This Week’s Dinners

I thought I’d share what we’re eating some nights of the week each week. This will help to give you an idea of how we’re tightening our food budget, which is an area in which we’ve always gone WAY over.

I can’t remember if I’ve share this with you all, so forgive me if I’m posting this twice. For Christmas, I gave Ben a George Foreman grill, some cookbooks, and I made him an apron. (The apron should be posted in a blog all its own.) These gifts also came with the use of the kitchen on the days that I’m working for ten hours. He’s been doing a great job at cooking, and I’ve been getting to relax when I get home. We both win.

This week, I asked him to use up our eggs that we getting close to expiring. So, we had an interesting form of brinner.

Brinner

Don’t see eggs on that plate? That’s a good thing. It’s rare that I love to have scrambled eggs, or even an omelet with my favorite toppings. I KNOW you can see those delish potatoes that he fried in a pan with some onions. You’re also probably going to try calling that bread French toast, but I’ll deter you from that. Let me share something with you.

When I was a child, I hated French toast. (I think it was because I didn’t like cinnamon.) So, that meal was always made sans cinnamon, and titled “egg bread”. Bread dipped in egg then cooked in a pan. Egg bread. That’s all I’ve ever called it. Of course, when I got married and Ben tried to make French toast, he quickly learned that, with modification and a different title, I’d indulge. He probably still giggles when he calls it by the name I gave it.

It was so. freaking. good.

On Tuesday, I got the kitchen and made one of my hubby’s favorite meals:

red beans & rice

I never had this awesome meal until a few years ago, but I love it, too. I normally put in some celery. This time, it’s just a simple combination of Italian sausage, white rice, red beans, onion, garlic, and creole seasoning. Simple, cheap, and hearty.

Also, I promise my food doesn’t have jaundice. My iPhone camera is awesome, but our lighting in the living room isn’t.

 

 

And So It Begins…

Here we are- January 17th. That means our budget started two days ago. So far, so good.

Along with the new budget comes a new menu of sorts. Last week, I came up with a list of meals we could eat for dinner that met certain criteria. They had to: have few, inexpensive ingredients; have ingredients that we typically keep in the house; be easy to make; be remotely healthy. Keeping in ingredients few and inexpensive will hopefully keep the prices at the grocery store at bay. Choosing recipes that include ingredients we already have in the house keep us from buying off-the-wall things that we would never use again. Being easy and healthy are bonuses, and mostly needed because between us we have too many jobs and not enough hours in the day.

I do try to research recipes every now and again, and I love to find good ones. A recipe that we recently tried was one of Ben’s favorites. It’s so simple I’m pretty sure that no one can mess it up if you follow the recipe.

Baked Garlic Parmesan Chicken

You can click above for the original link. But all you have to do is mix a packet of Good Seasonings Italian dressing mix, some Parmesan cheese, and a little garlic powder together, coat the chicken in the mixture, then bake at 400* for about 20 minutes. Done, and delish!

We also have a new, not-so-healthy dinner, but I really don’t care when it comes down to one thing- pizza! We put pizza sauce and toppings on a tortilla, then baked it on a preheated pizza stone for about 8 minutes at 400*. I would eat pizza every day if I let myself, so I am always down with finding something new that deters us from gorging on a frozen pizza once or twice per week.

I promise to get better about taking pictures of our dinners before I eat them all. I normally think about it once I’ve finished half the plate, which really doesn’t do anyone any good.

I’ve also been working on knitting up some goodies for friends, making blankets and hats for babies that are almost ready to make their debut, knitting items for the shop, reading a book I’ve been needing in my life for years, and not pulling my hair out when our mailman comes and our dogs want to kill him. I’d love to have a set schedule for my blog here, but that hasn’t taken priority… yet.

 

The Plus Side

So, my Steelers just got knocked out of the playoffs. Wild card round. By the Broncos. (I actually like the Broncos. I have never been a Tebow fan, however.) The last time they eliminated themselves before the Superbowl, I was planning a wedding. I figured this was a sign that I didn’t have enough time to be watching football anymore for the season. Honestly, I feel the same way about this season.

Unlike last year, there’s just TOO much to do around here. Here’s a taste of what we have going on:

In October, I started working part-time for Paraquad. Before I knew it, my role changed and I added six hours onto every week. My latest project is working on a mailing list. After that project, I’ve been asked to be the “social media girl”. This requires a lot of studying and research for me, as I’ve never had that role before. My department is going through changes, and while they are exciting, they can also be exhausting. So, I’ve got that going on.

Next month, I get to go to Florida with my cousin Katie to see her sister Christy. I’m so stoked!

At the end of February, the couple that share an office with Ben are going to have a baby. That means Ben will be pretty busy for a little while, as session started last Wednesday, and that is typically the busiest season for him.

In March, we are putting in a privacy fence. Our neighbors coerced our pup over the fence once, so we need a taller one now. We are also putting in an internal door to connect the duplexes, which will allow us to treat this as a single family unit in the time we will live here.

We are currently working on a new budget (see previous posts) and seeing about refinancing our current home loan.

I’ve been trying to find the time to rebrand the Etsy store for the spring/summer/fall. This stuff takes up a ton of time, and a whole lot more energy.

As you can see, we have plenty to keep us busy. I’m actually relieved to have some time free up now! (Even if it means my boys are out!)

Making a Budget

Ben and I were both off the last two weeks of the year. (Okay, kind of. We both worked one day.) We were so busy my head was spinning, and that can make me crabby, unfortunately. While we kept busy buzzing around, we also set some time aside to pour over our budget and tweak it. That is a seriously daunting process. Initially, Ben had said we were going to talk about a wide array of life stuff. Once we actually sat down, it took us an entire morning’s time to get through the budget portion, and we already had a budget to pull from. We really began budgeting earlier in 2011. Of course, what that translates into is that we had a standard as to how we would spend our money, but we rarely stuck to it. We have been so blessed in that when Ben started his job two years ago, we moved to a new level of income. Sometimes when that occurs, it’s hard to reign in spending. Now, two years later, I wish we would have looked at it differently. But I have yet to get the kinks out of the time machine I’m building, so I guess I can’t dwell too much on what happened in the past. After my last blog post, I had a lot of friends bring up the subject of a budget with me: “My Mom wants to know if you’re going to blog about staying on budget?”, “That’s awesome! What does that look like?”, and, “You’ve inspired my family and some of my friends to do this, too!” (That last one makes me really happy.) I’ve decided that I should blog more often anyway, so my goal is to keep everyone up-to-date on our journey: where we are with our goals, what gets in the way, the meals we cook, and the ways we cut corners.  I’ll still blog about other stuff too, because I will need something to keep me busy while I’m not spending money. Back to the issue at hand- the budget. There are a ton of tools out there to help make a budget. Searching for terms like “budget tool” or “budget percentage” can be a good place to start if you have no idea where to begin. Or, you can just read the rest of this blog and I’ll try to help you as much as I can.

I’ll start with a traditional budget (listed percentage-wise):

Housing: 20-30%

Food: 15-20%

Gas/Transportation: 15%

Medical: 5%

Clothing: 5-8%

Utilities: 10%

Debt: 10%

Charity/Giving: 2-10% (or whatever you’re comfortable with)

Entertainment: 5%

Savings: 5-10%

Knowing these percentages is a good place to start. From there, you have to create a budget that works for your life, and with whatever you have available to you financially.

What we did next was work off this list, and figured out what we were already paying in different categories, then figured out the percentage. In the end, we took the remaining percentage and we put all of that towards debt. Here’s the details:

Housing:

Because our mortgage is so cheap, I combined a lot of different expenses in this category. Those expenses include: our mortgage, utilities, security system expenses, cable, internet, sewer, water, and trash. All of that puts us between 19 and 20%. We could always use repairs, but we have not budgeted for that here.

Food & Entertainment:

Our food budget includes some date money, and also a budget for our groceries. We’ve been taking our date money out in cash for months, and THE CASH SYSTEM IS THE WAY TO GO. Seriously. We have decided that once our new budget starts, we will take all of the money allotted in this category out in cash. This category is tough for us, but I’ll save that for a post at a later date. This category takes up about 7% of our budget.

Gas & Transportation:

We totaled up our insurance and payments for both vehicles, and also added what we would typically spend on gas & maintenance yearly. This doesn’t necessarily include high-ticket maintenance items, but we have our savings built up to accommodate that. Playing it safe in this category, we are putting about 13.5% of the budget here.

Pets:

Ah. A category that wasn’t in the traditional budget. But, with four pets, we have to include this. We account for food, litter, vet visits, and a miscellaneous section. It takes up about 2% of the budget. And most of the time, they’re worth it.

Miscellaneous:

I guess you should always have a category to catch the stuff you forget about, or you don’t know where to put it. We have life insurance, my cell phone, and hair care here. Thank goodness for a super awesome woman that cuts my hair, and for a great price. We spend 4.5% of our budget here.

Medical:

We are lucky that we come in at 2.5% in this category. We’re pretty healthy, so we don’t have to save too much.

Cash:

We both have an allotment of cash monthly. This is for the times when we want to get coffee without each other, but with friends. Or, if we want to buy something fun.  It takes up 4% of our budget. It may seem like a lot, but building in a category that allows you to get out and have fun is really important. If I said that we weren’t going to spend ANY money, we would lose our minds in the first month. I cherish the time I can get out of the house on my days off and spend time catching up with friends.

Target:

We don’t do Wal-Mart, hence the category title. This is another category that we normally spend way too much in, but on the new budget that is going to have to change. We are going to keep it really simple and only spend 2% of the budget here.

Gifts:

Every Christmas, we always end up way behind, and take out a bunch of money that we don’t really have for gifts. We intend on staying on top of things this year, and saving 2% here every month.

Savings:

This category scares me. I’d love to say we save 20% of our pay, but we don’t. Until we pay off debt, we save 4%. However, this does not include the cash we save from our monthly cash out allotment. I try to save about half of mine, and just make sure that I don’t spend a ton when I go out. It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Vacation:

We had to create a category for this, even if it’s just for the weekend trips to Chicago. This category includes whatever costs the trips include, and also the cost to board Addaway when we’re gone. We are lucky to have good friends who will take care of Axl Rose when we need it.

Crafts:

When you have your own craft business, you have to have a category for this. We spend 1.2% here.

Now, the rest is saved for…

Debt:

30 freaking percent. That’s awesome. With that set up, we should be free and clear in about two years. FUN!

Luckily, because I do some side work and have my own Etsy shop and business, every so often we have some extra money to work with, which can use however we want: to fix up the house, decorate, take a trip to the outlet malls, have a nice dinner, catch a movie, save it, or use it to pay down some debt.

There’s a breakdown of the budget. If you start with the basics, you can really get to a useable budget quickly.

Also, if you haven’t checked out my business, you definitely should! Just click for the links to my Facebook page and my Etsy shop. You can email me at janelle@greyowldesigns.com if you have any questions or would like me to make you a custom order!

 

 

A Year Without Spending: What It Means for Us, and What It Means for You

The phrase “without spending” sounds super scary- and it should. I thought I’d fill you in on what is going to happen with the Muehleisens in the next year, and what it means for everyone.

I’ll try to start from the beginning.

This past summer, Ben and I put a contract in on a house. After inspections, number crunching, and a look at our bank account, we decided that house wasn’t for us. In fact, we decided, for more than one reason, to hold off on house hunting for the remainder of 2011.

Recently, we started talking about starting up the search again. When we took a second look at the bank account, we decided that we needed to change some things. We have money saved up to put a down payment on the house. However, there’s this thing nagging us a little: debt. It’s a nasty four-letter word, and I think both of us are finally really sick of it following us around. We’ve decided to do something about that.

We are lucky enough to make plenty of money. Our budget is set on Ben’s salary, and we always said my salary was the “extra cushion”. Unfortunately, we’ve translated “extra cushion” to mean “the money we can just piss away”. It’s not like we’re going out and spending lots of money on horrible things- we just haven’t been accountable enough to spend it on appropriate things- debt and savings. Instead, we’ve been out to eat with friends, to concerts, and just spending here and there on a bunch of stuff.

I asked our bookkeeper (AKA Ben) to sit down and figure out a few things- how much total debt we have, what our payments look like every month, and what would happen if we poured ALL of our extra money onto our debt. He figured that if we did so, we could pay off the remainder of our credit cards in a year. A YEAR. And that’s just based on HIS salary. Once the cards are paid off, we could roll those extra payments onto our cars, then onto student debt, then onto the duplex. Seriously, if we do this right, we could be pretty much DEBT FREE before we know it.

Hence, a year without spending. More properly put, a year with minimal spending.

Now, getting there is the hard part. We are going to have to change the way we live in some ways to make this happen. We’ve started thinking about the things that will change, and they will influence our life and probably the lives of our friends. Let me tell you how.

What it means for us:

The obvious statement is that means that we spend less. Spending less translates into less trips out to eat, less shopping, living on less in general. I think I’ll sum it up as a really basic, simple year of living. I think we already live pretty simply, but I’m willing to push that boundary even further to see what we can do. I think this will be a really tough year for us, but I’m actually excited about it. We will be spending WAY more time at home, which is actually a good thing. We can work on projects around the house together. We can cook more organic meals with what veggies and fruits we get from our co-op. I am going to try to make our own laundry soap and somehow try to rig some dryer sheets. I’ll have a LOT of time to work on my Etsy shop, and both jobs, and stay organized. We will probably play a lot of cribbage and gin rummy. Dinners out will be very rare- for special occasion only. All of the money that we don’t spend on those things? It gets dumped onto debt.

What it means for you, our friends:

It means we obviously still want to hang out with you, but it probably won’t be having dinner out together. It’ll probably mean having coffee instead. Or inviting you for dinner at our place. Or, you can invite us to yours. I’m a mean cook, and I’ll bring the goodies. You’ll probably see more handmade gifts. Which will probably be way more thoughtful than something we purchase in a rush. So, honestly, not too much changes for you, except maybe the absences of dinners out with us.

So, there it is. Our next year or two, in a nutshell. Big changes over here!

Do YOU Think You’re Funny?

Sometimes I think I’m funny. You can tell when one of those times comes up, because I say something I think is funny, snort a lot, then say, “Haha. I’m funny.” This is almost always directed at my husband, who says something thing like, “Yes you are”, or “Uh huh”, or “What?” (See, that was funny.)

Anyway, I’m home by myself right now, because Ben had a late meeting at work. I’ve distracted the dogs long enough with a couple of raw hides to give me some relief. I started using this time wisely by working on some knitting. Then, I got distracted and started searching the Dish Network guide for things to DVR. I started watching some sort of history of zombies on the history channel. This is hysterical within itself because this is such crap. I mean, right now they’re talking about the dead wanting revenge against the living and they mean what they’re saying. Who says they don’t just want to say, “Hey, you. Yeah. You buried me kinda wrong. It’s making you and I both look like asses. Did you know that I wanted to wear my blue suit?… NO?! I thought I put that in the will. So sorry. No more scary zombie visits. Enjoy the rest of your life!”

Side note: My zombie obsession started years ago, for no good reason. I think I’ve always been enthralled. Then I heard of the Zombie Squad. If you haven’t heard of it, or you have and don’t know what it’s all about, you should just visit the website. I bet you didn’t know there’s going to be a zombie-con next year, did you? I’m a wealth of knowledge here.

Back to my guide searching. I normally clog the DVR with all of the episodes ever aired of The First 48. I stopped doing that because even I was getting sick of seeing the same episodes over and over. So, I love scary movies way too much, and I can never decide which ones to rent or always convince Ben to watch one, so I have been searching high and low to find ones I can watch for free. What have I recorded? Pretty much every horror/thriller/scary movie on SciFi or AMC for the next week. Seriously.

I also seek to record awful movies. If you know me well enough, you know I LOVE awful movies. I’m talking Black Sheep (not the Farley movie) and that movie with Debbie Gibson (of Electric Youth) where she battles a octopus and a shark (or something related) and falls in love with an Asian actor. I’m not selling it very well, but if I told you the real, entire plot, you would never rent it.

This is the part where I tell you why I think I’m funny.

I decided to record a movie called Dinocroc vs Supergator. I won’t even go into the plot. Immediately scheduled to record after that Oscar winner is a movie called Sharktopus. Again, I will spear you the details. After these two movies on SciFi is a movie entitled Dinocroc. I read the synopsis to myself and said aloud to the dogs (AKA to myself), “Well THAT sounds stupid…”

Cue the snorts and laughing, and no one to hear me utter, “Haha. I’m funny.”

Cooking With (And Without) Pinterest

Hi, I’m Janelle, and I’m a Pinterestaholic.

For those of you living under a rock, Pinterest is an awesome site where you can “pin” things to boards from your friends or from total strangers. It’s pretty awesome.

I really like to think I’m not totally addicted. But, how many things have you pinned, and then never done? (My friend Elise wrote about this phenom on her blog, and it really got me thinking about it.)

About two weeks ago, we offered our Steeler friends a sweet deal- We brought dinner and dessert, and they hosted a SNF event. By event, I mean they had to put up with us yelling at their TV set. Sidenote- Thanks to Ryan and Thuy for putting up with us. Seriously. I’m way loud and obnoxious, especially while watching my boys play.

Anyway, Ben made some sugar cookies and put icing on them. He really wanted to have yellow and black icing, but I convinced him that black icing may turn one’s entire mouth an awful color, so we settled on grey. They were fun. I looked through Pinterest to see what I had pinned that could be cooked in a crock pot. (It IS crock pot season after all, my favorite season of all-time.) I came up with this gem: crock pot chicken taco chili.

Wowza. This stuff was amazing. Of course, if you know me, I never completely follow recipes and I changed a bit. I did not have cilantro, so I didn’t use that; I only used one can of beans (our hosts don’t do a lot of beans); Used two cans of tomato sauce and one can of paste. I’m telling you, it ones definitely one of the best crock pot meals I’ve had in a long time. Plus, it was super healthy. Thuy liked it so much that she sent us a card in the mail. We are truly blessed with amazing friends. The bonus is that we won’t root against one another on Sundays.

This week, I also decided, on a whim, to make soup from scratch. I’ll just tell you that I made a TON of it, didn’t follow any kind of recipe, and we ate ALL OF IT. When I can accurately recount that recipe, I’ll post it. Right now I’m just drooling thinking about it.

We also bought a very pretty RED Kitchen Aid stand mixer. It’s still sitting in its box on the table in the kitchen, but soon I’m going to bust it out and start trying out Christmas recipes to give to all of the awesome people in our lives. I’m SO excited, but just haven’t had the time to make that happen.

Maybe I should quit blogging and do that now.

Alas, I’m out. I’m really off to save the dogs from their doomed kennels and make myself look like less of a mess before I head out to lunch.

Fun New Things

I promised via Facebook status that we have a lot of fun things happening here. So, here you are.

We’ve been trying to lose weight lately. (You can read my previous post on that.) Unfortunately for me, football season started and we’ve had a happy hour to attend, so I think I drank my weight back. That’s my downside.

I’ve also been working at the Salvation Army for a few months now. In the end, the job wasn’t what it had promised to be in the beginning. In fact, it was kind of the opposite. So, with that, we’ve decided it was my turn to say goodbye to that job. I’ve decided to do a few fun things to fill up my time:

1- I’m focusing on what has been my part-time job for a year now, and I love that job. I work from home researching information and producing database work for a small company. I’ve been getting more and more work from them, so I’ve decided that is going to be a big part of my new focus.

2- I’m finally volunteering for an organization I’ve always wanted to volunteer for, Paraquad. They have been going through a lot of changes there throughout the last year, and now that they are settling in, I finally got the call to help them. I am going to be in the PR/Development department. Part of my duties is to help the development director with their volunteers and the new protocol they’ve put forward there. The employees there are so great and I’m excited to be a part of helping them further their mission.

3- I’m going to stay home more often and help with a lot of different things. We put a budget in place earlier this year to get some debt paid off quickly, and if I’m home more often I can aid in that- making more things from scratch to save money on groceries, collecting coupons, shopping ads for sales- in general, just money-saving stuff.

4- (This is the one I’m most excited about!)

For about two years now, I’ve been knitting. I mean, when I wasn’t working at all, I was knitting like crazy. In the busy times, sometimes I can’t find any time to knit, and that makes me sad. Well, I’ve decided to free up the time to do what I want. So, soon you’ll be seeing a new Etsy shop! I’ve just received my logo in the mail for Grey Owl Designs, and we’re in the beginning stages of setting up shop, creating a blog, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. (Thanks to Ben. I’ve been swamped lately, so he’s been working on the admin side of things.) Look out for the social network accounts, and also for pictures of all of the work I already have completed. Need something awesome made of yarn? Get ahold of me. I’ll be working on custom pieces as well!

I’m so excited to share this fun news! I’ll be sending out all kinds of information soon.

That’s it for now! Back to getting things geared up!

Beginning NOW!

Day One.

A few weeks ago, Ben and I went to the dentist. We love our dentist. Ben went first, and when it was my turn a bit later, the dentist asked me, “Does Ben snore?” Um, YES. I must say that since he quit smoking, the snoring has improved in the aspect that I don’t lie awake listening to it anymore. Believe me, it’s a relief. As soon as he asked me, and I thought about why, I knew- sleep apnea. I figured he was looking around in the back of his mouth and saw a smaller pathway. I’d thought it may have been the cause of our snoring dilemma since we had gotten married, but I didn’t harp on it very much, especially after it improved. Our dentist suggested we have a consultation at a sleep center. Honestly, I thought it was a relief to have someone thinking the same way I was.

Yesterday, we went to the consultation. Ben probably doesn’t have severe sleep apnea. In fact, I think the nurse practitioner we met with would be stunned if he did. There is a chance that he has mild sleep apnea. She took his blood pressure, pulse, and O2 saturation, all of which were normal. She also took note of his height and weight to check his BMI. After hearing what the practitioner had to say, we decided that the smart idea would be to try to lose weight for three months, then return for another consultation.

This is all part of a plan we’ve been trying to put into motion for months now. We knew we both needed to exercise more, eat better, and lose some weight. Last weekend we bought an elliptical, so that was step one. I’ve done one workout on that thing so far, and it’s exhausting. Step two is to eat better, so we signed up for the online service My Fitness Pal. It’s free, and it’s very helpful. This is our first day using it. Ben has approximately 600 more calories to take in daily than I do, so that part will be challenging. I think I’m going to end up a few calories over my goal for today, but I’m trying not to beat myself up about it.

We will do our best to keep you posted on our fitness goals. Losing weight is never easy!

Are any of you out there trying to lose? If so, how are you doing it? And, we need recipes!

The Upside

There are few upsides when your husband is working out of town, even if it’s for a day or two.

My upsides are that I get an entire bed to myself. Of course, Ben informed me that he had TWO beds all to himself, and he had already made sure to lounge on both. Ben-1, J-0.

Another upside is that I get to watch whatever I want on TV, and not feel guilty. In fact, pretty much all I did last night was watch all of the reality TV that Ben won’t watch. I got in a new episode of Hoarders, which was disgusting. I also watched Intervention, and that one was less than emotional. Most importantly, I watched the season finale of Celebrity Rehab. I love this show. I get so freaking emotional over drug-addicted celebrities it’s pathetic. I cried when Layne Staley’s parents forgave Mike Starr for his wrongdoings, and I cried when they told Steven Adler that Mike Starr died. And, side note, who knew Steven Adler would be charming? Certainly he doesn’t have much competition, but I am surprised at how much I like him.

One of the many downsides of Ben being out of town? Taking care of all FOUR animals. I know our house is always busy, but it’s busier when you do it by yourself. Yesterday, I struggled with pee and poop inside the house, Addaway throwing up in the house, Oshie pooping on my arm, and then Osh decided to puke on the new comforter I had just washed and put on the bed. If this doesn’t prepare us for kids, I am really unsure what will.

Needless to say, I will be happy to have my husband back tonight. Then, we have five days together on “vacation”, which won’t really be a vacation at all. I have to do work from home, and we are doing some work on the house. Stay tuned, though! When we are finished with our updates, I will update you!