The conversation...

Yesterday I had a conversation with a mother of 3. We were discussing finances and the lack of money. I decided while I was making lunch today that it would be a good idea if we started writing down all of our money being spent, this way we see where our money is going and why I have to work!
So on my blog I'll keep a food log of our daily food and the estimated costs. I'll use a montly cost of items such as salt, pepper, ketchup and mustard. When I do things like Kool-aid and tea I'll add in the cost sugar and water. Why water you ask? Well I use it to make the stuff, but on the flip side our water is higher than I've ever seen in my life! So adding it is would be the same if I bought water at the store, but a bit cheaper. Since I won't be able to keep up on here daily, I'll keep a journal on paper and ask Duck to help me with this. So...here goes. Side note....I won't be keeping track of my free meal at work, that would not be fair since I don't spend money on it, but when we eat out I'll keep track of that money.

Lunch: (since we got up late this was our breakfast)
Smiley had a package of peanuts from McDonald's, I always ask for one when I get a Sundae becuase he likes to eat them solo.

Duck took 2 mini snickers: $.21
Andes Candies $.75
5 chicken nuggets: $.41
1 box of broccoli augratin rice $1.00 (I don't put in the butter so I don't add for that)
1 pitcher of kool-aid with about 1 cup sugar $.51
1 cup apple sauce $.31

So lunch cost roughly $2.23 and fed only 3 of us. This is good, but that is going to be over $200.00 a month eating this cheap but adding the $.96 a month daily for candy is going to have to stop. We'll see what happens. I think 1.5 jars of canned veggie soup will run us about 2.48 plus the time it took to can it.

We are also going to be looking at our energy usage, while the next few days are going to be high, we are trying to get it much lower.

Our afternoon eating was horrible

McDonald's was 10.04
snacks 1.07

Dinner was
chick nuggets $.84
apple sauce $.31
Dirty Rice $.84
Mac and Cheese with sausage $1.83
Can of veggies $.53

Wow, if we don't eat anything else that is going to cost us 17.79. That's HORRIBLE. We must do better. 17.79 a day for a month is 533.70

Okay I need to read the meter, I worked on the house today, should have done more. I will work some more tonight, I will have company on Wed, so I'd like the house to look really nice. Duck also has to work on his homework.

Katy