This little tree was made from a larger tree. The angel on top was made by my Hubby in kindergarten. It is over 70 years old. I am surprised that it has held up as well as it has. I am waiting for our new tree skirt to arrive and it will be finished.
Now that we have put up our little Christmas tree, have written our cards, and have all of our Christmas giving taken care of, my mind has turned to the little tips and hacks that we will use to help us save money this month and next year in this inflationary cycle. These will be in no particular order. I will just write them as they pop into my head.
We will be eating from our food pantry. As we do that we will make sure to eat the proper portions which will ration the food that we have. We will only buy meat if I see a rock bottom price and then I will buy what we have room for. We only have a small chest freezer and the regular refrigerator so not a lot of freezer space. I do have the supplies to can meat that I see on sale. However, I am running out of shelves to store it on. I will buy fresh produce and dairy as I need it. We will do our best to not waste food as I told you in a prior post. I do believe that food prices will continue to surge. There are certain things that I will not buy now because I deem the price to be too high. Red meat except for ground beef and chuck roasts, coffee, soda, most fish, bacon, most junk food, etc. come to mind.
I will be keeping track of every penny of our money and tracking what is spent with the online program that we use. I will be better about using my price book to track prices as they go up so that I know what the best deal is.
We will continue to close the heating vents in our two spare bedrooms, close the doors, and put the draft snakes in front of the bottom of the doors. We will heat them back up the day before we have company coming the end of the month. This should help with our natural gas bill. We will make sure that we keep the bathroom vent and door open in the bathroom between these two rooms so that the pipes don’t freeze.
We made a decision this year to only minimally decorate our home with lights so we could save that cost in our electric bill. So our little tree is all the lights we have. It is enough for us to enjoy each evening. As we age, it is also getting harder to drag all of the decorating items from our basement to the upstairs. I think when my son and granddaughter come the end of the month, we will share decorations for my son’s tree with him. He doesn’t have many in his new home since his divorce. I will also let my other son take any that he wants. Then we will donate the rest of them to Goodwill.
Clothing prices have gone up here. I will be buying some jeans and tops for Hubby and myself when I see them go on sale after we lose some more weight. But I will be looking for a sale at that time. And the amount we will buy will be minimal.
I do not pay for shipping unless I ship something myself out of our local UPS which I will be doing today. Fortunately we have AAA. That gives us 5% off our cost to ship. I have free shipping for anything on walmart.com because I have their grocery plus delivery plan. I only use Amazon when I have the minimal amount of money that you have to spend in order to get free shipping.
We are setting our budget for 2022 this week. It will be as bare bones as we can get without cutting things that we enjoy like cable TV.
We will be spending on things that help us stay in our home that we love like landscaping and maintenance services. They are a necessity.
We rarely eat out but when we do, we support a family owned business. The food is better than the run of the mill big chains. In 2022, we will plan on eating out about every three months. Other than those occasions, all food will be cooked and eaten at home.
We plan on repairing as many things that we can ourselves before we call a repairman or buy new. We have stocked on a number of things that we might need to do that. You Tube is a great resource when you need to know how to repair something.
I will be planting a larger garden this spring so that we can cross some more of the things we buy off our list.
We are learning to make things that we have always purchased. Hubby is now making all of our salad dressings as the prepared ones run out. His latest is Italian Vinagrette which is delicious.
We will be making the little bit of bread and rolls that we do eat. Desserts, with the exception of some ice cream when the grandchildren visit, will be made here at home.
Our one main goal in 2022 is to become as self reliant as possible. Things are not going to get better in this country anytime soon and there is nothing we can do to control that. So we will work all year on the areas that we can control. When we had a period like this in the 1970’s, we survived by being very creative with everything we did. It actually was fun to do all the little things that helped us thrive and get through it.
Most importantly we will do all of this with gratitude in our hearts for the things that we do have and can do that makes our lives so much richer.
Have you thought about how you will cut expenses in 2022?
4 replies on “What We Will Be Doing To Save Money In 2022”
Hi Precious. I thought of something that I wanted to mention. Next year hubby and I will be married 40 years. Coincidentally, 2 of the younger men in his small office and their wives also share the same anniversary date. We are going to take them and their wives out to celebrate at one of our daughter’s company’s restaurants. It is not frugal, but I have been saving for it for several years by buying discounted gift cards when her company runs their sale at Christmas. So that part is frugal. We are hoping it will be a nice memory for all of us.
Hi Chris,
That is a wonderful idea! That was a great idea to collect the giftcards. I hope you a have a terrific time. We are taking friends out this month who have been very good to us since we moved here.
My life has changed so drastically in the last few months I could scream! But I won’t. First off, all un-necessary buying has been out on hold. It started with my slippers. Mine wore out and I needed new ones. Ain’t gonna happen. I pulled out the foam footprints from a previously discarded pair and put them into the newer yet jaded pair and voila…I have one workable pair of slippers. Next, no more haircuts. Hubby gives me a pixie buzz cuts. Some months I look decent. Other months I need to hide under the covers for two more weeks. Either way, I’m not paying. No more take out food, including McDonald’s. I do have $10 Dunkin Donut reward cards but now they have been raised to $25 minimums and it’s hard for me to come up with rewards that high. Breakfast is grits. Lunch is my home made soup and a sandwich. Dinners are becoming more vegan but we’re still holding steady with chicken and ground Turkey. Frozen fish now instead of fresh. More DIY around the house, property and barn. We laid off our landscaper. Needless to say the property looks scary but we don’t care. Nor do I care about how immaculate my home is anymore. I have a bad back and DH is helping as best he could (he does the laundry, floor mopping and toilet cleaning) I keep my home now as best as I can. I have a vegetable garden now and one lonely peach tree. She needs friends this summer!
All travel has been cancelled. We’re going nowhere. I cancelled all our RV reservations and got refunds. We needed that money back. WE’ll book as we need when needed in stead of advance. We’ll also be staying at state and national parks. No more KOAs. Boo hoo.
We put in a pellet stove, at a tremendous cost, for cash. We’ll see a profit in a year as we cut down on propane usage. DH and I both needed eyeglasses. We got our exams for free put paid $453 for 3 pairs of glasses. Ouch! I no longer take lots of baths over the week. I’m limited to just one which I take on the weekend. We do navy showers now. I shop a plethora of loss leader sales now. My stockpile is good for 1 year now. I stopped buying all new clothes but I noted hubby doesn’t have warm clothes so I will go to Job Lot and buy him a few closeouts for Xmas…like $10 hoodies, etc.
No more candy, snacks, chips unless its on a super super sale. i.e. Aldi was selling those tottito-like scooper ships for .49 cents a bag…I stocked up! Teamed it up with those .97 cent bottles of salsa Aldi also sells. Ole!
We stopped doing our pick up truck and use our smaller, fuel efficient vehicle instead. We buy gas far out of our town which is .30 cents cheaper! We cut our satellite, cable, antenna and bought a $29 ROKU. Best thing we ever bought. Tons of free, free, free things to watch and binge! Love it!
Once DH goes on Medicare in two months our income will drop $253 to cover his monthly insurance costs (automatically deducted out of his social security check) This means we will have to start withdrawing out of our monthly interest payments to cover the deficit. DH starts yet another job tomorrow at age 65. Who would have ever thought this could happen to us? The first job last 3 days. He thought the lifting was way too heavy than they advertised and caused undue pressure on his heart. Not worth it. Hope this next job will be easier on him. Literally. He’s only working 2-3 days per week. That’s it!
No Christmas presents this year for anybody! We put up our fake tree and lights but only had them on once. The 2nd time will be Xmas day. Then the tree comes down. A waste IMHO.
Because DH now will get SS for a full year, that increases our income so that we no longer qualify for property tax reduction for those 65 and over. Bummer.
I budget like crazy. I know how much we can spend each month and then I tell DH to stop buying. He doesn’t like this but we have no choice. We have to wait till the next month to make a purchase.
And yet, somehow, someway, DH and I are making all of it work in our favor. We should pat each other on the back. I feel we’re doing a good job regardless and we’re both pitching in and recognizing the seriousness of it all. Thanks for letting me share AND vent.
Wow Cindi! There is some great cost cutting ideas here. Thanks for sharing with all of us.
That is a real bummer on the taxes!
You should congratulate yourselves on doing such a great job!