Money Savings and other things

 I've been reading a few blogs about their money savings on daily spending. Buying food, going out to eat and misc personal items. I never really think about how much we spend per month and have never set aside a budget. To be honest, I have no idea of how much we spend on food per month. It might be easier to figure out now that I buy most on line and pick up at the store. 

My goal is to figure out what we actually spend on buying food. Since we don't eat out much, it will be easy to figure out our restaurant/fast food pick up amounts. Or at least what I pay for those items. We have separate checking accounts, so I have no idea of what Steve spends. It's worked for us over the years, we just manage our own money, share savings accounts and make big money making decisions together. I'm positive there are place where we could save, but I'm not sure its on our spending. It's more like not paying for cable TV, not buying more expensive cell phones and not buying a lot of extra's we really don't need. With Covid, it's really reduced my impulse buying for the house or myself with clothes etc. I just don't buy anything unless absolutely necessary. 

What does save money? Making my own bread, crackers and treats. Not eating out on the weekends. Only buying what is necessary. Not having credit card debt/interest payments.

What we are doing to get out of debt? 

Paying off the house mortgage in 5 years! Paying off Steve's truck loan and not buying another vehicle until mine is finally un-driveable. It's 12 years old, 260K miles and still going. 

Once the kids are out of college, they will take over cell phone costs, and car insurance. We have at least 4 more years to pay on those expenses. Plus, food money for both. 

We are spending on fixing up our 21 year old house. Saving by Steve doing the install, fix it work. Glad his job is a home builder, so we can do all ourselves including the landscaping. Just the material cost we pay.  We also wait for items to be on sale or use leftover materials from someone else's project, like the tile we will be using in our bathroom remodel. 

We also don't have expensive gym memberships. We just have a basic gym, $12 per month per person. That will change after we are done with Covid. Right now the gym is in our house and outdoors. We did make a big purchase of a cross ramp $800 and Celina purchased a cheap treadmill that she paid for on her own. I won't go back to a gym, but I know Steve wants to. Even if it doubles, its still cheap because he uses it 5 days a week. 

We do save a bit on car insurance, for good grade discounts. It all helps a little until the kids take over their own payment. Their cars are paid off, only need gas. We have parked my daughters car since she no longer drives much. Just uses our car if needed to go somewhere. We will take it off parked, once she needs her car again. 

I did splurge on making our deck more enjoyable by purchasing a table firepit. Since it was just a table top, it was only $150. Not $500 for a full fire pit table. I've made due with our existing furniture and not purchased an out door couch and chairs like I've wanted to buy.

We do splurge on camping equipment. We didn't stay in hotels during the summer when we camp, so it pays for itself over and over. 

We will be buying a new Large 80"TV for our main room we all use. Our old TV is at least 12 years old or more. We do need a TV for the lower level, so will be using the old TV down there. We will be researching and waiting till a sale. I keep looking at TV prices!

Since I purchase most our food on line to drive up pick up from Target and Sam's. I look for on line coupons on the Target app, and now we are actually using our Sam's membership weekly. We only would go there pre-pandemic maybe 3 times a year. 

While I'm earning a lot less due to Covid, I have been selling things we no longer need around the house. It brings in a little cash that I save. My splurge was to buy a new-used couch from my daughter that she no longer needed. We could have never purchased a big couch for the amount I paid. Something we really didn't have to have, but a good deal! I would have eventually purchased a couch at full price, so this savings made it a must have purchase. 

More updates etc..

 We picked up the new /used couch from my daughter Kendra yesterday afternoon. Two trips in the truck to pick up the huge sectional. It looks great in the room and is super comfortable. I love how its big enough for all of us to sit and watch TV. Next is to re-cover our old ottoman in a light pile soft fuzzy fur type fabric. 

Steve still has trim to put around the room, so we have yet to move the couches back and the TV. It's all sitting in the middle of the room for now. He has to be able to get his body back behind the furniture to get at the baseboard trim. We purchased the trim so I'm hoping, he will want to finish this up this afternoon. Fingers crossed! He also has a toilet in the basement to install! 

New flooring in the porch with the new couch! I'm getting rid of the table since we no longer need it and it's out of style. 

I have two of these end tables to sell. Hopefully, they will go sooner than later. 

More oak items to sell. I thought about painting them, but we don't need any more furniture in the basement. I keep thinking if we built a cabin, we'd have furniture to fill it. Not sure what day that will ever be and I'm sure this isn't what we'd want to put in a cabin! 

Zoey found her squirrel watching spot on the new couch in about two seconds once it was set up. That didn't take long!

Zoey's Got Ya Day is coming up on Feb 6th. She is 5 years old. This is her begging for food tactic. Putting her head on your leg and looking up at you. Its pretty effective! She knows how to control us.

I think Steve might be skiing with me today if I go to his favorite park to ski. I'm up for that even thought I won't be skiing as many miles. I just like the company and to be honest, I need the push today to go get some exercise. There is some winter store weather heading our way around 2pm today. Sleet followed by snow, so we have to go soon or we will miss our window of skiing opportunity! 

I'll be baking more bread this afternoon to give to my mother-in law. I'm also going to try making some English muffins. Fingers crossed they work and taste good! 

Making my bread and finished floors!

I've now made 4 loaves of this Crasin, Walnut honey bread. I probably shouldn't make more because I keep eating it. The last batch, I added 1 cup of white chocolate chips and some cinnamon. Made the bread much sweeter and more moist. I probably should have baked it longer in the oven adjusting the bake time for another 10 minutes for a total bake time of 55 minutes. I decided to just stick to the orig recipe. I did like the added cinnamon so I might add that again, just without the chocolate. 

I have more more loaf to make today to give away. I'll save this easy no kneed recipe and move on to making English Muffins. 

Steve finished up the porch floors on Thursday. Now to add quarter round trim to the base trim and put back the furniture. 

 

I don't miss the carpet at all! We do have a large gray and white rug that I will put down. I'm hoping we pick up the couch this weekend. It will be a nice change up!

We also purchased another new toilet for the basement bathroom. We've replaced all the toilets in the whole house now. Just need the new one installed this weekend. 

I'm going to be starting the big office furniture paint project. Our desk is cherry wood and its a little rough looking on the top of the desk from the sun light. I'm paint it white and maybe the desk top black? I'm undecided at this point. I also have our piano to paint black. It's a dark wood color and doesn't match everything else the way it looks. 

I've also got a bunch of furniture and lights to sell. Time to purge the old stuff and decide if I need anything new. I'll take my time updating or not depending on if I think less is better? 

Winter... burrr.

 Yet another super cold day in January in Minnesota! The high will be around 16*F today. I'll still go skiing this afternoon and hopefully, the sun will be out. Celina wanted to ski with me yesterday, so we did my 5 mile trail and she said it was harder then running 6 miles! I know! A full body workout! 

My old blog will eventually be attached to this blog in someway. Runbuns14@blogspot.com ? Something like that?? Or Runyourbunsoff@blogspot.com ? Really wish I knew my old password or had  set up my cell phone to get a code sent to re-set a password. I'm locked out. So I will continue to just update this new Nelson Family Blog! 

Bread Making and a new blog!

My run your buns off blog had to be discontinued! I forgot the password and erased all my email accounts from my laptop by accident. So here I am starting over with a new family blog! Welcome to the New Nelson Family Blog 2021!!!

I made some crasin, walnut and honey no knead bread. It turned out delicious! The best bread I've ever made and sooo very easy. I used for the first time ever, our dutch oven pot. 

I've attached the recipe for future bread making. 

I found this dog wall paw print idea. Thought it would be a cute idea to make to hang up Zoey's leash.