On Track

some of my sick kids:(
Well, it's Sunday morning and I slept most of the night. Now, this might not sound too exciting, but since Monday, either I or my children have been sick. We've spent every night up with one or more. All are still coughing around here, but hopefully the worst is over.
Dad and the big kids went to get our frivolous purchase this morning. My eldest is the most excited. He can't wait to hook up his Wii and give it a go. We will be extra sure that everyone uses the wrist band and tightens it down. Shelby accidentally thru hers at the wall the other day bowling. Her wrist is so little that the wrist band that came with the 2nd remote is too large for her hand and she slipped out of it. It was very funny (she didn't think so) when it slipped off her hand and at the wall. However, I'm sure no one will be laughing if it hits super tv:)

My food budget is going well so far this week. I might even have a little bit to put away. We've been using food out of the freezer before I buy anything else. We did buy Sonny's on Friday(brought it home) but we've been able to span it over several meals, so it wasn't too bad price wise. It is a hard habit to break, eating out regularly. Tonight we are having a ready to eat meal -- Chicken Voila. I got it on sale at Publix (B1g1 4.99) and used 2 coupons on it (printable at http://www.coupons.com/) and am making rolls courtesy of Pillsbury. If I fix dessert (walnut brownies) and iced tea, dinner will be about $6.50. Not too shabby for a family of 6 (reg fam of 4.5 or 1.44 ea). Guess I can't eat out anywhere for that! I used all my play money already, so I guess I will be staying home until Friday. How fast my pocket money goes away!!!!

Conversations

This is how a conversation went with my husband tonight. All I can say is that I'm extremely thankful that apparently these are the toughest decisions that we must make. Really, I'm not complaining, only laughing:)
Pre-conversation: We have a friend who's mom enters contests all the time. She wins a lot of items-- at one time we were given about 30 malt-o-meal coupons (cereal) that she had won. Recently she won a 50" plasma tv that retails about $1200 or so. Our friend mentioned that she didn't need this tv and she was going to sell it.
Tonight......
Husband: Hey dear, remember the t.v we talked about?
Wife: Yes
Husband: Well, she's willing to sell tv for $550 if we want it.
Wife: Do we want it?
Husband: yes!!!
Wife: Ok, what are you willing to give up temporarily to get it?
Husband: I don't understand what you mean.
Wife: The money has to come from somewhere
Husband: I could work some extra jobs
Wife: Out of question. Gone too much already.
Wife: How about no cable for a couple of months (about 4)
Husband: No way!
Wife: Do you have any ideas?
Husband:Uh....not really
Wife: You could save up your play money that you currently get
Husband: What? But it's money for my bike! (HARLEY!)
Wife: Where do you suppose I get it from then?
Husband (whining slightly): But I really like getting things for my bike
Wife: it's only a couple of months. But if not, we don't have to get the t.v., doesn't really matter to me.
Husband: I really want the tv.
Wife: You have to make the decision.
Husband: (dejectedly) Ok, I'll use my play money for the tv.

LOL, these are the major conversations that make our life interesting. BTW, yes, I'm still trying to be frugal, in spite of these silly major purchases!!!

In Bed

Hello all!
Got home from the Bahamas and got sick:( Been in bed since Monday afternoon, just now starting to feel better. My next job is to find the floor of the house, LOL. Talk to you soon!

Yo Mon!

Good morning from the Bahamas'! We are somewhere out in the Atlantic close to one of Bahamas 2200 island and cays (a cay is an island less than a mile long and less than 3/4 mile wide). Today we are heading to Cocoa Cay for some swimming and more eating. Of course, it's a beautiful sunny morning here. We spent yesterday in Nassau at Atlantis. We toured the aquarium that was in Atlantis for several hours before coming back to the boat. Overall, a very pleasant day, but my dogs sure hurt at the end of the night:)
We have eaten our way thru the entire boat several times over. We did miss the midnight buffet last night, but we just can't seem to stay up past midnite, LOL.
Home tomorrow, back to little land. I wonder, are they missing us yet? They do have Gma and papa!?!

BooBoo

Ok, I probably would have had enough to put in my first savings, BUT, I screwed up. Royally. As the saying goes, don't count your chickens before they hatch....I counted, and guess what, they didn't all hatch! Oh well, I'm not gonna cry over it, I will do as Philippians 4:4 says: rejoice, rejoice, and again I say rejoice!
Besides, I'm going to the Bahama's tomorrow! For 3 days I can pretend I don't have a checkbook-well, not really but at least I know the boat will cut me off before I do something stupid! Oh, yeah, and I don't have to plan menus or cook or laundry or.....!!!! I will miss my little people. Hopefully we can go as a family when the little one gets bigger.
I do hope it will be much warmer than here, though. We have ran our heat every nite (unusual) and the weather lady said that if there had been precipitation last night, we would have had snow. I'm being very optimistic and packing my swimsuit. However, if it is too cool to swim, there's always the beach blanket and Bahama Mama's to sip!

Eureka!

I have found the camera! It's been missing since before Christmas. Here are a couple of pics from our trip to Gainesville for our family Christmas party. The kids (and adults) are making reindeer cookies---Sorry I didn't get any pictures of the finished project, they were really cute!

1st day results:)

OK, my first day was mediocre. I went out (my first mistake) by myself. I had to get wet wipes and milk from CVS. Of course, I didn't just go there. Most all my purchases were in the budget, EXCEPT for lunch. I love Sonny's. Eating out is probably my worst habit of all. However, as I'm eating my lunch in the parking lot (I didn't feel like getting out of the car), I realized that my pulled pork is just as good! So I got to figurin' just what a meal identical to Sonny's would cost if I had been smart and made it at home. Eating out w/family---$45 w/tip. Cooking at home---about $15 for entire family. Not to mention, less stress around the "Little Diner" table which my kids love to visit. While still an expensive meal for home, a considerable difference to eating out. And except for pulling the pork, the meal is very easy to fix (Yeah, crockpot!)
I'm currently working on my food budget. I did decent this last time( I shopped for 2 1/2 weeks for 240 which included $40 in diapers), and probably would have had enough to last all thru this week, but I made some errors, mostly due to not freezing some of my meats immediately. If I had, then the chicken and the remainder of pot roast would have been good for this week to eat off of. So my goal is to use my shopping money that I set aside for this week and use it for the next several weeks. If I have any left that will go to our newly formed savings fund.
Can't we all use a little help with our budget? Check out http://www.angelfoodministries.com/. For any of you that are not familiar with this there is enough food in each box to feed a family of 4 for about a week, all for $30, there are no restrictions based on your income. Each month's menu is different than the previous month and consists of both fresh and frozen items with an average retail value of approximately $60. Keep checking back as I put together a couple of menu ideas to help stretch our food budget with the help of Febuary's Angel Food box.