Things We Are Doing To Save Money

Yesterday I roasted a 18.31 turkey that I got on sale at Thanksgiving. I served it with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy. After dinner, I cut all of the meat off of it and I will use it for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday meals. I also put all the skin and bones in the crock pot overnight. It made lots of turkey broth. The rest was frozen for future meals. This should make us 4 dinners, a huge pot of homemade turkey soup and a couple of casseroles. It should give us a total of about 15 – 16 dinners for each us. It is 16 degrees, cold and bitter out today. It’s a good day to use the big oven. I forgot to take a picture of the turkey when it was intact. But here is one while I was taking the meat off the bone.

Well, our snow plow guy was here again yesterday and today because it has been snowing for two days again now. We are so sick of this winter. I need Spring!

On Wednesday, I went to the market with a list of sale items. I was so disgusted with what was going on there that I vowed not to shop for as many months as I can. On my list was Mary Kitchen corned beef hash. This is a regular thing I buy when it is on sale because Hubby loves it with eggs for brunch sometimes. We were down to 3 cans and they had it on sale on B1G1F. My plan was to pick up 10 cans. It was well stocked but I soon knew why. Every can either was dented or rusting on the bottom. All of the dates had been stamped over. The old dates were expired but the new stamps dates were not. I grabbed the grocery manager to complain and to ask if he had any newer ones in the back. He said no. So evidently this store chain is emptying their warehouses of crap and trying to sell it and hoping that no one will notice. I don’t know if this is because food is not coming into the warehouses or just pure greed. But I will not be shopping there. Watch your cans when you buy them. I have also seen this at Walmart. Rust is compromising the cans. You can not safely eat it plus any can with a dent near a seal should not be purchased.

At the same store they had green seedless grapes on sale with a store coupon for $1.88 a lb. What a great price, so I was going to buy some for our chicken salads. However, they were of very poor quality. Always look at the stems. If they are brown and shriveling up, they are old. I passed on those too.

The last sale item that I refused to buy was a can of corn on sale with a store coupon for $ .49. The cans had not been dusted in forever. They also had the dates stamped over and rust on them.

I ended coming home with 1 box of angel hair pasta for $ .88 and 2 five pound of bags of russet potatoes that were on sale for B1G1F. My total for the potatoes was $5.49. So I didn’t spend much at the store.

Before I started shopping, I did what I usually do. I quickly ran through the store and took pictures of the prices with my cellphone of all items that I regularly buy so that I could update my price book. Almost everything has gone up by $ 1.00. I actually saw a few things that had increased by almost $ 2.00. Those are huge increases from week to week.

While I was out, I stopped at Home Depot to try to get some ice melt. They had none. Getting ice melt anyplace in the Buffalo area is not easy.

So needless to say, it was not a good shopping trip. Take note of this date of February 19, 2025. It was my last grocery shopping trip for a very long time. The only thing that will entice me to shop would be a REALLY rock bottom meat sale or sale produce that we love. Otherwise I will not be going to any grocery store. I want to see how long we can stay out of the stores and make delicious meals from what we already have. That will bolster our savings also and help us reach our goal early.

I also refuse to pay for produce that will go bad in a day or two. I got a small pickup order at Walmart the other day. I got a 2 lb. container of strawberries. I got them home and decided to wash them and cut them up and put them in a 1/2 gallon mason jar. I find they keep better that way. As I was cutting, I noticed that there was mold in all of the berries in the center. It was disgusting! I threw them all out because even the ones that looked good could have mold spores on them. Walmart is refunding my $5.32.

So no shopping for me. I refuse to pay these insane prices for inferior products. We will use up what we purchased when prices were lower.

Breakfast this morning will be a hard boiled egg and a cranberry orange muffin. Dinner will be leftover turkey and the side dishes.

I got our electric and gas bill yesterday. It was the highest bill ever since we moved here. But more on that soon.