Yesterday, I went out and did my weekly grocery shopping. I needed the berries and the avocados which I purchased at Aldi. The berries were $1.99 and the avocados were $ 2.69. The avocados will be eaten with my eggs for breakfast. The berries will be put in sugar free jello for dessert.
My best deal was at Top’s. They had sirloin tip roasts for $ 4.99 a lb. The larger one will be cut up into stew meat which will give us 8 meals. The smaller one will be ground into hamburger with my Kitchen Aid mixer grinder attachment. That will give us 5 meals. I paid $ 11.03 and $ 19.41 for the roasts.
The bacon cost me $4.99 and will be used for a Sunday breakfast when my family comes. The tuna was on sale for 3 cans for $ 5.00. I bought 6 cans.
My total was $ 50.11.
While I was out I filled our SUV up at the Top’s station using $.30 off a gallon in Top’s points. I paid $ 3.40 a gallon after the points. The per gallon price was cheaper after the points than my cash station.
I also finished my Christmas shopping. It feels good to have that done.
This week we have no appointments which is amazing. So I plan on doing some laundry, cleaning, and a lot of work on my finances and budgeting for the 2023 year. I hope you all are working on your budgeting for next year also. Posts on what we are doing will be coming up in December. It has been a rough year for all of us with inflation. I want to save as much money as possible next year and stop giving it to these large businesses who are making ridiculous profits. They are getting rich while the rest of us are getting poor. We are experiencing the largest transfer of wealth that I have ever seen. We can’t do a lot about what they and our government are doing but we can tighten up our households and hang onto some money.
I think about how to do frugal things as I go along with my day. These are some of the things I do as a result of that.
I woke up at 4:30am which is very normal for me. The heat in the house is at 62 degrees. I did wrap a throw around me.
Then I got up and made my coffee using cheap on sale coffee that I purchased over 6 months ago. I add Irish Creme Syrup and heavy cream. The Irish Creme I purchase a case at a time when Skinny Syrups has a great sale or a coupon. I use a reusable cup in my Keurig.
I turn on the lights above the counters in the kitchen because they are the cheapest to run.
When it becomes daylight out, I turn the lights off.
If the sun is shining, I open the energy saving shades on the windows that have the sun on them. I follow the sun around our home and close and open as needed.
Next I deposited two checks into our savings that came in the mail yesterday. The more interest we earn on that money the better.
Then I sat and enjoyed my coffee and worked on my blog posts.
The heat which is on a timer comes up to 68 degrees at 8pm and stays there until it goes back down to 62 at 10:00pm.
Next I changed the sheets and made our bed. I will not wash them until my son leaves and I can do his bed and the bed that West slept in. Those will give me a full load.
I closed the door to our master bathroom to contain the heat so I can shower. I take a navy shower and I want to stay warm while I do it.
I use watered down shampoo and body wash. I don’t use conditioner.
My hair is short. I do not blow dry it unless I am going out somewhere.
I squeegee the shower so that I can lower the time that I use the vent that exhausts the moisture out of our bathroom. We also have a window in that room so that helps in the nice weather.
Next I cooked scrambled eggs in the microwave. It is 80% more energy efficient to cook them in there than in a skillet on my gas stove. I just put 2 eggs and some grated cheese in a coffee mug(butter it first) and heat and stir in 15 minute increments until it is to my liking. If you don’t do this, the eggs will be rubbery and no one wants rubbery eggs.
Then it was time to make my homemade cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving. It was so easy to just pulse the cranberries, orange zest and orange sections from one orange, monkfruit sweetener, and cinnamon in my Vitamix. It is now in the fridge waiting to be served tomorrow.
I made an apple pie for Thanksgiving. I did not want to heat up my big gas oven to cook one pie. So I baked it in my toaster oven.
Then Hubby and I watched the FBI’s that were on last night while enjoying a serving of Keto Blueberry Dump Cake that I made yesterday.
We use a lot of canned diced tomatoes. I can tomatoes but my garden is small so I need to buy more. Since tomatoes are one of the ten items that are going to be in short supply soon, I ordered 2 cases of diced from Sam’s Club. Because of the snow storm, all of our mail and orders have been delayed. Finally the tomatoes arrived today. Sam’s Club had the best price of all of my local and online options.
We are having easy cheeseburgers for dinner tonight. I will make my son some mac and cheese to go with it. We just eat our hamburgers with lots of toppings like sauteed onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and lettuce. BTW, today is Wednesday.
I will run the dishwasher after dinner tonight with a full load. I use the energy saving cycle.
Yesterday, I roasted the turkey in the big oven but used the convection so that it would use 25% less natural gas. It came out with crispy skin and moist meat.
Last night I took all of the meat off the turkey. Then I put all of the skin and bones into the crockpot and cooked it overnight. I got a gallon of nice rich turkey bone broth for soups and other dishes.
My son left today( Friday) and I will miss him. But he and Alexa will be back to visit for a few days after Christmas. But anyhow my son is as observant for a deal as I am. He got a free turkey at B.J.’s because he shops there for a lot of his meat and other groceries. I think you had to spend $150. to get it. Also he filled up his gas tank at the station near him in the Eastern part of NY when he came out. The price he paid was $ 3.89 a gallon which was the average in his area. He noticed on his way out that the truck stop about 30 minutes from here was $ 3.35 a gallon. So on his way home this morning, he filled his car up at that price. That is a $.54 per gallon savings. I just wish that this station wasn’t so far from my home. It is not worth it for me to drive there. But the next time we go visit him, we will check out the prices before we leave.
Well the first snow of the season has come and gone. We only got 9.5 inches of snow which is not anywhere near the 50 to 77 inches of snow that they got in the southtowns. But I am sure the skiers are happy. The snowplow guy showed up on Saturday evening about 8pm. He did a fantastic job of plowing the driveway. Of course shortly after, the town plow came through and then again the next day. So we had quite a pile of snow at the end of the driveway. Plus a lot of the snow blew back in the driveway overnight because of the high winds. However on Sunday, the sun melted most of it except at the bottom. But I looked out Monday morning and one of my neighbors had either shoveled or snowblowed the end of my driveway. I have no idea who did it. I have the best neighbors ever! They take good care of us. One of them had come over on Saturday afternoon and started snow blowing my driveway without even telling me. We were playing cards in the great room in the back of the house. By the time I saw him, he had already done half of it. I thanked him but told him that we had hired a plow guy for the winter. But I also let him know how much he is appreciated.
My grandson came to stay with us on Saturday and left late afternoon on Monday. His parents decided to celebrate my son’s birthday which was Sunday at the moved Buffalo Bills game in Detroit. So they left for the border crossing into Canada after they dropped him here. It would have been impossible to go south and over to Detroit. I was worried about them because it was snowing pretty heavily when they left. But once they got into Canada about half way to Hamilton, it stopped snowing. They made their way to Windsor, Ontario which is right across the river from Detroit. The hotel room they stayed in was there. This beautiful picture of the skyline of Detroit was taken from their room in the hotel. They had a great view. They had a nice dinner that night at the Loose Goose in Canada. The next morning they left early to take the tunnel into Detroit so that they could go to the special parking lot to leave their car for the day. They then went to a bar that offered everyone a special deal of open bar for four hours before the game including a wonderful buffet for flat price. My son and daughter-in-law were thrilled that they had wings on it. The bar limited entrance to 200 people and when they reached that no one else could go in. My son said that it was full of Buffalo fans as was the game. The Bills won which made it even nicer. So they had a wonderful weekend and so did we.
We played lots of gin rummy while West was here. He did some shoveling of my sidewalk and porch twice. He also got my Thanksgiving turkey out of the freezer downstairs and into the pan in the refrigerator to thaw on Saturday night. Yesterday, I asked him to go grocery shopping with me so that I could get a few last minute things for our Thanksgiving dinner. I decided that $ .58 a lb. was too good a price not to get another turkey. So I picked up a 20 lb. one. I had to spend at least $ 30.00 but that was easy because I was purchasing a gift card for a Christmas gift. I now have the one turkey in the fridge and two in the freezer. I will cook the extras over the winter: one in January and one in March. It is the cheapest meat right now and I believe meat prices will skyrocket soon. So keep your freezers stocked.
We cooked all of our meals over the weekend except for stopping at the McDonald’s drive thru after we went grocery shopping. I just purchased a 10 piece chicken nugget and a medium french fry for West as a lunch treat for helping me at the store.
Today I received our natural gas and electricity bill. It was $ 170.58 for 399KWH and 55.7 therms of natural gas. Last year’s bill for the same period was for 453KWH and 75.2 therms of natural gas. That bill was for $172.35. As you can see our bill was just $ 1.77 less than last year’s but we used 54 less KWH and 19.5 less therms of natural gas. Part of the reason that we used less gas is because we had an unusually warm couple of weeks in October. However this should easily tell you that utility costs are rising and this is going to be a rough winter especially for those of us that heat 24 hours a day.
We are doing everything possible to try to keep these costs down but we can’t do anything about the rising supply and delivery charges. I think about every KWH of electricity that I use and every therm of natural gas and how we can lower them every day.
Now that my grandson has gone home and it is a new day, I have to get ready for family to arrive tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I think I will make my homemade cranberry orange relish today so that I don’t have to do so much tomorrow. Instead of buying a bag of oranges at the market, I only bought one orange because that is all I will need.
Have you saved any money over the last few days or have you been getting ready for the holiday too?
Before I talk to you about rationing, I have to tell you that my site was down when I got up yesterday. It told me that the site wasn’t secure. So I contacted my son who is my tech guy. He has it fixed. It had to do with the cert. It needed to be validated again. It is all taken care of and it is safe to come here now.
We started rationing a lot of our food over the past couple of months. I am concerned about a few things that may be in our future: war and empty shelves in the grocery markets. But the most important worry is the escalating food prices. They actually were shocking at the beginning of the week when I shopped. Many things that I wanted had risen so high in price that I won’t buy them. I hope that many of you have stocked up at least a few months worth of food. Hopefully much of it was purchased before the prices started escalating. If not you can start today because prices will be much higher in 2023.
I try my hardest to stick to proper portions on everything especially meat, poultry, and fish. They are the priciest foods that I buy. We try to stick to 3- 4 oz. a day for our daily serving. It has been hard because we are on Keto so we usually eat bacon or sausage with our eggs or Keto pancakes. But we have decided that if we eat meat for breakfast, then we won’t eat it for dinner. We can have pancakes or eggs with avocado. Keto is hard to stay on and it is expensive. Plus I lost a lot of weight the last time I was on it but the minute I went off it I gained much of the weight back.
I am starting to think that we should just eat healthy and count calories instead. We haven’t made that decision yet.
We Americans eat too much food. The portions in restaurants are huge. No one needs that much food. So rationing may help us lose a little weight also. Hubby and I rarely go out to dinner anymore. It is cheaper to eat at home.
We are cutting back on everything we can. When we make meatballs for soup or a recipe, I usually use 1/2 lb. instead of 1 lb. ground beef that the recipe calls for. But I do not cut down the other ingredients. That way we can get two meals from that recipe. I do the same for hamburgers using 1/4 lb. instead of 1/3 lb. for each and put more toppings on like tomato, lettuce, onions and mushrooms.
When you buy your meat, poultry or fish, freeze it in the portions you should have not what you want to have. When you open a frozen veggie, check to see what portion you should be eating. The same goes for anything you eat. I just measure out a portion for us and keep the rest frozen or freeze the rest from a can.
I try to keep my meat purchases under $5.00 a lb. I really like chicken breasts at $2.99 a lb. or drumsticks at $.89-$.99 a lb. We love turkey. We have purchased two: one for Thanksgiving and one for over the winter. However when I put the turkey in the refrigerator to defrost on Sunday, I may buy another one to replace it. That depends on how bad the snow gets here. But at $ .58 a lb, I am tempted. It will be such cheap meat and bone broth. But we were craving the shrimp the other day for $9.99, so I bit the bullet and purchased it. It will make two meals for us. But that price is not happening a lot in this home.
We can use less spaghetti sauce for pasta meals. One half of a jar or can should suffice for us. We can use less of a lot of items to stretch them out and bring the cost of a meal down.
We also try hard to incorporate meatless meals into our weekly menu once sometimes twice a week. Beans, pasta. and salads are cheaper than meat.
I make a lot of soups especially over the winter. They are cheap and delicious. We love turkey, chicken, bean and ham, beef barley, onion, taco, and homemade tomato meatball soup.
So seriously consider rationing your food to make it last longer and cost you less per meal for you and your families. Our ancestors did this and we can too.
Yesterday I pulled all of the whole tomatoes from our garden out of our freezers to thaw. I will be making homemade spaghetti sauce to freeze today. It lays flat in quart freezer bags so it will take up much less room than the whole tomatoes. That leaves room for meats that I find at a great price.
Let me know in the comments if you are doing this and any tips that could help the rest of us defray these costs.
After all of the medical issues here, our diet has changed. Because of that I donated a lot of food that we will no longer eat. Instead we are stocking up our current weeks meals and stocking for the future with the items that we now eat. That is why you are seeing so many grocery hauls.
Because prices are rising so rapidly, I am trying to get stocked now. I believe that prices will continue to rise well into 2023. If the rail workers or trucking workers go on strike, we could also see really empty shelves in the markets.
I am already seeing massive shortages in dairy. You all know how I looked for a long time for heavy whipping cream. None of the grocery chains had it. Even the local family run business where I found it, is getting low. Eggs are also in short supply here again. A lot of other items are hit or miss!
So over the past couple of days, I have been shopping while running other errands. Yesterday, I had my 6 month dental check up and cleaning. As some of you know, we had no dental plan for a long time. Our dental bills were outrageous. Then our dentist started offering a dental plan that includes Hubby and I. It has saved us so much money. My total out of pocket for yesterday including X-rays was $ 36. Hubby has an appointment next week and I assume his will be the same amount.
The dental office gives us these samples every time we go. We have electric toothbrushes but these other ones are easy to use when we travel. We have at least two years of floss stocked up and plenty of denture brushes. The small samples of toothpaste also get used for travel. When I see that we are getting a large amount of them, we start using them up daily. These all save us money in the long run.
On the way home from the dentist, I stopped at Niagara Produce again. I wanted to replace a quart of heavy whipping cream that we had used up. Hubby wanted strawberries. They of course are not in season so they were expensive just like the heavy whipping cream. The cream was $ 6.29 and the strawberries were $6.99. We also have not had shrimp in a long time. This package was $ 9.99 but it is giving us two meals. Last night we had shrimp cocktails and salad for dinner. I will use the other half of the package in shrimp fra diavolo one night. I always check their meat for markdowns because it is the only store in my area that once in a while I can find them. Both the burgers and the steak tenderettes were reduced for quick sale because they were expiring in 2 days. They quickly got put in my freezer for future meals. My total was $30.51 for all.
Walmart had a heck of a deal on broth! I ordered 8 of the beef and 8 of the chicken below. They were $ 1.00 each. I have Walmart + so they ship for free. I haven’t seen them at that price here in years. I only use them a little bit at a time in meals. An opened carton keeps for a very long time in my refrigerator.
They are good for over a year.
On Sunday, I went to both Aldi’s and Top’s. This time of the year, I like to stock up on cranberries. We make our own cranberry orange relish and we also make muffins with them. Aldi’s had them for $ .99 a bag so I snagged 4. Fresh brussel sprouts were $ 2.29. The bacon was $ 3.99 a package which is a terrific price for here. I got 3. I picked up my last 3 lbs. of butter that I needed to stock my freezer for a year and 3 lbs. for my son who uses a lot of it too. His 3 are not pictured. They were $2.49 a lb. The bag of shredded sharp cheddar cheese was $ 2.99. My total was $ 36.15.
At Top’s I picked up 2 zero sugar Reddi Wip at $ 2.50 each, 1 Hellman’s mayonaise for $ 3.49 after a doubled $ .50 coupon and 2 Brown and Serve sausage for $ 1.50 each. My total was $ 11.49.
Ninety nine percent of the time, I buy sale items. But sometimes you just have to pay full price for things that you want. I am using the heavy whipping to make Keto ice cream and Hubby really wanted the strawberries. If those things make him happy, I am willing to pay the price.
Are you seeing shortages where you live? Did you save any money on groceries this week?
This morning after getting some office work done, I went out to run the errands. Hubby wanted me to pick up some reflectors for the mailbox. Our town has a habit of taking it out when they snow plow. The weather people are predicting snow for here on Sunday. So I went to Home Depot to find the red ones that he wanted. They were only $5.27. If that saves us money from having to buy a new mailbox this year, it will be well worth the cost.
Aldi’s was about half a block up the road. I went in and got 6 more butter at $ 2.49 each. Next week, I only have to pick up 3 more to have a year’s worth.
Last stop was Niagara Produce. I was so happy that I went there. You all know that I have not been able to find heavy whipping cream for a couple of weeks. I got 3 for $ 6.29 each. Expensive, but Hubby has been asking me to make some peanut butter Keto ice cream. Finally, Jif has the sugar free peanut butter back on the shelves. I got some but have not been able to find the heavy creamI needed to make it. Now I will make it this weekend and he will be a happy guy.
I picked up a large package of ground round for $ 11.68 and a package of cube steaks for $ 5.24. I found a Keto recipe that I want to try next week with those. I also got a pound of radishes for $ 1.99, a block of cheddar cheese for $ 2.69, 4 tomatoes for $ 4.22, and a bag of romaine lettuce for $ 1.69. My total was $ 46.38.
Late afternoon we watched CSI: Las Vegas that Hubby had taped last night. Dinner tonight was salad and jalapeno cheddar smoked sausages. Hubby loves these and I think he would eat them every day if I would let him.
Yesterday, I went out into the 2 car garage to clean it about 9am. I got everything cleaned up and organized on the shelves and workbench and tool drawers. I cut up 2 large cardboard boxes and got those in the recycle bin. Hubby came out in the afternoon when I was done to pressure wash the floor. It cleans up so beautifully since we had the floor enameled. By the time the floor was dry and we could put everything back in it, it was 4pm. So we went in the house and called our eldest son. It was his birthday. I felt bad that we couldn’t celebrate it with him but at least we could talk to him. But my granddaughter is there and they went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse so I am sure they had a nice celebration. We are looking forward to seeing him for Thanksgiving.
Since I always stock up on butter at Aldi’s during the Thanksgiving sales, I went and got the limit of 6 lbs. today. It was $ 2.49 a lb. It was $1.97 last year but inflation has taken it’s toll. Considering that butter is $ 5.69 in other stores in my area, this was a great deal. We use about 30 lbs. of butter a year because I cook with it. I had 15 left in my freezer and fridge. So I have 9 more lbs. to purchase and will do that over the next couple of weeks.
We were also out of the turkey tenderloins and Hubby really loves them so I purchased one at $ 6.49. He loves his coleslaw and we had none so I got this one at $ 1.69. He likes it cut finer than this but he will cut it finer himself.
They had no heavy whipping cream and the three stores that I have been in the last couple of weeks have had none either. Since I had 2 Half and Half in the fridge and I will now be using it, I picked up one more at $ 2.65. We both love the clear flavored waters so I picked up 5 more at $ .69 each plus bottle deposit. We have quite a stockpile of them.
Broccoli is my favorite veggie and we will be having it at Thanksgiving so I picked up one more at $ .95.
I picked up some French style green beans at the 2019 price of $ .49 each and some Cream of Chicken soup at that price also. They will go in my long term stockpile. My total for this Aldi’s haul was $ 35.60!
I have never seen my Aldi’s so crowded even on the day before Thanksgiving or Christmas week. There were only 4 carts left outside when I went into the store. Many, many people were stocking on all of those 2019 prices. They were buying cases of things. If they need them, it is a great time to do that.
When I went by my Super Walmart on the way home, there were hardly any cars there. Probably because Aldi has these 2019 prices on Thanksgiving items and Walmart just reduced them to last year’s price. With prices rising so fast, people want the best prices they can get.
I was worried that the butter would be depleted by the time I got to Aldi’s. I had an appointment at 9am this morning to get the snow tires put on the SUV. So I didn’t get to Aldi’s until 11am. They still had about 24 lbs. in the refrigerated case. That made my day! I haven’t paid full price for butter in years.
Speaking of the snow tires, we get this done every fall and then have them taken off in the spring. I paid $ 81.29 to get that done today. I assume it will be the same in the spring or maybe a little higher. I discussed with Hubby when I got home why we have never purchased wheels to have the snow tires mounted on. Then we wouldn’t have to pay this price twice a year. He or one of my sons could easily put them on. I told him that I think we should check out buying 4 wheels for the extra set of tires. I realize it would be an outlay up front but it will save us about $ 162.+ a year or even more as the price goes up every time we have it done.
We will be having leftover stew for the fourth dinner this week. Then it will be gone. Use up your leftovers, don’t throw them out!
Did anyone save on any Thanksgiving items this week? Come share with us and tell us what store you got them at.
Since I like to cook 12-16 ounces of bacon at a time, I decided to fry a 12 ounce package in my electric fry pan on Saturday. My pan is large so I can put all the strips in at once. My natural gas to cook on the stove is much more expensive to use. So we now have bacon for a few days. I made eggs for me this morning and Hubby had some of his homemade Keto pancakes that I had put in the freezer.
I have been rearranging things in my freezer so that I can get another turkey or two in my freezer. I have been taking things out of the packaging and using my food saver to repackage them. As of Saturday I still didn’t have all of the prices for my area yet. But whatever the prices are, it will be the cheapest meat we can buy.
I was going to go to Top’s on Saturday to get the cheap celery with a Super Coupon. I was hemming and hawing about spending the gas even though I had to also fill the car up. So I looked up Walmart’s reduced price for the celery as part of their reduction for Thanksgiving and found it was $ .98. Top’s with the coupon was $ 1.29. I will go on Monday to Top’s, Aldi’s, and Walmart. They are all a block apart. Top’s has Rao’s spaghetti sauce for $ 5.29 after an e-coupon and cream cheese for $ 1.39 after a Super Coupon. I will tank up my car while I am there too since I have $ .20 off a gallon there that makes it the cheapest place to buy gas. I have a small list for Aldi’s and a little bigger list for Walmart. This way I can get all my shopping done and tank up the car in one trip.
Hubby and I have been using up the shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, and mouthwash that he brought home from the hospital.
My son and grandson came for breakfast on Sunday. We had sausage, bacon, and eggs that I pulled out of the freezer. The eggs made perfect scrambled eggs so I know that I can freeze whole eggs with no issues.
My son helped Hubby put the grill in the shed for the winter, put the cover on our huge patio umbrella for the winter, put the snow tires in the back of the SUV so that I can get them put on the car this week, and move the snowblower from the shed to the garage in case I need it to do the sidewalk this winter. My other son will tune it up and get it ready for the winter when he comes for Thanksgiving.
On Sunday, I put two sirloin steaks(I had no stew meat) in the crockpot along with a whole bunch of fresh veggies. I used a little bit of low sodium beef broth thickened with xanthan gum. It was delicious and it made enough for the next two nights or more.
I have always wondered but never did the research to find out which of the lights in my kitchen take the most energy. I have 5 indoor LED recessed flood lights in the ceiling over my counters. I also have two ceiling lights in the center of the kitchen that take 3- 5W LED bulbs each. So that is 6 bulbs when they are on. My research told me that at night when we are using lights now that it is daylight saving time, it is cheaper to turn on the flood lights than the 5W ceiling lights. So that is what we will always do.
I ran a full load of dishes and air dried them. I did one load of wash in cold water and hung it to dry.
Today is Monday. I was up and out early to run errands. I filled the car up with gasoline. I used my $ .20 off per gallon points so I paid $ 3.599 a gallon.
Then I went in to Top’s to grocery shop. I thought I was prepared but I missed the fine print in the ad that advertised the $ .58 price on their store brand turkeys. You had to spend $30. without the turkey included in that to get that price. I only had a couple of other things on my list. So I got the cream cheese for $ 1.39 with the super coupon, the Rao’s spaghetti sauce for $ 5.29 after sale and e-coupon, and a SF cool whip for $ 2.79. Then I looked around the store to see what I might need that was on sale. They had the Bounty 4 double rolls on sale for $ 8.49. I had an e-coupon for $1.00 off on one. Since I was down to just one paper towel roll at home, I picked up 3 packages. The turkey was 18.87 lbs. at $ .58 a lb for a total of $ 10.94. Next time I will read the fine print in the ad online. UGH! I will not be doing that again.
But anyhow, I got my second turkey. I might be able to buy another one on sale somewhere when I take one out to defrost for Thanksgiving. That is if there are any left in the stores. At these prices, it is the cheapest meat you can buy. I like to cook one every couple of months over the winter. Then I food saver the meat and use it in place of chicken. I always make bone broth from the carcasses and skin and can it. That way I don’t have to buy it. So if you have the freezer space, think about getting a few turkeys for cheap protein.
Hubby is out mowing the lawn on his rider. He said the doctor said he could try it and if it bothered him to stop doing it. I have been watching him while I type this because he is making me very nervous. But to far so good.
We are going to catch up on the shows on the DVR from last night when he comes in.
Dinner will be leftover stew. The rest of the day, I will be working in the basement going through boxes and only keeping what we really need.
Did you do anything in the last three days to save money?
Yesterday, even before breakfast, we went to our appointments at Rite Aid to get our flu shots that are covered by Medicare. I also made our bed and cleaned the bathroom sinks, kitchen sink, and all the counters before we went out. We used some cleaners from our stockpile.
Then we came home and I made us cheddar cheese, diced orange pepper, and onion omelets. Hubby had sausage with it and I had ham again. I have been trying to use up the ham in the fridge before it goes bad.
Then it was time to wash and prepare our produce in the fridge so that I can just pull it out when I need something. Things are stacked in no particular order. It has been driving me crazy!
This chaos is what I am talking about. One produce drawer was so stuffed that I had to pull things out to find other things. The other drawer wasn’t much better.
So I pulled everything out and washed the crisper drawers.
We don’t use much fruit so I have delegated both crisper drawers as vegetable drawers. The strawberries need to be used up today so we will eat them tonight as a dessert with SF whipped cream. The blueberries I froze to use for pancakes and muffins.
Then I spent some time cleaning and cutting up everything else. You are seeing the crisper drawers before I put covers on each item before I put them back in the refrigerator. All of this is ready for salads except the avocados which I can’t do ahead of time. They are easy enough to add to a salad last minute or to have with my breakfast eggs. Hubby is eating salad with almost every dinner. So this makes it easy to put together. We also like to use peppers in eggs, salads and stir fries.
This is the other finished drawer.
The bagged salad will get eaten pretty quickly. It is my favorite. The onions get used in a multitude of dishes. The rest of the bag of onions is in the pantry. Hubby likes celery stuffed with peanut butter for a snack so this celery won’t last long. The carrots are cut smaller when needed for dill dip. I also use them in soups and stews. The two cucumbers which you can just see over the top of the bagged salad will get used quickly because I like them for a snack. I never cut them up ahead of time because they get slimy.
Doing all this preparation lets me just grab what I need when I am putting meals together. It’s all washed and pretty much prepped. This way of doing things allows me to quickly determine what I need at the grocery store. Celery and tomatoes have already been put on my next grocery list.
BTW, all of the containers you see in my crisper drawers were bought years ago. I always use what I can find at home first before I buy anything.
My landscape company came out and put our winter fertilizer down on the lawn. I expect we will see our landscape crew soon to cut bushes back, trim trees, and weed. That will also be their last time this year. These things were all paid for last spring.
Hubby made coleslaw using the angel hair coleslaw that I purchased this week. It had no carrots in it so he grated some himself and made homemade dressing. We had that with the other half of the steak that we grilled last night. Hubby cut the rest of the steak up in thin slices and sauteed it with butter and garlic. It was a delicious dinner. He seems to be feeling better because he is enjoying cooking again.
