Friday Fiscal Wellness Check August 7, 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, July 31 to Thursday, August 6. I just sort of list things as they come up.

Use it Up/Avoid Waste 
  • My neighbors sadly lost their beloved 17 year old dog last week. He was pups buddy. She gave me the rest of a fairly large bag of FreshPet food, one of pup and grand pups favorites. I miss seeing that little guy across the street. 
  • Used up frozen refried beans, deboned chicken thighs, and remnants of salsa, cheese dip, and last of the cheese tray that I hadn't froze to make two quesadillas.
  • Made two batches of (vegan) zuchini bread both Friday when it was cooler and again Monday as my daughter was going to bring even more! Gave most to the kids and my sister. As I'm out of granulated sugar, I used all brown sugar with lots of cinnamon- very rich and delicious. 
Avoiding Spending/Saving on needs 
  • Minimal groceries as I had a lot of odds and ends to use up. I even avoided temptation of Trader Joe's after my early a.m. PT appointment because I needed to be home by 9 to give pup his meds. 
  • Used 37 cents off gas cc reward on a near empty tank.
  • I've got a swimsuit, dress, and two shirts, cotton pants, and a dress sitting in an online shopping cart. I do need new swimwear before the cruise and a few extra pieces to stretch my cruise wardrobe would be lovely. But I'm very focused on taking off excess weight so who knows what my size might be in 7 months. Items are going to sit at least until after the first of the year as I  don't have any new summer clothes needs right now.

Opportunities to add Funds/Windfalls 

  • Entered receipts in Fetch, played MS Rewards. I did a couple of Saga surveys.
  • I'm trying to figure out the max I'd want to substitute teach or do contract work. I guess the decider for this is more personal satisfaction, but could impact taxes, so can't ignore. The schools were desperate last November it seemed. I really like the half day afternoon shifts, so will keep a look for those only because of pups needs.

 Non-Thrifty or Frugal

  • I picked more tomatoes, this weeks estimate based on Farmers Market prices,  $4 worth of the roma like tomatos in my two planters, 2xs and one pick if cherry tomatoes-$54 is my garden ROI status. Likely only another three picks worth to ripen. It was a bit of fun to watch them thrive, along with first lettuce, even though other plants ( beans, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins) were busts. I say this but there's little pods coming from a couple of the bean plants...maybe??? The tomato ROI was positive. 

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.

  •  $35 copay for PT and they wanted to schedule two more to push a couple stretches farther for improved strength, range, and stability. I'm not pleased with more out of pocket, but also want improvement and correction to what I might not be doing right on my own.

  Daily Dinner Diary (Friday 7/31  to Thursday, 8/7). 

Fri -   I took kitties home for weekend after bringing prepared chicken thighs to son's and he provided sides of veggies and mashed potatoes. 

Sat- Chicken, bean, and cheese quesadille 

Sun- Chicken, bean, and cheese quesadille-reheated from Saturday

Mon- Goulash, sautéed zuchini,  cucumber and tomato salad

Tues-  Leftover goulash and zuchini 

Weds- Chicken strip wrap with tomato and cucumber 

Thur- Beer brats, potato wedges, cucumber and tomato salad

* Are we sensing a theme with cucumber tomatoes? I can't get enough of the fresh picked combination. 

Leftovers Added to Freezer:

  • Nothing, but sent two leftover brats home with my son. He came after a job for dinner. I also made ahead two, but I prefer to cut in half when I fill, stuffed green peppers. Two halves will be my dinner tonight and may freeze the other two if I end up doing something for dinner Saturday.
    Snooze time buddies. 

      I'm still cat sitting just because it's easier than them being packed up too often as son will be working a lot where he's not home overnight for days at a time. I sure don't mind- likely they'll just hang through labor day weekend which was the original plan but he missed them. I've grandpup tonight too as daughter has an early Saturday shoot and there's a lot of construction so she's staying over tonight. The kids made plans together to see new Spiderman movie, invited me to join, but I volunteered for pet duty. How was your week? 

  

Comments

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