Category: Every Day

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Every Day

What is This Generation Thinking? How Did They Become So Irresponsible?

I know I promised to tell you today what I did yesterday. I will do that another time. I went to sleep last night watching this You Tube video and it was very disturbing. So I want to talk about this. Here is the video if you want to watch it: People Have Stopped Paying Their Bills… And It’s Worse Than Many Realize

Who raised these people to be so irresponsible? I was just aghast that people don’t care if they pay any of their bills back. Do they have any morals? I am not sure they do. Do they realize that will damage their lives forever by this kind of behavior?

What is truly troubling is that they use every excuse for not being able to pay their bills except blaming themselves. They took the loans, they ran up their credit cards, they took the mortgages, or they rented an apartment they cannot afford. They purchased the car they can’t afford. But they do not want to change their lifestyles to be able to pay them off. Some even want to bankrupt the country by trying to convince others to not pay their bills back.

Don’t get me going on how so many people are putting groceries on credit cards. Give up something else to pay for food. Cut back to basic food: some kind of protein, veggies/or fruit is all you really need. Stop buying snacks, sodas and sweets if you can’t afford them. I will talk about this in another post or this one will be 10 pages long.

So many of them are complaining it is because everything is going up. We have been in so many situations like this in all of our decades. About every 10 years we have had some kind of recession. But people cut back on what they spent to survive. They didn’t spend a fortune on cellphones, eating out, picking up coffee, so many clothes that they can’t wear them all, streaming services they can’t afford, and the list goes on and on. When gas got expensive, they car pooled, stayed home except to go to work. They combined a ride home from work with running errands. They did not use their car otherwise. How many of them today are doing that? I would bet not many! They are still going out to meet up with friends or using gasoline for other things that are not a true necessity.

Do you think that our bills have not gone up? Of course they have just like everyone elses. We will be retired 25 years next month. The money that we had to spend during retirement has been devalued by inflation over those 25 years. Since the month we retired until now, our money today needs to be 1.88 times what it was when we retired. We stayed frugal our entire life knowing this would happen and we saved every month. Do I like that our bills have gone up so much over the past 7 years? No of course not and I do complain about them especially the electric and gas bill. But I meet those increases head on. I consider it a challenge on every thing.

I have posted so much content over the years on my blog trying to help other people and I know that many of my readers have been helped. But there are others who do nothing to help themselves. It falls on deaf ears. They do not listen so I have stopped trying. They got themselves into their own messes and they can get themselves out.

That said, I will again do a series on how to cut back and survive these times.

Tomorrow, I will tell you about my day yesterday!

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Every Day

A Little Of This and A Little of That

My son, DIL, and grandson returned last Thursday from a 3 week vacation in France. They even took the train to Switzerland on their anniversary to eat at a steak house. They came yesterday to visit so I made French toast, eggs, and sausage for breakfast. I did not want to waste time going out to breakfast. We just wanted to hear all about their trip and see all the pictures. And get plenty of hugs! What a beautiful country France is. While they were there they spent a couple of days seeing the 2 Disney parks in Paris. They have now been to every park that Disney has worldwide. So that was the highlight of our day yesterday.

My son did alot of things for us while he was here. It had been 4 weeks since they had come. The wind blew one of our outside cameras off kilter and it needed a battery. He fixed that. The painters had taken down all of our beautiful things from the top’s of the cupboards in the kitchen when they painted the ceilings. He put all of those back up in the exact spots where they had been. Hubby had taken pictures before the painters took them down. Lastly, he put brighter lights in our dining room light over the table. We have never had this much light. I am loving it. I am grateful for everything he and my grandson do for us. Hubby and I do not want to climb ladders at our “young age”.

Our friend who is our neighbor brought over 4 of the largest muffins I have ever seen that she baked. They were blueberry and the large berries reminded me of the Maine blueberries that we used to grow in our yard when we lived in the eastern part of our state. I have to get this recipe from her. They were so delicious.

Let’s now talk about our electric and gas bill that came last week. We have been trying our hardest to keep the bill down. The bill was for 33 days and was $213.97. We used 696 kwh’s and 4 ccf’s of natural gas for cooking and heating water.

Last year’s bill(same period) was also for 33 days. It was $ 214.22. We used 774 kwh’s and 3 ccf’s of natural gas.

So we used 78 less kwh of electricity and 1 more ccf of gas this year. However the bill was only $ .25 less than last year’s. The bill probably would have been more if the oil prices hadn’t gone down. I expect that with oil back up that the next few bills will be outrageous.

So we are trying hard to think about what we are doing when we use kwh’s or ccf’s. We have an oversupply of paper plates that we purchased prior to 2021 when they were cheap. So we use them sometimes. That lets us only run the dishwasher once a week. If we have company, then I have to run it more. Recently, I purchased 8 place settings of silverware. Our old ones were pitted and very old! I quickly realized that I needed 8 more place settings so that I don’t have to run that dishwasher often especially when we have other people here. They are being delivered today. I got them on a great sale and with $7.00 off coupons. We love the ones we picked out.

Our new freezer is supposed to only use $47. of electricity a year. Time will tell. Since it is an upright, when you open it the cold air falls out. So since we only stock beef and butter in it, we don’t open it as often as the chest freezer. We only eat beef about once a week and I have no problem keeping 3 weeks worth of beef at a time in our upstairs freezer on our refrigerator.

I only do 2 loads of laundry a week most of the time. If I am doing spring or fall cleaning then I do more. We hang as much as we can indoors which cuts down on the dryer use.

Most lights are kept off in the daytime unless it is dark out. I do follow the sun around the house pulling the shades and putting down the blinds to keep the heat out of our home.

Since it is not as humid as it had been, we have turned off our dehumidifier in our basement. If the humidity comes back then we will turn it back on.

We are having Chinese food that we purchased yesterday from our local take out place. They give you so much food that we have enough for tonight. So 2 meals for each of us for about $23.+ tax is not bad.

Tomorrow, I am doing something for the day that I haven’t done in over 26 years and I am so looking forward to it. I will tell you all about it either tomorrow when I get home or the next day if I am worn out from it.

I hope you are all having a great day.

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Every Day

Missing in Action

I have had a few people e-mail me and ask where I have been. So here is the explanation.

Since 2007 when I first started blogging, I don’t think that I have taken more than a week’s time off in any given year for a vacation. That hasn’t happened in a while now. We don’t travel anymore. So we decided to take a week off for a staycation last week. However that did not work out because we had severe smoke here in our area coming from the wildfires in Canada. So we stayed home except for medical appointments. But I used that time to do some cleaning and work on my freezers. I am also reorganizing my big pantry.

We were going to take this week off but yesterday and today did not start out well. The smoke is here again. I am going to hope that the smoke gets better and that we will be able to get outside and do some things this week. If not, I still need a break from blogging. So I will continue reorganizing my basement and do some other household things. I am hoping to be back next week.

I hope you are enjoying your summer and not putting up with this smoke.

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Every Day

Hubby bought me something that I have been wanting for a very long time

I have been wanting a second freezer for a few years now. I have been tracking prices and looking at different models for years. During the evening on Sunday, I saw this upright that I have been eyeing on sale for 54% off. It had thousands of great reviews. It is not a full size upright but it is perfect for what I wanted to use it for. I showed Hubby and told him it would be my beef freezer. He said if you want it order it. I did and it was delivered yesterday. It was taken to my basement by a very nice man. Hubby unpacked all of the styrofoam and cardboard that it came in that very night while I chatted with my sister. Today I cleaned up the packing materials. Then I removed half of the items in our chest freezer so that Hubby and I could move it and we could put the new one to the right of it. Hubby installed automatic lighting for me when he did the pantry. It comes on when I open the pantry door. However if we left the new one to the left of the chest freezer, it blocked the light. After we moved it, I then put everything back into the chest freezer.

After the new one had cooled to the proper temperature, I took everything back out of the chest freezer. I sorted it into these blue bins that I had purchased on Amazon a long time ago:

I sorted by type of meat: pork, chicken, fish and seafood, and beef. All of the beef items went into the new freezer. It took up almost three shelves. I used another shelf for my 21 lbs. of butter.

All of the vegetables and fruits have been put in one bin. We eat a lot of fresh vegetables in the summer so I don’t keep many frozen ones. Another bin has yeast, nuts and bread products.

I do have 3 turkeys in the bottom of the freezer along with 2 lbs. of ground turkey. I like to keep the same meats sorted together so that I can find them when needed.

Everything was counted and inventoried while I did it. I purchased two magnetic white boards on Amazon. One for each freezer. They are here:

Later today or tomorrow, I will write a map for each freezer and put the inventory for each item on there also. That way I can just erase and change it easily when I use something up or add something I have purchased.

If anyone is interested in buying this one, it was on sale at Walmart for $218. They also have a chest freezer on sale if you are need in of one for $205.

Hubby was quite impressed with the new one when it came. He didn’t expect it to be as nice as it is. I am thrilled. It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy.

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

We were invited to a July 4th party and I was making a fruit bowl in a watermelon shell to bring. Trying to find fruit that was decent was not easy. I went to Niagara Produce and got the watermelon for $7.99. I also purchased seedless green grapes for $8.37, blueberries for $3.99, and 4 dozen XL eggs that I needed for $ .99 each. That came to $ 24.30. Their strawberries were small and not in vey good condition.

Then I went to Top’s and got cherries(I pitted them all) for $8.42, more blueberries for $6.99 and cantaloupe for $ 14.97(I had to buy precut because I could not find a whole cantaloupe in the store.). I hate doing that but Hubby really wanted cantaloupe in the fruit bowl. Top’s strawberries were really orange. There was not a red strawberry in the store. They were far from ripe.

So on Friday morning I went to Walmart to pick up a prescription for Hubby. While I was there, I looked at their strawberries. I was shocked to see that they had perfect strawberries. So I purchased 4 small containers for a total of $ 10.32. They are not in the picture. I was so happy that they had them because if they didn’t I was going to head to the next town to go to Wegman’s or B.J.’s.

This was a large party with lots of kids, I brought over a much bigger half of the watermelon filled with fruit. I made this extra one in case it was needed and put it in my refrigerator. I also had a bag of fruit leftover for us to munch on the next few days.

I didn’t find out that the fruit had run out until after everyone had eaten. The hosts of the party said it was gone by the time they dished up their meal. If I had known, I would have gotten this other one in the refrigerator. Looks like everyone was loving it. So yesterday, I brought over this half of the watermelon of fruit to the hosts for them and their 2 boys to enjoy. Lesson learned: Bring double next year and put it in a big bowl.

One of their fathers makes the burgers every year for them to grill. He is a hunter and got a deer this past season. They are the best burgers I have ever had. He makes them out of venison and ground pork and I don’t know what kind of spices he uses. So when I brought the fruit over, they gave me 4 of the burgers that were leftover and not cooked yet. We each had one for dinner last night. The other two I have frozen for another meal. I have always hated venison because it tastes gamey to me. Not these burgers. They were so yummy!

There were so many fireworks in our neighborhood on July 4th night that I could not get to sleep until after 11am. So I was dragging yesterday. However last night, I had to do some work in the basement to make room for a purchase that is coming today.

But now I am rested. I have a very busy day. I have an appointment in the next town and then have to run some errands near me. Then I have more work in the basement to do.

I hope you all had a good 4th.

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Every Day

Happy 4th of July To All of You

I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July. We will be celebrating 250 years of our country. Stay safe and enjoy yourselves!

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Every Day

Saving a Few Dollars Here and There

Princess Eloise was telling me that she would rather I played with her than write this post. She got her way and then I got mine.

I needed to buy new reading glasses that were the next strength. After a bit of research I found what I needed at Walmart online. I purchased 4 pairs that were $16.99. I had $10.75 in Walmart cash from prior delivery orders. I used that to pay which ended up costing me $7.60 out of pocket including taxes. I considered this a great deal at $1.90 per pair. They are much nicer than what the dollar stores carry.

Hubby broke his glasses when he fell. They were usable but scratched. I took him yesterday for a prescheduled opthamologist appointment. There is an optometrist in the same building. So we headed there with his prescription after the first appointment. Hubby picked out frames and the optometrist measured and ordered his glasses. They will be ready around July 13th. We do not have insurance for glasses. So the optometrist gave him a discount of 20% which saved us $150. We will pay $600. when they are ready.

We have a bunch of paper plates that I stockpiled in case of a power outage. I opened one package when this heat hit so that we don’t need to run the dishwasher and heat up the house with the A/C on. It may not save much electricity but every little bit helps the bill.

As I write this, the A/C is constantly running. UGH! We have had highs of 91 the past two days. We have heat warnings in effect through 8PM on Friday. Our heat index values have been 105- 109 each afternoon. It is so humid and ugly outside. I keep pushing off going out uneccessarily. But I will have to go to the markets today or tomorrow. I need to get a watermelon and many other fresh fruits to make a fruit bowl that I am taking to a July 4th party.

I entered the past 10 days of receipts into Fetch. I had enough points in that account to order a $10.00 Walmart gift card to use for future groceries.

I had enough points in my XBOX account to order a $10.00 Amazon gift card.

Top’s offered me a $5.00/$50.00 grocery coupon for updating my profile on their site. I did and that coupon has been clipped to my card to help defray the cost of the groceries I need there this week.

Since it has been so hot, I am trying to come up with cool recipes we can eat. We ate all of the macaroni and chicken salad over the past couple of days for brunch and dinners. I think tonight may be shrimp cocktails or Caesar salad wraps with shrimp. Another night may be egg salad from eggs that I cooked in the Instant Pot. They only take 4 minutes. If I am really lazy, we can always have PB&J sandwiches to get our protein. We already have all the ingredients for all of these.

What have you been doing to save some $$$$ ?

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

The painters took 2 full days last Thursday and Friday to paint all of the ceilings. I am happy that my house is put back together. They came back on Monday morning and did all of the outside painting. They colored matched the shutters on the house and the shed and planter boxes. They also did the front door the cranberry color that it was and the shed doors to match the color of the trim on our home. All wood on the house and shed is done with two coats. It just brightened everything up.

It wasn’t easy for them because our landscapers came a few minutes after the painters did. They needed to trim bushes and low branches on the trees and do all of the weeding. They were supposed to come last Thursday or Friday but never showed. So each group had to work around each other.

Sunday night I realized that it was 78 in the house so we turned the A/C back on. I am glad we did because it was 86 outside on Monday and 90 today and will be hot the rest of this week and most of next week. They are talking a couple of days could be 100. The humidity reared it’s ugly head today and will be with us for the duration.

Other than taking care of Hubby who is on the mend, we have been watching the World Cup soccer and the golf tournaments over the weekend. I did do some laundry washing in cold water and hanging to dry.

I also cooked up a pound of bacon yesterday for Hubby. He was craving BLT’s so he is a happy man right now. I can’t eat tomatoes or bacon right now. I have been eating soft foods which I hate doing but it is a necessity at the moment.

BTW, I finally found the perfect way to cook bacon. When I did it in the oven or a skillet, grease would get everywhere. Then I purchased special microwave containers to cook it in. They warped after a few times and didn’t do that good of a job either so they were thrown out. I now cook it in a covered dutch oven on the stovetop. It takes two batches to cook up a lb. But no grease to clean up on the stovetop. I save the grease to cook with so the only cleanup is the dutch oven after I have wiped out all the leftover grease with a paper towel that I can’t pour out into my grease container. I have never had a grease build up in my pipes in all the years we have been married.

West was supposed to spend the weekend with us but due to a conflict he didn’t. So my plans to do some things with him in my downstairs pantry were put on hold.

I am considering buying a grain mill so that I can grind my own flour. Do any of you buy hard wheat berries and do this? If you do, do you have an electric mill or a hand crank one. How does it work for you?

Hubby felt good enough to mow our lawn on Monday night. I usually call my sister on Mondays about that time. But I didn’t do that until he was safely back in the house.

It is too hot to cook outside or inside. So very early this morning I boiled some water to cook macaroni. I did it early as to not heat the house up. I added a quart of my home canned chicken from my stockpile to it. I then added mayonaise. I usually add diced celery but I can’t eat that right now. So I diced up plenty for Hubby to add to his dinner dish. We will have fresh fruit for dessert tonight. I believe there is enough salad to last 2 more nights. When that is gone, I will find another dish that won’t heat the house up.

I need to go to Niagara Produce and Top’s but that will probably be on Thursday. I will be purchasing some of the July 4th deals. I will post that shop.

I hope you are all having a good start to your week. I will be back to post again soon.

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Every Day

What We Have Been Up To

It has been a busy week. We spent Wednesday putting away decor from all of our rooms to get them ready for the painters. Just as I sat down for the first time in the day, Hubby was outside banging on the garage door. As I opened the door, there he stood with blood pouring down his face and his arm. I quickly got him cleaned up to see where the blood was actually coming from. Then I asked him what had happened. He said he fell after bending over to pick something up. His head and arm and shoulder hit the asphalt driveway. I looked him over well and determined that he did not need stitches to close up his face. There was quite an abrasion on his forehead, on one side of his nose, and on his arm. He was also complaining about a sore shoulder. I put neosporin on every wound and bandaged him up. He has had no headache which is good. Yesterday he was muscle sore in the shoulder. His abrasions are doing well. I am going to have to lock him in the house until he realizes that he can’t do the things that he used to be able to do. He still thinks he is 20. But he looks like he has been through the war.

On Thursday morning, we got Eloise all settled with everything she needed in our master bedroom and bathroom. The painters arrived and went to work. The prep work took over 5 hours because we have 9 foot ceilings. All the ceilings had to be taped and and all the walls draped with plastic so they could paint. Most of the furniture was gathered together and draped with plastic. Drop cloths were put on all the floors. They finally got some areas of the ceiling prepped and then put the first coat on every every ceiling except the breakfast room so that we would at least have a place to eat. Thankfully they rolled up all of the plastic before they left so that I could cook. We barely ate all day.

They will be back this morning to put on the second coat and do the breakfast room. Then they will start painting the outside of the house wherever there is trim, paint the doors, and the shutters. Then they will paint the shed. Hopefully they will get done today. If not they will have to come back to finish.

These men are really careful of our possessions, are every polite, and have done a great job painting. With just one coat, the ceiling looks so good. I have to thank my neighbor for giving us such a good recommendation for a painter.

Eloise proved to us last night that she can be in our room at night and does not bother us. She just sleeps in her bed and sits on the top of the recliner and looks out the window. So we can now give her full reign of our room at night and I will still get sleep. She never woke me last night and just got up when I did. She is 2 years and 3 months now and is now an adult cat and is acting that way. I am grateful for that.

Well, the painters will be here between 8 and 8:30 so I best make sure that Eloise and I are set up in the bedroom for the day and Hubby will probably spend the day in the office. He keeps an eye what the painters are doing too.

My grandson is coming around dinner time so I have to figure out what we will eat. He is staying until Sunday. We are excited to have him for a few days.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

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Every Day

Grocery Haul

I do not like shopping on Sunday. However, I have learned my lesson when it comes to Top’s. After having to get rainchecks for the best deals on Mondays, I started going on Sundays. I quickly found out that when the meat department opens at 8AM that they never have the beef deals ready. So yesterday I went at 10AM. The NY strip steaks were fully stocked. I was able to pick and choose 4 large packages with 4 steaks in each. They had the best price that I have seen in months. They were $11.88 a lb. so I paid $ 125.57 for all of them. These steaks are always tender and delicious. When I got home I used my foodsaver to package them up. We now have 16 meals of strip steaks in the freezer. I may roast a turkey this week. If I do, I will free up some space in the freezer. Then I might get some more steaks. We love grilling them outside in the summer and fall.

The rest of the items pictured were purchased at Walmart because they had much cheaper prices than Top’s. I bought 2 frozen mixed berries for $3.52 a bag. I eat these with zero sugar whipped cream when I need a sweet snack. I just put a serving in a bowl and defrost it in the microwave for a few seconds. It always satisfies my cravings for snacks but it is much healthier than candy or chips. I also purchased one bag of dates for $ 4.97, 1/2 gallon of milk for $ 1.96 and the cottage cheese was $ 2.87. I love cottage cheese with diced fresh tomatoes for brunch. My total for all was $16.84.

Hubby has been using up my half and half that I use in my coffee on his cereal. So I purchased the milk for him. The half and half is $ 4.98 so paying $ 1.96 for the milk was a no brainer. I do have shelf stable milk in the pantry but it is all within date so we will keep that for emergencies.

I do track prices so that I can do a couple of stores and know that I am always getting the best price. Top’s and Walmart are only a block apart so a round trip is only 7 miles. I am not so good at tracking Aldi’s because they have to have a very good deal to get me in the store. I did go last week when I got the 8 lbs. of organic ground beef but I was too tired to look at other items that day. I need to go again and do that. I wonder if I can find the prices online or are those prices just if you have delivery or pickup. Does anyone know?

We had a good day yesterday. My sons both called Hubby to wish him a Happy Father’s Day and they had long chats. My son who lives closer spent part of Friday here. My other son was planning on making the 4 and 1/2 hour trip but his dog is sick so he couldn’t. I don’t know when we will see him again. I am seriously considering flying there. It is too long a car trip for us. We have no direct flight from here to there. However, Hubby could take me to an airport that is about an hour and 15 minutes away that does have a direct flight. Hubby no longer flies either. It is just too hard for him. But I can go alone. The only other way is to hitch a ride with my other son when they go to New Hampshire to visit his in-laws. My son could pick me up along the route they take.

My grandson is coming this Friday to stay with us for the weekend. I am hoping since he loves organizing that he will help me take some inventory in the pantry. We will enjoy having him here(spoiling him) and he is always a big help to us.

Hubby and I watched a lot of soccer this weekend. We are enjoying those games.

Tonight my sister and I will have our usual Monday chat. Her granddaughter got married this weekend. So I am looking forward to hearing all about it.

I have two medical appointments this week so I don’t know when I will post again.

I hope you all have a great week!