Author: Precious

Inflation has reared it’s ugly head in so many areas of our lives in the past months. Food is outrageously expensive along with gasoline, clothing, lumber, and many other items that we buy. Even purchasing a home has become much more expensive. It is a terrible time to do that right now. Even if you can get way over asking price on your current home, chances are you will pay way over the listing price on your new home.

Because Hubby and I are retired 20 years, we are on a fixed income. Yes, we have investments and savings but they are not something that we want to dip into for everyday expenses. We have other plans for that money.

So many people are hurting financially today because of job loss or the loss of their businesses. Many landlords are not getting paid the rent they are due for months now so they are having trouble meeting their mortgages on those properties. This is the worst time that I can remember in all of my years.

Since I have some time today ( it has been a very busy spring and summer with company here), I thought I would post and let you know how Hubby and I are trying to cope with inflation without digging deep into our savings. I thought perhaps it would give someone who needs it some ideas on how they could cope with it. Remember these ideas are what we are doing. Take what you like and just ignore what you don’t. We all save money in different ways.

First, I will tell you how we are saving on food. Pictured above is one of the three gallon bags of cherries that we picked from the tree in our yard. We picked as many as we could on a ladder and left the top of the tree for the birds to eat. Hubby made us the most delicious cherry crumble for dessert this past weekend. The rest of the cherries got frozen for future use.

Now I realize that not everyone has a fruit tree in their yard, But you can plant some tomatoes or other produce just like we did pictured above. If you don’t have ground space just put them in pots like we did. These 4 plants will give us many, many tomatoes for salads or BLT’s the end of July or beginning of August.

Our local strawberries are $ 5.50 a lb. here. I will not pay that price. A week or so ago, I was able to get 2 lbs. of strawberries shipped in from another state for $ 2.50 a lb. Other produce as it becomes in season will probably be high this year also because of shortages due to the droughts. I just won’t buy any if the price is outrageous. We have frozen and canned veggies and fruits here that we can rely on.

We have also made sure that we are eating proper portions especially our meat portions. No one needs more than 4 oz. of meat a day. When beef tenderloin or ground chuck is on sale, I buy in large quantities. I also have a buy price that I will not go over. That price is $5.00 a lb. for the ground meat and $11.00 a lb. for the tenderloin. A few weeks ago our tenderloin went up to $ 17.00 a lb. I am not buying at that price so we are not replenishing that meat as we eat it. I also will not pay over $2.00 a lb. for boneless chicken breasts. Aldi’s has them for $ 1.69 a lb. this week. That is a price that I would stock at. I refuse to pay more than $5.00 for bacon.

We are not wasting ANY food. All leftovers get used. If we have a bit of fruits or veggies left from meals, I either use them the next meal or freeze them for smoothies or homemade soups. We have French fries left from lunch yesterday. They will get reheated in the air fryer for another meal. We are rotating out what foods we already have so that they get eaten before they go bad.

We are baking our own bread using the bread maker. I can make it a lot cheaper than buying it. The only time I buy it is if I see a major reduced price at Walmart.

I am not using coupons whether they be paper or digital just to use the coupon. I write my list first and then look to see if I have a coupon. 90% of the time, I buy store brands.

We no longer buy junk food for snacks. We eat fruit, crackers and cheese, celery with peanut butter, carrot sticks with dip, SF pudding or jello, nuts, and popcorn made from kernels we put in our popcorn maker. I buy the popcorn in 50 lb. bags. Junk food is outrageously expensive per lb. and not very healthy.

Gasoline right now is $ 3.10 a gallon. I filled up yesterday at $ 2.80 a gallon using gasoline points that I earned for buying groceries. We drive as little as possible. When we do drive, we do many things at once on our route so as not to have to go out again. For example, yesterday I had a hair cut appointment. On my route home, I went to Aldi’s to get the sale chicken, to Dollar Tree to get tissues and shampoo, to Top’s to get strawberry shortcake cups that hubby was asking for, and filled up my gas tank. I try to only shop once a week and that happens 80% of the time. A tank of gasoline lasts us 4-6 weeks depending on how many appointments we have.

My sister in law invited us to their home on a lake in the Adirondacks. We went to their home last time. It is a very long and expensive trip. So instead we have invited them to come and stay with us. She is going to ask her husband and see when they can come.

Utility prices have also skyrocketed here. We are not only dealing with a rate increase but increases in supply and demand charges. We just got our electric and natural gas bill. We have been conserving like crazy. Even though we used 437 kwh’s this month instead of 544 kwh’s for the same time period last year, our bill was only $ 6. cheaper than last year’s. We also used 3.4 less ccf’s. It is a good thing we are conserving or our bill would have been much higher.

We have only had to use A/C for one week this year so far. Our house has stayed very comfortable in the low 70’s without it. As long as I pull the energy saving shades, curtains, and blinds on the windows when the sun is beating in, we will not have to use it. The week that we had to turn it on was humid and in the mid to high 80’s. We also have ceiling fans that help in the rooms that we are in.

95% of our cooking is done in the air fryer or outside on the propane grill. Many nights we have meals that do not require cooking anything like salads or sandwiches. Propane has gone up but not much here for 20 gallons. Our tank was full since we filled it last Fall.

I need to quit for now. I will be back tomorrow to continue this topic. If you are trying to save because of inflation, please feel free to comment and let us know what that is.

I found this recipe few days ago online. We normally eat meat or fish and veggies. But this looked really good. I just made sure that I used Primal Kitchen mayonaise.

Here is the link:

https://joyfilledeats.com/jalapeno-popper-chicken-casserole/

It is Keto friendly and so delicious. We both loved it but it does make a lot. We will be eating it all week. Hubby isn’t on Keto so he just puts it on eggnoodles.

Sorry that I forgot to take a picture before we ate.

Do you have an answer to that question? I don’t think any of us do. I know I don’t.

I watch my investments in the stock market every day and hope that the market doesn’t crash. But that could happen at any time.

What I do know is that all of the spending that the government is doing is not a good thing. In my estimation the Fed is just propping the economy up until the day it crashes.

Our money, which is just paper, is getting more and more worthless every day. It used to be backed by gold until they got rid of the gold standard in August of 1971. Now nothing is backing it. It is just becoming worthless paper.

In the past couple of decades they have been printing more and more money. The U.S. has so much debt that I think they can’t stop printing money or everything will collapse.

You know that debt is not a good thing. You know that if you keep adding to your debt and don’t pay it off every month that eventually you will be bankrupt. Well, that is what will eventually happen with with our government too.

Someone asked me this recently? “What would you do if you had a lot of mortgage debt, car loans, and credit card debt?”

That is a hard one for me because we have no debt at all. But if I did the first thing I would pay off would be the car loan and your home. The car can be repossessed and you may need it to get to work and make your income. If you don’t need it, I would pay off your home first.

You need a place to live and if you want to stay in your home, pay it off as quickly as possible. Thousands and thousands of people lost their homes during the Great Depression because they could not make their loan or mortgage payments. They ended up on the streets or moving in with family if that family could afford to feed them. You don’t want that to happen to you.

If you own your home and can afford to pay the property taxes, you have a place to live. If you don’t, the banks will foreclose and take it if you miss a few payments.

You are feeling the effects of prices going up. Prices on groceries and many other items are increasing and they will continue to increase as long as the government keeps printing money. And they don’t seem to want to stop. Instead they want to spend more and more money. When they do that, we have inflation and eventually hyperinflation.

So if you still have income coming in, I suggest you pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible. Did you ever wonder why the 2020 census asked you if you own your home? I know I did.

If you have an opinion about this topic, I would love to hear it.

I went to two grocery stores on Tuesday and combined them into my large monthly grocery haul. First I went to Top’s to pick up things that we needed that were on sale.

Hubby needed snacks so the popcorn and corn chips should last him for this month. The Italian bread was for hot meatball sandwiches that we have already eaten. He eats his brunch or lunch sandwiches on the seeded rolls. Bacon is a staple in our home so whenever I see it under $5.00 a lb. I grab it. I love mushrooms on burgers and steaks. The yogurt is my treat a couple of times a month. Eggs are always needed. I forgot to pick up romaine lettuce since I got side tracked talking with a friend. So when I stop for gasoline on the way to an appointment, I will pick it up. The last item was Angostora bitters which Hubby likes in his manhattans. I hated the price but they will last him for a year or more.

My second stop was at Niagara Produce.

We were getting low on ground beef. Aldi’s had the Never Any brand on sale this week for $ 4.99 a lb. The price has gone up. I decided to not buy it there for a couple of reasons. Hubby loves the ground chuck at Niagara Produce and it is still $ 4.75 a lb. So I decided going out on a Wednesday to get the Never Any brand wasn’t worth my time, gasoline, or money. I shopped this week on Tuesday because it was the once monthly Senior Discount day. I didn’t save much with that but every little bit helps.

I bought everything that the butcher had at the counter. But they were running out so I picked up a package from the meat case because it is the same price. The total was about 4.75 lbs. which I immediately packaged up into meal size portions when I got home using my food saver.

We love shrimp and have it at least twice a month. This 1 lb. package was only $ 7.99 and they are huge shrimp. This is the best price I have found in my area. Even when it is on sale at other stores, they don’t beat this price.

After taking inventory of our meat, Hubby was getting low on haddock. I had plenty of salmon which is what I like. So I purchased him two fresh skinless haddock on sale for $ 6.99 a lb. which is the cheapest price I have found anywhere. This will last more than a month.

I also purchased a bag of lemons and limes which I use on fish and in my water that I drink most of the day. The last item delighted me. I found canning jars. They are very hard to find around this area so when I see them I grab them. I use them for many things in my pantry. And yes, I do pay for them out of my food budget.

As you can see on my receipt, I let them know that I was overcharged for the eggs last week. They put it as a return on this receipt and then recharged me which credited me the $ .60 they owed me.

The total for Top’s was $ 31.46 and for Niagara Produce was $ 65.58 for a large haul total of $ 97.04. I will be picking up the romaine that should have been in that haul. I will let you know the price in a future post.

UPDATE: On the way to my appointment today I stopped and filled up my car’s gasoline tank. I was able to get $.20 off per gallon using Top’s points. That saved me $ 1.75. I also stopped at Aldi’s and picked up some romaine and a cucumber. They had the best price and it was on my route. They cost $3.58 so I spent a total of $ 100.62 this week.

Did you do a large haul this week or a small haul? Feel free to share with all of us in the comments.

Well, it has certainly been a long time since I have written here. I hope you are all well. Being honest is how I always want to be! That said, I needed a break badly. There was so much going on in my life and our extended families lives that I desperately needed some time to help them. My life had become very, very stressful. I also needed to decompress.

Along with that, I was quite sick with a strep throat for about 2 weeks. A year’s worth of avoiding Covid 19 and I come down with strep caught at the supermarket. So weird! It was the only place I had been during the time I started to come down with it.

Now that things have calmed down, I will be blogging again when I have time. I have a post all ready for Monday. With time to collect my thoughts during the break, I have changed my grocery budget and have been sticking to the new figure. I am also doing my shopping a little differently. I will tell you all about it on Monday.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a blessed Easter and the Easter bunny comes to all of your little ones. We are spending Easter alone this year. However we are very excited because our son and grandson are coming for breakfast in the morning. We have not seen them in 4 months which was a 20 minute visit outdoors. We have seen Alexa and my other son here twice in the past year. They came and visited. We will see them again in a couple of months when Alexa graduates from junior high school. We will also see my son’s new home for the first time. Pictures only tell us a little of what it it like.

Until Monday………….

Well, I hope you are feeling Happy today! I know I am! Sorry to be absent the past couple of weeks but we had to be available for family, spent many hours a day trying to find a place that would actually have a vaccine appointment, and spent many hours with lawyers working on estate things along with the usual everyday things that we all have to spend time on.

I can happily tell you that Hubby and I have both gotten our first vaccine injections. We are looking forward to getting the second shots. I hope that if you are over 65 that you have been able to get yours too.

Now for the frugal things that we have done while I have been absent:

• I have done no grocery shopping during that time. We have been eating from our pantries, freezer, and refrigerator. I am planning a trip to the store and will post about it when it has happened.
• I have been using up all of the cooked meals that we had frozen.
• I made a run to the bank and got grocery money out for three months so that I could skip a couple of trips. The bank is a 30 minute drive in heavy traffic. The less time I can spend going there the better and it also saves on gasoline.
• Hubby took 5 bags of bottles and cans to Fast Cash and received $7.65 back in deposits.
• Hubby snow blowed our driveway after the latest storm and shoveled the driveway and porch. So many of my neighbors hire a plow driver and it is so expensive. We purchased the snow blower when we moved here and it is certainly paying for itself.
• Our natural gas and electric utility bill came and was only a couple of dollars more than last year even though we had a rate increase.
• I am noticing that grocery prices are continuing to go up due to inflation. I spent a morning at Walmart checking out all kinds of prices on things that we use all the time. I had to pick up a sweater so while I was there I updated our price book. I am seeing increases of $ .25 to over $ 1.00 per item. Meat especially seems to be rising whether it is fresh or canned. We will be making changes to what we buy as the price increases continue to head upwards. I will do a post about that in the future.
• I did buy a necessity. Hubby said the shower floor was becoming too slippery for him. So I spent $ 15.11 for a shower mat. I do not want him to fall.
• I went to the car wash and used 5 car wash coupons that I had gotten from previous washes to get a free wash. The SUV needed it badly since it was so dirty from the dirt and salt that the town puts on our roads.
• Hubby downloaded “NEXT” and we binge watched it. I was great free entertainment.
• I continue to exercise here at home on the treadmill and recumbent bike.
• We paid our usual landscaping and fertilizing services so that we could take advantage of a 5% discount.
• We did the usual of washing our laundry in cold water all except for towels and bedding. We hung most of our laundry to dry.
• I spend time every week dry canning our pasta and grains until I get it all caught up.
• I ordered vegetable seeds for the spring. They were a necessity this month because so many companies are getting orders early and I am afraid that they will sell out early.
• Hubby had a Telehealth visit with a doctor which lets him stay away from people along with saving us gasoline.
• I can’t think of anything else at the moment. Please feel free to share your frugal things with us in the comments.