Even with the car problems and the toilet, March has had some good stuff going on.

I had some cashflow goals for the month and I think I've done pretty well so far.

I've managed to cashflow:

$27.00 for the Defensive driving fee (yay!)

$156.93 of my $338.84 car repair fee (yay!)

$0.00 for my new pantry door (boo!)


ALSO, my new balance on the student loan is $3,795.49! WOO_HOO!


But I'm ok with not having the funds for my pantry door. First, the one I wanted is not currently available. I'm hoping Home Depot will restock soon. Second, I may be able to fund the purchase through a gift card from Mypoints. I'm just waiting for some points to hit my balance.


I've been sticking to the Lunch Challange. Today I brought:
Oatmeal & pears for breakfast; cheese sandwich & salad for lunch; soda from home; free water at work

Tomorrow, I have planned:
Breakfast: Cheerios with milk, Lunch of spaghetti salad - tons of veggies, turkey pepperoni & a bunch of spicy goodness! YUMMY! Snack will be popcorn.

I also have been talking to someone from Craigslist about my room. Hopefully they'll be able to meet this weekend. Anyone with advice about how to handle bringing a roommate into your house, please share!

First, about weekend spending. There was none! I vegged Friday night after a long work week. I did pop back out around 9pm to go to the grocery store. I didn't want to have to deal with the Saturday morning crowds.

Yesterday & this morning was hanging out with the nephew. This afternoon has been all about cleaning and watching Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. And recovering from the Nephew's visit

I have gotten a LOT accomplished. Its amazing how changing your sheets & dusting and vacuuming the house can change things

As for the upcoming week, I drop my car back to the repair place for work tomorrow. The window motor was fixed and the window will go up & down if you use the passanger controls. But they do not work from the driver side controls. I'm hoping its an easy fix that would require no extra charges. But if its the driver side controls that have the issue, I'll have to decide if I want to have it fixed (for a cost) or leave as is for now.

I'm trying not to spend until payday on Friday. I have a full tank of gas and tons of groceries. So unless some entertainment spending comes up, all of the extra funds in those 3 catagories can go to the Student loan as of Friday.

In an effort to keep up with eating at home & my lunch challange, I've made a meal plan for the week.

I have a desk drawer of oatmeal, crackers, granola bars and microwave popcorn.

Monday:
Breakfast: oatmeal & pears
Lunch: Salad, cheese sandwich
Dinner: Pasta, baked potato

Tuesday:
Breakfast:Cheerios with milk, hard boiled egg
Lunch: Pears, large salad
Dinner: Meatloaf muffin, baked fries, green beans

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal, hard boiled egg
Lunch: Cheese sandwich, salad
Dinner: Sloppy joe over egg noodles, green beans

Thursday:
Breakfast: Cheerios with milk
Lunch: PB&J sandwich, pasta salad
Dinner: Pasta w/ sauce; salad

Friday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal, fruit cocktail
Lunch: Pasta salad, cheese sandwich
Dinner: Turkey BLT; baked fries; salad

Saturday:
Breakfast: Cheerios, fruit cocktail
Lunch: Large salad with penne in it
Dinner: London briol, leftover baked fries; peas

As you can see, I can never get enough of salad, be it just cucumbers & tomatoes or a big salad with lettuce, cucumber, tomato, peppers, carrots, eggs, cheese & pepperoni. I've always been this way

I had a great week, no spending for food, except for Monday. I had a great networking opportunity at work to have lunch with a few of my peers, my manager & her manager and I took it. I spent $9.00 for lunch and was able to take leftovers home for dinner. It was definately worth it

The rest of the week, I did really well. But I have to start planning a little better. I have been stopping at the grocery store a little more often than I usually do.

So tomorrow, I'll be heading to the store for veggies & milk and I will not be going grocery shopping again til next weekend (payday).

I am really enjoying this challange and its working well because I've been changing things up with my Weight Watchers plan. I'm trying to find new ways to get dairy & whole wheat in. I've sorta hit a plateau in my weight loss journey and now I'm focusing more on varying up my meals.

My car is back safe and sound. I paid a total of $338.34, which will come from my car repairs fund. I will be working to build it back up as needed, but currently its not a priority.

The shop gave me a lot of problems that I don't want to even get into. They finally fixed the squealing. It was a belt that had been replaced two years ago. It was still under warrenty, so they fixed it. Total cost: $0.00

In addition, I had asked them to look at my passenger side door. The motor would not move the window. So the window motor needed to be replaced.

Plus, my car had been riding rough. The techs noticed and determined I needed new spark plugs. Which I really do.. they haven't been changed since I bought the car. So they charged me for the spark plugs, but not for the labor.

Thats nice!

Until on my way home, when I checked my window. It worked once from my drivers side controls. Then it didn't. It works from the passenger side controls though. So I will be making a call to the Service desk tomorrow. I'm ticked!

In other news, I packed my breakfast & lunch for work today and ate dinner at home. I've already premade my food for work tomorrow. Tomorrow night's dinner will be at home as well, but then I'm heading out to meet some friends at the Pub. I plan on taking & spending only $10.00. Definately doable, the prices at the Pub are CHEAP!

I dropped my car off to the repair shop last night. I'll hear back this morning about an estimate, hopefully it won't be too bad.

Yesterday, I spent $9.00 at Olive Garden for lunch plus tip. Last night, I bought groceries.

Today I packed breakfast & lunch:

Breakfast: Hard boiled egg plus hardboiled egg white, 8oz yogurt

Lunch: Turkey on Rye, salad with ff sundried tomato dressing

I brought breakfast & lunch to work today. And now its lunch time and I realized that I forgot to bring my bread for my turkey sandwhich. I have the turkey & all the fixin's, but no bread. Then I went for my salad, and I have this huge one with lots of veggies & salad supreme seasoning. BUT no dressing. UGH! Foiled!

So now I'm munching on a granola bar & having a soda from home. I may even have some oatmeal. But there's no way I'm buying anything to eat.

Hopefully, I'll get out of work today. At least I know what I'm having for dinner. Turkey sandwich & salad

My car, a 2002 Hyundai Sonata has been making a squealing noise for a while. Mostly when it starts up after being cold for awhile. Its likely a fan belt, but I've been putting off the repair.

Well, the noise has gotten worse. To the point of being embarrassing. At least the car is still running perfectly. So I made an appointment for next Tuesday to have it looked at. Hopefully, it won't be a big expense, but I do have funds in my car repairs savings.



As for today's Lunch. I'm right on track.
Breakfast: Hard boiled egg, all bran crackers
Snack: Granola bar
Lunch: Turkey wrap with lettuce, tomato, red peppers & light mayo, plus a salad with light italian dressing.

I brought a soda from home and have had several bottles of water, all refilled from the free filtered water at work.

Tonight will be dinner at home, so today will be a no spender.

Also, I got my electric/gas bill, its 132. 21. Thats about 12.21 over my budgeted amount for electric/gas. Oh well, time to revamp the budget since prices are going up. I know its certainly not my usage thats increasing. I'll be able to pull the extra funds from other household accounts. I'll be fine.


Tomorrow is payday and I already have a budget in place for the funds. I plan on being ultra frugal for the month of March. I'd like to cashflow as much of the car repairs as possible, although it probably won't be much. We'll see how it goes.

For February, I have been able to put a lot of extra funds towards the student loan.

$18.00 State Tax Refund
$393.00 Federal Tax Refund
$3.21 Leftover from car insurance
$63.73 Savings Account Interest
$478.32 Metlife Insurance Inheritance

WooHoo! Plus the balance is down so much that most of my payments are going directly to the balance.


As for the Februrary-March Lunch challange, this week is going well. I have moved around some meals in my meal plan. So tonight I had sloppy joe instead of Friday, but its all working out

Plus, today, I had a bit of free food from work. Some of the people I work with made snacks for the baby shower. I had a cookie & a small bit of fruit and pudding. It was good


Today was a no spender. I came home from work, did some laundry, worked out, made dinner. Now I'm going to veg out & watch Mr Woodcock, which I borrowed from the library.

Brought breakfast and lunch to work today. I also stocked up my desk drawer with snacks - granola bars, crackers and oatmeal.

I donated $5.00 towards a Baby Shower gift for a coworker. But since thats a gift and not food related, it doesn't bust the Lunch Challange

Its been intersting to see what other people are doing with the challange. I was able to see how everone did last week & I'll be checking back to see how everyone's doing. If you're interested in checking it out, visit http://krystalatwork.blogspot.com/2008/02/february-march-lun...

Today I brought my breakfast & lunch to work. Plus I scored a free sandwich from leftovers from a meeting of the higher ups.

For breakfast, I had:
Hard boiled egg, plus 1 egg white
18 All Bran crackers

Lunch: 1 diet soda brought from home
Large salad with lots of yummy extras
Turkey Sandwich on Rye (free!)

Snack: baby carrots

I utilized free water at work for the rest of my drinks for the day.

Dinner will be at home - haven't decided what yet.


This weekend I'll be working on a meal plan for the week and I'll be posting my daily food report. I am really committed to this challange. Thanks to Krystal for coming up with challang! For more details, go to http://krystalatwork.blogspot.com/2008/02/february-march-lun...