Bare Bones: Make Every Penny Count

Remember to make every penny count! Those pennies become dollars. When you are living on a bare bones budget, it is important to scrutinize every expense. Don’t just look at it once, do it twice, or even three times to make sure that you are getting value for those pennies and dollars you are spending.

If your income has been drastically reduced, pay the basics to keep yourself afloat. Here is a video by Dave Ramsey who gives great advice on what to pay if your income has been reduced or you have been laid off from your job: Dave Ramsey


He has many more You Tube videos out there that you can google if you want to learn more.

My goal is to live Bare Bones so I can pay some large bills the rest of the year without touching savings and investments.


So I will show you what we are doing in a day to help with that goal. I need bread for Hubby and West this weekend. It was not on my grocery list this week because I can pay $1.00 to $4.00 for a loaf or I can pay about $.35 to $.50 to make a loaf. Bread is baking in the bread maker as I write this. 

It is daylight as I write this so no lights are turned on in this house.

Our A/C is now off because the temps have cooled off a bit. We are hoping to be able to keep it off until Tuesday. If I had a loss of income, I would turn it off and use a fan in the room or rooms we are in.

Here was my grocery list this week. As you can see, I crossed many, many things off. I have produce that needs to be used up so no produce purchased. The Tostito chips are to use with salsa we already have for a snack or lunch. We will need mayonnaise soon and Hubby will only eat Hellman’s. The mayo is necessary to make sandwiches. The ice cream is because West will be here this weekend and I promised him I would get his favorite kind which is cookies and cream. I purchased it at Walmart because it is a whole lot cheaper there than Top’s. These two stores are 1 block apart.  I shopped on Tuesday to take advantage of the 6% off senior discount at Top’s.

Hubby is installing wire shelves on the wall in the garage to house items that are on the floor and in a cabinet that we will sell to get them off the floor. He did a pick up order from Lowe’s and paid for $200. of the order with gift cards that I purchased almost two years ago at a discount. I got cash back for this order from Rakuten.

He is putting in enough shelves to house my very large appliances. I keep them on a roll around rack in the garage. Now I can use that rack in the basement for my stockpile. 

We had homemade cold cuts to use for dinner last night. I cooked a ham that I purchased at $.89 a lb. last Thanksgiving and we sliced it up on our meat slicer so that we could have ham sandwiches over the next few months. The homemade bread will be used for Hubby’s and mine will be in a lettuce wrap. 


When I drive I am still starting up from a light or stop sign under 2 x 1000 rpms to save on gasoline. No jack rabbit starts which eat gasoline. 

I washed our SUV in the driveway. I vacuumed it out with the handheld vacuum. I washed the windows with homemade “windex”. I rarely use the car wash unless it is the middle of winter. 


I have planned out our menu for this weekend while West is staying with us. He requested my homemade spaghetti and meatballs so I will take a precooked bag of it out of our freezer to thaw for dinner tonight. The bread I am baking today will be used to make parmesan garlic bread and sandwiches. I will keep it fresh in a reused bread bag.

Breakfasts will be homemade muffins, cereal and fruit, or scrambled eggs and bacon. Tomorrow night, I will use some frozen pizza which is in my freezer. His lunches will be cold cut sandwiches with cut up carrot sticks or PB&J which he loves. I also have some Annie’s mac and cheese if he prefers that. Snacks will be fruit or some of the ice cream. 

Entertainment this weekend will be walks, tablet time, playing some Pokemon Monopoly, etc. He also loves watching sports with his Grandpa.

 We did no impulse buying. The shelving was a planned purchase.

I managed to slice open a finger while I was helping with the shelving. It took a long time to stop bleeding but now it has a bandage on it and I didn’t have to go to Urgent Care. That was not the way I wanted to start my Friday. 


I hope you all have a safe and fun weekend.