Category: Every Day

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Every Day

I Am Frustrated With The Electric and Gas Increases, Are You?

You all know that I like to keep on top of our utility bills. Two years ago my utility company increased our rates. We are coming up on the third year of that increase. Bills just keep going up along with the demand and supply charges. We have seen hikes on average of 23.7% on our electric delivery demand and supply charges and 33.5% on our gas demand and supply charges. Now the company is asking the regulatory agency for another rate increase for residential electric and gas customers that would add an additional $ 30. to our monthly bills. If that gets approved, it will add another $360. a year. The demand keeps going up because of the high heat we had all summer and because so many chip companies have moved into NYS.

Fortunately, it has been cool enough for no A/C the past few of weeks and it is not cold enough to put on the heat. I hope this keeps up for a few more weeks. Usually by now we have the heat on here.

I just got our utility bill around the 19th of the month. It was for 30 days and it was a total of $ 131. 22 for both electric and natural gas. We used 405 kwh’s which is very low for us. We used 4 ccf’s of natural gas which was only for heating water for dishes, cooking in a skillet once in a while on our stovetop, and taking showers.

Last year’s bill for 29 days for the same period was $ 138.85 using 536 kwh’s of electric and 4 ccf’s of natural gas.

It was shocking that this year’s bill was less than last year’s. I attribute that to being aware of what we are using and trying to cut where we can.

I doubt that these increases will ever end. But I continue to try to cut what we can. I have done many, many, things to keep our bills down which I have written about but it seems like a never ending battle.

I will write about anything that we are doing to keep our bill down as I do them. I will add them to our cutting costs list. Feel free to list in comments what you are doing now that it is autumn and winter will be here soon.

The prediction for winter cold and snow this year is horrendous. We are predicted to have anywhere from 9 ft. to 15 ft. of snow depending on where you live in the Buffalo area. I can already see the dollar bills flying out of our wallet. At least we have our snowplow guy all lined up to deal with these snow storms.

We have been caulking around windows again and we are actually thinking about putting some kind of plastic up on a number of windows that leak. Has anyone done that? What have you used?

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Every Day

Run If You Are Near to the Walmart in Lockport and a Small Grocery Haul

I had to drive there to get something for Hubby today. They have spent weeks remodeling the store. The way they have it reorganized now is fantastic. Finding things was so much easier.

Anyhow when I got there I realized it was their Grand Opening. On the north side of the building all the way over to the storage place, they had booths set up by Walmart and many vendors. They were all giving out free things. My table shows everything I was given. My favorites were all of the energy drinks and the coupons especially the Essentials water free one and the $1.00 and $.75 of Nestles chocolate chips coupons. I was also thrilled with the sunglasses since ones I keep in my car to drive with broke recently.

We don’t have a dog so that will be given to my son along with that coupon. Now all I have to find is someone who wants the Fairlife cow for their little one.

While I was in Walmart, I saw a rollback on evaporated milk for $1.00 a can and on condensed milk for $ 1.78 a can. We use the evaporated milk for many different things and the condensed milk for fudge when family comes for Thanksgiving. I had some of each but I was not passing up these great prices.

Then I stopped at Top’s on the way home and got 4 lbs. of butter for $3.39 each. It is not the best price I have ever gotten but it is the best right now. I am hoping that Aldi’s has a better deal for Thanksgiving. I am almost out but needed some to last me until the deals come out.

Did you get any good deals this week?

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Every Day

For the Newbies and to Remind My Oldies

I have picked up some new readers over the past few days. Most of you know me and know why I take the time to do these posts so often.

For those who don’t, I started blogging in 2006 when we lived in Arizona. Back then my blog was “Frugal Makes Cents” via Google. I had that for a number of years until I had someone trolling me. When it got dangerous, I ended that blog. When we moved here, I started this one. I now own this one. Google doesn’t. It is safe and secure thanks to my oldest son keeping it that way. He is also an admin here.

I started it to try to help people who were struggling financially. I saw so many young and older people struggling to own a home or keep a home(especially during the 2008 housing crisis) and get rid of credit card debt, etc.

Everyone knew that you could cut your large expenses like insurances and cable TV. But there were only so many large expenses. We still compare our insurance policies every year and try to cut other large expenses.

But many people thought that cutting the little expenses didn’t help. What I have tried to show them is that the little expenses really add up over a year’s time. Since our current crisis of rampant inflation, cutting all expenses has become more important than ever.

One of the largest expenses we have these days is buying groceries. It seems like every week the prices go up. For years, I have cut my grocery costs by buying food at loss leader prices especially meat. Then we make our meals from those items. When I met some Mormons in Arizona, they taught me about stockpiling. They usually keep 1-2 year’s worth of groceries. I always bought an extra item every week but not to the extent I do now. Stockpiling has saved us so much money over the last 5 years. When people are paying top dollar today for items, I paid much less money for mine in my stockpile. Being a canner, I know that most items do not expire by the sell by date. Even the government will tell you that on their websites. So we alternate what we use. The oldest products are in the front of my shelves with the newest in the back. I rotate every thing. I also try to buy items at rock bottom prices by using a price book. That way I know when something is at a rock bottom price. With Thanksgiving and Christmas sales coming up, I am getting excited because this is time of the year when so many things are on sale at those prices. I stock on many things that will never be cheaper. We love turkey so I buy as many as I can get in the freezer.. If I run out of freezer space, I will cook the turkey and then can it. We love chicken but you can replace chicken in almost every recipe with turkey.

Our utility bills have skyrocketed and I see no end in site for those costs to come down instead of up. Between the utilities replacing infrastructure and all the chip companies popping up, costs will continue to rise. It’s all a function of supply and demand. So we need to do what we can to cut our usage as much as we can.

We have now been retired over 24 years. Inflation has really done a job on our retirement funds since 2001. I see so many elderly living in poverty on just Social Security these days. So I do this blog for them too or anyone who needs help. If we didn’t continue to save every month. we would be in a much worse position. But we have saved and invested over those years so that we are fine. Our medical costs have skyrocketed as we age and we need to hire help to do a lot of things around here so that we can maintain and stay in the home we love. Those costs are very expensive.

Some of my posts may seem a little harsh but I do those to wake people up who need it. It is never aimed at any one person.

The bottom line is that I do these posts to help people. If I can help just one person, I have done my job.

I hope you are all having a money saving day today!

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Every Day

My List for Thanksgiving Food Sales

Last year I kept a list of all of the things I saw go on sale in my area at rock bottom prices. For the past few days, I have been looking for that list. I searched everywhere. I finally found it about lunchtime today.

This is a list of everything I saw but not what I purchased. Last year there were a # of things that I already had stockpiled, the same as this year. I will put an asterisk after each item that I am already stockpiled on this year; hence I will not be looking for those.

  1. Turkeys- I will buy 3-4.
  2. Ground Sausage rolls- I will buy as many as I need for the turkeys, I buy this because I add this to my stuffing. If it is at a great price, I will buy more because we use it in many recipes.
  3. Hams -If they don’t go on sale for Thanksgiving, they will for Christmas.
  4. Mini Hot Dogs – I use these for appetizers in different recipes.
  5. Chicken and Beef Broths and Stocks*
  6. Cream Soups*
  7. Butter- I need this at a good price because I only have a few left. I stock for a year which is usually 28 -32 lbs.
  8. Cream cheese
  9. Block cheeses – we use these for appetizers also.
  10. Egg Nog
  11. Turkey Gravy – I make my own but I always stock a few packets in case mine needs help.
  12. Stuffing Cubes
  13. Stove Top Stuffing – I use these all year to put in some of my recipes.*
  14. Baking Supplies – I will stock on the ones I need.
  15. Dinner Rolls
  16. Pillsbury Crescent Rolls – I use these for the mini hot dogs.
  17. Canned Pumpkin*
  18. Canned Pineapple-to use with hams.*
  19. Pie Crusts- I buy a few of these to use throughout the year. I freeze them until I need them.
  20. Frozen Pies – if they are cheaper than making them.
  21. Cranberry Sauce*
  22. Fresh Cranberries- I throw about 6 in my freezer every year to make cranberry orange bread and/or muffins.
  23. Pie Filling Canned – for quick desserts throughout the year.
  24. Apples – to make my own apple pies.
  25. Spice Cake Mixes – for many of my desserts all year.
  26. Evaporated Milk*
  27. Condensed Milk – to make fudge.*
  28. Cupcake liners*
  29. Corned Bread Mixes – to make corned bread stuffing and corn bread to go with some of our Mexican recipes.*
  30. Pickles – I buy enough to last all year.
  31. Olives – I buy enough for all year.
  32. Onions – I buy in bulk at Niagara Produce to last the winter.
  33. Turnips – Just a couple.
  34. Parsnips
  35. Frozen Broccoli – I buy 12 so that we can have one a month.
  36. Potatoes
  37. Sweet Potatoes or Canned Yams
  38. Green Beans*
  39. Corn*
  40. Celery
  41. French’s Crispy Onions
  42. Chex Mixes – to make party mix.*
  43. Mixed Nuts- also for party mix.*
  44. Walnuts*
  45. Sliced Almonds*
  46. Pecans – I freeze all of my nuts so they don’t go rancid.*
  47. Whipped Cream – for desserts.
  48. Sparkling Cider
  49. Sodas- especially holiday flavors.

If I missed anything, please leave it in the comments and I will add it to this list.

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Every Day

Update on My Health

Last Friday I became independent again! I am now driving. My cardiologist took that restriction off on Thursday after he reviewed all of my heart tests. I wore a heart monitor from August 18th until September 18th. He was worried that the connectivity of the left side of my heart was not working properly. The monitor did not show any evidence of high grade connectivity disease or any significant pauses. This was great news! I will be going back to him in October to get all the results including the ones from my Echo and my Nuclear stress test. Hopefully those results will be good news too.

For you guys this means that I will be back blogging in the next couple of days. Because I had to take it easy with the heart monitor, I was limited on what I could do like driving. Hubby had to take me everywhere for appointments and errands. We did very few errands because he hates doing them. Eloise was so sad that she couldn’t curl up on my chest when I was at the computer. I had to keep putting her down and she was not happy about that. It had become a routine when I would have my coffee in the morning. I was afraid she would push a button on the monitor and they wouldn’t get clear results. I also had to be very careful that I didn’t damage it. Before we could even have it put on at the cardiologist’s office and go home, I had to sign that if it got damaged, I would have to pay $2500. That was not something I wanted to do. So it was returned both clean and in perfect condition.

So Eloise is back to our routine and purrs the entire time. We are both very happy to be back to normal. Hubby is delighted!

My house is not as clean as I like it and I have many projects to work on in the next few weeks. We will be having family for Thanksgiving this year so I want to get this house back in order. So I will post all that I will be doing as I do it, especially getting my stockpile back in order. I have many bags sitting in that pantry on the floor that need to be organized on shelves. I will be making a list of the items that will go on sale for Thanksgiving that I need to stockpile for the next year. I am praying that butter goes on sale at a great price. I have never been so low on butter.

So I will be back very soon. Sooner than you might think.

I want to thank everyone who prayed for me. You are so appreciated!

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Every Day

September Things We Have Done To Save Some $’s

Since I feel pretty good today, I am going to post the first half of September’s savings today.

One day it started to rain unexpectedly. I turned our sprinkler system off. We do not want to pay for water when we can get it free. Yesterday, our sprinkler service came and blew out the lines for the winter. No more sprinkling so our water bill should go back down to around $57. per quarter. This past quarter with all the watering, our bill was $ 285. I had Hubby stop at the town drop box one day so that we could pay it. that saved us a $ .78 stamp.

We did 2 deal grocery shops the beginning of the month. One to buy a little over 6 pounds of boneless skinless chicken for $ 2.29 a pound. The following week they had ground beef(80/20) on sale at Top’s using a Super Coupon for $ 3.99 a pound. We bought 6 pounds.

We finally qualified for the Enhanced Star Rebate on our school taxes. It was a savings of $1080.49.

Hubby wanted a check register insert for our checkbook. Ours was falling apart. He found a 5 pack on Walmart. With tax it was $9.67 but I used $3.00 in Walmart cashback to get it for $ 6.67.

We were down to our last book of checks so Hubby ordered more. We get them from our bank for free because of one of the savings plans we have.

I received a $5.00 liquor rebate in the mail.

I sent in a $3.00 wine rebate. I won’t send any rebate in under $3.00 because of the postage.

Hubby needed to fill his two 5 gallon gas cans and our car. He saved $ 7.21 because we had enough for $.40 off per gallon with Top’s points.

Hubby made a big crockpot full of chili. We ate it on rice for two nights and had some to freeze. Another day I cooked a corned beef that had been in the freezer since last March. We ate reuben sandwiches for many days and then I froze the rest of the corned beef and the rye bread to save to have another sandwich in the next month or so. He has also made cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, and BLT’s recently. I think tonight we will have ribeye pork chops and broccoli. I am having him mainly cook out of the freezer and I try to think of things that are easy for him.

I scanned most of our receipts into Fetch. I still have to scan in the receipt from our lunch at “The Ship”. This restaurant is a keeper. They have Monday specials where all of the entrees are marked down. I saved $ 4.00 off my steak sandwich which was so delicious. Hubby saved $3.00 off his chicken wrap. We will probably go there once a month for lunch. I also have a coupon for a free basket of fries which we will use next time. Their fries are the best we have ever had. Really crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. Our waitress told us they make their own.

My son, Sean, helped Hubby trim a tree that shades the patio. It needed it badly. With Hubby’s direction he took a lot of branches off. They piled them up by the bottom of the driveway. The town does brush pickup for free this week. Last year, we paid for a tree service to do some other trees. It was expensive so my son saved us some money.

My son stopped at Niagara Produce on his way here and got me a package of hamburger buns which we badly needed. I tried to get them on a delivery order from Walmart but they were out of stock. He would not let me pay him the $ 2.49 they cost either.

My son also fixed my Bosch dishwasher in about 15 minutes. A button fell out of the the control panel over a year ago. I was able to keep the other buttons in place. They are the ones you push for what cycle you want. Hubby kept putting it off. I finally asked my son and he did it. It wasn’t easy because you had to take off the entire front of the dishwasher to get at the panel. But he got it done and still got home in time to watch the Buffalo Bills game which was an away game.

We have watched both Buffalo Bills games which is our free entertainment. We have also been watching Tony and Ziva on Paramount+ which we get free with our Walmart+. We do an episode a day.

Well that is it for now. I will post the last half of the month on September 30th.

I hope you are all having fun trying to save as much money as possible. Please share with all of us what you have been doing.

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Every Day

Update: A Little of This and a Little of That

I have missed all of you. We are spending our days running to doctor appointments for me. I am still being tested and it is getting very old and very annoying. I can’t drive per doctor’s orders for my safety and others. So anytime I have to go anywhere, Hubby takes me. He has been wonderful and never complains except when I ask him to take me to the grocery store to get the loss leaders I need each week. I usually run all the errands in this family so he is not used to it. Plus he has always hated grocery shopping. But he has stepped up and takes me when needed. I try to get in and out quickly. If I am going to be more than 20 minutes, he waits in the car. Otherwise he comes in with me and bags all the groceries at the checkout. So I try to only get the real loss leaders to get in and out quickly.

He also has been doing most of the cooking which is giving me a break. Today he is going to make a large pot of chili using up about 2 lbs. of organic ground beef that I purchased months ago at Aldi’s on a sale. It has gotten colder here and I have been craving it. I can almost smell it cooking all day while I write this. We will eat this for a few days and then save some to use on hot dogs so that we can get those out of the freezer for the winter. The last couple of days we have had bacon cheeseburgers and pork chops with Hubby’s Waldorf coleslaw that he makes. So yummy!

I have been puttering still trying to declutter around here. I take a nap almost every afternoon because I tire easily. So things are getting done a little at a time.

I am looking forward to watching Tony and Ziva on Paramount Plus today. It has been a long wait. My Buffalo Bills play on Sunday so we are excited for football season.

Keeping a list of the things we are doing around here this month to save a few bucks is my #1 priority. I will end the month giving you that list. Hubby and I have also been discussing our budget for next year. I have been making a list of Thanksgiving items I hope to purchase when they go on sale. We are trying to eat out of our freezer to empty it a bit to make room for turkeys. Hopefully they will be a good price this year.

We are loving the cooler weather so we try to get outside each day even if it is only sitting in the yard. I told Hubby I am sick of being at home. So to get me out, we are going to a new local restaurant near us that opened a few weeks ago for lunch one day next week. They have some great prices on specials.

Eloise is getting so big. She has her first vet appointment next week for her annual checkup and has three shots to get. Hopefully, the vet bill won’t be too expensive.

I take my last testing device to my doctor in two weeks and then get the results the beginning of October. Then hopefully I can get back to normal activities. Time will tell. I am really stir crazy because you all know how active I usually am. I want my life back. If any of you pray, I could really use a few prayers. Thank you.

Precious

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Every Day

Cutting Costs

These are the things we have been doing to cut costs the past couple of weeks.

I have been using AI to find coupons for groceries and coupon codes for other purchases. That has worked out well getting me a Tillamook ice cream coupon for $3.00. I also got one in my e-mail. I ended up buying 2 containers on BOGO for $ 5.49 after coupon. I will use up the other coupon soon.

I also picked up some loss leaders: a big pack of BS chicken breasts for $2.29 a lb. using a Super Coupon. It was limit 1 but I will be going by the store again and will quickly run in and get another one. I got some corn on the cob for $.44 an ear to cut and bag up to put in the freezer for future meals.

While I was at Top’s, I filled the car up with gasoline using my gasoline points for $ .30 off a gallon. Gas has gone way up here. It was $ 3.159 a gallon before the $ .30 off so every little bit helps.

I picked up 1 script for a 90 day supply at a cost of $ 2.19 and another script for a 90 day supply for free after insurance. Walmart Pharmacy has great prices.

I renewed a CD at the highest interest rate. I have another one coming due just before the Fed meeting in Sept. That I will also renew at a high rate. But I expect that the Fed will lower interest rates right after that.

My cable company is giving us 4 different streaming services for free. They are included in the price we are already paying. They are Disney+, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Peacock. I already have Paramount+ through Walmart+ but I activated the other 3.

I will be making my pasta salad to take to a party on Saturday. It is delicious and refreshing in this heat. I am praying that the heat breaks for that day. The party is usually outside.

I found a small gift I needed marked down from $ 18.99 to $10.00 and got free shipping.

I ordered some food and some cat litter using a $30.00 gift card from Chewy. I had to pay about $20. more to get free shipping. That is not a problem because I always buy everything for Eloise there.

This will be my last post for over a month. I have a medical emergency that has to be taken care of today and next Monday. I hope to be back by mid-September.

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Every Day

Organizing and Decluttering

This kitchen pantry is where things are kept that are the oldest in my stockpile so they get used first. As you can see when I am not feeling good, things get all disorganized. So I spent a bit of time the past couple of days getting it back in order. Since it was garbage day yesterday, I threw out some really old flour and a bag of potatoes that got delivered with my Walmart order. I opened them and found almost all of them were rotten. Walmart is crediting me the $ 4.74. But that left me without potatoes again. So after our doctor’s appointments yesterday, Hubby took me to Top’s where I picked up a 5 lb. bag of potatoes on sale for $ 2.99, some green grapes for $1.88 a lb. to make chicken salad, and 3 salad kits for a total of $9.00.

What a mess! Eloise was happy to help me. 🙂

This is much better since it is neat and organized. Hubby can find what he needs.

The basket on the bottom shelf holds all of my seasoning packets. The overflow is in the extra white egg container from my old refrigerator. I put them in alphabetical order so that I can pull out what I need quickly. The basket on the floor holds all of our salad fixings except the produce. The red 5 gallon buckets hold flour, sugar, and rice.

This basket holds Eloise who climbed in to it when I set it down there. She has gotten so big that she can barely fit. I tried to take it away from her later in the day and she was having no part of that. She has 2 $50. beds in two different rooms and she sleeps in this! She also steals my disposable grocery bags. She cuddles up in them to take a nap too.

I hope I have motivated you to clean and organize your pantries. If so get moving!

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Every Day

Junk Food Tuesday

We have not bought a lot of junk food the past few months so our pantry is almost void of any of it. So when I asked Hubby what he wanted to add to the grocery delivery order from Walmart, many junk food items went on the list. The ice cream was my idea so that I can use up the last of the cones before Fall hits. The rest he came up with as you will see in all of these pictures. I am not going to give you individual prices because anyone can look up the prices on Walmart.com I will give you my total at the end of this post.

I got two Half & Half because I was on my last half gallon. Since they are dated way out, I am comfortable when I have three. I had not purchased the Premier Protein in a long time so I got 4 for me. Some days I just like to get more protein. I got 2 packages of BBQ Corn Chips and some Twizzlers for Hubby. We like to make Mc Muffin breakfast sandwiches. The turkey is for Club sandwiches for a dinner. We were out of both the provolone and pepper jack cheese slices that we like on hamburgers and sandwiches.

You know what they say about the best laid plans. I was going to go to Top’s today because it is senior discount day. I chose not to because I have not felt well the past two days. My neuropathy is back with a vengeance. Thank the Lord, my doctor gives me meds to keep on the shelf. Hopefully. I can get off of them in a few days when the inflammation goes down.

We needed food. My Top’s list only had 4 items on it. The most important one was a Caesar salad kit to use with the leftover chicken that we grilled two nights ago. So I placed the Walmart order instead, got other things I had on that list, and hoped they would have the kit. They did. So I did not place a delivery order from Top’s. The other three items we could go without. There will be other sales and other senior discount days so it was no big deal to miss it.

We got one Caesar salad kit, a 5 lb. bag of russet potatoes for baked potatoes and roasted potatoes, 2 packages of broccoli florets and a package of brussels sprouts.

Hubby now has two packages of chocolate chunk cookies and some turnovers. I do not bake in the summer. I also picked up a 60 count package of eggs. It is nice to see the price down from the high. I had 7 eggs left. Too low for comfort especially since my son and West are back from their two week vacation- one week on a cruise in the Caribbean and one week at a resort in the Dominican Republic. We will go through about a dozen eggs this Sunday.

I also got 2 cartons of ice cream and a pot pie and quick lunch items for when I don’t feel like cooking. Lastly, you see the bottom half of a cherry limeade clear water bottle, I buy this by the case, so I got 12. This is my guilty pleasure.

I have Walmart + so no delivery charge. My total was $ 118.81 plus tip.

Did you do any grocery shopping this week?