It's Okay Tuesday, The Broom Closet, Money and Frugality and Other Pilfered Ideas

So apparently Glamour Magazine has a thing called Hey It's Okay Tuesday, which I learned about through Whispering Writer @ http://whisperingwriter.blogspot.com/

So.. Here are some things I am trying to be okay about..

It's okay that I can't just pull a car out of thin air just to get my son into a fancy dance school.

It's okay to not want to rush an appointment that'll show me my insides and all the fat they're covered in.

It's okay to miss Fish Sticks. They were delicious and great for calorie counting.

It's okay to be a little worried/scared about walking to the gym and back alone.

And finally.. It's okay to borrow ideas from other blogs until I get my own groove back.

In other news.. the end of the month feels like it's dragging horribly. The last two weeks have felt like molasses to me. I think it's because before those two weeks time felt like it had really been speeding by. I thought the trend would continue. Oh well. There's an upside.

End of the month is usually budget-planning time. Lords and Ladies know I love me some planning. These are the days when I drive Punky up a wall asking for a pen at the randomest of times, scribbling all over envelopes, notebooks, anything paper. Even some things I probably shouldn't scribble on.

Our yearly planner is still all shiny and new since it's only January, but something about seeing the pages slowly fill up with our combined annotations really makes me genuinely happy. It sort of sucks to say that there are precious few things that make me feel that way. Which isn't to say that I'm Eeyore and totally bummed all the time.. it's just that happiness is a very special and specific feeling. It's as good as it is, maybe, because it is a little rare. All the other good feelings are still good.. they're just .. something else.

Our savings are slowly chugging along. Normally January is a great savings month for us, since we tend to take care of Christmas long before it actually arrives. There isn't too much blowback or debt from the holidays. I'm the sort of person that starts picking items out in July and packing them away for Christmas. Then I just pull them out of the closet and wrap and deliver in December. It takes a lot of the stress off. There'll always be last minute things to pick up, and even the occasional surprise swerve, but it's just not so bad.

Anyway.. This January our savings are short a couple hundred dollars. I can't even point out a main reason, just a sort of combination of things. Still, though it's frustrating, I'm glad that we were able to put something away. Something, will always be better than nothing. There's still the rest of the year ahead of us, and last years savings are still snugly put away. Punky and I have put together a tiny little nest egg that we're immensely proud of. We know that every penny that we pour into it lays the foundation of the ten year dream.

Not bad for a couple of traumatized twenty-six year olds, huh?

Catching up with my previously mentioned Bloggy Godmother has rendered other bits of inspiration and thought fodder. Some of it even lines up with some of my previous thoughts up there about the end of the month and money situations.

I used to belong to a LiveJournal community that was for posting grocery shopping receipts. It was a good place for comparing prices in different places and even picking up an idea or two. Unfortunately, there weren't that many members and the place sort of quietly died. I'd really like to find an alternative for it, since it always helps to be able to do things in groups.

NYC is a great place to be frugal in. All the money you save on little things adds up and then you can do awesome things. Food shopping here isn't a hardship. That happens to be because I live outside Manhattan. Still in the city proper, just not in the priciest part of it. Food here is cheaper than in many of the supermarkets I've visited in other states. Food shopping is where I do a lot of my savings. It isn't always easy, since The Brat goes through stretches of eating like he's got a bottomless pit in his belly.

( Any advice on that last bit dearest Bloggy Godmothers? Have either of you raised hungry boys with bottomless bellies? The MiL says Ramen, but that is such a tiny solution. )

There are five big supermarkets in my neighborhood. Actually, there are probably like six or seven, but some of them are hidden on side streets that I don't really venture to. Anywho... Once a week our building gets a delivery of all their flyers/circulars. They come in about a day or two before sales kick in, which gives us time for planning.

I used to try and menu plan with them, but that only worked out halfway for us. I can't get too specific ahead of time, as it guarantees that the family will revolt and not want to eat whatever is planned for Tuesday, because they want the Thursday meal instead. Thursday rolls around and they want take out. Kaboom. The plan blows up. Instead, I stock up on very versatile ingredients that lend themselves to a variety of meals.

Ground Beef/Turkey is a great example. It lends itself to everything from meatballs to chilli to tacos and burgers. So, at night I take a portion down from the freezer to defrost and take votes on the meal later.

If nothing else turns up, I might just take a crack at blogging my cheapness. Any other frugaholics out there?

I was going to blog about The Broom Closet .. but all the wind has gone out of my sails. Maybe next time?

-Angelwick