A Little Of This And A Little Of That

I woke up the other morning craving fried chicken and corn on the cob. Momentarily, I thought about going to Popeye’s or the gas station that makes delicious fried chicken every day. But I decided to make it at home for dinner. I had chicken breasts in the freezer that only cost me $ 1.88 a lb. I grabbed 2 breasts and weighed them. They totaled 1.5 lbs. I cut them in half lengthwise. That gave me 4 pieces that cost $ 2.82 for all or $ .705 for each. I coated them with seasoned( garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and paprika)flour and egg. I fried them in about $ .30 worth of oil. When I was frying them, I couldn’t help but notice the big bubbles that were in the pan. That told me these breasts would not be greasy and they weren’t.

Then I wrapped two ears of corn in 2 wet pieces of paper towels and microwaved them for 4-5 minutes. The corn cost me $ .29 each. or $ 1.16 for 4 ears.

Each meal ended up costing us $ 2.14 each plus the minimal cost of spices and a pat of butter for the corn. That cost is for 2 people.

I know I would have spent close to $15.+ tax for Popeye’s and about $16.+tax at the gas station. So I saved quite a bit of money and I think my chicken tastes much better.

Because we cook at home most of the time, we can afford to go out to dinner on specials occasions. Hubby and I celebrated our 57th Anniversary on Monday. We had a wonderful lazy day, talked to both of our sons, and went out to dinner at the Village Eatery for Italian food last night. We had not been there since before Covid. Their food was delicious. We came home with dessert and half of each of our meals for dinner Tuesday night. I had Chicken Pietro: sun dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, spinach, portobello mushrooms, and chicken sauteed in a white wine sauce on a bed of angel hair spaghetti. Hubby will finish his veal parmigiana. The waitress wrapped us two pieces of Italian bread to go with our leftovers. We had 3 drinks( $ 1.00 off each, a Happy Hour Special) between us and our total bill with a 20% tip came to $ 115.00. It was a wonderful celebration without a very high price. We like to support family owned restaurants.

I have been reorganizing our pantries. They don’t take long to be a mess when I don’t have time to put things away as I buy them. So I have been concentrating on that. Hubby asked me the other night when we cooked rib eye steaks if we had steak sauce. I looked and told him no. So I picked up 2 bottles the other day. When I was rearranging, I found 5 bottles, Now we have 7. This is why I should inventory more often. Yikes.

I hope you all had a great July 4th. We were invited to a cookout at our neighbor’s next door. It was mostly family but our neighbors on the other side of me were invited too. So we decided to go for a bit. But we ended up having a fantastic time chatting with their parents who are all about our age. So the bit turned into 3 hours. There were about 20 young children there who were enjoying the pool. Then later the oldest child who is 13 organized a bunch of games for the little kids. We enjoyed watching them because it brought back memories of our childhoods and our sons’ childhoods. There was so much food offered. Hubby and I just grabbed a cheeseburger, some macaroni salad, and a beer. Then later the hostess brought me a piece of strawberry cheesecake that a family member had made. I shared with Hubby and it was delicious. We could have pigged out on all of it but that would have only made us feel stuffed. We are finding that as we age, we eat less and two meals a day is plenty.

I did some shopping yesterday also. Walmart is having sale days and since I have Walmart+, I was able to shop a few days earlier than everyone else. I looked at what was on sale last night after we got home from dinner. I have been looking specifically for summer pajamas since mine have worn out after 24 years. I lucked out and got 3 summer lounge wear sets for $59.83. I also found 2 dressy tops for the summer for $ 24. I have what I need for years now.

I will write more in the next few days. I am tired tonight so I am going to bed early.

Have you done anything to save money this week? We did some spending also. You will see more frugal things we did when I write later.