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?