Hunkering Down in 2024: Week 16

And just like that, life throws you a curve ball ... and you have to decide how you're going to handle it.  That's what happened to us at the end of last week.

To make a long story short and put it in a nutshell ... my hubby had a medical situation come up that has resulted in multiple tests and him being put on 'light duty.'

There's the possibility that the issue is medication related, but we won't know until all the tests are completed and the results are in.  Until then we, as well as my husband's medical team, are erring on the side of caution while we monitor him and work to find the cause and then a solution.

While we have every confidence that the cause and a solution will be found, this has really brought home the need for us to continue with our hunkering down plans and goals for the year. It has made me want to work even harder to find ways to live on less, pay off debt and save more.

So, what did this week look like ...

We really didn't spend a lot this week aside from medical expenditures.

We spent a grand total of $13.58 of our grocery budget.

We did go out to eat on Sunday because of time constraints and obligations at church.

Other than that, it was a 'no-spend' kind of week as far as discretionary spending goes.

With the extra medical expenses, we're incurring right now, will we be able to continue paying on our targeted debt for this quarter?  You bet we are going to give it our best try!  We may have to get more serious in our hunkering down plan, and if we do than we will.  If we have too, we can go to a 'no-spend' plan other than our bills and fuel for our vehicles.  Our well-stocked pantry will enable us to be able to do that.  Like I said, we're going to give it our best try while we pray for God to make a way for us to stay on track with our hunkering down plans.

That's it for this week, how did your week go?

until next time,

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

Sharing 44 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine, where I share my love for God and His Word through my personal Bibe study.  Physical preparedness is important, but not near as important as spiritual preparedness.  Ladies, join me over at From This Heart of Mine and study God's Word with me.

You can view my privacy policy HERE.

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay, and it helps me keep my pantry well-stocked! 

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links.  This means that if you click on the link and place an order, etc I earn a small fee at no increased cost to you. Thank you for your support through these means.

A Journal of My Days: 4/15/24

The theme for this year is “Laser focused, hunkered down and spending as little money as possible.” 

(picture) Can you stand more iris pictures!  This one is growing at one end of our chicken coop ... I really do have flowers planted everywhere I can find a suitable spot on our property!  Their beauty just makes me smile!

In the Vegetable Garden:  It's been cool and windy since my last 'A Journal of My Days' post so I haven't gotten any gardening done.  

While doing a walk-through one day though, I did notice that my Roma paste tomatoes, that I planted a couple of weeks ago, are about finger high and that the cabbage seeds I planted a little earlier than the tomato seeds, are about 3 inches tall.  As soon as the weather warms up a bit, I'll get those planted.  This will be my second planting of cabbage.  As soon as I plant them, I'll start seeds for a third planting.  I think I can get 3 successions of cabbage planted and harvested before the miserably hot and humid weather gets here.

My sweet potato slips that I grew and planted around the same time as the cabbage and tomato plants, are doing well also!

I also harvested the first of our spring green onions from the garden this week.  They were so good!

In the Kitchen:   Hubby prepared and seasoned a whole rack of ribs.  He got up early one morning and put them in the oven in a big roasting pan covered with aluminum foil.  He set the oven at 45o degrees for one hour and then turned them down to 250 degrees and let them slow cook all day.  The house smelled so delicious within an hour of putting them in the oven.  By the time mealtime came around that afternoon, we were more than ready to dive in.  They were fork tender and absolutely delicious!  

Preparing and cooking ribs is one of my hubby's specialties and I have to say, he is really good at it!  Yum ... I can still remember how delicious they were!

We served the ribs with home-canned green beans and potatoes and pan-fried home-canned pears.

In the Pantry:  I got the blueberries all flash frozen and then bagged up.  I added 2 one-gallon bags of blueberries to the freezer portion of our pantry.  

The circle of restocking the larder for another year has started and it is a journey that brings great satisfaction to this heart of mine.

Health/Fitness:  I got back to my exercise routine this week.  It felt good to be able to get back to this habit.  

Thrifting, Bargain, and/or Loss Leader Shopping: We purchased some after Easter chocolate marked down to at least 50% off with some having a bigger discount.  We brought it home and either froze it or vacuum sealed it in a jar.  Chocolate comes in different forms ... peanut butter and chocolate eggs, peanut butter and chocolate mini cups, candy bars, m & m's, and peanut m & m's.  We are well stocked on chocolate for a while and yes, some of this will be used in baking.  

From my Sewing Nook:  No sewing this week!

Bible Study: I am up to chapter 18 in my efforts to write the whole book of Genesis.  There are so many spiritual nuggets in this the first book of the Bible that build the foundation for who we are and why we are here.  Writing out Scripture is such an easy way to slow ourselves down and 'study' God's Word.   Smile ... when we know what the Bible says and doesn't say, we are more equipped to recognize false teaching.  Writing out scriptures is one way for us to learn what God's Word says ... we're not just reading or listening to what someone else says God's Word says.  Sadly, what God's word says and what someone may say God's Word says can be totally different.  It's our responsibility to know what God's Word says and that comes from studying it ourselves.  Writing out Scripture is an easy way to do that.

In the Flower Garden:  I promise, I'm going to get those flower seeds planted as soon as possible!  I'm ready ... now, if the weather will just cooperate!

In the Herb Garden:  I harvested oregano, dried it and started the process of making oregano oil for making salves and other herbal remedies.

Continuing Education/Skills:  I watched this video on making cayenne pain relief salve.  I've done quite a bit of research on cayenne salve, and I think I'm ready to give it a try.

What I'm Reading:  I started reading The Heirloom by Beverly Lewis on Libby the Library app.  I couldn't decide by reading the back cover if I had read this book before, I usually can, but this one I couldn't.  There was a good reason, once I started reading it, I knew that I hadn't read it before.  Do you ever do that, forget if you've read a book before or not?  Please tell me I'm not the only one!

This week’s frugal quote/discussion topic …  Frugality has the ability to center a person financially and help them focus on what is most important!  Do you agree or disagree?  What are your thoughts?

That’s it for this week, what has your week looked like? 

until next time,

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

Sharing 44 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine, where I share my love for God and His Word through my personal Bibe study.  Physical preparedness is important, but not near as important as spiritual preparedness.  Ladies, join me over at From This Heart of Mine and study God's Word with me.

You can view my privacy policy HERE.

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay, and it helps me keep my pantry well-stocked! 

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links.  This means that if you click on the link and place an order, etc I earn a small fee at no increased cost to you. Thank you for your support through these means. 

Hunkering Down in 2024: Week 15

Our period of 'relaxed hunkering down' is over and we are back to 'intense hunkering down with a purpose.'

During our time of relaxed hunkering down, we replenished all areas of our pantry and gave ourselves personal allowances.  

While we continued to add to our savings, it was a much smaller amount and when I closed out the month of March, it made me sad not to see the larger amounts (for us) going into savings and or towards debt.

But this is a good lesson, reminder or whatever you want to call it ... you have to do the work in order to get the reward.  In other words, saving and or paying off debt requires discipline and sacrifice.  It's not going to happen without effort on our part, the calvary is not going to come and fill our bank account with money nor pay off our debt for us.  We made the debt; we pay the debt.

Looking back at the first quarter of this year, we've made astounding progress toward our debt, far better than we thought possible when we started this journey.  God has blessed us with opportunities to earn extra money and we have done our part by not only doing the work, but also by not blowing the extra money on incidentals that we could do without.  We have kept to a very strict budget that provides for our needs but doesn't include room for luxuries.  

Looking back at the first quarter of the year, not only did we make better than expected progress on our debt, but we met our savings goals as well.  We've kept our savings goals at a minimum in order to have more money to go towards debt, but ... and this is important ... we are still saving!  We don't want to get out of the habit of saving and look forward to the time when we are debt free and can build our savings more quickly.  Until then, some is better than none!

So, what does the rest of the month of April look like, what are our goals?

Having our personal allowances back for a month was really nice, but we're both in agreement that we will give them up the rest of the month.

Since our pantry is well stocked, we plan to stay out of and away from the grocery store as much as possible.  Of course, we will need to purchase milk or if we learn of a  great loss leader deal on something we use, we'll take advantage of that, but other than that we don't plan on doing any grocery shopping.

Hubby will take his lunch to work and eat out only when necessary.

Our savings goal is to save at least $1 more than we did last month.

We've chosen the debt we want to knock out next and set the goal of paying off one third of it this month.  It's going to take some 'hunkering down' to do it, but we feel like it's possible if all goes well.  For the next quarter, April, May, June, our goal is to knock this one out completely!  We think we can!  We think we can!  We think we can!

I continually pray about our goal to pay off as much debt as possible this year.  I asked God to show me ways to be a better steward of what He has blessed us with and to open doors of opportunities to earn extra monies.  At our ages, there are many things that we can no longer physically do, but God knows that ... smile ... He knows what we can and can't do and answers our prayers accordingly.

That's it for this week, how did you do, I can't wait to read your comments!

until next time,

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

Sharing 44 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine, where I share my love for God and His Word through my personal Bibe study.  Physical preparedness is important, but not near as important as spiritual preparedness.  Ladies, join me over at From This Heart of Mine and study God's Word with me.

You can view my privacy policy HERE.

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay, and it helps me keep my pantry well-stocked! 

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links.  This means that if you click on the link and place an order, etc I earn a small fee at no increased cost to you. Thank you for your support through these means.

A Journal of My Days: 4/10/24

The theme for this year is “Laser focused, hunkered down and spending as little money as possible.” 

(picture:  I wish you could smell how good this lilac flower cluster smells.  It's the first one of the season for this bush and I was beside myself when my hubby told me it was there.  Of course, I had to go see it and smell it for myself!)

This post normally comes out on Monday, but if you've been following me very long, you'll know that I've been sick and in recovery mode, hence I'm playing catchup and am not posting on my regular day.  I should be back to my regular posting day of Monday next week.  In the meantime, here's a portion of this week's doings ... 

In the Vegetable Garden:  I did a small bit of weeding, harvested radishes, carrots and asparagus.  I also harvested about a quart of strawberries from our strawberry barrels.

I checked the carrots, and it seems that something is eating my carrots underground in one of my raised beds.  You can bet that I will be harvesting them this week.  Hubby said it was probably a rat ... oh no, Mr. Rat, you may not have my carrots!

In the Kitchen:   I plan to roast above mentioned radishes, carrots and asparagus on a sheet pan.  Here's how I will do it ...

harvest, wash, peel (if applicable) and clean vegetables

slice peeled carrots into rounds

cut radishes in half

trim up asparagus into size desired

place all veggies in a gallon zip lock bag (I use a recycled one for this type thing)

add enough olive oil to coat veggies, but not saturate

add seasoning of choice (I will add about a teaspoon of a mix I make and keep on hand, garlic, salt, cayenne pepper)

close zip and work veggies around in the bag until they are coated with olive oil and seasoning mixture.

Roast/bake in 350-degree oven until desired doneness.  I roast mine for about 30 minutes stirring about halfway through.

In the Pantry:  We found a good deal on organic blueberries and purchased a case.  I've been busy flash freezing some for smoothies, and plan to make a small batch of blueberry pie filling to be used as an ice cream topping, also a small batch of blueberry syrup for pancakes and to flavor water.

I will also flash freeze the strawberries I harvested and use them in smoothies.  I'm keeping a close watch over my strawberries with the purpose of harvesting every one I can.  (No, Mr. Bird, you may not swoop down and eat your fill of my strawberries!)  Strawberries are selling in our area for $20/gallon ... enough said!

Health/Fitness:  I wasn't able to do my normal exercise routine while sick and afterwards while I allowed my body to rest and recover.  So, this week my focus will be to ease back into daily exercise.

Thrifting, Bargain, and/or Loss Leader Shopping:  We found olive oil on a good clearance sale at Sam's Club.  I was out so this was perfect timing!

I went into a well-known thrift store and found 3 (100%) cotton sheets that were in good condition for $3.99 each.  I purchased them with the intent of using them as quilt backing for future quilts.

From my Sewing Nook:   I crocheted these 5 dishcloths.  Hoot!  Hoot!  Can you believe it!  I finally did something sewing related!

Bible Study: Our church is hosting a youth rally in a couple of weeks, and I'll be teaching a teenage girl's Bible class.  The theme of the youth rally is 'God's Promises' and my topic is God's Promises in the Old Testament.  I am excited to be teaching this age group and am studying and working to put together a lesson they will enjoy and learn from.  My goal for the lesson is that each girl will walk out of that classroom confident that God does indeed keep His promises and that they can trust Him!

In the Flower Garden: The weather is finally warm enough, I hope to get my flower seeds planted this week!

In the Herb Garden:  My chamomile is ready to start harvesting!!!  I was so excited to see these little flowers that I almost broke out in a 'garden dance!'

Continuing Education/Skills:  I purchased this book, Backyard Foraging, by Ellen Zachos.  Now that spring is here and things are growing, I want to learn more about foraging, specially about what can be forged in my local area.

What I'm Reading:  I read Christmas at the Amish Market by Shelley Shepard Gray.  Of course, I read it on Libby the library app for free!

This week’s frugal quote/discussion topic … frugality can be freeing!  One of the benefits that has come from our financial 'hunkering down' journey this year is freedom from random buying.  I hope that makes sense.  For us, it has been freeing in that our focus has shifted from freestyle spending to having a specific purpose for every dollar.  Like I said, I hope that makes sense.  What are your thoughts?

That’s it for this week, what has your week looked like? 

until next time,

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

Sharing 44 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine, where I share my love for God and His Word through my personal Bibe study.  Physical preparedness is important, but not near as important as spiritual preparedness.  Ladies, join me over at From This Heart of Mine and study God's Word with me.

You can view my privacy policy HERE.

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay, and it helps me keep my pantry well-stocked! 

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links.  This means that if you click on the link and place an order, etc I earn a small fee at no increased cost to you. Thank you for your support through these means. 

Hunkering Down in 2024: Weeks 13 and 14

It feels so good to feel good again!  Thank you again to those who reached out to me during my unexplained absence.  Without having seen a doctor, we believe that I got food poisoning after eating a salad at a restaurant ... and then I got dehydrated.  Enough said, other than I don't want to do that ever again.  So thankful to those dear precious friends who helped my husband care for me during this time.  You know who you are, I pray God's abundant blessings on each of you.

This week will bring to close our 2-week plan for stocking up on basics before we go back into strict hunkering down mode again.  But before we look at how we did, let me share something that is happening in our area ...

In our area alone, there are 3 Family Dollar stores in the process of closing permanently!   Let the ramifications of that sink in. This just solidifies my desire and motivates us to get in as good financial shape as possible.  That's what this series is about, let's see how we did this week ... 

I continued to work on our basics 'stocking-up' list and will finish it up this week.  Other than that, I don't have a lot to report, being sick really put a halt to my intentions!  But isn't that a part of life, we do the best we can with what life hands us, don't we?  For the past 5 - 10 days, we had a 'hiccup' of sickness to deal with that slowed us down and changed our plans.  This week we're back on our plan, moving ahead and feeling so thankful to be able to do so.

Lord willing, I'll be back Friday with this week's report!

How did you do last week, I can't wait to read your comments!

until next time,

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

Sharing 44 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine, where I share my love for God and His Word through my personal Bibe study.  Physical preparedness is important, but not near as important as spiritual preparedness.  Ladies, join me over at From This Heart of Mine and study God's Word with me.

You can view my privacy policy HERE.

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay, and it helps me keep my pantry well-stocked! 

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links.  This means that if you click on the link and place an order, etc I earn a small fee at no increased cost to you. Thank you for your support through these means.