Category: Every Day

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Every Day

Watching The Large Expenses

I have always said that watching the small expenses is extremely important. Those small ones add up to huge amounts in one year’s time. They can sink your entire budget.

But you also have to watch the large expenses. You may have a mortgage or a home equity loan and could find the money to pay a little extra on the principal each month. This will not only pay off your mortgage early but save you a fortune in interest charges. 

Saving up the cash to buy a new or used car will save you the interest that a car loan will cost.

Watching your grocery budget each month by shopping sales and menu planning will keep you from wasting many dollars.

But one of the largest expenses you have every year are your utility bills. They cost a fortune. It is a battle for us to keep them low. 

We just got our one month gas and electric bill. We  had frigid temps here this past month and I was expecting our bill to be quite large. It didn’t disappoint. The electric portion of our bill was $ 82.10 for 645 KWH. The natural gas portion of our bill was $ 177.24 for 198 CCF’s. Then the company charges us a $ .87 payment charge just to issue the bill and post the payment which I find ludicrous. But NYS allows it. So the total bill was $260.21 for 33 days with an average daily temperature of 24 degrees fahrenheit. It was one of the highest winter bills that we have ever had since we moved back to New York. 

Of course, the company gets a rate increase every year or two because we all know the price of everything always goes up. So between the rate increases and the cold temperatures in the winter and warm ones in the summer, it is an every day battle to keep these bills down.

The last twelve months have cost us $ 2216.33 in just electricity and natural gas.

You all know that we do our best to try to do everything to cut these costs. This winter, we added a storm door to our leaky back door. I closed off 2 bedrooms by closing the heating vents in those rooms so that they don’t cost a fortune to heat when no one is using them. I use cloth snakes against our basement doors to keep that cold air down there. I also put one on the bottom of our back door since we don’t use that door during the winter so it doesn’t have to be moved every time we go in and out.
 
And we try to watch all of the things that I have written about before: here, here, and here, .

I wish I could turn the heat down but Hubby is always cold. We keep the temp at 71 during the day in our home and even with that Hubby wears a sweatshirt jacket and sometimes a winter jacket in the house. He is always cold. 

I do a pretty good job on the electric bill by washing clothes in cold water and hanging laundry. If I use the dryer, I use my wool balls to save on that energy.  I also try to use small appliances as much as I can to save on that bill because they are cheaper to use. 

We keep lights turned off in the daytime unless it is a dreary day and we need them to read. I try to keep the energy saving shades down in the winter. I defrost my chest freezer when it needs it so that it runs more efficiently. We use power strips on some of our TV’s so I can turn them totally off at night. It is too hard to get everything plugged in that we have in the great room behind the cabinet so we don’t do that one.

When I cook. I try to keep covers on pans especially when I cook on the gas stove. There are so many things that I do that I can’t remember them all.

I hope I am not missing anything but I would love to hear how you keep your utility bills down. Could you please share with me and everyone who reads here how you do it by leaving a comment. I will be checking them during the day to get them posted right away so that they can help other people.

 

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Every Day

Free Shopping

In case you haven’t noticed, I have been doing as little grocery shopping as possible lately. There are a few reasons for that. First, we are eating from our stockpile. Second, my diet will be changing drastically soon. And last, I am enjoying keeping as much money as possible of our budgeted grocery money.

This week and perhaps for many weeks to come, I have been doing “Free Shopping”. It’s fun and a challenge for myself. Have any of you just exclusively done this for a period of time? Perhaps your pantries were full and you wanted to use up what you had before it expired? Or maybe you just wanted to free up some money to throw at a debt or a goal?

I started doing this yesterday with a few rules. First, I don’t want to waste gasoline money driving around for a few things here and there. So I am trying to combine trips with other errands. This week, I have shopped at Walmart and Top’s. They are about a block apart.

Second, I don’t want to make many trips. No more than two a week unless I can stop somewhere on the way to an appointment, etc. Gasoline is expensive so I don’t want to waste what I am saving on filling up my tank.



At Walmart I purchased:


– 1 Forto Coffee Shot which was a $1.98 but I got back $ 1.98 from Ibotta

– 1-16 oz. Axe 2 in 1 Shampoo & Conditioner which was $3.97. This was a $.03 moneymaker. I used a $ 2.00 MQ and got $2.00 back from Ibotta

– 1 Bic Flex 5 Hybrid Razor which was $ 5.97 and I did a mail in rebate for the full cost. The rebate form is HERE.  They have lots of choices to get the full purchase price back.

– 1 Count Command Hook which was $ .97 and I used a $1.00 MQ so this was a $ .03 money maker. 

The $.06 I made came off the tax which was a nice bonus. I was getting ready to add a cheap candy bar if it didn’t. 

At Top’s I purchased:

– 2 Oikos Oh Yogurt -$1.00 each and I used 2- $ .50/1 coupons doubled = Free 

– 2 Oikos Triple Zero Yogurt – $1.00 each and I used 2- $.50/1 coupons doubled = Free

– 2 Two Good Greek Yogurt – $ 1.00 each and I used 2 – $.50/1 coupons doubled = Free and I got $.50 back from Ibotta


– 1 Ollys Single Protein Bar – $ 2.29 and I used a $ .50/1 coupon doubled and I got $2.00 back from
 Ibotta which was a $ .71 money maker.

 I also got $.25 back from Ibotta for submitting my receipt.


I also submitted my receipt to Fetch Rewards and got 1000 points. Fetch Rewards is so easy. You just upload all of your receipts. You get credit for those and for things that are certain items that you may have bought. If you would like to sign up and give me a referral credit, use my code which is: JQ5QH. I would be most appreciative.



That’s all the shopping for this week so far. Please feel free to share with all of us what you are getting free this week in the comments.

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Every Day

Frugal Things This Past Week

While we have been a bit house bound the past few weeks, these are the things we have done frugally:

– I have done very little grocery shopping. I did a quick trip to Aldi’s for fresh strawberries, creamer, peppers, and frozen veggies. I spent $8.85.

– I did our Federal and State income taxes and filed them. One week to the day I filed, we received our Federal refund. We got $1500. more this year (we owed a bit last year) due to President Trump’s tax cut plan. We have never gotten as large a refund. Everyone that I have talked to here is telling me that they are getting larger refunds than before. That is not what the Governor thought would happen in NY. I quickly invested that money once we received it.

– Hubby’s snow boots have pretty much worn out. He found a pair of snow sneakers on sale at L.L. Bean for $119. regularly $ 149. I thought I had gotten a coupon code a few days before but in my haste to order, I couldn’t find the e-mail. A few minutes after I ordered them, I found it. So I called L.L. Bean to give them the code which was for 25% off. They told me the code had expired at midnight the night before. I asked the representative if they would honor it. She sent me to customer service and a very nice woman there refunded the $32.31 which was 25% off plus the tax. As I have always told you, it NEVER hurts to ask. All they can say is no. But I have found that most of the time, they say yes.  

– I purchased a very pretty bracelet for my granddaughter for Valentine’s Day. I used credit card points to pay for it. I am giving my grandson an equal value amount of cash. It is very hard to pick things out for him and he enjoys shopping for himself.  

– I have cooked all of our meals from scratch and from the stockpile with the exception of one. Hubby took me out to dinner last night since the two days of ice we have had finally started to melt. I was craving prime rib and some peanut butter pie. I had my prime rib with some French Fries and gravy, tossed salad, and garlic toast which is great for dipping in the prime rib au jus. I was too stuffed from dinner to eat dessert. So I had them wrap a piece of peanut butter pie for later in the evening. 

– I have been taking this house bound time to reorganize our home with an eye towards getting rid of anything we would not want to move. I know that we will have a move sometime, either sooner or later, in our future. I actually have been the one pushing Hubby to move and he really was not keen on the idea. However, I caught him online looking at homes in the area we were thinking about moving to last week. I have been doing that for a few months now to get a feel for prices and what we would want.

– I filled up our SUV using $ .30 off per gallon in Top’s gas points. I paid $ 2.19 a gallon.


– Hubby used the DVR to save all of the Harry Potter movies that were on cable last weekend here. He wants to watch all of the movies starting with the first one. It was the cheapest way for him to watch them. This way he can watch them at his own leisure. 


– We have been doing whatever we can to keep the gas and electric bill down knowing that with the two weeks of really frigid cold we had during this billing cycle that the gas bill will be really high.


– By staying home except for 1 trip to the market, dinner out,  doctor appointments and medical tests, we have saved a bit of gasoline by not doing the usual running around.


– I downloaded some free books to read on my Kindle. It’s too cold to go to the library.


– For entertainment we have been playing cards, watching movies, doing jigsaw puzzles and I have been learning things on You Tube.


Please feel free to share with all of us what you have been doing frugally lately? Did you get any good deals? Tell us in the comments.

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Every Day

How We Did On Our January Goals

We did pretty well on our January goals. Some are coming along slower than others. Some are rapidly progressing. Here is how we have done:


– Clearance shopping- I only bought some bagged salad. There is not much clearance in the stores right now.

– We have been buying a lot less junk food. We haven’t gotten rid of it all yet. Super Bowl Sunday we had some dips and chips, chicken wings and baked potato skins.

– We are reusing all of the plastic bags that come into our home. I keep them in empty Kleenex boxes. I have a large stockpile at this point. The reason is that we recycle everything that we can, use the garbage disposal for food, and donate so we have very little garbage. The microwave installers were nice enough to take the old microwave and all of the packaging for the new one.

– Our net worth increased from January 1st to February 1st by $7200. which was savings from December and January even though we paid our hefty property tax bill. So we feel good about that. We are well on the way to having the best savings year yet.

– We have not been going to the gym since I am preparing for surgery and that is keeping us quite busy.

– I have lost 4 lbs. this month.

– I have been doing great staying away from the Microsoft Solitaire. I played just twice.

– I am steadily working on organizing our photos.

– I have not been watching any news. I look at the news once a day online. We will watch the President’s State of the Union tonight.

– I have been spontaneously blogging which is helping me organize my time for projects and appointments.

– We only spent $ 139.02 of our $300. budget this month. We have been eating from our stockpile.

I am hoping for a good month in February also. 

It has been a hectic month around here even though we haven’t gone out much. I always hate January and February because it is so dreary and cold.


Please share with us how you have been doing on your 2019 goals by leaving a comment.
  

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Every Day

It Feels Like The Arctic Here

We got buried with about a foot of snow overnight on Tuesday evening. The lake effect snow is very active this winter lately. The windchill was below zero when Hubby went out to snow blow yesterday morning. 

He would normally have just waited until the frigid temperatures went up. But we had the microwave installers coming. I had no idea if they would even show because there were travel bans everywhere. But just in case he got it done before it got even colder.

You can see how much snow we have by seeing how high up it is on our mailbox post. The plow hadn’t been through except once early in the morning at that point. But of course when Hubby went out to do the snow blowing, the plow came through and he ended up with about a 2 foot tall wall of snow at the end of the driveway. The plow always puts 75% of the snow from the road on our side of the road.

I was up until the wee hours of the morning last night. When I went to bed at 1:30am, the wind chill was -28 and was supposed to drop to -34 later. It is darn cold here today. We have not left the house. The blowing snow makes the visibility terrible. 

The good news is that the installer showed up with my new microwave. I never realized how much I missed one. When they left, the first thing I made was popcorn. It was so good. Then it was really nice to heat up leftovers for dinner.

It’s a Maytag and I love it. It is super quiet like my Bosch dishwasher. You can barely hear either appliance in my kitchen which is a good thing since we have an open concept home. 

My favorite part is the fact that the entire inside is stainless steel. It also has a large rectangular tray instead of the round one so that I can fit larger Pyrex type dishes in it. The large tray oscillates from side to side while the food is cooking. 

Since we are stuck at home, I have been taking advantage of that time to work on the income taxes. I also had a huge list of odds and ends to get done like phone calls and paper work. Yes I can procrastinate on things I don’t really want to do. But they had to get done today. 

I also have done some cleaning and organizing. But most of the time, we are watching movies and staying warm.

Since it is so cold today, it seemed like a good comfort food day. So I roasted a turkey in the oven. We had mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn and gravy with it. Yup, mostly carbs. I am eating a lot of the things that I love that I can’t have after my surgery. 

Tomorrow or Saturday, I will update you on how I did on my goals this month. So get ready to let us all know how you did on yours in January by leaving a comment on that post.            

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Every Day

A Little Of This And A Little Of That

Well, what have we been up to the last couple of weeks?  We have been hiding in the house except to go to Doctor’s appointments, one trip to the grocery store and to shop for an appliance. It has been freezing cold here and we have been dealing with one storm that dumped 18.5 inches of snow on us and it seems to have snowed every night since. Lake effect seems to be in full force. When is Spring going to get here?

My almost nine year old microwave bit the dust about a week ago. We had our local repair people come out to look at it on Thursday at the same time the cable people came to deal with an issue.  Dan, the repair man, determined that the magnetron was dead. So it is going to be taken out. After paying $86. for the service call, he told us that the new magnetron, service call for the repair, and taking out the old one and installing the new one would be over $300. We said no. It wasn’t worth putting that into a 9 year old microwave.

So Hubby and I went shopping and purchased a new one which will be installed sometime this week. It cost a lot more than the repair but it is new.  I never really thought I would miss a microwave but it seemed like I have needed it a lot. I don’t like heating up leftovers on the stove or in the toaster oven. I was also extremely happy that we have funds tucked away for appliance replacements so we didn’t have to think twice about buying a new one.

On Thursday, I finally went to the grocery store after not going almost two weeks. I am very thankful for my stockpile. We needed a few things since we are going on the South Beach Diet. So I picked up some fresh vegetables, Canadian bacon, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Sprays, Smart Balance, egg beaters, mozzarella sticks, shrimp, and frozen spinach. My total bill came to $ 46.00. So after picking up some sausage a while ago and this bill, I have $160.98 left of my $300. grocery budget for the rest of January. It really does pay to stay home and not grocery shop. Since I will not be going shopping until a week from next Tuesday, the leftover money will be used in February. I will just get enough money at the bank to bring the grocery budget back up to $300.


We got a pleasant surprise yesterday. We were figuring our electric and gas bill was going to be extremely high because of the temperatures being below zero to about 20 here the last couple of weeks. So we were ready for a $250. to $260. monthly bill.  Our bill was $ 221.22. It was $15.21 less than the same bill last year even though it has been a lot colder and even though there has been a rate increase during that year. We used 100 less KWH and 50 less therms of gas. So being diligent about conserving has again paid off. 

So many times, I have told you that it pays off to take the time to write companies. Well look what I got in the mail a few days ago from Chobani. They sent these because I e-mailed them to tell them how much I love their yogurt. Not only did they send seven coupons but they sent a beautiful Thank You note for taking the time to write them.


Other than these things, we have just been cleaning, cooking, watching some movies, and playing cards. Nothing really exciting.
This is what we do in the winter when we are stuck in the house.

My son and West are coming to visit and have breakfast this morning. We have not seen them in a while because of the snow.
West’s birthday was last weekend and I still have his gift sitting here. He is going to love it even though it is a week late. I can’t believe that he is 9 already.  


I really am missing my son, DIL, and granddaughter. I wish that the airline would start up the flights to where they live again. It would be so easy to jump on a plane for 45 minutes and go visit. It beats driving in this weather. 


I hope you are all well and staying out of the cold if you are up north. Hopefully spring will be here in a couple of months.

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Every Day

When You Need Something Quick and Easy and More

Over the weekend, I was busy organizing and cleaning. So I wanted a dinner that was quick and easy to throw together.

So Hubby got out the rice cooker and made a pot of white rice yesterday morning. Then I let it sit in the fridge until it was time to make dinner. This recipe always tastes better made with rice that has sat for a few hours. 

At dinner time, I diced up a fresh chicken breast that I had thawed. I also diced up some onion and carrot. After sauteing them until they were soft, I cooked up two scrambled eggs. I threw in the rice and then mixed everything up. Next I added some soy sauce to taste along with 2 tbsp. of sesame oil.

That was dinner, chicken fried rice. It’s so easy and quick. I also make it when I have a little leftover pork or beef. Hubby and I love it. There were enough leftovers for lunch today.

Last week I entered a contest to win some tearpad coupons. I was very surprised when I won since so many people visit this Top’s couponing site. I was happy because my store rarely has coupons anywhere in the store.  So I now have some nice coupons that I have added to my stash. Be on the lookout for these since most don’t expire until a few months out. The $.75 Smithfield sausage one which doubled to $ 1.50 expired yesterday but I made a trip and stocked on this sausage for our Sunday breakfasts. Bonus was that the sausage was on sale also.  

So what do you throw together that is quick and easy when you are busy? 

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Every Day

Now That January Is Well Under Way……

Now that January is well under way, are you wondering how you are going to pay off all of those Christmas gifts you charged? Are you dreading the credit card bill coming? Are you robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Or did you pay cash, use debit, or write a check for those gifts? Or did you pay your credit card bill in full when it came? If you did, Congratulations! You have started off 2019 with a lot less stress than many.

I know that some of my readers are paying down debt and I am 100% behind them and cheering them on. They know that it isn’t easy but they are doing what it takes to become debt free. They don’t want the stress anymore.

But there are others who I am sure put Christmas gifts they couldn’t afford on their credit cards that are already charged up $ 5,000. and higher. Why not? In their minds, each gift only added a little bit to what they already owe. Instead of looking at the big picture and what they already owe, they just charged away.

Some owe so much money now that they can’t figure out how to pay normal expenses like car and homeowner’s insurances, utility bills, gasoline for the car, taxes on their home, and even food each week. So they just add them to the credit cards.

Some aren’t even trying to pay their debt off. They just are in total denial. They pay the minimums on their cards each month while the interest just keeps building up. They go out to eat many times a month and enjoy lots of entertainment each month. They continue to buy crap that they really don’t need. How do they do that you say? Easy, they just keep putting it on the credit cards!

They believe that they deserve to do all of these things even if they have to run up the credit card bills. Well, I know you won’t like this people but I am here to say that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t deserve it! Someone has to point out the truth to you!

If you can’t afford to buy Christmas gifts, eat out, go to the movies, the casino or the sports game or any other entertainment venue, don’t do it! If you have debt, get rid of the cable bill and any other bill that is not a necessity. Cut way back to get rid of those credit cards!

If you need to get a job or a second job to pay them off do it. Your future is at risk if you don’t. How long do you think that you can just keep putting expenses on your credit cards before you have no more credit to use. That will happen faster than you think. 

I have seen people in my 51 years of marriage who have eventually lost their homes or have had to sell their homes to pay off debt. It wasn’t medical debt which is a whole different ballgame. Do you really want that to be you? That is a really scary thought but it is true!

I don’t want to see any of you who read here stressed out because of debt. It’s January and a new year. Do what you have to do to get out from under that burden. It can be summed up in two words:

STOP SPENDING!

Get back to basics and put every spare dime on your debt. Yes, your debt. You created it and you must pay it off.

I know there will probably be a few people who will still be in denial after reading this and will be really ticked over what I have had to say but that is okay. They can just stop reading and go their merry way because this blog obviously isn’t helping them. I have written on this subject over and over again but there are some that just don’t get it! They continue to ruin their futures and there really is no helping them because they refuse to help themselves.

If I sound angry, I am not. I just don’t understand why people live a life of denial and continue to ruin their futures. I would hope that people are smarter than that.

So make this the year you finally get out from under your debt burden. Do the hard work! 

If you need to see a great example of someone who is paying down their debt go to Out My Window .
She has paid off a number of debts and continues working on others including her mortgage debt. I cheer her on all of time! She is a great role model for those of you who have debt.

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Every Day

This Week’s Grocery Shop

Yesterday was my weekly grocery shop. We are trying to only go once a week. Last week, I sent Hubby one day for a few things at Aldi’s after I had already been to Top’s. He stuck to the list with the exception of something he wanted for $ 2.99. It was a cheap price to pay while I was not feeling well.

So after meal planning and checking the ads, here is what I purchased at Aldi this week. I will not be shopping again until next week unless some really great deal that we can stockpile comes our way.

Have you ever purchased onions that turn bad pretty quickly after you buy them? Well it has been happening to me a lot lately when I buy them at Top’s. So I am now buying them at Aldi. Two lbs. for $ 1.69 was cheaper than Top’s too. They looked great and are really solid. We go through a lot of onions in this household. They are a natural antibiotic along with garlic so they help to keep us healthy.

Besides onions the only
produce I needed were carrots and apples. The carrots were $ .99 for 2
lbs.- a lot cheaper than buying baby carrots. The apples were 3 lbs. of
Honeycrisp for $ 1.99. It is our favorite apple.  

Chicken was on sale for $ 1.49 a lb. I only had room in the freezer for one pack after buying that whole pork loin last week. This is a really good price in our area. 

Whenever I see organic grass fed ground beef on sale for a good price, I will buy some. This was $ 4.99 for the lb. I will be making hamburgers for dinner tonight topped with lettuce and sauteed onions. I will put a few French fries in the air fryer as a side. Leftovers will be lunch tomorrow. I had a package of buns in my stockpile in my freezer so I pulled them out. The next time we have hamburgers, I will make the buns.


I picked up some garlic powder for $ 1.19. We were out.


So the total for all of this was $ 19.83. After this shop and last week’s, I have $ 216.98 left out of my $300.00 budget for the month.


Now that I am shopping Aldi’s more often, I am seeing other items that we need that I don’t normally buy there. I would love if anyone who shops Aldi’s regularly would tell me the favorites that they buy there.


Have you gotten any good food deals this week yet?

 

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Every Day

Frugal Things

These are the things that we have been doing to stay frugal around here:

– I got 2 bags of this salad mix marked down to $.99 each because it was the day before expiration. We have eaten one and will finish the other for lunch tomorrow. If there are any wet pieces, they will get tossed. 

– I have only been to the grocery store twice for small orders so doing well with my grocery budget. 

– Since I was out of the house most of the day yesterday, I needed to thaw something that would be easy for dinner. So I thawed a pound of bacon which I used to make bacon macaroni goulash. It was easy and yummy and we have enough leftovers for tonight.

– I have been researching solar ovens. I would like one to use this summer to save money on utilities. We have a lot of sun here in the Buffalo area so I believe it would be cost effective. If any of you have one, please let me know what kind and if you love it.

– We are calculating how much pipe insulation we would need to insulate our hot water pipes that run through the basement. They have a long run from under our master bath to the guest wing of the house and to the kitchen. 

– I am meal planning very simple meals from our stockpile. They are easy with meat purchased at rock bottom prices. Two nights a week, we are doing meatless meals like salads and biscuits or pancakes with fruit.  

– Breakfast meals during the weekdays are cereal and fruit. We have a huge stockpile of cereal to use up before it expires. Weekend meals will be our eggs and meat or pancakes and meat.


– We did rebalance our investment portfolio.

– We are still hanging laundry or when using the dryer, we use our dryer balls which knocks a bit of time off the drying time.

– We are doing all the frugal things like taking navy showers, keeping lights off in the daytime, turning off phantom energy wasters, keeping our shades and blinds shut, cooking in small appliances, etc.

– Since I am saving on buying garbage bags, I hit the jackpot the other day. We got a delivery that had 8 of these big bags as packing material. I saved them all for garbage. I am actually amazed at how little garbage we produce in a week. Everything that can be recycled is being. Everything that can go down the garbage disposal is. Anything that we declutter is being donated to the Salvation Army.

What have you been doing frugally lately? Please feel free to share with us in the comments.