Month: May 2026

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Every Day

A Little of This and A Little of That To Save a Bit of Money

We have had so much rain since we had the sprinkler system opened for the season that we have not had to water the lawn even once. This is a huge savings if this keeps up every few days. We have forecasts of rain for this entire holiday weekend. We don’t mind since we have no plans to go anywhere or do anything outside.

Last year we spent $40. a piece for two hanging baskets for our front porch. Yesterday I found two beautiful ones at Niagara Produce that were very full for $ 24.99 each. I had made up my mind that I would not spend $40. each this year so I was happy to find these.

While I was at N.P., I picked up 2 dozen extra large eggs at $.99 a dozen. They had very few left which leaves me wondering if this deal is going away. I also got two on sale strip steaks($10.99) a lb.

I had to go to the bank first and then I went to B.J.’s where I bought a package of strip steaks($30.41 for 3), Canadian bacon($9.99), a large package of 85/15 ground beef($26.87) 6 beefsteak tomatoes($6.99), a roasted chicken($4.99), and 4 port wine cheese($4.99 each) that Hubby loves. The strip steaks were more money a lb. here but they looked so much better than N.P.’s.

Wegman’s parking lot was full so I did not go there. I had planned on getting gasoline but every station must have pushed their prices up because of this holiday weekend. I will see if they come down this week and then fill up.

Our cherry tree has fruit ripening but they aren’t very big this year. I am hoping to pick them before the birds eat them all like they did last year.

Hubby cleaned and serviced our riding lawn mower including sharpening the blades. It is too expensive to have the John Deere place do it. I also had him pick up extra oil for the lawnmower because finding it is becoming an issue.

I have stopped buying oil sprays for baking. I am saving my butter wrappers to use instead to grease the baking pans.

Hubby wants meatloaf tonight. I had a container with a few onions in it so I threw them in and added bread crumbs, spices, an egg, and a small can of tomato sauce. It is topped with 5 slices of bacon. It is in the oven now. He will have tater tots with it. I am going to have a few slices of tomato with mine. This meatloaf should make us 2 meals and perhaps a lunch for him.

Today I scanned all of my recent receipts into Fetch. I am saving for giftcards to use for Christmas presents.

I made out a Kendall-Jackson rebate form for $8.00 for wine I purchased as a gift and to have on hand for company .

My pain patches for my back when it acts up so that I can get through my day were in low supply. I have always purchased them from Walmart. Someone told me that they were cheaper at Amazon. I checked prices both places. Walmart had the best price if you bought in bulk. I ordered 120 patches for $28.00. That is dirt cheap! They will get used because Hubby uses them sometimes too.

I am researching Mystery Shopping for my area. I used to do a lot of shops for a large company when I lived in Arizona. I am going to try to get into doing it again here.

I just threw a load of wash in. I put our brushes in a produce bag that I use for this purpose only. I tie it up nice and tight so the hair does not get into my machine. The washing machine does a great job of cleaning them and I can clean the hair out of the bag afterward.

Dinner is almost ready so it is time to eat.

I hope you are all having a great holiday weekend.

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Every Day

Electric and Gas Bill Update

We got our bill yesterday that covered the period from April 22 – May 19th. I was shocked because it was only $ 214.12. My last bill was $296.77.

This period we used 397 KWH’s. It is the lowest usage we have had in months. Our natural gas usage was 54 ccf’s.

The same period last year the bill was $225.23. So we are down just a little bit.

But that is not the news of the day. I know we have all grown to hate our energy providers. But here is a couple of recent examples of why I hate mine:

NYS sets temporary rate increase for NYSEG | News 4 Buffalo

Now that the good weather is here and they won’t rake in enough money for their profits, they have gotten this temporary increase in rates. It is ridiculous. It is just the beginning. It means they will probably get more in a permanent increase in a few months.

So with this new “temporary increase”, our summer bills will significantly go up if we use our A/C. You can bet I will do everything in my power to keep our A/C turned off and do most of our cooking outside to keep the heat out whether that be using small appliances or cooking on our grill. I have to wonder what they have in store for next fall and winter.

Then there is this: NYSEG correcting customer bills after temperature data error found | wgrz.com

Was this deliberate and they hoped no one would notice? Well thank you to the TV station for noticing and following up on this. Why wasn’t the Public Service Commission questioning this?

Our energy provider is owned by a company in Spain which is ridiculous. There is no real oversight.

This is just another example of a company parting you from the money in your wallet. There seems to be a lot of this going around on everything.

Are you getting these kinds of rate hikes from your energy provider?

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Every Day

Living on Less to Save Some Dollars

Are you sick and tired of all of these price increases on everything? I know that I certainly am. It is time to really start ramping up our frugality even more than we do now.

Finally, we were able to turn the heat off. We have gone from winter to summer this weekend. Right now(5AM) it is 77 in my home. It is comfortable. That is because we kept the windows closed and the shades and blinds drawn on the windows where the sun was coming in yesterday. It was 89 and humid and the overnight temperature is only going down to 67. Today the high is supposed to be around 84 but much more humid However, we have not turned on the A/C. I would like to see how many days we can go without it. We used our ceiling fans to stay comfortable while we watched our hockey game last night and the ceiling fan is on overnight in our bedroom. We will use them in any room we spend time in today.

The results of me tracking when we turn things on that use electricity is showing me that the worst offender is the dryer. I used it the other day to dry some sheets and towels and that is what is spiking my kwh’s. It is incredible how much it uses. Fortunately, I hang a lot to dry. I wish I had a place to hang these big things but I don’t.

Did you hit your Memorial Day Sales this week? I went on Sunday and bought 6 lbs. of ground beef for $ 4.29 a lb. which I will be taking back today because the meat is bad, 3 lbs. of Sahlen’s hot dogs for $10.99 only to find out that Niagara Produce has them on sale for $9.99. I will be going there and stocking on a few more packages to get us through the summer. I also purchased a 6 lb. package of boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.99 a lb., a 30 oz. jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise using a digital coupon for $ 3.79, and 3 32. oz. bottles of Heinz Ketchup for $3.99 each.

I have been taking inventory of the food in our home and I will be trying to fill in the necessary gaps this week. We have used quite a bit of our pantry foods since January. But we still have a lot to go through. We are carefully rotating the items we are using by date- the oldest gets eaten first.

So sometime this week, I will fill in those gaps. I have a trip planned to BJ’s in another town to get produce, 2 of their roasted chickens at $ 4.99 each, and stock on a cheese spread they have that Hubby loves to put on wheat thins or triscuits. One of the roasting chickens will be kept on warm in the crockpot for dinner that night. The other will go in the fridge. I will cut up all of the meat except for our dinner that night into portions for future meals and freeze them. The bones and skin will be put into the crockpot to simmer in water in the garage all night. Then I will have my bone broth for soup. On the way down I will quickly stop at N.P. to see what their produce looks like and how much it costs there on the fresh things that we need. I will buy 2 more dozen extra large eggs for $.99 each. I will also pick up the Sahlen’s hot dogs. I will then compare their produce prices with B.J.’s and buy whatever looks healthy and costs less at each of those stores. I can quickly run back in again on my way home to N.P. if need be.

I will also stop into Wegman’s and Trader Joe’s to look at their meat and produce and gather some prices for my price book.

Last stop will be to get gas to fill up the car. My cash station is $ 4.39 a gallon. BJ’s is $ 4.37. However, Top’s is $4.49 a gallon. I will have to check and see how many gas points I have. It is rare for these three stations to be this close together on price.

After those trips, I will not be buying much. I am getting really tired of making the billionaire corporations richer and richer and then listening to them whine about how people aren’t spending much these days and when they do they are buying store brands. Here is my tip for the big guys. Lower your prices and perhaps more people will come in and shop! I know all the reasons everyone is giving for all of the price increases but I still think they are somewhat gouging us also because they can use those excuses. BTW, Walmart announced that they are removing all of the self checkouts because of all of the theft in their stores. They say it is millions of dollars a month. They also said they are laying off 1000 executive people because not as many people are shopping or buying as much as they used to.

Since it is so hot here, I will be bringing my Yeti cooler with me. I don’t want anything I buy to go bad. My travel mug will be filled with ice and water to keep me cool and hydrated. I also always keep protein bars in the car in case I get hungry while I am out.

We will be eating what we have in our home. Prices are getting so high on food that I won’t pay for most things. If I do any shopping it will only be for a great meat deal (on any beef) or something that is a necessity like produce. If produce prices skyrocket this summer, we will go without except for an occasional tomato to make BLT’s with. Many times the frozen fruits and vegetables cost less than the fresh. I will be comparing prices. I am hoping that when our local crops come in season that there are some better prices than what we are seeing now on shipped in items.

We are also rationing our food by eating the proper portions.

We are trying to get our electricity bill down. We will keep the A/C off as much as we can. We will cook outside on the grill when we can. Crockpots and other small appliances can be used outside or in the garage. That will keep the heat out of the house. I have also stopped using the blow dryer to dry my hair. That also spikes the kwh’s. The same goes for the curling iron. I just brush it and let it dry by itself. We will have our new bill on May 21st. I will let you know about it soon.

Our cellphone company is offering internet now. Hubby is researching it. So far it looks like it would save us $49. a month unless our cable company ups our bill when we cancel it. We will still keep the home phone and cable TV. To me that is a bundle but they may up the price.

I am off to cook 3 lbs. of bacon. I will undercook it so that I can freeze it in portions and then reheat it in the microwave. Some will be kept in the fridge to reheat with our eggs this week.

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

Sorry that this is a day late. We had the new furnace installed yesterday and they didn’t leave until late. I had about enough time to heat up a can of soup for dinner and then make my Monday night call to my sister. When I hung up with her, I went to bed.

They have all the rest of the add on work that I talked about to do today. They wanted to get the furnace in and up and running because it is cold here. They did not want us to be without heat. My old furnace was so noisy. This one you can’t even hear turn on. It is so quiet and much more efficient. It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference in my heat bill. They made sure that both the heat and A/C were running well when they were done.

Hubby can keep an eye on them and Eloise today. I have a hair appointment and I need to get a package of new furnace filters on the way home. This furnace takes bigger filters than our other one did.

I may or may not stop at Top’s. I think my list only has three items and I am going to take a look to see if I really need them or can substitute some things that I already have in my stockpile. Recently I had finally spent enough money at Top’s to earn a $10.00 gift card from the game they are running. So I will use that to pay the next time I do go.

I will be stopping at Panera Bread to pick up the Tuesday dozen bagel deal with my gift cards that I purchased many years ago. Panera and Home Depot are in the same plaza so no extra gasoline.

Last week I did my shopping at Niagara Produce. I just got 2 dozen extra large eggs because they were on sale again for $. 99 a dozen. The sale was finished last Friday but the new ad has the same price again. So I will get more next time I go there. We go through a lot of eggs for brunches and snacks. So I just keep filling up my 5 dozen box and rotate the eggs.

I have also been doing a lot of baking so that I can fill up the oven when I do turn it on. Baking takes a lot of eggs. I have been filling up my freezer with the baked goods so that when it finally gets warm here, I won’t have to turn the oven on. We will be set for the summer.

Meals have all been at home for the past 10 days or so with the exception of when my son took me and hubby out to breakfast for Mother’s Day. I have done soup out a can and homemade turkey soup that I had frozen in portions. I marinated two large pork tenderloins. One I froze with the hoisin sauce recipe that I used to marinate them. The other I cooked this weekend and we ate 2 meals from it. We had enough left that I was going to freeze a portion and make pork fried rice out of the rest of it. However Hubby has not been feeling well lately so I am lucky if I can get him to eat soup. So I froze the rest in 2 portions for 2 future meals. I also made pasta salad and we had that 2 nights and for 1 brunch. I made shake and bake chicken breasts and mac and cheese as a side for 2 meals. I also had broccoli which I could eat every day but Hubby doesn’t like it. So we have salads more often. Breakfasts have been muffin melts or eggs with bacon, sausage, or steak umms. We also have eaten some homemade pumpkin or banana bread with those meals.

I am faithfully writing down when I turn my appliances on. I just put them in my planner for each day. I put what appliance and the time that I turn it on and it turns off. This will give me a better idea of how many kwh hours I am using with each one. It is a lot easier than using the handheld kwh meter to do it. Our smart meter stats on the electric and natural gas company site are two days delayed. This way I can just look at my planner when each day gets updated and see what I am actually using per appliance and what is causing big spikes in the kwh’s. I am really trying to lower our bill.

I am still washing my laundry with cold water and hanging most everything to dry. I only run the dishwasher when it is really full which is about every three days.

Well that is it for now. What have you been doing to save a few $$$’s?

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Every Day

Emergency But No Panic

It has been a whirlwind this past week. Last Tuesday, our Heating and Air Conditioning Company came to check the A/C aand make sure we were ready for the A/C season. Since he had the equipment, he decided to take a look at the heat exchanger. He found 3 cracks in it which he showed Hubby. Our furnace is over 16 years old. He checked our warranty and found we had a 30 year one. The new heat exchanger would be covered but the labor would not be. There would also be a shipping charge that we would have to pay to have the part shipped in from another state. It would not be a cheap repair. When we purchased this furnace, the builder wanted to only put in the cheapest one they could get installed. We were not happy with that and wanted to upgrade it to a high efficiency one. The builder agreed to that but would only let the company that they used all the time into the house to do that. So we had the highest efficiency one at that time installed that their company sold. The first year that we moved into the house, we had to have a major repair which was covered by warranty. We had that done. However, now looking at a hefty bill for this repair, we decided to get a quote for a new furnace and then make our decision. From our many years of experience when you make major repairs, things just keep cascading down.

Over the years we have found other issues. One of our spare bedrooms is so cold in the winter that we need to run a space heater in it if anyone is visiting and using that room. That room has 3 outside walls. Whenever Alexa would come to visit, we would put the space heater in it. I always worried that she was not warm enough. Another problem is we did not like the way the exhaust pipes came out through the concrete wall. They just had pipes sticking straight outside. No elbow was put on the end of those pipes to turn it up so that we didn’t have to worry so much about snow building up in a storm and blocking those pipes. There has been a couple of winters that I have had to shovel back to those pipes and dig the snow out around them.

A major issue was that there was only one return in the house. Hubby put another one in between our master bedroom and the hallway right after we moved in. But that was not enough. Our house is all on one floor but it is 2112 square feet. It’s big.

There are other issues also. So our company sent the sales representative out to look at everything and give us recommendations. We are having 2 more returns put in and other add ins done.

The heat exchanger would have cost us under warranty about $2700. A new furnace will cost us about $4389. We have opted to go with the new furnace. It has a 96% efficiency rating. That is higher than we have now. We are also having a lot of extras done besides the returns and the exhaust pipes being done correctly. That extra cost will bring the bill up to $7350.

It is a lot of money and this was so unexpected. However for peace of mind and not having the heat go out in the middle of next winter or have the carbon monoxide detector go off, safety comes first.

I trust this company so I expect they will do a great job installing the furnace and all of the add ins. We will see if our bills go down with the new furnace since it is more efficient than the old one. Since it is freezing here, we still have the heat on. So we will see some heating charges on our next bill with the new furnace. But we won’t truly know until next winter.

They are coming to do all the work tomorrow. They have also booked out Tuesday to us in case they can’t get all the work done in one day. We are hoping it is only one day. We will have no heat from 9am tomorrow morning until when ever they are finished. We have temps in the 30’s-40’s in the mornings and it looks like our high tomorrow will be 54. However, we can bundle up during the day and can use the space heater to keep us and Eloise warm during the night if need be. We will not freeze.

The reason I gave you all this boring information is to show you that we didn’t panic when this emergency happened. I have told you many times that we save a large percentage of our monthly income and have even while we have been retired all of these years. So the money to pay for all of this work isn’t an issue. Our emergency fund is there when we need it. And we will continue saving because we will be having all of the ceilings in our home painted soon and we will have the outside trim, shutters and all the wood around windows and all the doors painted outside next along with some painting on our shed. Then the next project is to have all of the tile in our master bathroom ripped out along with the shower and soaking tub. We want to replace them with a walk in shower and walk in jacuzzi tub. We will replace the grout around these things with thin granite on the walls so there will only be a couple of joints that need grout and it will be easier to clean. So this is the year of projects and we are thankful that we have saved and can do these things.

I have had people, even some of my readers, ask me why we continue to save in retirement. This is why. Things still need to be maintained. We also want to leave a large inheritance to our children and grandchildren. This is all very important to us. Plus think how inflated everything is now. It ticks me off but we have been through these times before and survived. We will again. If we hadn’t saved, inflation would really be kicking our butts.

On Thursday, we were busy keeping an eye on our 5 man landscape crew. They were weeding, trimming bushes, transplanting some bushes, removing some overgrown bushes, and mulching gardens, etc. They were here all day. With tips, that job was $2000. This is another reason we save. They will come back whenever we need weeding or anything else done all summer and autumn.

So for all the people that think we are too frugal, we do spend money as you can see. We spend it on things that are important to us. We spend most of our time in our home so we make it the refuge we want it to be. Plus we want to stay in our home as long as possible. No nursing homes for us. So we save for when we need to hire people to help us as we age.

Many parents never teach their kids about money. Don’t be one of those parents. I am trying to teach my readers who still have time to save for retirement to do it. This shows you how important it is.

I will be back tomorrow with a little of this and a little of that post.

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Every Day

Happy Mother’s Day

I hope every mother who reads here has a wonderful celebration today. Enjoy your families and any special things that you are doing.

I had a great Mother’s Day weekend. My son in the Adirondacks sent a lovely flower arrangement that I have been enjoying. I can actually smell it as I sit here and write this. He will be coming to visit the end of this month. We can’t wait to see him.

Since my other son will spend today with his wife and son, he came yesterday morning and took us out to Kalamatta’s for breakfast. I usually get their ribeye steak, eggs over easy, home fries and rye toast when we go there. I was in the mood yesterday to try something new. So I ordered their Muffin Melt. I will be doing that again because it was so delicious.

Sorry that I have not been posting this past week. It has been very busy around here. I will catch you up on all that has been going on with a couple of posts soon. One I will work on right now while Hubby is still sleeping. Then another one later on.

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Every Day

Back To The 1970’s

I keep hearing how the baby boomers had it so much easier than now. It is just not true. We had a very high period of inflation that lasted into the 1980’s. Inflation peaked in 1980 at 14.6% and mortgages were at 16%. We had a neighbor who moved in that we became very good friends with. When she told me their home interest rate was at 16%, I was shocked. Ours at the time was 8 and 1/2% because we had had our home built in 1978 and that was high enough. The mortgage rates just kept rising. Inflation reared it’s ugly head during the Carter administration because of high unemployment, rising oil prices, and government spending. It lasted just over 10 years from the 1970’s through 1980. Sound familiar?

Our salary in 1970 was around $11,500. We were a one income family. I was a stay at home mom to two sons who were born in the early 1970’s. It was cheaper to stay at home rather than pay a babysitter. My mom worked and Hubby’s mom was older so there was no one to help. You were on your own. Hubby was offered a different job in 1971 which he took that paid a bit more.

But we survived. It was not any easier than it is now. After taxes, social security, health insurance, etc., it was a small amount that you had to live on each month.

When we were a couple, I had $25. a week to buy food when we were first married. I squeezed every penny. When the boys were born, we upped that to $ 80. every two weeks. It stayed at that amount for years until they were teenagers. I shopped once every payday which was every other week. That included food, diapers, personal care, and household products. We had one of the first “warehouse clubs” called GEX at that time. I would go there and buy the needed items that were on sale. Then I would fill in with fresh produce in season at the farmer market stands. When produce wasn’t in season, I would meticulouly research what was cheaper: fresh, frozen, or canned. Meat was purchased on loss leader at the grocery store when we could afford it. I remember trying TVP(textured vegetable protein) plant based that mimicked ground beef because we could not afford regular ground beef. It was the worst tasting food ever. I only used a 1/4 to a 1/2 lb. at that time in a casserole. To finish up the lb. I had to doctor it up with sauces to make it edible. We never purchased it again. I have never purchased plant based meat today and never will.

I portion controlled all of our food and we never wasted a scrap. I would look over the food ads for the sales and cut any coupons that I could use. I shopped with a list and didn’t buy anthing that wasn’t on it. We would have a sweet dessert about once a month and we rarely purchased junk food. We ate a lot of spaghetti back then because it was cheap. I would sprinkle some ground beef into the sauce. Many meals were meatless. Peanut butter and jelly or eggs for lunch along with some fresh fruit. We ate lots of homemade soup, stews, and chili for dinners. You could stretch the meat in those things.

We had a small garden with strawberries and vegetables when we lived in our first home. Then we planted and enjoyed blueberries in our next one.

I washed cloth diapers for two babies and hung them to dry on our outdoor clothes line.The only Pampers I would use was when we would go out visiting at someone’s home. I got a box at GEX for $.99 for 12 and they would last us a few months. I used my washer to clean all of our clothes but I hung them to dry outside. I did not use the dryer. We were an all electric house until they lifted the ban on installing natural gas. Our electric bills back then in the winter in the late 1970’s were $600 or over for 2 months.

Gasoline was very expensive and we had shortages for a very long time. Hubby and a friend carpooled to work to save on it. They would alternate weeks. Work was 30 minutes away. On the week that our car stayed home, I would only go out to get needed groceries, take a child to the doctor, and sit in line to fill up the car. Many, many times I would sit in line for an hour and they would run out of gas before it was my turn. Then you would have to keep trying to find a station that had some gas again. I did this with the babies with me. It was so much worse than it is today. We did not go anywhere else with the car until they were old enough for nursery school and we carpooled that with 5 other families.

We cut down on Christmas gifts when they were babies. Only necessities were purchased and perhaps a stuffed animal or small rattle or toy. Many of those years we did not exchange gifts with anyone outside of our own little family.

We bought absolutely nothing that wasn’t a necessity back then. When the boys were born, baby showers gave us many items. I was offered many hand me downs and I took full advantage of those. Then I passed all of their clothes down to my cousin when she had a boy. I had a sewing machine at that time and made some of their clothes too.

Necessities were not wants. They were you can’t go without these items.

The difference I see today is all the tech stuff that costs a lot of money. Many children when they grow up want everything their parents had and more right away. They aren’t willing to save for it and then buy it. They charge these items and then get into a cycle of debt that many never get out of. We, baby boomers, always saved for the things we needed. Then we bought them.

The other difference I see from the 1970’s to now is that we always made savings a priority. Each and every paycheck had a portion set aside for emergencies. The savings rate today is abysmal.

Perhaps the way to survive everything going up today is to go back and live the way we did from the 1970’s through the early 1980’s. It’s your choice.

An example: We need some furniture. We have the money to buy it but I refuse to pay the prices today. Will it come down in price? Eventually, it will but not to the prices it was in 2020. Experience has shown me that.

I will say that we did have one advantage. We had TV’s but they weren’t on all day. There were commercials but not many and there were only a few shows a day. Every night, the TV stations signed off at midnight. Today, you are bombarded with commericials on TV, on You Tube, on Facebook. They are everywhere. I hate them so I ignore them. We DVR our shows so that we can fast forward through them.

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

I did just a bit of shopping this week for things that we really needed. I went to Dollar Tree and got 6 shelf stable whole milk and 2 shelf stable chocolate milk for $ 1.25 each. I know this milk has chemicals to preserve it but I don’t feel the pasteurization of regular milk is that great for it either. It tastes just like fresh when chilled. It also keeps a long, long time.

Next I went to Top’s and got tomatoes on the vine for $1.88 lb. One we have already cut into for hamburgers we had one night this week. But there are 4 whole ones left. I spent $ 2.97 for them. FYI: Tomatoes are going to be in short supply this season. 80-90% come from California and they have drought and a lack of water. The ones you are able to get will be very expensive. I have plenty of canned tomatoes of all kinds purchased when they were cheaper. If you don’t and use them, you should stock them now before the prices go higher than they are. If you can grow tomatoes, do it. If I see them at a good price at a farmer’s market or at Niagara Produce, I will buy just to eat fresh for BLT’s. Otherwise, we will go without fresh.

I had to go to Walmart to pick up 2 prescriptions for me. While I was there I browsed the grocery and household sections. I was absolutely shocked at how understocked they were. Their pasta section has shrunk down to one very tiny section. It should be gone by now. Their produce sections looked awful. Half of the shelves in some aisles were empty and fronted. Their candy aisle that usually is one full set of shelves on one side of the aisle had hardly anything. Their vegetable, fruit and canned meat and fish aisles weren’t much better. I have never seen it this bad. Either it is because the Strait of Hormuz is closed, people are worried about shortages, or worried that prices will skyrocket this month and are stocking up. The only things I purchased were in the household goods aisle. I got 2 boxes of 80 kitchen garbage bags for $11.22 each and 2 boxes of 30 gallon 40 ct. black garbage bags for $ 8.97 each. I hated to spend the money but this is one household good I can’t go without and I was down to my last box of each. Our garbage service will not empty your barrel unless everything is bagged. I may pick up a few more this month.

My last stop was Niagara Produce to pick up 2 dozen xtra large eggs for $.99 each. They have already been put in my 5 dozen box in the order that they expire. They also had the 3 count bag of romaine lettuce for $ 3.99.

I did stop at Top’s to get a lb. of Jimmy Dean bacon for $ 4.99 but they had none. So I got a raincheck.

I had a dental appointment earlier in the week and that is when I got all of the groceries. Six months ago when I got a cleaning, it cost me $ 276. This week it was up to $ 293. We have no dental insurance. At least the hygienist gave me a great goodie bag. It had 4 tubes of toothpaste, a toothbrush which I use for household cleaning( we have electric toothbrushes), 2 floss, etc. It has all been added to my stockpile.

While I write this, my dishwasher is running on the quick cycle and it is really full. I will open it to let the dishes air dry. We have been using really cheap paper plates when we can so we don’t have to run it as often. It should make a difference in our bill at least a little bit.

This week I only ran one load of wash and hung most of it to dry.

Our sprinkler system company came to open it up for the season and make sure everything was in good working order and all of the sprinkler heads were adjusted to hit the areas they should. We have no idea what the bill will be because they mail it. It will be interesting to see how much it has gone up.

Today is the deadline that NYS says the counties and towns must post the proposed assessments online that our next school and property taxes are based on. I have been very worried about that because each year they have been majorly raising it. Since we have lost our senior deduction for the school taxes in September, I did not want to see the assessment raised too. I was so happy to see that my assessment was not raised from what it was last year. That gives us a needed break at least for a year.

Besides hamburgers this week, we have had cheeseburger skillet dish with sausage that I had cooked up and put in the freezer, Chinese food, and ham sandwiches. Our breakfasts have been eggs and sausage, cereal with fruit, and English muffins with homemade peach jam.

Now that it is May 1st and I have all of my figures for April, we had extra income in the amount of $ 2644. 25. April was a good month.

How have you guys saved a few bucks this week?