Frugal Friday

 We are once again heading skiing for the long weekend, along with a few bonus teens! Here are a few frugal wins along the way. 

Saving on things we buy

• Picked up the Friday Freebie (an energy drink, which no one here drinks, but will inevitably get used up during one of our many hosting activities), and also used a $5 off coupon at the store. Bought some cheese on sale, uploaded my receipt to Fetch (earning $2) & bought 2 Home Depot gift cards, earning $20 in future store rewards. 
• I noticed that I hadn't earned credit on our second room during our ski trip reservations, so I reached out to Hyatt to ask them to look at it. I was correct, and they retroactively added credit. Because I was close to a milestone of nights stayed, the difference was worth 10,000 points, or approximately $230 of value. We will definitely use those points to book future travel. 

Earning money

• Gave away the last of my expiring United plus points to one of M's coworkers, and the upgrade cleared. He was thrilled, as it was a long flight, & thanked us with a $150 gift card.
• Redeemed $25 of survey cashout from the site I use (Prolific). These are actually rarely surveys, and typically instead research studies from universities. 

Avoiding spending

• Nick asked for takeout after a late soccer game. I knew I had a Panera gift card, but not enough for both of us. I ordered him a pickup meal, and made myself soup & fruit. While not "perfect", it was better than both of us eating out. Mine was a little more nutritionally motivated, as I'm obsessed with Panera's frosted sugar cookies & they are extremely high in calories. ;-) I hadn't just played 2.5 hours of soccer, so I had less wiggle room with my calories. 
• Made a triple batch of chocolate chip cookies & a large loaf of banana bread for our upcoming ski trip, to save a bit of money on snacks. 

Eating what we have

• Made a delicious zuppa toscano soup to use up some really old potatoes, as well as some sausage from the freezer. Had everything on hand for the recipe, minus the spinach (subbed for kale). This made a ton, which will keep me in lunch leftovers for quite a while. I also avoided by the cream & subbed in whole milk yogurt (leftover from our shawarma dinner), plus some milk & butter. It was absolutely fantastic, even with the subs. I also skipped the bacon, as I didn't have that. 
• Made another batch of hummus, as Nick loved the first batch so much, and requested that + veggies with every meal. Who am I to say no to a kid who wants veggies & hummus? I often have it on salads. And, our lemon tree is about to be ripe, which means one of the ingredients we buy for this recipe will be "free" to us for a while. Yay!
• Made the Frugal Girl French bread recipe for Nick, as he's hard to keep fed these days. I had an extra envelope of yeast left over from my holiday bread, so I wanted to use it before it expired.
• Ate lots of fresh fruits & veggies we had on hand, and topped my salads with feta leftover from our chicken shawarma dinner
• Nick hosted another impromptu poker night with 10+ teens on Saturday, so I looked around the house to see what we had available. I baked up a large bag of mozzarella sticks (this is the reason we have random snack food on hand) & set out the last of our Trader Joes cookies, purchased for the ski trip. We also had lots of drinks, and I continued to use the large pack of paper products I purchased for teen parties. 
• Used up some celery that was very close to needing to be tossed & made crockpot chicken & dumplings. This is one of my favorite soup recipes to keep in the freezer for easy lunches on chilly days. 
• The chocolate chip cookies & banana bread for the ski trip used up: the last of a bag of chocolate chips my mom bought while she was here, and some bananas from the freezer. Bonus, M makes Nick a bowl of fruit each day for "dessert". Nick ended up being out late at the climbing gym, and won't eat brown bananas. I pulled out the bananas from his fruit bowl & used those in the bread as well. I ate the rest of the fruit as my lunch, as moms often do. ;-) 

For others

• One of my parents friends are struggling financially, after a long history of living well beyond their means. I've provided a few suggestions upon request about options to clean things up as best they can, while increasing their income a bit. 
• Helped a friend with a job search. 
• Continued my volunteer work

What about you? Any wins to share? 

Fitness Monday

I've been getting back into the groove of health & fitness after a bunch of holiday indulgences. Generally, that's going well, although not perfect! 

Weight: I've dropped two pounds since the beginning of the year, although it's fair to say the original weight was probably overly "inflated", due to eating out & the like while skiing. Still, it gives me a good starting point for my plans. 

Steps per day: It's my goal to hit 12k steps per day in 2025. I'm off to a good start with a daily average of 12,721. I have a few outlier days in either direction (low steps & high steps), but generally this is going well. Ski days & the like will be a problem, as my watch doesn't recognize skiing as "steps". ;-) 

Calories per day: I'd like to be in the 1400 range consistently, and see how my weight adapts from there. My average calories per day is 1,594, so higher than I'd like. I had a few high days at the beginning of the year, and one day on Friday. Otherwise, this is generally going okay. I am tracking regularly, which makes it very helpful to see trends, and also reminds me of the goals. 

Workouts for the week:

• 5 days of Orange Theory (a 60 minute combo cardio + strength class)
• 2 hikes (one 6ish miles, one 7)

Overall nutrition: I'm eating well in general. I can still cut out some "snacky" calories, and I can also improve my "No S" diet, as I've had sweets a couple of times.

I'm giving myself a "B" for the past week. This week will be more challenging to stay on track, as we are skiing & staying in a hotel. The skiing itself is great exercise, but driving to Lake Tahoe & back means lots of time sitting. We will also be eating out for the trip, and food on mountain is rarely very healthy. I'll have to experiment with some different options this weekend.  

What about you? How are you doing with your health & fitness this week?

Menu Plan Sunday

 Making a menu plan helps me keep our grocery budget (a bit more) in check, and ensure we reduce/eliminate food waste. Here's what's on the menu at our house. 

• Friday - zuppa toscana soup (delicious!) 
• Saturday - crockpot chicken & dumplings
• Sunday - garlic shrimp & edamame
• Monday - Korean beef & rice
• Tuesday -  leftover chicken & dumplings (the rest to the freezer)
• Wednesday - creamy garlic chicken
• Thursday - wrap up any leftovers
• Friday - slow cooker chicken satay & rice

What about you? What's on your menu for the week?

Grocery store spending

 I'm trying to keep a close eye on our grocery spending, while ensuring we eat well. For this Costco trip, I managed to stick entirely to our list, with one exception. The spring rolls were on sale for $6.99 for a large box. We keep them on hand for dinners where we need something else to round out the meal (e.g. we have a small amount of grilled chicken, but no other sides). 

Here's what we bought/spent:

• Salmon - $15.48
• English Cucumbers - $6.99
• Mini cucumbers - $6.99 (Nick's top request)
• Carrots - $5.99
• Broccoli - $5.99
• Cauliflower - $6.99 - expensive! I need to look for a cheaper source. It's M's top request.
• Spinach - $4.49
• Tomatoes - $7.49
• Pineapple - $3.99
• Bananas - $2.49
• Romaine lettuce - $4.99
• Apples - $8.99
• Pears - $9.99 
• Veggie spring rolls - $6.99
• Onions - $5.49

Total = $103.34

We weren't out of any dairy or meat this week, and (mostly) stayed on track with the prepared food. So, overall this was a good trip, despite the overall cost of items Those pears are killing me!

Frugal Friday

 We're getting into the swing of January, and trying to keep things in check as we make our second property tax payment. We will pull from savings (as planned) for most of it, but would also like to cash flow what we can. 

Saving on things we buy

• Drove Sam to Sacramento (2ish hours each way) to meet up with his roommate for a ride back to college. This saves: his return flight back (now a Southwest credit), his shuttle from the PDX airport (now a future credit), and sending his skis via the mail, as the shuttle won't accept skis. Getting up at 4:30 wasn't that fun, but we made it work. His roommate's mom drove the boys & their gear back. Saved approximately $225. 

Earning money

• I sold a pair of M's shoes that he didn't like for $35 on eBay & a pair of my shoes on eBay for $20.
• Cashed in some change I had lingering around & redeemed it for a Starbucks gift card, which I immediately applied to my account for a future coffee. I don't go to Starbucks often, but tend to go there in two scenarios: meeting a friend after a workout, or when traveling. It's nice to have the money on my account when I need it. 
• I sold a jacket on eBay for $25. 
• Cashed in money for the survey site I use & made $15. 

Avoiding spending

• I own two pair of ski base layers, and when we were skiing over the holidays, I could only find one. We had no laundry, so wearing them for three days required some creative sink washing/blow drying & I wish to avoid that in the future. When I got home, I ordered myself a two pack off of Costco for $15. And, while the price is absolutely right, when washing all of Nick's ski gear, I discovered that a pair of my base layer pants were in his bag. So, no additional purchase needed, and back these went to Costco. 
• Met a friend at my old office for a free lunch (she works there). 

Eating what we have

• Defrosted some naan bread to go with chicken shawarma one night. It was part of the December challenge to use it up, but better late than never!
• Made homemade hummus to use up some garbanzo beans. It's always delicious & I wonder why I don't make it more often. My preferred recipe here. 
• Had soup from the freezer for a lunch one day.

For others

• Helped a friend out with a networking project. 

A week of spending

 I used to do snapshots of spending for a week, which can be fun to look back on. Here's what we spent the first week of January:

• Groceries - $362. We were out of pretty much everything, so we stocked up the fridge. This included chicken, ground beef, fresh veggies, milk, etc.
• Vitamins - $15.09
• Toilet paper + a year's supply of water filters (we categorize these items under "house") - $66.51
• An eye compress on Amazon - $20.95. The secondary autoimmune disease I have causes lots of eye dryness. Throw in a head cold, and I'm pretty miserable. The doctor recommended this ahead of drops, so fingers crossed. 
• Prescription - $9.72
• Oil (M changes the oil in our cars) - $35.93
• Car tags - $474.07
• Tickets to the Alhambra in Spain (April trip) - $41.32

Total spent = $1025.59

It was a very expensive week, and the only "fun" item on our list were the tour tickets for our April trip. 

2025 Spend Category Changes

 Sadly, I don't have the full breakout of my 2023 expense category totals (it was on my work laptop, and I lost access when I left), but I do know we spent less in 2024 than in 2023. I'll be curious to see how things play out in 2025. While we largely have two major expenses already planned (college for both boys!), I wanted to take a closer look at our 2024 categories & see if any can use tweaking or revising in 2025. 

Areas where I expect us to spend less in 2025:

• Groceries. I'm expecting our grocery budget to drop a bit in 2025, as Sam will be out of the house for 8ish months of the year, and Nick will be out for the last 3ish months. That's a large chunk of our grocery budget between the teens.
• Gas. Sam doesn't have his car at college, so I'm expecting our gas bill to drop a bit.
• Boys "all" - this is a category that covers a huge variety of expenses, but we did see a drop from 2023 to 2024, as things like club soccer for Sam dropped off of our expenses. Nick finished his last season of club soccer in the fall of 2024. He will be playing high school soccer & tennis, but those are much less expensive than club sports. He will have graduation expenses & the like, but I'm still expecting this category to drop in 2025, as more of our spending shifts to college expenses. 
• Income taxes - I earned a lot less in 2024, so our IRS bill (paying in April, 2025) is expected to be less.
• Utilities - we've tried to instill reasonable habits, but the boys are known to take longer showers, leave the lights on & the normal teenage things. 
• Dining out - 2024 was an expensive year for dining out, and I want us to make a more dedicated effort to trim this back. 
• Clothes - similarly, I don't need much with not working, and the boys are largely through their growth spurts. I do expect Nick to need some warmer clothes, depending on where he ends up for college. 

Areas where I expect us to spend more in 2025:

• College. This one is a no brainer, but with two boys in college, we will definitely be spending more. We will use our 529s to cover the 2025 expenses, but will need to start cash flowing Sam's college in 2026. 
• Health. M picked up the cost for all of our health insurance 1/2 way through the year, and the full run rate of this in 2025 will be higher than we paid in 2024. 

Areas that I expect to stay (roughly) the same in 2025:

• Travel. It was a huge chunk of our 2024 budget, and I'm expecting that to stay the same in 2025. We have a trip to Spain in April, and our 20th anniversary trip to Italy in the fall. Between those, we'll have trips to/from my family, college transportation trips for both boys, and likely another skiing trip. Potentially some college tours as well for Nick. We will continue to do what we can to optimize miles, points & perks to keep the expenses as reasonable as possible. 
• Everything else. We have a few additional categories (gifts, charitable donations, etc) that I'll expect to remain the same year over year. 

What about you? Are you looking to change any of your budget categories for 2025, and make any increases or decreases? 

December Goal Recap

 I am always too optimistic about what I can get done in December. At least I'm consistently ambitious? ;-) 

Financial:

• Save $2000 - no, and we depleted our savings by about $9k for our property taxes. It's not that I forgot about the taxes, just the timing as it related to goal setting. 
• Mini freezer clean out:
• 1/2 of the pizza in the freezer - no progress
• Use up a bunch of tater tots from the restaurant sized bag M found on mark down - yes, we used a bunch!
• Use up a package of naan bread - not in December, but since used for chicken shawarma
• Sell fitness watch - nope, but plan to do this in January
• Sell/give away all expiring travel rewards - done, with one remaining for a January flight

Family:

• Finish all holiday shopping/wrapping/baking - yes!
• Have a fantastic holiday season with the family - yes!
• Book travel for spring girls trip & trip to Spain with M - yes!
• 2 dates with M - yes!

Fitness:

• 15 strength workouts - 14/15
• No S diet 15 days - 6/15
• Have eye exam (required for a medicine I take) - yes
• Maintain weight during the holiday season - definite no, although I haven't weighed in yet. Give me strength!

Personal:

• Complete daily tasks 20 times - more like 10 in December
• Get together with friends - yes, hiking, workout classes & coffee
• Declutter 25 items - yes
• Network 2x - yes
• Continue exploring jobs - yes, although I stopped mid-December
• Spend time on volunteer role - yes
• Come up with more structure in my daily routine - no

Hopefully you had a more productive December than I did! How did you do with your goals? Any big wins,  or tasks you are carrying over to January?

January Goals

 This is normally a day for fitness recaps, but the quick version of that is: we were skiing early last week, and then I got sick & basically didn't do much. Oh, and plenty of treats were consumed. Consider yourself up to speed! ;-) 

On to goals for January.

Financial:

• Continue to pay for Sam's college expenses
• Work on finding a new job
• Earn $300 in side hustle
• Monthly freezer/pantry challenge:
• Use up 1/2 of the freezer pizza
• Use 1 can of coconut milk
• Figure out what to do with all of the red curry paste
• Make second property tax payment (majority from savings, cash flow $1500 of it).

Family:

• Decide if we need to do any college tours for Nick
• Optimize points, perks & miles for travel. Track value over the year.
• Plan Spain trip details & start looking at Italy options.
• Begin remodel discussions
• One date night with M

Fitness:

• Lose 2 lbs
• Strength train 15 days
• No S diet 15 days
• Meditate 10 times
• Try a new workout

Personal:

• Language lessons 10 times
• Declutter 50 items from the house
• Look at college classes (for me)
• Get together iwth friends x2
• Play pickleball x1
• For my "Try something new & uncomfortable" & "Say yes to more adventures" goals, start looking at opportunities for these

What about you? What are you hoping to accomplish in January?

Menu Plan Sunday

 Trying to get back in action, after a week+ without a formal menu plan. Having a menu really helps me feel more organized, and of course keeps the budget in check & avoids the "oh no, what are we eating" debacle that sometimes occurs without a plan at 4:30 pm. 

• Friday - grilled chicken & salad
• Saturday - chicken shawarma
• Sunday - Korean beef & rice
• Monday - crockpot chicken & dumplings
• Tuesday - leftover shawarma
• Wednesday - leftover beef & rice
• Thursday - leftover chicken & dumplings
• Friday - TBD, as Nick has a soccer game

What about you? What's on your post-holiday menu this week? Any new recipes you'd recommend?

2024 Spend Breakout

 I always find it useful to compare our spend year on year, as well as by category. Unfortunately, I don't have our full 2023 spend data (the data was on my work laptop & I no longer have access to it), but I do know we spent significantly less than we did in 2023, which is always a positive. 

A few notes about the below, which is a categorization of our total net spend. It doesn't include: savings, standard tax withholding, charitable giving or retirement, as all of that is automatically deducted. Our house is paid off. 

• 1.97% - gas
• 2.36% - dining out
• 3.14% - addition to Nick's 529
• 3.30% - insurance (house & cars)
• 3.48% - utilities
• 4.05% - groceries
• 4.32% - house
• 5.64% - cars 
• 5.87% - everything not categorized in another way on this list
• 7.94% - boys (minus college spending)
• 13.69% - 2 quarters of college
• 15.93% - travel
• 27.31% - taxes (property taxes plus additional money to the IRS, as we didn't have enough withheld)
  

Based on this and our expected household changes in 2025, we will be updating our budget. It's always very useful to see how well we did against our planned budget. Do you track your finances? Any big learnings this year? 

Frugal Friday

 This is a bit of an abbreviated edition, as we were largely traveling. As I'm sure you can guess, taking four teens skiing (plus two adults) is nowhere near frugal! But, we had an amazing time, & no regrets at all (other than the rain for the first half of the trip). Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to control the weather yet. ;-) 

Saving on things we buy

• I was able to apply a "Guest of Honor" award to the second hotel room (1st half of our stay), which ensured all of us could eat breakfast for free during our stay. Breakfast was a large buffet & very nice, and pricey. It would have been ~$250/day otherwise! Insane pricing, but I won't complain about free. 
• Bought lunch at Costco (drive up) & In & Out (drive home), both of which were so much cheaper than on mountain food. 

Earning money

• I was able to cash out some survey response money (Prolific), and made $25
• I sold Sam's old bookshelf on FB, for $45.
• I gifted M's coworker a United upgrade (a business upgrade from Tokyo to Newark, which is extremely pricey, if you are paying out of pocket) & he gave us a $150 gift card as a thank you. 

Avoiding spending

• M & I ate a free dinner on NYE, courtesy of the hotel we were staying at. It was nothing to write home about, but neither of us were particularly hungry, as we were both coming down with a head cold. 

Eating what we have

• Brought tons of snacks for the teen skiers, and they ate plenty in the room, on the drive, on the  slopes, etc.
• Made everyone a big breakfast this morning, before they took off for: bowling, soccer practice & the rock climbing gym. 
• Managed to eat almost everything, despite being on two trips. Just a tiny bit of food waste (an apple, a pear & a handful of tater tots.) 
• This should be under the category of "drinking" what we have, but M & I shared wine at one of our ski dinners, and didn't finish the bottle. We brought it back to our room, and kept it in the fridge. We had a toast before our NYE dinner, with the remainder of the wine. 

For others

• Gave away a fancy NYE goodie bag from the party we attended. 
• I was drying ski clothes at the hotel laundry & gave away both change & laundry pods for other guests who needed them. 
• Dropped off Persian goodies (from my MIL) as a New Years gift for my neighbor, who cooks a lot of Persian food. 

What about you? Any wins to share?

2025 Goals

2024 was quite a ride! Who knows what 2025 will bring, but likely our empty nester era, hopefully a new job for me, and potentially a large remodel on our house. I'm still thinking about what goals I want to set for the year ahead, but here's where I'm at so far:

Financial:

• Continue to pay for both boys college expenses
• Get a new job
• Earn $3000 in side hustle
• Stay on top of food waste by doing monthly pantry or freezer challenges
• Spend less in the following categories: groceries, dining out, gas, boys "all", taxes, clothing, utilities. 
• Once I get a new job, figure out a revised savings target. This one is a bit on hold for specifics until I have that information. 

Family:

• Both boys successfully in college
• Optimize points, perks & miles for travel. Track value over the year.
• Plan & have two fantastic & (reasonably) on budget trips to Europe. Spain in March, Italy in October. 
• Figure out/plan for remodel
• Enjoy Nick's senior year

Fitness:

• Lose 10 lbs
• Strength train 100 days
• No S diet 150 days
• Average 12,000 steps/day
• Meditate 100 times
• Try a new workout

Personal:

• Language lessons 100 times
• Declutter 500 items from the house
• Take a college class
• Get together with friends
• Get better at pickleball
• Try something new & uncomfortable
• Say yes to more adventures

Have you started thinking about your 2025 goals? What are your priorities that you want to focus on?