Category: Every Day

1. Haircuts every 4 weeks – I am only paying for one every 8 weeks and I won’t go unless I have a discount coupon and can get my 8th haircut free. I use Great Clips.
2. For those who are new here, I don’t color my hair. I let it grow out to it’s natural white and I am embracing it.
3. Books – I am rereading all the ones we have here in the house. I also save gasoline and time by borrowing digital books through my library.
4. No home goods or kitchen gadgets. We have plenty. Actually too much and I will be weeding them out. The exception is if something breaks like a vacuum cleaner or an appliance. Then I would replace them if need be.
5. No facial lotions. Soap and water works extremely well.
6. No lottery tickets- even when the pot gets big. My chances of winning are slim to none.
7. We will not be going to a movie theater. There is plenty to watch through apps.We have just one paid app. It is much cheaper than buying tickets. We also can make our own air popped popcorn.
8. I was looking at buying whiteboard contact paper to put on the chest freezer to write my inventory. It seems to be the latest trend. However, my method of keeping and updating in a $ .25 notebook works just fine. I keep it on top of the freezer to mark off anything I use up or put in it. So no spending on the contact paper for me.
9. I will not be purchasing paper towels when my one package is gone. I have plenty of rags and microfiber cloths to use and wash. I save my bacon grease to cook with. Then scrape the last bits in the frypan into a saved jar to dispose of when it is full.
10. I will not be buying any toilet paper this year. We have plenty and don’t use much because we have a bidet.
11. No junk food except tortilla chips which we use for taco bowls, taco salads, and nachos, etc. or potato chips to use at a meal or to crush for a casserole topping.
12. No baked goods-They will all be made at home.
13. A particular drug that the doctor prescribes for me. He gives me samples once in a while so I have well over a year’s worth now.
14. No organizing items – I have more than plenty.
15. No store bought cleaners except soaps. I have plenty to last me for the year. When I run out I will make all of my own. I already make some of them.
16. No bags to scoop cat litter into. I have plenty for this year. I saved the plastic bags from groceries before our Governor banned them. I have a huge carton full of them. If by chance, I run out of those, I have been saving Walmart and Amazon envelopes to use.
17. No accessories for my outfits. I have plenty of purses, wallets, jewelry, etc. I dress simply.
18. No more toys for Eloise. I just replaced her tweety bird because the battery would not hold a charge anymore and also got her a similar duck because she loves them. But if these batteries don’t last longer than 4 months, I am not doing it again. She has so many toys that I am tripping over them. I am putting most of them in a box and will just pull out a few at a time for her to play with.
19. No ziploc bags or food saver bags. I have more than plenty to use up.
20. Bottled water – I now have put up enough water from my tap for an emergency.
21. Plastic containers to keep food in. I threw it all out last year and replaced it with glass containers and mason jars. Plastic leaches into your food.
22. Seasonal Decor – I have cleaned out most of it and donated it. We kept our tree and lights and decorations for it, mangers, and wreaths and candles for our windows. That is it and there will be no more.
23. Greeting cards – We have plenty and when we run out we have plenty of blank cards and envelopes.
24. No new candles- Use up what I have.
25. No paid entertainment beside cable and one app that I pay for.

This will be our low spend year. I will aim for one or two no spend months as we go along. January will not be a no spend. The reason is that there are a lot of meat sales in that month. I don’t want to miss out on any of those great prices.

Since we are on the topic of food, I have cut our grocery budget back from $ 500. a month to $ 400. a month for 2025 for the two of us and it will also cover any company that we will feed. This connects with our Use It Up strategy. I will be very mindful of what we buy by always buying on sale and always checking our pantries, freezers, and refrigerator first. I will look for markdowns and reduced price items anytime I am near a market of any kind. If I run an errand or go to an appointment and there is a market on my route, I will stop in for a few minutes and just scour the store for those things.

We will try to cut back our utility costs which I have talked about in prior blog posts. We will also cut back the amount of water we use because those rates have gone up. We will be mindful everyday of how we are using water so that we don’t waste it. Eloise loves to drink out of our bathroom taps. But I felt we were wasting water while she was drinking. So we purchased her a fountain that was on clearance for $20. It recycles the water and we only have to fill it up every 3-4 days. It runs on a rechargeable battery so we don’t use a lot of electricity. Eloise starts the fountain running when she steps in front of it. Then when she is done it stops running. Thinking out of the box will be another of my mantras this year and I will share it all with you.

Every area of what we spend on will be scrutinized to see where we can save. What we spend on will be different than what you spend on. We each have our priorities. For example, we do spend on Cable TV. Hubby enjoys it so that will not be cut anytime soon. If it was up to me, I would cancel it because I watch it rarely. When I have some downtime, I watch You Tube to learn something new. That is so much more important to me.

An example of learning something new happened while my son was here a few days ago. We went out to breakfast the morning that he was leaving. We had put our kitten in her cage but his dog was loose in the house. He is an old dog but such a sweetie. I was the first to walk through our great room to go let Eloise out of her cage. I spotted quite a bit of blood on my off white carpeting. Well we soon figured out that the dog had broke a nail. I told my son I would get some cold water and a cloth. He said, “Mom do you have any hydrogen peroxide?” I said yes. He said get that and a cloth. He blotted it with that and I was shocked at how fast that removed the blood from my carpet. There is not even a trace that it was ever there. Being in the medical field for about 40 years, he knew about this. Hydrogen peroxide breaks down protein in the blood because of the oxygen in it. He told me it works on blood that has been dried on also. He told me if you get blood on clothing just put a bit on the spot and then wash the clothing. In all of my years and I am pretty old, I never knew this. So I learned something new that day! Thanks son!

I am frugal not cheap. For example, when I realized that the USDA had put some restrictions on ranchers selling their steers to meat processing plants recently which will make a severe beef shortage, I purchased two whole prime beef tenderloins and had them cut into 1 and 1/2 inch filet mignon portions. They were very expensive but it is something that we love. Knowing that they are going to cost more in the future had me stock up. We will be eating two of them and a tossed salad to ring in the New Year tonight. We will also be enjoying a bottle of champagne with our meal. The bottle is 4 years old so we will use it up. Every year we would tell ourselves that we would drink it and we would always go to bed early. I think tonight is when we will use it up.

Happy New Year’s Eve to you all!

Well you know what they say about best laid plans. Sometimes, they just don’t happen. I had forgotten that yesterday was Christmas when I said I would post yesterday. I hope you all had a wonderful one.

Hubby and I were alone yesterday. So Hubby and I did not have our usual Christmas dinner. Instead we had taco bowls. Christmas dinner will be today since we have company arriving for a few days. It will be ham and all the fixings to go with it. I have to bake a pie this morning too.

Let’s get back to “Use It Up”. I would bet a lot of you have the problem of too many cleaning supplies in your home. We have way too many and have been trying to use them up the last 6 months but they seem to last forever which I guess is a good thing. I won’t have to spend any money on them for a very long time because we will concentrate on using up every bit of them.

The same goes for all of our soaps: laundry, bar soap, liquid soap, dishwasher liquid, and dish liquid. I also have a case of all natural all purpose cleaner which was gifted to us.

Speaking of gifts, my sister – in – law surprised me with a wonderful book for Christmas: “The Prepper’s Cookbook by Tess Pennington. I was delighted because it has some great recipes to use up my stockpile. They have a huge used bookstore out there in Houston and I am hoping she got it there. It’s definitely not new. She is frugal like I am which I love.

We have also been going through our clothes and donating what we don’t want anymore. I think 2025 will be a year without buying any for me. I have so many plus shoes that have never been worn. Time to wear through them. Hubby may need some things but he won’t buy anything that isn’t a real need.

Another category of items that we will not be buying this year is personal care products. We have enough deodorant, shampoo, shower soap, makeup for me, toothpaste, toothbrushes(which I use for travel and to clean), floss and other dental items to last well over 2 years(thanks to my dentist), lotions and creams, etc.

I am sure there are many other items that we won’t need to buy but I am drawing a blank right now. I will write about them as the year goes on.

I will not be posting until at least Monday since we have company and I want to enjoy every minute visiting with them.

Then I will wrap up 2024 and dive into 2025.

Do any of you plan to not buy certain things in 2025? I would love you to share in the comments so that other people can benefit from your knowledge.

A theme for 2025 seems to be popular for next year. I am usually not one for themes but I will play along. Use It Up will be one of my themes.

How many of you have food in your home that you have forgotten you have? Or food that you don’t know how to use it up? I know I do. People have gifted me food that I am not sure how to cook. But this year it will all get used. Waste not want not! I will use a recipe site like:

https://www.allrecipes.com/ingredients-a-z-6740416

Very little money will get spent on groceries until many food products that I have on hand are used up. We have already started this. I had stockpiled over 10 cases of Chunky, Progresso, Old El Paso, and Marie Callendar soups before the prices started inflating. Many I got for $ .89 – $ .99 each. Now they are $ 1.98 each or more. I make a lot of homemade soups but I had these in case of an emergency and for quick lunches or dinners in the winter time. It has been so cold that Hubby and I have been eating 2 cans week. We each like different soups. By doing this, we have saved a lot of money. Plus it is so easy to heat up a can of soup, add saltines with butter and call it a meal. That gives me a break because I am now taking care of everything because of Hubby’s meniscus tear. Add a kitten named Eloise to that and I fall into bed at night exhausted.

My freezers are jammed packed so we will be eating those up also. I have found 2 other stores where I can restock in bulk at great prices. Much better than the prices in the local supermarkets. They are the https://www.usfoods.com/why-us-foods/chef-store.html and https://www.sloansupermarket.com/ .

The rest of our food we will rotate so that nothing goes bad.

How many of you have tons of office supplies? I know we do and we are not going to buy any until they are all gone. We have lots of pens and pencils, notebooks, computer printer paper(about a case and 1/2), staples, rubber bands, markers, notepads, tape, etc. Just look at these notebooks. They will get put to good use this year.

The one on the left on the bottom row is a meal planner that barely got used. I will use it up this year to plan out my meals from my stockpile and write any groceries I need that week. The one on the right is a notebook with lined pages. I will be using it as a running list of errands, cleaning that needs to be done, etc. I will just cross things off as I do them and add things as I need to. This notebook will replace buying a planner. I have purchased planners from two different people over the years. This year they are majorly expensive around $ 59. and $ 68. I found this past year I barely used mine because of my online calendar. So buying one would be a huge waste of money. I will just use the notebook that I already own.

In the top picture is a money planner that did not get used. We keep everything online. But I will use it this year to track things I spend money on that are not fixed budget items. The other notepad I am going to use to track my frugal items that I do every day.

We have many more notebooks that will get used when we need them.

It is 1:37am and I am now tired and ready for bed. But I wanted to get this post done for you. I will continue it tomorrow.