One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 928 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Cool App – WoofTrax

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on February 13, 2015 · 3 Comments

Emily from North Habor Bag Co. suggested I check out an app called WoofTrax. The app allows you to track each time you take your dog for a walk, and in turn, donates to your local animal shelter. So, Fido gets out and gets much needed exercise, and another animal gets closer to a second chance. How awesome is that?!

I thought the idea was so pay-it-forward-ish in the best way possible that I better share-it-forward. So, now you know.

Download it, use it, feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

~Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Friday Night at the Movies – Valentine’s Day

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on February 13, 2015 · Leave a Comment

We don’t do a ton around here on Valentine’s Day. It’s kind of one of those commercial holidays that I don’t get behind so much {except for the chocolate–I can totally support that}. BUT, in the name of a light-hearted movie, I thought I would check out Valentine’s Day tonight. I never watched it when it came out a couple of years ago, and since Valentine’s Day falls on my ritual Friday Night Movie, it seems appropriate.

Valentine’s Day is a romantic comedy that boasts a star-studded cast. Hopefully, at the very least, it will be worth a few chuckles.

Let me know what you think if you decide to watch it–or if you have already seen it.

Peace out Girl Scouts & have yourself a great weekend,

~Mavis

Looking for more movies?

Check out the full list of my Friday Night at the Movies Selections or click on over & look at all the movies on Amazon Instant Video. There are a ton of videos to choose from that will cost you absolutely nothing {nada, zilch, free-o} with Amazon Prime; like thousands of regular movies & TV shows & hundreds of documentaries {Wahoo!}. Get all the details HERE!

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

My Goals for This Year – Week 7 of 52

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on February 13, 2015 · 4 Comments

1. Get Organized.

This week I cleaned out the master bathroom and Monkey Boy’s bathroom cupboards. Now all that’s left is for the boys to demo them a few days before Chino and his crew shows up.

2. Run, walk or crawl a Marathon, half marathon, 10k, and 5k race this year.

Ya… about that goal. 😉

3. Remodel our Master Bathroom, Master Closet and Monkey Boy’s Bathroom.

Although I really like the color of cabinet #2, we decided to go with #1. It’s a classic color and plus it matches the shelving I spotted at The Home Depot I plan to put above the tub and toilet.

4. Finish Every Room in Our House.

You are never going to believe what the HH and did last night. We bought a used couch off Craigslist. I still can’t believe we did it. This was my first purchase from Craigslist and older couple we bought the couch from were super nice. We need furniture for the living room {the room nobody will probably ever sit in} and I just couldn’t justify paying full price for furniture we will probably never really use. I still need a coffee table and maybe a chair for the corner of the room as well as something to throw on the wall and then I’ll be done. My goal is to furnish the room {nicely} for under $500. So far, so good. Not surprisingly Lucy the snuggle puggle thinks the couch is hers.

5. Turn Spare Bedroom into a Cozy Home Office Space for myself.

6. Create a Vegetable Garden.

I’m happy with the progress I’ve been making in the garden. Today I’ll be planting my blueberry and raspberry bushes as well as finding a spot for my 75 strawberry plants.

7. Build a Path into the Hillside for Easy Access to the Upper Garden.

8. Limit my personal spending to $100 a month.

I went to the library to check out a few book for the first time in 2 years and discovered I had a past due library fine of $10.80. Boooo! I also bought sack of gummy bears at Target for $1.00

Total spent so far this month $28.91 Still have $71.09

In January I Spent $84.33

9. Purge… Weekly. Find 10 things each week to donate to the thrift store.

This weeks donation was a real winner. 😉 Chandelier bulbs, cassette tapes, old shoes, a roasting rack and a size medium t-shirt someone gave my husband.

10. Read 1 book a week. – My goal is to read 52 books this year

See what I’m reading this month.

11. Slow Down.

I’ve been spending my extra time working on a few rug hooking projects. I drew out a large rug, started a spring bunny rug and hooked a black penny circle pillow. Well, it will become a pillow once I sew a wool backing to it and stuff it will wool scraps. In case you missed it I wrote an article on Primitive Rug Hooking – Basic Supplies and How I Draw Patterns.

12. Canning – Life was sort of crazy last year and I feel like I sorta fell off the canning wagon and I’d like to hop back on it this year. Ideally, I’d like to open my pantry at the end of the year and have rows and rows of home canned goodness staring back at me.

Did you set any goals for this year? If so, how are they coming along?

~Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Maintaining Furnace Filters

The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
By Mavis Butterfield on February 13, 2015 · 8 Comments

How often do you replace your furnace filters? I’ll totally admit that I don’t even think about it… until of course I started to notice a thick layer of dust on everything about 30 seconds after I’ve finished dusting. Then, I’m like, oh, yeah I guess I’d better check on that.

Sure enough, when I pulled that sucker out of there it looked like a scene from hoarders–seriously, underneath the dust I found an old PB&J Sandwich and a sock.

Here’s the thing, maintaining your furnace is like the ultimate penny pinching. Costly repairs resulting from sheer forgetfulness {let’s not point fingers, that would be rude} would be lame. Dirty filters cause your system to work harder because it reduces overall air flow. The more dust particles the furnace is trying to move through the system, the less efficient your system become. It’s basic trigonometry.

Since changing your filter once a month is the most basic of furnace maintenance, I marched down the The Home Depot and picked up a year’s supply. Now, be forewarned, there’s about a billion choices {give or take}. Each filter has a MERV {Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value} rating. The higher the rating, the more efficient the filter. The same general principle applies for the cost. The higher the MERV rating, the higher the cost. If you have someone in your house with allergies, you may want to consider splurging a bit, as the higher rated filters will catch more of the small particles that tend to fly up noises and aggravate. I chatted up my local Home Depot representative {I am pretty sure they are not called representatives, but since he did “represent,” I coined him that} and he helped me pick some out that will work for our system. They were pretty much exactly like the one I took out, so it wasn’t like it was rocket science, but still, it’s nice to be guided along–less lonely that way.

They have a handy little spot that you can write the date on, so that you can remember just how far behind you are on changing them ;). I chose some that only need to be changed every 90 days because I know myself too well–every month just ain’t gonna happen.

It would be so nice if I had a house full of staff to attend to these things while I took luncheon, Downton Abbey style.

How often do you change your furnace filter?

~Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.