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.
Hubby filled the gas tank up when we got back from out trip at the cash station. We paid $ 2.89 a gallon.
Hubby arranged through our insurance company to have a windshield replacement company come to our home on Tuesday and replace our cracked windshield. It is fully covered under our insurance. I am thankful because it cost over $700.
I stopped at Top’s on the way home from the X-RAY place and got a loaf of Schwebel’s bread for $.99, 2 bunches of bananas for $ .29 a lb, 2 lbs. of butter for $ 2.99 each and egg nog on sale for $ 3.99. I also used some of my manufacturers coupons from the companies I write to to get 1 butter, 2 cottage cheese, 2 sour cream and 1 Rosina meatballs. Almost all the under $1.00 coupons doubled. We have been wanting banana salad as a side dish but until now the bananas have been too expensive. I got one yellow bunch and one green bunch so they will last longer.
It has been snowing here for a couple of days. Our snowplow guy showed twice and I think he will be back tomorrow because it is snowing again. He is all paid in advance so I don’t have to worry about that when he comes. I shoveled the sidewalk and porch so that the delivery people don’t fall and my packages don’t get wet.
I cooked a half pound of bacon and 3 eggs for brunch. The bacon was very fatty so it made a lot of bacon grease. I used some to cook the eggs and saved the rest to use for other things like sauteing potatoes.
For dinner last night I made hamburgers and topped them with sauteed onions and cheese. We have one leftover so that will get eaten for brunch today by one of us.
When our garbage man came, my neighbor brought the can up to my garage door for me because the snow and wind blowing it around was awful . I was grateful and let him know. It was so easy to just open the door and bring it into the garage. I have thoughtful neighbors.
Our water bill came for three months and is now down to normal again. It was $ 57.44. The last bill over the summer was $ 212.10 for 3 months. For the past year we have paid $ 367.49 for the gallons of water we use. I would like to reduce that by $40.00 in 2025. Using the dishpans all year and being very careful to take navy showers will help. We had a dry summer. Hopefully next summer it will rain more so we don’t have to water as often. We also pay for water and sewers in our tax bill in January.
While we were away, the free gallon of milk that I got did not get used. It is still good so I made a lot of SF pudding to use it up. Before it goes bad, I will freeze the rest.
You all know that we pay for grocery delivery at Walmart. Hubby was out of his favorite crackers and I was out of saltines to go with soup meals. So we placed an order of those things, romaine lettuce and fresh tomatoes for salads, and a few other items. I noticed that Walmart had given me a free express order(delivered within 90 minutes). It actually arrived an hour after I ordered. That was convenient last night rather than have to get up early this morning and deal with it.
I scanned all of my receipts into Fetch. I got a rebate check for $18. for other items.
Our November savings was only $1600. The reason is all of the Christmas money gifts that we give out and charitable donations that we sent to different organizations in November. We give a lot of money in large lump sums to Tunnel to Towers a few times a year. I also put $50. in the Salvation Army kettle at Top’s. I also tend to tip in larger amounts in November and December.
Lastly, we had many things that we bought for Eloise to make sure she is warm this winter.
I am debating writing Christmas cards this year. I have them because I bought them half price last Christmas. But the postage is so high now. Are any of you doing something else besides cards like e-mails?
However $1600. is a win for us and gets us closer to our goal.
Have you cut any costs the past week or so? Please share with all of us. It helps others.
My storage is used up on my computer. I need to get rid of some pictures before I can take any more pictures. I refuse to pay for more storage. I will try to get that done over the weekend.
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?
We left at 6:30am on Wednesday morning to go to my son’s home in the Adirondacks. It was a 5 hour drive. We took Eloise with us in her cage in the back of the SUV. She had all of her shots and was spade at the rescue. If we had to board her, the new vet would have insisted on a full exam before they took her for boarding. She would have been boarded for 5 days. I decided to wait to get the new vet until she is due for her boosters in May. My son was agreeable that she was welcome.
I can tell you that it wasn’t easy. We had to take so many things for her with us. Our SUV was packed between her things and ours. I also had some food for Thanksgiving to take to my son: cranberry sauce, pickles, olives, party mix, and an apple and pumpkin pie. Plus I brought my son’s Christmas gift and a case of pumpkin for his dog, Hotch. Eloise finally settled down and slept after 2 and 1/2 hours of meowing in the car.
After we got settled in at my son’s, we went to https://harusaratoga.com/ for an early dinner. We love their Japanese Hibachi. Hubby and I had not eaten all day. So we all enjoyed appetizers, entrees, salad and soup. Not an inexpensive restaurant though but it is so good that it is worth every penny. The bill with tip was $ 152.
On Thanksgiving we woke up to heavy snow. By the time it stopped late afternoon, we had 8-10 inches. It was so beautiful especially on all the pine trees. We stayed home and I helped my son cook a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. He cooked a 22 lb. Butterball turkey that he got for $1.04 a lb. He is a good deal shopper too. He has many turkeys in his freezer. We ate and then watched some movies.
On Friday, we chilled in the morning and then visited two friends. The guy is my son’s business partner. They recently purchased a new to them home and they and my son renovated it. We were happy to get a tour of it and it is beautiful. They did a great job especially the brand new kitchen.
We enjoyed a couple of drinks and the best homemade popcorn that I have ever eaten. They surprised us with an early Christmas gift. It was a Yankee Candle called All Is Bright. It smells heavenly. They traveled to Massachusetts to get it for us. They also gave Hubby a bag of Fire Department Company coffee because it was decaf which is what Hubby drinks. It was so nice of both of them.
We got home and ate turkey leftovers. My son had so many leftovers that he froze some for us to take home in the Yeti cooler that I won from his fire department’s raffle a few months ago. After a 5+ hour trip home, it was still as frozen as when we left. Our plan was to eat some when we got home on Saturday for dinner. But they were not going to thaw in time. Rather than order food delivered, I rummaged through our freezer and took out coconut shrimp to cook in the air fryer mode in my countertop oven. We will have the turkey for dinner tonight.
The best part of this trip was seeing and spending time with my son. We were shocked at how much weight he has lost. He is so slim and looks great. He is busy between a full time job and his business. It is hard for him to get the time to come out to visit. But he is coming soon for a visit to us combined with a business trip.
Also we were a little concerned about how his dog and Eloise would get along. There was no worry. They were best friends. They played and Eloise had a game of let’s grab his tail on the way by and see if he will chase me. They were so good together. Rubbing noses was popular. My son will bring him out this month and I am sure that Eloise will be glad to see him.
The only money we spent on this trip was the Haru dinner bill, tolls on the Thruway which are discounted because they take them out of our checking account, 2 tanks of gasoline, some lifesavers, a bottle of gin, and 2 bottles of raspberry seltzer, 1 Chocolate Shake for Hubby, 1 Chick Fil A English muffin sandwich which was the worst thing I have ever eaten because they really burnt the bun. The entire bun was charred. Once you are back on the road and open the sandwich to eat it, it is too late to return it. I will be contacting them about it.
The worse part of our trip home was the ice on our car. It was almost impossible to get it off. My son got our windshield scraped. We left and realized just down the road that our windshield was cracked from a chunk of ice hitting it. The crack traveled and got bigger as we drove home. I was happy to get home with it intact. Hubby will call our insurance company tomorrow to see where we can get it fixed. I am hoping they can come to the house to do it.
Today I will be taking it easy because my sciatica and arthritis are really painful. Anything that I can do sitting down I will. But walking is a real problem.
I hope you all had a great holiday and I will post again tomorrow.
I want to wish you and your families a very Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your food and your company. Thank the Lord for everything and tell him how grateful you are for all that he has done for you.
We will be very busy getting ready for our feast on Thursday. Good family makes great memories. I am excited for Eloise to meet some more family.
I will be back posting sometime over the weekend. I will have more on cutting costs, money planning for 2025, and our savings for the month of November, etc.
I am grateful to all of you for visiting and I hope you have learned some things this year.
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 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.
I woke up with a flare up of my sciatica going down the back of my left leg on Saturday. I tell you this not for sympathy but to let you know that growing old is a REAL pain. So I need to get a lot done but I won’t get as much as I want to. I have spent part of my morning putting ice on my leg. I am supposed to do it three times a day. It did help for a while.
I pulled 2 pork rib eye steaks out of the freezer to thaw. Hubby grilled them indoors because it was raining here. We had cinnamon apples for the side.
Breakfast on Saturday morning was grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee. Then it was time to fill my pill containers. It is a job I hate to do, so I fill 4 weeks at once. Then I don’t have to do it every week.
All the laundry was done the other day. I think we will use coated paper plates so there will be hardly any dishes to rinse and put in the dishwasher.
I just finished entering two weeks worth of receipts into Fetch.
I scanned the weekly ad for Top’s that starts on Sunday. I will be using a $ 5.00/ $35.00 order Top’s coupon, $ 2.00 off fresh produce coupon, and a coupon for 100 extra gasoline points this week. I will keep my order as close to $35. as I can.
Hubby and I watched some of the college football games.
Sunday was another easy day. My son and West came to visit. We took them out to our favorite Greek restaurant for breakfast to celebrate my son’s birthday that was last Wednesday. I was happy not to have to stand to cook breakfast. Hubby made a homemade pizza for dinner. It was delicious.
I spent some time making a list of what I have to get done for Thanksgiving. I have a lot on my plate.
We again watched some pro football. But not the Bills because they have a week off.
I went to bed really early to rest my leg and so I could get up with Eloise. She slept late for a change.
It is Monday and I have a very busy day. I will be back tomorrow.
I realized that I was running out of Eloise’s kitten food today. I needed a 14 lb. bag of her Purina Healthy Development Kitten Chow. So I did some research and realized that I could get it for $18.59 minus $2.00 in rewards money at Petsmart for $ 16.59. This was the cheapest that I could get it here.
While I was out, I stopped at the Top’s gasoline station and filled our SUV up. I had $ .40 off per gallon with my gas reward points. So I paid $2.66 per gallon. I needed gas and my area seems to up the price of gasoline the weekend before Thanksgiving. So I wanted to fill up before that happened.
I had the beef stew and Hubby had the beef barley soup that I made earlier in the week for dinner. We had 1 portion of beef stew and 3 portions of soup leftover. So we froze them in those portions for future meals.
Chris reminded me today that I posted my taco seasoning recipe a long time ago. For those who would like it, here it is:
This cream of chicken soup recipe that I make is from The Tightwad Gazette book. I will be making some tonight.
2 cups of dry milk
1 and 1/4 cups of cornstarch
1/4 cup chicken bouillon powder
2 Tbsp. dried onion flakes
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. basil
The thyme and basil are optional but I always use them. Mix all together and put in an airtight jar.
To use add 1/3 cup of mix to 1 and 1/4 cups of water. It replaces one can.
I was very conscious of electric usage today. It has been rainy and dreary all day so we used just one light in whatever room we were in. We heated our dinners up in the microwave. Hubby made French toast for breakfast using one pan on the stove burner. We had pure maple syrup and SF syrup to top it. We did no laundry and ran no dishwasher today.
Did you do anything to cut your costs today? Please share.
As most of you know, we are all spending more money for everything than we did in the first 4 years of Donald Trump’s Presidency. I know that he will get the inflation down but it is going to take a while. It took 4 years to get us where we are today. The Federal Reserve hasn’t helped with it’s actions either. Hopefully, he will appoint someone who knows how to get us out of this mess. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will help with this by cutting waste in government. It has grown too large and needs to be trimmed. I also hope they find all of the missing money that the current administration spent for climate change and the inflation reduction act and where that money has disappeared to.
But we will have to help! Supply and demand is much of the problem. You have seen when there are shortages, the prices rise. When something is not in demand, prices go down. I am not an expert but perhaps there has been some price gouging also.
I would bet that many of you who visit here have a good supply of food in your homes. Hopefully most of it was purchased while prices were still reasonable. I believe it is time to use that food so that none of it goes to waste. If people take a break from buying weekly, it will help bring these prices down. I know that all of us want fresh produce and dairy during the month. I will use a little money to buy those things. But everything else will be used from my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator. We will eat the proper portions so that it will last as long as possible.
I will be working on our plans for 2025 to cut our current budget and use up the food we have in our home. We have enough food to get us through the winter and perhaps longer. I no longer meal plan. I look to see what I have available in my home and use those items to make a meal. Most of that food was purchased as loss leaders. Buying loss leaders at rock bottom prices is the smartest way to buy your food. You all know how. You are probably doing it now with the cheap prices on turkey, stuffing, canned vegetables, baking supplies, etc.
I will keep my Walmart+ delivery plan through the winter because it saves us from going out in the snow and ice and possibly falling or having an accident. But I know I am spending more because of the tipping and the cost of the plan. So when spring hits, I will cancel it. I can get pickup or just walk into the store and shop cheaper.
If I run out of something, I will see if I have the ingredients to make it cheaper. We all have baking supplies in our homes but how many of us use them to make tortillas, bread, English muffins, bagels, etc. I know I get lazy and just buy them most of the time. But no longer. It may take a bit more time but I think the cost savings will be worth it.
How many of us have lots of spices in our homes but buy taco seasoning and fajita packets because it is convenient? Take the time to mix your own spices and put them in a mason jar or any other jar. Then you can quickly just spoon out what you need. You will save a lot of money if you continually do this with these items and many other spices that you can mix up. I used to make my own cream soups and bread crumb mixes but I have been lazy and gotten away from that. Not any more. There are so many things that we use everyday that we can make from scratch much cheaper. I would rather keep that money in my pocket than put it in the pockets of billionaires.
So I will be asking myself every time I make something, how can I do this cheaper?
We will be cutting many more expenses next year also and I will take you along for the ride. But food is one that I have been spending way too much money on and it will be a priority to no longer do that.
Are you planning on cost cutting in 2025 or starting right away like I will be?
As usual I have been up early with Eloise. She never seems to want to sleep past 3-4AM. After I fed her and we played for a while, I planned out a couple of days.
I made my coffee. Then I put a sirloin tip roast in the crock pot to make beef stew. I threw in fresh carrots and onions. After the beef had cooked about 3 hours, I took the roast out and cut in up into stew beef and put it back in the pot. The potatoes I threw in later in the day because I do not like them mushy. When Hubby got up, he asked what was in the crock pot. I told him and he asked if I would be mad if he asked me to take 1/2 of the beef and make beef barley soup. I said I would be happy to do that. After the beef chunks were tender, I put 1/2 of them into the soup pot. So I ended up making both beef stew and beef barley soup. I put both dinners in jars after we ate and it will be dinner for the rest of the week. If we get sick of it, I will put whatever is left over in the freezer. We will just reheat what we want to eat each night. I’m happy about that since I won’t have to make another meal for a long time.
Before I could make the soup, I needed to go to Top’s to get celery, I did not know that Hubby had used it all up. So I got 2 packages of it because it was on B1G1F so that 2 cost me $ 2.99. I also swung into Aldi’s and got 6 more pounds of butter. I usually buy 30-36 pounds of butter to last a year. But this year I am not going to buy as much because the price is so high and I still have some left from last year. We have decided that we will only use butter to spread on food like steaks, vegetables, English muffins, etc. We have enough oils to cook with including vegetable or canola for baking, olive oil and avocado to saute food. We always have cold pressed coconut oil and ghee also. Plus I save bacon grease to cook eggs and potatoes.
Last stop was the drugstore to pick up a prescription for Hubby. Cost was $.00.
I did end up doing a load of laundry using cold water and minimal liquid detergent. Then I hung it to dry. If I can continue to just do laundry once a week, I will be thrilled.
Hubby and I took some time to watch The Equalizer that was on the night before. That was my entertainment for the day. However, Hubby did watch the football game and I called my sister for our weekly chat.
Hubby went outside and removed the solar lights from the gardens to store them for the winter. He finished some odds and ends out there so we are now officially ready for winter.
So have you guys been stocking up on cheap turkeys? I have purchased one this year and got a free one, one of which we ate a couple of weeks ago and froze the leftovers. The other is in the freezer for future meals. I would have loved to buy more at such cheap prices but alas I just don’t have the freezer space. I only have a small chest freezer plus the freezer drawers in the fridge.
An acquaintance of mine who lives on only Social Security wanted to stock on turkeys this season and she had the space. The first one she purchased was $ 1.07 a lb. at Aldi’s. Her husband did not want her to buy it because he felt the price was too high. He was sure she could get it cheaper. She convinced him and she bought it. It was a Butterball Premium and well worth the price. Then she bought $ 150. in needed items to be able to do the free turkey deal at B.J.’s. You could get up to a 20 lb. turkey this week. However when she went to get it yesterday she could only find a 17 pounder. This happened to me last year and that is why I did not do this deal. She wanted to get more turkeys but her husband was adamant that she did not. He didn’t seem to understand the concept that you will not ever get poultry or meat cheaper than this. If you can get meat at these prices why pay more in the future especially when you are low income. Now I know some people don’t like turkey but he does. She knows that she can use the turkey in any recipe that calls for chicken. Why pay $ 3.49 a lb. or more for chicken? I use turkey in place of chicken in many of our recipes.
I just don’t understand his reasoning. I told her I would buy more if I had the room. So yesterday she went to Walmart and found a Shady Brook Farms one on sale for $ .88 lb. She had to sneak it in the house and the freezer. She told me and I was excited for her. Hubby has never forbidden me from buying something hence we have no secrets from each other. But if he did forbid me, I would be sneaking them in the house too. I will save money anytime I have the freezer space rather than pay more or full price later. I could understand his reasoning if they just didn’t have the money but they travel to timeshares a couple of times a year and eat out a lot. So a few cheap turkeys is not going to break them.
