Weekly Updates

The excited face of my husband
when I get home from work :)

While it's our first week plus of our no-spend month, it hasn't been perfect by any means... but we did make some progress and we didn't eat out the first week (just once the second week because it was too hot to cook at all...) In case you didn't know... we have a huge heat wave crawling through California.

We did do a small walmart run for a puzzle and some fabric material the first few days... and with SCB's family coming into town next week, there are talks of sea world so we might end up with a low spend month instead of a no spend month... I forgot about all the family we have coming into town for my baptism and now i'm thinking August wasn't a good idea for a no spend month... But maybe a low spend month instead?

I also need to get something to wear to my baptism (i have to wear all white.... everything white, AND i'll need to layer white clothes so they don't get all see through when I do get dunked in the water)  because i just can't do the communally shared white jumpers/pants things they have at the church... it just wigs me out and I worry about my mom's reaction to the jumper (if you have never seen one, they don't strike people as normal, especially when most baptisms in other churches take place in the pastors spa in a bathing suit).

Any who, I spent last Saturday morning and this Saturday morning re-fixing some of my budget spread sheets because my husband accidentally broke my budget flash drive so I had to recalculate a lot of information and it just makes me so happy that I blog because I was able to pull a lot of the information off here that I needed. We are still crossing our fingers that his brother will be able to fix it while he's in town because I do NOT want to have to re-do all our business records... it will just take hours... and it won't be any fun at all.

Despite being in uber crafty mode and deciding to teach myself to sew and read patters, I also decided to go to a church cooking class on Saturday and learned how to make jam and pie crust among other things. I can't wait to make freezer jam now. As soon as we get the recipes via email I might just have to jump all over that!

I've also been finishing projects too.

Since SCB will be heading back to the farmers market this month (WOOT for vendor cancellations), I finished 20 crochet flowers and made them into cute hair pins that we are going to test out at the market. I might make a few more to get a good variety going but we think we will sell them for $3 each or 2 for $5 in hopes that they will cover the stall fee and just add to our bottom line. So far i've just been using the yarn I have around the house and if they sell we will start to document the costs of anything we buy for them from here on out and use them to supplement the pens the hubby makes. What's really funny is that I actually took the Friday of the next farmers market off work to spend with family (They are coming into town for my baptism), But since we got the call about being vendors, I'll actually be able to help SCB with the market this time and we are sure his folks will want to swing by and see what our operation looks like. After the market sale on the 17th, we will put whatever inventory we have left on Etsy and begin opening our online store!

I've also finished my second crochet pillow so now our couch has a matching set. It feels so good to finish up loose ends and I've enjoyed having both on the couch since it evens things out now.

In terms of bills, we had our Costco annual bill come in for $55.00 and it makes me wonder if Costco is really worth having. Considering the drive away from our home to get items and the fact that their gas pumps don't adjust for HEAT when they dispense fuel, (so the last time I filled up there I got pretty jacked with my mileage...) I think i'll have to do a good numbers run down to see how much we are actually saving and if its worth it to keep a membership anymore... Maybe it will be more convenient to drop our membership when they finish the new Walmart (it will be a super Walmart with food items), but on to some numbers:

Weekly Updates:

August 1:

• $55.00 Costco membership Fee
• $33.84 Fresh & Easy
• $9.89 Ralphs
• $6.80 Walmart (Fabric and odds and ends -- this was $10 more, but I used a gas rebate check from work to cover a portion of the cost so I only listed the amount coming out of the budget.)

August 2:
August 3:

• $18.22 Walmart (Fabric + Puzzle)

August 4:

• $22.33 Walmart (Groceries)
• $5.92 Sprouts (Groceries)
• $26.44 Fresh & Easy (Groceries)
• $58.51 Gasoline

August 5:

• $5.70 Groceries - Church Cannery

August 6:

• $43.38 Electricity

August 7:

• $809.40 Mortgage

August 8

August 9

• $11.82 Walmart (Business expense)
• $13.60 Chick-Fil-A

August 10

• $77.63 Walmart (Clothes-- stuff for my baptism and a shirt for SCB)

August 11

• $42.63 Fresh & Easy (Groceries)

August 12

• $156.00 Giving

Money Goals:

1. 2012 Roth IRA SCG $2,902.00 / $5,000.00 (58.04%)
2. Car Fund: $32.58 / $1,000.00 (3.25%)
3. Paying Extra on the house: $121.76/ $1,301.28 (2 additional Mortgage Payments) (9.35%)
4. 2nd Roth IRA: $0.00 We will just add up all of SCB's earned income for the year and at the end of the year just put at least 15% into a Retirement account for him... 
1. Apple One: $140.00 earned this year.
2. RDS: $135.40
3. Labor Ready: $0.00
4. I don't think his business stuff counts as income until there is a profit.