Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Wannabee More Organized Wednesday - My Budget





I've never made it a secret that I'm not an effective money manager.
My friend Missie, however, is the money manager from Hell...and I mean that in the nicest way.
If you want it managed, tell Missie, and all will be managed.  You may not like it when she says, "No, it's not in the budget," but at least you'll have money for groceries the last week of the month.  

The Head of My Household and I are both professionals...I guess we'd be considered middle class...but in today's economy, even those of us with good jobs and college degrees are having to follow a budget carefully and stretch every dollar.  That doesn't work out too well for those of us who've never been very good at just that kind of thing.

The Head of My Household, on the other hand, is a very effective money manager, but in order to stay married, we decided to split our money and budget several years ago.  Truthfully, money is the only thing we actually fight about.  I've been running out of money at the end of the month here lately, and that drives him bonkers.  When I run out, he has to take up the slack, which depletes his reserves, so of course, he acts all grumpity until the next paycheck.

I've crunched and crunched my budget to figure out where the majority of my $ goes, and as much as I don't want to admit it, I have no control over myself when it comes to one particular category.
Beginning immediately, I've decided to accept the fact that we spend entirely too much $ on food...including lunch money, snacks, eating out and groceries.  Yes, food is a necessity, but I get so distracted by all the other nice things in the store...plus, I seem to find myself in the grocery store on my way home every. single. day.

When I plan our meals and we eat at home, we spend much less.  Duh, right?  While there may not be that much difference for a family of 2-3 in eating out compared to eating in, there is a huge difference when you're feeding 5 and sometimes 6 people each night.  
I've always been a couponer as well, but that too takes organization...sometimes I coupon well, and sometimes...well, I just don't.  
Many weeks I end up in the grocery store on my daily trek, asking my flustered, exhausted, aggravated self, "What are we going to eat tonight?"
I don't have a plan, a list, a coupon...nothing.
Those are the trips where I end up leaving with over $100 worth of stuff...but still nothing to eat for dinner that night or any other for that matter.
Oy.

My friend Missie says enough is enough.
I shall from now on show up at work on Friday mornings with a list...a list of meals and groceries for the weekend and upcoming week.  
I shall leave work as early as we are allowed and take a field trip to the local (20 min. away) Wal-Mart.
Once there, I will stay focused on my list.
I shall not look all around me and be easily distracted by all the shiny things. 
I shall not buy $5 DVDs.
I shall not buy doggie duds or extra treats...and
I shall not browse the magazine section.
I will, I honestly swear, only buy items that are on my list.
GULP.

I will also stay within my allotted grocery budget.
GULP. GULP.

I will also use Wednesday as my accountability...I will admit to myself whether or not I was able to stick to my budget or not and how I managed to do it...or not. 
Yikes.
Accountability.

This past Friday I made a trial run and spent $17 over the amount I've allotted myself per week (I'm actually going to put the cash in weekly envelopes from now on though).
The Head of My Household is doubtful that I'll have enough willpower not to open the envelopes until the week they're allotted for...so I've asked him to hide them from me :/
That may sound like a cop-out to some folks, but to me it's a system of checks and balances.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up, and I don't want to worry about how I'm going to pay for the food related to each holiday.  Missie says I need to add the ingredients for the special meals to each of the other weekly lists so I don't overburden any particular week.  Sounds good to me!

Except for my $17 over tab I've done ok this week so far.  Here's the run-down of this week's menu:

Saturday:  store bought pizza (Great Value brand...it was ok in a pinch :/)
Sunday: Pumpkin Trifle at church for lunch and Pizza Casserole for dinner
Monday: 5 ingredient parmesan tilapia (Rachael Ray recipe)
Tuesday: crock-pot barbeque chicken
Wednesday: church night supper
Thursday:  Baked Potato Soup
Friday:  Payday, November Budget Planning and Grocery day (GULP, GULP and GULP)

**I'll share the recipes for Pizza Casserole, the tilapia, barbeque chicken and Baked Potato Soup in upcoming Weekend Cooking (hosted by Beth  F. Reads) posts on Sundays :)

So far so good this week...I've made everything except the Baked Potato Soup, which I will put together Wednesday night before I go to bed.  I'm LOVING have the main portion of our meal ready when we walk in the door in the afternoons!

Wish me luck!


Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Top Ten Books to Read During Halloween

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the ladies over at The Broke and The Bookish...and is one of my most "favoritest" memes ever :)

This week's theme is "The Top Ten Books to Read During Halloween"


I am a much more gothic reader than "scary" reader...I'll be posting some "scary" stuff next week on Monday since my children as well as my students are so caught up in the newest scare at the movie theatre...scary to me is just not scary to them...there's enough real life stuff in this world to scare our pants off...why would we want more out of books??

When I want scary, I want a cold chill down my spine; I don't want so much action that I can't keep up.  I want more questions than answers at the end; I don't want the formulaic ending that leads into the next book in the series.  I want to feel the story...I want to wrap up in it, close my eyes and see it.



1.  Dracula by Bram Stoker 

If you're a vampire fan and you've never read the original, please, stop whatever it is you're doing and read...the dark, damp, cold castle...the animals, the minions, the history, the evil...it's all right here and has been long before Twilight, Sookie Stackhouse or that Vampire Academy stuff...all others are imitators.  



2.  Affinity by Sarah Waters

Affinity left me with many more questions than answers...when I first finished reading it, I decided I didn't like it.  I almost felt like I'd been duped in some way...not by the author though, by the characters...
Was she insane?
Was there a Peter?
Were they really friends or was it all a trick masterminded by a evil sorceress of some kind?
I honestly have no idea.
I don't have the energy to re-read this one yet.



3.  We Have Always Lived in a Castle by Shirley Jackson


I've always loved Shirley Jackson's The Lottery so I was excited to find this novella last year around Halloween...I loved it! So typical of Jackson to bring you into the life of this family so deeply that when the pinnacle scene occurs, not only are you frightened, but you are also disgusted with the villains.  Jackson's description of the house and of its inhabitants and their dark past is what kept me on the edge.




4.  House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne


I'm reading this one now and enjoying every minute of it.  I actually wait until night, after everyone else in my family has gone to sleep, and curl up with my laptop (my Kindle charger has been chewed up by one of my dogs :/)...another old house, filled with many generations, births, deaths, sickness, tragedy, happiness...alone in the world is its mistress...until others from her past begin to appear one by one.  I'm sitting on pins and needles to see where this is gonna go.
Good stuff.




5.  The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova


This one is a whopper...and I read it with a group of bloggers in a Read-A-Long...which was perfect.  That format enabled us all to read and digest, discuss, process, write and then read again.  I loved every minute of this one...another history filled tome of vampires, Transylvania, geography, a long lost relative of Vlad himself etc...you name it; this one's got it.  I LOVED the way it ended as well...well worth the time I spent with it.




6.  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley


This one makes me sadder than scary...although there are definitely some scenes that I read quicker than others.  Another one to read if you've never read the original.  There is no green square faced man with bolts in his head in this novel.  There is a "monster" but you are left wondering just exactly how to define that term.



7.  A Christmas Carol by Charles  Dickens


Do you think I'm weird now?  Yes, this is a Christmas book...but that Christmas cheer only comes about in the last page or so...the rest of it is downright spooky.  An old crotchety stingy man who hates  everybody and lives alone in a dark old cold house...dark because he won't even light the coals in his own lanterns or furnace bc of the cost of coal.  This book will make you cold to your bones...especially once the spirits begin to arrive.



8.  Misery by Stephen King


I was an early Stephen King reader...haven't read anything of his in a long time...but this one...whoa, Nelly...this one'll get ya.  A writer held prisoner by his "number one fan" who tortures him into bringing her favorite character back to life.  Annie Bates is one of the craziest villains out there...you want chills up your spine?  Annie'll give them to ya.





9.  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving




Washington Irving's story which is also very short...uses description to freak you out (as my kids would say).  I think description is what the classic writers did better than some of the contemporary writers do today.  Contemporary writers depend on a widely traveled or even widely read reader who can be reminded of things he/she has seen whether in real life, on tv, or on the Internet.  Classic writers didn't have that luxury...they had to use their words to draw the reader into the story.  The reader feels like he/she IS Ichabod Crane, running from the horseman through the night...eerie no doubt.




10.  Anything by Edgar Allen Poe...particularly The Tell Tale Heart or The Cask of Amontillado.



Poe had to be the Wes Craven of his time...of course well all know he was an alcoholic and probably so much so that he was delusional.  Just the idea of a heart beating under the floor in a killer's mind or the evilness of leading another person to his death by bricking him up and leaving him underground to starve to death...a slow painful death...add an evil laugh as the killer ascends the stairs and you've got a Poe story Yikes.



Next weeks list: The Top 10 Books I had very strong emotions about...

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Weekend Cooking - Pumpkin Trifle


I do most of my cooking on the weekends since that's the time that most of my people are actually home at the same time.  This weekend our church hosted a Casual Sunday where everybody came to church casual, comfortable, and we ate lunch  afterwards together pot-luck style.  
These are my favorite church meals without a doubt, and the casual, everybody in blue jeans (even the preacher) just added that much more family laid back feel to Sunday in the South.  
Have I mentioned that I love my church?
Have I mentioned that I love the South?

Lots of times I use pot-lucks as an excuse to try out a new recipe.  This week's recipe was Paula Deen's Pumpkin Trifle.



The recipe is very easy and quick...except that it's actually supposed to sit in the refrigerator overnight and I didn't read that far ahead :(
I made the gingerbread the night before so it could cool completely, but didn't make the pudding until the morning of.
The recipe calls for cooked pudding and I used the instant kind...I honestly could not find the cooked version?
I also go through trifle bowls like most folks go through those disposable zip-lock containers :/  so my dessert looked a little different than Paula's.



My Pumpkin Trifle was well liked, but I was beaten out by a young blonde mom who made a silly dessert called White Chocolate Bread Pudding...can you say Holy Smokes??
I even voted for her.

Click on the link above for the exact recipe and enjoy!






Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth F Reads.