I am back, this time for real

I am back to the blogging world. We had been hit hard by finances over these past months. So here we go, playing the catch up game and it sure isn't that much fun.

This past Feb. dh quit his job which we really thought that we would be ok until he found something else. Needless to say unless you have that "Emergency Fund fully funded or at least a good chunk of it in your savings, Murphy will appear out of thin air there is no doubt.

First off, dh was out of work for almost 3 months. He is now working through the commissionairs as a security guard. My parents who are in the 2nd house we bought for them to live in couldn't make the mortgage payments a couple of times which set us back paying for that.

Just want you all to know that we take full responsiblity for our finances and actions.

Our money just seemed to be gone as soon as it came in no matter what we did. I lost my way out of frustration. I had no freedom account left, no emergency fund left although as I mention it wasn't much considering so basically we were getting paid one day and then broke until the next payday.

Here is what is helping us right now:

(1) I still work at the english school here as lunch supervisor, I am no longer working the after school busing but did get a contract for 1:20 minutes after school as a daycare educator. the busing was 40 minutes after school but I now get an additional 40 minutes on top of that with a .23 cent raise per hour.

(2) One of our dd's has a part-time job and our other daughter has applications out. This will give them extra for fun money, a bit of savings etc...

(3) Still doing great on the food although prices seem to still be climbing.

(4) When there is a great sale I still try to stock up the best I can...like if cheese slices go on sale at a great price I pick up 2 or 3 packs and put in the freezer, yes you can freeze cheese slices and they are fine when thawed. I also picked up block cheese and froze those. I had always heard that once thawed it would crumble, that is not the case, one might get a couple of small and I mean small pieces come off when shredding but it worked out great and slices great for cheese and crackers.

I have to get ready for work right now so I don't have time to post more, I will get back to daily posting or at least a few times a week.

Ohhhhhhh dh found out at a meeting for work this morning that he is getting a $2 an hour raise YAY!! Will be on his next pay.

So we will see you all soon.

I'm Back..

It stomed last week, so I didn't get any of my stockpile shopping done, rats! The cooking session I did not get completed either as I did not get shopping but I do plan on doing up a few things this weekend.

I did peel my potato last night and have it sitting in a 4 litre ice cream bucket filled with water in my fridge, all I have to do tonight is change the water and dump in my pot to cook it up. Bonus!I think that if I changed my water everyday that the potatoes would be ok for two or three days until I was ready to cook them up, that way I could peel extra on Sunday while I have everything out and we could have them with our Tuesday or Wednesday supper and the other days have suppers with rice,soup,pasta,salad or french fries. My hamburger is thawed and there is about 4 pounds. I am going to make up 2 meatloafs, freeze one and the rest I will make meatballs using the same recipe.I have to freeze the meatloaf cooked as the raw hamburger was already frozen and you don't want to freeze raw meat twice. While the meatloaf is in the oven baking I can cook the meatballs by dropping them into the boiling pot of water, it is quick and easy that way as I mentioned in my last post.

My boss at work yesterday offered me an extra 40 minutes a day at work which I am going to take. I will be working after school from 2:50pm until 3:30pm with the little ones to make sure that they get on the bus ok. This will give me 2 hours and 10 minutes a day @ $16.29 an hour plus they add on vacation pay and a couple of other things onto my pay. Having a planned meal ahead will be an added bonus for most days.I am not sure when I start working the shift after school but I would imagine I will start this upcoming Monday.

If you want to see some great ideas for cooking with pictures from beginning to end recipes please visit The Pioneer Woman Cooks. .

Thinking About having a Cooking Session.

I am seriously thinking about doing this, although I think that I will do up a hamburger plan, chicken plan along with a Potato plan.

I have been surfing the internet (Big shock there eh? lol) and one trick I picked up for say making meatloaf is when you have your mixture made up don't bother putting it in loaf pans right away. Put your meatloaf mixture in a freezer bag and when you are ready to use it just thaw in the fridge overnight and the next day dump it in a loaf pan, pack it down and bake. I like mixing up a sauce for ontop of the meatloaf though which consists of : 1/4 cup brown sugar,1/4 cup of ketchup and 1 tbsp. prepared mustard and whisk it up. Cover the mixture ontop of your meatloaf.

Another trick which I have done in the past when I make Meatballs is instead of baking them I have ready a pot of boiling water and as I make the round shape of the meatball I drop them in there, once I have the last meatball in the pot I keep them on a low boil for about 10 minutes. They do not brown and crisp this way like baking in an oven but, when you take them out of your freezer and pop them in the oven till heated they will brown up then.By cooking the meatballs that way it is much quicker opposed to baking them in your oven. Meatballs are great because you can use them with sauces over rice or noodles, have meatball subs or serve on potatoes.

I have also in the past done up batches of taco meat which can be used for; over french fries (I like to add sour cream,salsa and lettuce on top) enchiladas, taco salad,on top of Potato, burritos,in soup, nachos and whatever else one can think of lol.

I haven't figured out what I would make up for a chicken plan yet however. I need to keep surfing for recipes there. I have in the past bought bulk chicken thighs onsale and preboiled them and then put them in the freezer, I did this for the bbq season which was great. A lot of times when having chicken I will make a double batch and freeze for future soups, chicken and dumplings, chicken pot pie etc.

For a Potato plan I would like to do up twice baked potatoes. I have done this in the past too but not for a couple of years now. I have seen a couple of recipes for mashed potato to freeze so I would also like to give that a try.

For baking deserts such as cakes I will double and sometimes tripe the recipe and bake them up in bread pans to freeze in that size. I find it easy to store in the freezer this way and also it is perfect for taking out and cutting up for lunches.

For cookies I usually just roll the dough into balls and flash freeze before putting them in freezer bags so that they won't stick together. All I do there when wanting to bake up a batch is take out say a dozen at a time but I leave them in the oven to bake for a couple of extra minutes then I would if they were not frozen. I have also baked them up prior to freezing but I find it is kind of special for the kids and dh to have freshly warm baked cookies for their lunches that day. The cookies seem to last longer that way too lol.

Pizza, yummmmmm. I have 6 round pizza pans and yes, I have made these up ahead lol.I use the recipe out of my "Not Just Beans cookbook" by Tawra Jean Kellam and it is excellent! I use her idea and once my uncooked pizza dough is in the pan; "Bake for 5 minutes in an oven at 400 so the dough does not become soggy. Cover with pizza sauce. Add your choice of toppings and cheese." Once I have finished adding the toppings and cheese this is where I wrap it up first in saran wrap or wax paper and then I cover it with tinfoil and set the pizzas in my freezer. When I am ready to have a pizza night I just pop it in the oven frozen and bake at 375 for about 20 to 25 minutes. Because we cook two at a time I have one pizza on my bottom rack in the oven and one on the middle rack. Half way through I change them by putting the one on the middle rack to the bottom and the bottom pizza onto the middle rack.

Ham and Pasta

So, I had some baked ham left over from a couple of nights ago. I thought ok, what can I do with it? This is what I ended up doing.

6 cups of rotini pasta, cooked. (I just dumped the pasta in a big pot of boiling water but I think it was 6 cups, maybe a bit more)

1 and a 1/2 cup of cut up cooked ham

2 cans of cream of mushroom soup

1/2 soup can of water

3/4 of a cup of melted cheeze whiz.

Stir first 3 steps together and put in a lightly greased casserole dish. Pour and spread lightly the melted cheeze whiz over pasta mixture.( You could use shredded hard cheese but I am out)

Bake in oven at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes until heated through.

Sprinkle with parmesan cheese if you desire (optional)

Yup, delish,cheap and frugal, gotta love that! :).

Stocking Up Withdrawl!

Wow oh Wow! what Excellent sales on this week in the grocery flyers. I live in Quebec Canada so some of the stores where I shop are not elsewhere in Canada, at least that I am aware of.

I shop at Maxi,Super C, Metro and IGA. IGA of course is all over Canada.

I dream of having a Years worth of toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste, peanut butter, and all things which can be stored for that amount of time!

The wheels are turning in my head,dreams of a fully stocked pantry Oh my goodness! It is almost like a child eating candy kind of feeling, although I must admit, I do like my sweets too!

So, we have only yet spent out of our grocery money $19.46 out of a $400 grocery allowance for the month. I am thinking on taking $250 of that and stocking up.We honestly do not get the coupon deals like our friends in the U.S , I would be honestly in stockpile heaven if we did, so I have to work with what we do have.

I think that I will "Go" for it!

I will post pictures after the shopping trip next week,ds has a digetal camera. I have no idea how to use one so I will get him to take them lol.

January 3rd and already 2 no spend days for Us!

I am still challenging myself on having No Spend Days. I am not going to set a number of days per month but post here each time I do actually have a no spend day to help keep track.

My no spend days will not include days where our "Fixed" bills are paid or when I pay for our hydro,phone,cable and all regular bills.

I will be counting the days I/We spend on gas,groceries,enterainment and anything else which is fair game lol.

The reason I added groceries and gas, even though they are a necessity is because I want to limit my spend days on those for once a week minimum. Dh calls me from work each night to see if I need anything from the grocery store on his way home. I usually can think of something (((sigh))).

It is just too easy to say yes. So, no more calls from dh from work, at least if it has to do with spending money :).

So, 2/31 days so far for the month of January for us with our No Spend Day Challenge.

Oh, I wanted to also add that I personally have not stepped foot in a store since last year! Well, since December 24th anyhow lol. That is 10 days for me, Dh of course has gone twice in the 10 days. Lots of No Spend Days for us!

Ok, Editing to add that dh went to pick up dd 16 just now and came back in from starting the car to let me know that he needs gas! he is right on the line....Who on earth would have thought that at almost 9pm at night we would be spending money???? Soooooooooo Frustrating!

Anyhow, instead of 2/31 no spend days so far it is 1/31. I will win this battle of cutting down our spending days, it is just to "tweak" it I guess.

My Grocery Challenge

I have decided to try another grocery challenge for myself. I will be posting each time I spend money to try to start my New Year on the right foot.

I am giving myself for this month of January $400. That is a lot compared to what I used only but a couple of months ago. This will be to feed a family of 3 adults,2 teenagers and one cat. This will also include any paper/hygiene products.

Yesterday we spent $19.46 for tea,brown sugar,flour,frozen juice and a bag of chocolate chips to make up for cookies.

To do this I will keep each receipt in an envelope marked January Grocery Challenge receipts.At the end of the month I will mark down on the envelope how much is actually spent out of the $400 allowed eg: $400/$400.Also, once the month of January is completed I will put the envelope in freezer bag (large enough to hold 12 months worth of envelopes) and set in a shoe box and keep it on my closet shelf for easy access. I want to keep track along with putting other envelopes in with other receipts such as gas,clothing,entertainment etc...

I have to also consider that if we go to a store to buy foods onsale that we only stick to food. You know how the days are gone where we could once go shopping for groceries and all that the store carried were groceries? Now you go grocery shopping and you can also pick up clothing,furniture,car parts and other gadgets.Or you are out and about looking at bread and on your way out you might see something non food related and think "Oh right, I have been meaning to pick up one of those".

Another thing which I have tried to do in the past when shopping for groceries and say non grocery items was to line up my groceries first and the non grocery items 2nd so that when I would look on my receipt I would not have to jump from the top of the receipt to the middle and so on.All of the food items would be listed one right after the other. This is a good idea except for the fact when taxes are added to the total of your receipt, you have to break down what are actually food taxes and non food taxes.

I have decided that in order to keep an accurate total for our groceries I will just have to stick with groceries and either have dh with me so that I can pay for the groceries and then he can pay for the non food items . In other words, go through the checkout twice opposed to once.

Wish me luck :).

Back To Funding The Baby Emergency Fund to $1000

A few weeks ago we received an electric bill of almost $500 for a balance left owing on the house we sold prior to moving in Sept. I had received the same bill around the middle of Oct and thought it was a mistake as I had paid close to that in August just before moving.I was sure that dh called them as the electric bill is in his name so they will not discuss it with me (even though I am the one who sends off the payments ugh!) Well, aparently we did owe that money because we recieved another bill in December, dh called them and yes they confirmed that we did infact owe that amount.

So, what do I do???? Instead of taking the exact amount out of the emergency fund to pay it I ended up taking out $900 and leaving only a balance of $100 in there. I paid the hydro and spent the rest on Christmas.

So, I have transfered automatically into our ING emergency fund $100 since so our balance is now $212.02.

I am writing this post to stay accountable and to pick my sorry self up off the floor and move ahead.