This Week...Beyond Money 1/11 - 1/17

For me, a life beyond money is making choices so that you can live the best possible life, regardless of your income level. Obviously, you have to make a living, but there are many ways to improve your quality of life without increasing your income levels and correspondingly your expenses. This regular post will be some of the ways that we improve our quality of life beyond just trying to make more money.

Gardening:
* I harvested greens for the bunnies while taking a walk. It wasn't a lot, but I'm sure they enjoyed them. I also picked up pine cones for them to play with/nibble on to beat winter boredom.
* Due to the cold weather, I haven't been interacting with them as much, just feed, water, and run into the house to get warm. Now they are a bit more nervous around me. I'm going to make sure to pet them a little each time I go out, after all, I'll have to get them to trust me enough to get them out of their cages for breeding!

Cooking/Groceries:
* I stopped at the grocery store in my parents' town. It is more expensive than our grocery stores generally speaking. However, they had a section of manager 's special meat. There were hams priced at $1.49/lb. In the city, it's $3.99/lb and almost never goes on sale. I bought two and tossed one in the freezer.
* I made ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch one day.
* I used the last of a jar of split peas, a big container of homemade chicken stock and 2/3 lb of ham to make soup. While split pea soup isn't our favorite, it was cheap and used up the last of the split peas (we probably won't buy more, but wanted to use the ones we'd gotten for almost free).
* I made tortilla pizzas one day, heavy on the peppers and sauce and light on the cheese.
* Trucker packed me PBJ sandwiches for breakfast and ham sandwiches for lunch when I worked.

Fun:
* I went over to my parents' house for dinner one evening. My dad and sister had just returned from Panama the night before and we all gathered around to hear their stories.
* Trucker and I had a couple coffee dates.
* We went out for dinner with our friends one evening. We decided to split a sub instead of getting a pizza. It cost $7 and with the fries that came with it, it was filling for both of us.

Nature:
* We went out to a local Metro park for a 1.5 mile walk. The second half of the walk it was snowing. It was very pretty. Since it's been warm, the mushrooms have been popping up all over the fallen trees. So beautiful.

Frugality:
* At a thrift store I found a sea shell decorated toothbrush holder. Since I am decorating the bathroom slowly with a beach at sunset theme, it was perfect. It only cost $2.
* I walked to the library to save money on gas and get a little exercise.

Waste Reduction:
* I composted weird things.
* I used the last of a bottle of hand soap that was too little to pump out for a bubble bath.

Work:
* I worked two extra days at my regular job.
* We had a pizza party at work one day for having a good safety month.
* Trucker ate for free at his job.

Health:
* I went running one evening. I got home after work and then dinner at my parents, so I'd been gone for 18+ hours. I wanted to run, but knew if I went inside I wouldn't come back out since it was so cold and nasty. So I hopped out of my car and ran a quick mile in my steel toes and factory whites uniform. I'll tell ya, if I trained in steel toes, my calves would be wicked. Hehe
* Trucker and I went for a 1.5 mile walk.



How was your week?