This Week In My Home: Itching to Make a Change

The seasons have fully changed and while we may have a few cool days and possibly even cold nights, it will mostly be warm, warmer and HOT for the next 7 months.  And now is the time to begin to juggle the recipe books, gardening implements, glasses of iced water and try and find a fresh viewpoint.  The house looks so nice...I want all the outside to join in and the menus to reflect something new as well.  The trouble with going outdoors at the moment is the pollen.  It's better than it was but boy does it make me itch and burn!  Still, I admit the itching to get outdoors and freshen things up is just as bad as the itching that ensues when I do go out.

So here's the deal...There are NOT enough hours in the day to revamp menus, yards, bedrooms, review a book, pick and choose and tag for the booth, peruse cookbooks, every day cleaning, do frugal boot camp, try and pull together new warm weather looks from my poor little supply of clothing.   There is not enough money for all the things I need much less want.  Yet I am determined to eke out a little something in every. single. area.

Retirement Remedies: Stretching a Wardrobe: Spring/Summer, Part I

When you're working within a budget, you have to use tools available to you to stretch your dollars.  I am in need of summer clothing.  In the South, Spring lasts about two weeks and then we're into some pretty warm weather rather quickly.  When you're at my stage of life, heat is heat is heat and you swelter.  So yes, though it's just April, I am looking for a summer wardrobe.

In my closet I have a few key pieces, same as most people have: black dress pants, gray dress pants, white jeans, black jeans and blue jeans, a Chevron striped maxi skirt.

I have a mere handful of tee-shirts and blouses in coral, black, green, white.  I have a few purses and several pairs of sandals.  I have costume jewelry and a few shrugs and scarves.  Anyone looking at my closet would see that it is modest.  Not a room sized closet for me.  It's a modest sized walk-in which I share with John, various stored items and we have plenty of room to walk in. I have one 3 1/2 foot rack for my clothing.  That's winter, summer and in between seasons.

So you see I'm not bewailing my 'nothing to wear' status with a room sized closet full of things to wear.  I have a need however, to make do this summer as much as I can, replacing only what must be replaced and using to the fullest those things I have.  At present, I'm not ready to replace, so I must use.

This Week In My Home: Returning to Frugal Bootcamp

Saturday:  Return trip from Kingsland today.  We stopped at a travel center for breakfast, coffee, sodas and gas.  The place is a temptation island, with gifts, speciality candies, premium coffee bar, etc.  We try to keep things in line.  While John filled the car, I bought sodas for the trip home.  I made sure I bought the lesser expensive options of the ones we like best.  At one of the fast food counters, I picked up chicken biscuits for us.  At the coffee shop I used my gift card (two Christmases ago) to purchase coffee to go with our breakfast.

I couldn't help but think of the woman we'd run into three years ago at the grocery where a similar coffee shop is located on premises.  She stated she'd received a gift card for her birthday of equal value to the one I'm currently using.  "I used it up in three days!" she said proudly.  We typically get a coffee about once a month, but not every month though I do enjoy the coffee very much.  A year and four months after receiving our card we're just under half the value on it...and that's for TWO!  I shake my head still over the silly woman who felt it necessary to use that card up in a three days period.

We decided at dinner time that we just weren't hungry and didn't want to stop.  Not a savings, because we splurged big time later when we arrived in the town with the meat shop where we shop quarterly or so.  We went in and bought two rib eyes for our meal when we got home.  Pricey...but worth every quarter of the splurge we made!  We ended up eating only one steak.  The other will be halved and used to make two more meals this week.  No waste and no need to too heavily indulge twice in a week's time.

Retirement Remedies: First Quarter Report

I started out this year determined to make a difference in our future retirement.  How have I fared over the past 3 months?  Each of the items below were listed in my original 'Fighting Back' posts in the fall of 2014.

Our first step this year was to purchase health insurance.  I'm still adjusting to making this payment each month but I expect by the end of the second quarter we'll have figured out where to pinch harder and where to relax.  After I worked on my 2nd quarter budget I realized that we've managed to 'find' all but $60 of the premiums.  We need only make a few more tweaks and it will not affect our savings at all.

We switched cell phone carriers and purchased new phones.  Mine was a mere $22.99 and I was refunded $22.  Not a bad purchase at all in my opinion.  John's phone cost more but he did not go for a fancy model.   His phone has to be rugged since he uses it for work...and no we don't get any refund from the county, although the reason for using private phones at work is that it protects patient information rather than having it broadcast over a several county wide area via radio transmissions.

We looked into Internet service via the cell phone company and bundling cable etc.  No go.  There is no Internet service available for our area and the company uses Directv, which we have in our home at present.

Questions and Answers and Comments, Oh My!

Hello there.  I'm a little late this month starting this post and came very very close to not writing it at all.  Why?  Because of a silly survey I read that stated those commenting  rarely go back to see if anyone has replied to them and therefore it is a waste of blogging time to answer the folks who write in...Then I thought of you all and decided that we are not the norm for bloggers/readers.  We chat among ourselves rather nicely and answer one another and I do read and look for replies on my own comments and always feel rather gratified when a blogger is a homey sort such as myself who believes it is right and good to answer those who address you.  In the end, it came down to knowing that you all are YOU and like me, you enjoy getting answers to your questions and comments on your statements.  And some of you might miss the wonderful wisdom that others share.

So we'll begin at the beginning of March with the first Coffee Chat.  Dora shared some of her spring plans and it seems a rather nice list of new Bible study, sewing, reading, etc.  Just the sort of things we all like to do.  Like you, Dora, I am ready to get out in the yard and the weather is to be very cooperative this week.  All is overgrown and wild looking here and needs much work.     A friend of mine built a house a few years ago and she too planned her whole kitchen with nothing but big deep drawers in the bottom cupboards.  She said it was the best possible choice she might ever have made.

In My Home This Week: Blooming Away

Truly the blooms are done with at the moment, though I'm hoping some of the iris I transplated will bloom and by end of this month I expect the roses will be ready to burst...but for now it's all new greens.  I admired the variety of greens in our world this weekend as we traveled in a more southerly direction to see the Kingsland trio of grands.  All sorts of colors from citrine to deep pine green.  It's a regular patchwork look when you top a hill and see a long view of woodland stretched before you, a different colorwave than autumn, and yet oddly reminiscent of it, with a few rusty reds and golds just to break up the monotony of only a hundred or so variations of green.

I overspent my long pay period's portion of grocery money though the frivolity was missing and instead I sported four bags of sale priced chocolates which we'd done without since February.  I don't really consider that frivolous.  It's not quite the necessity it was in years past but it's not quite luxury either.  So I didn't shame myself too badly about going over.

This Week In My Home: A New Month, Time to Find New Savings

                              My 'new' wreath.  Winter's wreath with a few Spring picks.

Saturday:  I made a fairly big breakfast this morning.  We went to Athens and our arrival was going to coincide with an immediate need to leave to go to a baby shower for Katie.  No time for lunch for us and while the shower would have finger foods, politeness demands we be polite and not eat like we were starved.  I figured a big breakfast would hold us over and it did.

Mama paid for dinner that evening.  We put gas in her car.  I think it was about an even swap.

I took water along with me, enough for all three of us.

I was just longing for a cup of coffee by the time we got back to Sam's.  Fortunately my son and Bess are coffee drinkers and happily made a pot.

Sunday:  I made oatmeal and toasted leftover muffins from yesterday's breakfast.

We took off trash and picked up bread and a paper while we were  out for church.  John also bought chicken though I had a meal ready to heat once we got home.

We didn't make a big meal.  We threw nutrition to the wind and had meat and bread for both meals.