Budgeting

I am not proud to say that my husband and I are living at the edge of our budget. We decided to take a mortgage that was a little higher than we were comfortable because we found our dream home. When we purchased the house we knew we were going to need to purchase an SUV because of where it was located. During our process of making the decision to take the mortgage and purchase an SUV, we were not planning on having a child. We had tried for six years to get pregnant and were feeling like it wasn't going to happen for us. As fate would have it, we found out three days after signing the paperwork that we were expecting our first child.

As you can imagine, after trying for so long we were absolutely ecstatic! But now, we're working diligently to pay off our student loans, mortgage and the car payment, all while having the expenses of a newborn.

This is why I've started writing this blog. I want to chronicle our journey to getting out of debt. We're going to be setting financial goals and trying to meet them. We don't like feeling like we are living paycheck to paycheck and not able to save anything.

My first order of business was to complete a financial review. I went through our credit card statements for the last three months to find out where we are spending our money and where we can cut out spending. Then I completed a budget. This may sound daunting but just take it piece by piece.

We thankfully only have three credit cards and never use our debit card for purchases. So, I started with one credit card and went thru three months of charges. I separated each store or purchase type and added up each one for that month. I listed some categories I used below:

Example Categories:  

Walmart
Dinner out
Grocery
Gas Station
Car Maintenance
Pharmacy

You'll need to tailor the categories to fit your personal purchasing patterns. I did this for all three of our cards and then totaled all the categories up to find out between all three cards what we spent. When listing out all the charges, don't skip one 'just because it'll never happen again' be honest wit your budget and yourself. If there is an expense that you won't be making again put it in a generic category. For us, the generic one was the part we bought for the dishwasher, we won't be buying it again but it was important. So, I put it under household maintenance.

This will give you a base line of what you're spending and where. This is really important to see where you can "trim the fat" or how much you need to budget for essentials. Out of all the times I've tried to budget, I've found this is the most important step. Without knowing what is being spent and where it's going you'll never be able to stick to your budget.

There are tons of sites that you can get free budget work sheets or even some that you can buy. I've tried some of the free ones, but I've never had any luck with them. So, for me the fastest and best way is to just put it all in an excel spread sheet.

Once you've done this you're halfway there! Don't give up and don't stop. Now go through your fixed monthly expenses, fuel, gas (for your car), mortgage, rent, etc. Once you've got all of these written down and added up you need to list out any and all expenses you have that are yearly, bi-yearly or quarterly, such as dog licensing fees, insurance, water bill, sewer bill, etc.

For those expenses you'll want to separate them to calculate how much you'll have to save each month to make sure you have them when they're due.

Next I calculated our monthly income. Once I have all the numbers, I subtracted all the monthly expenses, including the amount needed to be set aside for the other expenses, and found the amount we have left over at the end of every month. This is the amount we have to put in the savings account or to make an extra payment on one of our loans.

I hope this helps you, not only get motivated but maybe help you to get over that hump to get yourself financially motivated.

Getting the Garden Ready

Even though it is a winter wonderland outside, we've already started thinking about our garden for next summer.

Last year we had just moved into the house and had tried to keep up with the garden. Unfortunately, it was more work then we could handle with me being pregnant and him working 70-80 hours a week. We made a pretty good attempt but weren't able to keep up with it with everything we had going on.

This year we've drawn out a plan for the garden and have the stuff to start some seeds. We'll be starting them in March, we don't want to start them too early, but also don't want to start them too late. We're hoping to have a larger garden with a big yield this year, so, we'll have enough left over to can and freeze.

I'll be trying different recipes with the fresh produce and to see how well they hold up to canning/freezing. I'll be posting the good, bad and (hopefully not) disgusting here. As we get things going, I'll also post about our progress on starting our seeds and how we'll be setting the garden up.

Delicious Apple Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

Today into Monday we're going to be getting a doozy of a storm. Some areas of our state will be getting 12+ inches. I've done my storm prep by getting all the flashlights around, laundry is completely done, dishes are done and I've filled up jugs of water.

Yesterday, while I was cooking up the Sweet Potato Skin Chicken Fajitas, I also cooked up tonight's dinner. I made up an Apple Stuffed Pork Tenderloin. It would have been easy to warm up dinner sized servings on the wood stove if we had lost power.

It is simply delicious and this recipe uses only a few items that I usually have on hand.

Ingredients:
Pork Tenderloin - I used a 2 lbs, but it can be any size
1/4 Apple- chopped
1/4 Onioin- chopped
1 Slice of Bread- chopped into cubes
3 tsp of Apple Butter - I used some scrumptious apple butter my sister-in-law made, but you can use any type of apple spread. I've even used apple sauce with cinnamon before.

Chop up the apple, onion and bread. Cook them in a frying pan with 1 tsp of apple butter until the apples are soft. Remove them from the heat and let them cool.

Cut open your pork tenderloin

Once the apple mixture is cool, place it in the pork and fold the pork back up

Use the rest of the apple butter as a glaze on the outside of the pork

Cook at 425 degrees for 30-45 minutes - this will be longer if you use more than 2 lbs. Take it out of the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. Then enjoy!

Prepaing for the storm

Since we're getting a very significant storm today into tomorrow, I'm going to share some tips on being prepared for a winter storm.

Where we live is a rural area and the possibility of a power outage is very real. By doing at least the items on this list, I'm prepared to go a few days without power.

Storm Prep List:

1. Fill all water bottles/buckets. If we lose power the pump to draw water will not work. Having jugs and bottles of water to drink is a must.  
   
   
   
   
   
2. Bring wood in for our wood stove. We always have wood in but if the power goes out we'll need to run constant heat in the wood stove. The more you have piled up, the fewer trips you'll have to make to the woodpile. 
   
3. Water plants/fill humidifiers. When running the wood stove it dries everything out. Having the humidifiers full and plants watered cuts down on the amount of water you have to use. I run my humidifier on high until the power goes out and then any water left in the tank I use for the water pot on the wood stove.
4. All laundry done. Having it all done means you don't have to do it by hand unless you're out of power for a long time.
5. Run dishwasher / wash all bottles. Same as with the laundry- with everything clean you won't have to wash them immediately. 
6. Get all flashlights out- place 1 next to your bed and the rest in a central spot. I chose my kitchen table. Having a flashlight next to your bed is very helpful, if you lose power in the middle of the night, the flashlight near you're bed will help you find your way around.
7. Check on spare batteries- have enough? Being without power for a couple days make sure you have spares, the last thing you want is to have the batteries die in the middle of the night and have no spares.
8. Check pantry- make sure stocked with necessities. Having items that you can eat without cooking and items that can be cooked on the wood stove ready to go. 
9. Charge all electronics- tablets and phones. When the power goes out this will be your only means of communication. Don't use the battery life up all at once. 
10. Animals Ready- fill guinea pig water bottle / fill dog water dish / put shovel next to back door to shovel path for dog to go outside. 

These are the top ten things that I do to prepare for a storm, they aren't the complete list and I know some of them are specific to people with wood stoves. I hope this has been helpful.

Healthy Chicken, Broccoli, and Quinoa

I've joined a weight loss challenge for the month of February. So, I've started working out and making healthy and hearty dishes. I had nothing on the menu for dinner and was searching a new app I've downloaded and found this recipe. It's from Mealtime, and so far I love it. It's had some great ideas for quick, easy and healthy dishes. It was a last minute dish that I just happened to have all the ingredients for.

It's called Chicken, Broccoli and Quinoa. It was delicious and my husband absolutely loved it. 

Ingredients:

1 pound chicken

1 medium head of broccoli

1/2 medium onion diced

4 cloves garlic

1 cup quinoa

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup cheese

Chop up the onion, garlic, broccoli and chicken. Set the broccoli to the side.

Cook the onions and chicken until chicken is just done and onions are translucent
Add the garlic- cook until fragrant
Add chicken broth and quinoa- bring it to a boil, reduce heat and then cover

Cook for 10 min- then add the broccoli
Cook until broccoli is done and all juice is gone
Sprinkle with the cheese and cook until the cheese is melted



Then enjoy

Snow Day

Today I got to have a snow day with my little guy. My husband's employer decided to make him work extra hours with less than a days notice. This caused major child care problems for us, which forced me to take the day off. Normally, our daycare could have taken him for another day, but today we were getting a major winter storm. So, my husband needed to take our only SUV to get there and back safely and the hill we live on requires an SUV.

I know, you're thinking, well isn't it your fault for not having 2 SUV's. We definitely share in responsibility, but at this point we can't afford a second one. Prior to this year we had both of our vehicles paid off, and were trying to save to purchase a vehicle in full. Well, when we found our dream house, that went out the window. We had to purchase the SUV or my husband would have to call out of work a lot. We do live in New England and snow is inevitable.

During my day of child wrangling I was writing up a couple of blogs to post and realized I didn't like my blog name. So, I've decided to have a blog name that embodies what what I'm doing/writing in my blog. I've changed it to Frugal in NH and will be working this week to get my posts moved over.

Thank you for stopping by and letting me vent a little! I hope you enjoy my blog and the photos taken of today's storm.