Daughter's Friend From School Lesson

Almost every weekend since school started back my daughter's friend Racheal has spend the night with us. Last night we had Rayanna call her and tell her to make sure she brings good tennis shoes because we were thinking about going hiking on Saturday, if the weather is ok for it. She had on these very small slip on sandle flats and she thought that should be enough, she had no idea what hiking was. So after my daughter explained it to her, and my husband forced her to go back into her house and getting a good pair of shoes to hike in (he did this by refusing to pull out of her driveway until she did so), they explained what it was to her on the way back to our house.

This seemingly small thing made me realize how little parents get out and do things like this with their children. We tend to take it for granted in our house because we try to be active as often as we can.

I am going to be cooking vegetarian chicken sandwiches for dinner on Sunday, with a side choice of french fries or asparagus, and she did not know what the later was either. The more she comes over the more I realize her family eats out a lot and when they do have stuff at home its store packaged heat in the microwave chicken nuggets. I cook or prepare all three of our meals at home from scratch most of the time. I do have a few fillers, like instant oatmeal and grits, and stuff for sandwiches sometimes, but I try to always provide healthy things in their lunches as well, such as fruit. I don't think she had been prepared breakfast, especially on a school morning, like I do before coming here.

My daughter loves that I do these things for her, and so does most of her friends. I am so happy to be able to give her this, and I think anyone out there should do the same at least sometimes, I know some can't do it everyday. It's also a great way to save money and spend time with your family.

Food Cost Lowerd

I have chosen to go Vegetarian for health reasons. I am obese and I know it. I have struggled with this for years, and most days there really seems to be no end in sight. I get motivated and get moving to loose the weight,and I do good for a week, sometimes a month, but always fall by the way side. I took meat out of my diet so that I could cut out a lot of the bad fats and calories I knew I was consuming.

The best part about this is that I am getting healthier of course,but my food bill has went down a lot. I use to spend about 150-200 a week on food. I cut out processed food and now make most things from scratch, and my food bill has now went down to about 60 a week. We eat a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit, I make seasoned rice, and tonight I am going to make bean tacos.

So my Frugal Tip for today is to try to eat at least two meals a week without meat and see how much your food bill will go down. 

Stay At Home One Year Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday was our one year wedding anniversary. It still feels strange that I ever got married, I swore for years this was something that I just was not going to do. I have seen way to many broken marriages that led to broken lives, I wanted no part of it. Then again that is a whole different post.

We had a wonderful day together. My husband took a paid day off from work, so he even got to make money spending time with me. We opted for staying in. I know that most people want a huge deal to be made out of things like this, but we just curled up on the couch and watched Netflix all day, we had a nice home cooked breakfast and lunch. Then when dinner rolled around my husband, daughter, and myself all worked to get a nice protein packed dinner made.

While the day was mainly about my husband and myself, we also took a few moments to reflect on the fact that in a way it was my husband and daughters anniversary as well. They have been step-father and daughter for a year today as well.

We do hope to one day have enough extra money to go out and maybe have a nice romantic dinner to celebrate the day, but in the end I think the cheap stay at home anniversary was something that meant more to me in the end.

Life's Hard Lessons

I am not down to a family of three instead of four.

About a year ago I let my cousin move in with me. She is young and just turned 21. I wanted to give her a chance to get out of the small town she was from and make something of herself. Her situation was not that great living with her parents, so this seemed like it would be a great benefit to everyone involved. I would have someone to help get my daughter off the bus, at the time someone had to be there or they would take her back to school, and it would give her a great way to network.

In the end it did not matter that I wanted to help her, she did not seem to want the help and spent most of that year laying around  my house, and did not attempt to improve her situation at all. I have to admit that in the end I may have been part of the problem, but I felt used. She did not pay rent, did not have to pay for her food or other needs, and all she did in return was act like she was entitled to everything that was handed to her.

Our budget has gotten a bit bigger, but we are still living within our means, and am even started to better come out ahead each pay check. School has restarted so that has helped a lot.