Sunday, February 22, 2009

Last day of February vacation

I hit the ground running tomorrow. I have a pile of material to push through in my classes before MCAS week steals my students and turns them into walking zombies. Today, though, we’re in a bit of a holding pattern. There is snow advancing (4”-8”), and the timing of it makes planning the day a little awkward. I think we’ve got it figured out but for the actual snow removal, but there is still some question as to whether Community Meal is on for tonight. Maeve and Caleb had plans to go upcountry originally, but they may cancel, which would mean they’d be here and we’d do dinner for the whole house. Not a big deal, but it helps to know how many egg noodles to put in the soup.

This is the first week of Wifeness’ reduced paycheck, so I’m on guard to keep our grocery bill under $150 this week. This shouldn’t be hard since we don’t need a whole lot of perishables and there is plenty of meat stocked in the freezer downstairs. We’ll need to do some planning about how to keep costs down in the long term, though,

I don’t know if we can afford the lump-sum payment for a farm share this year, but it would help keep food costs down. We’ll also need to pay closer attention to our little garden plot this year than we’ve done in years past. We eat a lot of salad, especially during the summer months, and every little bit we grow is several dollars we don’t spend. It’s not hard. It just requires attention that we’re not used to giving.

What things are you doing to save money?

2 comments:

Mrs. Chili said...

We're eating out SIGNIFICANTLY less than we used to. I'm also reducing the meat-centric meals to around three a week, but I'm not militant about that... yet.

Fran said...

We're in an odd spot. My new job actually pays more than we both made in MI - so the fact that we've only got one income is less scary than it might be otherwise. OTOH, we've got a mortgage and all of its attendant costs.... So, we're eating out less and being careful about purchases. AND, M starts work in April, which will help!