Author: Precious

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Every Day

I Have A New Schedule And Some Cost Cutting

As I age I do not have the energy I used to have when I was young. Lately it is getting harder and harder to get things done. So starting today, I have put myself on a new schedule. I will spend one hour a day cleaning or organizing and one hour a day cutting costs. This does not include doing dishes or laundry. If I have more stamina on a particular day, I will up that to two hours. When I have appointments or errands to run, I will limit that to two and a half hours one day a week. Meals will only take 30 minutes per day hands on time. Laundry will be done once a week.

Hubby got up with Eloise at 2:30am this morning and I was able to sleep until 6:30am which gave me 8 hours. What a difference when I can get good sleep.

After making my coffee, I immediately started making my homemade fajita mix. I used my last two packets when I made a double meal of fajitas on Saturday night. I have made homemade before and will make it permanently from now on. It is so much cheaper than buying the packets. I had all the spices I needed to do it. Most of my spices I buy at Aldi’s, Walmart, or B/J.s. They have the cheapest prices for me. I used this recipe: https://therecipecritic.com/fajita-seasoning/ . I made 6 times this recipe. I skipped the sugar in my seasoning. I filled my spice jar and put the rest in storage for the next time it needs to be filled. When I use it, if it is too thin, I will use a little arrowroot powder to thicken it.

I made my brunch and dinner plans for today. I took two containers of homemade turkey soup out of the freezer to thaw for brunch. Dinner will be an egg roll each and 1/2 of this Tai Pei Spicy General Tso’s chicken for each of us. If I decide that it is not enough food for us, I will make some scrambled eggs too. I am trying to use up any meals in the freezer whether they be homemade or store bought convenience foods.

This morning as I checked my e-mails, I got reminded by my electric and gas company that they will read our meters on 2/18/2026. Oh I can’t wait to see how much they charge me for the data centers this month to help the billionaires. BTW, I found out that 25% of the delivery charges on my bill in NYS goes to the state to help pay for HEAP and EAP for low income people. They should actually show what it pays for instead of trying to bury it in the delivery charges. You should all find out if your state does this too.

I have all of our blankets and sheets in the washer and dryer right now. I did not have enough energy to do them yesterday. Hubby is going to flip and turn our mattresses in a bit and then the beds will get made when all of the bedding is dry.

Only winter clothes that fit me are in my closet now after putting the spring and outgrown clothes in a separate closet. Medical supplies that I keep in shoe boxes on the shelves have been sorted and put in by date to use the oldest first.

I dropped my hairbrush today on the tile floor in our master bath and it broke in two. A replacement like it is hard to find. So Hubby has super glued the handle. We will let it set overnight and then see how long it lasts.

The beds are now all put together. I will start dinner around 4-4:30pm. My sister will be calling me tonight. So that’s it for today.

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Every Day

Saving Money Wherever We Can

The soda cans have been piling up in our garage all winter. I was tempted to put them in the recyclable can this week. It has been so cold that neither of us has been wanting to return them for the deposits. But I decided I was not going to throw that money down the drain. So I took 7 bags to Top’s when I went there and got a slip to redeem for $9.70. I was going to cash it in when I purchased the groceries. But I got chatting with the cashier and forgot. So the next time I go shopping which won’t be soon, I will return the rest of the bottles and use both deposit slips for groceries.

The Top’s and the Aldi’s ads for next week came with my mail yesterday. I quickly determined that they were unremarkable for sales. So there will be no shopping next week.

I picked up 2 prescriptions for a total of $ 4.47 at Walmart. While I was there I perused the store for markdowns. The only thing I got that was worth spending my money on was a package of 8 small sub rolls marked down to $1.28. They were expiring that day so I froze them in packs of 2 for future meals. We can use them to make brunch or dinner with our “deli meat” that we slice on our meat slicer.

Hubby did not feel well the night we were going to dinner at the Big Ditch Brewery so we went Wednesday night instead. There was no cost cutting there but it was our Valentine’s gift to each other. We even brought home a slice of turtle pie and a slice of strawberry cheesecake to share that they made special for Valentine’s dinners this week. We spent $100. including a $21. tip but it was worth every penny because we had a great leisurely dinner, a couple of beers, and good conversation.

My son and West will not be coming out today because West is ill and my son would never bring him near us for fear we would catch it. So instead of the large breakfast I usually cook when they come we are eating granola cereal to use up an open bag. Perhaps we will have some apple pieces with it. This will be a cheap brunch that is from our stockpile. Lately we have been eating scrambled eggs and a canned ham from our stockpile that needed to be used up because it was expiring. I just fry up slices of the ham. It reminds me of when we were first married and broke and ate a lot of canned ham because it was cheap. It is a good stockpile item because it lasts for a very long time.

When I was cleaning and organizing our vanity cupboards and drawers in the master bath, I found 4 bottles of foundation with just a bit in each so they will get used up this week and next. I only put on makeup when I am going out.

I also have a huge bag of books to donate to our library so that will get done this coming week also.

I have been so tired lately that Hubby did a load of wash. He asked me to tell him what settings I use. So he has learned that I mostly use cold water, minimal detergent, and the Eco setting. He did use the Eco setting to dry it also. He even folded it and put it away. I was able to take a nap while he was doing it. I was very grateful. Today if I feel up to it, I will change our sheets on our beds and wash all of the bedding.

Dinner one night was NY strip steaks, baked potatoes, and salad. Another night we had homemade pizza slices that I froze last time I made it. Last night I made fajitas with chicken, multi colored peppers, onions, seasoning, and low carb wraps. We have plenty for another dinner tonight.

All receipts have been scanned into Fetch including our restaurant meal.

How have you been pinching pennies the last few days? Please share.

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Every Day

Frugal Things The Past Few Days

Let me start off by telling you that we had extra income in the month of January of $1160. I was thrilled because I was going to put it towards the $3000. that we thought we were going to have to spend from our emergency fund. However, it turned out that what broke was under warranty so I got it replaced for free because of that. I just had a nominal charge of $99. I was very relieved! That additional income has now been put into investments.

I have been trying to catch up laundry lately. My back has been giving me issues so I had three loads that needed to be done. Because I am organizing and cleaning the house, there has been extra things to wash like blankets, a shower curtain(guest bathroom), and various throw rugs besides the weekly sheets and our clothing. I washed it all on the Eco wash using cold water. But I used our dryer for most of it because it is too hard to hang to dry. I did use the Eco cycle with my wool balls. Only the clothing got hung to dry.

Two rebates totaling $20. were mailed. I have also been scanning receipts into Fetch. I bought some household cleaners online from Walmart that gave me $6.00 in cash back.

Hubby paid the company who does our lawn fertilizing for this coming season early. He did that because they gave us 3% off the total cost.

Our alarm monitoring company also offered us 3% off if we paid the bill 1 year in advance so Hubby paid that also.

Hubby and West drink Zero Sugar Fanta Orange soda. I have now gotten ten 12 packs for about $4.16 each on a B2G3 sale. That should last them quite a while.

I got another dozen of Xtra large eggs at Niagara Produce for $.99 yesterday on the way home from an appointment. This is the last week of the sale. I just wanted to make sure that my 5 dozen container of eggs was full. They also have had butter on sale for $ 2.99. I had bought all of our butter for the year at Thanksgiving time for $ 3.49 each. But I am replacing what I am using up at this new low price. So each time I go there I will pick up one pound.

I have our two extra bedrooms heat registers closed and the doors shut. There is a cloth snake in front of each door. There are also two other snakes in front of our two basement doors. A large rolled up towel is in front of our main door into the house. We have only been using the garage door to leave the house. With this cold weather and the wind chills at -30 here last Saturday, we have not been going out except when we have appointments and can run errands at the same time.

We have been making meals at home. Brunch has been salmon, bacon, ham, or sausage with scrambled eggs. Dinner has been egg rolls, chicken pattie sandwiches, hamburgers, Chef’s salads, rib eye pork chops, and soup. When I am busy organizing and cleaning, I do easy meals. The homemade soup is in portions in the freezer so it is easy to just thaw and microwave. However this week or next(when it warms up outside), we will be going out to the brewery for a meal. We have not been there since my son was visiting at Thanksgiving and we love their food and beer.

We filled up our car with gasoline using Top’s points that gave us $.30 off per gallon. The car was almost empty and I don’t like it when that happens in the winter.

I did our Federal and State taxes early this year and received a nice refund from the Feds because of the extra $12,000. deduction for seniors. That gave us back about $1,000. more than we would have gotten.

What frugal things have you been doing? Please share with all of us.

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Every Day

Be Very Careful If You or Someone You Know is Relying on Credit

Disclaimer: You know I hate outstanding credit. I have spoken about it many times. However today I will talk about something that you should know.

The banks and credit unions have been cutting way back on lending due to the economy. Too many people are filing for bankruptcy. Too many people are only paying the minimum balances. Interest rates on credit cards have skyrocketed. The banks have been limiting the amount you can borrow on your cards and in some cases they have cut the cards off entirely. The days of no interest for so many months is just about non-existent.

I see all over You Tube and elswehere online that people are buying their food with these cards. Why are they not using the food banks if money is so tight that they can’t buy food? I am even seeing people buy food with Buy Now Pay Later or taking a Payday loan. They are the worst loans ever. It is almost umpossible to get out from under them.

Do I like the fact that these people have put themselves in this position? No, I don’t but neither do I want to see their families starve! Parents are just eating one meal a day so that they can feed their children.

Credit cards became too easy to get and so many people have a wallet full of them. I can’t tell you how many times I have been at the grocery store and had someone in line in front of me have many cards declined. They just keep trying each card until one of them works or they have to leave without their food. If they are capable of working, why aren’t they getting a second part time job? I have paid for seniors who are in their 70’s and 80’s and have had this happen. I will pay if their bill is under $50. and they are buying basic food. I will not pay for junk. I have relatives who live on Social Security and I know how hard it is to do. It is a shame that so many seniors are in this position. Why are they in this position? I guess they didn’t save any money or they were in such a low paying job that they could only pay their basic expenses or they spent their money before they got it so lived on credit their entire lives so they were never able to get ahead. But I do not want them to go hungry.

It is a shame in this country that so many people are stealing their food(one of the many reasons food costs are going up) or going hungry. But it is not going to get any better any time soon. I have told you before that during the Carter administration when we had such high inflation that it took almost 10 years for the prices to come down and the prices never came down to what they were. I had small chidren when this happened. We lived on one income. Food was expensive. I made our $80. a month budget work to pay for food, toiletries, cleaning supplies and toilet paper. I bought all scratch food with the exception of baby food. I would buy a few jars but then my FIL started filling up a closet full of baby food for us. He owned a business up the road from us and he would stop on the way home with those gifts. I never asked him to but he would even come in if I wasn’t home(he had a key) and put the food away in the closet. Then I would come home and find more baby food. This is why I pay it forward even today. I would stretch meat in everything and do some meatless meals each week. Every penny was stretched on everything. I washed diapers and hung them to dry. I only purchased disposables to use when we went out and I purchased them cheap at a warehouse club called GEX. We were frugal from day one of our marriage. I always have paid cash for food unless I order online and that bill is paid when it comes each month.

So I think most people could afford their food if they just stuck to the basics and did everything they can to make it stretch. Don’t put food on credit cards. Buy what you can afford or go to the food banks. And then stretch that food farther than you ever thought it could stretch.

Sorry I’ve rambled but people need to know that their credit cards may get cut off. Then you will have a real emergency. The banks can’t keep losing money or they will go belly up. So start putting a few dollars away for that emergency.

Do what you can to stay afloat but stop using credit. Get yourself out of debt even if you can only pay a few extra dollars above the minimum each month. Remember every dollar counts! Don’t wait until the banks force you into having no credit. You will ruin your credit rating also and that will affect buying a home or even getting a car loan.

I know I am probably talking to the choir but I do have some new people on here that may need to hear this. Also feel free to link this blogpost to someone who may need a wakeup call on this.

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Every Day

A Little Of This And A Little Of That

This a small haul that I purchased at Top’s yesterday. I have been waiting for a sale on the Softsoap. I buy my liquid soap in bulk refill containers. But the Softsoap containers that I pour it into stop working after a while. Mine are at that point so I purchased these to replace them on sale at 8/$10. yesterday. I have 4 sinks in my home so the other 4 will go into my stockpile for the next time I need them. The mayonaise was $ 3.79 after using a $2.00 Top’s super coupon. Mayonaise is so expensive that I only buy it with a coupon. I also purchased B2G3F 12 packs of Zero Sugar Fanta Orange. I like to have this stocked but I left the 5 of them in the garage so they will get super cold out there. They cost $20.98 for all 5 which was $4.196 a 12 pack. At Walmart I would have paid $ 8.92 a 12 pack. So my bill before tax and bottle deposits was $34.77. They took 6% off for the Senior Discount which was $2.09. The total was then $ 32.68. Tax was $2.48(8%) on the soda and soap and the total bottle deposit was $ 3.00 ($.05 each) which I will get back when I return the cans. Food is not taxed in NY. So my actual total was $ 38.16. I am tracking all of the taxes I pay in NY this year along with every other penny. I am actually considering stopping at Top’s again tomorrow to get more soda because I have a doctor’s appointment one block from there. I don’t believe I will ever see soda this cheap again.

Today will be a laundry and reorganizing the kitchen day. Two loads will go in the washing machine using cold water and minimal soap( about 2 Tbsps.) for each load. One load will be put in the dryer with my wool balls and one load will be hung to dry. I just don’t have the space to hang 2 loads.

Brunch will be Chef’s salad and dinner will be take out Chinese. I was too tired last night to go get the take out so we had chicken and mac and cheese instead.

I wish it would warm up. We have so much salt and dirty snow on the garage floor that has fallen in chunks off the car. But it is too cold to work out there to remove it. I will squeege it out if it gets a little warmer. I also need to get the car washed but our roads are so slushy and dirty right now it would be senseless.

I am off to start my work for the day. I need to take some breaks in between so I am starting an important post about credit which I will write when I take the breaks. It will get posted sometime tommorow.

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Every Day

A Busy Day Yesterday

I had an appointment at 11:00am. On the way, I stopped at the P.O. to mail something that I had to send certified. After the appointment, I went to Trader Joe’s. We have had one in the area about 45 minutes from me. It was not worth it to me to drive that far to go there. Now we have a new one which is only 20 minutes away and was about half a mile down the road from my appointment. I used to shop at Trader Joe’s when we lived in AZ. I missed it. The store was packed but I was able to get a few things that I needed or wanted.

They had beautiful mini peppers($3.49) which were a need. We ate all of our peppers last month in stir fry. Hubby loves cinnamon raisin bread ($4.99) and I love their ciabata rolls( $1.99) because they are so soft.

I had not seen wild caught salmon this cheap and I had none left. This piece which will make me about 3 meals was $9.37. The BabyBels were $3.69 and are a great snack for me.

Lastly, Hubby loves chocolate chunk cookies so I got a bag of the chunks($3.99) to make them homemade for him. I also got him some dark chocolate covered raisins($6.99) and some dark chocolate mint creams($4.49) which are Valentine’s gifts. I had to hide the raisins quickly before I took my picture. If Hubby saw them, he would be into them. My total for all was $ 40.00. I was taxed at 8.75% on the dark chocolates because the tax in this town is high. This is what happens when we barely shopped last month. You want some goodies!

On the way home, I stopped at Niagara Produce and got 3 more dozen eggs because they were on sale again for $.99 a dozen. We eat a lot of eggs here. I used up 13 eggs on Sunday for my family.

I had planned on going to Walmart and Aldi’s but I was beat so I came home. Hubby had told me that if I was hungry when I was out to just stop and get some food. When I got home at 1:30pm, I realized that I had not eaten all day. So I made a turkey sandwich and that was a lot cheaper than eating out.

After lunch, I gathered all of my receipts to log them into our expenses in our budget and to scan them into Fetch. Then I just watched a few You Tube videos while I rested my back. My arthritis in my back is not good in this cold weather.

For dinner, Hubby wanted Chinese food from our favorite take out place. When I went to place the order, I realized they are not open on Monday. So we had soup instead. Tonight we will get Chinese food.

Monday nights I chat with my sister who lives almost on the PA border. She and my nephew were in a bad car accident on Saturday because my nephew lost control hitting some ice on a bridge. Fortunately, neither one of them was hurt. There was no other car involved. But their car is totaled. So they will be car shopping today. New cars are so expensive but they don’t trust used cars. I had every intention of posting this last night but I was just too tired at 8pm when I got off the phone and went directly to bed.

After much research, I finally figured out how to fix the photos this morning. So as you can see they are back. Thanks for your patience. It was so frustrating for me.

I will be going out today to Top’s( senior discount 6% off day). I only need a few things. The Fanta is on a great sale so I will be stocking on that. I also need to get a few things at Walmart that are cheaper than Top’s. I will be skipping Aldi’s because all I was going to do was get some dark chocolate and I got it at Trader Joe’s.

Brunch today will be eggs and cinnamon toast.

Have you gotten any great sale items this week?

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Every Day

Notice

I know I made a post yesterday because I checked it after I posted it. For some reason, it disappeared. UGH! I am not going to to try to recreate it.

I will be back later today with another one. I have an appointment and many errands to run first.

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Every Day

Cutting Costs

My son and grandson came for breakfast this morning. I momentarily thought about taking all of us out for breakfast at Kalamata’s but I decided I did not want to spend $80.-$90. with tip. So I cooked eggs, pancakes, French toast, and sausage from our stockpile this morning. I can get a lot of sale items for the cost of that meal out.

When Hubby fixed our sink, I did not have the strength to help him tighten one part. It is no longer leaking but we needed the piece tightened. My son helped his Dad do it today.

Also I have not been able to download pictures so that I can put them on the blog. He tried to fix it today and we thought it was. But I went on to test it after he went home and it is not fixed. From researching I believe that I need to uninstall one drive and then reinstall it. I will work on that tomorrow.

I took my 3 minute Navy shower this morning. The water was cold coming out of the ground and it took forever to warm up.

After I got dressed, I grabbed the laundry basket and put a load in the washer. I am washing with cold water and minimal detergent. I hung it to dry after my son and West left.

We played a dice game after breakfast.

Dinner tonight was turkey club sandwiches. Hubby loves them and I had all the fixings. I cooked the bacon up early this afternoon.

Early this morning I vacuumed the house all except the great room carpeting. Hubby did that last night for me. When I was done, my back was hurting so I took some Advil and rested it for a bit while the pills starting working.

Tonight, I will check the ad for Top’s that starts tommorow. Anything on sale that I might buy, I will check the price against Walmart’s. I looked at the Aldi’s ad and there was nothing that interested me. I am hoping that Top’s has Zero Sugar Fanta on sale. I like to stay stocked on it for West and Hubby. They both love it. I refuse to pay $ 8.64 for a 12 pack at Walmart. I won’t shop Top’s until Tuesday because that is Senior 6% off discount day.

My plan for groceries is to buy the great sales and ignore everything else. So very little money will leave our pockets in February. I will continue to eat as much as possible in our stockpile. I always check my freezer, pantry, and fridge to see what meals I can make with what I have in stock.

This will be a non consuming year as much as possible. We will use up what we have that we already spent money on.

So what did you do to save money today?

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Every Day

A Little Of This And A Little Of That

It has been a snowy week. I hope all of you who experienced this storm are safe and warm. Snow is relatively easy to deal with but my heart goes out to the people that got freezing rain and have lost their power. I hope it gets restored quickly.

We had another leak under our sink in the kitchen. Hubby found and repaired it quickly. I am so glad that we didn’t have to wait for a plumber to come out. Hubby can repair just about everything. It cost us under $ 14.25 to fix it. A plumber would have cost over $100.

We had quick meals the last few days. I made homemade cheese and pepperoni pizza. We froze the leftovers for another day. Last night, I grabbed two partial packages of food from the freezer that I wanted to use up. They were chicken and vegetable potstickers and chicken nuggets. I boiled the potstickers on my gas stove. The nuggets got air fried in the little countertop oven. They were all done in about 8 minutes. There are some chicken nuggets leftover that I will reheat to go with eggs for brunch later today. We have been eating a lot of eggs for brunches. We love starting the day with protein. I think I will hard boil some eggs in my pressure cooker later today. They make a quick breakfast and an easy snack. Over the weekend, I made an apple crisp using canned apple pie filling and I made the topping from scratch: four, oats, sugar, and cinnamon.

I had purchased Hubby 2 long sleeved T-shirts last month from Walmart last month. He loves them for sleeping. So he asked me yesterday to buy him two more. The total for both was $19.65. I used a $10.39 debit card from the Walmart class action suit and a $10.00 Walmart giftcard earned from Micosoft to pay for it.

I will not be going anywhere today and tomorrow. It is just too cold. Hubby does have an appointment today. He offered to take me to lunch afterward. I told him I am not up to going out in this cold. I will get some things done here while he is out. Then I will make us turkey sandwiches when he gets home.

This month quickly became a very spendy month. Besides our property taxes that we paid which I talked about in another post, Hubby needed a new hearing aid which cost us $3150. that we had to pay upfront. Our health plan will reimburse us for about 1/2 of that cost.

Besides our monthly bills, we also paid for our lawn fertilization for this upcoming season. That was almost $500. and that was after a 3% discount for paying early.

The only groceries we purchased this month was the ground beef which was on sale for $3.99 a lb. and 3 dozen eggs that were $.99 each for a total of $ 29.10. So I think we did well!

I am tracking every penny of our income and expenses monthly to see where we can plug some holes. That is why I am excited about even saving that $19.65 on those shirts. Every penny counts!

We now have a very unexpected bill that came up for almost $ 3,000. We will have to take that money from our emergency fund next week to pay for something that is very necessary. Thank God we have a very well funded emergency fund. However, I will be cutting every penny to replace that money back into our emergency fund. I am very uncomfortable when I have to take money out of there.

So you will see many posts about how I will cut to get that money quickly saved up. This year has not started out well except for the pantry challenge.

Are you trying to cut costs? Tell us about it.

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Every Day

Shocking Increase In Our Utility Bill, Etc.

We got our electric and natural gas bill yesterday. I was shocked when I saw the total. It was $ 374.75 for 628 KWH of electricity and 6 therms of natural gas. The daily average used per day was 19KWH and the average temperature was 27F. This bill was for 33 days.

Last year’s bill for the same period was for 5 therms of natural gas and 615KWH for 32 days and the bill was $295.51. The average daily use per day and the average temperature were the same as my new bill. But they pushed the new bill out one day. I have to wonder if we were close to going to 6 therms and that is why. They have never pushed it out a day like that before. Weird!

Anyhow for almost the same # of ccf’s which they convert into therms and just 13 more KWH, my bill went up$ 78.29 for pretty much the same period as last year. I have been getting monthly increases of $50.+ but this increase was shocking.

For those who don’t know, the reason supply and demand charges are up is because all of these billionaires are building these data centers to enrich themselves. They use an extraordinary amount of power and a huge amount of local water wherever they build. We are paying much higher bills because of that demand. They should be paying their own way but no we are paying a good chunk of their utility bills in ours. The more people use A1, the more centers they will build.

If you live near where they have built a data center, I am sure your water bills have increased too. I am also seeing that the water pressure in those areas had gone way down also.

The City of Niagara Falls has received documents from a Canadian Developer (why are we not using US companies) who wants to change the zoning to build a data center there. It has not been fully approved yet and there should be public hearings. People need to turn out and stop this. They are enticing the city saying look at the tax revenue and jobs it will bring. And of course NYS is in favor because our Governor Hochul has never seen a tax she didn’t want. But will it create jobs? I don’t think it will be that many. These data centers are for A1 and A1 is causing millions of people to lose their jobs across this country. Wake up people!

I believe it is time to fight these data centers. They are causing our utility bills to increase. Our fragile grid infrastructure can’t handle all of these data centers. So guess who will end up losing the power? It won’t be the data centers. Here is a list of data centers and planned data centers in NY. Notice there is another one planned for Niagara, NY.

https://cleanview.co/public/data-centers/new-york

We don’t need our county flooded with these. I will fight any that come anywhere near us. I have let my county legislators know that I am against these and why. So take some time to research what data centers are going in in your state. Take a stand!