Month: February 2020

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Every Day

Are You Living Paycheck to Paycheck?

The most recent figures show that 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That figure should scare everyone.

How did most Americans get into this bind? There is only one answer that I can think of and that is debt! Too much debt and not enough equity.

Why do people think that they have to have everything now? What happened to saving for the things you want or need?

Let’s say you have just graduated from college and got your first job. So you moved out of Mom and Dad’s house and got an apartment. You need furniture. So you use a credit card to buy what you need. You figure you will just pay it off over time. What happened to getting the basic necessities of a bed, something to sit on, and a small table to eat at until you can afford to buy the suite of furniture? What happened to going to garage sales to look for these things or using relatives hand me downs? Why do you need to buy a suite of new furniture that you can’t afford to pay for? I know, you want everything that you have gotten used to while living at home and you want it now. You forget that your parents have been married for years and saved for things. 

Lest I get told in comments that many young people’s parents were in debt up to their eyeballs and they had lousy role models, I know that. Because your parents were irresponsible is not an excuse for you doing the same thing. Learn about money so that you won’t become your parents. There is so much more information out there today than when I was a young adult. The internet is a valuable resource. Or you can go to the library and take out books to read to educate yourselves like I did. We didn’t have the internet way back when.

So many people are digging themselves into a hole that they either have no intention of getting out of or will be in debt for the rest of their lives making those payments to the bank every month. They don’t give the future a minute’s thought. It sends shivers down my spine.


They live their lives charging debt like there is no tomorrow. They are indentured servants to the credit card companies. They get in a bind and borrow money from their parents to get out of that bind. But you know what, the majority never do because they just charge those credit cards right back up. Then they owe both their parents and the credit card companies.
 
Next stop is the bank to consolidate those credit cards and the loan to their parents into one loan that they think will give them a lower payment to pay it all off. You will probably get a lower interest rate than the credit card interest rate.  Do they cut up the credit cards? No! 

So they use the credit cards again and again because they deserve things. Now they owe the consolidation loan and a credit card balance that is mounting. They are making minimum payments(again) on those credit cards. Now what to do? 

Oh, you have a home. Well perhaps you have some equity in that home. Let’s go to the bank and consolidate the first consolidation loan and the all of the credit cards into a home equity loan. While we are at it, let’s take that loan for lots more years. That will lower your payments!

Do you see the vicious cycle here? Building debt is the worst thing you can do. Eventually you will lose everything! Unless you pay off that debt, you are in big trouble. You could end up in bankruptcy or worse yet lose your home. The bank has nothing to lose because they will just take your home, sell it, and pay off your debt with the equity.

So now you have been evicted from your home. No problem, we will just get an apartment. But where will you get the money for the deposits? Since you now may have ruined your credit rating or owe too much money, what landlord will rent to you?

This entire post is meant to get you thinking. It is not to scold you. Do you really want to be this person I talk about? Then do something about it. Will it be easy? Will it take a long time to pay off your debt? Yes, but you didn’t get into this mess overnight.

You have another choice though. You can continue getting deeper and deeper in debt, end up with nothing in your old age and live a very poor existence.

I want you to live a life of wealth so get a plan written down or make a chart to track all of your money on your computer. Then faithfully follow that plan to make your life better.  Don’t stay in that 78%! This is one place where you do not want to follow the crowd!

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Every Day

Grocery Shopping Haul

This is the only grocery shopping I did this week which I did at Aldi’s. I am shopping there more and more. Their prices are so good compared to my local grocery stores and Walmart. But the best part is that if I buy on sale, we can get grass fed meat for a lot cheaper than anywhere else. We have found their grass fed organic meat to be delicious!

I really never wanted to spend so much money on grass fed meat. But I have found that by cutting the junk food out of our diet, I am able to buy grass fed a lot more often. Junk food was costing us a fortune and it has no nutritional value. We are spending no more on groceries than we were before we started buying grass fed meat. 

To keep Hubby happy on this diet, I buy these Parmesan Crisps for snacks for him. They are 100% Parmesan cheese. 

This week I have continued cleaning and organizing. Most everything on our main living floor is in pretty good shape because I keep on top of it. 

So this week, I donated some items out of our gift closet that I knew we would never use. Then I reorganized and cleaned it. 

But the biggest organization I did was under the sink. It was a mess. Every time one of us used a cleaner, we stuck it under there. UGH! So I pulled everything out and only put back what we would actually use in the kitchen. It cleaned up very nicely. The white wastebasket is our recycle can. When it is full, we take it to the recycle bin in the garage. I keep a few glass jars behind it for grease disposal. The stackable bins hold dishwasher tablets in one and sponges and magic erasers in the other. The other container holds Comet(which I clean the sink with) stainless steel cleaner for my appliances, cleaner for the gas range, steel wool pads and a toothbrush for cleaning in cracks and crevices. 

I have no need to have dish liquid, hand soap, or all purpose cleaner under there because I keep them on a tray next to the sink. Extras are always in my basement storage.

I wish you all a wonderful weekend.      

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Every Day

Frugal Things We Did This Past Week

These are the things we did frugally this past week:

– I cooked all meals from scratch. Dinners were salad with sliced chicken, fajitas with chicken, onions, and peppers, lamb chops cooked in the air fryer, beef and veggie kabobs, spaghetti and meatballs for Hubby and meatballs on zucchini noodles( 2 nights) for me, and breakfast for dinner.  We did not go out to a restaurant or get fast food.

– I scanned my receipts into Fetch for points.

– Hubby used discounted Home Depot gift cards to purchase items to do the basement pantry. 

– I dry cleaned some wool items in my dryer.

– I hung all of my washable clothing to dry.

– Company got BBQ sauce on a dining room chair ulpholstered seat. I have not been able to remove it. Hubby removed the material and I am soaking it in a bucket of water and oxy clean. If it doesn’t come out, I will take it to the dry cleaners. If they can’t get it out, I will recover all of the seats.

– I picked up Dinosaur Fruit Bites for West with a Free Coupon from Top’s.  

– I exercised for 30 minutes a day on the treadmill and 30 minutes a day on the recumbent bike in my own home.

– We paid for our lawn fertilizing and all of our monthly yard work that the company does for all of 2020. We get a great discount by doing this in February.

-Hubby had to have a crown put on a tooth. We got the emergency visit free and 20% off the crown with our discount plan. This dental plan has way more than paid for the cost this year.

– We got a $11.21 check in the mail that we were not expecting.

– We received our tax return and invested it. 

What did you do this past week to live frugally?  

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Every Day

What I Have Been Up To

For the past couple of weeks, I have been cleaning and organizing the basement which is 2112 ft. just like the house. It has a full basement under all of it. It turned into a major project. I had great ambitions of getting it done in two or three days. Sure Precious, you are not as young as you used to be! I finally finished it yesterday. 98% of it I did by myself!  

Besides dealing with the mess, I also had to vacuum the concrete floor which was a total disaster because our pest service had sprayed down there in October and killed all of the bugs. They don’t spray the pantry because I will not let them.

The only thing I did not do was clean up the top of Hubby’s workbench. He will do that so that he can find his tools when he needs them. I have no idea his organizational system. 

Nor did I touch Hubby’s dresser project which he is in the middle of but hasn’t touched in a while. The white piece of furniture which has a glass top is going out with the garbage this week. We have not used it since our home in Arizona. If someone wants it, they can take it from near the road. Many pieces of furniture have disappeared the night before the garbage man comes. So it would not be unusual. 

After everything was clean except the pantry, I emptied most of the pantry into another section of the basement which is above. That took a long time.

Then I cleaned the entire floor in the pantry so that Hubby has pretty much a clean slate to put down the carpet tiles. Those couple of shelving units will be easy to move when he gets to that area. He actually went to Home Depot today to get some crack filler and other things he needs. It was nice that I was able to get $ 100. worth of Home Depot gift cards for $80. on a Top’s deal last year. 

The hardest thing we have to do is move the freezer which is pretty full. So we are figuring out how to do that so Hubby can lay the carpet tiles under it. Then we can move it back. We may have to ask a neighbor to help us do that.

This was the first area I tackled. 

And this was the last which is the area that our furnace, humidifier, dehumidifier, water softener and sump is in. 

Besides working on all of this, I had dentists appointments to keep, errands to run, the normal every day things, and I did not want to stop exercising one hour a day. That was very important to me!

I have convinced Hubby to hire a local contractor to do the sheet rocking. I feel it is just to much for him. So I have called and left a message for him to call me back. Hopefully we will hear from him when spring break is over. 

Over the weekend, I cooked bison burgers for us because they were easy while I finished the basement. We used to buy bison all of the time when we lived in Arizona. I finally found it at Aldi. Not knowing how good it would be, I only purchased one package. It was so tender and delicious that you can bet when it goes on sale again, I will purchase it and stock the freezer.

Yesterday, I cooked up a big batch of chicken. So tonight, Hubby and I will have salads with chicken on it.

So have any of you been working on organizing your home recently?

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Every Day

A Very Large Grocery Haul

We needed food for us and for company coming. So I did all of my errands and grocery shopping in about 3 hours. I first went to the library to donate some more books and then to Fast Cash to bring back two bags of Hubby’s cans and bottles.

Then I did the grocery shopping. First shop was Aldi’s pictured above. Here is the receipt. 

 

Next was a trip to Top’s. Here is that receipt.

 
The last stop was at Niagara Produce.

 The total was $ 117.10. It is the most I have spent on groceries in a long time. Hubby and I love grass fed loin lamb chops from Australia. Top’s had them on sale for $ 6.99 a lb. $26.01 was spent on those. That is such a terrific deal. I may go back and get more since they had a limit of three on them.


Niagara Produce had chicken tenders on sale for $1.99 a lb. Their chicken is so tender and these will be handy for quick buffalo chicken or bunless fajitas. When I am in need of quick cold cuts, they have the freshest in town and the cheapest.  I was also happy to see this bag of lemons on sale because my supply of frozen lemon slices was just about gone. I always use them in my water. 


I am off to hopefully finish the basement today. I have a few more things to move and some vacuuming to do and the pantry will be empty and ready for Hubby to finish it. It has been a major job. Many nights I just fell into bed exhausted.


Did you get anything on sale when you grocery shopped this week? Won’t you share it with us?

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Every Day

Frugal Things We Have Done

These are the things we have done frugally the past week or so:

Dinners were all cooked and eaten at home. They were filet mignon and Brussel sprouts, sea scallops with a side salad, shrimp cocktails, cheeseburgers on a lettuce wrap or bun(Mine with an avocado slice.), taco salads and chicken wings with a side salad. Breakfasts are usually eggs with either bacon, sausage or ham and 1/2 avocado. We rarely eat lunch but if we do it is a small salad. I continue to meal plan from our stockpile.

I mailed a package to my granddaughter via UPS and got 5% off the cost of shipping using my AAA card.

I purchased Valentine gifts for my grandchildren taking advantage of a B1G1F deal.

You know you need a new winter coat when the office staff at the dentist tells you your coat is way too big for you. Shucks and I was trying to get away with it for the rest of the winter. So I put the coat aside to give away and went through my garment bags looking for other coats that were too big to add to the donation pile. Surprise! I found a black winter pea coat that I had not worn since well before we moved to Arizona. It is a little big but not as big as the one I was wearing. So it should last me the rest of the winter. Then I will buy a coat in the Fall when I am at my goal weight. 

I did 30 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the bike every day this past week. The muscles in my legs are becoming well formed.

I did all of my errands in one day doing a 7 mile circle from my home.

I cut up a bunch of avocados that I got for $ .59 each and froze them to use when I can’t get a good deal on avocados.

We did the monthly household maintenance which encompasses putting a special drain cleaner down the kitchen sink that we purchased a year supply of from Roto Rooter. We are hoping to keep the sewer line clog free. I also changed the furnace filter.

The only retail shopping I did was to purchase some cheap replacement vacuum cleaner bags for the vacuum that I use for the basement floor.

The bathroom sink that I use in the Master Bath had become loose( hot water tap). Hubby fixed it pretty quickly. 

We played lots of the card game “Cover Your Assets” with my grandson and son. We love this game. It is so much fun.

I cooked another pound of bacon in the oven for our Sunday family breakfast. I can’t believe that I didn’t start doing it this way sooner. It is so much easier than standing over a pan to cook it.

Now that I am feeling better, I have been doing some more cleaning and organizing in the basement. I have 3/4’s of the basement done. Yesterday, Hubby and my son moved a bookcase from my pantry into the other part of the basement. I moved part of my stockpile to it. Then I moved two shelving units that have wheels over next to it. I continued to move the stockpile. Then Hubby and I moved two more shelving units. I will continue down there today. It will make it so much easier on Hubby when he puts the walls up and the carpeting down to have it cleaned out. After that is done, I will have a clean slate to work with and rearrange the way I want things. 

What did you do frugally this past week? 
      

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Every Day

Grocery Shopping This Week

I have not been grocery shopping in quite a while. So I picked up some things we needed.

Aldi’s:

Romaine Lettuce – $ 2.39
2 bags of Brussel Sprouts $ 1.09 each = $ 2.18
Olive Oil Spray – $ 1.79
2 Half and Half – $ 1.55 each = $ 3.10
1/2 gallon of Milk – $ 1.59
Chocolate Syrup – $ 1.59

Total was $ 12.64.

Top’s:

1 lb. of Bacon – $ 2.99 after Q
1 Ajax Dish Liquid – $ 1.99
2 Edy’s Ice Cream – $ 4.99 each = $ 9.98

Total was $ 15.12.

The ice cream and syrup is for ice cream sundaes when West visits. Bacon for Sunday breakfasts. Everything else I was out of.

We really have not been spending much on groceries lately.  I am really trying to make a push to use up what we have so that I can defrost the freezer.

Did you get any good grocery deals this week?

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Every Day

After Almost Two Decades of Retirement

For those of you who don’t know, we have almost two decades of retirement under our belt. Yes, Hubby and I took early retirement many, many years ago. It was the best thing that we could have ever done.

Over the years, we have been asked many questions. The one we have gotten the most is “What do you all day?” Our answer has always been the same, “Whatever we want to do!” 

We don’t have to listen to alarms go off everyday. We rarely set an alarm unless we have an early appointment that we don’t want to be late to. There is no 30-45 minute commute every day. When it snows, we no longer stress about a long, sometimes 2-3 hour drive in bad conditions. We don’t have to drive in bad snow storms unless we choose to.

We travel when we want to but not as much as we used to when we were first retired. Hubby no longer enjoys traveling which is fine. I travel if and when I want to. Many trips to Disney World come to mind. I been invited to go again for a week during Disney World’s 50th anniversary year. I am still deciding whether I want to or not.

Our lives are so much less stressful than when we worked. No dreaded wasteful meetings come to mind. No bosses breathing down our necks. We are our own bosses now.


Yes, we planned early retirement in our twenties.  We got out in our early fifties.  As we worked toward that goal, nothing made us realize that it was the right thing to do more than a parent dying before he reached retirement. Genetics told us all we had to know.

Fortunately, both Hubby and I are in pretty good health physically and mentally. I believe even better health than when we retired. But we have both been really working hard at it. Lots of exercising and healthy eating comes to mind.


I enjoy doing all the little everyday things that make our lives more comfortable. I like to have a clean and organized home that is decorated to our liking. I like to cook and so does Hubby. I really enjoy the meals he makes. It’s a treat for me. We enjoy being outdoors in the nice weather. We both love to read, play games, and watch movies together. We still enjoy going to parties and BBQ’s. We like treating ourselves to our favorite restaurant. We enjoy spending time with friends.


But most importantly, we love being with our sons, DIL’s, and grandchildren. Those are the best times ever for us. We just wish they all lived next door. Family always come first in our lives and always will. 

Someone asked me recently if we regret retiring early and aren’t we bored. The answer is a resounding NO! We have enjoyed each other’s company every day and we are never bored. There is so much to do in life that I don’t understand people who say they are bored. Boredom has never entered our lives. Some days I wonder how we get everything done that we want to do. 


Retirement has also allowed me to blog for the many years that I have been doing it. Hopefully it has helped some of you over the years. When and if I get tired of doing that, I will retire from that too. For now, I am not tired yet and will continue to blog when I have something to say and have the time to say it. I enjoy reading your comments and responding to them when I can also. I feel after all of this time that some of you are my next door neighbors that I have lived next to for many years.

So that all said, I hope we have many more decades of retirement because it is just one of the very best times of our lives! 

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Every Day

Frugal Things We Have Done The Past Couple of Weeks

These are the things that we have done frugally recently:

– Hubby and/or I have made all our meals from scratch. I have been eating a lot of eggs and ground chicken because they are the only things that didn’t make my mouth hurt. No restaurant or take out was consumed.

– I listened to a free podcast while folding laundry and changing sheets.

– I still managed to get my exercising in on the treadmill and bike while listening to upbeat Rock and Roll music from the 1960’s using my earbuds.

– I started exercising my abs using a video I found on You Tube. 

– I found more clothes that no longer fit me. I will be giving them away. I think everything that I have outgrown has been found except for coats that are in my garment bag. I will go through those this week.

– Received a check for $15. and will deposit it at the bank into our savings.

– Did our income taxes and was happy that we are getting a small refund rather than have to pay.


– I was in need of some cold medicines, pain killers, and cough drops so I purchased them at Walmart using some coupons. In my area, they are so much cheaper there than at our drugstores. I scanned my receipt on Fetch.

– I also purchased what I deemed necessary, just in case, the Coronavirus is found in our state. Because if that happens, we will be quarantining ourselves. I realize it’s a long shot but you have to be prepared.

– I spent a lot of time resting last week using my Kindle to read myself to sleep. It has been a rough few weeks between my sore mouth and a horrible cold that is still hanging on. 


– I gave my neighbor, who has two young boys, a box of Lincoln Logs and a large box of matchbox cars that West no longer plays with. The boys loved them and she sent me a picture of them playing with them. It got them out of my house and will give them a lot of enjoyment.

– I mended some pj’s.

– I have done no grocery shopping since my small shop on January 22nd. We have 100% been eating from our stockpile. 


– We had our Buffalo Chicken Wings this past weekend in honor of the Superbowl. But we didn’t order them and have them delivered. I cooked them in our air fryer oven and made up the Buffalo wing sauce to put on them. We had unused sauce leftover so I refrigerated it for the next time we make them.


– After not eating much last week because of a loss of appetite due to my cold, I was craving a good hamburger. So this weekend, I cooked them up for us. I had mine in a lettuce wrap and loaded it up with sauteed mushrooms. It really tasted so good! 


– We are also trying to use up all of our store bought cleaners. Once they are gone, we will make our own.


– I have been working on genealogy for both of our family trees. I found something new after many hours of searching. I was so excited. It is such good entertainment. 

So what have you done recently frugally?