Thursday, I am sore, savings catch up!

 This was me when hubs got home last night.  Even though I had defrosted chicken for dinner, I told him we were going to get a sandwich.  I was done.  I know I said at least three times on the way down to Jimmy Johns that my back was killing me.  It was throbbing.  All that bending over made me pay a price. I was $275.00 richer, and I could afford the $18.00 for a couple of sandwiches.

I also had not eaten more than a handful of potato chips, I was starving.  If I get busy, I often forget to eat.  Not a good habit as it leads to low blood sugar.

I dropped off bills that needed to be mailed and then took others to respective locations to save on stamps.  All bills are paid, and I think this month will be better financially.  I might even catch up.

 

It is Schmill's birthday today!  I cannot believe he is 6. We will celebrate tomorrow with family. Me loves this boy.

It is also my mom's birthday and boy do I miss her today.  She was such a pain at the end, but I remember how stinking funny she was.  She could make us laugh.

Hubs and I took a load of things to the dump, that I did not think were worth saving.  When we moved here, I tried to downsize, but I had loads of things I did not need to hold onto.  I piled things in the front room in categories to sell and then decided to just donate the lot to different places.  The sewing things will go to Goodwill to bless them and others. The jewels and beads and trinkets will go to a home school art site. The dresses will go to a resale site run by a woman who has MS.  You can make money there, but I will donate it back to her. 

I am going to load all this into the car and take it later today and also drop off a box to mail to my brothers' girls. 

The pile on the ironing board is the beginning of today's work. I made a list of several things that I need to get done for family and friends.  I am going to try and get at least 4 of these done a week, so I can get extra stuff out of my shop.  I need room.  Another wedding dress came in yesterday and I have one due in today and tomorrow.  We have now reached the point in the season where more will come in weekly than I can get out, so I really need to stay on top of things. I am blessed.

A hallway you can walk down.  This was completely blocked last night. Now I just have to keep up   Sissie says I need to clean up every night, but I am not sure I am that disciplined. Right now, I am just excited to be able to sew in a decent environment.  I found my bridal cording that I had lost and also my zipper foot which went rogue last week.   Broke out my last set of new scissors as I could not find any scissors.   I am stoked.

So, let's talk money as in Kim's savings plans.  I have not had a post for almost a month, with being out of town and sick on my Thursday post days.  It was also a sick month for saving challenges.  I have rethought my strategy and have switched it up a bit.

I was taking all my 5's and putting then on the house. That is not going to continue happening.  I was paying an extra $1000 to the house loan and that is not going to happen for a while.  I was saving $100 a week in my 100 envelope challenge.  I have not been able to do that for three weeks, but I do plan on catching up. I will not be putting this extra money on the mortgage for a while.  I have caught up on the $1,$5,$10,$20 challenge and I will continue to do this for now.  

Both Sissie and Slug's (she was nice about it, as in no bruises that show) both told me I was making myself crazy and I do this every year at this time.  I start out fast and then start to falter as the first quarter of the year is always my hardest financial time. I need to earmark extra funds to other sources and then get to the house later in the year after I stabilize.

So here goes the new for now plan.

Put the $1000 you borrowed from Hub's savings back.  That is going back this afternoon. Next month put the $1000 in your emergency fund that you depleted at the baby's funeral. Here I chastised Rhitter for no emergency fund for her car repairs and I didn't have one either.  Bad, bad, Kim. That 100-envelope challenge, I can do as soon as all my bills are paid, not before. I am sure I will catch up here now that we are going into busy season.  But I am going to do what makes sense.  Not Kim sense.

Thrifty Thursdays:  OR savings for the last three weeks

1.saved all my change in my coca cola bank

2. saved all my 5's now have $150 for the last three weeks or a total of $435 for the year. This $150 is just going to stay here for now and might be used for my trip to St. Louis for niece's wedding coming up the end of April.

3. Saved a penny a day in my penny can. $25.08 for the month

4. saved a $1,$5,$10,$20 bill ever week.

5. Ate out of freezers and pantry as much as possible.

6. always looked for the least expensive place to get gas.

7. used up berries that would have gone bad to make jam

8. used scraps from wedding box to fix other dresses and made extra money

9. used coupons at Joanns

10. downloaded all receipts to fetch

11. tried to cook treats from scratch for goodies around the house.

12. Picked up steppingstones for pathways in yard from Facebook marketplace saving $200 over retail.

13. found good sales on different clothing items for brother's two little girls while I was in Twin Falls.  I will mail them each three new outfits today.

14. Found a total of .26 over the last three weeks in change!

15. found $275.00 while cleaning the shop, it pays to clean folks

16. Found an old huskavarna machine deep in closet and I remembered it was in good shape, but the foot petal had gone bad.  Just ordered a foot pedal for $22.80 and it will be a great spare machine, or I can give it away to someone who needs it.

 

With everything that is going on in Ukraine I have decided to quit complaining about the price of gas and of groceries.  Yes. they are going to continue going up.  Yes, I will continue to try and find ways to save money. I will do all my normal things. 

When we go get gas, we have gas.  We can buy it.  We may not like the price, but we are free to go get the gas in a safe country, this is a blessing the Ukrainians don't have.

Groceries are high now and will continue to go up.  But we have food.  We can choose to buy it or not. We have something to buy.  They do not.  Neither do the Russian people who were forced into this by their leader. Shelves are empty.

We are all paying a price for this war.  We are paying a price for their freedom and for me it is worth the price for the blessings I have.

I have enough, I have more than enough. Prayers for these people and the Russian people who live under the imposed sanctions brought on by this war.

No more complaining, just counting my blessings.

Have a great and productive day staying positive while you are in the negative.

Kim