Category: Goals

Grocery Shopping Trip: May Recap

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

Since I seriously suck at remembering to update this every single time I go to the grocery store, I think that I will do monthly recaps and see how that goes.

One thing to note about keeping track this way is that unless you stringently keep an eye on the grocery budget, it will be a shock to see that number at the end of the month.  Even if you divide it out week by week and get the breakdown (mine was $164.64 each week in May) I was still stunned to see the total for the month.  I have no idea why, because I think I did pretty darn well for the month of May!

Nothing has come in, in the tiny garden we planted this spring.  So all the fruits and vegetables are still coming in from the grocery store.

Check out this photo.  I took this on one of the three! trips I took to Wal-Mart last month.  I was actually taking a photo of my cart when I noticed that my line wasn’t moving at all.  The man at the front of the line was paying for his buggy full of soda – that is all he had – with change.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that’s quite industrious.  But he had dumped out all of his LOOSE change on the conveyor belt and was making that poor cashier separate it and count it all out for him.

Fifteen minutes later, yes I waited in this line for an additional fifteen minutes because at this point I NEEDED to know how much change this lunatic had brought into the store loose, the cashier finally got through it all.  It came to $41.76.  I asked.  The lunatic is not the man in the orange shirt by the way.  Orange shirt man is just waiting to pay for his one item that he had in his hand.  The lunatic is waiting in front of his cart out of camera range.  Maybe orange shirt man wanted to see what the total was on the change too.

Oh, the joys of grocery shopping.

Anyway, here’s what we spent the month of May at the grocery store!

Wal-Mart $240.77

Kroger $148.17

Aldi $62.61

Food Lion  $207.02  

Total spent for the month of May $658.57    

Total spent for the Year so far:  $2,353.12

  • Got back this month:                            Got back for the year:
  • ibotta  $4.00                                           $20.70
  • Checkout 51 $0.25                                 $1.40
  • You can earn $5.00 by using my link for Checkout 51!
  • Receipt Hog    35 Coins                        393 Coins
  • Walmart Savings Catcher $0.00     $0.00
  • Fetch 201 points                                   7,652 points
  • (referral code – QF4TJ)

Are you keeping up with your grocery spending this year?  Are you as appalled as I am at how much groceries are costing you?!?  Inquiring minds need to know!

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here. 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

DIY: New (to me!) Ceiling Fan in the Kitchen

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

As always, I feel like I have to tell you:  I am NOT an electrician.  If you do not feel comfortable working with electricity – DON’T.  If you do, turn off the electricity at the breaker box for the room you are working with and test the area with a voltmeter before you begin.  Safety people!  It will keep you alive.

Remember when I told you that my kitchen was the temperature of the sun?  Every single time I turn on my new oven lately it immediately becomes as hot as a crematorium in my kitchen.  When I was little, one of my grandmother’s cooked on a wood stove.  Have you ever been around a cooking wood stove?  It was absolutely unbearable in the summer – without air conditioning.  Can you even imagine?  I honestly don’t know how she just didn’t die from the heat.  My family would have starved.  Or they would have eaten nothing but watermelon, cantaloupe, and cucumbers until October.

Anyway, that’s what my kitchen reminds me of right now.  Never mind that I have central air that cools my house to whatever digital temperature I want to set it on.  In case you are wondering – I CANNOT STAND TO BE HOT.  Sorry for the yelling.   One of the reasons and they are many, is that my face doesn’t sweat.  Isn’t that weird?  Denton and I worked out in the yard last weekend and I thought that my head was just going to crack open.

Sweating is one of our bodies ways of releasing heat, just in case you came here to get a health lesson, and when your face and head do not sweat, all of that heat has nowhere to go.  Which makes Tracie a very crabby person.  Soooooo, now that I’ve had my squirrel moment…….Let’s get on to the DIY!

I found this little beauty at my local goodwill.  I have to tell you that I balked at the $20.00 price tag.

Yes, yes, I know that you think I’m cheap.  But, as I tell Denton all of my actions have reasons behind them.  Those reasons may or may not be relevant to him or you, but still.  When we bought this house we spent almost $1,000.00 to upgrade all of the lighting in it.  Our house is almost 3,000 square feet and that’s a lot of light fixtures.

In the first year alone, we replaced the living room ceiling fan THREE times.  These were not yard sale fixtures people.  They were all brand new from Lowe’s.  So I decided that I would not buy another new ceiling fan after I found a 52 inch Hunter ceiling fan at a yard sale for $10.00.  It’s still in my living room whirling away, NINE years later.

The first thing I did was remove everything from the box and take out all of the things that I knew I wouldn’t need.  Although it’s pretty, I don’t need this cover because I am using the light fixture that came with the fan.  I also didn’t need the drop bar. I removed the old fixture, which entailed unscrewing one screw in the middle.  Admire my manicure skills, while you are here!  Actually, I never paint my fingernails, my toenails yes, but not my fingernails.  Liva and I were testing colors and my thumbnail was conveniently right there.

Remove the wiring nuts and unhook the wires from one another……       

Hold up the new mounting hardware and realize that you are going to have to remove the old one first so that the new one will stay up on the ceiling……

Tada! And this is the point that I forgot all about you guys!  I’ll try to walk you through the rest of what I did.  On each side of the mounting hardware there are two smiling faces – see them?   Two round holes with a rectangular hole beside it, on each side?  Those are the slots for the ceiling fan motor and light kit to hang from.  You slide them, carefully into those slots and then you can wire everything without having to hold the whole shebang in the air the whole time.  Genius.

Once you’ve wired everything together correctly – white with white wires and black with black wires – slide the cover over it all, use the screws to attach the cover to the motor, make sure everything is secure, attach the fan blades with your handy dandy screws and you are done!

This has been one of my most helpful DIYs to date.  It has already made a difference in how hot or cool it is in my kitchen.  I highly recommend it.  It may not be haute couture in the world of light fixtures, but it is keeping the levels of heat down to something that is bearable!One thing I will have to add is a longer pull chain for the light fixture.  Liv cannot reach this one.   Another detriment to being a flat five feet tall, but it’s easily remedied.

Do you have a ceiling fan in your kitchen?  I’m always curious about these things, do tell!

Note:  This post may contain affiliate links.  Check out what that means to you here.

Grocery Shopping Trip 05.14.18

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

Food Lion won our money this week and it’s all the tomatoes fault.  Last week Denton commented that the tomatoes were absolutely terrible.   In the stores’ defense, I don’t think it has anything to do with the stores, but everything to do with the fact that it’s MAY and no one has local tomatoes yet.  So, they are being shipped here from Timbuktu and therefore taste like sand.

By the way, if your family is addicted to carbonated beverages like my family is ( with the exclusion of Liv, who only drinks water, tea and coffee! ) you may want to hear about Food Lion’s versions of Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper.  You know that I am a Coke girl, but when all of my stores have a 12 pack for $4.99 and UP, I am going to find an alternative.  The consensus at my house was that the Mountain Lion and Dr. Perky (which are atrocious names Food Lion!!!) weren’t bad at all.  And for $2.08 for a 12 pack I was pleased.

In other news, I am very happy to look at my receipt and see that a big portion of my shopping list is fruit and veggies.  Which means, if we ever get our garden planted will cut back on what I actually spend at the store this summer!  Yay for gardens!

I also discovered a new saving app called Fetch.  If you enter my referral code – QF4TJ – you’ll automatically get 2,000 points added to your account.  It’s easy and free!

Anyway, here’s what we spent this week!

Food Lion  $95.59           Total spent for the Year:  $1,694.55

  • Got back this week:                            Got back for the year:
  • ibotta  $1.50                                           $16.70
  • Checkout 51 $0.00                                $1.15
  • Receipt Hog    30 Coins                        358 Coins
  • Walmart Savings Catcher $0.00     $0.00
  • Fetch 523 points                                   6,427 points
  • (referral code – QF4TJ)

What have you been spending your money on at the grocery store?  Are you planting a garden, or even just a tomato plant?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here. 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Killin’ It as a Gardener ~ Sarcasm Intended

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

If you are like me and you can kill just about anything that grows in the ground, then this post is going to interest you.

The year after we bought our house, a bunch of my family came to visit.  While they were here my Mama and my Aunt Mary Jane asked if they could divide some of my flowers and take them home.  Of course, that was fine by me.  They are always giving me starts from theirs and this way, if I kill mine, ahem, I know where I can get more to murder.

Side story:  Denton spent his teenage years in a beautiful little town called Mount Dora, Florida.  If you’ve never been there you should go, it’s awesome.  Every year when we visited his Mama and Daddy, I insisted on going to the Daytona Flea Market.  They have a lovely nursery there.  And every.single.year, I would buy a Meyer Lemon tree.  Because I managed to KILL the one from the previous year.

Each year the same sweet little guy would help me to pick out my new victim to take home and torture to death.  Now, this guy did not remember me each year because I’m sure he would see thousands upon thousands of people each year buying Meyer Lemon trees.  But, I remembered him because he was absolutely filled with knowledge about all the plants and trees they have there. 

The last year that Denton’s mom and dad lived in that area we stopped on our way out of town for me to buy my last Meyer Lemon.  As he was checking out my items, I casually asked him for tips on how to keep this one alive.  Something in my tone alerted him that this wasn’t the first lemon tree I’ve had.  He stopped ringing up my plants and asked how many lemon trees did I have.  When I told him that I had had a bunch of them, but they all keep dying, he looked like he wanted to cry.  I actually thought he would take my new tree away from me for a minute.  He seriously loved his job.

That story was to tell you that if you are a plant murderer like me, you are going to want to invest in some of these Bearded Iris’s.  They are one of the hardiest plants I’ve ever encountered.  And they are beautiful!

Back to my original story – my Mama and Aunt Mary Jane were dividing up my plants, and I decided that some of these Bearded Iris’s would look good at the base of this tree.  When they left that morning it was chaos as always when a bunch of us are together, and I just laid these down next to the tree to plant later.  You can see where this is going, right?

I completely forgot about them.  There they were, just laying on the ground at the base of the tree.  With Denton mowing the grass around them.  They grew.  Completely out in the open, with NO dirt over them.  They grew and they bloomed.  I can’t believe that our vicious squirrels didn’t eat them.  They eat everything.  Maybe they are poisonous to squirrels?

I left them alone when I saw that they were thriving all by themselves, because, hello, they obviously know what they are doing and they most definitely do NOT need my help. 

After all these years, they have multiplied and grown and they bloom every single spring.  I just sit back and enjoy them, because I know that if I try to divide them, I’ll probably kill them all.

They can take over that entire part of the yard if it’s up to me because they deserve it!

You should definitely get yourself some Bearded Iris’s!  Put them into the ground and walk away and they will reward you with beauty every spring.

Grocery Shopping Trip 05.03.18 and 05.04.18

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

I quickly ran into our Food Lion on Thursday because we were COMPLETELY out of bread and the natives were revolting.  This is why I have to stay out of the grocery stores unless I absolutely have to go in.  I went in for milk and bread and came out with frozen pizza, Doritos, Pace Picante, and pickles, all because they were on super sale.  Never mind that it will all be eaten and it WAS a great price, but I still spent over $70.00!

Then Hayden and I went into the city on Friday, where there is an Aldi!  I wish there was an Aldi in my tiny town.  I love everything about it.  It’s small and spare.  It doesn’t take me very long to navigate the aisles to get what I want.  I have never witnessed a family reunion like I do every.single.time I go to Wal-Mart.  Broccoli crowns were $0.95 for the whole bag!!!!!!  Which made up for the organic blueberries Hayden wanted for $3.69, lol.

I also discovered a new saving app called Fetch.  If you enter my referral code – QF4TJ – you’ll automatically get 2,000 points added to your account.  It’s easy and free!

Anyway, here’s what we spent this week!

Food Lion  $71.43 and Aldi $50.63   Total spent for the Year:  $1,598.96

  • Got back this week:                            Got back for the year:
  • ibotta  $1.50                                            $15.20
  • Checkout 51 $0.25                                 $1.15
  • Fetch  referral code – QF4TJ                            3,903 points
  • Receipt Hog    0 Coins                          328 Coins
  • Walmart Savings Catcher $0.00     $0.00

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here. 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Grocery Shopping Trip 04.26.18

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

It’s been another whirlwind week.  We have a LOT going on right now.  Just like everyone else in the universe, so we squeeze everything in wherever it will fit.

I ran to the grocery store very quickly on the 26th because Denton and I had to leave town for two days on Friday and Saturday.  I figured that I needed to stock the freezer and fridge or my children could starve to death in the time we would be gone.  Never mind that they are both over 18.  I needed the assurance that the house was filled with edible things.

Now, three days later, I have absolutely no idea what I spent $96 on at Food Lion.  I know for a fact that I didn’t even buy MILK or bread, so what could it possibly have been?  Your guess is as good as mine.

Since I didn’t remember to take a photo of any of the food I bought, and I can’t remember anything that was purchased, I’ll leave you with this photo of Koshka and his human slave.  That cat.  He truly believes that we are all here to serve him.

Anyway, here’s what we spent this week!

Food Lion  $96.22                Total spent for the Year:  $1,515.55

  • Got back this week:                            Got back for the year:
  • ibotta  $0.25                                            $13.70
  • Checkout 51 $0.00                                 $0.90
  • Receipt Hog    0 Coins                           328 Coins
  • Walmart Savings Catcher$0.00       $0.00

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here. 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Declutter With Me: My Nightstand

Published on by Tracie2 Comments

As we have already established over here in Tracie-land, I am a piler.  If it’s a flat surface, my brain takes that as an opportunity to find something to put on it.  My nightstand is a perfect example.  I have things on it that I actually want on there and that are useful to me.  My lamp, an art piece that Liva did for me, a book that I’m currently reading as my go to sleep book, you get the idea.  But I also have deposited things that have no business being there because all they are doing is calling to other things that have no business being there either.

By the way, if you know where you can buy antique keys (the metal piece that hold the mirror onto the dresser) please let me know.  I bought this little dresser at my Goodwill about three years ago for $7.00.  Can you believe that?  If it was for sale today they would put $50.00 on it.  When they loaded it into my car, they lost one of the keys, so for the past three years, it’s had a screw in it.  I’ve already checked my local mom and pop places, my True Value and all of the antique stores around here.  Never mind!  I asked Mr. Google as my uncle Wyatt says and found a place that I think might have one!

Isn’t this great?  Liv did this for one of her watercolor projects in Art this year and she gifted it to me when she got it back.

I also love this guy.  I have no idea how he survived the kid’s childhoods, but he did.  I think we found him at a flea market years and years ago.  It reminded me of the one that we had when I was in Kindergarten.   I cannot imagine making something like that with 25 five-year-olds, can you?  My Kindergarten teacher was the best.  Love you, Mrs. Crabtree!

Yes, that’s a baseball bat in the corner of my bedroom.  Don’t you keep a baseball bat by your bed?

You all know my love of baskets, especially baskets that have lids.  One of the downfalls about them though is that you can close it and forget about it.  Well.  I closed this one before Christmas.  Let’s see what I haven’t missed.

Good grief.  I have looked everywhere for my change purse.  Except in this basket. 

A shoehorn, candy, purse-sized hand sanitizers, a bookmark, a shell that belongs in Liv’s room and Barbie accessories which haven’t been played with in – oh – eight or so years.  Oh, and a string, since that really belongs there.

My missing change purse, pens, my fake leather pen holder that holds my pens so they are not lost in the abyss, tissues that belong in my purse, a flashlight I’ve been searching for and the screws to hold my footboard onto my bed frame.  Yet another project that needs to be completed.

The sleeping mask that I obviously haven’t missed,  two different body lotions that I thought Liv had confiscated, my cocoa butter petroleum jelly I use as lip balm that I have turned the house upside down looking for and a reed diffuser that I bought in July 2017!

Last but not least, my flashlight that has a dual purpose that I thought was gone forever and a one hundred dollar bill.  Do places where you shop take $100 dollar bills?  Even our McDonald’s won’t take them – actually I don’t think they will take $50’s either.  I’ve had this one lurking around since before Christmas, needing to take it to the bank and have it changed out for smaller bills because we literally can’t spend it.  Isn’t that crazy?  I could spend it at our Wal-mart, since they are the ones who gave it to me in the first place as cash back, but it’s just not worth the hassle I would go through.  You would think I was trying to use a coupon!  Heaven forbid.  But that’s a completely different story.  * FYI – don’t try to use coupons at Wal-mart.  *

So I’m sorry basket, but you’ll have to go live at someone else’s house now.  Have you decluttered anything lately?  Did you find something that you thought was gone forever?  Do tell!

Here are the books that are part of my To Be Read pile in no particular order:

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe

Ask Suze….About Wills and Trusts by Suze Orman

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich

Calamities & Catastrophes by Derek Wilson

Yes, Please by Amy Poehler

Beautiful Creatures by Garcia & Stohl

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Have you read any of these?  What should I hurry to read next?

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here. 

 

DIY Project: Back Porch Light Fixture

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

NOTE:  I am NOT an electrician.  I’m sure there is an electrician somewhere on earth reading this right now and cringing.  I just like to do things myself.  If you do not feel comfortable working with electricity – don’t.

I love when I find things at yard sales or thrift stores for a great price.

I found this beauty at my local goodwill for $4.99.  In 2016.  Good grief.

See the date above the price?  Do you want to know how long it took me to change out the fixture?  Three minutes.  Or it would have taken me three minutes if the stupid mounting plate that was in the original fixture matched the new one. So in actuality, it took me twelve minutes to completely change the mounting plate and the fixture.  This is another example of my brain convincing me that “that’s going to take forever“.  Light fixtures are easy people!

Here’s what we started with.  I know.  That’s gross and disgusting and I should clean it.  There was nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it is 23 years old – I just don’t like it.

I do like this, however.  Isn’t it pretty? 

Like I said, light fixtures are easy.  First things first.  Before you begin dismantling your original light fixture, make sure that your breaker is off. Even if you know you turned off the correct breaker, test it out by trying to turn the light on. This is usually a quick way to make sure you turned off the correct breaker. However, for safety’s sake, you should still use a voltmeter to test the wires when you remove your original fixture before you touch them.

Then assess if your original fixture plate will fit the new fixture.  Mine didn’t.  To remove it, unscrew the two screws holding it to the wall.  Easy.  Screw the new plate to the wall in the exact same place and run the wires through and connect like with like.

I always connect the ground wires together first and wrap it around the ground screw.  It’s that odd greenish blue screw.

Next, connect the white wires.

Finally the black wires. Place the new fixture over the protruding screws and screw them down.

Lastly, hunt down the Deep Woods Off spray so that you can sit outside and admire your new light fixture.  Mosquitoes love me, unfortunately. 

You can see all of my other DIY projects with the link below.  Go change a light fixture!

All of my  other DIY Projects

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here. 

Grocery Shopping Trip 04.16.18

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

Do you see that!?!  That’s it.  I am so proud of myself.  I haven’t brought home an amount this small on a weekly grocery shopping trip in…… ever.  And you can see most of it is vegetables and fruits.  Yay!

Are the avocados in your part of the universe horrible right now?  Everywhere I’ve looked they are absolutely terrible.  At Wal-mart yesterday they had two kinds.  Rotten and rock hard green, which never ripen no matter what I do to them.  Wal-mart is also the only place I can get the plain Wholly Avocado mini cups.  Food Lion and Kroger only carry the ones that have stuff added to them, which no one at my house likes.  We eat a lot of avocados here.

I love having my upright freezer in the garage.  I told Denton that it’s the best present he’s EVER bought me.  I love it that much.  I stock up on meat and other things when I find them at rock bottom prices and I don’t have to worry if this week all of my grocery stores have ground chuck for $4.99 lb.  Because I bought it at $1.99 lb and put it away in my lovely, giant friend.

Lori, my cousin/sister/best friend (she’s all of those in my mind) said once that husbands should never buy you anything with a cord attached as a present, but I have to say I am making this an exception.  However, I also love my pressure washer…….

Anyway, here’s what we spent this week!

Wal-Mart  $91.65                Total spent for the Year:  $1,419.33

  • Got back this week:                            Got back for the year:
  • ibotta  $0.25                                            $13.45
  • Checkout 51 $0.00                                 $0.90
  • Receipt Hog  57 Coins                           328 Coins
  • Walmart Savings Catcher$0.00       $0.00

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here. 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Grocery Shopping Trip 04.08.18

Published on by TracieLeave a comment

These prices are still good until 12:00 PM on Tuesday in my part of the world, check your store!

As Denton pointed out to me yesterday when I set off to the grocery store, it’s only been 5 days since I did my last shopping trip.  But, this weekend Food Lion had their ground beef on sale for $1.99lb.  That was enough to get me to go back to the grocery store twice in one week.  We almost always buy our ground beef from this Food Lion.  It just tastes better.  We’ve tried Kroger, Wal-Mart and our local meat market, and I’m telling you, Food Lion’s beef just TASTES better.  At least everyone in our house agrees.  Except for Liv and she doesn’t eat animals anymore.  But, when she did, this was her preference too.

They also had whole chickens for $0.99lb and Doritos BOGO.  Hayden can eat his weight in Doritos and still doesn’t gain a pound.  He needs to gain a lot of pounds, so he can have all the Doritos he wants, which is why I bought FOUR bags.

One thing I did want to point out to you guys is this coupon.  I noticed that my Food Lion had a special for their Scrubbing Bubbles Toilet Bowl Cleaner for $1.89.  The reason it caught my attention is because we were completely out of toilet bowl cleaner.  Which is bad.  With the coupon and the sale price you can score some toilet bowl cleaner for yourselves at a great price this week!  (I know this isn’t food, but you might need toilet bowl cleaner too!)

Anyway, here’s what we spent this week and hopefully I won’t have to go back to the store anytime soon.

Food Lion  $84.47                              Total spent for the Year:  $1,412.15

(minus the toilet bowl cleaner)

  • Got back this week:                            Got back for the year:
  • ibotta  $0.25                                           $13.70
  • Checkout 51 $0.00                                $0.90
  • Receipt Hog  20 Coins                          291 Coins
  • Walmart Savings Catcher$0.00       $0.00

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Check out what that means to you here. 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save