The Weekend Report: Taxes and April Groceries Week 1

Front Flower Bed on Friday

Saturday morning, I slept in and relaxed.  I felt happy because I had caught up on the filing backlog!  There are files to be gone through and organized (and cleaned out, too), but the stack of paper that had been sitting on my desk had been dealt with and tamed!

Saturday afternoon, I went to get my taxes done.  My appointment was for 3:00 p.m. and it lasted till after 5:00 p.m.!  At the end of it, I had a small Federal tax refund which got canceled out by the State taxes I owed!  Oh, well, I anticipated having to pay additional taxes this year because I lost my Head of Household filing status, since I can no longer claim my daughter as a dependent.

After I came home and had a cup of tea, I called friend R for a chat.  Then, I watered the front garden with the garden hose and watered the back garden with the sprinklers.  I also sorted through two more file folders and organized the contents.

Sunday morning, I slept in again!  Then, I sorted through another couple of file folders!  I am in the mood to organize my paperwork!  I went through my natural gas file folder and tossed out the past two years worth of bills and kept only the bills for 2018.

But, before I tossed the old gas bills, I made myself a comparison table for the payment amounts (and the therms used, when I remembered to include that).

Month	2016	2017	Therms Used	2018
January	$139.15	$161.59	n/a	$135.50/106therms
February	$348.90	$250.78	n/a	$205.85/157therms
March	$ 153.11	$185.03	134	$124.72/97 therms
April	$97.20	$153.43	116	$214.52/163therms
May	$65.41	$64.57	54
June	$79.08	$55.44	42
July	$67.76	$29.47	20
August	$17.33	$17.67	11
September	$16.69	$15.85	10
October	$19.78	$14.89	9
November _________ December	$ 26.14 ______________ $33.10	$15.94 ______________ $63.93	10 _______________ 51

  

I forgot to write down the therms I used in 2016, but I wrote them down for 2017; I will compare that to 2018 bills to see if I am using more or less gas or if the amount I use is the same, but the bills fluctuate due to increased in price per therm.

In 2016, I paid a total of $1,063.65 for gas (heating, water heater, and cooking) for an average of $88.64 per month.  Actual amounts varied from a high of $348.90 in February (extremely unusual but it was due to problems with the gas company - there was a gas leak -and they sent a letter around trying to explain the unusually high bill, but basically, their clean up costs got passed down to the consumer) to a low of $16.69 in September.
In 2017, I paid a total of $1,028.59, for an average of $85.72 per month.  Actual amounts varied from a high of $250.78 in February (Jan/Feb are our coldest months), to a low of $14.89 in October.

So far in 2018, the most recent bill I paid in early April seems to have been the highest, at $214.52; apparently, March was a cold month!  Since keeping the house warm is one area where I will splurge, I will continue to budget for it.  

Sunday afternoon, my neighbor T called and we had a nice chat.  Then, I called friend R again to see if she wanted to go to pick up the shipping boxes, but she was having a sore throat and not in a hurry for the boxes, so we decided to pick them up another weekend.

Instead, I went grocery shopping and put gas to the car.  Gas has gone up to $3.39/gallon.  I had gone down to quarter of my tank, so filled up; a little over 12 gallons for $42.31.

Daughter's Grocery Shopping

Pictured above are daughter's groceries for this week.  She bought: Organic 100% juice cranberry juice, soy sauce, coconut water with matcha, coconut water with passion fruit, 2 soy milk matcha green tea, 2 soy milk coffee, broccoflower, spinach, bacon and pork sausage, turkey sausage, plantains, cuties (tangerines), beets, avocados, 2 sukiyaki ramen and kimchi ramen.  She bought everything from the 99Cents store for a total of $19.35!

I went to two stores, today.  The ethnic grocery store for the majority of my purchases and the Kroger affiliated discount store for the rest of it.  I didn't take a picture of the groceries, but took pictures of the receipts!

Store 1:  Ethnic grocery store -

Store 1 Receipt

Regular ground beef (30% fat) was on sale for $1.99; lean ground beef (15% fat) was $4.99/lb.  I bought 2 lbs. of the regular ground beef; I will drain off the fat.

I bought:
2 lbs. ground beef @ $1.99/lb = $4.17
1+ lb. chicken drumsticks @ $.69/lb (1 lb. would have been 3 drumsticks and I bought 4) = $1.11
5 packages frozen puff pastry dough @$1.99 (stock up item; normally $2.50 and higher) = $9.95
Tomatoes @$.39/lb = $.67
Tamarind pods @ $1.99/lb (bought just 3 pods; I use for my curries) = $.22
Green beans @ $.99/lb = $.63
Red potatoes @ 3lb/$1 = $.34
1 Zucchini @$.39/lb = $.10
Broccoli @$.49/lb = $.15
Onions @$.20/lb = $.26
Total = $17.60


Store 2: Discount store -

Store 2 Receipt

I mostly went for eggs (on sale for $1.79/doz), bread, and milk, but I also bought bananas, mangoes, and ice cream bars!

I bought:
1 loaf sliced bread = $1.25
6-ct. ice cream bars = $2.99
(sing with me - "What will you do, for a K------- bar?")
Bananas @$.49/lb (cheaper than at the ethnic store where they were $.69/lb) = $.44
2 mangoes @ 2/$.99 = $.99 (they were $.79 at the ethnic store)
1/2 gal. milk = $1.99
1 doz. eggs = $1.79
Total = $9.45

By the way, just about everything I bought at Store 1 was more expensive at Store 2, while the items I bought at Store 2 were more expensive at Store 1.

I spent $17.60 + $9.45 = $27.05

My April grocery budget is: $75 - $.69 (that I overspent in March) = $74.31
Balance remaining in my April grocery budget = $74.31 - $27.05 = $47.26

I don't have a meal plan as such for the week, but, I will bake or broil the chicken drumsticks so I can eat them with a salad and/or cooked vegetables  and maybe some of the red potatoes (daughter shared a recipe for oven fried seasoned potatoes).  I also want to make some curry puffs with some of the ground beef and one or two packages of the frozen puff pastry - they will be convenient to take for lunch to work next week (there was some uncertainty about the lunch/break room facilities at the new building, so I want to take something that doesn't need to be heated up and I can eat cold; a curry puff with some salad and a piece of fruit will be good).  I will cook the rest of the ground beef and maybe freeze for future meals or make something else with it.  In fact, I might add some of it to the green beans and make a tomato and onion curry to go with it and rice for some of my weekday dinners.

But here's what daughter cooked, today, for the week:

Daughter's Cooking Part 1

She made: peanut hoisin carrot stir-fry (this is the girl who said she didn't like cooked carrots when I cooked carrots in my stir-fries! She says I make them too soft!), maple sausage spinach and egg scramble, vanilla chai protein muffins,  quinoa, baked fries (garlic basil and garlic thyme), roasted oregano beets, honey sriracha broccoflower, boiled plantains, and turkey sausages.

Daughter's Cooking Part 2

This weekend,  I am grateful for:
- Getting caught up on my paperwork and filing
- Getting my taxes done and filed
- The amount I owed wasn't as much as I thought it would be
- It was 81F today!
- Video chatting with my daughter.

How was your weekend?  Have you filed your taxes?  Have you gone grocery shopping in April yet?  Are you noticing that certain things seem to be creeping up in price?