My boys are sick of oatmeal!

We have had an incredibly busy week this week, so I am a little behind. It's been a few days since I've posted. Monday, the boys and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago with my Mom & Dad. The boys had a blast. It was their first visit, and I hadn't been there in at least 15 years and niether had my parents. We got to take in all the exhibits, and even saw the Sea Monsters movie at the Omnimax. The boys were a little hesitant about the movie, and they freaked out just a little...but once it started they calmed down and relaxed and really enjoyed it. I think the farm & space exhibits were their favorites. I don't think I personally had a favorite exhibit, I just enjoyed looking at it all! Alot of the exhibits were closed for maintenance, so the boys didn't get to see the coal mine, and they didn't get to go into the airplane. But since many of the exhibits were closed for repair, general admission to the musuem was FREE! And everyone knows how much SimplyMommy loves to get things free! I was not aware of it, but they have several days each month with free admission, so we will definately be going back this summer. I will have to pay for parking, unless we take public transportation, but I think that would be more expensive in the long run.

Anyhoo, I'm getting way off topic here!

The Hubster and I pledged to plug the holes in our budget in 2008, and save $7000. And January, so far has been a good experience for us. We have been trying to track every dollar (with the exception of allowances...that is our fun money. If we don't get *fun money*, we won't stay on budget). We did pretty well, we were a little lax at the beginning of the month, then tightened up the purse strings towards the end. So I think we are learning through this process. I had a little trouble with my current spread sheet system keeping track of all of our expenditures. I have almost like a ledger system and not an accrual system on my spread sheet. So I put the totals spent for the month in, and cannot track individual expenses. So this month, I will be keeping my main budget on a spreadsheet, to make sure we stay under our "master" numbers. Then I will be adding in an index card system, as well. I will assign each paycheck an index card. At the top, it will have the date and the payment amount. Below that, I will list each individual expenditure that we take out of that particular paycheck. It will also help us get our *extra* money each week into savings. Basically, at the end of the week, what ever is left over will go to savings. That will insure, that our extra money that isn't set to be spent goes into savings...but also money that was budgeted for groceries, for example, that wasn't spent will make it into savings as well.

We sat down last night and looked at January so far, and we did find some spending leaks. We made a four extra trips to the grocery store, for non-essential items. Dh went for essential items but also picked up things like hot chocolate, ice cream & pop. While I agree that we deserve treats on occassion, running to an expensive grocery store (becuase it is close) is not the answer. So we are going to be adding some treats & 2 - liters of pop to our grocery list each week. In the long run, since we are buying them anyways, it will be cheaper, if I just get them on my original grocery trip to Aldi's!

I ran out of flour this week, so my poor boys are getting so sick of oatmeal every morning since! Since I am out of flour (and vow not to make an unscheduled trip to the store), I can't make pancakes or waffles for them. So this morning, my youngest and I experimented with pretty good results! We made oatmeal pancakes, here is the recipe:

Flourless Oatmeal Pancakes:
2 cups ground oatmeal (whir oatmeal in blender for 2 minutes)
1 tbs sugar
2 tsp baking soda
cinamon & nutmeg to taste
1 egg
1 cup of milk
1 tbs oil

Mix the dry ingredients, then add egg, milk & oil. Mix well. Cook on a griddle for 2 minutes per side. Serve with syrup or for a healthier version, serve topped with sugarfree applesauce or sugarfree preserves!

We also went out to eat 4 times this month. And our misc. spending was at $360.00 and we had about $200.00 that we can't account for. Am I peeved? Of course! But this gives us something to strive for next month. Now we have the numbers to come in under. There were things, like household expenses (dog food, cat food, etc.) that came up and I didn't have a specific area in the budget for. So, it had to go into misc. But now I can go through my misc, and see what I need to make new budget categories for.

So, all in all, we are on the right track this month. We are hoping to have our $7000 saved within 16 months. So we will need to put just over $400 away each month and it should be doable. Especially, after the truck is paid off here shortly! So, I have to say, I feel so much better than I have in years. We have been continuously behind on bills for over 2 years now, and in February, for the first time, we will be current on everything! Woo Hoo!