Author: American Dreamer

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Every Day

When Your Meal is a Dud!

For dinner last night I put a large piece of chuck roast from the meat market in the crockpot. As the day wore on and the pot roast defrosted I took the meat out and cut it into chunks and put it back in the pot. That was not a good idea.

When we started dishing it up for dinner, most of the pot roast had shredded. Hubby likes a good chunk of meat in his stew not shreds. He ate some but asked what I could do to fix it for tonight.

Since he likes beef barley soup, I decided I would try to turn the stew into soup. There was more than enough meat, it was just shredded like you see in the picture above. I took all of Hubby’s potatoes out and will fry them one morning for breakfast for him.

Then I cut up the large chunks of celery that were in the pot and made sure there was enough carrots. I added water and some beef bouillon cubes. 

Next, I opened my large can of pearled barley from
Honeyville  and added some. We will let it cook on low. Then just before I serve it, I will add some canned veggies if needed.

In this home, I don’t waste food. So I will try to rescue a bad meal every time and turn it into something else. I will post a picture later of the finished soup. 

Honeyville cans of food are wonderful to keep in long or short term. I believe this can of barley was purchased over 3 years ago. It will get used up this winter for lots of soups. If I hadn’t opened it, it would last 10-15 years.


I also purchase some dehydrated celery, carrots, and onions from them for winter soups. They are so nice to keep on hand for when you need them.

Do you try to rescue meals that don’t turn out the way you want them to? Or do you throw them out?

This is what it has been doing here today. It has stopped snowing but the wind is brutal. I had to go out and get some pretty plates for my dessert that I am taking to the Christmas party. I filled up the car with gas using $.60 off a gallon that I earned at Top’s. So I paid $ 1.999 for 358 miles of gasoline. The wind was so bad that I had a hard time staying on my feet. 

Here is the finished beef barley soup and it was delicious. Half is going in the freezer for future meals and we will eat half tonight and the next couple of days.

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Every Day

Frugal Things We Have Done The Past Couple of Weeks

These are the things that we have done the past couple of weeks to save some money:

– I baked two loaves of homemade pumpkin bread. One is for a hostess gift for a Christmas party that we are going to. One is for this Sunday’s breakfast when my son and grandson visit. Both have been frozen until I need them.

– I made and froze in portions a pan of lasagna so that Hubby doesn’t feel the need to go out and eat while I am in Disney World. I put them in food saver bags that he can steam or microwave. I ended up with 5 in the upstairs freezer and 5 I am putting in the basement freezer after I take this picture.


– We have been turning off all appliances when they are not in use to save on the electricity bill. I turn the gas stove top off a few minutes early when I am using it. The residual heat on my gas burners lets me finish what I am cooking. I do the same when I am using the gas oven or the electric toaster oven. We use the toaster oven more frequently than the big oven to save on energy. 


– The only lights we use are at night, when it is dreary, or when I am taking a picture for this blog. We turn them off when we leave a room.


– I continue to take navy showers to save on gas and water. I capture the water in a bucket while the shower is warming up. It can be used to wash a floor or flush the toilet a couple of times or in the nice weather it can water plants outside. My water saving is what I learned to do in Arizona because water was precious there.

– I continue to take two books a week out of the library and read them weekly. I no longer purchase books unless it is a book that I will read over and over again. 

– I am sticking to my $ 75. a week budget for food, etc. It is working well.

– My son who was here over Thanksgiving changed our outlook from his server, that is on it’s last leg, to the cloud. He also installed a new router for us. Ours was not working well. Then he fixed some problems that I was having with my computer and cleaned up some things for me. My e-mail is working great now. He didn’t charge me a dime not even for the new router. Thanks to him for all his hard work and generosity. Both of my sons are very generous with their time and money.

– I developed a problem with my wireless PC constantly disconnecting from the network that our family is on. I couldn’t leave my computer for a moment without it disconnecting. It was very annoying to have to reconnect manually all of the time. Both of my son’s figured it was a hardware problem with my computer. Since I don’t want to purchase a brand new computer anytime soon since this one is only three years old, my younger son fixed the problem last Sunday. He installed a new Wifi adapter, no charge to us. Thanks to him for fixing this. I stay connected whenever I am on the computer now.


– I have been doing 2 loads of laundry a week. I use the HE to wash and I hang them to dry. 

– I have a 10 oz. bag of shrimp that I am thawing in the fridge for tonight’s dinner. We will have shrimp cocktails and big salads. Easy dinner!

– I deposited $ 46.34 in rebate checks via my mobile app. This saves me the gasoline to go to the bank.

– I mailed $14. in wine and liquor rebates last week.

– I had an expiring heavy cream in the fridge. I put it in my Vitamix and made whipped cream.


– We had leftover scrambled eggs from breakfast last Sunday so I made a couple of wraps with the eggs, bacon, and cheese and froze them. They will make a quick breakfast on errand day.


– Entertainment this week has been Arizona Monopoly, football, and You Tube Videos. I am watching decluttering videos right now so that I can get motivated to declutter our Christmas decorations. We don’t need all that we have anymore. 


What have you done frugally the last week or so? Please share with all of us.

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Every Day

Lasagna For The Freezer

I am making a big pan of lasagna to freeze in portions for Hubby. The first thing I did was get out the huge foil pan to bake it in and all of the ingredients.

OOPS! I forgot one ingredient. 

I sprayed the big foil pan on the sides and bottom with oil. Then I put down a layer of lasagna noodles which I smothered in spaghetti sauce. I never boil my noodles in advance. Cooking the lasagna in the oven for an hour cooks them perfectly.

Next I cooked up the ground beef and Italian sausage. I layered some of the cooked meat on top of the noodles. Then I layered some pepperoni. Next was a layer of fresh mozzarella, parmesan cheese, and some Italian seasoning. 

Then I layered the cottage cheese. I use that instead of ricotta because Hubby doesn’t like ricotta. I spread all with a layer of spaghetti sauce and Italian seasoning. Then I sprinkled a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese. Then I started another layer of noodles again and layered everything else again. After I put the spaghetti sauce on top, I put another layer of noodles and some sauce and a good sprinkling of mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.

Next I covered it with foil and put it in the refrigerator until 15 minutes before I was going to bake it. I baked it covered all but the last 10 minutes at 350 degrees for 1 hour. The last 10 minutes I wanted the cheese on top to crisp up a little. When it cools, I will freeze it in portion sizes so that Hubby can pull one out the night before he eats it. All he will have to do is put it in the microwave on his dinner plate until it it hot. 

Now doesn’t that look good? So good that Hubby wanted a large piece for dinner. I cheated on my diet and had a very small sliver along with a huge green salad. It was so delicious! Just waiting for it to cool so I can food saver it in portions.

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Every Day

Preparing For Freezer Cooking

I will be going to Disney World the beginning of January. The closer it gets the more excited I get.

Hubby is not going so I know I have to prepare some easy meals for him. If I don’t he will go out and buy junk or eat snacks. He is not fussy about eating the same thing over and over again for days. So I have decided to make a lot of two different meals that he can pull out of the freezer and just nuke in the microwave.

I decided to make a large pan of lasagna because he loves my lasagna. And I will also cook some chicken so that he can just cut it up on salads. I will also make a chicken dish that he can throw frozen into the crock pot and cook all day. He loves salad and applesauce so he can do those for sides. There is always fruit and cut up veggies in the fridge for him to snack on. He will also have tortilla chips and salsa for snacks.  

I had no ground beef in my freezers. So I have been looking for a decent price to buy some. In yesterday’s flyer, Top’s advertised their 80/20 ground beef meal deal. You buy a 4-5 lb. package of the beef and you get 9 named items free. Now I know that the ground beef will not be a great price for this deal. And I rarely buy these deals because of that and the fact that the free items are things we don’t normally buy. 

So I set out to investigate whether this was a good deal or not. I called my Top’s meat department and asked what the price per lb. was that they were charging for the meat. They told me $ 3.99 per lb. Then I looked on Wegman’s website to see what they are charging for their 80-20 ground beef. I had already noticed that Walmart’s was $ 4.99 a lb. when I shopped there yesterday. Wegman’s was $ 2.29 a lb.
I estimated that a package would be 5lbs. So at Wegman’s that would cost me $ 11.45. The meat at Top’s would cost me $ 19.95. That is a difference of $ 8.50.

However Top’s was giving me 9 items free with my purchase that they estimated would be $14.00 if bought separately. I looked at the list and we could use all 9. If I used coupons with a sale price on those 9 items I estimated that on sale, I could buy those items for $ 10.95. So I am paying $ 8.50 more for the beef at Top’s but I am getting $ 10.95 in usable product. That is only a $ 2.45 gain. 

But Top’s is less than 7 miles round trip from my house and Wegman’s is 26 miles away round trip. With gas topping off at $ 2.60 a gallon, this was a no brainer. I also asked myself if there were other necessary errands that I could run down near Wegman’s. I could go to the bank and deposit six checks that I have sitting here. But I could deposit those checks via my mobile phone. So I opted to get the Top’s deal. This is the kind of thinking I do on anything I buy to make sure that I am getting the best deal.

I bought a 4.63 lb. of ground beef ($18.47), a dozen eggs for $.69 with a store Q, one family size bag of tortillas chips ($4.49), 2 large containers of cottage cheese ($2.79 each). The 9 free items were Italian bakery bread, Fresh Express lettuce shreds, a jar of spaghetti sauce, a bag of Mexican cheese, a can of chili beans, a can of diced tomatoes, a bag of taco wraps, 1 lb. of thin spaghetti, and a package of chili seasoning. My total grocery bill was $29.23. That leaves me $18.39 through December 9th to spend. I am done with the big shops for the week because we have snow in the forecast from tomorrow through Sunday. If we need something desperately like milk, I will send Hubby to the gas station which is close.

I came home and used my scale to measure out the meat into 8 oz. portions because that is what Hubby and I eat at a meal. I will use 16 oz. in the lasagna along with a lb. of Italian sausage that I am thawing from my freezer. To my surprise when I measured it, I got a full 5 lbs. of meat not the 4.63 lbs. that I paid for. So I will be using the 1 lb. tomorrow when I make the lasagna. Seven of the bags I put in the freezer. One I kept out for dinner. Hubby can pull one out if he wants hamburgers while I am away. I did not food saver the bags of meat because it will get used up over the next few months and Ziplocs are cheaper than food saver bags.

Tomorrow, I will make and bake the lasagna. When it cools, I will freeze it in individual portions for Hubby’s lunches and dinners.  I will post this meal with recipe when I make it. 

Tonight we will have taco salad using 8 oz. of the beef cooked with taco seasoning, the lettuce shreds, onions, fresh tomatoes, black olives, taco sauce, hot sauce and Mexican cheese. Hubby will have tortilla chips with his. I just eat it like a salad.

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Every Day

Keeping the Groceries Under Budget

This morning I went to Super Walmart at 7AM to avoid the Saturday crowds. It was rather pleasant to shop with hardly anyone in the store.

We needed ingredients to make a dessert to take to a  Christmas party. I am making this Double Chocolate Mocha Trifle. I had planned on making this 
Peppermint Brownie Trifle. However I could not find the cream cheese pudding mix so I decided to do the other one that I had chosen. Hubby liked that recipe better anyhow.

So for the recipe I purchased:

Brownie Mix – $ 1.28
Heath Toffee Bits – $ 2.38
2 boxes of White Chocolate Pudding – $.98 each
Milk – $ 1.60
Instant Coffee – $1.00

I had all of the other ingredients. 

Yesterday, Hubby was looking for a fresh tube of toothpaste. Do you think we had any? Nope, my stash is gone. Knowing that we only have a little left in a sample tube, I purchased two of the Crest Cinnamon. They were $ 2.97 each. I will be looking for a good sale to stockpile some but these will hold us until I do. 

Hubby still eats a little snack once in a while and some carbs. The only carbs that I eat are in my food that I eat at meals…mainly veggies and meat.  So he asked for tortillas for his lunch wraps. They were $2.14 for a 10 ct. package. The chips will last him for a long time. They were $ 3.98 for the family size. He also drinks Crystal Light Peach Iced Tea. I purchased 2 containers for $ 2.48 each. I spotted a Great Value  SF Peach Iced Tea so I bought him one to try. If he likes that I will buy it from now on because it is cheaper than the Crystal Light. It cost $ 1.98. 

Lastly, I needed eggs to make some baked goods for gifts. I did not want to spend $ 4.98 for organic eggs for that purpose. So I purchased a regular large dozen for $ 1.28. 

I had $ 75.00 set aside in my grocery budget for Dec 1st through the 9th.  I used a $ 1.60 E-Cert GC from the Walmart Savings Catcher program to help defray the cost today. So I paid $ 27.38 for everything. That leaves me $ 47.62 left to spend through December 9th. 

I had ground chuck on my list but it was $ 4.99 a lb. at Walmart. I won’t pay that price unless I get it at my meat market. I will check the ads tomorrow to see if it is on sale anywhere this coming week. If not I will get it at the meat market when I have other errands to run up that way.

My monthly budget now is $ 300. a month for groceries, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, napkins, HBA and Ziplocs or other wraps. Since I divide the $ 300. into 4 week sections of $75.00 a week, it works well for us. I add the few days at the front of the month to the next week and the same thing works for the end of the month.  I like having a smaller amount to work with when I shop. It makes me be wiser with our money and I really think about what I am buying. I ask myself: Do I really need it? Can I substitute something else? Where can I buy it the cheapest? Is it worth my gasoline to run around to a few stores if the price difference is only pennies? 

I also rarely use coupons anymore. Most of the things we buy don’t really have any. I shop mostly at Walmart and Aldi and they have great prices so it is not worth spending a lot of time cutting coupons. If they are at my fingertips on the computer and I can print them quickly then I do. If I have to spend a lot of time searching for one, it isn’t worth my time. Have you changed the way you shop since coupons aren’t as good anymore? Have you changed your budget like I have recently? 

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Every Day

Keeping the Costs Low

Oh, the dilemma again over sending Christmas cards. Every year I try to knock down the number that I send out. I keep it down to family and really close friends. If I send a card to a family member 10 years in a row and I don’t get a response, then I feel that they don’t want contact and I take them off my list. I don’t send cards to anyone who I will see over the holiday season.

I would actually like to send e-mails instead but I don’t have most people’s e-mail address or they don’t use email. I know that is hard to believe but not in my generation.

So I sat down this morning and wrote them out. I ended up with 27 cards that are already in the mailbox. 

A few years ago, I caught a great after Christmas deal of $1.00 per box for very nice Christmas cards. So I purchased 10 assorted boxes. I am still using them so they were purchased and paid for long ago. The only other costs were my time and stamps. I am still working on forever stamps that I purchased before the last price increase. So they cost me $ .47 each instead of the $.49 they are today. Also when I purchase my stamps, I buy them in bulk at BJ’s and get a small discount. So mailing these 27 cards cost me less than $12.69 plus about $1.50 for the cards. So it is not an extreme expense.

A few things that I have been doing around here is cashing in 10 Coke code caps for $5.00 Amazon gift cards. I didn’t know that they were running this deal until my sister mentioned it. Fortunately, I still had some caps from Hubby drinking it.

All of my Christmas shopping is done. I have one more package coming today and when that is wrapped, I am all done. One of the last purchases I made was a Black Friday deal that I did online on Thanksgiving. Our Keurig is still running however I am afraid that it is on it’s last leg. It makes terrible noises. So when I found a Keurig on sale for $ 59.99 that included 40 K-cups and a bonus in the coffeepot box of 4 more plus  some iced tea ones, I jumped on it. I defrayed the cost of this by paying with some Amazon credit card points. I had been keeping my eye out for a deal like this since I did not want to wake up one morning and not be able to make coffee. I know that a Keurig is a luxury but it is one of the luxuries that we are willing to pay for but not at full price. We only drink one cup of coffee in the morning so it works perfectly for us. 

The only grocery deal I purchased this week was yesterday. Top’s had large roasting chickens on sale for $ .77 a lb. That is a really low price for my area so I purchased two for the freezer. One day when I am feeling better, I will take them out and roast them so that we will have lots of chicken already prepared. I will then freeze it until it is needed.


Not much else going on around here. We are just trying to stay warm. Anything new frugally with any of you?  

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Every Day

Inexpensive Turkey Soup and Other Topics

Turkey is one of the least expensive meats you can buy especially around Thanksgiving. I have one extra turkey in the freezer and I am keeping my eye on prices to see if any grocery clearances them. If I go by a grocery store, I stop and run in to see what they are doing with them. I suspect that Aldi will discount them but probably not until after Christmas.

That said, I paid $.99 a lb. for our Butterball 22 lb. turkey this year. It is our favorite brand and the breasts were huge. I have never gotten so much white meat off of a turkey. We got eight individual dinners and seven individual lunches out of the turkey and other leftovers. I also made eight quarts of turkey broth. I made a huge stockpot of turkey soup with some of it(pictured). The rest is in the freezer to use throughout the year. The soup has already fed Hubby and I two dinners and will probably feed us two more. We are definitely getting our money’s worth. Are any of you making soup?

I wanted to let you know that I finished my physical therapy today and I will be doing therapy at home using exercises they trained me to do. I have some of my answers but not all. I had 3 more tests yesterday and today. I am feeling much better but not 100% yet. 

We have started to think about income and expenses for 2018. We are setting the budget for the items that are not set in stone. You know the ones that fluctuate from month to month like groceries, entertainment, restaurant food, etc.

Our budget for food has changed because of the food that we are eating. We are on the Keto diet which consists of meat, chicken, fish, and lots of dark green veggies like kale, swiss chard, spinach, broccoli, etc. We try to buy organic produce when it is important. We are finishing the meat in the freezer and only buying grass fed when we make a purchase. We buy organic eggs from chickens that have been grass fed. We are using butter, olive oil, coconut oil and avocado oil to cook with and for salad dressings. We eat cheese and other fats like bacon. This isn’t everything that we consume but most of it. We started this diet about 7 weeks ago and I have lost 15 lbs. and Hubby has lost 10. We never snack between meals. Of course we cheated a bit over Thanksgiving because we hosted company. When the soup is gone, we will be eating all Keto again. It is an easy diet and we are never hungry because of the fats. 

So when we get done setting the budget I will let you know the budget amounts for food, personal care, HBA etc. which will all be included in the total amount. Then I will let you know what the other categories are for things not set in stone every month.

I realize that you are probably all busy shopping and getting ready for Christmas. But this month you should be setting your budget for 2018. The other thing that is important is to estimate your taxes for 2017 and decide if you should do some tax harvesting of stocks to lower your taxes for the year.
We are working on both. 

Talk with you again soon.

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Every Day

I Hope You All Had a Happy Thanksgiving and The Future of This Blog

I hope all of you had a nice day yesterday and that you are enjoying family and friends. We had a wonderful one celebrated here with family. We are still enjoying their company.

So while my son is doing his college homework and my granddaughter is busy writing stories, I thought I would update you on what is going on here and the future of this blog. 

I have been dealing with a medical issue that is taking up a lot of my time between tests, appointments and lots of research. For example this week coming I am tied up 2 days with three tests and other days in physical therapy. I am not enjoying any of it but it is all necessary. I hope to have answers soon and then know what I am dealing with. It has been a long process.

With that said, now the issue of this blog. Since I started this one my health made it almost impossible to think about anything but it. So I couldn’t put the kind of time in that I wanted to. As one long time reader said to me “I liked your other blogs better!” She was very blunt but so right!  My heart just was not in it.

So I will be keeping this blog but it will be about all frugal things and more like my old blogs. I plan on starting off 2018 with my plans for the New Year which I will publish sometime in December. My plans and budget will be about those things that are not monthly bills set in stone but those that I can work on and reduce. It will be a journey of saving and reducing spending. We have lofty goals for next year which will require reducing what goes out of our bank accounts. Of course 2018 will start off with my Disney trip which is in no way frugal. However airline tickets, my hopper pass, and scooter have long ago been paid for. The only expense will be food, drink and any gifts that I may buy. However, I have been saving all year to have money towards those items and have accumulated $1000. So none of my Disney expenses will come out of our 2018 income. 

So I am looking forward to getting back to blogging soon. And I hope you all will come along for the ride.  

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Every Day

Missing in Action Again

I have had a number of inquiries about why I haven’t been posting. I just wanted to let you all know that I am dealing with a medical issue that needs my full attention right now. I promise to be back posting when I can.

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Every Day

Freezer Cooking Day

A while ago a friend gave me a freezer cooking recipe. It has lingered in my stash of recipes for a long time. Even though I had a very busy day, I decided I was making it at dinnertime. The only thing I was dreading was cooking up a lb. of bacon. I had cooked an extra lb. this past weekend specifically for this recipe but Hubby saw it in the fridge and had been eating it. When I went to check earlier today that I had everything for this meal, I found that out.

So I took a package out of the freezer and thawed it out. While that was happening, I was out at appointments, stopping for milk and bringing my 3 books back to the library that I read. I picked up one that was in that I had a hold on and 2 more.

So late this afternoon, I cooked and cooled the bacon. Just before dinner, I crumbled the bacon into 1 cup portions(2 of them). 

Then I added 1 cup of Italian bread crumbs to each of two paper plates, added the 1 cup of bacon to each, and added 1 Tbsp. of minced onion to each. You can skip the onion if you don’t like it or add more if you want more. Then I mixed these three ingredients all together on each plate. 

Next I measured out 1 cup of ranch dressing into 2 different bowls. Lastly I washed chicken tenderloins before I used them. 

Then I dipped each tenderloin into the ranch dressing for each dish. Then into the breadcrumb, bacon, and onion mixture.

Here is the meal that I made to freeze. 

I wrapped this pan of Breaded Chicken Bacon Ranch in foil, labeled it and added directions. I didn’t date it because we will cook it the beginning of November. If I was going to keep it for any length of time I would label it. Don’t buy special labels; just use anything you have hanging around which I did.

Here is the dish that I baked for dinner tonight at 375 for 30 minutes and it was perfect. 

It was so delicious that Hubby was thrilled that we had leftovers for tomorrow night. This recipe is definitely a keeper. It goes together easily if you have the bacon cooked ahead of time. The next time you cook bacon, cook an extra pound like I did. But then put it in a freezer bag and freeze it. That way Hubby or anyone else who lives with you won’t eat it before you get a chance to use it. Just pull the cooked bacon out when you pull your meal out to thaw.

I really hated the thoughts of cooking another pound. So when I was in the market picking up the milk, I priced those packages of ready cooked bacon which I have never used. I almost choked. I would need 2 pkgs. and they were $ 5.79 each. No way was I paying that for the bacon. So I bit the bullet and cooked another pound.

I am going to try this recipe next time with chicken breasts that I have cut in two lengthwise. I think they would cook in about the same amount of time.