Budget Friendly February

Hello lovelies! 

It has been a while since I last posted.  I was doing so good there for a while and then jumped on the freeway in personal life and am just now making it back - kind of.

I thought I would update everyone on how our month is going.  We are trying really hard to purchase a house and just be more budget conscious.

We have decided that we will each start saving a certain percentage of each paycheck no matter what.  We have a bad habit of pulling more out of savings than we put it.  It kills me a little inside pisses me off every time I see our savings number go down and I decided that we couldn't do it anymore if we wanted to buy a house and have a family.  Ryan and I both compromised on what percentages we will contribute and have made an agreement that we will be saving 20% monthly of Ryan's checks and 20% monthly of my checks.  We are hoping that this will give us a better security blanket and allow us to be more aware of where we are spending our money.

Speaking of being more aware of budget, the Army told us about this great website to use when tracking our money after this last deployment and we absolutely love it!  It is Mint and we use it all the time.  It uploads your bank accounts each time you open it and it tells you exactly how much money you have where.  It also breaks it down into categories for you and shows you where you are spending the most of your money.  It gives you an estimated budget for each category and will send you emails when you are going over or getting low on a bank account.  We have found it very helpful, although it is very honest and makes you really think about what/where you are spending your money.  Go check it out!  It's free and they have apps for you phone or tablet. :)

As you can see we are doing pretty well with the minor hiccup of Movies & DVDs.  We went to one movie and those suckers are expensive now!  

To also help us not spend as much money we have been eating at home more this month.  We have planned that instead of eating out 6-10 meals a week we will only eat maximum 3!  We have changed our eating out days from Friday - Sunday, with the occasional night that we don't want to cook, to just Saturdays.  I know that this is hard for both of us, especially because Ryan gets tired of sandwiches for lunch and loves going out and I do not necessarily cook the best, but we are making it work.

We have come up with some fun dinners and have even tried new stuff, which is always exciting and terrifying at the same time.

I want to start sharing my recipes on here soon and I hope you all enjoy them.  I think that we take the best of both worlds and make something delicious.  I DO NOT hand-make everything we eat and I think that is where some people will be able to relate.  We use everyday items out of our pantry and make it the healthiest and best tasting that we can.  We are in no way, shape or form dietitians and have no real ground to stand on when it comes to what is "healthy" 

Here are some of the recipes that we have eaten most recently that I plan to share very soon :)

Hamburger Pizza - my mom's recipe that she has been making since I was a little girl

His and Hers Calzones

Raviolis with meat sauce

Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo

We are headed out to Colorado this Thursday and are so excited!  Can't wait to spend some time with our fambam.  We have been really good with our budget so we can indulge a little bit while we are there :)

Do you have any fun new recipes we should try?? :)