My Tireless Retirement - Week 92

 

Hello everyone!  I hope the first week of 2024 has been amazing for you.  I think my New Year’s holiday was actually better than my Christmas and I didn’t think that was even possible!

 

I enjoyed a nice four day holiday weekend and guess what?  The photo album project is completely finished and I am now able to move onto other things.  Hurray!!!  I honestly thought it was going to take me much, much longer to get this done, well into 2024, but I got myself on a roll and it just got done.  Quite possibly because I chose to do it at my dining room table it kept me motivated as it was always in sight.  Plus, it wasn’t like it was an un-enjoyable project.  Talk about a walk down memory lane!

 

It definitely was a project, let me tell you!  While I already had the binders in my craft stash, as well as loads of scrapbooking supplies, I did have to buy more acid free photo safe page protectors.  And then there was the cost of the photos themselves.  I spaced it out over the course of four months getting those all printed up and used a coupon code each time I placed an order so I was getting my photos printed with at least a 50% discount each time.  Without those coupon codes this project would’ve been very costly.  However, when it comes to our sentimental stuff and archiving the important pieces of our lives I do believe it is worth the investment.

 

Project complete!

I made this stack of Christmas cards to give out next year

After finishing up the last of the photo albums and cleaning up the aftermath I got a crazy hair and gathered up all of the Christmas cards I had received along with another stack of the ones from work and got busy recycling them and making them into new cards.  While binge watching episodes of Star Trek Picard I spent my entire New Year’s Eve day working on cards and now have more than enough new cards to send out to my friends and loved ones next year.  More importantly I had a blast!  I love making those “trash to treasure” greeting cards.  They are so much fun.

 

I cleaned up my mess and it was time to put Christmas away 😔

Dinner on New Years day was delicious!
NY Strip steak, sauteed green beans, a little bit of
leftover macaroni & cheese with a nice salad & a cocktail

The public utilities commission approved a rate increase as of January 1st so our electricity rates are now higher here in Idaho.  We will see those increases on our next bill.  In addition, they have approved a secondary increase, even higher, set to begin in 2025.  The city council has also approved an increase to our trash and sewer rates.  I am not sure I can do more than what I am currently doing to offset those increases, however I will try to come up with something.

 

I purged & consolidated stuff & organized this shelf

I put the shredder to work last week

I went through my important papers binder and removed what is no longer relevant.  Then I sorted and recycled what I could and shredded the rest along with a nice stack of old tax returns with their supporting documents.  I ended up with a grocery bag and a half of shredded paper by the time all was said and done.  This is one of those end of the year tasks I always like to get done in preparation of the next tax season so it felt very good to get that old paperwork out of the house, let me tell you.

 

I keep all of my journal stickers in a ziploc bag 😂
I could probably come up with something better

After a year well done I celebrated all of my 2023 accomplishments with a mini shopping spree at Dollar Tree on my way home from work one night.  I picked up four packages of cute little stickers I can use with my day planner and my daily journal.  They had a nice selection this time when I stopped in.  Did I need more stickers?  No, not really, but it was a simple little want item and a great way to treat myself.  When I got home I removed them from their packages and got them all filed in with my other stickers.  It made me so happy and I started using them right away.  It obviously doesn’t take much to please me.  LOL

 

I baked up some cornbread muffins to go with some soups last week
They were pretty darn tasty

Tuesday morning I splurged and went to the salon and got a few inches trimmed from the length of my hair.  It had been a while since I’d had my hair cut by a stylist so it was really nice to go and get a little bit of pampering.  I plan to continue to trim my own bangs and keep it up so it will last for a while and continue to look nice.  Later that afternoon I went to the Barbie movie at the cheap seats theatre.  I wasn’t sure I was going to like this movie, but it was actually pretty good, which totally surprised me.  For me it was a winner.

 

Ways I Saved $$: 

At the end of the year I was able to pick up two packages (5 pounds each) of bone in chicken breasts (on my grocery wish list) on sale for 99¢ a pound.  I had a digital coupon for 40¢ OFF a head of cabbage and it went on sale for 49¢ a pound so I also got a big head of that.  Both of those items were on sale at Fred Meyer plus I had a digital coupon for a FREE bottle of Kraft salad dressing.  While out running an errand that same week I stopped in at Wal-Mart and picked up a dozen eggs and a bag of carrots.  A little bit of a jumpstart to my planned January grocery shopping that worked out surprisingly well.  Total spent so far this month on groceries $15.60.  After coming up with a meal plan for the week I went “grocery shopping” in my pantry and LTFS for ingredients instead of going to the store.

I used up leftovers so no food went to waste.  Any food scraps I had after preparing meals were given to the chickens with the exception of carrot peels and ends which I gave to the bunny.  No food ended up in the trash. 

I was mindful of my electricity use keeping the thermostat set relatively low and layering up with a sweater and warm socks which kept me nice and comfortable as well as turning off lights as I left a room.  I also kept my water consumption in mind as I showered, washed dishes and did laundry.

 

Split pea soup & a cornbread muffin

REAL Food Meals I Prepared: 

Soup!  After all of the rich holiday foods all I really wanted in my life was some delicious hot soup with a little salad or some fresh veggies.  I made and baked a pan to little cornbread muffins (half went into the freezer) and opened a couple of jars of home canned split pea soup as well as a jar of chili from my pantry to reheat for some extremely simple meals.  I had a partial head of lettuce, a carrot, some celery, green olives and dill pickles to make up a couple salads.  I also had cabbage for making slaw.  Soup, salad and a little bread is a favorite meal in this house and I plan to make a lot of soup this month.

 

Korean beef with rice and a side of stir fried vegetables (leftover green beans from our New Year’s Day meal plus open bags of veggies from the freezer ) was the only actual meal I ended up cooking after New Year’s day.  I used a jar of home canned ground beef and made a full recipe, but took half of it and placed it in the freezer to enjoy later this month.  I had this meal twice last week. It was delicious.

 

I was given these two pieces of fruit at work

With all kinds of stuff hanging around in the fridge and pantry I was all about using up little bits of this and that last week and I have quite a bit still to work on so this month’s meals are all geared to using up the stragglers and anything that has met or surpassed its best buy date.  Should make for some interesting meals.

 

I placed half of the Korean beef into
the freezer to enjoy later in the month

I hope you find this little breakdown of the meals I am preparing is helpful.  I know many of you have asked for specifics so I’ll try to include as much as I can.  Let me know in the comments how you first week of 2024 panned out.  I’d love to hear about it. 

FYI - My retirement week runs from Friday through Thursday.