Category: Every Day

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.

We are eating leftovers for brunch. We have a choice of a hamburger, cottage cheese with pineapple, or meatballs with marinara sauce. When those are gone, all the leftovers will be gone. That is a good thing because no food waste. We do not eat lunch.

Dinner on Sunday will be grilled mojito lime pork rib steaks and tossed salad. All meals this weekend will be cooked at home. My son and West will be here for breakfast tomorrow morning. I will make bacon, scrambled eggs, French toast with 100% pure syrup, a side of avocado for 2 of us who will eat it and cranberry juice. Tonight we will bread haddock and deep fry it. I will serve it with broccoli.

I emptied my change from my purse this week into my change jug. I do this at the end of every week. We wrap it and take it to the bank for the grandchildren when it is full. They usually get around $100. each time that happens(once or twice a year). I always hold back a quarter to use at Aldi’s when I go.

We will not being going anywhere so no gasoline will be used. We will not be ordering anything online so no money will be spent.

Entertainment this weekend will be watching NCIS, FBI Most Wanted, and Matlock, reading, watching football, and playing rummy with our son and West. I have decided I will write out a few Christmas cards for people we don’t see all year. I will do this while watching football.

I have cloth snakes in front of the two doors in the basement to keep the cold air out. But I am feeling a draft again near the back door so I will find another one for there today. They are in a storage bin in the basement.

That’s it. Enjoy your weekends.

We all know how much our utility bills have gone up in 2024. We have been looking at ours so that we can set our budget for next year. Our total utility bills for natural gas and electricity for the past 12 months was $2187.52. That is quite a chunk of change. The 12 month period prior to that was $ 1871.59. So the past 12 months was up $ 315.93. It would have been much higher if we hadn’t done what we could to conserve.

We would like to get that total back under $2000. or lower for 2025. Will rates keep going up? Probably especially in New York. National Grid which is one of the utility companies out here has asked the regulatory agency for a 20% rate increase in natural gas and a 15% rate increase in electricity rates for April 2025. People are turning out in droves at their public hearings against this. But I doubt that will do any good. Governor Hochul just signed a bill that states when the utility increases their rates with the approval of the regulatory commission, the utility company must tell the public why and what they are spending it on. Now tell me how that is going to help the people. She says there is HEAP money for low income people in the state but it does not pay much and is only a one time amount. I am watching this closely because our utility company will follow suit with a rate increase request.

So knowing all of that, we still want to get our yearly bill under $2,000. or less. We will be doing everything we can to get there even if we have to go without A/C or at least use it less often. It is very hard to go without heat because of the brutal cold temperatures, snow and winds here. Our heat has been running constantly lately except for at night because we bump the temperature down to 65. We have to try to keep Eloise warm so we will not go down any further. It does run a few times at night to keep the temperature of 65 steady.

We will grill food outside when the weather permits over the winter. Otherwise, we will use our small countertop oven instead of our large gas oven. We will also use our small appliances like our instant pot, slow cooker, etc. to save on costs.

We already have a gas tankless hot water heater which is cheaper than heating a hot water tank all of the time. We don’t run hot water down the drain in the kitchen sink. We use a small dishpan of soapy water for anything that does not go in the dishwasher. We do the same with rinse water. I didn’t think this would make a difference but I believe it does. I just switched to this method a couple of months ago.

By running errands and doing appointments( combined like we did so that I could get 6 tests for my back done this week), we don’t go in and out of the house as often opening and closing outside doors. We usually use the door to the garage and don’t open the garage door until the other one is shut. We do the reverse when we come home. We do have to get our mail down at the end of the driveway. The mailman’s truck is so noisy that I can usually watch him to see if he even leaves mail instead of going outside to find there is none. We only get mail about 3 times a week and it is usually junk. We do get the mail combined with our trips out to run errands. The only other time we go out is to put the garbage cans out and bring them back in.

We also will be using online ordering and Walmart delivery as much as we can over the winter to avoid trips out which will also save us on gasoline.

Every way that we have learned over the years will be used to cut down on these bills. The utility company gives us a report each month comparing our home to other homes in our area. They use 1500- 2100 sq. ft. homes to do this. Our home is 2112 sq. ft. so this does not really give us a fair comparison. We are usually over the average amount for gas and electric. Plus most homes in our area do not have 9 ft. ceilings and 2 cathedral ceilings like we do. However, that said we are not usually much over the average. And matter of fact we were under this past month. That is what I aim for.

Are you now in December working on your budgets for 2025 to see where you can cut?

Brunch was eggs, avocado, and ham. Every meal that we have talked about the past couple of days that was made at home came from my winter stockpile.

The hatch liftgate support struts on our SUV stopped working a while ago. So the hatch would only go up so far and then you would have to push it up the rest of way with your hand. Otherwise you would hit your head. Hubby had gotten frustrated with it. So he ordered a pair of the struts with the rear tailgate shocks. They only cost $23.98 + sales tax. He plans on installing them himself maybe with help from one of our sons if needed. You can just imagine what the parts and the labor would cost at the dealership. After researching it, the price was $ 152. Quite a savings by doing it ourselves. They will arrive today.

Hubby went to get blood work done. Fortunately, it is covered in full by our health insurances.

I purchased 1000 Equate Tylenol because I was down to half a bottle. After some research, I found https://www.walmart.com/ip/Equate-Extra-Strength-Pain-Relief-Acetaminophen-Caplets-500-mg-2-Pack-1000-Count/766655891 for $14.96. I paid with Walmart gift cards that were free to me.

I did a load of laundry today which was sheets. They are in the dryer now with my dryer balls. They seem to take less drying time with these. Hence it takes less electricity.

Hubby made our party mix recipe. It has been passed down in his family for years. It is for Thanksgiving. We can’t have a Thanksgiving or Christmas without it. I bought everything on sale this year and used some items from last year.

We are not really hungry for dinner tonight. So we will just each have two vegetable and chicken egg rolls with mango sauce. I will air fry them in the 11 in 1 oven.

I went to Top’s to use up the coupons I wrote about on the last post. However there were no parking spaces so I turned around and came home. There was nothing I needed that badly to wait for a spot to park. So I will not be spending any grocery money this week.

Did you cut any costs today?