Life on a budget- part 3

These past few days have proven excellent for our budget. Not only have we spent very little money, but we have made money as well!

A couple of months ago a friend of mine called and asked if I was interested in a bookcase that she had found. Sure! It was a children's bookcase and I thought it would fit well in Karl's room. It was too big and we just didn't have room to keep it. So, I posted it on craigslist two days ago and sold it last night for $25! Erik also gave me $4.00 that he had in his wallet. Sweet!

$34.68+$2.00 (found in jeans)+$4.00+$25.00= $65.68

These past few days I did end up buying the following things: an onion, a Slurpee for Erik (he is out in the heat working on the deck), and 2 lbs of butter (they were on sale!) I spent $4.48

$65.68-$4.48= $61.20

You might be thinking that we must be depriving ourselves of good food and that couldn't be further from the truth. Erik and I have been eating very well- a meat, vegetable, and carbohydrate at each meal- and have even had dessert each night!

Last night we decided to go outside of our pre-determined meals because we found some corn in the back of our fridge (only one ear was still good). We had 1 ear of corn ($0.44), 2 chicken breasts ($5.50), BBQ sauce (free- made by Erik), salad (about $1.50)and some rice with flavoring ($0.99). So, total our meal per person cost $4.22! For dessert I made brownies from scratch and that probably cost about $1.50 total. All together we ate for less than $10.00 last night.

On a not so good note, we got Erik's truck back from the shop...that put us back a bit! We won't count that in our remaining $61 budget ;)

A quick shout-out to my friend, Jean, who let me listen to her Glee Vol. 2 soundtrack! It was a great pick me up :)

If any of you are curious, below is the brownie recipe I used. They were delicious!

Award Winning Brownies

2 eggs

3/4 cup of sugar


1 tsp. vanilla extract


1/2 cup butter, melted


3/4 cup cocoa powder


2/3 cup all-purpose flour


1/4 tsp. baking powder


1/4 tsp. Salt


1/2 cups walnuts, chopped (I didn’t use)


1 cup Ghirardelli double chocolate chips ( I didn't use)

***

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Using a spoon, stir the eggs with the sugar; Add the vanilla.

Stir in the butter. Sift the chocolate powder with the flour, baking powder and salt and stir flour mixture into the egg mixture (I didn’t sift the ingredients, but I did whisk them together). If using, add the nuts and chocolate chips.

Spread in a greased 8 inch square pan. Bake 20-25 minutes or until just set. Let cool completely.