Breakfast was English muffins with some peach jam that I made this week.
Lunch was a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich with mayonaise on a sub roll.
Dinner was a chicken crockpot meal with a sauce of cream of chicken soup, beef gravy powder, a bit of water and onion soup mix. It was served on rice. So delicious!
Just before it got dark, we took a dip in the hot tub. It was such a beautiful evening for it. I am so relaxed that I believe I will sleep well tonight especially since the A/C is now turned off and we can sleep with the window open.
We are hoping that we can keep the A/C off for good now since it is getting a bit cooler out and the nights are much cooler.
Dinner last tonight were the German smoked sausages that Chris brought to me when she visited. We put horseradish mustard and onions on them. The side was going to be shells and cheese but I ended up only making the sausages because we were not very hungry. BTW, these shells and cheese are better than the brand name ones.
We had one sausage left so we will each eat a half of it with eggs for brunch today. We will be eating a peach for a snack later.
For brunch when I got home from the doctor’s, we had breakfast croissant sandwiches. They are GV and come 4 in a box. I discovered a while ago that I can’t make croissant sandwiches that are as cheap as these. It would cost me more to buy the croissants, sausage, egg, and cheese. They are delicious. It isn’t something we buy all the time but in a pinch when I have to go out first, they are easy. Hubby knows they are there so he can make one if he gets hungry.
I was going to pick up a script for Hubby but I did not feel well so I came straight home from the doctors. He went and picked it up later. There was no copay.
One load of laundry was washed in cold water with 2 tablespoons of soap and hung to dry yesterday.
Hubby did some weeding and cut the dead flowers off the roses.
Dinner tonight will be grilled steak and a tossed salad. We have Romaine that needs to be used up.
Dinner tonight was from our freezer. I had 8 pieces of chicken strips left over in a bag in the freezer. I cooked them all in the air fryer to get rid of the bag. We decided if we didn’t eat them all we would add them to brunch. However I forgot to eat brunch this morning because I was really busy making the freezer jam. Hubby only had a small amount of a salad. So we were very hungry and ate it all. Chris, this is the broccoli that was leftover in the freezer from one of our dinners while you were here. I just heated it in the microwave and then put butter on it. Waste not, want not. Hubby made a side salad to go with his. I dipped my chicken in Bangi Bangi sauce and Hubby put hot sauce on his. We each had a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.
I have now done 8 pint jars of peach jam. I told Hubby that he has to make them last a year because we have many other jams in the house to eat too. Last year he ate 6 smaller jars in about 2 months. He loves peach jam that much.
We have about 12 peaches left. We will eat some and slice the others for pies. They will be put in the freezer.
It seems to me that all we have done is spend money which we have this summer. But there are many cost cutting things we have done also.
We changed the furnace filter to keep the A/C running efficiently. We do this every 4-6 weeks. We have turned the A/C up to 76 from 75 to see if it makes any difference on our bill.
I filled our car tank up with gas and saved $.20 off per gallon using Top’s points. I will have to be more efficient with watching prices on Gas Buddy since I won’t be earning points like I used to when I was shopping. I can use my Walmart+ discount at certain stations. The cash station usually has a great price when I don’t have grocery points.
I have been working on using up all of the disposable razors that I have collected over the years for free or on deep discount to shave my legs. I continue to use up all of the foundation for my face that I have hanging around. The same goes for other makeup.
We continue to use very few paper towels so that the next package I open was purchased before the pandemic. We use rags and microfiber cloths for almost every cleaning job.
I still haven’t had to buy toilet paper since before the pandemic. We have a bidet and we have really gotten our money’s worth from it.
Hubby wants me to hire a maid to come every 2 weeks to clean our house. I keep putting that idea off. As long as I can do my morning and evening routines and clean one room a day Monday through Friday, I can do it. I have had maids twice in my life and that has never worked out well. I can’t get over the fact that they don’t clean as well as I do so I end up letting them go. So until I can’t do it anymore, I will continue to do it.
Genealogy research continues to be a source of entertainment for me. I am getting good value out of the discounted price I got a few weeks ago.
I finally finished J.D. Vance’s book so Hubby is reading it. When he is done, I will pass it along to someone else to read.
We have wasted no food. When it needs to be used, we find a way or freeze it.
When I stripped the bed that West was staying in, I set aside those sheets to wash when I have more sheets to wash along with tablecloths or dish towels. I only wash full loads.
I have been watering down our thick shampoos to get more out of them. I have been doing the same with Dawn dish soap. They are much too thick. Every penny counts when you are saving for a goal.
We also cut open our toothpaste tubes to get every bit out of them. With prices going up every week, we need to make sure we use up all that we have paid for.
Hubby has continued since our spring cleanup to do all the weeding and trimming of our gardens. That is a huge amount of money we have saved instead of paying the landscape people to do it like we did for years. I am talking thousands of dollars. He is getting exercise and enjoys it.
I cleaned the dishwasher yesterday with a packet of lemon Kool-Aid. Anyone who has read my blogs since the beginning knows that I have been using that as a cleaner since well before dishwasher cleaners were a thing. It is so much cheaper than those cleaners.
I did 4 pints of peach jam this morning and I have 4 pints to go this afternoon.
What have you done to cut costs the past week or so?
There will be one or two exceptions. I will go if I need fresh produce. If I can substitute frozen or canned veggies for fresh I will. If there is a great price on something like the bacon above, I will get it. That exception will be mostly for rock bottom priced meat.
I had to go to the cardiologist to have an Echo test done today. On the way home I stopped at Top’s and got 4 of their 16 oz. bacon that was on sale for $ 2.99 each. I have not seen such a good price on bacon for years. I only had room for 4.
I have been trying for a couple of weeks to get peaches to make jam. No one seemed to have good ones. I stopped at another store near the doctor’s that I don’t usually go to that had peaches for $.88 a lb. The problem is they were not good peaches. So I stopped at Niagara Produce on the way home and there’s were nice and ready to make jam. They cost me $19.99 for 8 quarts of Red Haven peaches which I have used successfully for jam before. I already have enough Certo and pectin in my pantry to make all of it into jam. I will do that tomorrow. Today is busy enough.
I looked for three months for rhubarb. I could not find it anywhere. So this morning, I spotted a strawberry rhubarb pie in the bakery section of Niagara Produce. They make their own pies and they are delicious. We each had a slice after we ate brunch and it was so good. The filling was so yummy and their pie crust is incredible. The best part is Hubby was very happy because this is his favorite pie. I was happy because it is too hot to turn on my oven to bake plus I couldn’t find rhubarb.
The reason we will not be shopping is I want to use up a lot of what we already have in the house. I especially want to eat down our freezer so that we have room for quite a few turkeys this November. Remember, turkeys and hams will be at their cheapest prices during the holidays. And they will be cheaper than any other meat you can buy right now.
I will be showing you in pictures and words what we are eating from the house each day as we do it. Remember we only eat brunch and dinner and a occasional snack. I will start with dinner tonight.
Hubby will grill the pork ribeyes outside. We will put a dab of garlic herb butter on them. I will make the corn in the microwave and slice the tomato up on a plate and drizzle it with a little Italian dressing.
Are any of you trying to eat down your freezers or pantries? Join along if you would like.
West came to visit for 5 days. His tastes in food have changed so we chatted on Tuesday night and made out the menu for the time he would be here. Most of it we already had in our home. Here was the menu:
Wednesday dinner was hamburgers which Hubby grilled for us. I sauteed up some toppings and made corn on the cob in the microwave.
Thursday night we headed to our local Wagner’s Restaurant for fish fries. When we got there, West no longer wanted that and picked a chicken tender dinner instead. Hubby had chicken wings and a salad. I had a ribeye sandwich dinner. Starters were little neck clams. It was all good and we did not need dessert.
Friday night, we cooked shrimp sauteed in butter for West and shrimp with cocktail sauce for us. Sides varied.
On Saturday, we ordered pizzas and Parmesan twists with various dipping sauces from Domino’s. I wanted to get it from Little Caesars because we like their pizza. We don’t like the crust on Domino’s pizza but West informed us that they now have a thin crust pizza which we decided to try and it was very good. You can tell we haven’t ordered pizza from there in a very long time. West has enough of his pizza for lunch today. He is going home to eat dinner with his parents. We have 3 large slices left so we will heat it up in the air fryer for our dinner and I will make a small side salad for each of us.
One thing I found out about West is that he is a growing boy. He is over 6 ft. tall now. I forgot how much teenage boys consume.
For breakfasts he had asked for pancakes and French toast. I cooked bacon, ham, and sausage to go with it.
Yes, we spoiled him. With his sports schedule and school coming up soon, we don’t see him as often as we would like.
Pizza and restaurant food has gotten so expensive. Wagner’s was $ 130. for the three of us including tip. The Domino’s was $ 51.91 after a 20% discount. This is why we don’t eat out very often. But we don’t mind spoiling a grandchild once in a while. Needless to say we will be eating at home more often after this summer of eating out is over.
I can’t even tell you how many “Ticket to Ride” board games we have played. West won them all. We also watched the Buffalo Bills preseason game on TV. They got stomped on by the Chicago Bears. Fortunately, it doesn’t count. Josh Allen got pulled in the early 1st quarter after a run with the ball. I am sure Coach did not want him to get hurt in a preseason game. Coach played our 2nd and 3rd string people 98% of the game. They did not do well. But I believe that Coach has a much better idea on who to cut after that.
Before West came to visit, I went and picked up another medication for Hubby. This medication always had a $60. copay. However, it cost me nothing this time. Hubby must be in the donut hole. Then I ventured into Walmart. I rarely do that since I have Walmart+. I was on the hunt for a boneless ham and a boneless turkey. The turkey was more expensive than buying deli turkey so I passed. The ham was much cheaper than buying deli ham, so I got a boneless quarter for $ 4.63 a lb. Hubby will slice this up on our meat slicer when we open it and I will freeze some in portions for sandwiches. I do have a large ham in the freezer that I could have cooked. But I did not want to heat up the house with the A/C on. That ham will get cooked when I know that Fall is actually here. The next time I travel to appointments, I will stop in B.J.’s and look for a boneless turkey at a good price. I also picked up some turkey breast meat to hold us until I get to B’J.’s This was handy while West was here for lunches. For him, I also got his favorite ice cream, a dip because we have potato chips for a snack, a tomato for sandwiches and a box of Bubba burgers to restock our freezer.
West also ran some errands with me on Thursday. We went to the bank to cash in the piggy bank that I fill up for the grandchildren. Alexa and he take turns cashing it in. It was West’s turn so he was happy for get $106.50. I also got some grocery money and gave them a small rebate check to cash. I realized after I got back on the road that the teller did not give me the money for that. Rather than go back and waste gas, I decided I would just call the bank when we got home. I didn’t have to because the teller had already called and told Hubby of her error and she deposited it in our account for us. West also was patient while I stopped in Wegman’s for a boneless turkey which was not at a good price. So I did not buy it.
It has been a whirlwind of a week but I will miss him when he goes home tonight.
Thank you for being patient while we have hosted company this summer. We still have more company coming soon but after that I should be free to blog. I have lots of topics upcoming so stay tuned.
The beginnings of a new recipe that we tried. I had a package of breakfast sausage that I wanted to use up. I do not like breakfast sausage so I tried it in this skillet dish to see if the other ingredients would help with the flavor. I cut the sausage up into small pieces and added a cut up onion. I then sauteed all.
Next I cut up 2 apples to stretch it and added 1/4 cup of Swerve brown sugar, 1/4 tsp. of cayenne pepper, 1 tbsp. of cinnamon, salt and pepper, and 2 cups of apple juice.
I simmered it down till it thickened a little and then added a little cornstarch and cold water to help it along. Then we served it over jasmine rice.
It was so good. The cayenne just gave it enough heat without overpowering the dish. Hubby said he would like me to leave the onions out next time. So I will try that. I also think one apple sliced up would have been enough for us. Anyhow, we ate this for two dinners and a brunch.
West and my son did not come on Sunday because West is coming out to stay with us for 5 days on Wednesday. It is his usual spend time in the summer with Grandma and Grandpa. He is now 14 and 6 feet tall. His taste for things have changed so I don’t know what I will be feeding him besides fish. He loves almost any kind of fish. So Hubby will be frying haddock for dinner one night. I also have shrimp. I will talk to him when he comes and then plan out some meals.
I still have not done a load of wash this week. I don’t have a full load yet. I finally had to run the dishwasher after 3 days. It was very full.
I have a pair of new jeans that need to be taken up. Everything is always too long for me. I have been procrastinating doing it for a couple of months. I can’t make up my mind whether to take them to the seamstress down the street or do them myself. I wonder what the going rate to have her do this would be. She has done stuff for me before and she does beautiful work. I think I will call her tomorrow and find out what she will charge.
The weatherstrip on the bottom of an outside door is coming off. Hubby will replace it when he gets to Home Depot to get a new one. With A/C on, it needs to be done very soon.
Hubby went to our local iron works company last Friday to see what they can do to make us a railing for the patio steps. They are not taking appointments right now because they have so much work. They told him to call mid September and they will schedule someone to come and measure and book an appointment. They approximated the cost to be between $1500. and $ 2000. Hubby says it is about what he thought it would be. We will be getting this done as soon as possible.
On Saturday, our sprinkler system came on because it is on a timer. An hour or so later, it started to rain so I manually turned that off as to not waste water.
I did not feel well on Sunday so we just had some canned chicken soup from our pantry. Thankfully, I feel much better today.
My plans this week are to go to Top’s on Tuesday which is 6% senior discount day to get a few things. Their loss leaders are not very good this week so I will not be spending much. I am interested in their peaches that they will have on sale for $ 1.77 a lb. That is the cheapest price I have seen here anywhere. Hubby wants me to make a lot of peach jam. I made 6 jars last year and he blew threw it in no time. So I will be making much more this year. I already have a lot of Certo, pectin, and jars in my pantry.
I am also hoping that our school district will have set their tax rate by the end of this week so that I can estimate what our school tax bill will be when it comes around September 1st. Their budget had a 3.5% tax levy increase that was voted in last spring.
I got a good deal on 2 lbs. of strawberries this week at NP. So I washed them, drained them, dried them, and cut them up. They will last about 10 days for us. Since I started putting some of my fruits in mason jars with a paper towel on the bottom, they last a lot longer in the fridge than they used to. This was so that Hubby and I can have strawberries with zero sugar whipped cream for a snack or for a dessert. Sometimes, I will just have a small bowl for brunch.
We were very mindful of natural gas and electric charges since I got that large bill and it reminded me about how expensive they are. When I got up in the morning, it was daylight. So the first thing I did was open the shades and blinds on the non-sun windows. That gave me plenty of light in the house. I just did that all day while following the sun around the house. I never turned on a light until the sun set. One light was on in the room it was needed until bedtime. There were no showers yesterday. I waited until the garbage people had emptied both the garbage and recyclable cans before I used the garage door opener to put them away and get the mail at the same time. No sense using electricity to do it more than once. We knew we were not going out anywhere. My laptop was off and unplugged when I was not using it. I did no laundry yesterday because I am waiting for a full load. I did not run the dishwasher either for the same reason.
Brunch was a yogurt with a little granola sprinkled on top. Hubby had peanut butter and jelly on crackers and apple juice because his sugar was low.
Dinner was grilled cheeseburgers topped with sauteed onions and tomato slices. We also had a side of sliced cucumbers. I am trying not to waste any food in the fridge especially the food that Chris and her Hubby so kindly brought us. I still have a couple of cucumbers left for snacking and one tomato. If it doesn’t get used for dinner tonight, I will puree it in my Vitamix and put it in the freezer to add to my spaghetti sauce the next time I make it. That will most likely be next week when West comes for his summer stay. We’ll see. Bottom line is that I don’t waste food.
I got an e-mail from my library telling me my 2 year library card was expiring and that I needed to go there and renew it within 10 days. I like to keep it up to date so that I can read the online books. I did not want the card to expire nor did I want to go out in the excessive heat to renew it. They have no way for you to renew online. So I called them and the librarian renewed it for me. It saved me from the heat and I used no gasoline to do it. It never hurts to ask. All they can say is no and usually they don’t.
Hubby did some paperwork last night and I watched “She’s in Her Apron” on you tube last night. She was going live at 7:30pm. I can’t believe I watched the whole thing until 11:44pm. Hubby came to bed and could not believe that I was still awake. It was a good question and answer vlog and when her friend showed up and became part of the vlog, it got very comical. It was like being at a girl’s night out. Many people were complaining in the comments about how long it was lasting. There is a way to fix that. Just turn it off.
This month we were only able to save $ 8100. in July for our savings goal. As you know we had a small patio and wall built in our backyard to protect our grill from the winds we get here. That took a large chunk of money. Hubby is now getting estimates to have iron railings built on the stone stairs that let us enter the patio from our breakfast room. It is hard for me to maneuver those steps because of my back and sciatica without help. The railings would allow me to do that by myself. I expect that these will not be cheap but as Hubby says if it makes it easier for me, it is well worth it. All the years we saved money for retirement, we knew that as we aged we wanted to be able to pay for the things we need to keep us active in our own home. This is one of those things now.
We also did a little bit of eating out this past month which is unusual for us. It has been so hot and a couple of times I did not want to cook. We will probably do that once when our grandson comes to stay next week. To be honest I will be happy when Fall arrives. The heat and humidity has been oppressive all summer and I am looking forward to some cooler days.
Our gas and electric bill was a whopper this month too. Even though we used 141 less KWH’s and the same natural gas than the same period last year, our bill was much higher. The supply charges were ridiculous. Last year’s bill for 141 more KHW’s was $ 147.03. This current July bill was $176.60. Even though it has been hot, our average daily use per day was down 3 KWH. We were able to turn it off for 3 days also. We have had a rate increase every year for the past 3 years also. I suspect August will be higher too because the weatherman is predicting heat and humidity for weeks in August. They are also predicting here in my area, it will be much colder and much snowier this winter. I had better find a new snowplow guy since mine moved to Florida.
Were you able to save up some money in July? What are you saving for?
