Cooking to save money

At first it was hard getting use to cooking every day. It was not only the cooking but figuring out how to balance prep time, cooking time and still have time for everything else.

It took a couple of weeks but I think I have finally started to find a balance between finding new recipes of things my family will eat, using crock pot cooking and prepping meals before hand. Tonight I will prep for a meat loaf, it is one of my families favorites.

Medical Benefits and the Budget

It is that time of year again, open enrollment for next years medical benefits. There use to be a time that I could just leave my choices from the current year and not worry about it since the only difference from one year to the next were the premiums. This has not been the case in the past few years. Each year there have been significant changes to the medical benefit options my employer offers, this year is no different actually I think it's more confusing then ever.

Medical Benefits changes - the ones that affect the money
1. cost of monthly premiums
2. Now there is a deductible
3. There is a healthy incentive premium credit

The issue is that my husband and I work for the same company and typically he covers himself and the children and I cover myself, this way we save about a dollar a month. Now we don't know what to do. If my husband covers every one we will be paying more in premiums then if i cover myself (factoring in the premium credits) but we will have a lot less in the deductible area that we are responsible for and a smaller stop loss.

I have been thinking about this for a week and I guess I will be thinking about it for a few more days before we decide what is best.
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Paying Credit Card Debt and Gaining Weight

The first week of October was painful for the credit card debt paying journey. There was yelling, a lot of stress and number crunching, but I think we did it. We have a plan, allowances. My husband and I will each get an allowance for spending on our selves, and that's it if we run out of money then we are done for the month. This is our first major step to paying down our credit card debt.

We decided to do allowances after going over Septembers spending and discovered that a huge amount of money was being spent on restaurants and take out, almost $600 a month. Yes nearly $600 a month on eating food cooked outside the home. A $600 that could have been better used to pay off or at least keep credit card debt from growing.

I must admit I had not been cooking as much since the doctor told me I could stand to loose a few pounds. It's not that I don't want to cook but I get home so late, usually between 6 - 6:30pm that after going for a run there is no way I can cook something and have it on the table by 7:30pm for dinner.

To pay down the credit card debt I have started cooking every night and as I expected I have only been able to go for a run once in the past 2 weeks, not counting weekends. I feel terrible and now I am worrying about my long term health. My husband has been able to keep up his daily some times 2x a day workouts and I am trying not to be resentful.

I am hoping this week that I can make adjustments to my schedule so that I can start running again. Who would have thought that trying to pay down credit card debt could get in the way of weight loss?