Late last year, I set up an awesome spread sheet to figure out exactly where our money was going. It was frittering away, and I wasn't sure exactly how to account for it all. (You can see that post here: http://mini-van-mom.blogspot.com/2014/10/spreadsheet.html)
The largest expenses, by far, are for electricity, gas, and food.
Electricity
We have electric baseboard heat in our house. Electric baseboard heat can be ridiculously expensive. As a result, we heat primarily with wood- when we are home, or going to be home for a while. I want to talk a little bit about heating with wood. While everyone thinks this is the "cheap" or "easy" way to heat, there is a considerable amount of labor involved in cutting the wood, stacking the wood, and maintaining the fire. A wood fire does not keep itself going. You have to feed wood into the fire every so often, and you have to have a knowledge of how to work the flue and dampers in order to get the most heat from your fire. You also have to be home to maintain the fire. If you are at work, you are not heating the house with a wood fire. The baseboard heat is going to kick in because you have to keep the house heated at some level, or your pipes will burst. In addition to the labor, there is also some cash expenditure involved with cleaning your chimney- an annual chore that will help prevent the buildup of creosote and help lessen the chance of a chimney fire.
So, even though we heat primarily with wood, we still have some expenses with heat because the heat will kick on in the middle of the night after the fire dies down, and during the morning while I am at work. After some serious thought, we turned our thermostats in the house down to 65*. This does keep our house on the chilly side when we are not home, but it is warm enough to keep the pipes from bursting and to keep the cats warm.
Gas
Not much we can do with this one. We are subject to the whims of the oil companies and their gas prices. Right now, with gas prices as low as they are, that's a very good thing for my bottom line. Even so, we still do all we can to keep our gas expenses low. We combine errands. If the stores I am looking for are all in one shopping center, I will park in front of the place where I expect to have the largest load coming out. (Usually the grocery store.) I'll walk through the rest of the center, get what's on my list, and walk back to the car to put it in the trunk. I finish at the grocery store (or wherever I expect my largest run to be) and then walk the cart out to the car. Right now, I'm carpooling to work with middle child to save us both on gas expenses. When we drive long distances, we take the Civic if we can. That car still gets phenomenal gas mileage, which helps keep our bottom line as low as possible.
Food
This is another big surprise. Not that it's a huge expense, but where that money is going. I do plan our meals out in advance. I shop the sales. I do freezer cooking. Yes, sometimes I do spend a little more in order to buy directly from our local farmers, but I usually buy from them in bulk. I then can or freeze the entire bushel of whatever it is so I have it on hand to use later.
Where the expense came in is around lunch and snack time. MY lunch and snack time.
When I was subbing, I would pack my lunch. I knew that I was going to be in the school for an entire day, and I packed accordingly. The problem came around mid-afternoon - about the time the kids went to specials and before dismissal. I was headachey and hungry. I found myself hitting up the snack or soda machine more often than I'd like to admit.
When I got this job, I thought that my bad habits would change, but no, they really didn't. I only work until noon now. My intention is to grab lunch when I get home.
The reality is that I am up at 6 am, eat breakfast at 6:30, and get back home between 12:30 and 1:00. I am starved by the time I get home. Even worse, this job has an actual cafeteria and snack bar. Literally less than 100 steps from where I work, you've got the cash register for the snack bar. And they've got a couple of tasty goodies in there that my mind will start dwelling on around 10:00 if I haven't had enough for breakfast. Some days, when I leave here, I just break down and stop at the fast food place down the street. Yep. That's where our money is going. $10 for snacks alone one week. (It's those damn dark chocolate coconut things that are killing me.)
In an effort to help with that hunger issue, I thought through a new plan of attack this week. I am preparing as much of my snacks and lunch as possible a few days before. Yesterday, I made peanut butter balls and granola. Both of these are quick and easy snacks to grab. I have apple slices and peanut butter for when I leave work. A quick snack that I can grab after my shift is over, and enough to keep hunger at bay until I get home.
For lunch, I packed a layered salad in mason jars. I don't know if you remember, but years ago a certain fast food chain packed easy to go salads in large plastic drinking cups. You'd pour the dressing over top of the lettuce, but the lid back on the cup, shake it up, and then eat. This is my version of that thought. I layered lettuce, carrots, bell pepper, onions, celery, and peas in my salad. I am curious to see how these salads hold up. I only made 2. We'll see how they taste two days out.
I'm not planning on taking these salads to work with me. I'm planning on having them waiting in the fridge for me when I get home.
I also packed up a couple of quick microwave meals. Using leftover taco meat (1 meal) and leftover beans and rice (1 meal), I combined the leftovers, and then wrapped them in corn tortillas. I then put them in my little glass freezer containers, covered them with enchilada sauce and cheese, put the lids on , and froze them. They're supposed to be single serving size. My plan is to take them out in the morning before I go to work and then thaw them in the refrigerator, so that all they need is a quick shot in the microwave to heat them up.
We'll see how this works out.
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