I don't know how many of you saw it, but there was a blog contest out from 5/1 to 5/15 having to do with "Confessions of a...". There were several entries and everyone can now vote on their favorite 3. Go check out the blog section of the forums and vote! There were some great entries!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....

As of right now, my DH should be in New Zealand. He left yesterday afternoon and got there....tomorrow. He skipped Friday entirely. They are 17 hours ahead so it is already tomorrow morning. Can't quite wrap my head around it but what can I do. That means that for the next 2.5 weeks I am entirely on my own. I am not really "scared" just a littler nervous. I know it will be life as usual, but if something goes wrong, I will be the only one to deal with it. On the other hand, once I clean something it should stay that way for more than a few minutes.

Right after work this afternoon we are headed to my parents house, about 2 hours away. Mom and I will be spending most of the weekend geocaching while Bumpa gets to play with Caleb. They are going to have a blast. Caleb is already talking about riding the Gator and Unky's 4-wheeler. He has a blast running around in the woods and chasing the dogs. We will be able to take him to the camp fire at the geocaching event on Friday night so that should be a good time. He will get to try his first Smore...mmmmmm can't wait!

Money wise, this weekend should be fairly low spend. Gas will be the only BIG expense. Put $65 worth in my car this morning and I am sure I will have to do the same before the end of the day tomorrow.

The past week has been a roller coaster for the budget. Scott needed quite a bit of stuff for his trip to NZ...power converter, travel size stuff, new pants, etc. That set us back a bit. Then I also had to buy a belated Mother's Day gift for my mom. I know she will love it, and I wanted to give her more, but I cringe just thinking about the money. Maybe that is a sign that I am healing my spend-thrift ways.

Took the morning off of work today and went to some local garage sales with a friend of mine. The small community we were in has a city-wide sale at this time every year and they are fabulous! We spent 4 hours and only made it through ONE neighborhood. Spent $100 but got all of my sons summer clothes for this year, several toys, a folding easel, and 12 skeins of yarn. Great deals were everywhere!

Tomorrow are the neighborhood sales at the ritzy subdivision near our neighborhood so we may take a drive through there just to see what we can see.

The thing I love about garage sales, especially for kids stuff, is that when we are done with it we can get probably as much back out of it as we paid for it in the first place. Can't wait until I can start the stuff going out instead of only seeing it come in. My neighbor is having a sale in June and I might throw a few things in with her, just to be rid of them. Might as well make some money off it rather than sending it to Goodwill.

Should be a busy weekend around here. My parents are coming into town tonight, we are going to a friends house for dinner, tomorrow we are meeting friends at the farmers market, and then tomorrow night we are going to another friends house for dinner. The good news is that I don't have to cook for the next couple of nights, the bad news is that I have no time to get anything done. Oh well, there will be other weekends to worry about that stuff.

Went to the chiropractor last night about my spasming back and it turns out that my lower two ribs on the left side were completely out of joint. Don't know how I did it, but it hurt like hell. He put them back were they were supposed to be, then I had ice on it all night, finally took some Advil and this morning felt much better. Starting to get sore again tonight, but at least I can feel marked improvement. Will probably have to go back in on Monday, but we will see.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Homebody asked in a comment to my last entry, what I made at my latest OAMC (Once A Month Cooking) session. Well, the list is huge, but here goes:

Pepper Steak
Polynesian Steak
Greek Burgers
Jamaican BBQ Chicken
Chicken Fajitas
Apricot BBQ Chicken
Moroccan Chicken
Ginger Honey Glazed Fish
New England Fish Cakes
Cajun Pork Stir-fry
Hawaiian Pork Kebobs
Tex-Mex Pork Wraps
Caribbean Chicken
Stir-fry chicken & veggies
Garlic Steak

A while back I wandered across a website called www.savingdinner.com that had several freezer cooking documents available called "Mega Menu Mailers" or "MMM". It comes with a grocery shopping list, a prep list, and detailed assembly instructions to put together meal kits that you thaw and cook later, just like those meal assembly places that are so popular these days. Only problem is, my DH is allergic to CORN. All of those chain places use ingredients that are loaded with corn in the form of corn syrup, corn starch, modified food starch, maltodextrin, etc. With the MMM I can use the ingredients that I know are safe and I think I come out saving money. Basically for $150 worth of groceries I got 15 ready to cook meals that are safe for my family to eat.

There are 3 different sets of MMM that have 20 meals each (I don't make them all for personal tastes) and then there are several that are smaller with only 5 recipes, all for one type of meat. They just added a Vegetarian MMM too, but I haven't checked it out. Not really my cup of tea.

Here is the downfall....you have to pay for them. Not a lot, and it is a one time fee, but it is still money out of pocket. For my family, though, it is worth it. No corn for DH, no nuts for DS and I only spend 6 hours cooking per month, it is just all at one time.

Man, it has been forever since I had a chance to post. Last week was just INSANELY busy at work. I had very little time to even think straight, much less fill you in on anything. Then, the weekend was gorgeous so we spent most of it cleaning, working outside and spending time as a family.

Today I am suffering from the weekend spending hangover. Spent WAY too much money and I feel like I lost all my control. The worst part....I am the one who spent all the money. There were trips to Target, grocery store and the craft store that together totaled over $200. My available flexible cash for 2 weeks was $50. See the problem? I am going to have to take another loan from the savings account to cover the expenses. Makes me want to cry. I am going to look at my purchases tonight and make the decision on whether any of it can be returned. The groceries were something that we needed, but most of the craft store purchases were wants, not needs. All of the stuff from Target was household stuff that we needed, but we could have probably gone without for a while.

Well, last weekend my OAMC session went fabulously. We put together 17 meals EACH so that should take us most of the way through the month without having to grocery shop, besides bread, milk and eggs. We spent about 6.5 hours between the shopping and the assembly, which is pretty good for that many meals, I think. Last time I did it alone it took me almost twice that.

We have been eating a lot of PB&J for lunches and have managed to only eat out a handful of times in April. I am going to try to do a better analysis tonight when I import all the final April numbers into YNAB.

I scheduled a big transfer from our credit union to ING this morning. This will affectively move our entire freedom/EF account to the higher interest bearing ING account. If it is just going to sit there until we need it, might as well be earing a better interest rate that 0.75%. I will still be keeping track of it via the old spreadsheet method, but now it is just in a different place. Here is the best news though....I have paid back all of the money that we had borrowed from the freedom account in the form of overdraft protection. We were over $800 short, and I have managed to pay it back in about 3 months. However, we are still $1500 short in the long term savings account, but now I will shift my attention to paying that account back.

That is the long and the short of it. We are still hanging in there, but just barely. The debt is going down, but our daily expenses are not. Have to get them under control or we are doomed to repeat how we got here.

After noticing that many of you are making some side money by completing online surveys, I thought I would check it out. Based on what I have read/heard/seen, I signed up with Pinecone Research (after finally finding a working link) and am waiting approval. I am thinking about signing up for another one as well and then trying it out before doing any more. The one I am looking at is Lightspeed Research. Anyone ever heard of them or done surveys for them?

Went grocery shopping last night for a few staples; OJ, crackers, fruit, etc. Didn't even have a cart full and came out with $99 worth. And everything we bought was on sale! We switched to frozen OJ, don't buy soda or chips, bought store brand everything that we could. It all just seems futile...like we are never going to be able to save money and eat well at the same time.

Will be going grocery shopping AGAIN tomorrow and Sunday because a friend and I are doing a marathon OAMC session. We are putting 20 meals together for each of us that will last us the better part of the month. But of course, buying the groceries is going to hurt the wallet A LOT! Last time I did this, it cost about $200, but the cost per meal was pretty low in the end. Took forever to put it together by myself, but should go a little faster with a friend.

Tomorrow is the first morning of the local farmers market. Around here, it is a wonderful social event and we look forward to it every weekend. This time of year they will have fresh asparagus, cheese curds, bedding plants, fresh baked goods. The weather is supposed to be beautiful and I can't wait. We start by getting a cup of coffee (chai for me) and then walking around the capitol square to check everything out. We buy on the second lap. Have to find the best price for asparagus!

Busy weekend, but should be fun. Looking forward to finally having some nice weather to enjoy. Should be in the mid seventies with sun and a breeze. In other words, perfect.

Well, I finally convinced DH to switch our cell phone plan last night. It was quick and painless and MAY save us some money. It will definitely save us from the standpoint of not going over on our minutes.

Right now we have a nationwide family plan because DH was doing a lot of traveling for work. Base price: $69.99 for 700 minutes. Then we found out that we needed to add the unlimited incoming package when we tripled our minutes the first month because of all of Scott incoming calls at work (we had previously had it included but the new package charged extra). That added $14 per month for a total of $83.99 per month, add taxes and call it $90. YIKES! But in the past 3 months we have paid $220 EXTRA due to overages at 0.49 per minute. (DH is working on getting his work to pay most if not all of these costs)

The new LOCAL calling plan we are on still has the same base price, $69.99, (both of these are the lowest plans we can get) for 1000 minutes but the unlimited incoming package it $10 and the " free nights and weekends" starts at 7:00 instead of 9:00. Basically we will only save $4 per month, but will be a LOT less likely to go over our minutes. Also, the plan includes 45 minutes of roaming charges each month, so if DH DOES travel it is at least enough minutes for him to call and tell me he is OK.

Man, do I HATE paying this much money for something we survived just fine without when we first got married. Our culture sure has taken a big turn from just 10 years ago. When I was in college, I didn't even have a computer in my room! That was what the computer lab was for! Now the same school I graduated from requires all incoming freshmen to have not just a computer, but a LAPTOP! And there are 10 year olds getting cell phones!

Wait....did I just sound like my mom? Excuse me while I run screaming through the streets.....

I recently found out about Half.com and was wondering if anyone here has used it. I have a bunch of books and CDs that I would be willing to part with but am wondering if it is worth the hassle of packaging and mailing. What do you think? Any words of caution? I am generally overly cautious about this kind of thing but the extra income at this point would be greatly welcomed.

DH's turns 32 in a couple weeks and we are going to have a small get together with friends. Just going to do a cook out with burgers and sides. But the challenge is that I am going to try to do it for as little money as possible.

The menu should be easy:
Burgers and buns (Sam's club)
Potato Salad
Baked Beans
Chips/Triscuits and Salsa/guacamole
Cake

Do you think it would be tacky to make it BYOBeer? That is where we end up dropping the most money. I already have the paper plates, napkins, cups, etc. leftover from Caleb's last couple of birthday parties so that save a little. I am planning on making the potato salad and buying the baked beans in bulk. I will also make the cake and possibly the salsa. Depends on time allowed.

Any tips for planning a party on a limited budget? All help is appreciated!