Author: Precious

Categories
Every Day

This Week’s Meal Plan

I have a busy week. So yesterday I went down to the freezer and brought up all the protein I needed for 7 days. Then I scoured my refrigerator and pantries for the other items that I need for sides. All meals will be eaten at home. Here is my meal plan:

Sunday: Choice of Salmon/or Haddock grilled, applesauce, tossed salad

Monday: Cheeseburgers with sauteed onions, sliced tomatoes, and choice of provolone or pepper jack cheese, strawberries and blackberries for dessert

Tuesday: Homemade chicken soup using chicken and chicken broth that I canned last year

Wednesday: Leftover soup because Hubby needs something soft since he is having an old filling replaced

Thursday: Mojito lime ribeye pork chops, baked potatoes, applesauce and or steamed broccoli

Friday: Shrimp cocktails and tossed salad

Saturday: Grilled chicken on Caesar salad

We will drive to the town south of us twice this week for appointments. Those will be the only days we will use gasoline. I have no intention of grocery shopping this week since we are using up what we have in our home.

Decluttering inside my home is done for now. I do have two very large file drawers in the office that need it. But that will get done in August. We will be getting rid of any papers that we no longer need.

Laundry was done yesterday using cold water and hanging clothes to dry.

Just a quick side note. I have removed a subscriber to my blog. Her negative comments were quite nasty. Since I own my blog, it was easy for me to delete her. A relative said to me she will just use a different e-mail. She can try but she will not get in. Our son has his own server which we use. He has blocked her IP address so the firewall will not let her in. So if you are new here and read comments, I have removed all comments that she has written since the beginning of the blog. If any responses in the comments don’t make sense, just know it was because of the removal. Negativity has no place on this blog. That is all I have to say about it.

Have you made a meal plan this week? I would love to hear what you are having. Sharing helps all of us.

Categories
Every Day

Cutting Costs

Even though we are decluttering. we are still cutting costs when we can.

We have leftovers today from the other night when we had the rotisserie chicken. So I will be using those to make a chicken salad for dinner using some of the green grapes in it along with celery and mayonaise. It will be an easy dinner that I will prepare this morning. Waste not, want not!

I have been going through a lot of garbage bags and they as you know are very expensive. So I have been packing them as full as I can.

A piece of trim had fallen off at the bottom of the cupboards where they meet the hardwood floor. It didn’t take Hubby long to realize that they glued the trim on and didn’t nail it. So hubby used some heavy duty glue that we already had to put it back where it belonged.

Hubby is going to take some time today to fix the button that popped out of our dishwasher panel. This happened a while ago but eventually Hubby gets to things especially when I make him a to do list. It will be time consuming because he has to take the entire panel apart.

Hubby is done going to physical therapy so that will save us $50. in copays a week and gasoline for a 24 mile round trip twice a week . They have done all they can do for him and it has really helped. He will continue to do the exercises at home.

The black plastic part of the top of the key for the riding lawnmower broke. Superglue worked like a charm.

Hubby has been keeping up with all the trimming of flowers and weeding the gardens but we have so many that it is hard for him. So he is looking for a gardener not a landscaper to maintain them all summer. This won’t be cheap but this is why we have been frugal so that we can afford help when we need it.

Hubby wants me to hire a housekeeper to clean our home every two weeks. That won’t work because I am a perfectionist and I will just end up firing them. We have tried this twice before when my sons were babies and when I worked. They did not clean the way I did and I couldn’t stand it. So this is one of the reasons why I am decluttering. It will make it easier for me.

I found a basket in the basement to use to corral all of Eloise’s toys. I pick them up before I go to bed and in the morning I find she has taken a lot of them out overnight and put them under a chair where I sit at my computer in the kitchen. It is her way of telling me she wants to play. I already have a small caddy for things like her brush, nail clippers, and battery chargers for some of her water things and birds and a duck that makes noises.

I have been taking soda and beer cans back when I get one bag’s worth and I am running errands. If I am going to Top’s, I use their new return room. They have 3 machines that take plastic and cans that are super fast and if I go when it opens at 7am there is no one there. This way I don’t have bags of them piling up in our garage. Then I just cash in my receipt for them against my grocery bill.

I continue to scan my receipts into Fetch. I am almost up to where I can get another Walmart gift card which helps defray costs when I get delivery orders.

We still have our A/C on because this summer has been so hot and humid. But we are keeping the temperature at 74 instead of 72. We can’t go any higher because the humidity is so bad here. Our utility company has just asked the state regulating agency for a a 33.5% increase in natural gas delivery rates and a 23.7% increase in electricity delivery rates. As if our bills aren’t high enough now! They say they need it to upgrade critical infrastructure upgrades. They probably do because the grid is aging. But this is going to hurt on top of how high the bills are now. So more cutting is going to be necessary. UGH!

I am already trying to make cold simple meals for dinners as much as possible to keep the costs down this summer. We use the outside grill when we can. If it is really humid outside, we can’t tolerate that so we have used it less than other years.

We were able to not use our sprinkler system until about mid June. But we haven’t had much rain recently so we have had to use it.

I submitted $10. in rebates this week.

Lastly, we had an unexpected savings last night for our anniversary dinner at a local restaurant. It could have been a disaster but they made it right. I almost always order the Queen size prime rib for dinner there. They have always been quite delicious. Not last night. I ordered it done medium and it came well done. Not only that but it was only about 1/2 inch (if that) thick which is extremely unusual. I tried a piece and it was unchewable(so tough). I mentioned it to the waitress and she said I see a little blood on top so try it and walked away. When I realized how tough it was, I pushed the plate off to the side of the table and ate the French fries that came with it. The waitress came back to check on it again. I said to her you know I get prime rib every time we come here for the last 15 years. I told her this is the worst prime rib I have ever had. It has always been fantastic before but this time I don’t even know if it is prime rib. She agreed that I always get it I should know. She took the plate of it and asked me if I would like a 6 oz. filet mignon instead. I said sure. It did not take them very long to cook it to perfection. It was one of the best filets I have had. I realized there was a difference in price. The prime rib was $31.99 and the filet mignon was $27.99. They charged me the filet price and they also took a draft beer off the bill. The draft price was $6.00. So our anniversary could have been a disaster and they would have lost a customer but they did the right thing. Yes, we will go back again because we all make mistakes. But next time, I will order the filet mignon.

I am off to declutter a lot more things because tomorrow is garbage day. You guys have a good day!

Categories
Every Day

Grocery Hauls The Past Two Weeks

Here is last week’s Top’s haul. I needed one more bottle of Italian dressing for my large pasta salad that I took to the 4th of July party. It was $ 2.50. I was almost out of Bubba Burgers and they were on sale for $14.99. I only got one because I am going to a Grocery Outlet soon and they are much cheaper there. The Kraft singles were on sale B1G1F so they were $3.00 each. We only use them for grilled cheese. So one got frozen. The sour cream was on sale for $2.00. My total was $ 25.49.

Today I went and got a rotisserie chicken on sale for $6.99. It is in the crockpot on warm until we have it for dinner. I will serve green beans and salt potatoes that my neighbor gave me with it. All I have to do is warm them. Ignore the large bag of rice. I took it out of the closet when I was decluttering it. I still have to get it into a food grade bucket and put it away.

I purchased tomatoes for $ 2.47, seedless green grapes on sale for $4.50(we love them in chicken salad), and a carrot cake for $12.99 to celebrate our 58th anniversary tomorrow. That is all we needed this week. So I spent a total of $26.95.

The sales have not been remarkable lately so I don’t have much desire to get a bigger shop.

The decluttering is going well. I filled another garbage bag and a 1/2 of a bag with stuff as I continue along this journey. I now have 3 and 1/2 rooms done. I am hoping to have 5 bags worth by garbage day on Thursday. It is also our bulk pickup day so a large artificial plant is going since Eloise keeps knocking it over along with anything else I can find.

I did not tell you about this when I was talking about our goal money a few posts ago. Drill Baby Drill! That is what President Trump has been pushing. It is paying off for us because we own property and mineral rights in Texas. This is money we were not expecting. We did well during his first term but then it all dried up during Biden’s term. Now the spigot is open again so we should reach our goal a lot sooner than expected.

That is it for today. I am going to do some more decluttering until dinner and then I will chat with my baby sister for a while tonight.

What are you guys up to?

Categories
Every Day

Back From a Badly Needed Break

Am I the only one who gets overwhelmed sometimes? These past weeks it has hit me hard. I find it hard to run errands, blog, keep the house running, cook. etc. Those who know me will tell you that I am a perfectionist who likes things just so but my body has been telling me to slow down. It is very annoying! I am a planner who starts her day off with a routine and a to do list. Lately I am lucky to get just some of the things done. When I do go out and run errands, I can only do 2-3 things not the 6 that I did a year ago. I come home exhausted and need a nap. I am hoping it is just the heat and humidity. It has been intense.

Not only that but we actually got take out 3 times this week because I just couldn’t get my act together to cook. Shame on me! As a frugal person, I hate it when I spend money on takeout.

After a lot of thought, I finally decided there is just too much stuff in my house getting in my way. I need to make things easier for me. I have always tried to keep the stuff down to a manageable amount by tossing or donating things a couple of times a year and organizing everything. But it isn’t enough. I need to be ruthless and get most of the stuff out of here. I don’t want my children to have to do it when we die. Believe me when I say that your children do not want your stuff. They have enough of their own stuff!

I also need to make simpler, easier meals and prep them in early morning when my energy levels are higher.

I am not doing a lot of shopping because we are trying to eat what we have in the house. But we still need some items like produce and Hubby’s soda which is too heavy for me to carry. So I have decided to get Walmart delivery more often. It is so easy and saves me so much time. I do not buy any meat from Walmart except for bacon and sausage rolls but I need none of that right now. We are well stocked. Every few weeks I will get a $35. order of the things we need. That will be one thing that I can control for a while and it will save me time and gasoline.

That time saving will be useful to declutter. So last week, I started in our third bedroom, hall closet, and guest bathroom. I took 4 garbage bags of stuff out of the closet, end table, drawers in the TV stand, bathroom vanity, and off the shelves in the hall closet. I got rid of exercise equipment and tapes from Richard Simmons. I got rid of an entire collection of motivation tapes from Tony Robbins. All of these tapes were decades old. I decluttered Christmas gifts that I would buy on sale and never use. I threw out most of our wrapping paper since we only give money gifts now. Stamps to make cards and the pads I used with them are no longer here. So many more things went. And you know what, it felt good. I am now on a roll!

I will be working today in the closet in the second bedroom where Chris and her Hubby stay when they visit. As you can see, it is a disaster. Yes, that is a bag of rice. It was 20 lbs. which I cannot carry up from the basement. My pantry is full up here so it had found a temporary home in that closet. UGH! I am going to go through everything in my home. If it doesn’t fit, we don’t like it or we just have no interest in it anymore, it is getting thrown out or donated. We have sterling silver flatware and serving trays. We haven’t used them in decades. Silver prices haves skyrocketed recently so it is the time to sell it and get it out of here.

I thought about quitting blogging because it does take a lot of my time when I post. But that is worth my time because I enjoy it! So that will stay in my schedule.

I hope you all had a great July 4th. We went to a party at one of our neighbors and as usual we had a wonderful time.

I made a large pasta salad to share. This bowl is about 1/2 of what I brought there. People seemed to like it. For the first time in our lives, we had grilled venison and sausage burgers. They were so good. I only had venison one time before many years ago and it was awful. It tasted gamey. Not this burger, it was scrumptious. We came home about 8pm. It is a good thing we did because then all the fireworks in the neighborhood started and they were so loud. Eloise was terrified! My Hubby ended up holding her until midnight, when they stopped, to try to calm her down. She was trembling. I am hoping that no one does anymore this weekend. UGH! My neighbor brought over a container of cooked salt potatoes today. She had too many left. They will be a great side this week.

Categories
Every Day

We Did It and Cost Cutting Continues

We got our first full electric and natural gas bill using the new smart meter. The bill was for 29 days and was $ 148.72. We used 19.6 therms which was for skillet cooking on the stove top, a couple of days of heat, and heating our water with our tankless water heater. Everything else was electric: sump pump, computers and those accessories, chest freezer, lighting, refrigerator and freezer, small appliances, microwave, air cleaner, televisions, cable box, and small 11 in 1 oven, etc. We used 387 KWH which I think is probably the lowest we have ever had. I was thrilled when I saw the bill this morning. It sure beat last month’s which was $ 225.23.

Last year’s bill for the same period was $ 176.60 for 29 days. We used 7.2 therms and 525 KWH.

We put our A/C on for the first time 2 days ago. We are having a heatwave here. We kept it off as long as we could. When the humidity got bad, we had to turn it on. However, we have bumped it up to 74 degrees.

We have been trying to cut costs where we can this week. I grocery shopped and purchased some ingredients for when my online friend, Chris, and her Hubby come to visit. I have menus made out so I was able to buy many things on sale for them including strip steaks which were on sale for $10.99 a lb.

My oldest son let me know he will be coming to visit soon also. We are very excited to have everyone here. We absolutely love Chris and her Hubby and have some things planned to do.

We have not seen our son since the end of December. We do not drive long distances anymore so he has to find the time to come to us. His work and business keep him pretty busy. I can’t wait to get a hug. I hope he is bringing Hotch, his dog. Eloise loves to play(torture) with him.

For those of you who have been with me since I started my first blog, do you all remember when we lived in Arizona and Alexa was born? Well, she is no baby any longer. She turned 18 yesterday. I don’t know where the years have gone.

Now I will tell you what we have been doing to cut costs. Every bit of money that is not spent during any particular month is invested to create passive income. We keep our costs low so that we can save as much as we can each month.

I have been actively looking for rebates on the things that we purchase. For example, I have sent in a number of rebates for liquor and beer that we have stockpiled for company. If it doesn’t have a rebate, I don’t buy it.

I broke another whiskey glass when I was putting it in the dishwasher the other night. We were down to 2 glasses. So I found a set of 4 marked down and then applied my cash back in my Walmart account to make them even cheaper.

We ran the sprinkler system this week so that the lawn won’t burn out. It is the first time we have used it this year. We only use it when we don’t have rain. Most of the spring, it rained all of the time so we did not have to run it. Our summertime water bills should be way down.

I needed to buy some catnip toys and some treats for Eloise. I bought them from Amazon and just spent the minimum to get free shipping. Then I used up all of my Amazon reward points to keep the cost down.

I switched our Mint cellphone accounts to their senior plans and we now get unlimited everything for the same price we were paying.

We are eating our third night of pasta, meat, and sauce. I made Hubby spaghetti sauce on penne with meatballs the first night. I made me alfredo sauce with penne and chicken which I ate for 2 nights. Hubby had a hot meatball sandwich last night. Tonight, he again will have a sandwich and I will eat the little bit of alfredo that is left with a salad. We still have alot of penne left so I will make a cold pasta salad for dinner tomorrow to use it up. Waste not, want not!

I hung the laundry to dry again this week.

I have switched to drinking a lot of water with a bit of lemon juice when I am thirsty.

That is it for now. What have you been doing to cut your costs?

Categories
Every Day

A Small Grocery Haul and Some Cost Cutting

I missed a great deal when I went to Top’s this week. I don’t know how I did that. Since I had to take a bag of bottles back and drop off a prescription drug at the drop box at the pharmacy to safely dispose of it, I went up early this morning. No one is ever at the bottle return room when I go at 7am.

They had a pork shoulder on sale for $ 1.49 a lb. However, if you used the Super Coupon, it was reduced to $ .99 a lb. At the sale price, it was reduced to $ 15.57 for a 10.445 lb. roast. Using the Super Coupon, I paid $10.34.

They also had corn today so I purchased 4 ears at $ .39 each. I am saving my raincheck to use when our local corn is ready. I surprised Hubby with his favorite ice cream which he eats sparingly because he is a diabetic. Perry’s had his MintTingALing on sale for $4.00. So my total for all 3 items was $ 15.90. I had saved up the receipts for our last 3 trips to the bottle return. They totaled $ 14.75 and I had them taken off my bill, so I paid $ 1.15 OOP.

I am planning on cooking the pork shoulder in the crockpot outdoors tomorrow. I will shred up the meat and add BBQ sauce. We will have BBQ sandwiches for a couple of days and the rest I will freeze in portions for future sandwiches.

Tonight, we are grilling hot dogs and we will each eat one corn on the cob for dinner. The other ears of corn will be eaten tomorrow night.

I transferred some money from our checking account to our high yield savings account. The next time I go to the bank I will open another share certificate to get much higher interest.

We always use our credit cards to get the best rewards back on different items that they give cash back for. I spent some time yesterday refreshing my memory on those.

I have been researching the best price on tissues because we are down to our last few boxes. It looks like $ Tree has the best price( $.007) per tissue when you buy the 175 count box for $ 1.25. I have not yet researched Sams Club and B. J’s.

Hubby and I have been discussing dropping collision on our car. We just renewed so we have plenty of time to think about it before it renews again next March. Right now, the SUV is only worth $7,000.

I am back to using cloth napkins as I run out of paper ones.

We are trying to only make 3-4 meals a week with enough leftovers to easily make 7 or to just make a meatless pasta salad for a couple of meals.

Every time I go into Top’s, I see a line of people getting coffee. It always amazes me that people will spend a fortune for a cup of coffee there. I just make mine at home and take it with me. All the money that is saved by doing that goes straight into investments and savings that give me passive income.

I will be cancelling my Peacock subscription next week. I got it for about $19. a year ago on a deal and did not plan on paying a fortune for it to renew. However, now my cable company has added Peacock, Disney, Max, Paramount which I already have via my Walmart + membership, VIX premium and AMC +, all for free to our plan.

We always try to repair items instead of replacing them. I have a Shark handheld vacuum that I love. It would not turn on for more than 3 minutes after charging it so we thought the battery was dead. We were about to throw it out. But I decided to take it apart to see if I could fix it. The reusable filter was really dirty. .I didn’t even know that it had a filter. Hubby used to always take care of these kinds of things but he didn’t seem to know why it wouldn’t work. I cleaned the filter and took the whole thing apart and cleaned everything really well. I left it apart to dry overnight and now it is working just like it is new. That saved me spending $ 89.99 for a new one.

I got $ 2.25 cash back on a small delivery order from Walmart. I will use it the same as cash on my next order. I like to do the cash back on items that we use because it helps pay the tip.

My dentist appointment a couple of weeks ago reminded me that we never pay for toothpaste or floss. Our hygienist gives us samples of Crest Gum toothpaste and many different kinds of floss at our appointments. Hubby has an appointment coming up so there will be more. If we run out before we go again, I look for a $1.00 off coupon for an on sale $.99 tube.

I changed the filter in our A/C today to get ready for when we need the A/C.

That’s it for today. I hope you are having a frugal money saving day.

Categories
Every Day

Savings Goal & How We Cost Cut

Remember a while ago, I told you we wanted to save a large amount of money to get to our net worth goal of well over $100,000. The goal is in a prior post. We have been working really hard on that this month of June and will be cutting every cost we can possibly cut for the rest of the year. After the month of May’s savings, we are getting very close to our goal. We are hoping to reach it by the end of the year or before.

We needed gasoline so I filled up using points and saved $.30 per gallon. Hubby has had to go to PT for weeks and most of those weeks he has gone twice a week. The therapy center is in the next town so it is a hike. Needless to say between those appts. and other appts., our gasoline bills have skyrocketed. We used to be able to only fill up once in about 6-7 weeks. Now it is every two weeks. However, the last scheduled PT appointment is the end of this week and then he goes back to the doctor to be reassessed. It would be nice also if he could just do the therapy at home and we wouldn’t have to pay $ 40.00 in co-pays a week.

Yesterday I had to go to the dermatologist to get a precancer on my ear taken care of. The doctor froze it and said it should be gone and give me no more trouble in about 6 weeks. If I hadn’t noticed it and had it taken care of it eventually would have turned into cancer. While I was there she asked if I wanted anything else taken care of so I mentioned that I only had 3 warts that I would need to have removed. She said they take those off by freezing them also. I told her that I would think about it knowing full well that I would find a way to take care of them myself. When I got home and told Hubby about the warts, he said he sees the cans of the stuff to freeze them advertised on TV. Since I don’t watch TV, I never knew that. I did my research online and ordered a can. It will be here tomorrow. The cost was $ 16.49, no tax, and free shipping. That is a whole lot cheaper than it would have been to have her remove them.

We got notice yesterday from our health plan that effective January 1, 2025, there will no longer be co-pays for insulins or for telehealth visits. This is June and they are just getting around to telling us? Weird! But we knew about the insulins because the drug stores have not been charging us. However, we did not know about the telehealth visits. We will take full advantage of that for anything minor.

I have been very picky about what I buy at the grocery store. This week strawberries and corn on the cob have been on sale. The strawberries were already going bad so I skipped those. Our local strawberries will be ready soon. They ran out of the corn the first day of the sale ($.39 an ear) so I got a raincheck for a dozen ears. We eat some but most of it we cut off the cob and freeze it. You can’t even buy a can of corn for that price and this tastes so much better. The only thing I did buy was 2 packages of fresh Italian sausages for $2.99 a lb. which was cheaper than I have been able to pay for them in about 2 years. Each package had 4 large ones. So that will give us 8 meals. I mostly use it in spaghetti sauce. They also had BS chicken breast on sale for $ 2.49 a lb. But I got some at $1.99 a lb. over Memorial Day. I am hoping they will repeat that sale for the 4th of July. Then I will stock up again. Extra large eggs at my store are $ 2.99 a dozen. When I get close to running out of eggs, I will be stocking on those.

Hubby and I treated ourselves to appetizers from Applebee’s. We had enough for two meals. We used our discounted gift cards that we purchased the end of last year via a Top’s deal to pay. I am afraid that Applebee’s is not going to be in business much longer so we will be using these cards up sooner rather than later. We did the drive thru to pick them up and ate them at home.

I am very mindful of scanning my receipts into Ibotta and Fetch. I want to keep those free gift cards coming.

I used to do mystery shopping in Arizona and loved it. I am looking into doing it here.

I received $4.00 in rebates last week. They were online ones so I didn’t have to use a stamp. BTW, remember, that they are going up on July 13th so get your Forever stamps if you need them before the increase of $.05 each. I will be getting a 100 count roll.

I have been watching the price of silver for a very long time. I have never seen a price this high ever. I believe it will go up a bit more. We have a lot of sterling silver pieces that we no longer use. I will sell it soon and make some money off of it instead of letting it sit in a cupboard.

We continue to leave the lights off in the daytime hours. If I can cook something on the outside grill, I do. If I cook in the crockpot, I do it outside to keep the heat out of the house. Heat has been off since my last post. We have had 3 days that it was near 90 and humid here but we did not turn on the A/C. We kept the shades and blinds drawn on the sunny windows. If it cooled off at night, we opened a couple of windows. We would like to keep the A/C off as long as we can. If it gets stuffy and hot in here, we use the ceiling fans.

I have been watching our daily energy usage online. The data is always 2 days old. I am seeing that we have a spike at brunch time and from 4pm until we go to bed. We are trying to be mindful during those periods. They are mealtimes, downtime so TV’s are on and darkness.

I did the $30. gift card deal at Chewy’s when I purchased Eloise’s food. I am saving it for the next time I need food or litter.

Our driveway is being sealed today. The company is only charging us $140. which is cheaper than we can buy the product to do it ourselves.

Top’s again has sent me 4 weeks of $5. off a $50. order coupons and 4 Free coupons for fresh bananas, pasta, shredded cheese, and ice cream. They start next week.

I got my Amazon CC bill and earned points worth $ 12.36 from buying a few Amazon purchases and charging over $700. in dental bills to that card. That money will be used when we actually NEED something.

This is it for today. I will be back soon. How are you saving as much money as possible?

Categories
Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

I needed some food for Eloise so I planned on placing an order with Chewy. To my surprise when I went online to do that they had a deal where if you ordered $100. worth of products, you got a $30. gift card for your next order. I stocked up and the $30. gift card will get used when I need something more for her. I also used autoship so I got 10% off my order.

Hubby needed a new wallet. His was at least 15 years old and falling apart. We found him a new one that he absolutely loves for $15.99 marked down from $ 34.99. However, it is now marked down to $12.99 if anyone is in need. It is here https://www.walmart.com/ip/Aursear-Wallet-for-Men-Slim-Genuine-Leather-Mens-Wallet-RFID-Blocking-Credit-Card-Holder-with-Money-Clip/1189202732

We have been keeping all lights off in the daylight hours. I just turned the heat off because I am tired of the high utility bills. It is chilly in here but we have put sweatshirts on. We are trying to cook most of our dinners on the outside grill. Today I will use the washer to do a load of clothes in cold water with minimal detergent. They will get hung to dry. I have been washing the dishes in a dishpan in the sink to save on water. I am not using the dishwasher to see if that saves on the electric bill.

I made turkey club sandwiches for dinner last night. I cooked the entire package of bacon so that we have some to go with eggs for brunch today. We will have lasagna for dinner tonight. The small oven we will bake it in will help take the chill out of the house.

I did a bit of grocery shopping yesterday. At Aldi’s I bought 2 – l lb. packages of fresh strawberries for $ 1.69 a lb. I also purchased a package of brioche hot dog buns to go with some hot dogs that I already have in the freezer. They were $ 2.49. For the first time in a long time, I found some red stickers in the meat dept. They were breakfast sausages with $1.00 off stickers. So I got 2 packages for $ .98 each. I am always on the hunt for meat for our family Sunday breakfasts. All purchases were cheaper than Walmart, my other cheap store.

Then I went to Top’s. After I got rid of some old prescriptions that we were no longer using at the lock box in the pharmacy, I did a bit of shopping. I purchased a large onion at $.99 a lb. for a total of $ 1.28, a Free carton of Top’s ice cream with a coupon ($ 4.29) they sent me, used my raincheck to get another large package of BS chicken breasts for $ 1.99 a lb. for a total of $ 10.27( one package of the three I got this week is pictured above), 3 packages of Fresh Express Salad Kits for $ 3.00 each, 1.75 lbs. of tomatoes at $1.88 a lb. for a total of $ 3.29, 1 lb. of Ronzoni elbow macaroni for $ .99, and 9 cans of Mary Kitchen corned beef hash at $ 3.99 each minus $ .75/1 coupons that doubled to $ 1.50 each for a total of $22.41. My total for all came to $ 51.53. Then she took off my $5.00/50.00 coupon that Top’s sent me for a total of $ 46.53 and the $4.29 coupon for the ice cream for a total of $ 42.24. Hubby loves the corned beef hash so I stocked for him. The coupons were from prior cans that had them. The ones I got also had the coupons on them so I will be stocking more. I rarely buy the salad kits but these were a better price than I have seen in a long time. They will make dinners easy this week while I catch up all the work that didn’t get done while I was dealing with my sciatica.

I am off to pay some bills. Did any of you save a little bit of money this week? Please share with all of us.

Categories
Every Day

Spending As Little As Possible

Our Top’s had BS chicken breasts on sale this week. I had just inventoried the freezer last weekend with some help. Lots of beef and pork but very little chicken which surprised me. I guess we had been eating it up faster than I thought. So my intent was to look for chicken on sale. I did not expect that to happen anytime soon. However, our ad came for this past week last Sunday. There was a super coupon to get a 5-6 lb. package for $1.99 a lb. I don’t shop on weekends so I waited until Monday and they had been wiped out of the chicken on Sunday. So I got a raincheck. They told me they might get a truck in on Tuesday. I had an appointment that took me right past Top’s that day. So I stopped in to see if they had more chicken which they did. But they only had 3 packages so I snagged one. There was a limit of one. Yesterday, Hubby had to go out yesterday so we snagged another one of two that were there. Later in June, I will use the raincheck when things are better stocked. I had not been able to get chicken breasts for this price in years.

So now we are pretty stocked for the summer. Since meat is so expensive, we are weighing out 4 ounces for each of us when we eat it. That is all the protein anyone needs for dinner. Some days we have more if we use a bit of bacon, ham, or sausage for brunch. But not every day! Tonight we will each have 4 ounces of scallops and a tossed salad.

It’s hard to believe that it is Memorial Day weekend already. It has been so cold this spring that we feel like it is still winter. We had to turn our heat back on after only a few days with it off because it is so cold at night. It is still on and it is almost June. It is supposed to warm up this week. I hope so because we are sick of the cold and rain.

We got our electric and natural gas bill this past Thursday. I was in shock when we saw how much is was. It was for 33 days and was 455 KWH and 43.3 therms. For any of you who have noticed, I have been putting the wrong amount for therms on my prior bills. I was using the daily average instead of the monthly therms. Sorry! Last year’s bill for the same time period was only 30 days and was 412 KWH and 37.1 therms. So 3 more days than last year, 43 KWH more and 6.2 more therms. Last year’s bill was $70. less than this year’s. Our latest bill was $ 225.23. I expected this bill to be bigger but not this much bigger. I told Hubby the heat is going off soon no matter how cold it is. He can put on a blanket, sweatshirt or coat. Some of this bill was with the new smart meters and some from the old. I am hoping they get the daily usage up on our account soon. The meter has been in for a while. I stopped in last week at our utility company’s customer service center because I could not get ahold of them by phone to find out when it would be up on their site. The rep told me within the next 2 weeks. I want to be able to watch the usage so that I know what is using the most energy.

Update on my denture repair: It cost $276. and lasted less than 24 hours. So Hubby dropped it off to the dentist this week so it can be repaired again. I hope to get it back midweek next week. But I am leery that it will work this time. My sister is having the same issue. She thinks that they are not making them as good as they used to. Her first denture lasted 22 years. The new one has been repaired twice and she has not had it very long. I believe she may be right. Thank God I have a spare.

With the exception that our landscape service will be coming soon with a new tree for the front yard, I don’t see any major expenses until our September school tax bill. Hubby went down to the nursery to scope out a tree. We have decided on a red maple. So Hubby trusts our landscaper to pick out the largest one he can get that is nicely shaped. Ben gets a better price than we do. My son and Hubby cut down both dead trees last Sunday leaving enough stump for Ben to be able to pull them out with his truck. We have decided not to plant one in the side yard because it a wind tunnel through there and the tree won’t survive like the last one didn’t. So we will have Ben take both stumps out, plant the new one out front, take up the stone that encircled the one on the side, and either he or we will plant grass there.

As you can see by our chicken purchases, we are spending as little as possible. I believe we have enough meat and fish now to last until at least the September Labor Day sales. However if I see chicken again at $ 1.99 a lb. I will buy more. We have enough food that I will only have to shop for fresh dairy and produce. I will be making most of our own bread. The cheap bread in our stores is awful unless I can get Italian from the bakery at a good price at Walmart. And then it doesn’t last long unless I freeze it!

We were craving a take out pizza last night but instead I made a homemade one that was just as good.

I am feeling better so I hope to blog a few more times this week. I hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend. It will be quiet here just the two of us. We will probably grill out a few times weather permitting.

How have you been saving money? Did you buy any great sales this week?

Categories
Every Day

Happy Mother’s Day Tomorrow

I hope you all have a fantastic day! We will be enjoying the day by cooking filet mignon on the grill. That is my favorite meal!

I wish I could be on here more often but my sciatica has been horrid the past month or so. It hurts to sit and stand. Advil is not working for me. So I have been doing a lot of reading lately laying down. I am trying to work through frugality books that I have read before. A special online friend and her husband are coming to visit again this summer. I am making a pile of the books as I read them to see if there are any she would like to take home with her before I donate them to our local library.

Hopefully the pain will go away soon. I have been doing exercises to try to get that to happen. You all know how active I am, so I am hating this! I seriously thought about ending my blog. But if you will be patient, I will continue it when I can and be back to normal soon. Prayers if you are a praying person. I would really appreciate those.

But we have been as frugal as we can right now. I am working on a # of problems. It looks like Mint Mobile is not billing us correctly and QVC put someone else’s charge on our bill. So hopefully I will have that all straightened out this coming week. The one time I went out two weeks ago, I lost my credit card. No one had used it. But I cancelled it and they say it will take 2 weeks for another to arrive. Fortunately, I have another one to use. I did not realize that I had lost it until I went to pay $ 402. for my dental cleaning and X rays at the dentist. That was a week later. I gave the dentist my denture to repair. I had a tooth pop out of it a while ago. But I have a spare, so I waited for my appointment to bring it in to him. The repair will cost $276. when I go to pick it up. UGH!

The other bad thing that affected us this week is Rite Aid is going out of business. So we have been switching every prescription to a new pharmacy. Second time we have had to do this in just a few months. What a pain!

Hubby and I went to our appointment to see the town assessor two weeks ago to dispute the $33,000. raise in our assessment for our home. They had raised us tentatively from $ 470,000. to $503, 000. The assessor agreed with us and they are leaving our assessment at $470,000. We have a letter to show that. We had to sign it and get it back to them. I did that the same day it came in the mail. Of course, we made a copy of it. Also we have qualified finally for a reduction of our assessment because we are old for the school taxes. We have been paying full school taxes since we moved here. So our assessment for school taxes only will be $ 383,900. Needless to say until we get the tax bills I won’t know what we will actually save. But I am happy about all of this!

We have barely had any sales on decent meat in my grocery or warehouse stores. Especially on beef and chicken. So we are working on eating the chicken in our freezers. However last week, Niagara Produce had cowboy steaks on sale for $13.49 a lb. Not a great price but since we have been doing very little shopping, we had money saved up from our grocery budget. I bought 6 for $ 168.00. That will give us some beef to grill along with the filet mignons and strip steaks that we already had. This should give us plenty of beef for the summer. However, I am always looking for those sales.

During the Walmart + benefit week, I was able to fill up our car at $.50 off a gallon. I was also able to get a Free Express order and not pay the extra $10.00 for it. I also used the scan and go and spent $15. on stock up items to get $5.00 Cash back.

We were able to save $4,000. for the month of April. We are slowly getting to our goal. We spent landscaping money to the tune of $1700. which was an extra expense.

That is about it for now. What have you done frugally the past 2 weeks?