May $$ Goals

May is going to be a VERY busy month. I've got events 4/5 weekends in May and plans throughout the weekdays as well.

My goals for this month:
Mini-eating from the pantry challenge. I have a bunch of food in the freezer and with my weekly CSA deliveries I should have plenty of food to eat this month without spending much money. Any money I have extra will go towards my emergency fund. So far it is day 4 and I have spent $0 on groceries. Hopefully I can keep my expenses at a minimum.

My major goal is to not spend too much extra money. I am going to be traveling for 3/4 of the next weekends and I am going to try really hard not to eat on the road or grab food at the airport. It is very tempting to grab something quick and easy but I think if I carry peanut butter sandwiches with me and some healthy snacks I will save money and feel better than I would have had I eaten the greasy 'road food.'

My second major goal is to pay off all my debt this month. I didn't have much and what I did have was related to moving expenses so hopefully by the end of May I will be debt free other than my mortgage :)

Garden!

One of my favorite parts about my new house is having the outdoors just outside my door! I am so excited to try growing some veggies this year. Ideally I would prefer to plant these in the ground but I don't really have 'ground' so I'll have to make do with planters. Anyway - I have 2 tomato plants from Candice in the back right. The long planters have 3 bell pepper plants and 1 zucchini plant. I am hoping that the zucchini will grow over the side. The front left has sage seeds, next to it is basil (SUPER excited about this one) and in the big pot I scattered carrot seeds because I think that would just be fun to grow your own carrots. I still have some rosemary seeds and cucumber seeds so I think I need at least 1 more pot. I know the plants are a little cramped in the pots but I've got limited space so they will just have to make do!

I'm hoping that these plants will produce a decent number of veggies. This combined with my CSA will hopefully keep me well stocked all summer!

Counting pennies!

About once a year I empty out my coin jar and turn the coins into cash. I am usually pleasantly surprised at how much change I can save up in a years time - mostly in pennies because I generally need the larger coins to pay for parking at meters. Anyway, I counted everything up and I came up with:

$13.54! almost entirely in pennies!


YAY! That is a little bit more that I can put towards my vacation fund :) It just goes to show you that every penny counts!