Author: Precious

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Every Day

Saturday’s Doings

Eloise had me up at 5AM which wasn’t too bad. I think she was cold so I wrapped her in a very soft blanket for a little while till she warmed up a bit. The heat starts coming up to 68 from 66 at 6AM. Then at 8AM, it goes up to 70. I wish I could set it lower but Hubby gets too cold.

I made my coffee with a reusable pod. I used up the little bit of coffee that was in my air tight canister and grabbed another can of coffee from my storage. While I was down there I took 2 hamburgers out of the freezer and we had those with sauteed onions and mushrooms for dinner. We had nothing else with it because we were not very hungry.

After doing some picking up in the house, I heated up some of the leftover chicken and biscuits for brunch. We have a couple of pieces left for a snack during our football game tomorrow. Waste not, want not.

Most of the day I have been cleaning and organizing. I went through my 2024 planner so that I could pull the pages out that had personal info on them so I could shred them. The bulk of the planner went in the recyclables and the garbage.

I cleaned and organized the drawers in our vanity and the cupboards in the toilet room. I filled up the 2 rows with t.p. so that it is handy. It will last a long time because we have a bidet. Then I cleaned the tile floors. The toilet is cleaned every day. I used to use the Lysol toilet cleaner until the price went too high. Then I tried the toilet bowl cleaner from Dollar Tree which was awful. It is 90 % water. So I am back again to cleaning the toilet bowl with a denture cleaner tablet. I just let it melt in the bowl and then scrub. It does a great job. I can get 126 count Equate denture cleaner tablets for $4.44. They will last me about 1/2 a year.

It snowed here for the third day in a row so we did not go out anywhere.

Late afternoon I watched some news on You Tube. Then we watched some football and golf.

I hope you all had a great day.

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Every Day

First Grocery Shops of The Year

Today after taking Hubby to a doctor’s appointment, I made a grocery list of our absolutely needed items.

On the way to Walmart, I stopped at the Town building and paid our property taxes in full.

At Walmart, I picked up a 5 lb. bag of whole carrots for $3.98. I also purchased a half gallon of Half and Half for $5.64, a package of American cheese for $ 2.48, and a 32 oz. package of frozen Atlantic Salmon portions on clearance for $ 11.50 marked down from $ 17.42. They must have ordered too much salmon for the holidays because the expiration date is July of 2025. If I had more freezer space, I would have purchased a lot. But alas I don’t.

I stumbled upon the clearance salmon. I hadn’t intended on buying that but I have only bought salmon once a few weeks ago on sale in about two years. I love salmon and Hubby has 4 whole haddock so we are now good on fish.

For a couple of years, the price for salmon was priced higher than I wanted to pay. So this was a good deal. I scanned the store and found nothing else that I could use at a reduced price.

I had no carrots left. They will get used in soups, stews, and for snacking with homemade dill dip.

The Half and Half was dated in March so it will keep even though I have two others in my fridge. We will use it all up by the expiration dates.

The cheese was badly needed for grilled cheese sandwiches which we love.

The total I spent today was $ 23.60. I purchased a 60 count carton of large eggs on Wednesday at Walmart while I was running other errands. I paid $19.26. Today when I was in the store, the price had gone up to $21.97. There seems to be no end to higher prices on eggs. When the cullings stop, the prices should come way down. Since humans can not get bird flu from properly cooked eggs, it makes no sense to me that they are culling so many. Can any of you explain why? I am thinking they are trying to stop it from spreading to other chickens but I really don’t know.

So I have spent a total of $ 42.86 on groceries so far this month.

We had the rest of the apple fritters for brunch. For dinner, we had an 8 count spicy fried chicken, biscuits, and coleslaw from Popeye’s on a meal deal. It was on my route home. I paid with money we got as a Christmas gift. This chicken deal will last us at least 2 more meals.

The good news today is that Hubby did not have any change in his prescription glasses. That is a huge savings because we do not have insurance.

Did you get any good deals today?

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Every Day

A Little Of This And A Little Of That

It’s a mostly quiet day today. We did get a bit of snow but the sun has melted it.

We got our property tax bill. I knew it would cost us more for our garbage because we got a second can but that part of the bill was well worth it for $50.00 for the year. Our total bill was for $4664.+. Last year’s bill was $4788.+. So even with the $50.00 additional cost our bill decreased by $123.+. I am shocked because everything has just been going up and going up. It looks like our town and county leaders have done a good job with contracts, etc.

We both got our notices from Social Security showing our 2.5% increases. However, the Medicare payment for each month of 2025 which comes out of each of our checks went from $ 174. to $ 180. so the increase for our Social Security checks wasn’t much. But we both paid into SS and Medicare for years as everyone else does. At least we are getting a bit of money back over the years since we started getting it. I am hopeful that when President Trump is inaugurated that he and the Republicans will fix SS so that our children and grandchildren will be able to get it like we have.

A couple of weeks ago Nielsen sent me a survey and a $1.00 in cash to fill it out and send it back. It only took a minute or two and the return envelope was postage paid. They promised that if I did, they would send me an additional $ 5.00 in cash. That came today. $ 6.00 and a couple of minutes sure beats running all over inside of stores to ShopKick to cash out at $5.00 which I don’t do because it isn’t worth my time or gasoline. It would be nice if these surveys continue. But I am not counting on it.

I entered my last two weeks of receipts into Fetch today. I love getting the Walmart gift cards. They help defray the cost of my Walmart orders.

Brunch this morning was an apple fritter with our coffee. We had purchased a box of them recently. They are Hubby’s favorite. This year I am going to see if I can find a great recipe.

Dinner tonight will be canned Chunky soup and crackers. I am waiting for Hubby to get back from his orthopedic appointment before I pick out what we want from our pantry. The cortisone shot did not work so he is getting the gel injection to see if that works. I hope it works because I hate seeing him in so much pain. If it does he can get them every 6 months. If not the next step would be a knee replacement. Ugh! I am praying that he gets relief from this gel.

I ran the dishwasher last night. It had been three days since I ran it. I spent my hour cleaning yesterday and today in the kitchen. I am organizing at the same time and getting rid of things we don’t want.

What have you been doing to work on your goals for this year?

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Every Day

From Us To All Of You

I hope you all had a safe and fun evening last night. As per usual, we did not make it to the ball drop at midnight. So that champagne did not get drunk.

We did have our filet mignon though but we changed our sides. We had cheesy potatoes, salad, and applesauce with them. We each had 1/2 of our filet mignon leftover. For brunch we sliced them up and sauteed them with garlic in butter. We made some scrambled eggs to go with it. It was a yummy way to start off the New Year and a good use of leftovers.

Pork is a lucky dish to eat on New Year’s Day. So we had pork chops, fried fresh apples(they needed to be used up), and leftover cheesy potatoes for dinner tonight all from our pantry and freezer.

We ended the month of December with $ 6,512. toward our savings goal. Not too bad considering we had Christmas spending and an extra $1000. that we paid for our railing to be installed on the back steps. We had already paid $500. down when it was ordered to be custom made.

Now it is January 1st and I am so ready for 2025. I plan on continuing to try to get to our goal for our children and grandchildren.

We will not be going out at all today. It is cold and snowing. So no gasoline will be used. There will be some football games on the agenda for Hubby which always makes him happy.

I am starting a new habit today. I have always been constantly cleaning everyday. But as I am getting older, it is harder. If I really needed to, I can hire a cleaning service to do it for me. However over the years, we have hired people to clean and I always ended up firing them because they did not clean as well as I did. So to avoid this, I am going to spend just one hour a day cleaning in a room until I have done the entire house and then I will just repeat. I will time it and when that hour is up, I will stop. This does not include doing the dishes, making the beds, doing laundry, or cleaning bathrooms which I do every morning to keep up with them. The exception will be Eloise’s cage which she sleeps in. That and her litter boxes will be cleaned every day.

We are starting the month off expecting our property tax bill any day. It is a large amount to pay out every year. It does not include school taxes which are paid in September. We already have the money set aside to go up to Town Hall and pay them as soon as the bill comes. I will let you know how much they are after I know.

I wanted to take a picture of my dinner. However, Hubby had put his ice tea on the table which was all set. However, he put the lid on and the straw in but never screwed down the lid. Eloise jumped up on the table and knocked it all over everything. I had to clean everything up and reset the table so that we could eat. Then I forgot to take the picture.

I am beat. I just got done cleaning Eloise’s cage and doing all the dishes. So I am going to go watch You Tube and probably fall asleep.

I hope you all had a good day! Be back tomorrow.

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Every Day

2025 -The Low Spend Year

This will be our low spend year. I will aim for one or two no spend months as we go along. January will not be a no spend. The reason is that there are a lot of meat sales in that month. I don’t want to miss out on any of those great prices.

Since we are on the topic of food, I have cut our grocery budget back from $ 500. a month to $ 400. a month for 2025 for the two of us and it will also cover any company that we will feed. This connects with our Use It Up strategy. I will be very mindful of what we buy by always buying on sale and always checking our pantries, freezers, and refrigerator first. I will look for markdowns and reduced price items anytime I am near a market of any kind. If I run an errand or go to an appointment and there is a market on my route, I will stop in for a few minutes and just scour the store for those things.

We will try to cut back our utility costs which I have talked about in prior blog posts. We will also cut back the amount of water we use because those rates have gone up. We will be mindful everyday of how we are using water so that we don’t waste it. Eloise loves to drink out of our bathroom taps. But I felt we were wasting water while she was drinking. So we purchased her a fountain that was on clearance for $20. It recycles the water and we only have to fill it up every 3-4 days. It runs on a rechargeable battery so we don’t use a lot of electricity. Eloise starts the fountain running when she steps in front of it. Then when she is done it stops running. Thinking out of the box will be another of my mantras this year and I will share it all with you.

Every area of what we spend on will be scrutinized to see where we can save. What we spend on will be different than what you spend on. We each have our priorities. For example, we do spend on Cable TV. Hubby enjoys it so that will not be cut anytime soon. If it was up to me, I would cancel it because I watch it rarely. When I have some downtime, I watch You Tube to learn something new. That is so much more important to me.

An example of learning something new happened while my son was here a few days ago. We went out to breakfast the morning that he was leaving. We had put our kitten in her cage but his dog was loose in the house. He is an old dog but such a sweetie. I was the first to walk through our great room to go let Eloise out of her cage. I spotted quite a bit of blood on my off white carpeting. Well we soon figured out that the dog had broke a nail. I told my son I would get some cold water and a cloth. He said, “Mom do you have any hydrogen peroxide?” I said yes. He said get that and a cloth. He blotted it with that and I was shocked at how fast that removed the blood from my carpet. There is not even a trace that it was ever there. Being in the medical field for about 40 years, he knew about this. Hydrogen peroxide breaks down protein in the blood because of the oxygen in it. He told me it works on blood that has been dried on also. He told me if you get blood on clothing just put a bit on the spot and then wash the clothing. In all of my years and I am pretty old, I never knew this. So I learned something new that day! Thanks son!

I am frugal not cheap. For example, when I realized that the USDA had put some restrictions on ranchers selling their steers to meat processing plants recently which will make a severe beef shortage, I purchased two whole prime beef tenderloins and had them cut into 1 and 1/2 inch filet mignon portions. They were very expensive but it is something that we love. Knowing that they are going to cost more in the future had me stock up. We will be eating two of them and a tossed salad to ring in the New Year tonight. We will also be enjoying a bottle of champagne with our meal. The bottle is 4 years old so we will use it up. Every year we would tell ourselves that we would drink it and we would always go to bed early. I think tonight is when we will use it up.

Happy New Year’s Eve to you all!

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Every Day

Cutting Costs The Last Few Days

These are the things we have done the last few days to cut costs:

Two loads of laundry(clothes and sheets) were washed in cold water with 1/3 cup of liquid detergent and hung to dry.

Purchased $ 350. worth of Applebee’s gift cards for $ 280. using my Top’s reward points. Lowe’s was my first choice but they were out of them. Applebee’s is 3+ miles from our home. I kept $200. of the cards for ourselves. We gave away $150. worth of them as a gift. We also have $250. in gift certificates for our favorite restaurant, Russell’s Steakhouse. I have 3 Panera giftcards that I got with rewards last year. These will be most of what we will use for eating out or to go for all of 2025.

I cooked a 10 lb. ham the day after Christmas when our son came to visit for a few days. We sliced up the rest of the ham on our meat slicer and I sealed it up into food saver bags for future sandwiches.

I baked a cranberry cake using frozen fresh cranberries that I purchased at Thanksgiving of 2023. They were $ .99 a bag.

I filled our car up with gasoline using the $ .90 off per gallon using Top’s gasoline points that I earned. I paid $ 2.13 per gallon. The cash station was $ 2.85 per gallon so getting the gas at Top’s was a no brainer.

I picked up a prescription for Hubby for no co-pay.

We had a shrimp dinner last night and tonight I made knock off Chick Fil A chicken sandwiches.

I only had to run the dishwasher twice this past week.

We watched our Buffalo Bills win yesterday for entertainment. Hubby has been enjoying the College Bowl games.

Happy New Year to all of you! Enjoy the next two days!

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Every Day

2025 – Use It Up (continued)

Well you know what they say about best laid plans. Sometimes, they just don’t happen. I had forgotten that yesterday was Christmas when I said I would post yesterday. I hope you all had a wonderful one.

Hubby and I were alone yesterday. So Hubby and I did not have our usual Christmas dinner. Instead we had taco bowls. Christmas dinner will be today since we have company arriving for a few days. It will be ham and all the fixings to go with it. I have to bake a pie this morning too.

Let’s get back to “Use It Up”. I would bet a lot of you have the problem of too many cleaning supplies in your home. We have way too many and have been trying to use them up the last 6 months but they seem to last forever which I guess is a good thing. I won’t have to spend any money on them for a very long time because we will concentrate on using up every bit of them.

The same goes for all of our soaps: laundry, bar soap, liquid soap, dishwasher liquid, and dish liquid. I also have a case of all natural all purpose cleaner which was gifted to us.

Speaking of gifts, my sister – in – law surprised me with a wonderful book for Christmas: “The Prepper’s Cookbook by Tess Pennington. I was delighted because it has some great recipes to use up my stockpile. They have a huge used bookstore out there in Houston and I am hoping she got it there. It’s definitely not new. She is frugal like I am which I love.

We have also been going through our clothes and donating what we don’t want anymore. I think 2025 will be a year without buying any for me. I have so many plus shoes that have never been worn. Time to wear through them. Hubby may need some things but he won’t buy anything that isn’t a real need.

Another category of items that we will not be buying this year is personal care products. We have enough deodorant, shampoo, shower soap, makeup for me, toothpaste, toothbrushes(which I use for travel and to clean), floss and other dental items to last well over 2 years(thanks to my dentist), lotions and creams, etc.

I am sure there are many other items that we won’t need to buy but I am drawing a blank right now. I will write about them as the year goes on.

I will not be posting until at least Monday since we have company and I want to enjoy every minute visiting with them.

Then I will wrap up 2024 and dive into 2025.

Do any of you plan to not buy certain things in 2025? I would love you to share in the comments so that other people can benefit from your knowledge.

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Every Day

2025 Planning – Use It Up

A theme for 2025 seems to be popular for next year. I am usually not one for themes but I will play along. Use It Up will be one of my themes.

How many of you have food in your home that you have forgotten you have? Or food that you don’t know how to use it up? I know I do. People have gifted me food that I am not sure how to cook. But this year it will all get used. Waste not want not! I will use a recipe site like:

https://www.allrecipes.com/ingredients-a-z-6740416

Very little money will get spent on groceries until many food products that I have on hand are used up. We have already started this. I had stockpiled over 10 cases of Chunky, Progresso, Old El Paso, and Marie Callendar soups before the prices started inflating. Many I got for $ .89 – $ .99 each. Now they are $ 1.98 each or more. I make a lot of homemade soups but I had these in case of an emergency and for quick lunches or dinners in the winter time. It has been so cold that Hubby and I have been eating 2 cans week. We each like different soups. By doing this, we have saved a lot of money. Plus it is so easy to heat up a can of soup, add saltines with butter and call it a meal. That gives me a break because I am now taking care of everything because of Hubby’s meniscus tear. Add a kitten named Eloise to that and I fall into bed at night exhausted.

My freezers are jammed packed so we will be eating those up also. I have found 2 other stores where I can restock in bulk at great prices. Much better than the prices in the local supermarkets. They are the https://www.usfoods.com/why-us-foods/chef-store.html and https://www.sloansupermarket.com/ .

The rest of our food we will rotate so that nothing goes bad.

How many of you have tons of office supplies? I know we do and we are not going to buy any until they are all gone. We have lots of pens and pencils, notebooks, computer printer paper(about a case and 1/2), staples, rubber bands, markers, notepads, tape, etc. Just look at these notebooks. They will get put to good use this year.

The one on the left on the bottom row is a meal planner that barely got used. I will use it up this year to plan out my meals from my stockpile and write any groceries I need that week. The one on the right is a notebook with lined pages. I will be using it as a running list of errands, cleaning that needs to be done, etc. I will just cross things off as I do them and add things as I need to. This notebook will replace buying a planner. I have purchased planners from two different people over the years. This year they are majorly expensive around $ 59. and $ 68. I found this past year I barely used mine because of my online calendar. So buying one would be a huge waste of money. I will just use the notebook that I already own.

In the top picture is a money planner that did not get used. We keep everything online. But I will use it this year to track things I spend money on that are not fixed budget items. The other notepad I am going to use to track my frugal items that I do every day.

We have many more notebooks that will get used when we need them.

It is 1:37am and I am now tired and ready for bed. But I wanted to get this post done for you. I will continue it tomorrow.

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Every Day

Cost Cutting This Past Week

We did no online shopping this week so no money spent on that.

I did all of my errands for this week today. I went to Top’s to check out ham prices. No real deals to be had. I did pick up 2 lbs. of butter for $2.99 each using a rain check. I also used a rain check to get 4 SteakUms at the BOGO price of $3.99 for 2 of them so I paid $ 7.98 for all 4 packages. My total was $13.96.

Then I went to Walmart to check out ham prices which were too high in price. I looked for the $.25 a lb. turkeys that the online community is talking about but they had none. I did pick up a case of Clear American Sparkling waters for $ 9.36 to use for Christmas. I also purchased provolone cheese slices for $ 2.24 and a 2 lb. package of Bubba Burgers for $13.97. The total was $ 25.57. I paid with 2 $10. Walmart GC’s that I earned from Fetch and $ 5.57 in cash.

We watched our Buffalo Bills beat the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Our family was not able to come to celebrate Christmas this past weekend because of the flu.

I have been reading some frugality books that I haven’t read in a long time to get ready for 2025. Then I am setting each of them aside to give to a friend. This is giving me some time to rest my back.

My winter coat needs to be dry cleaned because I forgot to do it last spring. I am researching the price for the dry cleaner and the price to do it myself. Whichever is cheaper, I will do.

We are making all meals from our pantry and freezer.

I have set aside time in my schedule this week to make a bunch of quick breads from scratch. I need some for gifts and some for breakfasts meals for family that will spending a few days here during the holidays.

I have been slow walking on the treadmill which is helping my back.

I purchased a Sam’s Club Membership at the senior discount rate of $20.

All leftovers have been eaten this week.

I made 8 SF puddings for snack and desserts this week.

I did 1 load of laundry this week using cold water and hung most of it to dry. Towels and sheets I like to put in the dryer.

What have you done to cut costs?

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

It has been a rough week. My back has been bothering me but is a little better today. There is really nothing they can do for it but surgery. I refuse to do that so I will manage it with OTC pain killers and exercises from my chiropractor.

Hubby tore his meniscus in his left knee. It has been bothering him for a while but he finally was able to get in to see the orthopedist who made this diagnosis. They gave him a cortisone shot. It seemed to work the first day but he says he is in pain now. Next step is an injection of gel. Final step is a knee replacement. So I have been busy most of the week taking care of him. We also had doctor appointments yesterday and Hubby has 2 next week and I have some tests one day also. Needless to say I have been really busy and exhausted each and every day.

Fortunately, I have wonderful neighbors who have been bringing our garbage cans up from the road after they have been emptied. Then all I have to do is open the garage door and put them away. I was grateful last week because we had a lot of snow and this week because it was 22 degrees and extremely windy. So I will be baking homemade banana bread for them and their families soon. They think I don’t know who is doing it but my outdoor cameras are showing me who it is.

However, we did not get take out for meals. I was tempted but resisted the urge. I made all of our meals all week. We had pork chops one day with Spanish rice, soup twice, and red beans and rice with smoked sausage. Leftovers were eaten for breakfast along with bacon and eggs and chicken salad. Today we should finish the chicken for brunch.

The grocery deals were not that good this week so I didn’t miss those. I may get to Aldi and Dollar Tree this morning very early. I haven’t looked at the Top’s ad for next week yet but unless they have really great deals, I will not shop. It will be too crowded.

We have been craving filet mignon, baked potatoes, and a salad so I will defrost the meat today.

We were supposed to have Christmas here tomorrow with some family but one of them is sick and they don’t want us to get sick. So it has been changed to Sunday but most likely that will end up getting cancelled. We were looking forward to it but things happen. At least I have all the stockings filled but they can wait until some future time.

Since I was sitting a lot because Hubby wanted me to watch some taped shows with him, I wrote 23 Christmas cards out and got them mailed. I have one friend who is almost blind so I will call and chat with her soon.

I am so happy that Christmas money envelopes and all 5 stockings are done. I would not want to be running around now gathering those things.

We are not putting up our tree this year because of Eloise. She would either knock it over or become an ornament in it.

We continue to work on our budget for 2025. We were bitterly disappointed when our pest control company sent us notice of an increase in our quarterly cost. I just paid $202.+ for the past three months. Now it will be $234.+ a quarter or $936.+ a year. That is a yearly increase of $ 128. per year. I was not happy that every year they raise it but this is the largest increase. I hate spiders, all bugs and bees and wasps. So we are researching what we can do. We also have traps that they put food in each quarter to get rid of the voles that ruin our lawn. If anyone treats these things at the their home themselves, I would love to hear about in the comments and any products you use. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I hope you are all getting your Christmas food at the stores and your gifts done.