Tonight I used up the last of the Turkey and made turkey pot pie. I used cream of potato soup with turkey, frozen carrots and crescent rolls. I could have used peas and corn too. But I don't like peas and I don't really care for corn either. The meal turned out delicious and we will have left overs for the weekend. You may be wondering what I am doing to keep myself busy and entertained instead of spending money and shopping while completing this challenge. Well, today I worked on a scrap book for my youngest daughter. I only did a few pages, but it took some time and I enjoy it. I also have been completing CEU's online. They are free through a site one of my co workers introduced me to. I have a certification so I need 125 CEU's per five year period. It can be expensive, so imagine my surprise when I was able to complete around 20 hours of free in services.
Another hobby of mine is photography. I really love to take pictures and I would love to own a really nice camera some day. For now I usually use my phone and frankly, it takes pretty nice pictures. Here are two from the evening sky as I sat and listened to the Marching Band practice. (Also free entertainment). Another hobby of mine is coin collecting. I have been doing this since I was a little girl with my dad. I can remember sitting on the floor in the living room and sorting through a ton of pennies looking at dates and mint letters. Someone who collects coins is called a numismatist. That, is a horrible name! I came across this info the other day about some coins and the value and I decided that I would look through mine. Unfortunately, I didn't find any half dollars with Ben Franklin on them, nor did I find a Kansas quarter that says "In God we Rust." Apparently, they are both pretty valuable. I also read in the past two days about saving habits of people in the United States versus those in other countries. Did you know that the average person in the United States has less than $1000 in savings? Also, that in the US the savings rate is 4.5% of take home pay. So if you bring home $1000, you only save $45. Ok, it is something, which is better than nothing. But let's compare that to Japan, they save on average 30% of take home and the Chinese, a whopping 38%. That's $380 per pay check. If you take home $1000 bi-weekly, that adds up to $9880. per year. In ten years, you would have $98,800.00. WOW
Today in the mail I got this free Campbell's soup for the Kuerig. I don't own one, but I wonder, do they know about the challenge?? I started looking through our spending this morning and I was thinking we are doing pretty good. It looked as though we may get through the month spending less than 2K and that included utilities. Then the mail came. We have an insurance bill and we also still have to pay our city taxes. Oh Well. We have spent a whole lot less on groceries and eating out. We are under $60 for groceries for the month and our eating out it down under 10$ so far. Those are two things we can control and I am pretty proud of that. This is the half way point and I am confident our spending will be much less and I am happy to say, I am learning a lot and I will share all of it when I am done with the challenge. Looking forward to Tuesday, where I will be eating a delicious home cooked meal with my Aunt BJ and her home made goetta.
Today in the mail I got this free Campbell's soup for the Kuerig. I don't own one, but I wonder, do they know about the challenge?? I started looking through our spending this morning and I was thinking we are doing pretty good. It looked as though we may get through the month spending less than 2K and that included utilities. Then the mail came. We have an insurance bill and we also still have to pay our city taxes. Oh Well. We have spent a whole lot less on groceries and eating out. We are under $60 for groceries for the month and our eating out it down under 10$ so far. Those are two things we can control and I am pretty proud of that. This is the half way point and I am confident our spending will be much less and I am happy to say, I am learning a lot and I will share all of it when I am done with the challenge. Looking forward to Tuesday, where I will be eating a delicious home cooked meal with my Aunt BJ and her home made goetta. 
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