Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

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alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Not much going on here. Ate leftover cold meatloaf for lunch. Had a couple of fresh peaches from my trees for dessert. Dinner was a repeat but made cornbread to go with it. Will eat some peaches later this evening for a snack. Still have a ton of them in my fridge. Hopefully will make peach jam this week..Had a keto English muffin for breakfast.. It is so hot here I do not want to cook but hopefully after the sun goes down I will make some keto sausage gravy for the coming week to give me a change of pace for breakfast. Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Things are kind of slow.. I did make $3.00 on a survey over the week-end. The money will be deposited to my bank account through PayPal in a few days. I consider that free money. So combined with what I saved from other budgeted accounts so far this month I have almost enough to buy a rotisserie chicken some time this month.

We are expecting a lot of rain this week-end from the tropical storm Gordon.. Not sure if he is a storm or a hurricane.. Anyway they said to prepare for 4 to 6 inches of rain with flooding in our area. I am usually prepared and can get by for long periods of time..just part of growing up in a rural area and living in a rural area.. You never let things get low. I did go out and pick all of the apples I could reach on my tree. They are falling off here and there just a couple a day.. However if the rain is significant and long term I will not get out to pick them up. They will be all mushy and some will be partially eaten by critters. So I brought in a large pile of them to process while I am house bound. I picked 6 pears off of my tree last week and they are getting ripe enough for me to cook down. They are canning pears and not fresh eating pears. So I will have enough things to keep me busy and put food away for late Fall in to winter. Our rain starts tomorrow but the significant rain is late Friday in to Saturday.

Right now just eating leftovers ie meatloaf and cornbread..I had corn bread toasted in my toaster oven with butter for breakfast and meatloaf and cornbread for lunch and dinner. I know it is not a balanced meal but it sure does taste good and leftover meatloaf is the best.

Have not bought any groceries this month but will do some cherry picking tomorrow at Aldi's on my way home for the Drs office. Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

I have challenged myself to only spending $22.00 for groceries this month.. I spent $20.61 today mostly for basics. I really got some great deals at Ruler. Ruler is Kroger's version of Aldi's. Usually milk is .57 or .58 cents a
half gallon. I forget now what but today they had milk marked down to .39 cents half gallon. The expiration date is 09/13/2018. I bought two. I had planned on buying two one for now and one for the freezer. Their eggs were .98 doz. I bought 4; Cream cheese .79 cent a brick. I bought 4. Ketogenic uses a lot of cream cheese and eggs. I cannot stick to a strick ketogenic diet since it makes my blood sugar go too low but it helps to keep things in a better balance in regards to my carbs. Bananas were .15 cents a pound. I bought 2 lbs. They are the same brand that you pay much more for at other grocery stores. The $1.39 will be used later in the month to either go towards a rotisserie chicken combine with the $3.00 I earned from a survey or for fresh produce of some sort.

My DB called today and told me that he and his wife would like to pay half of my property taxes. Mine is around $3800. It is not easy to come up with the money but I like the challenge of doing my own thing. I turned them down but if things get too tight I do have back up if needed. I am lucky that they are thoughtful enough to think of me in that way.

I have some menu ideas in my head but have not made any definite plans yet for what I will be making for my meals this month. Right now have a large chicken thigh in a pot simmering. Petco was out of the fresh dog food that I plan to restart Teddi on.They expect a shipment in today. He is such a picky eater and I know it is not good for him to eat just meat and rice. Many times he does not even eat the rice and just picks out the meat. So it is going to be tough love with him eating the fresh food from Petco. Eat it or go hungry. The leftover water will be simmered longer with the bone, after I take the meat off of the bone, and frozen to make soup or use in something for a meal for me. Some of the ketogenic recipes uses chicken broth to thin out their cream cheese sauces.

My brother is selling his farm and my land use to be part of his farm. I have concerns that the property line that I share with his farm is really close to my house. I had concerns that someone could buy his farm and come in and put in a fence and run hogs really close to my house.. I asked my brother if I could buy a half acre to give me some space.. He said the the two acres I have and the three adjoining ones were bought at a different time and they are not part of the farm sale. What a relief! His property is where I have a burn pile for all of the tree limbs and weeds that I get off of my land.. Also that is where two of the mulberry trees are located that I pick mulberries from. So I am doing a happy dance. All is right in my part of the world. Janet Alliesmama
Last edited by alliesmama4 on Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Janet Alliesmama
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2263
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

alliesmama4 wrote: Wed Sep 05, 2018 6:20 pmI cannot stick to a strick ketogenic diet since it makes my blood sugar go too low but it helps to keep things in a better balance in regards to my carbs.
Hi, Janet -

How does your cholesterol fair with all the cheese and eggs? I have to low carb (blood sugar issues) as well as be GF (Celiac disease) and for years as long as I kept the cheese side of things reasonable, my cholesterol was low.

Well, genetics (both parents have/had high cholesterol) have caught up to me and now I have cholesterol issues; can't mess around with that as my Dad had all the cardiovascular stuff that went along with his bad cholesterol.

But if I don't eat eggs - the yolks, especially - my hair starts to fall out! About a year after my son was born everything went haywire, had to go GF and give up being vegan to get the iron/biotin from eggs. Fortunately my doctor (it was the gastroenterologist who said forget the supplements, fry an egg) figured it out before I went totally bald :o and now here I am, with cholesterol problems. :roll:
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

SandiSAHM wrote: Wed Sep 05, 2018 9:40 pm
alliesmama4 wrote: Wed Sep 05, 2018 6:20 pmI cannot stick to a strick ketogenic diet since it makes my blood sugar go too low but it helps to keep things in a better balance in regards to my carbs.
Hi, Janet -

How does your cholesterol fair with all the cheese and eggs? I have to low carb (blood sugar issues) as well as be GF (Celiac disease) and for years as long as I kept the cheese side of things reasonable, my cholesterol was low.

Well, genetics (both parents have/had high cholesterol) have caught up to me and now I have cholesterol issues; can't mess around with that as my Dad had all the cardiovascular stuff that went along with his bad cholesterol.

But if I don't eat eggs - the yolks, especially - my hair starts to fall out! About a year after my son was born everything went haywire, had to go GF and give up being vegan to get the iron/biotin from eggs. Fortunately my doctor (it was the gastroenterologist who said forget the supplements, fry an egg) figured it out before I went totally bald :o and now here I am, with cholesterol problems. :roll:
Sandi I too am predisposed to genetic cholesterol problems.. I have been off of cholesterol drugs for a couple of years since I had really bad muscular reactions to the lowest dose. My brother has done a lot of research since he has a similar problem.. Cholesterol is not as bad as the Drs and the pharmaceutical companies make it out to be. My brother and I are both gluten intolerant.. I found out on my own in 2007 when I went gluten free due to my genetic ALS. He found out a year or so ago when he developed short nerve degeneration disease. It was trial and error for him as well..I am a diabetic and that too is genetic.. I do run higher than the DR would like for my cholesterol but if you do any kind of investigation you might read that they are finding long term problems with use of cholesterol lowering drugs.. even more cases of ALS.. but of course science and medicine will take a while to catch up with that conclusion. I know I was predisposed to ALS due to a hereditary factor and was on cholesterol lowering drugs for about 20 years.. So mine could have been genes or it could have been medication. My cholesterol was dangerously low on the medication and then my muscles began to react.. So you have to decide what you want to deal with. I think if you combine all of the cheese and eggs with sugar type things then you have a problem more with arteries and veins being clogged.. Ketogenic is great but there is a lot to deal with and if you have more than one problem is is a lot of balancing.. You might want to do some research on the fact that cholesterol is a necessary thing for overall good health. Being diabetic and gluten intolerant is a hard thing to balance since so many gluten free flours are high glycemic so I try to balance things out with more of the higher carbed flour with the ketogenic. I have gone through Life Line testing. It will do vein testing for a reasonable rate since insurance will not usually pay for that unless you have a problem..So far my veins have been normal and I am 73 almost 74 years old..LifeLine usually cycles through communities on a rotation basis. You might want to check in to it on line to see if you have it in your area. Hope this helps. Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
Dgflorida
Posts: 4381
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:10 pm

Re: Starting our 2018 No Spend Challenge

Post by Dgflorida »

Yes, higher cholesterol readings are common with keto diets. But as you pointed out, the alternative, medication, isn't good either.

We decided the weight loss and lower blood pressure and generally better health was the better choice.
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