Monday’s and Tuesday Doings

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.