Friday Fiscal Wellness Check, January 9, 2026

                   

              I like this new photo from pexels.com found by searching Money Management. It helps remind me that it'll be a series of little things and not dramatic actions that will keep me heading in the right direction this year money wise. It's a new year good and truly. The glitter is put away. Despite the warm weather, snow remains and more will come; I'll hunker down and try and enjoy the simple things. In efforts to meet a huge financial lift towards needs and wants in 2026 I need to pay attention to where my dollars are going. I copy the previous week, delete the old and update as I go along the week. This will help me add as the week goes on. Here's my recap of Friday, January 2 to Thursday, January 8. I just sort of list things as they come up, then edit before publishing. 

Avoiding Spending/ Saving on Needs

• My daughter was still here, but by Friday night all of us were feeling lousy. You spend nothing on weekends when you don't leave the house for entertainment. 
• No meals out or take out. That brings me to two full weeks tightening this line item. (Limited appetites and not wanting to expose anyone to our crud helped this too)
• My son and I are going to leverage the car expense for a couple months to save a bit of money. Realizing we seldom both are using our cars at the same time this time of year, this felt like a no brainer at least until April. My car is better on the road conditions being all wheel drive. If we decide it's not working, we'll just revert to two cars again. 
• Used up several bits to make a spinach tortellini/vegetable soup to last a few days for lunches (or an after-work snack for my son.) I laugh as this reminded me of the last time we ate at an Olive Garden the day before an out-of-town wedding. My daughter got the gnocchi soup as her option rather than the mega bowl of salad. She literally found one gnocchi in the broth. I had way too few tortellini for the amount of creamy broth, but my soup was veggie filled and still delicious if shy of pasta. I see soups like this as basically free as the ingredients were leftovers from other meals or purposes-the bits that easily could be wasted.

Opportunities to add Funds/Windfalls 

• Found loose change (38¢) when I finally felt well enough to tidy, dust, and vacuum
• $2.00 Cash back posted from a December purchase on my Credit card
• Not sure if this goes here but realize I don't have a category for "learning new things" but it might yield something beneficial. I signed up for a free money management course through the national AAUW for later in the month

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

• Not a splurge but necessary buys of more cold medicine, cough drops, and provisions to help ease our wretched cold symptoms. 

     Daily Dinner Diary (Friday 1/2 to Thursday, 1/8). 

Fri - Baked Mac and Cheese with mixed vegetables 

Sat- Whatever anyone felt they could eat while feeling lousy. ( all 3 in the house for the weekend developed the crud by this point)

Sun- I cobbled together a rice and hamburger hotdish after finding some already cooked ground beef. Appetites might have slowly been coming back. 

Mon- Country style ribs, cauliflower au gratin, 3 tiny potatoes ( remains) and carrots. 

Tues- Sweet and spicy chili chicken made banh mih style sandwiches with pickles and cabbage, sweet potato baked fries

Weds- seasoned rice, broccoli and cauliflower, either baked Italian chicken or a Dr Praeder bean burger (daughter joined and stayed over as she had something early in town on Thursday)

Thurs- Baked manicotti in a pepper, onion, and mushroom tomato sauce, garlic toast

         Weekend plans are to be a homebody and keep at the very light progress on purging and organizing. I don't need many groceries but might grab a white sauce pizza if there's not one in the freezer already (her favorite) and invite my sister over for the Packers-Bear playoff  game to give us both a little frugal company. ( I'm in luck...there's one in the freezer.) I also have books to read, one by next weekend when I host family book club. How was your week?