Friday Fiscal Wellness Check March 27, 2026

                           


           For my Friday posts, I copy the previous week, delete the old and update as I go along the week. This helps me add as the week goes on. Here's my recap of Friday, March 20 to Thursday, March 26. I just sort of list things as they come up, then edit before publishing. 

Use it Up/Avoid Waste 
  •  To the chicken below, immediately deboned for chicken salad and a second meal, and made more broth ( though have several containers in the freezer) for chicken and mushroom gravy.

Avoiding Spending/Saving on needs
  •  Coordinated weekend errands after bring my MIL for breakfast and didn't use the car the rest of the weekend.
  • Took advantage of a few clearance items including two flatbread pizzas, Italian sliced loaf, and a rotisserie chicken.
  • Combined walking the big dog with getting a couple bills that still do not have an online payment option into the mailbox by the local grocery store.

Opportunities to add Funds/Windfalls 

  • Uploaded Fetch receipts and added to my MS Rewards points. 
  • Putting here but not an opportunity...until I get a handle on timing for pup, I  can't take morning substitute teaching jobs, just 1/2  day afternoons. I put two back in the pool that were scheduled three weeks from now. I know there will be need for 1/2  day afternoons as the school year moves toward spring.

 Non-Thrifty or Frugal

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. 

  • Very expensive vet bill for pup followed by long term expense of insulin for him. We make commitments when we bring pets in to our lives for their health care, so just going to update my budget to reflect the new expense. 
  • And...I pulled the lever on getting a water softener and reversed osmosis water treatment system. I just do not trust the city water and peace of mind is worth the investment. Installation will be Tuesday so I have to get cupboards, appliances, and utility room cleaned out to make room. I had to juggle some money pots, but I'm deferring one major spend until fall, so a large chunk will be replaced with additional interest on a CD. 
  Daily Dinner Diary (Friday 3/20 to Thursday, 3/26). While I planned a list of possibilities, I adapted to fit the day schedule and moods.

Fri - Had flatbreads with salad instead of going out for dinner or ordering pizza

Sat- Son made grilled cheese and tomato penne soup ( I ate popcorn)

Sun- Both baked chicken, rice, mushroom gravy and tuna hotdish as sent meal prep home with my daughter

Mon-   Baked Ravioli 

Tues- Mediterranean chicken and sausage pizza

Weds- Sweet and sour meatballs, rice pilaf, Asian green beans ( such a yummy meal)

Thurs-  leftovers with a bagged salad

    Between pups vet bills and meds, inflation impact on daily living, and the water treatment system, vacation and holiday spending will be light the rest of the year. I need to be able time wise to give him shots 12 hours apart. I experienced the peaks and valleys of travel and am physically and mentally a mix of elated and wore out. I'm going to embrace being rooted for a while. I have a big huge yard that needs a lot of TLC to make it fit for family, friends, and pets. The yard will be the recipient of my aches and pains. I would love to hear from others that will be homebound for a while, by choice, funds, or life circumstances on making the most of day trips  and embracing your home life.

           

     

  

Comments

  1. Misadventures of WidowhoodMarch 27, 2026 at 7:37 AM

    I'm glad to made a long term commitment to the pup, expensive vet bills and all. I always felt the same way about the dogs I've had over my lifetime. They were family.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

If you comment anonymously, it'd be nice to have a name to go with the comment. It helps me string other people's comments and therefore their experiences together.

Popular posts from this blog

It's Worse Than I Imagined

      The shit show since January 20th has been a big reason for my reclusiveness the last few weeks. Let the comments fly. Create a crisis. Lie that you resolved it. Get your sycophants to suck it all up. Rinse. Repeat...for four F' ing years.  Oh, and let's shout, "but her emails" while a foreign oligarch is raiding our private personal data with his hoard of teenagers. Let's pardon January 6th criminals, several of which immediately committed additional crimes.  I said it was going to be my only political post election post but man, it's even worse than I could have imagined.
Read more

Cancelled

      Twice Friday I was notified of cancellations. First, my original flight to Athens in March was cancelled and they rescheduled...two days later!What for the sake of Pete is that crappy rescheduling?  Sure, I want to fly  and sit in layovers for 17 hours just to lose two days of my vacation. I rejected that reschedule obviously my. Lots of back and forth with options presented with multiple four+ hour layovers, and eventually landed on one that diggers by about four hours total from the original, but is a 2-stop. I kept reminding myself the journey is part of the opportunity and round trip tickets to Greece from Minnesota for $600 are about as low as a person can find. This was why I bought my Kindle as to do more and frequent travel, I'll have to exchange time, lots of layover time, for money.      Then, several hours later, as I'm checking for updates on the flight, I got notification of another cancellation. This one was for that bloggers c...
Read more

So Very Tired

      Apologies to Michb as I think I deleted her comment from my last post. I've never read anything but kindness from you, so please know the lost comment was not intended. I'm just really tired- who knows if others were deleted too. Any supportive comments are appreciated, though likely won't be discussing my in-laws in my blog much in the future. It's not fair for me to write about them or have any expectations.      We think the raccoon issue is resolved, but not before yet another call. It's not cheap to have critter incursions resolved. I was lamenting to my son that maybe I shouldn't try and keep the house. He's a help of course, but this isn't his long term plan, or quite frankly intermediary plan. His response was that yes, it is a lot of house and property to take care. He knows my husband handled the bulk of house maintenance and outside care. My son's been a city living apartment dweller since his junior year of college. He'll be a c...
Read more