I cooked up a pound of bacon all at once so that we can just reheat it for the next few breakfasts.
We received 2 rebate checks in the mail that total $14.21. Every little bit helps!
I washed a load of clothes using the ECO mode on my washer. I used cold water. The tops and some lingerie were hung to dry on the shower rod and the rest were dried using the ECO mode on our dryer. I also used 6 wool balls to cut down on the dry time.
A beef roast is cooking in my slow cooker along with some carrots, celery, and onions. This will be dinner tonight and the next few nights. I thought about slow cooking it in my Instant Pot. However, I dropped the bottom piece of my slow cooker the other day and something broke. Hubby took it apart the best he could, and said in his estimation, the part that broke should not affect the functioning. So I decided to try it out today to make sure. If it doesn’t seem to be working, I will switch it over to the Instant Pot. But so far so good.
While I was peeling and cutting up some carrots for the slow cooker, I cut some into sticks so that Hubby could have snacks this week with dill dip.
I planned out my meals for when we have company after Christmas. It looks like I have everything I need with the exception of eggnog. I will pick that up later this month when I go out for my haircut.
I spent some time today putting next year’s appointments, etc. in my 2022 planner. I am striving to be very organized this coming year.
We are keeping all of the lights off since dawn here. They will not get turned on until sunset.
I have put our non electric lights, flashlights, candles, and lighters in the main living area of our home so they are handy if we need them tomorrow. We are going to have major winds up to 65 miles per hour which they are predicting for tomorrow afternoon and evening. I hope we don’t lose power.
My new bread maker arrived today. I am loving the smaller footprint. Now I can leave it on my counter. I will be making a loaf of bread tomorrow. This machine will save me a lot of money on breads and rolls in the future. My 20 year old one was on it’s last leg.
This little tree was made from a larger tree. The angel on top was made by my Hubby in kindergarten. It is over 70 years old. I am surprised that it has held up as well as it has. I am waiting for our new tree skirt to arrive and it will be finished.
Now that we have put up our little Christmas tree, have written our cards, and have all of our Christmas giving taken care of, my mind has turned to the little tips and hacks that we will use to help us save money this month and next year in this inflationary cycle. These will be in no particular order. I will just write them as they pop into my head.
We will be eating from our food pantry. As we do that we will make sure to eat the proper portions which will ration the food that we have. We will only buy meat if I see a rock bottom price and then I will buy what we have room for. We only have a small chest freezer and the regular refrigerator so not a lot of freezer space. I do have the supplies to can meat that I see on sale. However, I am running out of shelves to store it on. I will buy fresh produce and dairy as I need it. We will do our best to not waste food as I told you in a prior post. I do believe that food prices will continue to surge. There are certain things that I will not buy now because I deem the price to be too high. Red meat except for ground beef and chuck roasts, coffee, soda, most fish, bacon, most junk food, etc. come to mind.
I will be keeping track of every penny of our money and tracking what is spent with the online program that we use. I will be better about using my price book to track prices as they go up so that I know what the best deal is.
We will continue to close the heating vents in our two spare bedrooms, close the doors, and put the draft snakes in front of the bottom of the doors. We will heat them back up the day before we have company coming the end of the month. This should help with our natural gas bill. We will make sure that we keep the bathroom vent and door open in the bathroom between these two rooms so that the pipes don’t freeze.
We made a decision this year to only minimally decorate our home with lights so we could save that cost in our electric bill. So our little tree is all the lights we have. It is enough for us to enjoy each evening. As we age, it is also getting harder to drag all of the decorating items from our basement to the upstairs. I think when my son and granddaughter come the end of the month, we will share decorations for my son’s tree with him. He doesn’t have many in his new home since his divorce. I will also let my other son take any that he wants. Then we will donate the rest of them to Goodwill.
Clothing prices have gone up here. I will be buying some jeans and tops for Hubby and myself when I see them go on sale after we lose some more weight. But I will be looking for a sale at that time. And the amount we will buy will be minimal.
I do not pay for shipping unless I ship something myself out of our local UPS which I will be doing today. Fortunately we have AAA. That gives us 5% off our cost to ship. I have free shipping for anything on walmart.com because I have their grocery plus delivery plan. I only use Amazon when I have the minimal amount of money that you have to spend in order to get free shipping.
We are setting our budget for 2022 this week. It will be as bare bones as we can get without cutting things that we enjoy like cable TV.
We will be spending on things that help us stay in our home that we love like landscaping and maintenance services. They are a necessity.
We rarely eat out but when we do, we support a family owned business. The food is better than the run of the mill big chains. In 2022, we will plan on eating out about every three months. Other than those occasions, all food will be cooked and eaten at home.
We plan on repairing as many things that we can ourselves before we call a repairman or buy new. We have stocked on a number of things that we might need to do that. You Tube is a great resource when you need to know how to repair something.
I will be planting a larger garden this spring so that we can cross some more of the things we buy off our list.
We are learning to make things that we have always purchased. Hubby is now making all of our salad dressings as the prepared ones run out. His latest is Italian Vinagrette which is delicious.
We will be making the little bit of bread and rolls that we do eat. Desserts, with the exception of some ice cream when the grandchildren visit, will be made here at home.
Our one main goal in 2022 is to become as self reliant as possible. Things are not going to get better in this country anytime soon and there is nothing we can do to control that. So we will work all year on the areas that we can control. When we had a period like this in the 1970’s, we survived by being very creative with everything we did. It actually was fun to do all the little things that helped us thrive and get through it.
Most importantly we will do all of this with gratitude in our hearts for the things that we do have and can do that makes our lives so much richer.
Have you thought about how you will cut expenses in 2022?
I started blogging in 2007 as Precious. My original blog was Frugal Makes Cents. I am not changing the name or address of this blog. But I have decided to go back to my original username of Precious. I always liked that and I am very used to it.
This was just a wonderful Sunday. We had not seen our grandson in many weeks due to him picking up the virus at school. He got it just a day after he got his first shot. Being 11 years old he couldn’t get his shot before then. He has now had his second shot and he and my son came for breakfast this morning. We were so very happy to see them. I missed them so much.
So I cooked all of us a breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs, and potato pancakes. We had lots of mashed potatoes leftover from our turkey tenderloin dinner that needed to be used up. They turned out delicious!
We were not going to put up our Christmas tree this year. With my bad back, it just seemed like a lot of work. However, I decided today that we were going to do it. It is just a small table top tree but it was in a large box in the basement. So I asked my son to bring it upstairs for us. He did and we will decorate it tomorrow along with some other decorating. I think I am actually starting to get some Christmas spirit.
As Hubby was watching pro football today, he was watching QVC whenever there was a commercial. I spotted a bread machine that was on clearance for 30% off that I wanted. My machine works fine but is bulky and I can’t keep it on the counter. Hubby said to me do you want it. I said yes it is but it is a want not a need. He ordered it for me.
We don’t exchange gifts at Christmas but we do this kind of thing this time of year. A couple of days ago he saw something he wanted for the SUV. I ordered it!
Hubby decided he wanted to make a new meal out of the turkey tenderloin that we had left. So he substituted the turkey slices for the Chicken Picatta that he makes. It is pictured above. He made this big plate for himself. I had a smaller plate. It was so delicious! There were no leftovers so we can do a new meal tomorrow. The recipe we use is above. We had no capers in the fridge nor did we have fresh parsley so we left them out.
I am off to read for the evening. I hope you all had a wonderful day too!
I noticed the other day that we were getting low on soaps. We had only one small refill of hand soap and I am using our last bottle of laundry detergent.
So I checked the bulk prices of both on Walmart and Amazon for what I needed. These two were clear winners for what we use. Since supply chain issues have been a big problem, I decided to order them right away hoping that they would have them in stock. They did and I had them within 2 days.
I got free shipping on both orders. I belong to Walmart Plus which I am allowing to renew this month. I do not have Amazon Prime. I have not had it since the spring.
It will be a quiet day here. Since I roasted two turkey tenderloins last night, our dinner will be just reheating leftovers.
I also am expecting my large box of Christmas cards to arrive today. So we will be watching college football while I write cards. When I looked for cards in my storage, I could only find 2 cards. It became clear that I didn’t buy any last year after Christmas. I won’t make that mistake again.
In an attempt to save gasoline, I bundled a few errands yesterday. I went to get my booster shot at Walmart. My plan was to make a quick shop in the store but it was very crowded so I quickly left.
I went elsewhere to pick up some on sale meat, items for company that we will have the end of the month, and some treats for Hubby and I for the rest of the winter.
So on to Top’s I went. I got 9 of the Voortman’s SF cookies that Hubby and I love. They were on sale for $ 3.19 each. The Red Chocolate Bar was Free with an E-coupon that Top’s sent me. It has less calories and less sugar. It will be eaten when we need just a little piece of chocolate. The Queen Anne Cherry Cordials are for company and the fudge pops are for anyone who wants one.
Then I stopped at Aldi’s where I purchased 2 dozen eggs for $ 1.29 each( lowest price I could find), a quart of half and half creamer, a quart of heavy whipping cream, turkey tenderloins, a seasoned chuck roast that was on sale for $ 5.99 a lb. which totaled $ 14.50, some salami, prosciutto, and black forest ham, 2 sea salt Pita Chips, and some Artisan Flatbread.
The cold cuts will be used to make some antipasto which Hubby loves for brunch. This Flatbread makes the best pizza in just 9 minutes. So when we just have to have a cheat day, this is what we make. We love these turkey tenderloins and they are so easy. I just roast them in the toaster oven. The chuck roast will be cooked in the crock pot or Instant Pot when we are craving stew. Both meats will make many meals for us.
Now that it is snowy and freezing cold out, we will stay home as much as we can. I don’t like driving in the ice and snow. So we will only go out for doctor appointments and haircuts. We may be able to use Tele-Health for some of the doctor appointments and haircuts can be cancelled and rescheduled if it is a bad snow day.
I subscribe to Walmart Plus for grocery delivery so we will use that if we need a grocery order. It also includes free shipping on walmart.com so I can get some items that way. I also use Amazon when I have a large enough order. I actually have some shipped orders coming today. I will show you those tommorrow.
The only time I will go out for food is if there is a rock bottom meat sale that I must stock up with and the roads are clear.
So do you avoid driving as much as possible in the winter? Did you get any good buys this week?
