Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Giveaways this week!



Here we are with some more giveaways this week, check them out!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Salmon Fillets with Creamy Dill


Whats for Dinner Wednesday
Thrifty and Chic mom does a topic every wednesday to plan your meals, I am going to participate.

This is my favorite recipe for salmon!!

Salmon Fillets with Creamy Dill

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)

  • 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
  • 1/2 cup prepared mustard
  • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil leaves
  • 1 1/2 pounds salmon fillets
  • 2 teaspoons dried dill, or to taste

    DIRECTIONS

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
  • In a bowl, stir together mayonnaise and mustard. Stir in thyme, oregano, and basil. Place salmon fillets on a baking sheet, and spread with the mayonnaise mixture. Sprinkle with dill weed.
  • Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the salmon is easily flaked with a fork.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Focus Friday

Heres my progress from last week:
  • Make one scrapbook page--Here it is:
  • Try to work 12 hours on friday and pick up saturday OT--if not chacha 30 times that night. I was not able to pick up OT til Sunday-my current chacha total is $136
  • Make a grocery list and checkout the walgreens/rite aid deals this week--short list this week and nothing good at walgreens/rite aid
  • look for a strapless bra for my dress I bought for my cousins wedding
  • look for shoes for my dress--i still cant decide, please go down on my posts and help me choose!
  • Finish book and start a new one!--Just finished The Choice and now im reading Eat, Pray, Love. Just got some new ones from the library

My goals this week

  • Call Citi Bank about Thank you Rewards on my credit card...we are gonna cash some in for adams student loans
  • Fax the rest of the tax forms in and be done
  • Shop for zacharys other bday gift
  • Buy a bra for the wedding
  • Look into how to renew my Nursing license for august
  • Call Bank of America to close account
  • Finish book Eat Pray Love and start new book
  • Try to pickup tuesday as extra at work--if not chacha 5 dollars.
  • I still want to try to make one scrapbook page
  • Adam and I are off work next thursday together so i would like to try to plan something to do


Thursday, March 19, 2009

Home Depot Tool Rental

Hey everyone,
I wanted to make you aware over at Home Construction Improvement they are giving away a $200 Home Depot Tool Rental Giftcard. They always have great Home Improvement Advice!I know Adam would like to rent the 12" Compound Miter Saw. Theres a lot of variety that you can do with this! So Check out the Home Depot Rental Center!

Giveaways Week of March 18th!

Heres just a random scrapbook page I made :


Giveaway time!! Heres the ones for this week:

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Manhattan-Style Clam Chowder-CrockPot

Whats for Dinner Wednesday
Thrifty and Chic mom does a topic every wednesday to plan your meals, I am going to participate. Today I am making Manhattan-Style Clam Chowder . I made this and had a ton left over the last time, we froze it and ate it for a while! I love crockpot recipes!
Manhattan-Style Clam Chowder
The "red" clam chowder

Ingredients

  • * 5 to 6 sliced bacon, diced
  • * 1 cup chopped onion
  • * 2 carrots, thinly sliced
  • * 3 ribs celery with leaves, thinly sliced
  • * 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, or 1 teaspoon dried
  • * 1 large can (28 ounces) tomatoes, broken up, undrained
  • * 1 1/2 tsp. salt
  • * Black pepper
  • * 1 bay leaf
  • * 1 tsp. dried thyme
  • * 3 medium potatoes, diced
  • * 2 or 3 cans (6 to 7 oz each) minced clams with juice
  • * 1 bottle (8oz) clam juice
  • * 1 tablespoon flour blended with 1 tablespoon melted butter or a little of the bacon grease, optional

Directions

  1. Fry diced bacon until crispy; drain and transfer to 3 1/2-quart or larger slow cooker/Crock Pot. Add remaining ingredients to the slow cooker/Crock Pot; Stir to blend. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Help me, i cant choose!

I am trying to find a pair of shoes to wear to my cousins wedding. Heres the dress I will wear:


Help me choose the shoes! I have 4 pairs I cant decide.
Heres the shoes I am trying to choose:
#1
#2
#3
#4
Comment to help me out!!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Focus Friday

Wow its friday already?? Heres my progress from last week:


  • Get Paperwork Done for First Assist agency faxed in on Thursday

  • Run with Adam hopefully the weather is good--the weather is so cold! Have not ran this week,

  • Go Hiking on tues if the weather is nice, if not we are going to go shopping--we went to the underground tour of seattle, it was awesome. We also went to University district and shopped at the vintage stores!
  • File paperwork into the filebox--did it..i need a bigger file box

  • Go through coupons and get to walgreens--got 2 free glade sense and spray and 4 free garnier shampoo

  • Make one scrapbook page--I made 2 here they are




My goals this week


  • Make one scrapbook page

  • Try to work 12 hours on friday and pick up saturday OT--if not chacha 30 times that night

  • Make a grocery list and checkout the walgreens/rite aid deals this week

  • look for a strapless bra for my dress I bought for my cousins wedding

  • look for shoes for my dress

  • Finish book and start a new one!


Eggplant Parmesan

Whats for Dinner Wednesday
Thrifty and Chic mom does a topic every wednesday to plan your meals, I am going to participate. I love this meal! I made it for my family when I was home this last time. They all loved it!!



Eggplant Parmesan

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 eggplant, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 4 cups Italian seasoned bread crumbs
  • 6 cups spaghetti sauce, divided
  • 1 (16 ounce) package mozzarella cheese, shredded and divided
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried basil

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. Dip eggplant slices in egg, then in bread crumbs. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 5 minutes on each side.
  3. In a 9x13 inch baking dish spread spaghetti sauce to cover the bottom. Place a layer of eggplant slices in the sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Repeat with remaining ingredients, ending with the cheeses. Sprinkle basil on top.
  4. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until golden brown.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Giveaways Week of March 10th!


This is a picture from Twin Falls, we visited 2 weeks ago. So pretty!! We were gonna go hiking today but its so cold here in Seattle, so we are postponing that. Ok on to the giveaways!

Friday, March 6, 2009

Focus Friday!

Wow its friday already?? Heres my progress from last week:
  • Get 3 references this week from work to apply with new travel companies (for more jobs)--did it and filled out the paperwork needed!
  • No eating out at least until St Patricks day---did it!
  • Chacha at least 10 times a day again- My total this week $131 and I picked up 19 hours of overtime at work! Cant wait for the paycheck!
  • Run 3-4 times this week with Adam--it has rained alot and I havent had a day off..i suck this week
  • Get financial review done for Feb--go read it!
  • Finish Book and bring it back to the library on Sunday--I started a new book and returned the others!
  • Scrapbook 2 pages this week: Here they are...I actually did 3!



My goals this week

  • Get Paperwork Done for First Assist agency
  • Run with Adam hopefully the weather is good
  • Go Hiking on tues if the weather is nice, if not we are going to go shopping
  • File paperwork into the filebox
  • Go through coupons and get to walgreens
  • Make one scrapbook page


Thursday, March 5, 2009

March Financial Review

2009 Personal Finance Goals
This first part I got the idea from Green Panda Treehouse check them out!
Debt:
  • Pay off one of adams loans Adam now has a good job and is contributing most of his paycheck to his loans! Way to go Adam :) His goal is to get it to $6000 by the time we leave Seattle

  • Biweekly Payments plus Principal on house called citimortgage, this is all up to date and has started!

  • Emergency Fund $5000 (new goal 3/09)

Spending:

  • Eat out no more than once a week--we went over our restaurant "budget" this time. We used coupons but went all out for valentines day. It was awesome seafood though! No regrets :)

  • Use coupons as much as possible--we had some good grocery shopping trips this month. One week we didnt go because there were no good deals. Used alot of coupons! I am also getting $28 in rebates from walgreens and $6 from rite aid this month!

  • Watch our spending when we come home for good--well we found out that the tenents have left our house a disaster...so we maybe spending more than expected for improvements when we get home---spent $320 this week getting the carpets cleaned

  • Buy a washer and dryer for house on sale with coupons! new goal 2/09 going to start saving in the housefund for this...have not started researching yet because things will change

  • Furnish house with garage sale/thrift store items until we redo the room with no more than $1000 new goal 2/09 we came to the conclusion that we will be buying a bed when we get home so we will start looking!

  • Sending our taxes away to get done by professionals ($250) but I couldnt do them on my own this year, too complicated! Lets hope we dont owe anything! new goal 3/09

  • Applying for the New Home Buyer Credit $7500 to repay in the next 2 years new goal 3/09

Frugal:

  • Try to get enough CFL lightbulbs to replace all of the lights when we move in..using coupons of course --got 7 so far, rite aid was doing a refund on some, picked up 2 for $.50 each!

  • Keep entering giveaways for gift cards to home depot for our house won a blackjack phone! That was exciting! But now it might increase our phone bill, I wanted email at some point though! Also won an ipod shuffle (using for a gift!) no home depot cards though...

  • Savings: Save up 6 months of emergency savings currently at: $2647.20!

  • Save up a downpayment on a car brand new Hundia accent or Nissina versa(about $10,000) currently at: $2202.75

  • Save some of every paycheck for Roth so I can max out next year($5000) new goal added 2/09 currently have contributed $4,039.00
So Here we are in March. February flew by, probably cause its a short month? We went over budget on eating out this month. Not really sure why but we did. Oh well we told ourselves no eating out until St Patricks Day. Its just so hard to not eat out when you dont have an oven and there are a million restaurants out our window. Adam is liking his job here its nice that we get to stay. On friday it was supposed to be our last day here, now 3 more months! Its weird not leaving. Work has been a bummer lately. Our census is so low they cancelled me 20 hours out of 36 one week. That paycheck sucked, so didnt save as much as I wanted this month. Lets hope it gets better this month. I am starting to get some things together to apply with new travel companies in hopes of getting a job in June!

My Short Term Financial Goals by May
Heres what we got:
Last month= blue
This month= red

Our HouseFund: We added $4000 in there because our mortgage gets directly withdrawn and we get more interest with more money so I took from my checking $2970.50--$6642.39(We had more than usual come out this month because we signed up for biweekly payments and there was a $300 charge :()
My Checkings (high interest): $9493--$3907.50
My Checkings (no interest): $2252--$993.06--I get paid tomorrow...
CD at huntington (expiring in march) will deposit into checking or house--or car!:$5,909--$5,935(I have decided to deposit this into my car savings so I wont have a car payment when we get home it expires on the 19th)
Adam Checkings (high interest): $745.00--$49.91 (he moved money to his other checking for extra loan payment)
Bank of America: $79--$79 --I have to close this account when I get the time...
Roth: $8071--$9230.30
Credit Card debt: $158--we havent paid rent yet...
401k: $1518--$1325.90 :(
**NEW 401k--$1,294.78--$1,838.61

Ok so heres the goals until May 19(the end of this assignment):

  • Start contributing to my Roth this year and max out by April:$472 for December $674 January for 2008 contribution so I can max out(hopefully!) currently contributed: 2,737.00 for year 2008

  • Make 2 payments to Adams loans (on top of what he pays) : Currently -$7996.96 from Direct Loan Service and -$40817.35 from First Resource Federal will plan this paycheck to contribute something to it!

  • Try to get someone to rent out our house while we are away for extra money for our mortgage. I think I am going to cancel this goal if theres nothing promising by next month...

  • Split paychecks every 2 weeks into Mortgage payment, Roth IRA, Checking Account, and Emergency Fund

  • Get $1750 for our apt in Seattle and bank at least $100 each month--Used any extra for the Roth

  • Continue to pay off credit card each month doing well with this

  • My meal plans have worked out pretty well. We go shopping once a week and have not spent over $100.
    Feb 17- $55
    March 1- $41
    I made some good pasta the other night but since we live in a tiny studio, I blew a fuse 3 times because I plugged in the hot plate and the crockpot oops.

  • Continue to get the deals at walgreens for a garage sale this summer with my sister!---still doing that! We got cheap deodorant, candy, free makeup etc!

  • I am still going to use as many coupons as possible. Joined new trains and got lots, now we just need cheaper grocery stores.

  • I am also going to try to get $50 or more in Chacha extra money (now $$131.43 went up $16 this month! wow...)

  • I signed up at Pinecone Research and got a $12 so far this month! I like this company! It takes no more than 15 min to complete a survey and you get paid quick! I also got some samples in the mail
So theres the update! Any thoughts are helpful. I think this month was a good one, mostly because of this job. Lets hope next month is a good one too!!

Completed Goals

  • Pay off scooter by February balance=done January 10
  • Pay off Jeep done! 2/1/09
  • $1000 in Emergency Fund done January 16

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Baked Swai in Foil

Whats for Dinner Wednesday
Thrifty and Chic mom does a topic every wednesday to plan your meals, I am going to participate. Today I am making Baked Swai in Foil.

Baked Swai in Foil

Ingredients

  • • 16 oz raw tilapia or swai
  • • 4 tsp olive oil
  • • 1/2 cup canned tomatoes
  • • 1 cup zucchini
  • • 1/2 cup onion(s)

Directions

  1. Cut Swai (or other white fish) into (2) 8oz servings. Use 2tsp olive oil to brush front and back of each serving before laying in a large square of foil.
  2. Meanwhile, saute 1 zucchini thinly sliced and 1/2 of an onion, chopped in other 2 tsp olive oil. Sprinkle fish with salt, pepper, paprika to taste.
  3. Spoon minced/diced tomatoes on top, then divide zucchini/onion saute on top of each serving.
  4. Close foil packets and bake @ 425 for about 20 minutes. Next time, try adding garlic, or a more robust seasoning. Can even sprinkle fat-free feta on top

Monday, March 2, 2009

Giveaways for the week of March 2nd



Hey Everyone,
Looking back at my "Focus Friday" I wanted to make 2 scrapboo pages, well so far I made one this week. Here it is, Enjoy :)
Now on to the giveaways!