Our November 2023 expenses.

 Gosh.... We've been terrible about keeping up with blogging. Sorry about that!

We are still workamping here at the Willard Peak Campground. Our plan is to being here for 3 years but without a contract in place we are in praying stages not even a year offer contract. 

It's a lesson to us. Always have an backup  plan for the just in case scenario you often hear about in the RV world. ✔️ 

And because of that panic in place now, we've held off getting our newer RV so that we can save $2000 a month for 12 straight months as a security blanket that will cover us for the "just in case scenario". 

We put a financial savings plan in order and are posting it publicly so that perhaps may help others in our shoes or receive some great advice to help us out. So I'll end the post with a copy of and bid you GOOD DAY...

We are doing a 12 month Budget Challenge (We have to meet the goal in ought to shop for a newer RV - we can purchase one now but since our current workamping position turned down a contract to hold our position for 3 years, we don’t want to run the risk of having that rug pulled out from under us)

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OUR November 2023 RV expenses / rv budget

Our goal to be able to purchase an RV is to save $24,000 by Nov 1, 2024 (that’s $2,000 a month). So here are our Nov Expenses: 

💸Fuel Expenses Total: $206(Car $31 - Truck $100 - Propane $75)

💸Health Insurance & Meds Total: $1,335.21(Insurance $932 - Meds $403.21)

💸Maintenance/Repairs Total: $40.45

💸Vehicle/ RV Insurance Total: $82.90(Truck & Car Insurance $61.26 - RV Insurance $21.64)

💸Cell Service Total: $64 (Mark’s Cell $32 Evielynne’s Cell $32)

💸 Food Total: $379.78(Food $339.78 - Lairds Creamer $40)

💸TV Total: $28.91(Hulu $9.99 - Prime $12.50 - Peacock $6.42)

💸Online Apps Total: $227.02

(Google Apps $32.98 - LinkTree $9.09 -Facebook Ad’s $134.96 - Canva $10 - Rocket Law $39.99)

💸Pets (Chewy) Total: $110

💸Amazon Total: $27.73

💸Clothes Total: $26.80

💸Laundry Total: $107

Total Expenses before Savings: $2,635.00

Total went into savings: $2000.00

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$4,635.00 —------> Thank God for Evielynne’s Social Media Business and Plasma Donations to meet our goal for November

We were able to put away $2000 for the month of November. 11 months to go.

My First Food Nightmare

 My First Food Nightmare

I have my teacher, I have my cooking tools, and I have a shopping list. I just gotta get through the night before that first Bobby Approved shopping trip.I know it's going to be expensive and we have to think about the current food we have in our home that's not Bobby Approved. What do we do.....?? I don't sleep!!

I finally plan on this: 

We have an RV pantry for our guests at the RV park we currently work at Willard Peak Campground in Willard Utah. And as I swap the bad for the good, I'll donate the bad (and to this day, it's working out well). But still it's scary for Mark. After all we worked hard for the food. I made a deal with him. I will do the swapping slowly giving us 6 months to make our home completely Bobby Approved. 

So we go shopping at Natural Grocers with a Budget of $300. Load up first on the protein powders (I made the huge mistake of not buying directly through flavcity but baby steps right? Get the basic shelf life items to hold us over when we are not able to eat FRESH. And very little meat, that had been our biggest change. If you watch the movie Food Inc this will open your eyes even wider if your trying to get healthier and at worse case, know what the hell is in your food. That is our given right!! 

I even went for anything on sale so long as it was approved, (which made our shopping trip super super long - 2.3 hours). You'd think it would be easy, but even a health food store has many hidden dangers. We are learning. So when the app gives it a thumbs down, you scroll down and it will highlight the words that are NOT approved which teaches you to recognize and soon you'll be able to recognize without having to use the app - here are some samples of BAD words for your food

1. Natural Flavor (Artificial and Synthetic chemicals that are added during the manufacturing process - which of course IS NOT GOOD FOR our bodies, its a way for manufacturers to get away with adding with out honest labeling)
2. sucralose, saccharin and aspartame, high fructose (I am shocked on the amount of food that contains this), agave and brown rice syrup  - these all cause inflammation 

This is just a smidge of examples of things we have to avoid having in our food. It can get very overwhelming and this is why we chose to do this very slowly. It's not January 1st so even though you're reading this on the 16th I'm catching you up to our journey. Our food shopping took place on 12/30/22. So we are gathering and studying and getting ready to make the change. 

We use a receipt app to earn points for gift cards (oh gosh we love this app) and if you wish to join to earn your own points. If you sign up under me, I'll get 4000 points and you'll get 2000 starting points. Just click on the word FETCH this helps offset the food increase cost for us. 

So I'm going to switch gears and talk about food journals. I purchase one for each of us. So that we can track and see the accountability we are taking. We can figure out what's working vs what's not working. Putting our thoughts, fears, frustration - I already do a journal for our finances and wow it works. There is just something powerful seeing your own words right there and you can't hide from them. I'm recording inches (not weight numbers because we don't need to worry about that). Our physical activity, what we eat and what we drink, our vitamins and most importantly our feelings. 

Click here for your start to record your own food journal

I put together an extremely SLOW workout program for myself. I found when I go in hard, I give us easy because of the huge amounts of pain and recovery time. This will be a major change and that first hurdle will be so difficult because I do have limitations and have to find a way around it with boundaries.  I'll talk about what I plan on doing for my routine in the next blog entry.

AGAIN... This Blog is about ME (and my other half). It's about the food journey I'm taking. I am not a doctor and these things I am doing are based on my decisions. I've lost control over my health and this is a way to get it back. If you use anything in these posts, do it with care and under your own control. People can be mean, and you need to do what is right for you. If you're here to shame me, it's ok, I do that enough to myself every time I look in the mirror. And that is why, I am celebrating my 50th year, fighting for me