Friday Fiscal Wellness Check, August 14, 2026

                                          


         
     For my Friday posts, I copy a 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, August 7 to Thursday, August 13. I just sort of list things as they come up.

Use it Up/Avoid Waste
  • Putting this here as it saved food from garbage likely. I tried a $3.99 Too Good to Go meal.- pure curiosity. This is very new in my area, and limited but Ive seen YouTube unbaggings and it seemed fun to try for not a huge amount. It was from a convenience store so hopes we're not high. But, I received a small, but ample turkey, ham, and cheese sandwich, grapes, three giant cookies, and a container of 12 donut holes. The cookies and donuts went in the freezer for a future treat for someone and ate sandwich and grapes for lunch Sunday. Doubtful Id get one again, but we'll see if other bakery, stores, or restaurants join.

  • Turned a $2 rotisserie chicken ( two day old) into a huge batch of chicken salad that was lunch for both my son and I, plus myself another day, and a supper. I also got a very meaty broth made, then froze for future soup this fall.
Avoiding Spending/Saving on needs 
  • Gave pup a bath and shaved him as best I could with my daughters help. I could have brought him to vet to do this,  but it would have been both expensive and even more stressful for him. Does he look like a show dog? No, but he's more comfortable. 
  • Used a Walgreens promo for a free 8" by 10" to get a photo of me and the kids taken last September. I'm trying to bring more memories to the forefront in my lower level family room.  I still need frames for this and  photos I had enlarged of the five of us from 2019 and 2022. We weren't big on the formal studio packages and these feel more us.
  • Free concert at the river, but did put a couple dollars, all I had other than a $20, in the tip bucket.

Opportunities to add Funds/Windfalls 

  • Entered receipts in Fetch, played MS Rewards. I did a couple of Saga surveys. I have a referral link...nothing sponsored, just a way I and those that join through referral link can jump start point accumulation. 
Need a rewards app you can count on? I use Fetch. Just snap receipts and earn gift cards. 6M 5-star reviews. $1B+ in points awarded. It’s legit. Sign up with this link, and we'll both get a bonus on your first receipt.
 https://referral.fetch.com/vvv3/referralsocialpostsnap?code=DXREDD

 Non-Thrifty or Frugal

  • Took my MIL out for an early birthday lunch (16th). We had a good catch-up and my tongue only had to be bitten twice.

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

  •  Not needed at all, but BIL found these t-shirts and I ordered one. Had to joke about the campiness of this and that we all noticed the cheesy saying doesn't say "good memories." My BIL's missed their callings as cruise planners.  

  Daily Dinner Diary (Friday 8/7 to Thursday, 8/13). 
One of my favorites...stuffed peppers.

Fri -   Rice, tomato, and cheese stuffed green peppers.

Sat- Rice, tomato, and cheese stuffed green peppers.

Sun-  Pasta with tomato,  green pepper, onion, zuchini ( these were the last bag of cherry tomatoes in my freezer from daughters last year produce.)

Mon- Used the bit of leftover sauce and a leftover hotdog bun to make sort of French bread pizza, watermelon 

Tues-  Lasagna

Weds- Chicken salad on crackers, cucumber slices, cottage cheese

Thur- Leftover lasagna

Leftovers Added to Freezer:

  • 1 large Portion of lasagna (kept two for myself and sent rest with my son- one of which he said he froze)
      My youngest is moving this weekend and I'm a bit on standby to help or grab the cats if they decide they're interfering. Minimally I'm bringing her, roomates, and their free friend labor pizza, beverages, and dessert. They have overlap on their current lease but eager to get new apartment set up and then do a deep clean to hopefully get their damage deposit back in full. How was your week? 

  

Comments

  1. AprilAugust 14, 2026 at 8:46 AM

    Love the comment on the t-shirt: "making memories" but doesn't tell you what kind!

    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

Home Found

Image
      N ow a big life update and another explanation for my blog absence. I toured a few homes with my son in mid April. He wanted me with as he's not really lived in Minnesota (before coming back) since he was 19 and he's never owned a home. After a winter of snow, a spring so far of cold, and rain, and employment opportunities that require flexibility, he shifted his search to low maintenance living.       He almost put an offer on a beautiful condo with all his buttons checked just across the main road from my neighborhood. He paused though, realizing he doesn't want to settle down in our town but rather move to one of the twin cities. I'm much less familiar with Minneapolis but aware areas he'd probably like were a tad out of his pric e point. I know St Paul pretty well so was of more help. We proceeded to tour a few condos in St. Paul. A great two bedroom, two bath, while needing updates, was a top contender. Still, something was missing though lo...
Read more