Some of The Things We Will Be Doing To Save Money In 2023

First let me update you on the beds we did purchase yesterday. I had a doctor’s appointment and the mattress store was on our way home. Since I was feeling pretty good, we stopped. We purchased two Twin XL wireless adjustable beds that we can butt up against each other. We each got the firmness of mattress that we wanted. We are having some carpet work done in our master bedroom so when that is done, they will deliver the beds. I can’t wait! Mine was so comfortable and will be nice for watching TV in bed. These were our belated Christmas gifts to each other.

We have a lot of California King linens that we will no longer use so they will be passed on to one of our sons who has that size bed. I will be shopping for new linens online today for our new beds.

Now for what we will do to save some money in 2023 in no particular order. We will continue to save as much energy used in our home as possible. I watch everything I do as noted in prior posts. I think about every meal I cook and how to do it energy efficiently.

Another example: I purchased a 13.44 lb. precooked ham for last Monday when my family came. Since they had had ham the day before, I didn’t use it. To heat the ham it said to cook it at 325 degrees for 15 minutes per lb. That would have been a lot of energy use. Since it was precooked and you could eat it cold, we made a plan. We did not cook it for all that time in the oven. It was spiral sliced so Hubby took all the slices off. Then we cut off some big chunks, and finally we had the ham bone with a lot of meat still attached. We each had a big slice with a side dish for dinner last night and some cantaloupe that I had cut into chunks for dessert. We heated the ham slices for less than 30 seconds in the microwave. They were perfect. I am so glad that we didn’t waste all of that energy cooking it in the oven. After dinner we bagged up a bunch of slices for dinners and for frying it up with eggs for breakfast or for making ham salad which Hubby loves. They are in the refrigerator. Then we froze the rest of the slices in portions and did the same with the chunks to use in casserole dishes. The ham bone is sitting in the fridge waiting for me to make ham and bean soup on Sunday. I will make a huge pot in my crock pot. The soup alone will make us 4-5 meals. If we get tired of it, we will freeze the leftover soup for other meals. The ham will get used up over the winter and I have calculated that we will get about 30-35 meals from it. I paid $ 1.49 a lb. for this ham. What a great bargain!

We never waste one bit of food. It is too expensive to put it in the trash. I carefully watch my produce and all of the other food in the fridge so that it gets used up. As an example, we had leftover corn and honey carrots from our family dinner last Monday night. They immediately got frozen to use up in homemade soup. I add all kinds of leftovers to this bag of them. When we have enough, I make soup with some of our homemade canned broth. I also had a large cantaloupe that was ripe. I cut it up into chunks and Hubby and I have been eating it for breakfasts, desserts, and snacks. If it starts to get too sweet, I will freeze the rest for smoothies before it turns to mush. Breakfast or brunch today will be scrambled eggs with leftover chopped onions, fried ham, and we will each have 1/2 of an English muffin that is left from having company. If we are hungry early afternoon, we will have a small bowl of cantaloupe chunks. Dinner tonight will again be ham slices and some broccoli. I will be soaking some great northern beans overnight on Saturday to make the bean soup on Sunday.

Grocery shopping is so expensive these days and prices are about to go up again. So this year, I am changing up my strategy a bit. I will continue to purchase by scouring the sale ads but only the really good loss leaders will be purchased. For example, Top’s had big packs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts on loss leader this week for $ 1.99 a lb. I have not seen that price in over a year. They limited you to three packs so that is what I purchased. I took them all out of the original packaging, cut each breast into two breasts(they are so big these days) and froze those two pieces with my food saver. I continued to do the rest of them the same way. We now have 18 or more meals of frozen chicken ready to use. In our ads, the loss leaders are usually on the front page with the prices in red. The same goes for the back page with the produce. There are also many lists on the internet showing you what produce is in season which will be your cheapest prices. We will be eating from our pantries and freezers and adding the loss leaders to them. Any other products we have to have will be purchased on sale. If they are not on sale, we will go without until they do go on sale. Substitutions will be made where necessary. For example, if we run out of creamer and the price is too high, we will use evaporated canned milk, powdered milk, or powdered creamer. If you can tolerate black coffee go for it. I can’t stand it! If I can’t find coffee on sale, we will drink tea that I purchased on sale.

One of the biggest savings that I am making this year is on purchasing beverages. Soda(sorry Hubby) and flavored waters have risen too high for me. We do drink a lot of water but sometimes you just have to have some flavor. Skinny Syrups is where I buy my SF flavors for coffee. We love them. I always buy them by the case when they have a 50-60% off sale. Well, they have come out with the SF syrups to flavor water. On a before Thanksgiving sale, I purchased a case of them to try them. We love them. As with our coffee, the waters only take one squirt. This will save us a lot of money on not buying what is basically flavored water.

Another big savings for 2023 will be on alcohol. Hubby and I rarely drink it at home anymore. We have quite a stash for when company comes. If we happen to go out to Russell’s on a special occasion we might order a glass of wine but that will be it.

We use very little bread or rolls in our home. If we do decide to have some, it will be homemade. Bread and roll prices are out of control.

We rarely find marked down produce, reduced price meat, or other clearance items in our area. However I have contacted every store to find out when each day they might reduce those things. I have my answers for each store and I will make it a habit to shop at those times when I do shop and look for those items. I have never had a bad package of reduced price meat. We either cook it the day I buy it or freeze it immediately. Marked down produce usually still has quite a bit of usable fruit or veggies in those packages even after you cut out the bad spots. I do have a produce market that does mark downs all of the time but they do go fast. Now I know when to look for them.

I will rarely be buying cleaning products. I have a lot to use up and then will mostly make them myself. Hubby already makes our own shower cleaner and I make homemade laundry detergent. I also make our own garbage disposal cleaner. I use bleach to clean our toilets and we have a lot of that. We are about to switch from liquid hand soap to bar soap. I have about an inch of liquid soap left in a refill. I have over 150 bars of soap. I purchased soap dishes for them all a while ago.

I will be purchasing no makeup in 2023. I have plenty for when I leave the house. I don’t use it at home unless we have company. We also have many other personal care products to use up.

You all know that I was paying a fortune to go to the beauty salon every 6 weeks. Well, the last haircut I had I got was at SuperCuts. I was not thrilled with it after a couple of days. Hubby cut my hair for years and it was done beautifully. He is very good at it. I have finally convinced him to do it again. So this weekend, he is going to cut it and I am beyond thrilled. I purchased a hair color kit before I went in the hospital. I will be coloring my own hair next week. I will be looking for coupons to put a few hair colors on my shelf.

Our water prices will be going up January 1 so I will continue to watch our usage by taking navy showers, using veggie cleaning water to water plants and outside gardens, only putting the smallest amount of water needed in a pot to cook whatever, reusing warm up shower water to clean or flush toilets, etc.

When our automobile and homeowners policies are up in March, we will shop around for a better price.

That is it for today. I will be back next week with more of what I plan.

Happy New Year to you and your families! I pray that 2023 will be better than this year.

How are you planing to save money this year?