do an update with my grocery budget. If you remember from this post I am trying to keep our grocery money at $250 this month. As of right now we are at $132.26 which consisted of three different trips. No – we aren’t starving nor eating canned soup – just planning our meals out and being mindful to use what we have in the panty or freezer.

Meal plan for this week?

Tonight we made chicken fajitas yesterday so we will be having left overs today – chicken in the freezer, left over peppers and onions I had cut up last week for salad and a fajitas kit I found in the pantry.

Thursday will be breakfast for dinner – bacon was in the freezer and pancakes will be spiced up with frozen berries

Friday homemade lasagna that I had made a while back and froze, with some garlic toast

Saturday left overs

Sunday baked chicken thighs with vegetable stir-fry (veggies found in the freezer)

Gabe leaves Sunday for another week of training so it’ll just me to feed! I’m really hoping to stay below $200 this month and I seem to be on the right track to do it J

- M

Retro Pay Update: The Final Numbers

G’s paycheque was uploaded to ePost this afternoon and I was able to see what he would be taking home after taxes and deductions. A little over $4000 will be deposited into our account Wednesday after taxes and deductions gobbled up about 40% of his gross pay. I’ve been calculating and plugging away the numbers to see how things will pan out this month. We have about $1390 sitting on credit cards from the end of May (namely vet visits and our plane tickets to Vegas) that will get paid off before any interest hits & then Friday when my pay gets deposited I will transfer $2000 to the LOC.

We should still be able to make an additional payment to the LOC this month no problem. And that was calculating that G’s second paycheque for the month is just his regular pay – when infact he is owed a bit over $3600 in overtime from back in April. I was surprised not to see it on this pay but I’m guessing it was less confusing with the retro pay calculations on this one. It would be awesome if it was on next pay because that would definitely have him hitting the EI maximum for the year and be just short for the CPP max. It’s going to be so nice once those deductions are gone!

Although, we are planning on eliminated at least $4000 worth of car debt this month, I also think it’s important that we have a bit of fun aswell. G and I have a few weekends off together this month (which is extremely rare) so it might be a nice treat to head out to the lake about 30 mins north of us and rent a boat for a few hours. It’s something we both enjoy and we always pack a nice picnic. Saskatchewan seems to have completely skipped over spring and gone straight into summer. I’m not complaining, but keep telling G this is perfect boating weather lol. It’ll be nice to spend that time with him too because I don’t actually get to see him much this month.

sigh - After eight months of waiting and waiting I’m so glad this raise thing is finally figured out and we have the numbers. I can’t wait for the LOC to go down to 4 digits! :D

- M

Meal Planning and Groceries

           Yesterday G & I both went thru and organized our deep freezer. We did this last year and made a list of everything that was in there to hang up right next to the freezer but it desperately needed updating. So we pulled everything out, organizing by type of food (i.e. Breads, Meats, Veggies, etc) and I wrote it all down. We also made sure when we were putting everything back we kept everything organized by type. We got some boxes for the food on the top so it can easily be removed to access food at the bottom.

            While doing this, we also meal planned for the week. The only things I will need to purchase is milk and fresh vegetables for salads and wraps, we had everything else! I made a loaf of bread yesterday so that should keep us for the week and I found a package of bagels for breakfasts.

            June is going to be a little bit different for our groceries budget not only because we are going to make a point of using what we have but G will be gone for two weeks out of the month for training. Although I miss him like crazy while he’s gone I do enjoy getting a bit more creative using up what we have. We found a few bags of shredded chicken I have plans for! J

            The mini-goal for this month is to cut our grocery bill in half and only spend $250. I definitely think this is achievable and G is on board 100%. I guess we will see!

            - M

End of the Month & Retropay Status: Pending

            I love weekend mornings because I make myself a tea, sit down at the computer by myself and catch up our excel spreadsheet, balance our chequing account and look a head at the coming week. The end of the month is always my favorite, because I see how much we can throw at the LOC – this is always the last bill we pay and definitely the best feeling!

            We did an awesome job budgeting this month, and although I know there’s still time for things to happen, I’m pretty confident we will be able to throw another $2000 plus the interest at the LOC bringing the balance down to $12,000. We will also be able to deposit $500 into our vacation savings account. This will still leave us a buffer of about $1300 in our chequing account going into next month.

            This puts us in a very good position for June because G, after 8 months, is finally getting his retropay from his raise back in October. Yayyyyyyyyy! The totals for just the retro pay portion are $3853.01. Now we aren’t sure how much is actually going to be deposited (lol taxes) but that’s okay. We are just going to treat this as a ‘regular’ pay and anything up and above his salary we will transfer to the LOC. I’m hoping they also pay out the current overtime he has submitted – which is at around $3400. But I’m not holding my breath, I know that money will come sometime but it would be awesome to do one big lump sum extra payment. 

            June can’t get here fast enough!

            - M

796 Items

           That is how much stuff I’ve been able to get rid of so far this year. That’s a lot of stuff and there’s still a lot more…

            One of my personal goals this year is to go thru the items we have and get rid of anything not adding value. I found a little notebook (why do I have so many notebooks?) to start writing down and tallying how much I’ve been able to sell, donate, give to friends and throw away.

            It’s been an on going process, and I believe it always will be an on going process, but each time I felt up to it I would tackle a small area at a time; one bookshelf, one set of drawers, bed side table, etc. And days when G was working nights or I had the weekend by myself I would tackle larger areas like my closet.

            This weekend we got some boxes and I was able to pack up all of the items that were in my donate pile, which was actually more like a room because our entire spare bedroom was filled with Rubbermaids and other boxes waiting to be packed. I’m going to give myself until the end of June and then call for a pick up from the Canadian Diabetes. G is gone for two weeks of training so I know the organizing bug is going to bite me hard to keep the boredom at bay.

            Also a friend of mine just came over and picked up a recliner and two DVD stands. It matches the couch we had given to her late last year when we got our new couch delivered. I didn’t ask anything for these pieces (both the couch and the chair) because they were hand-me-downs from my parents when we first moved out and I didn’t feel right asking for something. I’m just glad she could use them and I didn’t have to haul them to the dump, lol.

            The thing that surprised me the most was how many boxes of items were still packed from when we moved over 2 years ago. That stuff was easy to say goodbye too since we had clearly forgotten about it.

            The only other area I still need to really work on is the basement. Most of the other areas in the house are finished or aren’t as big of a project as the basement is going to be. Slowly but surely it’ll get done.

Anyone else been organizing or Spring cleaning?

            - M