This is the calculator I use whenever I want to know what a trip to the grocery store, library, bank, warehouse club, to my son’s home in the Adirondacks, or any other trip will cost me.
My trip to Top’s right now will require 0.4 gallons of gas, which amounts to a fuel cost of $1.55. That is based on my SUV getting 18.2 miles to the gallon and that this tank of gasoline cost me $ 4.399.
I wanted to know if it was worth going back to Top’s to get more of the $3.99 bacon with the Super Coupon. I can only use the SC to get 1 package at a time. Well, the regular price of the bacon is $ 5.99.
Since the gas cost me $ 1.55 for the trip, the cost of the bacon if I go back is $5.54. It is hardly worth the trip considering the value of my time. My time is worth more than $.45 and the extra wear and tear on the SUV and the tires.
Now I am fully aware that I could have put the groceries in the car and gone back in yesterday but I had time constraints so that was not possible.
So I will not be going back for bacon. I may be making a trip to our bank later this week. If I do, I pass a Top’s on the way there and I will stop for it.
Use this calculator anytime you need to drive somewhere and it will give you a good idea of what you are spending on gasoline.
This is my first homegrown organic tomato this year. I will be making BLT salads for lunch tomorrow and using it. I have three more ripening in a couple of days.
I noticed that a button was coming loose on a good blouse that I was wearing. I sewed it back on right then and there. The buttons on it are unique and would be expensive to replace.
Lately we have been catching warm up water in the kitchen to use to water our hanging baskets.
Those strip steaks were not the best on Friday night. We had 1/2 of them left so Hubby sliced them really thin and sauteed them in garlic and butter for dinner on Saturday night. They were delicious. He finished his potato salad and I sauteed some fresh zucchini. We never waste food.
We got our gas and electric bill for mid June through mid July. We turned our A/C on a couple of days into this bill and have left it on because we have had some really hot days. For 30 days it was $117.01. We used 570 kwh’s in electricity and just 2.1 ccf’s of natural gas. I was okay with that because the same bill in 2021 was $120.17. We used 728 kwh’s for that period and 5.1 in ccf’s. So this year’s bill was $3.16 less than last year’s. And we all know how high the rates have gone and the supply and demand charges. So the fact that I have really reduced our usage is paying off. If I had the same usage as last year, this bill would have been a lot more.
I have been spending many hours a day decluttering. Anything that we no longer want or haven’t used will no longer take up space in my home. Most things will be donated and some items of value will be sold.
I cut off a pair of jeans that were frayed at the bottom to make shorts. I hemmed them.
Wanting a book to read but not wanting to spend the gasoline to go to our library(which is a hike), I went through my collection of books and decided to read The Complete Tightwad Gazette again. I also realized that I have some books on my Kindle that I had not read yet so they are being read also.
I have already read and shopped the loss leaders this week. Today, I went to Top’s. This is the only money I am spending on groceries this week. This 4.46 package of chicken drumsticks was $ 1.19 a lb. for a total of $ 5.31. They are on sale at my Aldi’s for $ .99 a lb. but not until Wednesday. So I decided not to go out shopping again on Wednesday because the amount of gasoline I would have used would be much more than the $.20 a lb.
The lb. of bacon was $ 3.99 with a Super Coupon. The zucchini was 1.25 lbs. at $ 1.88 a lb. The cheeses were on sale for $3.00 each.
So my total this week was $17.65.
I divided up the chicken drumsticks into 3 packages. We each eat 2 at a meal. Tonight we will have a meal’s worth along with some sauteed zucchini. The other 2 meals were food savered and put in my freezer.
We filled up the car last week using points worth $.20 off a gallon. So we paid $ 4.40 a gallon.
When I shopped today I used a coupon Top’s had given me when I shopped last week to get 100 gas points or $ .10 off a gallon. That jump started my savings for the gas period that started yesterday.
I did a load of laundry today using cold water and hanging everything to dry. This is the first load I have done in 10 days. With energy prices so high, when we are at home we are wearing our clothing 2-3 days before washing them. Then I wash a very large load.
Lastly I redeemed Fetch points for a $25. Walmart gift card.
Feel free to share with all of us how you saved money this past couple of weeks.
Does anyone know the answer to that question? If so I would love to know. But unfortunately the government has not stopped printing money so they will keep going up until they do and they get a handle on paying the debt back. I won’t hold my breath!
I had not been out to the stores in a couple of weeks. Yesterday I had a list of some items that we needed so I decided to go to our Top’s to get the list and look at some sale items.
I came home with these two bags.
As you can see one of them was only about 1/3 to 1/2 full.
Total for these bags was $ 101.+ I have never in my lifetime paid this much for less than 2 full bags. I said no on a number of items because I felt the prices were just too high. I am sure that in the time I had not been shopping there that the prices have risen at least 20-30%.
These are all of the items I purchased. We did buy some items for a celebration. Our 55th wedding anniversary was in the beginning of July. I was going to many medical appointments and we never really celebrated. So tonight Hubby is cooking the strip steaks on the grill. They are in the butcher paper and cost $ 24.76. I have some fresh mushrooms in the fridge that I will saute up in butter. The Fresh Express Caesar Salad Kit will be our side.
The 12 oz. of shrimp was on sale for $ 11.99. They are for a shrimp scampi pan recipe that we want to try next week. The blueberries were on sale for $ 2.77. The avocados were on sale for $ 3.99.
Hubby wanted 3/4’s of lb. of Sahlen’s ham for his lunch sandwiches. That was $ 7.82. He also loves their deli potato and mustard salad to go with his lunch. That was $ 5.80. He also asked for 2 boxes of the Raisinets, one of which he has already eaten. They were a $1.29 each. His Ritz crackers were on sale also so I picked up this box for $ 2.88.
The Skinny Pop is my guilty pleasure. They were $ 4.49 for each of them. The cheeses are for me to snack on instead of junk food. It was $ 4.19 for the Cabot and $ 4.99 each for the Yancey’s Fancy cheese. Yancey’s is local in our county but not worth the drive right now. Usually when we make a trip to eastern New York, we stop there on our way home and load up. But we were out of them.
Hubby only drinks Decaf Coffee and this is his favorite. I am trying to get him off of buying pods for the Keurig. We have our reusable pods that we can refill over and over again.
Lastly, I bought the canned mushrooms on sale to add to my pantry for the future.
You can bet I won’t be buying any beef again unless all of the beef that ranchers are having slaughtered right now, because of high feed prices and shortages, brings the prices down on it. That should hit the market in a month or two.
Are you guys refusing to buy some items because they are way to high right now?
It has been a very stressful week. To explain what happened, I have to go back about 10 days.
We had an extra cable box on a TV that we were not using in a bedroom. I discussed turning it in to our cable company with Hubby. After all we were paying about $11.75 every month for it. So that was money that we might as well have been burning. He agreed it should be turned in.
So about 10 days ago I took it on the recommendation of our cable company to UPS who ships it back to the company. However, even though our current bill was made out 3 days after that, we had been billed one month in advance for the box. So I called the cable company and asked why that was. The representative advised that they did not show the box as having been turned in. I gave her all of the appropriate numbers that they needed from my receipt and she opened an investigation and gave me a case number. She said I would get a response within one week. So I marked my calendar to follow up with them if I had no answer within that period.
It was exactly 7 days into the investigation when we got an e-mail saying they had found the box and had credited our bill. At the same time, I got a telephone call from the company. I answered our landline phone and there was no one there. So I hung up. Then the phone rang again from the cable company and when I picked it up, I got a screeching sound. Having worked in the telecommunications industry, I recognized pretty quickly that our telephone line was dead and it seemed like the cable company had done it. Sure enough at the same time the telephone went dead, we got another e-mail stating that they had worked an order to disconnect our telephone. It was 6pm in the evening and we did not want to go without service through the night. We have an alarm system that is monitored via that landline.
Fortunately we have a cellphone and so I called the company on their customer service number. I explained the situation to two representatives who ended up disconnecting me while they had me on hold. I called the third time and got a man who helped me. He put me on hold for the longest time and came back and told me that the company had accidentally cut our service. Why, he did not know. But he said that he would transfer me to someone who could turn the telephone back on.
He transferred me to a woman who advised me since we had a legacy service they could not turn it back on until we migrated to their service. You see a few years ago our cable company was bought out by a larger nationwide company. Our regulatory agency made them keep the service we had had with the other company even though they had their own. So many people stayed with the legacy service because it was cheaper. Now because the company made a mistake, they had no way anymore to turn the legacy service on. Their service was going to cost us about $ 20. more than we were paying even before they credited back the box I returned. After being on the telephone for one hour with the company, when I heard that, I gave the rep to Hubby to talk to.
When he realized they couldn’t put our old service back, he told them to migrate the service to the new but he was not a happy camper especially when they told him how much it was going to cost. He just wanted the telephone back on. So the rep migrated the service. However, when they did that, the internet switched to the high speed and the cable TV switched but our DVR would not work. But most importantly, the telephone did not come back on.
That started a series of being transferred to many, many people in over 8 different states who could not figure out why the telephone didn’t come back on. The last person we talked to told us that until we signed some form that stated we accepted the companies terms and conditions, which we had never been told about or seen, he would not turn the telephone back. He told my husband with a very harsh tone that he was giving him an ULTIMATUM. Well, Hubby told him he was not happy about his choice of language or his rudeness.
But he marched on and asked the rep for a copy of these terms. The rep said I don’t have a copy. Hubby told him to find out how we could get a copy. After the rep put us on hold yet again, he came back and gave hubby the web address where he could find them. Hubby pulled them up and started to read them. Of course, it was written by a lawyer so it was not easy reading and it was very long. He told the rep to stay on the line while he read them and when he signed them, the rep could turn our service back on. The rep hung for a few minutes and then told Hubby he had to release us and hung up. The time was 12:30AM.
So there we sat after 5 and 1/2 hours on the telephone trying to get our telephone turned on with no telephone service. At this point we were very cranky and tired. Yes, we are patient and determined people. Hubby continued to read the terms and I told him lets go to bed because he was tired and I was exhausted. So off to bed we went with no telephone or monitored alarm system.
When I got up the next morning, we had two texts from the company, telling us we had to sign the terms and agreements or no service. At that point, I had had enough. The minute our state regulatory commission opened, I called and filed a complaint against the company. Well they do not do things the way we used to when I worked there. The man told me that they would send the complaint to the company but that the company had two days to respond to us. If they didn’t, to call them back and then they would investigate. UGH! Just the thought of being without telephone service for many more days was really stressing me out.
So Hubby contacted my son to see if he could find the e-mail of a higher up executive in the corporate office of the cable company. My son being a CIO has always been able to get us that information. He quickly gave us the e-mail of the top two ones. Hubby sent an e-mail explaining the situation and his displeasure.
In less than an hour we got a call from a man in the corporate offices in another state who gave us his name and telephone number. He said he had been given the complaint by the higher up and they also had the state complaint. He had me summarize all that had gone on and apologized for the poor customer service and the 5 and 1/2 hours we had been on the telephone with no results. He also told me not to worry about signing the terms and agreement. That didn’t have to be done. He told me that they were immediately going to review all of the telephone calls since they tape them which I knew. He also was not very happy with the ultimatum that Hubby was given. He also told me that they would make it a priority to get the telephone service on and that they would be investigating who had done it. He asked if the cable TV DVR had been taken care of and if the internet service was good. I advised yes. He also said that a liaison that he would assign to us would be calling us and giving us their name and telephone number.
The liaison called us around dinner time and she put our telephone service back on within a few minutes and stayed on the phone to make sure it happened. She apologized for everything. Hubby called her to make sure that he could make an outgoing call and she called him to make sure that we could receive a call and to verify that we had the same telephone number that they had disconnected. She advised us if we ever have another problem to call her directly, even if we just have a question. So her info has been put in our address book. She was intelligent and lovely to deal with. As for the rest of their staff, they need a lot of training in not only how to handle people but how to take care of an issue without shuffling people from person to person. I think they were just each trying to get rid of us to someone else because they didn’t know how to fix the telephone.
Anyhow we are so glad to have our telephone service back on. Now how did we save money? Well, at one point Hubby had them transfer us to their retention department. He explained all that had gone on and how he was not happy that we were going to have to pay $ 211. for our upgraded service. We were paying $ 191. for the original service we had and that through no fault of ours the company took away our telephone service and then wouldn’t give it back. The representative reduced our new bill down to $ 156. for all three services for one year. You better believe that at the end of that year, I will be calling them for a new deal. That is $ 35. a month under what we were paying for the old service plus the cable TV service is better with more channels and we have high speed internet which we are very happy with.
The liaison verified with us last night that that the amount we will be paying is correct and that the $ 11. 75 for the returned box was credited. I also asked her to credit us for the two days of service that we had no phone. That has also been done.
I don’t know if we will hear from the corporate office today or not. We are not happy that we had to go through of all of this, but we are happy that we now have telephone service.
Could we save a lot more money by cancelling the cable TV service? Yes, we could but since we are home more often than not it is our one pleasure. But we would still have to pay for the internet and telephone anyhow which is the majority of the bill.
So if you are faced with a problem, it may not be easy to solve. But stick with it and most of the time you are better off in the long run.
When I got up one night this week, I noticed that the A/C was constantly running even though it was 61 degrees outside. I thought that was peculiar so when Hubby got up I told him. He checked the thermostat and noticed that he had accidentally left the fan on when he changed the batteries in the thermostat that day. He switched it over to auto and everything then seemed to be running correctly.
However I went down into the basement later that day and noticed a puddle of water in front of the furnace. Hubby went down to see what the problem was. After turning everything off, the first thing he did was pour some water into the drain pipe you see in the picture to make sure that it was flowing properly. It was and there was no leak.
The next thing he did was open the furnace door. That is when he noticed where the water was leaking from.
The pipe that you see on the right side had popped out. When they installed it over 12 years ago they used some silicone to tighten things up. The silicone had warn away. Hubby cleaned and tightened everything up and applied new silicone.
As you can see the water is drying up. When it is totally dry, we will clean up the floor. I have been going down when the A/C turns on and making sure that the puddle it not coming back. It is not and we will watch it for another couple of days to make sure.
This would have cost us more than $100. for a service call and probably another $50. for the repair if not more. And the thought of going without A/C was stressing me out.
Hubby always assesses the situation before he calls someone else to repair things. That has saved us a bundle over the years! In these times, with parts for almost everything being in short supply, it pays to have the items you need to make repairs for just about everything. Hubby is getting some new pipe and fittings in case there is another issue.
Since today is Sunday, we are taking it easy. Two nights ago, I made fajitas with a chipotle and lime sauce. We ate them for two dinners and will finish them up today for lunch. We waste nothing.
Dinner tonight will be grilled hamburgers with tomatoes, red onion, and lettuce. I am thawing the hamburger for those and then I will take the rest of the thawed meat, cook it, and freeze it in food saver bags to use in a casserole.
My garden is doing okay. On 4 plants I have 15 tomatoes that have not started to turn red yet. We will most likely eat them fresh unless they all ripen at once. Then I will can some.
I am on the hunt for flats of tomatoes to can. The best place to buy them around here is the Mennonite store or Niagara Produce. I am also keeping my eye on prices to get the best deal.
So what have you been doing to save some money in these inflationary times?
Since it is grilling season here, I have been looking for a deal on good steaks. My store has these T-Bone and Porterhouse steaks on sale for B1G1F. They were $17.99 a lb. which I would not pay for on a regular basis.
However at about $ 9.00 a lb., I will. So I got two of each kind this morning because that is all they had at 8am. The butcher shop was just opening so I assume that they will put more out in the meat counter soon.
But 4 is just fine for us because we will be cooking one at a time for the two of us.
Can you guess what we will be grilling out to celebrate the 4th of July tomorrow? Yes, it will be a T-Bone. With a baked potato and some green beans, we will have a nice meal.
I think all of us would have to have blinders on to not realize how expensive food, water, OTC, personal care, soaps, and cleaning products have gotten.
But utility bills, gasoline and diesel, insurances, cable TV, telephone service, streaming services, etc. have also gone up.
Lumber, clothing, auto parts, parts to fix just about everything, and just about everything else have also risen.
Our tax assessment went up by $140,000. this spring. Hubby has estimated that our school tax bill due in September will go up by $786. using the numbers that our town gave us. Our property tax will also take a major hit because of it in January. We do get a basic star rebate on our school taxes each year which every homeowner is entitled to but we do not receive the enhanced star for seniors nor a reduced property tax because we make too much money. To make things even worse, our school district is considering having a capital project in addition to safety and security upgrades. They want the residents’ feedback on a multi-purpose turf athletic field, re-routing of bus traffic to get it off a certain road, pool reconstruction, and a Pre-K addition. I foresee a special vote to pay for all of this. You can bet we are putting our two cents in on those items. This period of inflation is a horrible time to hit the residents with more expenses after the huge increases in tax assessments.
I expect that prices will rise into 2024 or longer. As long as our government continues to spend money they do not have, inflation will continue to rear it’s ugly head.
I am seeing seniors and other people in the markets checking out the prices on meats, produce, and other items and not buying them. I have gotten to the point that I am very selective about meat purchases. If I feel it is too expensive, I will not buy it. Most of the meat that I do buy is always on sale. That has mostly been ground beef and chicken to can. I did buy 2 sirloin steaks about 2 weeks ago that were on sale for B1G1F. We have given up buying filet mignon since the last sale in early spring. The price has gotten too high and the quality has gone down the tubes. So my sister told me that the sirloins were good. We have never liked them. But at the sale price they were worth a try. We have only eaten one that we split into 2 meals and it was delicious – flavorful and tender. If they go on sale again for a decent price, I will buy more.
You know that we do our best to keep the utility bills down as much as we can even though the rates continue to rise. We do not use lights when it is daylight out. At night we only use one in the room we are in. I think about what appliance will be the cheapest when I cook anything. We eat a lot of cold food so as to not have to use electricity or natural gas. We use our A/C sparingly. I only run the washing machine with a very full load. I do the same with the dishwasher.
Our cable, home phone, and internet bill was $192. in May. On that bill they put a note that new pricing and packages are coming in June. That means the bills are going up. We have a cable box on a 2nd TV that is costing us $10.00 a month plus taxes and fees. That is the TV that I only use with my ROKU to watch You Tube. Hubby always turned the news on at late night on this TV. But I noticed that lately he has not been doing that. So I took our 2nd box to UPS to return it to Spectrum this morning. Yes that is how we do it here. I now have a receipt dated today to show that it was turned in. So I should not be paying for it now. This $10.00 a month plus tax will save us $120.+ a year. I can’t wait to see the new rates! NOT! Then I will do more cost cutting if need be. I also had an Amazon return to take to UPS so I got them both done.
We use Top’s gasoline points to get our gas cheaper. Right now we have $.40 off a gallon but the car is only 1/2 empty. When the tank empties a little bit more, I will fill it up. We also have discounted gasoline at the warehouse clubs which I only use if I am down in that town running other errands. I will not drive 14+ miles each way just to get gasoline. If none of those options are there, we have a cash only price station near us that has a good price. So I am always checking the prices per gallon.
I am watching our grocery budget very carefully. I will only buy on sale or where a needed product is the cheapest. I am buying mostly store brands these days. There are just a few name brands that I continue to buy. Name brands have gotten way too expensive. I buy most of our produce on sale and I am very selective because it seems to be rotten more often than not on the store shelves. I have had bags of onions and potatoes that turn bad very quickly. I will buy veggies and fruits frozen if they are cheaper per pound. They seem to be much fresher too.
We rarely buy liquor or wine anymore. It is not worth the money. I would rather use the money instead for nutritious food.
I continue to baby the tomato plants. I think they will make it. We bake potatoes in the air fryer a lot in the summer as a side to go with our grilling outside. When I do that, I make enough for a couple of nights. We grow our own chives to go with the sour cream we put on top of them.
To be honest I am always looking at ways to cut expenses. Each day I think about what I am doing that day and how I can cut that expense. I am always looking at what I can discontinue buying and make a substitution for certain things.
We no longer purchase liquid hand soap or body wash. I have lots of bar soap and it works just as well. I rarely buy bread. We make our own in our bread maker. I only wear makeup when I leave the house. I am actually considering giving it up all together. Even when I do wear it, it is very basic. I don’t purchase mascara or compact powder.
I purchase many things from the Dollar Tree. They carry my deodorant, tissues, our shampoo, 2 pound boxes of spaghetti, rice, dry beans, Himalayan pink salt, frozen peppers and onions that I use for making fajitas, a winter blend of cauliflower and broccoli, etc. I purchase all of our greeting cards that we use for a year in January.
I am going for my haircut today. My salon is right next to Rite Aid and we have prescriptions to pick up. The Dollar General is across the street and I will go in there to pick up a few things. I try to make the most efficient use of gasoline by doing many things when I do go out.
Since I have been so busy this week, I did a grocery delivery. It not only saves me time but it prevents me from just wandering in the store and seeing other things to buy. I needed new soap dishes for the bar soap we are using because mine were getting really old. I moved some of our old washcloths to our rag pile today and purchased some new ones on my grocery delivery. I love the half length spaghetti. It lets me easily use a smaller pot and it is so much easier to get it in that pot. Best part is it is the same price as the regular full length spaghetti.
I hope you all have a wonderful July 4th weekend! We will be watching the fireworks around us again this year.
If you would like to share with all of us what you are doing to survive this high inflation, please feel free to add your two cents in the comments.
We had enough credit card reward points that I was able to get $200. cashback yesterday.
Hubby has been saving the backs of printer paper and 8 X 11 papers that come in the mail. He uses them to print the crossword puzzles each morning from our online Buffalo News subscription. He loves doing them while drinking his coffee.
We had two red and yellow peppers that needed to be used up. I washed and sliced them and froze them to use in fajitas.
Hubby wanted to make a Waldorf coleslaw for lunches. I shredded regular carrots instead of buying them already shredded. Every little bit saves!
We got our gas and electric bill. It was $87.39. Last year’s for the same period was $98.39. So it was exactly $11.00 less. This year’s billing period was 4 days more than last year’s. Our KWH usage was 392 which is 45 less than last year. Our CCF gas usage was 5 which is 5 less than last year. However this year’s bill rates have increased quite a bit and we are still under last year’s bill. I have very carefully watched everything that we use. It is paying off! That said, we had to put our A/C on last night because it was so hot. Today and the next 4 days are supposed to be brutal. We are supposed to be 100 today. It is extremely humid outside. I still carefully watch the sun and put shades and blinds down on the windows with the sun on them.
Hubby and I were going to run a bunch of errands today that have been piling up. We decided it is not a good day to go out in the heat! One of the errands was to shop at Walmart. So I placed a delivery order which will be here in less than an hour. With the Teamster’s Union talking trucker’s strike here on the East Coast and Canada’s railroads(where we get a lot of food from and ingredients to make things) are on strike, I am not sure how much longer food will be on the shelves. Our truck drivers have a lot of issues with diesel shortages and obtaining DEF which adds to the problems. So I ordered some things that I really need.
I changed my dinner plans for tonight. I don’t want to use the stove top to make the shrimp dish so we will have state fair sausages cooked in the air fryer. It is too hot and humid to cook outside. Plus they are telling us severe thunderstorms later today. I really hope we keep our power. It is way to hot to be without it.
I will not be doing laundry or running the dishwasher today either. I do not want to heat up this house that we are air conditioning.
What have you done yesterday and today to save money?
It is getting more and more difficult to save money because everything is so expensive, especially groceries. But I am doing my best by shopping only the sales. I also plan menus using what I have in the refrigerator, freezers, and pantries.
My son who we visited recently gave us a tow behind dethatcher to use with our riding lawn mower. He had already purchased one for his. Then he found this old one in his shed. We had to borrow one from our other son the last time we needed one. Hubby was delighted and I was really happy with the price of free. This saved us over $150.
I made chocolate chip cookie bars to take to my son’s for Alexa. She loves chocolate. They called for chocolate chips and butterscotch chips. I did not have the butterscotch chips so I used what I had which was white chocolate chips. They were delicious! I substitute all of the time in recipes with what I already have in my kitchen. I will not run out to the store to get just one or two items especially with the cost of gasoline which is $ 4.90 a gallon.
We have been cooking all of our meals in the microwave, air fryer, toaster oven(rarely), and on our gas grill. I am hoping we have a lower gas and electric bill. I have been really watching what we use but the bills just keep going higher and higher. The meter reader was in here reading yesterday so we should have our bill by the end of the week. We still use natural gas for our on demand water heater. We have only used our A/C for 2 days this year. Our home has high ceilings and if I keep shades down on sunny windows our home stays cool.
The only water our garden got while we were away was rain water. It only rained a little and the plants cooked in the 90 degree temps. We came home to some yellow leaves on our tomato plants. So we have watered them well and I fed them some Miracle Grow for nutrients. Today once it gets light out, I will snip off the yellow parts.
Fortunately, we have only had those couple of hot days. Otherwise it has been cooler than normal which is really enjoyable. We have not had to turn our sprinkler system on for the lawn yet this year.
I had planned on making some strawberry jam this week so I was bitterly disappointed when Niagara Produce had the local ones for $5.50 a quart. They are very small and did not look great. Aldi’s had none and Top’s had no local ones. I purchased one quart so that we could have a few strawberry shortcakes. I will not be buying more unless I can find them cheaper and good looking. At least I have some jam left from last year.
My plan this week is to continue to can the meat up in our freezer. That mainly consists of ground meat, sausage and chicken. I will leave the steaks, shrimp, pork chops, and fish in there and we will eat them up in our normal rotation. I feel better with a lot of the meat on the shelves so I don’t have to worry so much about outages. Right now as I write this, we are in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm. I know how quickly we can lose power.
This week I am trying to use up produce in the fridge. So last night we had taco salads. We will do that again tonight. Wednesday and Thursday, we will have a shrimp dish, probably Giada’s dish that we love. Friday is homemade pizza night. Saturday will be Chef’s salad. Sunday will be chicken kabobs on the grill. With the price of produce, I am trying very hard not to waste any.
I looked for more canning jars at N.P. when I was there yesterday. They were $19.99 a case. Yikes! Needless to say I did not buy them. Instead when I came home, I looked online. I ordered them from Walmart for $ 11.97 a case. What a difference in price! I want to make sure that I have enough pint jars to make tomato and spaghetti sauce when the tomatoes are ripe. I also need them for meat.
I picked up two prescriptions at the drug store that were free. For some reason, this year we are finding that more and more drugs are free with our drug plan. They are mainly generics.
Well that is all for now. What have you done recently so save money?
We went to the Adirondacks to my son’s home to visit with he and Alexa, my granddaughter. We cherish every minute with them. We had not seen them since the end of December. It is getting harder and harder for Hubby and I to drive there. It is very difficult for my son to come visit us. He holds a full time job and owns a business. All of that takes up a lot of his time. He is so busy that I really don’t know how he juggles it all.
We had a wonderful week and spent a lot of time with them because my son took the week off from his full time job. We did a lot of eating out which I had budgeted for as part of our vacation budget . We celebrated Alexa’s 15th birthday. She picked a nice restaurant called The Wishing Well for dinner one night. Her Dad had this custom birthday ice cream cake made for her with her 2 choices of ice cream, cookie dough bites, oreo bits, chocolate crumbles, etc. It was the best ice cream cake that I have ever eaten.
We did save some money on the drive by exiting the Toll Thruway at Amsterdam and taking the back roads north into the Adirondacks instead of exiting in Albany. We also drove straight through the entire 4 and 1/2 hours and didn’t stop for a fast food lunch. My son had cold cuts, cheese, rolls and specialty bread ready and waiting for us. Coming back home we did not stop to eat either. I made us a light lunch when we got home.
My son has become quite the great host. We feel so welcomed when we are at his home. We all watched movies in the evenings. Anything we needed he had. It was a very stress free time for all of us which I really appreciate when we are away from home. We just enjoyed each others company immensely. We also enjoyed a fire in his firepit one evening. It is so peaceful and quiet where he lives.
I love spending time with Alexa. She is so mature now and such a delight to chat with. And of course there were lots of hugs. It is hard to believe that 15 years have passed since she was born. I also started blogging that year. Time just flies!
Now that we are home, I need to catch up on mail, laundry, cleaning, some organizing, my garden, etc.
So I should be back in a day or two with a saving money post. I hope your families all had a nice Father’s Day.
