It has been perfect garden weather the past week!  Last Wednesday I checked the 10 day forecast and made sure we were not going to drop near freezing for awhile and then decided to go ahead and plant.  I technically they say to wait until after Memorial Day, but I can never wait!  And it has been awesome because the weather has been sunny and 70′s and low 80′s all week.  Tonight we had our first rain and it was a nice soaking rain for about 15 minutes and then moved on out.  Exactly what tender plants and fresh seedlings need.  Here is what I planted:

• cabbage
• kale
• 2 rows beets
• 3 short rows lettuce
• 3 sweet pepper plants (hoping for a couple of more)
• 3 cucumbers (hoping for a couple of more)
• 2 long rows peas
• 16 tomato plants
•  6 long rows yellow wax beans

Still to plant:

• purple potatoes
• butternut squash
• pumpkins

Have you planted your garden yet?

For some reason with 4 kids around all the time Kevin & I never really get a chance to talk to each other.  Either we are interrupted by someone, or someone is listening in and all too interested in what we have to say.  The week flies by and I feel like we haven’t really talked.  It is too easy to let this happen!

The older the kids get the later they go to bed.  In fact sports practices mean we are frequently both heading out in opposite directions around 9 pm to pick people up.  By the time we get home and get everyone in bed we are collapsing there ourselves.

Enter our weekly coffee dates.  Our very first date was at Starbucks so I guess you could say we have a soft spot for that place.  At some point every weekend we leave the kids at home and head out for coffee.  I get a frappuccino of some sort and Kevin gets a regular coffee.  It costs us around $5 each week.  We can stay as long or as short as we want.  We talk about whatever we want – many times the kids – we plan for the week, and we reconnect. Totally worth the overpriced drinks!

Sometimes I feel like no matter what I do I can NOT get through to my kids.  Nothing makes an impact, nothing changes, regardless of what they say or I do there is no improvement.  And I feel like I have failed at parenting when that happens.

I am tired of being the mean mom who lectures all the time, who hounds the kids to do homework, who repeats the same things over and over because no one listens.  But yet I don’t want to give up.  If I throw my hands in the air and ignore the bad grades and the avoidance of studying and the missed assignments then how will they succeed in school and in life?  I won’t and can’t do it for them, but if I quit trying to steer them in the right direction then I imagine things will really go downhill.

The kid that promised all  A’s this semester after seeing how poor the report card was has started it off with a 40% on a quiz.  Same old, same old.  Nothing has changed.  How can  I movtivate them to do the right thing?  To try their hardest?  To do their best and not just do good enough for the moment?  Some days I feel like I am beating my head against a wall and no one cares about the issues but me.

So the first 3 months of the year flew by.  I thought I would update on how things are going.

• We paid cash for the third set of braces in January.
• I had saved over $400 towards a new furnace – but then we had an over $400 repair bill.  So now we are back to nothing.
• The laptop is broken and needs to be replaced.  The crunch is on to come up with the money, but do we go with a PC or a Mac?
• We are starting a replacement car fund.  We haven’t decided yet how we will handle it when Michael gets his license in a little over a year, but a third car is in our future.  Time to buckle down and start saving.
• College is 3 years away.  Do you think it is too early to start saving for that too?  ugh!!!  Must come up with a plan!
• In light of the above – I really need to make more money.  I am looking for a job in the schools but I don’t think anything will really open up until the fall.

How are you doing on your financial goals?

As of Friday the Emma’s level 7 gymnastics season is over.  She had a great state meet and met all of her goals.  She competed a new skill for the first time, she stayed on the beam and she had fun.  It was a great day!  Now we can count the ways in which we can save money for the next 6 months until the next season starts …

• no meet entry fees ($5-$20 a person)
• no traveling = minimum 1 tank of gas saved for each meet ($40-$60)
• no hotels ($50-$130 each night)
• no eating on the road ($15-$20)
• no Starbucks stops to get me home at night ($4)

I love that the girls are in gymnastics and I love watching Emma compete.  But I feel like I am nickle & dimed to death during meet season.  Emma competes 8-10 meets a year and Claire should start competing next year as well.  That will be another 8-10 meets.   I need to start saving now I think.

While it didn’t feel much like Easter yesterday I did go ahead and cook up the ham dinner I had planned.  Kevin & I were feeling rather sick and Claire was still recovering a bit, but we ate some of it.  And I have a ton of leftovers – which I wanted.  Here is what we are eating this week (in no particular order):

• potato/ham au gratin, salad
• chicken of some kind, salad
• ham & cheese quesadillas, peas, applesauce
• pizza, veggies & hummus
• barbecue beef puffs, green beans, salad
• leftover ham dinner with all the sides
• spaghetti, salad

This week I am hoping to make homemade granola, peanut butter oat bites, homemade pretzels, and banana bread.  Yum!

Time has gotten away from me lately. Life has been too busy.  One more gymnastics meet and we are done for the season, so that will help.  We have been traveling a lot more than in years past – and farther as well – s0 my weekends have been consumed.  I am hoping that things will slow down and that I can find more time for blogging but honestly I think I have lost my passion for it.  Since I blog for a few hours a day as my job, Getting Ahead has slowly been put on the back burner I guess.

We are still trying to “get ahead” though – aren’t we all?  College and all the expenses that entail is looming larger and larger as Michael finishes his freshman year.  Yes, I know it is 3 years away – but I am a planner and when it comes to something so huge how can you not plan and think about it long in advance?  The kids are growing up too quickly and I have realized this year that in 10 years all the kids will be out of the house.  That is a scary thought.

We headed on our vacation to Kentucky on Thursday but it was cut short by the stomach flu.  We had a good time for the first half, but the second half were pretty bad.  Maybe someday we will laugh about having 2 kids throwing up simultaneously in the back seat on the way home, but right now it is still too fresh.  All I can say is thank goodness for ziploc bags.  It was a long 6 hours to say the least.

I am planning my garden, trying to cook more from scratch, reduce my grocery budget and eat more locally all at the same time.  I don’t think it is possible, but I am trying.  We have decided not to participate in our beloved CSA this summer as I just can’t come up with the $550 needed to pay for it.  I would rather save the money for the winter CSA when I can’t produce my own local foods myself.  I have a big garden in the summer and there is a farmer’s market in town, so the CSA was kind of just a bonus.  We will get more out of it in the winter I think.

That is it for now.  I am planning a quarterly budget review for this week and really need to focus more on meal planning.  I hope to get back into blogging, but honestly it will likely be sporadic.  Thanks for reading!

Welcome to week 110 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle.

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic. If you are posting a recipe, please mention HOW IT IS FRUGAL!
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

There are a lot of skills that I think kids need to learn and frequently not a lot of opportunities for them to do so.  Planning, mapping, and budgeting are 3 things that have been on my mind recently.  So when I realized that Kevin had the same spring break as the kids for the first time ever I knew we needed to go somewhere.  But we have a tight budget, a short amount of time and are dealing with not the greatest weather in these parts in March.  And I will admit it, I couldn’t decide where we should go.  So I did what anyone in their right mind would do and told the kids they had to plan the vacation, present their ideas and then we would all vote.

The parameters were – 2 nights, within 6 hours, under $500 for hotel and all activities.  Michael decided instantly on Kalahari.  Emma wanted Kentucky and Claire decided to join her.  Luke wanted West Virginia.  Michael did some research and quickly realized that Kalahari was out of our budget.  Luke thought up a nice plan for West Virginia and we helped him do a bit of research on the computer.  Emma and Claire put together a winning presentation that quickly won everyone over.

So we are going to Kentucky for vacation.  One night in Louisville and one night in Lexington.  We will visit the Louisville Slugger Bat Museum, the worlds longest go-kart track, the University of Louisville and Abe Lincoln’s birth place.  Then we will head to Lexington and visit the University of Kentucky and go to a horse park that has a day’s worth of activities and we can go on a 30 minute horse back riding adventure for only $25 per person.

All for under $500 for 6 people.  The kids are fired up about it, we have a wide variety of activities and I didn’t have to anything but book the hotel room.   I can’t wait.  And I think hope they learned something.

Welcome to week 109 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle.

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic. If you are posting a recipe, please mention HOW IT IS FRUGAL!
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

Welcome to week 108 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle.

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic. If you are posting a recipe, please mention HOW IT IS FRUGAL!
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

Tomorrow Luke has to have a tooth pulled.  I figured we would for sure have to put him under to do it.  Then I discovered it would cost us $500 and insurance will not pay any of it.  I decided it was at least worth a shot to try it with just laughing gas first.  I also decided to bribe him to try to do it with just laughing gas.

You may think we are crazy, but I figure it is worth trying.  You see it will only cost us $100 to do the laughing gas.   So I told Luke that I will take him out for ice cream – all he can eat! – AND let him pick out a toy at Target (under $20) if he can do it with only laughing gas.  I figure we will come out about $370 ahead if he can do it.  I’ll let you know tomorrow!

**Edited to add that it totally worked. $10 for ice cream, $20 for a toy and $370 more in our pockets. yay!

Whenever I start to feel like there is nothing to eat in the house or that no meal sounds good I figure it is time to come up with a menu plan for the week.  This week is one of those weeks.  Here is what is on the list:

baked potatoes, focaccia bread, veggies & hummus

garlic lime chicken over rice, salad

meatloaf, roasted potatoes, green beans, red peppers

chicken noodle soup, beer bread, red peppers & hummus

veggie quesadillas, salad

pizza, veggies

Welcome to week 107 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle.

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic. If you are posting a recipe, please mention HOW IT IS FRUGAL!
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

I finished our Federal Tax Return today. We brought in $4,000 less in 2012 than the previous year. And when I think about how much money we spent in braces in 2012 ($8,000) I am realizing why money was extremely tight. We were able to really look at all the income streams we have and analyze what we need to do differently. Or what we could do differently to hopefully make 2013 go a little better.

All I know is that as the kids get older the expenses just increase – so having our income decrease will not work out well in the long run. Ugh!  Time for some changes!

After being too busy to pay much attention to the budget lately I decided it was time to get back on track. I have reviewed everything and come up with a plan. We can make this work. BUT I have to do a better job of implementing the plan. Am I the only one that comes up with great plans and then goes about my daily life ignoring the plan? Yeah, that is something I really need to work on.

So I am staying home more, trying to do a better job of combining errands, returning library books on time, using up the leftovers, turning the lights off, etc. And I find that when I do better at controlling the little things, the big things tend to fall in place. And by staying home more I can cook from scratch more, exercise more, work more, clean more and generally feel less stressed about life.

Who says you need January 1st to start afresh? Not me! I am starting now.

Welcome to week 106 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle.

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic. If you are posting a recipe, please mention HOW IT IS FRUGAL!
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

I spent the weekend in Chicago with my girls and my mother-in-law for a gymnastics meet.  I had thought maybe I would write a post about how to do a weekend in Chicago frugally.  Except I don’t think it is possible.  $96 in parking alone, all meals out, meet entrance fees, gas, tolls, hotel!  Yeah, I’ve got nothing.

We got home at 1:30 am and this morning it was apparent that the boys ate just about all the food around – at least it seemed like it.  A $300+ Costco trip later and we have a lot of options.  I just needed my life to be a little easier right now, and having a lot of options makes my life easier.  So I am not feeling very frugal lately.  Please tell me I am not the only one!

Welcome to week 105 of Frugal Tuesday Tip! The Frugal Tuesday Tip is a linky blog hop, dedicated to encouraging the frugal lifestyle.

I would love it if you shared your frugal tip with us! I can’t wait to read them all. It is hosted by:

Sara at Learning The Frugal Life

Julie at JulieCache.com

and me!

Anyone with a frugal tip can share. Just post a frugal tip on your own blog, then come here to add your post (the permalink) with the linky tool. Your post will appear on all of our blogs. Please adhere to the following rules or your post may be deleted:

• Please use your permalink, which is the URL to your post not your home page. If you don’t know what a permalink is you’ll find instructions here.
• Please keep your post on topic. If you are posting a recipe, please mention HOW IT IS FRUGAL!
• Please NO giveaways, there are other links for that and they aren’t frugal tips.
• Please link to a post you have written in the past 7 days.
• Please link back to one of your hostesses.

**If you are going to link up please add a line somewhere in your blog post stating that this is part of the Frugal Tuesday Tip. We would love to spread the word and get more people involved.

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time in the kitchen getting ready for the week and it felt so good!  I cooked a good dinner, chopped veggies for school lunches, made muffins for breakfast, made a double batch of meatballs (= 3 meals), and squeezed a bag of lemons and froze it in cubes.  It was a very successful day!  I find when I can get ahead on the weekends a bit then my weeks go much easier.  Did anyone else have a kitchen day this weekend?