Friday, January 20, cooking ahead

Friday was another no-spend day for me, but not for dh. He went to lunch with some work friends and tossed $15 into the lunch pool. It was a cash only spot, so he had to use the ATM and was charged $1 to do so. He then stopped and got gas, $22.34 and picked up some pop and ice cream for "date night" spending $5.46.

We stayed home for date night since dh didn't feel so great. We saved more than 5.46 in gas by not going out, so I guess it worked out okay.

I also talked with a mortgage broker about refinancing our loan...again. We were at 6.25 in 2007, re-fi'd 16 months ago at 4.625 and now can get 3.5, so I told the broker to hold on till I could discuss with dh and make sure he was okay with it. I plan to go to my current mortgage holder on Monday and see if he can beat the deal the broker is offering, maybe he will want to keep my business enough to do so. But in all honesty, he will probably end up with the loan again even if he doesn't want to keep me bad enough to offer me better.

If we re-fi I believe we can pay enough extra to have it paid off in five years. Thats my goal anyhow. It means keeping a tight hold on the purse strings, but it is definitely do-able.

For dinner I made stroganoff with some of the leftover rib eye roast, I made enough for two meals. since I was cooking pasta and had hot water, I also tossed in some cheese tortellini and mixed it with some left over pasta sauce I had in the fridge, voila, dinner for another night this week. The left over pasta water went into the soup pot. So I have an extra stroganoff, a tortillini, and a few days worth of soup.

I dumpster-dived at the local health food store and brought home 15 loaves of hand crafted artisan bread. I'll give some to the cows, chickens, & dog, and some will be for us.