My Frugal Accomplishments

This week, I am undertaking the $4.29 a day challenge, also known as the $30/ week challenge.  According to the Federal Government, the average American should be able to feed a family at a cost of $4.29/person/day.  For our family of 3, this would mean that we would have $90/week to spend for groceries.

When I was looking at the grocery store ads earlier today, it hit me that while it may be “easy” to live on this amount of money, there is one very big drawback: time.  In order to make ends meet on $30/week, you are going to do a lot of cooking from scratch.  What hit me is that many families who are living on $30 a week are working multiple jobs.  Finding the time to cook a meal from scratch will be very challenging for many of these people.

I plan on blogging about what we eat, as well as the cost per serving, every day this week.  I am curious to see if we can stay within the $90/week guideline.

In other news, Middle Child’s laptop crashed and burned last week.  It’s just a little over than a month old.  We called the place where we bought it, who referred us to the company that holds the extended warranty, who referred us to the manufacturer.  The manufacturer sent us a box to send the computer back to them for repair.  The computer has been repaired, or so they say, and is now being shipped back to us.  We should be getting it back in the next 24 hours, and then we’ll take a trip to middle child’s school and hand it off to him.  I am curious to see if it works… and if the fix is permanent or short term.

 

Last Week’s Goals:

1)      Finish another two blocks on the t-shirt quilt.

Done.  I now have five blocks left.

2)      Clean out the carport.  Make certain that all of the leaves are swept out and the window well is cleared out and ready for winter.

Done.  We still have 3 more window wells to clean out, but this one on the carport seems to collect the most leaves.  (And sometimes, snakes.  Eeewwww….)

3)      Spend at least 15 minutes a day at least twice this week cleaning the messy room in the basement.

Done.  I pulled the boxes of old jars out and donated them to the church.

4)      Put all of our AP Review Books from last year up on E-Bay.

I need to do this.

5)      Work on the albums for the Girls.

I’ve loaded all of the digital pictures onto Shutterfly and sorted them by year and event.  The other parents in our troop have also uploaded their pictures.

6)      Get this year's badges sewn onto daughter's Girl Scout vest.

I sewed two badges onto the back.  The rest of the badges have been pinned on.

7)      Make a batch of apple butter.

The apples on the tree are now ripe – I’ll be doing this sometime over this week.

8)      Finish reading the YA Book I'm currently reading and post a review on my young adult literature blog.

I actually do keep a YA Blog called “Books for Teens”.  You can find it here:http://librarynut-booksforteens.blogspot.com/ .  I read and reviewed the book Shadow on the Sun.

9)      Exercise at least 3 days this week.

Done.  Three days during the week, and a short hike with the husband on Saturday.

10)  Clean out the trunk of my car.

It looks much nicer.  I added my winter emergency kit to the trunk: a small snow shovel, blanket, bag of kitty litter, I added more snacks to the emergency kit and I changed out the water bottle.  I also added a warmer pair of socks and put in my spare pair of boots.

 

Goals for This Week:

1)      Continue working on the t-shirt quilt.

2)      Sew more badges on daughter’s girl scout vest.

3)      Make a batch of apple butter.

4)      Clean out the trunk of husband’s car, check winter gear.

5)      Read the next YA book in my stack, and review it on my blog.

6)      Put our AP Review Books up on E-Bay.

7)      Work on the girls’ scrapbooks.

8)      Spend 15 minutes at least twice this week cleaning out the basement.

9)      Clean out and defrost the freezer.

10)  Clean out the refrigerator, and scrub down the shelves.