August was Expensive - Time to tighten the belt

Well, it is September.  It is like someone threw a switch on our weather.  We went from really hot and muggy 30 degree sunny days to 15 degree windy wet fall days.  It rained most of the week obliterating the fire risk due to the previous six weeks of hot dry weather.  It is welcome but strange to wear proper shoes and socks again instead of sandals and I admit to putting on my jacket for the first time since May.  Finally this week I was able to bake some things in the oven like lasagna, meatballs and chicken.


August was an expensive month.  We went over on our grocery budget, likely due to an early month visit by my stepson and several family BBQs with Mom.  We ate out quite a bit more than we normally due as were so busy with our business that making supper was the furthest thing from our mind several days.  Our electricity bill was higher than normal, as we were filming parts of our course on hot days and had to crank up the AC due to the lights involved giving off so much heat.  September is the month we get back on track.

August grocery budget was $548.18(normally $550 but overage from prior month deducted).  We actually ended the month at $619.85.  Yes, way over.  I wasn't paying good enough attention and splurged a lot on things like ribs and steaks.  We definitely need to stay on budget in September in order to keep on track for the yearly budget.  I need some new recipes for casseroles and things to cook in the crock pot that won't break the budget.  Yesterday was a good start as I managed to buy 3 packages of chicken legs and a steak all at 50% off.  The steak is not of the best quality so will be used in a beef stew.  We are also instituting a Friday night soup and sandwich night as that is the night we are most susceptible to eating out.  Tonight we are having tuna melts with jalapeno havarti cheese and mushroom soup.  At less than $5 for the entire meal it helps stretch our budget.  The cheese was on sale this week at $1.49 day and the tuna is canned at .89 cents purchased several months ago.   Our farm market is only open for a few more weeks so I need to go stock up on their tasty carrots and potatoes even though I have a couple bags full of small potatoes left from what we grew this summer.  There are still tomatoes on my plants but we did not have the tomato bumper crop we had last year.  Last year I planted 2 varieties and had a bumper crop.  This year I planted 3.  Next year I will be planting 4 as we love daily fresh tomatoes in the summer.  I did manage to sock away a good amount of blackberries in the freezer and Mom and I will be making some jam from them in October when the weather is cooler.

I managed to tuck away more money into the Christmas fund this month and purchased my first Christmas gift - an antique item for my Mom that I found on our Facebook 24 hr bidding site. I will share it this week in my next post.

We hope to take Saturday and Sunday off work this weekend and will work on Monday catching up from one of our busiest weeks of the year and preparing to launch our course.  In our industry as soon as summer is over clients get back to business and contact us for training.  We have done four proposals in the last four business days.  If we get all the business we pitched this week (75% is pretty likely) we won't be able to take any more live clients until the new year.  A nice problem to have but we could have done with a few more clients earlier in the year.

Have a great long weekend everyone!