I want to wish you and your families a very Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your food and your company. Thank the Lord for everything and tell him how grateful you are for all that he has done for you.
We will be very busy getting ready for our feast on Thursday. Good family makes great memories. I am excited for Eloise to meet some more family.
I will be back posting sometime over the weekend. I will have more on cutting costs, money planning for 2025, and our savings for the month of November, etc.
I am grateful to all of you for visiting and I hope you have learned some things this year.
Brunch was eggs, avocado, and ham. Every meal that we have talked about the past couple of days that was made at home came from my winter stockpile.
The hatch liftgate support struts on our SUV stopped working a while ago. So the hatch would only go up so far and then you would have to push it up the rest of way with your hand. Otherwise you would hit your head. Hubby had gotten frustrated with it. So he ordered a pair of the struts with the rear tailgate shocks. They only cost $23.98 + sales tax. He plans on installing them himself maybe with help from one of our sons if needed. You can just imagine what the parts and the labor would cost at the dealership. After researching it, the price was $ 152. Quite a savings by doing it ourselves. They will arrive today.
Hubby went to get blood work done. Fortunately, it is covered in full by our health insurances.
I did a load of laundry today which was sheets. They are in the dryer now with my dryer balls. They seem to take less drying time with these. Hence it takes less electricity.
Hubby made our party mix recipe. It has been passed down in his family for years. It is for Thanksgiving. We can’t have a Thanksgiving or Christmas without it. I bought everything on sale this year and used some items from last year.
We are not really hungry for dinner tonight. So we will just each have two vegetable and chicken egg rolls with mango sauce. I will air fry them in the 11 in 1 oven.
I went to Top’s to use up the coupons I wrote about on the last post. However there were no parking spaces so I turned around and came home. There was nothing I needed that badly to wait for a spot to park. So I will not be spending any grocery money this week.
I woke up with a flare up of my sciatica going down the back of my left leg on Saturday. I tell you this not for sympathy but to let you know that growing old is a REAL pain. So I need to get a lot done but I won’t get as much as I want to. I have spent part of my morning putting ice on my leg. I am supposed to do it three times a day. It did help for a while.
I pulled 2 pork rib eye steaks out of the freezer to thaw. Hubby grilled them indoors because it was raining here. We had cinnamon apples for the side.
Breakfast on Saturday morning was grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee. Then it was time to fill my pill containers. It is a job I hate to do, so I fill 4 weeks at once. Then I don’t have to do it every week.
All the laundry was done the other day. I think we will use coated paper plates so there will be hardly any dishes to rinse and put in the dishwasher.
I just finished entering two weeks worth of receipts into Fetch.
I scanned the weekly ad for Top’s that starts on Sunday. I will be using a $ 5.00/ $35.00 order Top’s coupon, $ 2.00 off fresh produce coupon, and a coupon for 100 extra gasoline points this week. I will keep my order as close to $35. as I can.
Hubby and I watched some of the college football games.
Sunday was another easy day. My son and West came to visit. We took them out to our favorite Greek restaurant for breakfast to celebrate my son’s birthday that was last Wednesday. I was happy not to have to stand to cook breakfast. Hubby made a homemade pizza for dinner. It was delicious.
I spent some time making a list of what I have to get done for Thanksgiving. I have a lot on my plate.
We again watched some pro football. But not the Bills because they have a week off.
I went to bed really early to rest my leg and so I could get up with Eloise. She slept late for a change.
It is Monday and I have a very busy day. I will be back tomorrow.
I realized that I was running out of Eloise’s kitten food today. I needed a 14 lb. bag of her Purina Healthy Development Kitten Chow. So I did some research and realized that I could get it for $18.59 minus $2.00 in rewards money at Petsmart for $ 16.59. This was the cheapest that I could get it here.
While I was out, I stopped at the Top’s gasoline station and filled our SUV up. I had $ .40 off per gallon with my gas reward points. So I paid $2.66 per gallon. I needed gas and my area seems to up the price of gasoline the weekend before Thanksgiving. So I wanted to fill up before that happened.
I had the beef stew and Hubby had the beef barley soup that I made earlier in the week for dinner. We had 1 portion of beef stew and 3 portions of soup leftover. So we froze them in those portions for future meals.
Chris reminded me today that I posted my taco seasoning recipe a long time ago. For those who would like it, here it is:
This cream of chicken soup recipe that I make is from The Tightwad Gazette book. I will be making some tonight.
2 cups of dry milk
1 and 1/4 cups of cornstarch
1/4 cup chicken bouillon powder
2 Tbsp. dried onion flakes
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. basil
The thyme and basil are optional but I always use them. Mix all together and put in an airtight jar.
To use add 1/3 cup of mix to 1 and 1/4 cups of water. It replaces one can.
I was very conscious of electric usage today. It has been rainy and dreary all day so we used just one light in whatever room we were in. We heated our dinners up in the microwave. Hubby made French toast for breakfast using one pan on the stove burner. We had pure maple syrup and SF syrup to top it. We did no laundry and ran no dishwasher today.
Did you do anything to cut your costs today? Please share.
As most of you know, we are all spending more money for everything than we did in the first 4 years of Donald Trump’s Presidency. I know that he will get the inflation down but it is going to take a while. It took 4 years to get us where we are today. The Federal Reserve hasn’t helped with it’s actions either. Hopefully, he will appoint someone who knows how to get us out of this mess. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will help with this by cutting waste in government. It has grown too large and needs to be trimmed. I also hope they find all of the missing money that the current administration spent for climate change and the inflation reduction act and where that money has disappeared to.
But we will have to help! Supply and demand is much of the problem. You have seen when there are shortages, the prices rise. When something is not in demand, prices go down. I am not an expert but perhaps there has been some price gouging also.
I would bet that many of you who visit here have a good supply of food in your homes. Hopefully most of it was purchased while prices were still reasonable. I believe it is time to use that food so that none of it goes to waste. If people take a break from buying weekly, it will help bring these prices down. I know that all of us want fresh produce and dairy during the month. I will use a little money to buy those things. But everything else will be used from my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator. We will eat the proper portions so that it will last as long as possible.
I will be working on our plans for 2025 to cut our current budget and use up the food we have in our home. We have enough food to get us through the winter and perhaps longer. I no longer meal plan. I look to see what I have available in my home and use those items to make a meal. Most of that food was purchased as loss leaders. Buying loss leaders at rock bottom prices is the smartest way to buy your food. You all know how. You are probably doing it now with the cheap prices on turkey, stuffing, canned vegetables, baking supplies, etc.
I will keep my Walmart+ delivery plan through the winter because it saves us from going out in the snow and ice and possibly falling or having an accident. But I know I am spending more because of the tipping and the cost of the plan. So when spring hits, I will cancel it. I can get pickup or just walk into the store and shop cheaper.
If I run out of something, I will see if I have the ingredients to make it cheaper. We all have baking supplies in our homes but how many of us use them to make tortillas, bread, English muffins, bagels, etc. I know I get lazy and just buy them most of the time. But no longer. It may take a bit more time but I think the cost savings will be worth it.
How many of us have lots of spices in our homes but buy taco seasoning and fajita packets because it is convenient? Take the time to mix your own spices and put them in a mason jar or any other jar. Then you can quickly just spoon out what you need. You will save a lot of money if you continually do this with these items and many other spices that you can mix up. I used to make my own cream soups and bread crumb mixes but I have been lazy and gotten away from that. Not any more. There are so many things that we use everyday that we can make from scratch much cheaper. I would rather keep that money in my pocket than put it in the pockets of billionaires.
So I will be asking myself every time I make something, how can I do this cheaper?
We will be cutting many more expenses next year also and I will take you along for the ride. But food is one that I have been spending way too much money on and it will be a priority to no longer do that.
Are you planning on cost cutting in 2025 or starting right away like I will be?
As usual I have been up early with Eloise. She never seems to want to sleep past 3-4AM. After I fed her and we played for a while, I planned out a couple of days.
I made my coffee. Then I put a sirloin tip roast in the crock pot to make beef stew. I threw in fresh carrots and onions. After the beef had cooked about 3 hours, I took the roast out and cut in up into stew beef and put it back in the pot. The potatoes I threw in later in the day because I do not like them mushy. When Hubby got up, he asked what was in the crock pot. I told him and he asked if I would be mad if he asked me to take 1/2 of the beef and make beef barley soup. I said I would be happy to do that. After the beef chunks were tender, I put 1/2 of them into the soup pot. So I ended up making both beef stew and beef barley soup. I put both dinners in jars after we ate and it will be dinner for the rest of the week. If we get sick of it, I will put whatever is left over in the freezer. We will just reheat what we want to eat each night. I’m happy about that since I won’t have to make another meal for a long time.
Before I could make the soup, I needed to go to Top’s to get celery, I did not know that Hubby had used it all up. So I got 2 packages of it because it was on B1G1F so that 2 cost me $ 2.99. I also swung into Aldi’s and got 6 more pounds of butter. I usually buy 30-36 pounds of butter to last a year. But this year I am not going to buy as much because the price is so high and I still have some left from last year. We have decided that we will only use butter to spread on food like steaks, vegetables, English muffins, etc. We have enough oils to cook with including vegetable or canola for baking, olive oil and avocado to saute food. We always have cold pressed coconut oil and ghee also. Plus I save bacon grease to cook eggs and potatoes.
Last stop was the drugstore to pick up a prescription for Hubby. Cost was $.00.
I did end up doing a load of laundry using cold water and minimal liquid detergent. Then I hung it to dry. If I can continue to just do laundry once a week, I will be thrilled.
Hubby and I took some time to watch The Equalizer that was on the night before. That was my entertainment for the day. However, Hubby did watch the football game and I called my sister for our weekly chat.
Hubby went outside and removed the solar lights from the gardens to store them for the winter. He finished some odds and ends out there so we are now officially ready for winter.
So have you guys been stocking up on cheap turkeys? I have purchased one this year and got a free one, one of which we ate a couple of weeks ago and froze the leftovers. The other is in the freezer for future meals. I would have loved to buy more at such cheap prices but alas I just don’t have the freezer space. I only have a small chest freezer plus the freezer drawers in the fridge.
An acquaintance of mine who lives on only Social Security wanted to stock on turkeys this season and she had the space. The first one she purchased was $ 1.07 a lb. at Aldi’s. Her husband did not want her to buy it because he felt the price was too high. He was sure she could get it cheaper. She convinced him and she bought it. It was a Butterball Premium and well worth the price. Then she bought $ 150. in needed items to be able to do the free turkey deal at B.J.’s. You could get up to a 20 lb. turkey this week. However when she went to get it yesterday she could only find a 17 pounder. This happened to me last year and that is why I did not do this deal. She wanted to get more turkeys but her husband was adamant that she did not. He didn’t seem to understand the concept that you will not ever get poultry or meat cheaper than this. If you can get meat at these prices why pay more in the future especially when you are low income. Now I know some people don’t like turkey but he does. She knows that she can use the turkey in any recipe that calls for chicken. Why pay $ 3.49 a lb. or more for chicken? I use turkey in place of chicken in many of our recipes.
I just don’t understand his reasoning. I told her I would buy more if I had the room. So yesterday she went to Walmart and found a Shady Brook Farms one on sale for $ .88 lb. She had to sneak it in the house and the freezer. She told me and I was excited for her. Hubby has never forbidden me from buying something hence we have no secrets from each other. But if he did forbid me, I would be sneaking them in the house too. I will save money anytime I have the freezer space rather than pay more or full price later. I could understand his reasoning if they just didn’t have the money but they travel to timeshares a couple of times a year and eat out a lot. So a few cheap turkeys is not going to break them.
Yesterday I went to Top’s very early in the morning to pick up my free turkey. I prefer Butterball turkeys but a free one is just as good. This was a little over 19 lbs. This picture was taken in the large bottom freezer drawer of my refrigerator. I had already lifted it too many times yesterday. It will stay there until I cook it sometime in the future.
I earned this turkey last week when I spent $100. on needed items for now and the holidays. It gave me a $10.00 off coupon to buy up to a 20 lb. turkey. The turkey was marked at $8.79 so the additional $ 1.21 was taken off the rest of my order. I also spent about $35. to pick up some on sale items. This was necessary to get the free turkey and to use a $5.00 off Super Coupon on the rest of my order. I had a Free coupon(saved $ 3.99) for a gallon of milk so I got that. I also had two different coupons to get 100 extra gas points so I now have $ .40 off per gallon of gasoline.
I now have 3 points to be able to get 3- $ 50. giftcards for $ 40. each. They only have certain gift cards on this Christmas deal. I will either get Lowes, IHop, or Chili’s cards this year. I haven’t decided yet. The card choices are not my favorites this year but those are ones I would use. I still have the Panera cards that I got last year. This gift card deal is our gift to ourselves for Christmas each year. It helps to defray the cost of eating out or getting things we need for our home like filters for the furnace, any repair items we may need etc.
I also stopped at Aldi’s to pick up 6 lbs. of butter for $3.49 each. That is the best price I can find in my area.
Over the weekend, we made eggs, bacon and had avocados for brunches. Yesterday, I tried a new recipe for dinner: https://www.plainchicken.com/french-onion-chicken-noodle-casserole/ . Hubby hated it. I liked it but it would not be my favorite. It made a lot and because I don’t waste food I portioned it our into quart size freezer bags. I will take one out every once in a while for my brunch until it is gone. On Saturday night, I baked some little smokies wrapped in crescent dough and we dipped them in mustard.
I had to read the meters to submit to my utility company. We used 33 kwh’s less than last year for electric and 15 ccfs less of natural gas. The bill should come within the next couple of days so we will see what it costs. I expect even though we used less the bill will be higher. I am hoping it is lower.
The last time I did a load of laundry it was a week ago yesterday. It has now been 8 days. I may have to do one today or tomorrow. It depends on how much underwear we have still clean. I am trying to cut back on how many loads we do a month.
I have been straightening up our pantry. I believe we have enough food for the winter.
Hubby made a trip to Home Depot looking for some locking clips for Eloise’s cage for when we need to use it. The ones that came with it are a pain to unlock and lock. He did not find any. So we are going to use velcro strips. While he was out he also stopped at Fast Cash to return bottles to get $5.50 back in deposits.
Our snow plow man that we hired came and marked our driveway for the winter. So we are now set for the first storm. This man is very reliable. He has been mowing some neighbors lawns for years and snowplowing eight driveways in here. We are happy that we found him.
Our free entertainment this weekend was watching our Buffalo Bills beat the Kansas City Chiefs yesterday 30-21. The Chiefs had not lost a game this year until now. We loved it.
As I sit her posting for you, I am hearing so many geese flying south. This has been a daily event for a week now. It is a stark reminder of what is coming. Ugh!
I have had some quiet days. My back was giving me problems so I took it easy. We watched some of our favorite You Tube channels. Brunch this week has been chili on rice for me and Hubby had corned beef hash. Two days we did eggs and avocado.
I roasted pork tenderloin on Wednesday night. We had leftover broccoli, and cinnamon apples for dinner with it. Last night we made pork chow mein on rice from the leftovers.
Our lawn service came and did the winter fertilization of the grass. We pay up front at the beginning of the season for the entire season. So no bill for that now.
Hubby had plans on Tuesday to get our snow tires put on. It was at the same time that our Top’s was having their grand opening after a $4,000,000. renovation. So I was not able to go for that but I did go later in the afternoon. Hubby’s appointment was at 10AM. By noontime he was not home and I was starting to worry. So I texted him. He got right back to me and let me know that when he got there for 10, they told him they were running an hour and a half late. Then they took our car in finally and broke a lug nut so they had to get that part. When Hubby got home after 2 and 3/4 hours, he told me the entire story. He said another young man had brought his car in for the tires to be done too. But Hubby said the young man complained loudly the entire time he was waiting. Hubby was quiet and just waited silently. The young man’s car was done before ours and they cashed him out. He asked for a discount and they gave him 20%.
When Hubby went up to pay, he asked for a discount. Hubby buys our tires there and gets the tires changed each year in the fall and spring. The girl at the register said let me go and speak with the manager. She came back and checked Hubby out. She handed him the bill that detailed everything they did. The total at the bottom was $ 00.00. The bill would have been $ 143.96 + $11.52 in tax for a total of $ 152.48. Hubby silently sat and got treated very well. The man who complained only got 20% off. It pays to be patient. Needless to say, Hubby was quite happy to show me that bill.
When he got home, I went to Top’s to get some of the great grand opening deals. We needed some other things also especially the things I did not have to make party mix for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So this is what we bought: 2 large Cheerios- $ 11.38 minus 2- $1.00Q’s =$ 9.38 for both, 2 Wheat Chex – $9.98 minus a $2.00Q= $ 7.98 for both, Welch’s Fruit Snacks -$ 5.99, 3 large Planter’s Mixed Nuts – $28.17 for all 3, 2 Cold Foam creamers – $ 10.98 minus $ 1.50Q = $ 9.48 for both, 2 – 4 packs of Cranberry Orange Muffins( for a coffee get together)- $ 11.98 for both using a Super Q, 2 Quaker Oatmeal – $ 8.99 after Q’s, 1 Delectables for Eloise- $ 13.49, 1 Velveeta Shells and Cheese – $ 4.39, 1- 100 count Ibuprofen – Free Q, 2 Maxwell House Coffee on sale at B1G1F( only 1 pictured) -$ 8.49 for both, 1 M& M Peanuts – $ 7.99, 1 Lifesaver Gummies – $ 4.99, 3 Poppables- $ .99 each or $ 2.97 for all, 1 Artisan Romaine for wraps – $ 3.99, 2 -5lb. bags of flour- $ 1.49 each = $2.98, 1 Pillsbury frosting for strawberry cake – $ 1.67, 1 Bison Sour Cream- $ 2.00, 1 Fritos Jalapeno cheddar dip – $ 7.18 for both, 4 Wild Caught North Atlantic Haddock Fillets @ $6.99 lb. = $17.13 ( not pictured), 1 cream cheese -$ 1.69, 1 baby carrots – $ .88, 2 large sweet onions- $ 1.49 = $2.92, 2 Wise Popcorn $5.00 for both, 1 lb. of chopped walnuts -$ 8.49 and 1 Nestle Morsels – $ 2.99 = $ 179.73 minus a $5.00 off coupon because of the grand opening so I actually paid $174.73+tax on the cat food.
Because I spent over $100. I got a $ 10.coupon for a free turkey to cash in next week. I have my choice of a Jennie-O or a Top’s up to 18 lbs. or anything else for our Thanksgiving dinner that totals $10.00. I will be getting the turkey. I also earned $ .10 off each gallon gasoline and 1 point that I can cash in for a $50. gift card for $40.
This is the most amount of money that I have spent in Top’s in a long time. but I always save money from my grocery budget all year to be able to spend for some goodies during the holidays. Nuts have gotten very expensive but these 3 cans will make two big batches of party mix to use for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I still need pretzels because I forgot them but I ordered them this morning so I wouldn’t forget.
Hubby started to put my groceries away before he knew that I was going to photograph them. That is why some things are not pictured.
We had a nice big salad and grilled a strip steak outside. The salad had romaine, onions, tomatoes and sliced eggs. I had cooked 9 eggs in the instant pot the day before. Hubby made egg salad one day and I had some as snacks. The last one was sliced for our salad.
On Saturday for brunch, Hubby sauteed the leftover steak with some garlic and added English muffins with my homemade peach jam.
Hubby grilled pork ribeye steaks and I served them with cinnamon apples another night.
My son sent a message saying they were coming for breakfast on Saturday instead of Sunday. I didn’t see his message until 9:30pm on Friday night. I set the table for the morning. When I got up with Eloise at 5:30am, I decided to make scrambled eggs, fried ham and French toast to go with it. When they arrived at 9am, I was able to cook those up and add fresh avocado slices for anyone who wanted them. Water, coffee, and diet cranberry juice were offered as beverages. After some good conversation we played a game of rummy. I so love playing that so they play with us almost every time they visit.
Navy showers were on the agenda very early Saturday morning. Then I threw a full load of wash in the washing machine. I used cold water, 1/4 cup of liquid detergent and added a little Oxy to that load. Before our son and grandson came, I was able to hang all of it to dry. I will see if I can wait a full week before having to do another load.
I made a batch of brownies for snacks and they should last all next week. I baked them in my counter top 11 in 1 oven to save on energy. While they were baking, I scanned all of my Fetch receipts to earn points for Walmart gift cards.
All of this food was in my refrigerator, freezers, and pantries. I did not have to run out to any stores to get it. Having a stockpile saves a fortune on gasoline.
Hubby spent some time washing one section of the garage floor where he had bagged up some wet grass. One of the bags leaked and it was a mess. He used some cleaner that we had on hand and washed it all off. It was easy because our garage floor is epoxied. He also emptied some more pots that had flowers in them to get ready for winter. He is almost done. Then he mowed the lawn. We hope we will do the last grass cutting until spring soon. When he was done with that I helped him put our storm door on and put the screen door away.
While my son was here, he helped Hubby put all the patio furniture into our shed. He also brought our snowblower around to the garage from the shed. Hubby bought a large rubber mat to park it on to protect the garage floor. We have a snow plow guy for the winter but he only does the driveway. So the snowblower is needed for the sidewalk and porch. The last thing Hubby had to do is put the grill cover on. But we won’t do that until the first snow is predicted. We are hoping that we can use it over the winter to save on our utility bill.
I spent some time making a list of errands that I need to get done this week. One of them is to get a leash for Eloise. I don’t know what size to buy her because she is growing like a weed. So I will go to the pet store to try to figure it out. If the one I get doesn’t fit her, I can return it and get a larger one. I will measure her to see if that helps determine her size. I also need a haircut and will do those errands on Tuesday before I go to our Top’s Grand Opening. They are having some fantastic sale prices!
For dinner last night, I needed something easy(I was exhausted) for after the Buffalo Bills game. We won and that was entertaining. So we made homemade Chik Fil A chicken patty sandwiches. We added some pickle spears and chips. Then had a brownie for dessert. After dinner, I ran the dishwasher and am hoping that I won’t have to do that again for at least 3 days.
Did you cook something from your pantry this weekend?
P.S.: There is a VERY important post before this one.
The secret ballot has been scheduled for Wednesday. McConnell who did not run this time and is leaving in January is a rhino in the Republican party. He hates President Trump! The two that he wants to win as Senate Majority Leader are Cornyn and Thune who are just as rhino as McConnell. Rick Scott is the only one who will hold to Trump’s agenda. If one of the rhinos get in, the Senate will do whatever they want. The Liberal media is salivating over this. This is a coup! If this happens anything that comes over from the House will not get taken up. Nothing will change. Trump will be fighting the Senate. This is just WRONG and subverts the will of the people.
Take the time to contact your Senators today and tell them that you expect them to vote for Rick Scott if they want to stay in office next time. You can e-mail them if they have one on their websites(some don’t) or contact them at the switchboard:
Alternatively, you may phone the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request. Tell them your wish of whom they should vote for. You will get someone answering phones but they will keep a count of who you want.
