For the Newbies and to Remind My Oldies

I have picked up some new readers over the past few days. Most of you know me and know why I take the time to do these posts so often.

For those who don’t, I started blogging in 2006 when we lived in Arizona. Back then my blog was “Frugal Makes Cents” via Google. I had that for a number of years until I had someone trolling me. When it got dangerous, I ended that blog. When we moved here, I started this one. I now own this one. Google doesn’t. It is safe and secure thanks to my oldest son keeping it that way. He is also an admin here.

I started it to try to help people who were struggling financially. I saw so many young and older people struggling to own a home or keep a home(especially during the 2008 housing crisis) and get rid of credit card debt, etc.

Everyone knew that you could cut your large expenses like insurances and cable TV. But there were only so many large expenses. We still compare our insurance policies every year and try to cut other large expenses.

But many people thought that cutting the little expenses didn’t help. What I have tried to show them is that the little expenses really add up over a year’s time. Since our current crisis of rampant inflation, cutting all expenses has become more important than ever.

One of the largest expenses we have these days is buying groceries. It seems like every week the prices go up. For years, I have cut my grocery costs by buying food at loss leader prices especially meat. Then we make our meals from those items. When I met some Mormons in Arizona, they taught me about stockpiling. They usually keep 1-2 year’s worth of groceries. I always bought an extra item every week but not to the extent I do now. Stockpiling has saved us so much money over the last 5 years. When people are paying top dollar today for items, I paid much less money for mine in my stockpile. Being a canner, I know that most items do not expire by the sell by date. Even the government will tell you that on their websites. So we alternate what we use. The oldest products are in the front of my shelves with the newest in the back. I rotate every thing. I also try to buy items at rock bottom prices by using a price book. That way I know when something is at a rock bottom price. With Thanksgiving and Christmas sales coming up, I am getting excited because this is time of the year when so many things are on sale at those prices. I stock on many things that will never be cheaper. We love turkey so I buy as many as I can get in the freezer.. If I run out of freezer space, I will cook the turkey and then can it. We love chicken but you can replace chicken in almost every recipe with turkey.

Our utility bills have skyrocketed and I see no end in site for those costs to come down instead of up. Between the utilities replacing infrastructure and all the chip companies popping up, costs will continue to rise. It’s all a function of supply and demand. So we need to do what we can to cut our usage as much as we can.

We have now been retired over 24 years. Inflation has really done a job on our retirement funds since 2001. I see so many elderly living in poverty on just Social Security these days. So I do this blog for them too or anyone who needs help. If we didn’t continue to save every month. we would be in a much worse position. But we have saved and invested over those years so that we are fine. Our medical costs have skyrocketed as we age and we need to hire help to do a lot of things around here so that we can maintain and stay in the home we love. Those costs are very expensive.

Some of my posts may seem a little harsh but I do those to wake people up who need it. It is never aimed at any one person.

The bottom line is that I do these posts to help people. If I can help just one person, I have done my job.

I hope you are all having a money saving day today!