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Target.. my Nemesis

The New Plan

Remember how I did NoSpend November last year? Well this year I decided to try it in December. There are a couple of reasons for this shift. First of all I had a vacation planned already for November so I didn't want to skimp on it since vacations for me are so rare. The other reason is that while last November was difficult (primarily because of football season) it wasn't as big a stretch to pull off. Christmas is a big spending time and I found that instead of really saving on holiday spending, it could have been differed. So is it really no spend? Tough call.

 

So this time I figured I would get back into the blogging habit by No Change November showing you what happens in a typical month for me. I will do my best to be realistic about it and not restrict my spending out of shame since you're watching! The only noted difference is that I am not allowing Christmas presents to get stockpiled a head of time. A benefit of this activity is for me to see how well I can track my spending. In this age of digital payments I rarely look at bank accounts or credit card statements. Lets see how it goes!

 

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Send any questions to sox@vt.edu | Take a look at a previous or the next day

Check out the other spending pages too!

Cash: $1499.99 (-$36.36)

Day 28: Banana Jelly


Holey schmoly did I do a lot of cooking today. Sarah was nice enough to volunteer to come help with applesauce/butter. I had to pick up a few things from the store so I went off to do that while I waited for her. While I was there I saw that turkeys were 49 cents/lb. So of course I bought a 20lb bird. At home I dove into the making of some banana pepper jelly, which worked out quite well and went quickly. When Sarah came over she brought a big stock pot, a pan for the turkey, and her monkey (aka son). I was clever and set up Netflix with a good movie for him so he was pretty well occupied during the exciting peeling that she went through. Something around 35 lbs of apples were peeled, cored and sliced. I tossed them all in the pot and away they cooked. Sarah took the peelings and such home to try out apple jelly while I plodded along with the applesauce stirring. Oh I forgot to say that Sarah paid me back for the football ticket. It was getting to be kind of ineffective after a while to mix such a huge pot so I got out Patrick's food mill and mushed it up a bit more. Not long before I had processed 6 quarts of chunky sauce, and 6 pints of smooth sauce. The last gallon and a half went to the fridge. I am going to give apple butter a whirl but not today. I had intended on making a lot more of it into apple butter but the apple sauce was so tasty I didn't want to risk messing it up! Us northern boys aren't huge on apple butter anyhow. So this should work well.

Of course I shot some video of the whole mess for you to enjoy.



Sometime around 6:30 I decided I should get the turkey going. Dacia was at the Starbucks down the street so she came over and helped clean up some so I could get on with the next cooking project. I got the bird in the oven and we watched tv and ate some bratwurst. The turkey was done a little while after Dacia left so I cut it up with a few tips from YouTube and stored it in the fridge. It was a little underdone on the legs but overall it came out pretty great. It's amazing how a little help and company mades all my cooking today go so smoothly. Can I just point out how cool my spending is at this point? $1499.99

Inventory

Acquired: 48, groceries (turkey, yogurt, etc), applesauce, banana pepper jelly
Consumed: $84.36, apples, banana pepper jam, leftover pizza

Spending totals:

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