Budgeting My Way To Retirement - Week 7

 

Sunday was the day before Valentine's Day with the actual day, Monday, as a work and/or school day for me and my girls.  We managed to all get some time and decided a Sunday brunch to celebrate the holiday would be best for us this year.  I made a nice big spread using items I already had in the fridge and pantry and the three of us enjoyed a really nice morning.  It was very good to see my oldest daughter and get to visit with her.

 

I started a new compost bin using a one gallon ice cream bucket I had washed out and saved.  Anything that is compostable, but can't go out to the chickens or into the stock pot will go in here.  So far I've only added coffee grounds, tea bags and some stems trimmed from the bottoms of a bouquet of flowers.

 

This egg carton has the remnants of a cracked egg inside
I am adding it to our compost bin

I pulled lots of odds and ends out of the freezer for meals this week including coconut curry soup, refried beans and ground beef for tacos and burritos.  We ate up leftovers from the previous week and our Valentine's Day brunch the first half of the week with freshly made salads.  The frozen items kept us well fed until the end of the week with minimal effort in the kitchen.  I saved onion skins and the core from a head of cabbage in the bag I keep in the freezer for my next batch of stock.  One of our chickens has started laying again and gave us five lovely eggs last week.  It won't be much longer before the other girls will be joining in.

 

I worked a full and very busy week with overtime.  Because of the pace we've been keeping, even before this pandemic began, we are beginning to experience some burnout on my team.  To get me through it I am keeping my eye on the prize and focusing on the bright spot ahead - retirement!  I spent a fair bit of time in financial and retirement planning mode.  It was a very good place to be.

 

On payday I was blessed to be able to push my entire check into savings.  I checked on my tax refund status and although I don't have an actual deposit date yet, it is in process with an expectation of around March 1st.  I am super excited to have that land in my bank account so I can push that into savings too.

 

I made two batches of foaming hand soap solution to top up all of our dispensers.  I have one in the kitchen and one in each bathroom.  Making my own instead of buying it or buying new dispensers each time saves me so much money.  I can make my own for just pennies per batch.

 

I washed out a couple of gallon sized Ziploc bags to reuse, packed my lunches to take to work, made my own coffee and coffee drinks, helped myself to tea that was offered at my work, added a bunch of stuff to the recycle bin for curbside pick up and kept our trash and other waste to a minimum.  I am also reassessing what items I can add to the compost bin instead of the recycle bin such as cardboard which promotes earth worm activity.

 

I hope you had a wonderful week last week.  Did you do anything new or extra thrifty last week?