Dimples' Divine Domain
My journey to financial empowerment.

I woke up the following headlines this morning: * DHL to cut 9500 jobs and close US service centers * Government provides record aid package to AIG ($150 billion to date and aren't these the same folks who spent $23K of that money at a spa???) * Circuit City files bankruptcy * Fannie Mae posts $29 billion loss in 3rd quarter * Wall Street falls, unable to shake economic woes Let’s keep it real. Things aren't looking too kosher in regards to the state of our economy at the moment. More and more of our tax dollars are being shelled into companies. Companies who seem unable to get their shit together long enough to get themselves out of the hole they dug themselves into. Well, I'm tired of worrying. I haven't really felt the sting from this economic crisis. Yet anyways. I have lost a few thousand dollars in my 401K account and I have had a couple of credit card companies try my patience by skyrocketing my AP...

SWEET PEA Thanks to all who left a comment on my last post regarding school lunch versus bag lunch. This is the 3rd week of school and after trying out both bag lunches AND school lunches I have came to a decision: I will make lunch for Sweet Pea 4 days out the week and allow her to get school lunch on Fridays. Reason: During a 3 day period I allowed Sweet Pea to get school lunch. Guess what she had? PIZZA each and every day. Even the 3rd day I told her to eat something else. Needless to say bagging it is the best way for me to ensure that my daughter gets a nutritious meal. And she actually prefers it. WORK I had my interview with the company that will be taking over the main contract come this October 1st last Monday. Wanna hear something interesting? I was interviewed by my current supervisor and her boss. LOL! They had there interviews about 2 weeks before and were offered the equivalent to the positions they hold now and of course accepted. Needless to say the interview...

To all my fellow mommies out there: Is it better to pack your kid's lunch or let them get lunch at school? I am on the fence with this one. My daughter starts school this coming Monday and I am not sure which one I want to go with. On Monday I was set on letting her get her lunch from the school cafeteria, especially since I was told that I would need to set up a lunch account through the school. I called the company that handles the lunch accounts and based on what they said, I am not sure on the idea of it now. I would not have any control on what my daughter eats. Giving a 5 year old free reign on what exactly she gets to it is not a good idea. On top of that there is no way to control how much is charged to the account. If Sweet Pea wanted to buy 3 lunches and 10 snacks she could. The lunch account is charged via a card (like a debit card) and supposedly the teacher is given control of the cards. Not to sure I like this idea. I have no idea where the cards will be kept ...

Ok, is it just me or is food not lasting as long as it used to? It is the 14th and I have already gone grocery shopping twice and it looks like I may need to go again. Are you serious!?! Are they altering the food to make it not last longer so that we HAVE to go buy more?!!?? No. Even though I may be spending around the same amount dollar wise each shop, I am not getting the same amount of food. Hence having to go grocery shopping for the third time and I'm half way through the month. Needless my grocery budget looks to be a bust this month. I may need to increase it to $125 in August. I also haven't been using my crockpot like I used to. Closing out on my old job and getting prepared for my new job, swimming lessons, and dealing with the death of my grandmother, I haven't had the time to even prepare a decent homemade meal. My funds are definitely feeling this. I gotta get back on my budget hustle. I start my new job on Monday and will have to adapt to the n...

I did a post back in October on how I kept my grocery budget under $120. In that post, I had pictures of the grocery shopping I had done earlier in the day for a total of $29.76. I also listed a number of ways I keep my grocery budget so low. Today I did some grocery shopping for meat and some other misc items. Here is what I bought: - 2 packages of chicken breasts - 2 packages of drumsticks - 2 whole hens - 2 packages of chicken wings - 1 bag of roma tomatoes - 1 bag of onions - 1 bag of organic baby carrots - 2 gallons of water (not shown) - 1 bottle of bbq sauce Total = $24.90 One big way to save on groceries each month is to package the food you buy into servings sizes. Your serving size depends on how many people are in your family. I separate out my sizes based on how much food my daughter and I consume in one meal. Take for instance drumsticks: My daughter will eat one drumstick while I will eat two. So I package those in threes. I know some folks are visual so here is wh...

Ingredients: 2 cups of chopped organic baby carrots (organic is optional) = $.75 2 cups of chopped celery = $.50 2 cups of chopped sausage (whateva kind you feel like) = $.90 2 cup chopped okra = $.98 1 cups of shrimp = $1.64 1 chopped vine ripe tomato = $.33 1 cup chopped onion = $.10 2 cans of chicken broth = $1 ($.50 a piece) 4 tbsp flour mixed with 1/2 of water Spices = pepper, salt, red pepper, chicken bouillon TOTAL COST = $5.20 (approximate) Prep Time = 15 min Cook Time = 8 - 10 hours on low or 4 - 5 hours on high (all depends on you) Directions: Turn on crockpot on desired setting. Add everything to the crockpot. Season. Cover and let it cook. Recipe online The online recipe calls for a roux to add to the gumbo. I decided to not make that because I didn't want my gumbo too thick. I just added the flour mix. You do whatever fits your fancy. You can also serve this with rice. It was good and hearty. I have a lot of this left. I packaged up some of the broth...

Ingredients: 2 packages frozen ground turkey (equals about one package unfrozen) = $2 ($1 a piece) 1 red pepper = $.75 2 cans kidney beans = $1.10 ($.55 a can) 1 onion = $.15 (1 bag of onions@ $1.50 a bag. About 10 onions a bag) 3 roma tomatoes = $.54 ($1.25 a pound. 7 good sized tomatoes make a pound. Can substitute a can of tomatoes for about the same price) Spices = $.10 (yeah......guesstimate. Sorry, don't have time to calculate that mess) 1 package cornbread mix= $.25 optional TOTAL COST: $4.89 Prep Time = 15 min Cook Time = 8 - 9 hours on low or 5 - 6 hours on high (all depends on you) Directions: Turn on crockpot on low setting. Add kidney beans. Dice up tomatoes, onion, and red pepper. Add to crockpot. Season and brown turkey in skillet. Add turkey to crockpot. Add more spices. Cover. Keep yourself busy for 8 - 9 hours. (Some people go to work. Others run errands and handle their business. I mean you can look at the crockpot for as lon...