Category: Every Day

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Every Day

Are You Going To Spend A Lot Of Money This Holiday Weekend?

Are you going away for the weekend? Are you planning on blowing a wad of money?

We are not planning on doing that. There are so many free things that we can do. A number of close by cities(20-30 minute drive) are having Memorial Day parades. They are free to watch.

We could go up to Olcott on Lake Ontario to the park and have a picnic lunch that we would make. Or we could go to Canalside(which we love)  in downtown Buffalo and just enjoy Lake Erie while sitting on a bench. That is all free. Since we have an almost full tank of gasoline, we won’t even have to buy that to go.

There are so many other free things that we could do in the area too. Just google your hometown or home city weekend schedules and I am sure you could find some free things too. You don’t always have to spend money to have a great time. 

We will also make a trip today to our public library and take out a few movies to watch one of the days this weekend and a couple of good books to read next week. Most likely movie day will be Saturday since it is supposed to rain. 

I also hope that my son and West will come for breakfast on Saturday or Sunday. I make that with food we already have in our stockpile. 

But the best thing that brings back memories from so many Memorial Day weekends is having a cookout. Hubby will grill some strip steaks and I will roast some veggies. We will enjoy our dinner and then depending on the weather, we may have our first fire of the season in our outdoor fireplace.

So it will be a fun and no spend weekend for us! How about you? 

I hope all of you have a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend!

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Every Day

Saving While Doing Laundry

Laundry is something that we do over and over again. Why not do your best to save dollars where you can.

I have an HE washer and dryer. Let’s talk about the washer first. How many of you wash your clothes in hot or warm water? Hubby and I don’t get very dirty. I wash almost all of our clothes in cold water and rinse in cold water. The only time I use warm or hot is if one of us has a bad cold or virus or we have been playing in the mud. If you have jobs where you get very dirty then I could see using more than cold water. But for us, cold works! I also would not wash cloth diapers with cold water. I read somewhere once that using hot water instead of cold all year is like leaving your refrigerator door open 24 hours a day for a year. That has always stuck with me.

The second thing I do is use the Express Cycle for 90% of our wash loads. It takes less energy than a regular wash cycle because it takes less time and it uses less water. Since we pay a hefty price for both electricity and water that makes a big difference over a year’s time.

The third thing is to always use the extra high spin cycle on the washer to get as much water out of your clothes as possible. So when you use your dryer, they take less time to dry. 


The fourth thing is that I never use a second rinse. One is enough when using the Eco Ball or when using soap. I never overdo the soap. I had an appliance repair man tell me that people use way too much soap when they follow the laundry soap directions. Manufacturers of soap want you to use more so you have to buy more. He told me to never use more than 3 tablespoons. Too much soap is not good for the machine. Since our washing machine and dryer were purchased second hand from relatives who I knew took good care of them, our machines are getting old and are still going without having to be repaired. We have used them ourselves for over 9 years. I believe they were 5 years old when we bought them. We take good care of them and have even vacuumed the dust out from around the motors.


The other thing we do to save both electricity and water is wear our clothes more than once. Jeans do not have to be washed very day. Assess your clothing each day when you are getting ready for bed and decide if you can wear it again. If so hang it up; don’t just pile it in a chair or drop it on the floor.

You also do not have to take a clean towel every time you take a shower. Think about it people. You just cleaned your body with soap and you are drying it with a clean towel. You can use that towel more than once. Hang it up and let it dry until the next time you need it. Teach your children to hang it up after their showers. They should not be dropping them in a heap on the floor. The only towels that we replace at the end of a day are dish and hand towels in the kitchen which I do every night. However, I save the dirty ones until I can add them to a less than full load. I don’t wash them every night.
 
If you can’t buy laundry detergent cheaply or almost free, use an ECO egg to wash your clothing or make your own detergent. There are tons of recipes online for making your own detergent. I have an ECO egg and I love it. I pre-treat any stains and that and the ECO egg gets them out. Do I ever use detergent? Yes, when I have purchased it for just pennies after coupons and Ibotta or Checkout 51. I have a supply in the basement that I am working to get rid of right now. Then unless it is free or a money maker, I will only use my ECO egg. I also make my own detergent for hand washing any delicates. 

When I see a rock bottom sale on stain removers, I will buy as many as I have coupons for and stockpile them. That way I do not have to ever pay full price. 

Now let’s talk about drying your clothes. The best way to save money on that is to not use your dryer. Hang up your washed clothes on a clothesline, on a drying rack, or on hangers hung on your shower rod.

Do I always hang clothes to dry? Not always. So when I use my dryer, I try to use it economically.

First, I always clean the lint filter after every load. I also use 6 wool balls in my dryer which help my clothes dry faster. These are the ones I have:Dryer Balls

Second, I use the best drying cycle for the load I am washing. I use the Express Cycle for most loads. For things like blankets or heavier items, I use the timed cycles so that I don’t over dry them. 


Third, I always fold them or hang them the minute the dryer signals to me that they are done. I never have to go back and dry them again for a few minutes to get the wrinkles out. I don’t use my dryer as an iron. Our iron takes much less electricity.

Would I buy an HE washer and dryer again? Absolutely! But I would look at the energy saving top washers too to see which is the best savings.

Please feel free to leave a comment or tell us how you save money when you do your laundry.  

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Every Day

Frugal Things This Past Week

These are our frugal things this past week:

– My treadmill did not survive a move from one room to another very well. I have an elevation error and another error. So rather than try to find someone to come out to fix it, I have been watching You Tube repair videos. I am learning a lot. I think we can fix the problem ourselves and I will be working on it this week.  

– I used my crock pot for most of our meals that I cooked this past week. Other meals were not cooked like salads. Anytime I can save on natural gas and electric I will.

– Finally, we were able to turn off the heat on Saturday. Sunday was humid and 86. Most of my neighbors turned on the A/C. We just kept the windows closed and it stayed quite comfortable all day. It has been cold some nights but 2 blankets on the bed keep us warm.

– I received a $3.00 rebate in the mail. I save the little checks until I get a stack of them and then make a trip to the bank to deposit them when I get our cash for the month.

– Hubby did his weed whacking himself. This is saving us extra money that we don’t have to pay the landscape people we hired. We were able to cut the amount of time that we needed them each month this year.

– I ordered  a set of headphones for Hubby that are wireless bone conduction headphones. You can use them if you have a hearing aid which Hubby does. He has always loved his music and it has been hard for him to hear it. These work beautifully and Hubby is so enjoying his music again. I purchased them for about $97. when they were a special. They are here.
This was priceless to us. 

– We cleaned the garage on Saturday. It had so much salt on the floor from the winter. Hubby was able to get it up with a scraper and then he washed the entire floor with the hose. We swept all of the water out so it dried pretty quickly. I did not see one live bug while we were doing it so having the pest control service is working for us. 

– We did not eat out this week.

– My cherry tree had beautiful blossoms this year and it looks like we will have tons of cherries again. Now we just have to get to them before the birds do. I freeze them to use for baking over the winter. 

– I hung most of the laundry this past week. I bought new underwear at a specialty shop. They told me it will last a lot longer if I hand wash it and hang it to dry. So I am taking their suggestion.

– I took the electric blanket off of our bed. So I needed to dig out the blankets that were stored for the winter. We have a California king size bed and the blankets are huge. But rather than take them to the dry cleaner, I washed them myself doing one at a time. 

– I only ran errands once. We had a return to make via UPS so I took the package there. I also picked up Hubby’s scripts at the drug store and returned a bag of bottles to Fast Cash while I was out. I am enjoying not running around more than once a week and it is saving us gasoline. 

– We have been watching the college softball playoffs for entertainment. 

That is all for this week. Please feel free to comment and tell us what you did frugally this past week so that we may all learn from you too.

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Every Day

What We Ate and Grocery Shopping

I only grocery shopped once this week. That shop is pictured above. I purchased three dozen eggs at $ .89 each, vidalia onions at $.69 a lb., 2 jars of olives, some shaved Parmesan cheese, and 5 packages of turkey pepperoni. I spent $ 20.86.

We go through eggs like crazy. They get used mostly for breakfasts but I do hard boil some for snacks and to put on salads. The pepperoni is for snacking. Hubby has decided he no longer likes Parmesan cheese in a shaker like Kraft makes. So he is trying this shaved Parmesan. I wanted a block to grate myself but my store had none. The onions and olives were needed since we are almost out. I don’t like green olives but Hubby loves them.

Now for what we ate this week.  Almost every breakfast was either eggs with Canadian bacon or turkey bacon. I added a 1/2 of avocado to most breakfasts. Sunday’s family breakfast, I cooked turkey bacon for me and regular bacon for Hubby, my son and West. I also served the Cranberry orange bread that I made for the boys. I make eggs over easy or scrambled depending on who wants what. 

I made mashed cauliflower and shaved beef for a couple of lunches this past week. I am trying to use up an old package of Steak Umms that was in the freezer. Other lunches were salads with lots of veggies and sometimes a sliced hard boiled egg on top. I only use a little olive oil or lemon juice on my salads. Hubby usually make himself a sandwich -cold cuts, egg salad or tuna.

Dinners were simple. When I am dieting, I find that simple is better. So we eat a lot of the same meals a few days in a row. I made a huge crock pot full of homemade spaghetti sauce with Italian sausage. We ate that 3 nights in a row. Half of the sauce I froze for future meals. Hubby has his on spaghetti with some Italian sausage and I have mine on zucchini noodles with no sausage.

One night, Hubby made Chef’s salads and two nights we had salads without meat or cheese. The last night of the week, Hubby grilled NY Strip steaks outside. I sauteed some crimini mushrooms to go on top. We had eaten large salads for lunch that day so the steak was all we ate for dinner. 

We are getting plenty of salads and veggies every week so I didn’t mind going without a very large meal on steak night. Many snacks are things like celery stuffed with soft cheese, turkey pepperoni, pepper strips, sliced cucumbers, etc. so I know that I am getting enough veggies each week.

We had such a busy week that I was not able nor did I remember to take a lot of pictures. I promise more next week since we have a very easy week for the first time in a very long time.   

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Every Day

Weekly Schedule

I finally have worked out my weekly schedule for blog posts. It will be as follows:

Monday: Miscellaneous 

Tuesday: What we ate the prior week and any grocery shopping the same week

Wednesday: Frugal Things The Past Week

Thursday: Saving on Utilities

Friday: Savings on Other Items

We finally got some nice 80+ weather this weekend, so we turned off the heat. We do not have the A/C on yet. I would love a month without it.

Today has been a quiet day at home doing a myriad of tasks and some online shopping.

If you have any suggestions or questions for any of these categories, please feel free to leave them in comments and I will try to answer them on the appropriate days.    

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Every Day

When Can We Turn Off The Heat?

It is May 16, 2019 and we still have our heat on. It is 42 degrees outside. As I sit here writing this, I am listening to it running full force in the basement. Oh that reminds me, I will be right back! I went down and changed the air filter in it. It can’t run efficiently with a clogged filter.

But seriously, will we still be running this monster in June? I sure hope not. By now, we usually have the heat turned off. My electric and gas company just prompted me to read the meter and submit the reading. I will do that today. I am sure that this monthly bill will be much more than the same bill last year. I can’t remember such a cold spring!  I was hoping to have a break with a low utility bill at least one month before we have to turn on the A/C. But it doesn’t look like that will happen. It looks like we will go from winter to summer this year.

But now that we have put in a full length storm door on the back door, I will have Hubby change the window glass out for the screen as soon as we are able to turn the heat off. This will not only give us more light in the breakfast room but it will give us good air flow for there, the kitchen, and the great room. 

So the plan is to “air condition” the indoors using that and our screens. I am hoping not to turn on the A/C for as long as we can do it this way. We like fresh air! As long as it doesn’t turn humid, I think we can go without A/C for a while. Fingers crossed!

So to make up for the extra heat, we need to save on the bill other ways. One of them is making good use of our gas oven which we try not to use too often. If I can use the toaster oven to bake, our air fryer, pressure cooker or some other smaller appliance I will. They take a whole lot less energy. Plus we love our outside gas grill. 

But when I have to use the oven I will make really good use of it. So when I baked the cranberry orange bread for the hostess gift, I also baked a second loaf for when my family comes one day this weekend.

Before I get going with my day, I will hang the laundry that I washed late last night. Not using the dryer saves quite a bit each load.

When I take my navy shower today, I will use a bucket in the shower to catch the water while it is warming up. That water will be used to wash both bathroom floors. What a waste to just let it go down the drain! If I do that I pay twice; once for the water and once on my sewer bill. When I am done with it, I will water some bushes outside. I use no chemicals when I wash floors, just natural products.

It has been a busy week here in AD’s home. Today is going to be no different. I have a follow up appt. from my last hospitalization late afternoon in another town with my doctor.  Afterwards I have an errand to run. Then we have to have dinner and I have a party to go to at 7PM. It’s a Thirty One party which I hate but I need something and I enjoy the socialization.

Hubby knows how rushed I am going to be so he told me to call him when I am done with the errand and on my way home. He will have dinner waiting when I get there. He has to cook a vegetable and some salmon which should be easy for him. The salmon will be cooked fast on the stove top or baked in the toaster oven. The veggies will be done in the microwave.

So Thursdays will be saving on utilities day. Whether that be natural gas, electricity, water or sewer, you will read about it here.

As usual feel free to leave a comment or ask any questions. 

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Every Day

Frugal Things The Past Week

Frugal Things will now be my Wednesday posts. So this is what we have done the past week to save some dollars:

– My bathroom faucet handle became loose. I didn’t know why. I let Hubby know. He checked it out and fixed it. It had become unscrewed. He screwed it back together and it works fine. I am glad we didn’t call a plumber.

– Having cleaned out the expired OTC meds from our supply, I needed to replace some things. I researched prices and shopped where the prices were the best. Some I ordered through Amazon which earned me reward points. Some I purchased at Walmart using a $10.00 Fetch Rewards gift card. It was generic at Walmart because the ingredients were exactly the same as the name brands.

– My dentist has come up with a prepaid plan which he says will save us money. They mailed all of the details to us. Doing some research looking at past prices, I am not so sure that it will. So there was only one way to really find out. I called and requested a current price list for procedures. They are mailing it to me. When I get it, I can take a better look and make a decision as to whether it will or not.

– All meals have been cooked at home. We have not been out to a restaurant since mid February.  

– Hubby sharpened the blades on our John Deere riding lawn mower. Rather than have the John Deere place do the maintenance, Hubby does what he can which saves us money. 

– Since my surgery I have been able to get off of three maintenance drugs. That is saving us $ 440. in co-pays a year. 


– Our landscaping company who takes care of our property for us wanted $750. for enough mulch to redo our gardens. That included the labor. We have decided that price is excessive since we can order a truckload of mulch for less than $200. Now that I have been cleared to lift things again, I can shovel mulch. So Hubby and I will be doing this work ourselves. 

– Today I will be baking a homemade loaf of Cranberry Orange bread to take to a party tomorrow night as a hostess gift. This bread is easy, tasty, and frugal. The hostess has a large family so it will be a nice breakfast treat.

– My son and West came for lunch rather than breakfast last weekend. Many times I have sent him out to Sandwiches and Ales to pick lunch up. However, this time I planned ahead and made our lunch. We had sandwiches, cut up strawberries, chips, cookies, and ice cream(West). I had a lettuce wrap and some strawberries. This saved us about $40.

– Hubby has been making me sugar free jello which is a treat that I can have on my diet. It gives me a little something sweet once in a while without breaking the budget. 

– I have gone down two sizes in clothes. It was time to buy a couple of items to get me through to the next two sizes down. I ended up buying some jeans and tops at J.C. Penney’s. Of course the ones I picked were 40% off. Kohl’s had nothing in my size that I liked. 

– Wow! Gas prices have really gone up. I filled up the tank while I was out using the $.10 a gallon that I had left on my Top’s card. I still paid $ 2.86 a gallon.


– Hubby is outside mowing our lawn so that we don’t have to pay someone to do it.


– Hubby and I went to the Running’s grand opening this afternoon. I had a $ 10.00 off coupon. There was nothing we really needed so I used it to purchase some Adirondack maple syrup. We are on our last bottle.


That is all for this past week. Please feel free to leave a comment and share with all of us what you have done frugally this past week.

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Are You Feeding Your Freezers or Feeding Your Families?

I know we all love to stockpile especially our freezers. I am very guilty of this habit. But I had to ask myself this week, when is enough enough? Am I feeding my freezers or feeding us economically?

Am I buying deals every week on meat and not eating much of what I already have in the freezers? Do I incorporate enough from the freezers into each meal? Or is the food just languishing there until it gets freezer burned and has to be thrown away?

Many of us salivate over a great deal like chicken breasts for $1.69 a pound. So we go and stock on 25 lbs. Then we see a great deal on ground beef at $ 1.99 a lb. and stock on that too. Before you know it, your freezer is overflowing and you can’t even find what you are looking for when it is time to cook dinner. Or you have to pull half of the items out of your freezer to find the piece of meat you want to cook or the vegetable to go with that meal.  

All of this really hit home this past week when I inventoried my freezers again. I now have 95 lbs. of chicken in my freezer. I had to ask myself, is that really necessary? Honestly it is not! 

I also asked myself am I really saving money or just spending week after week on these great deals and not using them up? Am I really saving money by doing this or is the “thrill of the hunt” what it is all about?

We all love a great deal but if we are not using up our stockpiles and continually buying week after week, how are we saving? When you get to the point that you are repackaging food items to make more room in the freezer so that you can squeeze another great deal in there, it is time to STOP buying! The $500. a month that I spend on food could be better used by investing it.

Sure I am on the South Beach diet so I do need to buy fresh produce for salads, some berries, and some dairy every week but not much else. Hubby is eating what I am eating but he likes his snacks, bread, ice cream, and other carbs that I don’t eat. So I can buy a few of those things for him and still not spend all of the $500. a month. 

We still have a lot of carbohydrate items in our pantries too that Hubby is trying to eat through. But I rarely replace many of them.

So I am on a mission these next months to eat up what we have! Meals will be made from the freezers and pantries with salads and berries mixed in. It is going to take a long, long time to eat all of the meat, poultry, shrimp, and fish in our freezers but we are going to do it. 

When I stockpile again, it will be done on a smaller regimen and I will be very careful of prices. But that is way down the road!

So from now on, Tuesday’s posts will be about what we are eating from our stockpile and an accounting on how much we spent that week on food. I want to keep myself accountable to you and myself.

I am trying to get back to regularly blogging but I get so involved in projects that the days just slip by. So I have decided to schedule certain posts on certain days so that I know what I will be posting about each day or every other day. But more about that later.

So if you are like me and need to stop feeding your freezers, please join me in your quest to use up what you have. Ask yourself the questions that I posted about above and be honest with yourselves. Your stockpile doesn’t save you any money if you are not using it. Don’t meal plan  and then buy your food. Plan your meals from your stockpiles. You will save so much more money that way.

One thing that I know after almost 52 years of buying food is that there will always be another sale!  So the “thrill of the hunt” will still be there months down the road. 

As usual please feel free to comment or tell me that you are going to join in with eating up your stockpile and save some money for investing, to pay down your debt, or for another goal that you are working toward.  

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Every Day

Happy Mothers’ Day

I want to wish all of my readers who are Mother’s a wonderful day today. I hope your families spoil you rotten. You deserve it!

We will be having a quiet day at home which is the way I like to spend holidays. If it doesn’t rain. Hubby will grill some steaks. If it does, he will fix something else.

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Every Day

Frugal Things The Past Few Weeks

Even though I am dealing with a health issue, those who know me know that I am still being frugal. So it is time to let you know how I have been doing this the past few weeks.

But first I thought I would share with you our beautiful blooming pear and purple plum trees. Finally we have had some warm weather and rain and things are starting to come out in their beautiful colors this time of year.

Now down to frugality:

– We have a very small Dollar Tree in our little town. I was tired of having to stop in all the time and try to get matching locker boxes for my organizing. It was almost impossible. It would be 15 miles round trip to go to the next town. So instead of wasting our gasoline, I placed an online order shipped free to my store. It took a couple of weeks to arrive but I finally have a case of new locker boxes to be able to start to organize in my basement pantry. A case was 18 white and 18 blue.   

– I deposited $14.97 in rebates to our savings account.

– We have a gas stove with a window in the door. Somehow a drip got between the two panes of glass a few years back. I looked and looked and could not figure out how to get in there to remove that drip that was driving me crazy every time I looked at the door. Finally yesterday, Hubby took the entire door apart and we cleaned that drip using my vinegar gel and some Method window cleaning spray. It took him quite a while because it was difficult to get it all apart. They don’t make things easy for you. But such a little thing made me so happy when it was done. 

– Our patio table broke over the winter. We only had three chairs left with it anyhow so it is time to replace it. We have been looking for a set that we like and have not found it yet. Since most sets that will last are between $1000. and $1500., we are taking our time. If that means that we have to wait until the end of the season when they are on clearance, so be it. We have other patio furniture that we can use in the meantime.

– I filled the SUV up again with gasoline purchased at $ .30 off a gallon. My DIL had surgery about 8 days ago for a torn ACL so we took care of West that day. So we needed to take him home and it is a 140 mile round trip. 

– We have several occasions over the next couple of months where we need hostess gifts. I saw these insulated bags on clearance so I purchased them. They are extremely nice and for just $6.04 each including shipping, they are very economical. Since New York has banned plastic bags in 2020, everyone can use these: Insulated Bags . Now to find some “laundry type” cloth bags to use for buying produce. 

– The only shopping I did this week was to stock on some NY strip steaks. Top’s had them on sale for $6.77 a lb. I had the head butcher pick me out a good loin and he cut it into 1 and 1/2 inch thick steaks for us. I ended up with 11 steaks. I food savered them before I put them in the freezer. They will be wonderful grilled outside this summer. I saved $73.43 buying them on sale plus an additional $4.13 using my senior discount of 6%. 

As I was putting the steaks into the food saver bags, Hubby said to look at one of the windows in our great room. I did just in time to catch this picture. I didn’t get as close as I would have liked but I didn’t want to scare the canaries. They had landed on our screen. 

– Last week I was offered a $10 off coupon to try Top’s grocery pickup. I needed to order at least $35.00 worth of groceries to get the pickup for free- no fees and no gratuity. So I ordered $37.44 in items that we needed and then applied the coupon which then cost me $ 27.44. The order was ready in an hour and it was easy to just pull into the designated parking spaces and have someone load it into your car. Everything that you see is on my diet with the exception of the hash browns and the Cheez-It Grooves. Hubby wanted the crackers and I cook the hash browns for Sunday breakfasts when I don’t have time to make my own. BTW, the Green Giant mashed cauliflower is to die for! 

– Hubby also did some touch up painting in our kitchen, great room, and the bottom of the basement stairs. Now the walls look good as they did 9 years ago when they were originally painted.  


– I cashed in my rebates on Fetch Rewards to get some Walmart gift cards. 

Other than those things, we are doing the usual like keeping all lights off when it is daylight, washing in cold water, hanging laundry to dry, and cooking efficiently watching portions.


What have you done to frugally lately?