Time to share our personal plan for this week 7/15 – 7/20/13.
First, how has your weekly planning going? Are you accomplishing all you hope? Well we hope this planner that we have provided for you to help you identify and manage each area of life will help you to zone in on all areas of life and accomplish a lot each week with less time. Be sure to see our Be Intentional Baby Steps for Whole Life Change.
So this week is what we call our “penniless” week. It means we do all that we can to not spend a penny! The only exceptions are the normally scheduled bills (utility, insurance, etc.), business expenses and emergencies. Otherwise, we don’t grocery shop, use the gas in our van (Alex’s car doesn’t count as he HAS TO GO TO WORK – but we do fill it up before the week starts and can often make it the whole week without needing to gas his car up) and when it’s gone, we don’t go anywhere, we don’t buy anything online, and we find that those “once in a lifetime deals” will pass us by and we didn’t need it anyway (and they will probably come back again soon too!). We get really creative about what we eat! It is a fun test (believe it or not!), but it is a good discipline too! We won’t be eating out this week (we usually do about 1 time per week) an all of our activities will be free ones or things we have memberships to. This is a GREAT way to save a good amount of money! You can save hundreds!! So that is what we are doing this week!
In fact, today for lunch, we had something that I haven’t had for YEARS and had in fact forgot about – frito pies! We had a bag of fritos in our thrifty store in our basement and the kids found it! Well, I am out of bread as I need to make more today, but it wasn’t ready for lunch. I don’t keep canned chili normally, but I did have canned beans. So we took pinto and red kidney beans, added chili powder and a few other spices, heated it up. We filled bowls with Fritos on the bottom, scooped the beans on that and topped with cheese! The kids loved it as they had never had it before! I wouldn’t have thought about it had I done my normal routine shopping and had our normal lunch supplies on hand!
We did finish our next round of “bag chores” and the reward was swimming which we have free coupons for so that is our free activity this week!
With penniless week, it is also a good time to clean out fridge and pantry…. so that’s on my list too!
As always, before I share our weekly plan and our menu, you can read about each of these on these links as we encourage you to do the same to save time, money and sanity:
Here’s my plan this week:
T – stands for Thrifty – what are my thrifty goals for the week?
- Make more SOS Mix
- Refill low/empty homemade cleaners
- Make more toothpaste
- Make more Mouthwash
H – stands for Home – what are some things I/we need to do around and for our home?
- Pantry and fridge clean out
- Fix girls dresser
- Clean out cleaning closet and cleaning caddy
- Wash all bedding
- Finish needed gardening tasks
R – stands for Relationships – a place where I write down who I need to call, send a note to or remember a birthday/event.
- Write letter to cousin
- Send letter to aunt
- Prepare for Friday overnight guests and plan gluten-free recipes for them
I – stands for Involvement – this is the part of my planner that allows me and my family to be involved in our community and church in small ways each week.
- Donations to MS
- Figure out how I can help with Teen Mops from available needs list
F – stands for Finances – What financial tasks do we need to complete this week: (also as we continue to find our 2% cuts each month!)
- Move stocks from S___ to D___
- Take ThredUp Used Clothing packages to UPS (paid online consignment store)
- Take Back Lights
- Make final homeschool 2013-2014 decisions
- Sell items to Amazon
T – stands for To-Do’s– misc. things I need to do this week!
- Oils Order (business expense from business account!)
- Giveaways sent (business expense from business account!)
- Contact Daniel about speaking at Conference in Washington with topic ideas list
- Basement organization
- Send email to overnight Friday guests with final stay details (we are part of a Christian Hospitality network for travelers passing through needing a place to stay! If you are interested in learning more and how you can travel for free and host others in your home… email us!)
Y – stands for You – what are some things that I can do for myself to de-stress and relax for all of the hard work!
- Slimming Body Wrap at home
- Self-pedicure
Here’s our planned dinner menu for the week! We made a big roast and chicken as we had a big family join us for dinner yesterday, so we have a little bit of leftover roast and chicken – perfect for left over one-dish dinners this week!
Monday – Homemade beef barley soup and homemade rye bread (using soup meat and beef bone broth) with fruit and veggie tray
Tuesday – Crispy Chicken Salad with homemade bread and Watermelon pico de gallo and tortilla chips
Wednesday – Salmon with wild rice, mango and Best Brussies (this is brussel sprouts roasted in the oven with olive oil, cinnamon, turmeric and cayenne pepper – SOOOOO good!)
Thursday – Meatless night with Spaghetti and steamed veggies and leftover salad (if any)
Friday – (Gluten-free guests here) Chicken and Rice casserole or Chicken Stir Fry (depending on remaining fresh veggies)
Saturday – Homemade Pizza on Flax Flat out bread
Sunday – Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup using frozen cooked chicken and Red Lobster like biscuits plus remaining fresh produce
And… no matter whether you make a menu or not, don’t forget about “dinner by 10.”
If you would like to print your own THRIFTY weekly planner, you can do so below. Alex designed it to where it requires very little ink and in fact you can print it in fast draft/grayscale to use even less ink. But either one uses miniscule amount of ink! I would recommend printing or copy several as I often write plans a couple of weeks ahead too!
Please note, if you are reading this email in our rss feed or our email newsletter, you may have to click to the post HERE to print this download.
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<== Download your printable Weekly Thrifty Planner HERE |
Please share in the comments below what your menu and plan is for the week!
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