Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

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alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Had to go in to town to pick up my mail and medicine. Did not know it but my mail lady saw that my mail box was repaired and started delivery of my mail on Tuesday.

Went to Petco and bought Teddi more "cookies." They are tiny little ginger bears. The first kind of treat that is not meat based that he will eat. He has such a little mouth even small milk bones are too hard for him to eat. Came to $7.76. Yikes they are $5.99 a pound and I wanted to make sure he has enough in case the weather gets too bad with snow or ice. They are very small about the size of a nickle. He only gets 6 at a time so these, combined with what I already have, should last him a long time. I thought they are so small that they would not weight a pound. Note to self: use the scale at the doggie treat bar when scooping treats..lol. I went way over on budget for his treats this month. Also bought a can of canned dog food for a trial to see if he will like it. I need to stock up on things in the pantry for emergencies ie bad weather. So far nothing I have brought home really interests him. I did pick up two large rolls of his fresh dog food since we are going in to cold/wet weather season. Total today was $35.83. Again over budget for his food as well as treats. Will have to revise budget and watch buying treats.

I was tempted to pop in to the grocery store when picking up my medicine, since I had not received a grocery ad for several weeks, but resisted. I did look it up on line tonight and decided that there was nothing that I needed or wanted.

Breakfast was bland spinach frittita. I opened a jar of salsa to give it some taste. Had a cup of English breakfast tea with almond milk.

Mid morning a handful of peanuts and some small chocolate chunks. I wanted to finish the peanuts to get them out of the pantry. That is my story and I am sticking to it.lol

Late lunch was 2 hard corn tortillas with some canned chili and the last of the sour cream.The corn tortillas have lime in them. I accidentally picked them up but do like the lime flavor so will look for them the next time I buy hard corn tortillas. Also had a small bowl of vanilla flavored yogurt with a tablespoon of cherry jam.. I LOVE cherry jam or cherry anything.

Too full for dinner so drinking a cup of chamomile tea and maybe later will finish off the last of the potato soup in the fridge. It is a small cup.

My baked apple yesterday was good but I usually add a little milk or half and half. Do not have either one and almond milk did not appeal to me. However I spotted the vanilla yogurt and used a dollop on my baked apple and it was wonderful.

Tomorrow will be the last of the yogurt and the last of my mozzarella. I still have some feta cheese and I might sprinkle some on the spinach and feta frittita to give it more zip before I nuke it in the microwave. Except for one brick of cream cheese and some Parmesan cheese I will be out of fresh dairy. I am saving the cream cheese to make a pumpkin cheese cake for Thanksgiving. Since I am a certified cheese head. It has been harder to give up cheese than coffee.
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Breakfast was more of the blah spinach and feta frittata. Sprinkled some feta cheese on it before nuking it and it was still blah. Had a cup of English breakfast tea with almond milk and a tiny bit of sugar. The sugar helped give the tea more flavor. I think almond milk adds nothing to tea except maybe a little bit smoother but no taste. I need milk of some sort due to my ALS black teas makes my throat close up.

Lunch I used the last of a package of spaghetti that I bought at Big Lots. I can eat pasta made in Italy and it does not affect me like American pasta. I paid $1.07 with tax for it. This is the 3rd time I have used this one package. Since I will have it for lunch and dinner it will be very frugal. I think that with the other meals and the two today I have had 5 meals from this one package so about .21 cents for each pasta meal not including the other ingredients used in the meals. I used the leftover chili from my nachos yesterday and added it to the pasta. I had a nice big plate for lunch and will have the rest for dinner. Chili was $1.59 with tax so about .80 cent for each meal plus the .21 cents for the pasta..total $1.01 for each meal. I had a single serving cup of applesauce for dessert. Forgot to add I used Parmesan cheese at lunch on the chili pasta and will do the same for dinner. Dessert will be the last of the vanilla yogurt with a tablespoon of cherry jam.

I will make the pizza tomorrow for dinner. I did not see any need to do more cooking today for the sake of variety.

I am going to try hard to not buy any foods until December 1st. I have a lot of food I just need to keep busy and cook ahead and use what I have in the house. That seems to be my biggest problem cooking enough ahead to keep me supplied.

I have used up all of my gf bread and buns. Also all of my store bought almond flour crackers. Down to my last few Triscuit's I can eat Triscuit's They are made with white whole wheat and they do not bother me. I found this out on a gluten free board. One gentleman said he could eat them for that reason. I was hesitant and bought a box at Big Lots and was thrilled to find out I can eat them without a problem. One of my problems is I do not have a functioning oven that can handle the baking I would like to do to make more home made gf baked goods.
Janet Alliesmama
User avatar
Jackielou
Posts: 13428
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2015 7:51 pm

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by Jackielou »

alliesmama4 wrote: Sun Nov 17, 2019 5:54 pm Breakfast was more of the blah spinach and feta frittata. Sprinkled some feta cheese on it before nuking it and it was still blah. Had a cup of English breakfast tea with almond milk and a tiny bit of sugar. The sugar helped give the tea more flavor. I think almond milk adds nothing to tea except maybe a little bit smoother but no taste. I need milk of some sort due to my ALS black teas makes my throat close up.

Lunch I used the last of a package of spaghetti that I bought at Big Lots. I can eat pasta made in Italy and it does not affect me like American pasta. I paid $1.07 with tax for it. This is the 3rd time I have used this one package. Since I will have it for lunch and dinner it will be very frugal. I think that with the other meals and the two today I have had 5 meals from this one package so about .21 cents for each pasta meal not including the other ingredients used in the meals. I used the leftover chili from my nachos yesterday and added it to the pasta. I had a nice big plate for lunch and will have the rest for dinner. Chili was $1.59 with tax so about .80 cent for each meal plus the .21 cents for the pasta..total $1.01 for each meal. I had a single serving cup of applesauce for dessert. Forgot to add I used Parmesan cheese at lunch on the chili pasta and will do the same for dinner. Dessert will be the last of the vanilla yogurt with a tablespoon of cherry jam.

I will make the pizza tomorrow for dinner. I did not see any need to do more cooking today for the sake of variety.

I am going to try hard to not buy any foods until December 1st. I have a lot of food I just need to keep busy and cook ahead and use what I have in the house. That seems to be my biggest problem cooking enough ahead to keep me supplied.

I have used up all of my gf bread and buns. Also all of my store bought almond flour crackers. Down to my last few Triscuit's I can eat Triscuit's They are made with white whole wheat and they do not bother me. I found this out on a gluten free board. One gentleman said he could eat them for that reason. I was hesitant and bought a box at Big Lots and was thrilled to find out I can eat them without a problem. One of my problems is I do not have a functioning oven that can handle the baking I would like to do to make more home made gf baked goods.
I love Triscuits. My favourite cracker for just about everything.
Jackie
http://inthelandofthelivingskiesii.blogspot.ca/
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Jackielou wrote: Sun Nov 17, 2019 7:09 pm I love Triscuits. My favourite cracker for just about everything.
Me too. I am so glad to be able have them back in my life. They are much cheaper at Big Lots if you happen to have one in your province.
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Sort of dropped off of the radar for a while due to some medical problems. I am having to revamp my diet to be gluten and dairy free as well as low carb and diabetic. I am very lucky to have a lot of food stockpiled and really do not want for much of anything except I need to buy some Better Than Milk. I thought I had more in my emergency pantry but evidently do not. I really do not like almond milk in my tea but stumbled on to a canister of coconut cream powder that I bought on Amazon to have on hand for when I make Thai food. I gave it a shot and I liked it a lot. I have never been one to use powdered creamer in my coffee or tea. This is nice without a cloying taste that I did not like from powdered creams.

Due to all of the medical things I am not up to cooking like I would like to but do putter and try to pull things together to make it work with the various restrictions. I thought of buying a rotisserie chicken instead of buying a turkey. If I had a chest freezer I would buy a turkey. I use to do that when I had a freezer and cut it up and freeze in portion sizes. However I have boneless chicken thighs in the freezer and I have a box of gluten free stuffing mix from Aldi's. It is sort of like stove top stuffing. So I will bake the chicken thighs with the stuffing and it will be just as good as a turkey for me. I have everything else. I even have a free can of cranberry sauce if I want to open it but might save it for Christmas since I bought raw cranberries on sale and will make my raw cranberry salad.

As always reviewing my budget and working on projections of what I need for the future. This month I will make the final payment on the credit card that had the biggest amount. I got in to credit card debt when I lost my medical insurance and was without it for 3 years before I was able to afford medical insurance. My medicine bill alone exceeded my monthly income and the only way to get by was to charge it and use my savings to pay what little bit I could each month. Would not wish that on anyone. January will see the last of another big credit card bite the dust. I will still have one more left but will snow ball the payments due to the two I am paying off. Life will be easier but still will have to watch how I spend my money..
Janet Alliesmama
Dgflorida
Posts: 4381
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:10 pm

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by Dgflorida »

Congrats on paying off a credit card.
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