Sunday, February 1, 2026
January is in the books. I'm going to call it mostly successful.
On the weight loss front, the surface view is tremendous success. The scale is more than 25 lb down. If you look deeper you see that somewhere between 15 and 20 of that was insta-dumped water from eating dreadfully around the holidays. So it's not all THAT impressive. But still, there is some actual drop. And that water needed to go. I was pleased to see a small drop today after a LOT of carbs yesterday.
Exercise was a complete fail. I'm not in good shape. Though one positive, when carrying in the groceries (a heavy load) I effectively stress tested my bad knee and it did better than last time. It's not strong, it's not 100%, heck there may not be any ligaments attached, but it wasn't outright bad like it had been. I think it's time to see if a little walking will be OK.
Work was a mixed bag. I made progress on organization. I still have too much going on and an enormous backlog. But I have identified some goals - I want to get to a position where I don't have to put in more than 4 hours on the weekend so I can do that sometime on Saturday and take Sunday off to do chores, cook and rest. That's the goal.
Anyway, on to the fun stuff. No spend (on food) January was a tremendous success. I decided to count the bag of pinto beans in January, so I ended up with an out of pocket spend of negative 14 cents. I made less than ten dollars of purchases, which were fully covered by bottle returns. I pre-ordered flour for February via Amazon gift card, so nothing out of pocket there. I enjoyed the challenge and it was rewarding to see the sheet where I track spending be almost entirely blank this month. I used up a lot of stock and saved at least $500.00, probably more.
For February, I have decided on something similar but not quite as dramatic -- I'm budgeting $5 a day, which is $35/week and $140.00 for the month. Thankfully I still have a few things on hand. But I have menus all mapped out and I think it is absolutely doable. We will see.
Breakfast: Spelt lazy bagels w chive and onion cream cheese, coffee
Baking the lazy bagels longer is definitely a good thing. Highly enjoyable. Bought the premium cream cheese as the store brand, while much cheaper, has three different vegetable gums in it. Come on guys.
Lunch: Soup and samples
A soup from the freezer. I'll also be eating bits of things I'm cooking today, of which there is quite a list.
Including some spicy beans. No bell peppers and about 75% less bacon, but still tasty.
Dinner: Busy day casserole, cheesy green beans, NSA peaches, grands biscuits w butter, 12 oz Miller Lite, peanut choc chip cookies
Sunday dinners. I made up my own recipe on the cookies, since I only had about 1/3 as many chocolate chips left as I needed to do pure choc chippers. They turned out decent.
And the capper, a glass of whole milk.
Exercise: Nope. Active but not dedicated.
96.8
Dollars Spent: $ 101.56 ($1.56 out of pocket) Meijer + $ 16.20 ($ 0.00 out of pocket) Amazon.
Dollars Remaining for February: $ 22.24
Shopping was interesting. I had my list all worked out, checked all the prices in advance, and went. I had to make eight adjustments by my count due to things being out of stock. The only thing I couldn't do a direct sub on was a quart of yogurt - the premium brands are multiple dollars more. Impulse bought one thing. With the plusses and minuses I was about $2.00 over my budget, more than half of which was due to the fact that I forgot there is sales tax on beer. I have enough wiggle room in my mid-month restock to cover it, plus I earned about $5.00 in rewards that will cover a container of yogurt if I can catch it in stock or another pound of butter if I run low. I'm on track so far.
Used gift cards to cover nearly all of the spend. I'd go for another zero out of pocket month, but I am planning on hitting Wal Mart for the mid-month restock and they don't participate in the gift certificate program. About twenty five dollars cash would be just fine.
