Monday Musings: Week 17

It’s late and I’m worn out, so this post will have to be a quick one. We had company for Easter and they stayed through Monday evening; we made two out of town trips in the latter part of the week and volunteered at the food pantry on Saturday. This week will be crazily busy as David and Miriam finish up their last projects and assignments before finals begin at the junior college. Esther has started off-season basketball, and Josiah and Gideon are doing off-season training with her at home – a.k.a. Syd’s Basketball Boot Camp. Leah is looking for a job since she’s finished her cosmetology coursework. Syd has the garden planted, so we’re looking forward to delicious, organic vegetables. Hopefully, there will be enough to preserve for the winter months, although that means we’ll have to make time for canning. Then, there are always writing projects on which I should be working. I'm not complaining -- just explaining that life has been extremely full and blog posts are getting neglected.

Here is this week's spending report.

Week 17 Spending
Groceries /Food	$191
Health/Beauty	$38
Piano Lessons	$10
Total	$239

My grocery spending was higher because I made a trip to Sam’s and stocked up on cheese and produce. The cheese should last for 6 weeks. I’ve always found cheese to be significantly cheaper at Sam’s, but the price has risen lately, and the 5# bags are $14.86 – almost $3 a pound. This week, Kroger has their cheese on sale for $3.50, so the Sam’s savings isn’t nearly as good as it has been. It certainly isn’t worth making a 60-mile trip, but since I was in Dallas for another reason, the savings were worth stopping in for. I bought 15 pounds of cheese, so I saved $8.25 on cheese alone. We’re big pretzel fans here, and Sam’s has the best prices on both pretzel and tortilla chips, especially since our local Big Lots store closed.

It looks like we have 3 children who need rather extensive braces in the upcoming year. We’ve been down this road 5 times before. We’re looking at different treatment options, since the orthodontist we used in the past has moved to Rockwall, which is about 80 miles from us. We’re considering her, and then there is a local orthodontist we really like. No matter how we go, it looks like each child’s treatment will be between $2,900 and $3800 out of pocket, for a grand total of $9,000 - 12,000. Orthodontics is definitely an instance where there’s no economy of scale.

April draws to a close on Wednesday, so I’ll have a monthly spending/budget report next week. Until then, have a blessed week.