After Thanksgiving Thoughts

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was really good. It was the first time we hosted Thanksgiving at our house, so it was really special. My lasagna Thanksgiving was a big hit! My mom really liked it, which is quite the compliment. It was stressful getting everything ready. We spent the whole day cleaning, cooking and baking. But it was worth it. It was so nice to be surrounded by my family, it made me remember how blessed I am.
I had today off, which was good. I got out all the Christmas decorations first thing this morning. I did have to do some Black Friday shopping. There were some pretty good deals at Target and I needed a few more items of Christmas cheer!
Probably will not do a grocery shopping update this Sunday. I don't really think we're going to need buy anything besides milk and bread, we have so much stuff leftover from Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we don't have nearly enough leftover cherry pie- my favorite. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Sorry it's a little belated.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

I'm usually not a big Thanksgiving person, but this year I am so excited! I think probably because for the first time ever it's at our house. Last year we had an apartment but we were pretty far from family and it was really tiny. So this year I'm making a big feast for everyone. My family actually really isn't into traditional Thanksgiving food, so I'm doing something a little different. We're having a big Italian meal. I'm making anti-pasta, garlic bread and lasagna and a few other treats. For the holidays we always make my grandfather's anti-pasta. My mom makes it a little different than he did and this year I'm going to put my own little spin on it. I'm also going to make a cherry pie, so there will be something sort of traditional. I went shopping this weekend for everything and it was easy because no one was getting the things I was getting!! Our grocery shopping bill was pretty high this week though. We came in at $101. Which I guess is still pretty good considering we had to buy everything for Thursday. The last couple weeks have all been under $50 so we're in pretty good shape even with the holiday. I did splurge on some things to spruce up the table and make everything look pretty. I'm also so excited about the day after Thanksgiving. I'm going to put on the Christmas music and decorate the whole house. Okay I'm gonna go make dinner for my hubby to be!

Be A Little Cheapskate 3

I have been so tired this week. I caught some kind of nasty bug. I could barely drag myself out of bed for work today. Okay but now, how to be a little cheapskate. I guess I will continue with the grocery theme, although now that I think of it I don't know how much more I have as far as the how to save money on food topic. Well one thing that has really helped us save money on groceries is to keep less food in the house. I used to like the fridge and the cabinets to be stocked. It's kind of a nice feeling to know that you have everything you need. But we ended up wasting a lot, so much would go stale or bad before we could eat it. Now we buy a lot less food and I find that I don't really miss having the cupboards so full. I'm definitely a snackaholic. The only big meal I eat is dinner, so I snack a lot. I used to like to have all kinds of snack food around, but now I limit the snacks I buy and things get used up before they go bad! Genius! Anyway that's my tip for this week.

Blah!

Okay, I'm going to make this short as I am sick and had a bad day at work. We did pretty good with groceries this week. Only $35 for the whole week. But we are using up a lot of stuff. I found some rice mixes in the cupboard so we're going to eat those a couple nights this week. Am trying to watch tighten the weekly food budget as Thanksgiving is next week. That's all for now, I'm coming down with some kind of cold or something.

Be A Cheapskate Thursdays! 2

Okay I am a little tired today so this one will not be as long as my other post about saving money. I will kind of extend on the idea of saving money on groceries from last week. Chris and I have managed to really cut our food budget down. We have done a few things. First, we (meaning mostly me) plan a menu for the week and make a list accordingly. I know many of you probably already do this. Which is good, I think this really helps you save money. I have also changed the way I look at food a little bit. When people are trying to save money on groceries a lot of times the first things they cut out are fresh fruits and vegetables. Produce can be very expensive, but also very nutritionally valuable. Chris and I don't really buy junk food anymore. Only once in awhile. Because for our money, it has very little value. It will not really fill you up and lacks vitamins, minerals, etc. Another thing I have done is really cut back on prepared food as much as possible. For example, while we do not buy cookies very often, on Sundays I usually make cookies or a cake or something for the week for a little dessert after dinner. I also bake my own bread a lot and make my own pasta sauce and freeze it. If you take a little more time to make things, you can actually save a lot of money. Also, beans and rice. We only have meat with dinner maybe twice a week but we use beans and rice a lot. They are filling, nutritious and cheap. We invested in a rice cooker a couple of months ago and it has served us well. You can also stretch meat a lot farther if you eat it with rice. Okay a lot of these are kind of obvious tips. Sorry about that. But I am beat today, so I don't want to do much thinking so that's what you get. Maybe I'll just go watch TV.

Marriage Advice

When you're engaged suddenly everyone you know is a marriage expert. And sometimes even random people at the grocery store that you don't really know. I appreciate all the advice everyone has given me since we've gotten engaged. Although I have noticed that the people with the most to say are those that are divorced or unhappily married. And 90% of the advice I receive is stuff not to do. I've been told "Don't get involved in the finances!"; "Don't let him control the money."; "Don't nag him, let it go and just do it yourself"; "Don't roll over or you'll be a doormat your whole life". I have received some strange bits advice. There are some people out there living in some sort of weird Leave It To Beaver land. The most unsettling piece of advice I received was that I should make money decisions based on the financial outcome for me should we get divorced down the line. Anyway, I've gotten off topic here. My point is most of the advice I've received is stuff I should NOT do. So if anybody has advice about what I should do, I would love to hear it!

Kind of freaking out...

Okay so I'm kind of freaking out. I just realized my wedding is in like 6 months!! I have so much stuff I still need to do!! How does time go by so fast...