Friday Fiscal Wellness Check February 28, 2025

        

     Five week countdown! I start these Friday posts right after the last one ends and add to it over the week. I inadvertently published then unpublished Wednesday so a few of you got a sneak preview. Not much excitement. I've got a lot of expenses to pay for this month, including items I put on the credit card (I pay off before any interest is charged) including house insurance, my UK plane ticket, and daughter's oral surgery. While I'll get reimbursed from my medical account and the money is in the sinking account for the other expenses, it's still a hard swallow and motivation to watch my pennies. 

Avoiding Spending/ Saving on Needs

• Groceries and household purchases were needs only with the exception of a bag of pub seasoned pretzels.
  
• Used up more Christmas baking items and made a batch of peanut butter chocolate chips oatmeal cookies, freezing half the dough to bake later, and sent my daughter home with several. She's still not fully chewing, but these are soft and she'll break pieces to enjoy as they melt in her mouth. I splurged and used two precious eggs plus butter, but these cookies are so delicious that one small cookie is quite satisfying so the batch goes far. Considering how much the bougie cookies cost, $5 per, the whole batch was still under that for probably 2 1/2 dozen, or if made super sized, a good 9.
• Made my seemingly weekly batch of soup,  this week, chicken noodle, for easy frugal lunches. Sent a jar of that home, plus two portions of curry, with my daughter. 
• I used vinegar to descale the coffee maker and thought it might help the dishwasher, which has not been getting things clean, but no luck. I Googled my brand and model and learned how to remove the filter and clean it out. Wow, the build up was incredible and it was like having a brand new washer. I'm sure it was one of the things my husband did that I never thought about. I know appliances seem to crap out too early, but my kitchen appliances are only 6 years old, so would have been ridiculous to replace so soon.

Spent Intentionally

• Since Friday when I topped off groceries and went bowling, it was pretty much no spend. 
• Today is the national boycott day. I don't know if it makes a bit of difference, but am joining. There's no need to spend today- and definitely no need to spend at any corporations that are aligning with the farce in Washington. I'm spending today researching where I will put my dollars going forward, knowing I won't be perfect to my values, but at least more intentional. Groceries are low, mainly protein, but I'm determined to scrape meals together with what's on hand. 

Opportunities to add Funds/Windfalls 

• Added receipts to Fetch and played MS Rewards towards gift cards. 
• Rolled small CD to another 3 month option, and two large CDs to 6 months option. I shouldn't need access to these before they mature again, and will evaluate my cash flow situation at that time. Another small CD matures in March. Rates are going down a bit, but every bit helps so if not needed, at least they earn more than money market. 

     Then, there are often other things that impacted my check book that came up without much planning or notice, or an all out splurge.

• Bowling was a bit more expensive than originally thought. I also picked up a beer for the coordinator as a thank you for her time setting up the gathering, so spent about $15 more than I had originally planned. 
• Ouch- my biannual heating gas was recalculated and it went up another $13 a month( budget plan), despite usage being on par, even a bit lower than last year. Are we winning yet? 
• I also forgot my deductible starts again, so I had the full PT cost in January. I'm on a pause now, but still, was not expecting that additional $97 bill. 
• Yesterday was not a great work day- worked past 7 to finish at least one thing I didn't want to carry over to next week, and ordered pizza. Daughter was here too so got a meat and cheese free as well as for my son and I. At least I used the $6.99 2 or more special so it came to under $9 each. There's plenty for leftovers for lunch so at least to justify the late splurge. Dominoes isn't great pizza but it's fast and close.

     Daily Dinner Diary  ( just Friday, Feb 21 to yesterday, Thursday, February 27th) 

• Fri - Turkey, broccoli rice and cheese hot dish, green beans
• Sat-Spaghetti and meat sauce, homemade garlic bread
• Sun-  Chickpea and vegetable curry with basmati rice 
• Mon-chicken lo mein with stir fry vegetables  
• Tues -Burritos/ burrito bowls 
• Wed- Lemon, spinach, ricotta penne  and last Aldi red bag chicken ( my son)
• Thurs- Dominoes pizza

Lunches were leftovers, sandwiches, soup, fruit and yogurt, veggies and dip, and tuna on crackers or in wraps.