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Frugal Things We Have Done Recently, Etc.

These are the things we have done recently:

  • All lights have been off during daylight hours
  • All grocery lists have been based mostly on sale items
  • My laptop is unplugged when not in use
  • Made meatball casserole with a salad on the side; made 4 lunch and dinner meals
  • Took 3 minute showers to see if they took less than navy showers
  • Folded towels right away when dryer goes off; towels are one thing that I usually always use the dryer for
  • Our heat had been on for a while; we are carefully keeping it a little lower than last year and down to 64 during the night
  • I froze about a dozen eggs for future meals
  • We received our gas and electric bill for the past month yesterday. We used 393 KWH of electric which was 3 more than same period last year. We used 23 ccf’s of gas. Last year we used 41 ccf’s. This year was much warmer. The average temperature was 60 degrees vs. 53 degrees last year. Our total bill was $ 114.27. Last year’s bill was $ 143.79. Besides it being warmer, I really tried to not use the stove top and oven which is gas. Small appliances were used 95% of the time. It would be nice to see all of our bills go down this year. However we are facing a rate increase starting with next month’s bill.
  • I cleaned our refrigerator and made sure that nothing would spoil. I sliced up the fresh peppers that I purchased recently and froze them for winter stir fries. I found extra bags of cheese in my deli drawer even though I already had one open. I froze those also. They thaw overnight in the fridge when I need them. I consolidated the two open jars of wing sauce into one.
  • We continue to eat down our chest freezer and can the meat that we can. I scanned the sales that are starting tomorrow. Ground beef will be $ 2.99 a lb. and chuck roasts will be $ 5.49 a lb. I will be canning some of those. Since it is getting colder here, I will put a chuck roast with some vegetables in the crock pot next week.
  • My son and grandson took us out to breakfast to our favorite Greek restaurant to celebrate our birthdays which we recently had. It was delicious and a nice change from cooking breakfast.
  • Hubby filled the cracks at the edge of the driveway with blacktop filler. Fortunately, we had 24 hours of dry weather after that. It has been raining ever since.

I want to thank so many of you who prayed for me for the lung CT scan that I had last Tuesday. I was diagnosed on a regular CT scan last year with Pulmonary Fibrosis. My mother died of this disease so I knew all too well what I was in for. It is terminal. My primary doctor recommended a lung doctor that he said he and his family would go to if any of them had an issue. I went to him immediately. He looked at the CT scan which the doctor at the hospital said showed some honeycombing in my right lung. He told me that he would follow me and send me for this specialized scan at one year. After a number of tests and 3 month appointments this past year, my doctor sent me for this scan which scans the lungs in segments so they can really look at them well. I found out the results late yesterday.

I do not have pulmonary fibrosis. The area that the doctor a year ago said was pulmonary fibrosis was a small amount of scarring in the right lobe. It could have been caused by pneumonia, bronchitis or even an injury. I did have a skiing accident that broke a number of ribs many years ago. Who knows? But I was so relieved that it is not pulmonary fibrosis. Hubby and I celebrated with a drink last night. So again thanks so much for all of your prayers. God was listening.

Please feel free to add your frugal things in comments. Those comments lately have been so helpful to so many people including me!

8 replies on “Frugal Things We Have Done Recently, Etc.”

Hi Precious. So glad your test came out well and you don’t have the fibrosis. Thanks to God for answered prayers.

This week started out ok, but little granddaughter got sick so I ended up keeping her a couple of days. So didn’t go out to stores other than to pick up what was necessary from Kroger. She is ok now.

Before she got sick, I had an errand day and did them in a loop to not backtrack and to save gas.

Today I got my Covid vaccine and it was free with our insurance. I have my physical soon and will see what other vaccines I need. I got this one early b/c I will be getting my mammogram in Dec. Reminding your readers to be sure there is a 6 week gap between getting your Covid vaccine and then get your mammogram to avoid enlarged lymph nodes on the vaccine side.

• Turn off the water heater on the way out every morning. Turn the HVAC off in the morning when leaving the house. I have a smart thermostat (not connected to my electric company because I don’t want them managing my usage), if I forget to turn off I do it from my phone. My house doesn’t get over 76 in the summer or below 58 in the winter. In the summer, I turn the AC on about 30 minutes before I am home. In the winter, I turn the fireplace on when I get home.
• Cleaned fireplace (gas) so that it is ready for cold weather. Lit it to make sure it was working.
• Vacuumed my window blinds and wiped them down with a wet cloth. These blinds are 17 years old and still look new.
• Cut toothpaste tube open to get the leftover that won’t squeeze out. I got another 7 days out of it.
• Stopped coloring my hair. More because I am tired of sitting for 3 hours than the cost, but saving $100 every 6 weeks is pretty awesome too. I keep my hair cut short due to working in a hot environment. Got it cut this week for $20.
• Only groceries this week was sauerkraut. Fall = wieners and kraut for me. Had wieners in the freezer.
• Sat on an all day discussion panel for the Kentucky Association of Manufacturers this week. WAS THE ONLY FEMALE AS ALWAYS! Had all the appropriate clothing needed. In the past, I would have bought a new outfit. Lunch was provided. Water was provided. And received a gift of chocolate and candy for participating. This was hosted at the local community college which is 15 miles from my house – didn’t drive 126 miles round trip to work so saved on gas. I really enjoyed the socialization and change in my everyday work routine.
• Packed lunch, snacks, and water for work every day.
• No food waste. My daughter left 2 buns from her last visit. I made tuna salad at work and put it on the buns for lunch rather than throw the buns out. I usually don’t eat bread unless it is low carb – these were not but I didn’t want them to go to waste.
• Did not eat out at all this week.
• Made returns of items that were not exactly right for what I needed.
• Still getting some peppers out of the garden. This weekend will probably be the last. Six watermelons still growing. Had my daughter’s friend’s daughter (4 yo) come over and pick the single pumpkin that grew in the garden this year. She also picked a gourd. My daughter staged some bought pumpkins for her as well. 😊
• Continue to fill up at the cheapest station that just so happens to give me the best gas mileage. Found out this local refiner uses soybean in their process that gives a better fuel mileage AND buys soybean from local farmers.
• Aired my car tires up with my tire pump to keep mileage at optimum and reduces tire wear.
• I want a deck box REALLY REALLY BADLY!!!!! Looked at them several times but decided to just bring deck chair pads in and put them in the closet for the winter instead of spending the money.
• Brought all my porch plants in for the winter so they don’t die.
• I have a swiss cheese plant that I found out, after researching, that this is a climbing plant. It got pruned and a decorative looking stick from the woods put in the pot for climbing. Looks like something bought from a florist. Also trying to propagate two cuttings.
• Sold some stock while at a peak value this week (this company is being bought by a huge conglomerate that I don’t support) and bought some different stock and leaving some of the proceeds in money market account to be ready for some good deals this winter.
• Posted no trespassing signs on my property (acreage) myself because I found evidence of a neighbor cutting wood from my property.
• Closed my garage windows getting prepared for cold weather.
• I had a huge quantity of disposable cutlery left from my husband’s celebration of life (15 months ago). Bagged them up and will take them to work to use for lunches.
• Washed 1 full load of laundry and dried it in the drier. Washed 1 half load because my aging dog didn’t make it to the morning and peed in the house and I certainly couldn’t wait for a full load to wash that up; it smelled too bad.
• Used Dawn to remove stains from several pieces of clothing.
• Still working through the free cabbage and celery. I have to get that put in the freezer this week. We shall see….. I sure will be disappointed this winter if I don’t have celery handy for soups.
• I have started shredding old tax returns and paperwork from my and my husband’s business. I have tax returns all the way back to 1985. It is decluttering my house and my mind at the same time it is happy and sad.
• I started to rotate my summer and winter clothes, but just wasn’t up to it. Maybe next weekend……
• Several weeks ago, pulled the bolted lettuce out of the raised bed and added more soil and fertilizer. I planted fall lettuces and greens in my raised bed. 2 times. Nothing ever came up. BUT where I cleaned the bolted lettuce out and threw it on the ground next to this raised bed, volunteer lettuce has come up in several places. Small blessings.
• Found out that my Starlink receiver can be programmed to turn off during sleeping hours. So I programmed it to save electric! Who knew.
• I get plenty of exercise walking through my plant at work, It is 1.5 miles from one end to the other and I walk that several times per day. But I also ride my recumbent, walk up and down my stairs, do squats, and lift light hand weights to maintain muscle mass, balance, and stamina. All free.
• I have white polos embroidered with work logos. I have stained two of them. Rather than throw them out, my daughter tye dyes them colors associated with my place of employment. A button came off one. I sewed it back on with thread that matches the tye dye colors. I am a tall person, so clothing is massively expensive – I don’t want to pay to replace those two shirts. I need to stop buying white shirts…..
• Was going to paint the inside of the external doors that I painted the outside a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t have any rollers covers left. I’m not going to drive 20 miles one way to get some when I drive by there everyday going to work. I’ll buy some this week and paint next weekend.
• Emptied a pickled beet jar and a pickle jar this week. Saved the jars and lids for future use when canning.
• Scrubbed and washed the drain screen in my dishwasher. Hopefully this will keep it draining properly.

Hi WendyG,

Wow! What a frugal week you had! Thanks for reminding me to wash my blinds. I love how you manage the water heater. When we had a hot water tank, we had a timer on it. Worked great! Now we have a tankless and love it. It has saved us a fortune in natural gas. It is amazing how much toothpaste is in that tube when we cut it open.

Yeah on the hair money savings. I finally quit getting mine done in October of last year. My hair is now almost pure white. Both Hubby and I love it and it is saving me a fortune. Between color, cuts and highlights I was paying $140. every time I went. Now I don’t have a cost because Hubby cuts my hair and does a better job than the salons.

I love your grocery bill this week. I always keep a couple of cans of sauerkraut and some canned chili on my shelf for hot dogs. So yummy!

Kudos for not buying a new dress for that meeting. The buns won’t kill you. On Keto when I didn’t want to waste something, we ate it. We try to never waste food.

So sorry that your neighbor is cutting your wood. I hope that sign stops it.

Those plastic cutlery may come in handy if you have an electricity outage. I always keep some paper plates for just that reason.

Dawn is great for stains and for making homemade cleaners.

Can I ask how you freeze cabbage and then what you use it for?

Yeah on the tax returns. I only keep the back 7 years worth of returns.

I rotated my seasonal clothes almost all my life until we moved here. I hated doing it. I now have a walk in closet and after getting rid of a lot of clothing that we just didn’t like or had seen better days, we were able to keep both seasons in this one closet. The only thing I rotate now is coats. We just keep what coats we aren’t using in a plastic bag hung in the basement.

I have saved Classico jars for canning. The lids and seals fit perfectly.

Once a month I clean that screen and wipe out the bottom of the dishwasher. Keep it running well.

Thanks so much for sharing.

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