Category: Every Day

Categories
Every Day

Your Most Important Fund

Different people save for different things. They have Christmas Club accounts, vacation funds, a home fund, and many many others. But the most important fund that you should have before all others is an Emergency Fund.

Emergencies rear their ugly heads especially when you least expect them. The washer breaks or the dryer stops working. The furnace needs a repair or the A/C dies. You car needs a repair or you have a leak in the house and need a plumber. There are so many things that could happen that you need that Emergency Fund. 

So many times people have said, “But I can’t afford an emergency fund, I have too much credit card debt or a multitude of other excuses.” 

You can’t afford not to have an Emergency Fund especially if you are in credit card debt. Let’s say the dryer stops working. You have a few choices. You can try to fix it yourself by googling what the problem could be or looking for a You Tube video to watch that would show you how to repair it. You still may have to pay for an expensive part. You can call the service people to come and repair it. Or you can hang your laundry to dry until you have enough money to fix it. But no you want it fixed right away so you call the service repair people who cost you $85. -$90. just to come out to the house plus the cost of the repair.

Since you don’t have the money to pay for it you put it on a credit card that you already owe $4,000. on. That credit card you pay a bit more than the minimum payment every month. Your interest rate is
11% or more. So now you owe more on the card and if you don’t pay the repair off when your bill is due, you pay interest on that portion too. 

Have you learned your lesson and started an emergency fund? No you just hope that you don’t have another emergency any time soon. So 2 months later, the furnace stops working. You call someone to repair it and put that repair on your charge too. Do you see the vicious cycle that you set up for yourself? 

No matter how much money you have coming in or how much you owe, you have to save an emergency fund. Then when something breaks, you hopefully have the money saved to pay for it.

So how much money should you save? It depends on your situation. But when we first started saving for one over 50 years ago, we saved $1500. It was not easy back in the 60’s but little by little we saved it. Then we never touched it except for an emergency. If we did need it to repair something, we replaced whatever we had to spend as fast as we could. Back then, we only made 4 figures. Today you should be able to put more than that in an emergency fund. I would save $5,000. or more and hope that you don’t have to use it any time soon while you are saving up.

We finally built ourselves up to a year’s expenses in case Hubby lost his job. Then we started saving for buying our cars and bigger things. Once you start doing it on a regular basis, it just builds and builds. Then when you have a true emergency, you don’t have the stress of how to pay for it or have to put it on a credit card. 

Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck, social security to social security or pension to pension or are in credit card debt , you should be able to build that fund. I don’t care whether you can only put $5., 10., up to $50. or more a week into that fund, you have to start today to build it.

You have no extra money, you say to me. Well, then you have to either make more money or cut your expenses. It’s easy to cut your grocery budget by $5. or $10. per week or more. Just shop carefully, forego junk food or desserts, buy cheaper meats or do away with meat for a # of meals, and use every morsel that you purchase. Don’t throw food away. There are so many ways to save on food and other items that you need. But I will go into many of those ways over the next few months. I think you get the idea. 

Do not use that emergency fund that you are building for anything but a true emergency. And going to the movies, buying a cup of coffee out, going out for a drink or to a restaurant are not emergencies. They are wants; not needs. 

Please start doing this over the next week and do it every week thereafter. It will take you awhile to get it built to where you want it but it is the right thing to do for yourself and your family. 

I hope you all have wonderful weekend.

Categories
Every Day

Cutting The Grocery Bill

The most expensive grocery item that I buy is meat. Hence when I want to cut back on this bill, I look for great sales. One of those “WOW” sales was in my Sunday flyer this week. It also said that the quantity was limited and the sale started on Wednesday.

Since sales like this don’t last long in my markets, I made sure that I was at the store when it opened at 9AM. Many times I have missed out because the sale item is gone the first hour. There were about 12 people waiting in a line outside the store for it to open.  I hightailed it to where I knew the chickens would be. 

These were roasting chickens that were on sale at Aldi’s for $ .79 a lb. I got 6 of them for roasting in the autumn months. They should last us until turkeys go on sale in November.

I had 20 lbs. of chicken that I purchased early spring but it is now all gone. So I was waiting for a good price to stock up. I love the smell of chickens roasting in the oven. Since my oven is a convection oven they don’t take as long to roast as a regular gas oven.  So that saves me about 25% of the energy.

Plus there are only two of us and I can get 5 meals out of each of them especially if I make chicken rice soup.  We usually have a roast chicken dinner for the first meal. Then some kind of chicken casserole that will last us two days. Then if I make soup, we have that two nights and sometimes we have leftovers for lunch. That is why they call them “rubber chickens” because they stretch.   


I will be mentoring two people who have asked me to starting in September not individually but by blogging. Today’s advice is just a little sample. That way everyone can benefit from my advice. And since I don’t put ads up the advice is free of charge. Use what you can and pass over what you can’t.


One of the things I want to do is teach these people how to shop on the cheap by cooking from scratch. The main component of this is buying when things are at rock bottom prices. If you track when prices are at their lowest during the year, you will know what time of year to buy any item. Turkeys will hopefully be under a $1.00 per lb. this Thanksgiving season. These past two weeks I have seen my lowest prices on pork chops at $ 1.49 so I purchased 10 lbs.


This chicken has never been this low at $ .79 a lb. in my area. So if you need chicken and have an Aldi’s, stock up. You can do what I do by roasting it and making a # of meals. Or you can cut the roaster up into parts – breasts, legs, thighs, wings, and use the back meat and little bits left on the bone for soup. This is a whole lot cheaper than spending $1.99 a lb. for chicken breasts when they are on sale. 

BTW, my Top’s and my Dollar General already have their Halloween decorations and candy out and we are only half way through August. I find it kind of ridiculous! This and Christmas decorating get earlier every year. I am planning on staying out of the stores as much as possible. So I will just ignore all of it.

Tonight we are going to try the jarred Tikka Masala, with chicken and peppers, that I purchased to see if we even like it. It we do, I will make it from scratch and put it in our menu rotation. I will let you know what we think.

Till I post again, have a wonderful end of August!  
  

Categories
Every Day

Hubby’s Favorite Veggie Dip

Today, I made up another batch of Hubby’s favorite dill dip. He eats this with carrots and celery. Matter of fact he just had this for a snack. I am very happy when he eats this instead of junk food.

Here is the recipe he likes:

1 cup of lite Sour Cream

1 cup of Hellman’s Mayonaise

3/4 Tbsp. Dill Weed

Garlic Powder to taste.

Just mix and chill.

This makes the good size bowl pictured above. If you have a larger family double the recipe. This is what I did for company a couple of weeks ago.

Categories
Every Day

Analysis of My Grocery Shop and Some Price Checking

I have had company for the past few weeks and now have a little break before more comes. Since I have fed so many people, I needed to get some items that we were out of.

I don’t know about where you live but prices are rapidly changing around here. So I am now price checking again whenever I shop so that I know where the lowest prices are. 

So this morning was one of those trips. I went to Aldi’s and Top’s. 

At Aldi’s I got Clancy BBQ chips(1.79), Clancy Pretzels($1.49), and  Whole Salted Cashews($12.99). These are all snacks that Hubby likes and they will have to last him until the end of August because I am buying no more junk food until September. I purchased the Family Size Wavy Lays Potato Chips for me and to go with sandwiches. They were on sale with store coupon for $ 1.99. The cashews were the cheapest I have found anywhere even at Amazon. They are only $.43 an ounce vs. $ .51 at Amazon.

The hot dog buns($.75) were a great deal at Aldi’s this week. We have sale Sahlen’s hot dogs to use up so I will put these in my freezer until we cook the dogs.

The produce looked fresh at Aldi’s so I picked up celery($1.29), baby carrots($.89) and strawberries($1.29). I also got 2 ears of corn at Top’s for $.30 an ear. I cut up the celery into sticks and use it not only for cooking but for dipping into homemade dill dip for snacks. I use the baby carrots for the same purpose. Hubby loves it and I am trying to get him to stop snacking on so much junk. The corn will be used for dinner tomorrow night. The strawberries are used for smoothies and strawberry shortcake.

I also purchased at Aldi’s the olives($1.19),the Tikka Masala sauce($1.99), and the Cocktail sauce($.95). I have a recipe to make the Tikka Masala sauce. But before I buy all the ingredients to do that, I wanted to make sure that we like it. The olives are a staple in our home and the cocktail sauce will be used for shrimp cocktails one night for dinner. We have a 1/2 lb. of colossal shrimp left from one of our company dinners. When I serve this, we just have a small side salad with it.

At Top’s I also purchased 4 – 12 packs of Diet Coke(not pictured) for Hubby. It was on sale B2G2F and I needed it along with other things to get to the $20. purchase in order to be able to use the store coupons. I got a dozen large eggs($.99) with store coupon, 1 sour cream($1.49), 1 gallon of whole milk( $1.59) with store cpn., 1 plain yogurt($ 2.49), 8 Hunt’s Pasta Sauces(only 4 pictured- $ .88 each wyb 8), garlic salt($1.25), and 1 Crest Pro-Health toothpaste($.99 after mfr. cpn).

I stockpile cheap eggs for 6 weeks since I make a big family breakfast almost every Sunday. The sour cream is to make my dill dip. The whole milk and plain yogurt(starter) are for making my homemade yogurt. The pasta sauce I use as the base for my homemade spaghetti sauce which I doctor adding lots of other things. It is cheaper than buying tomato sauce here. I made a big pot last week when my granddaughter was visiting. It is pictured above and is loaded with 2 lbs. of homemade meatballs. We are getting low on stockpiled toothpaste so I picked this one up cheap. 

I believe all of the prices at each place were the cheapest except the plain yogurt. That might have been cheaper at Aldi’s. I forgot to price check it.

The next time, I will check these prices at our Super Walmart. 

When I shop I try to conserve on gasoline since it is so expensive here. Right now I have a discount of $.60 off a gallon but I still have 107 miles in the tank. After we do some appointments this week and next the car will be pretty much empty and I will fill up with the discount.

I am lucky that I have Top’s, Aldi’s and Super Walmart all within 4 miles of my home. So if I shop in a circle it doesn’t cost me too many dollars for gasoline.


While I have been enjoying my summer, I have been brainstorming blog post ideas for the Fall. A couple of my readers have kept in touch with me and have given me a great idea that I can expand on. So I will be back then for sure. But I will also pop in when time permits. I hope you are all having a wonderful summer!  

Categories
Every Day

Some Frugal Things That We Have Done This Month

Here are the frugal things we have been doing:

1. Our rug shampooer stopped working. Instead of buying a new one, Hubby did some research and determined that it could be one of two parts. He ordered both. The pump ($27.) fixed it and the trigger assembly($ 6.) has been put away for when that goes. It seems the trigger is usually one of the first things to go in these machines. Since our machine is no longer made, parts are hard to come by. The pump was the last one that I could find online for ours. For a few dollars, our shampooer is working like brand new and has already cleaned our great room carpet. The carpet is white and looks brand new instead of being over 8 years old. 

2. The handle on one of our bathroom toilets cracked. Hubby got a new one at Home Depot and it only took  a few minutes to install. No fees or inflated parts from plumbers. Our cost was $ 5.98. 

3. I cooked enough boneless fried chicken for three meals yesterday. The chicken was on sale for $ 1.69 a pound. I used 2 eggs, seasoned bread crumbs and flour for the crust. We had a piece of chicken, some stuffing and broccoli for one dinner. The other meals will be chicken parmesan with noodles and homemade sauce.

4. I washed and detailed our SUV instead of spending a fortune at the car wash to have it done. 

5. My sister was going to donate a lot of paperback books including James Patterson ones. I asked her if I could have them instead. She is bringing them next week when she visits. That will save me many trips to the library to borrow them. Since I love James Patterson, I will enjoy these all summer and fall. Thanks Sis!

6. We have gotten rid of another prescription drug with good healthcare habits. By being taken off that drug, it saves us $200. a year.


7. I no longer buy K-cups for me. I started filling my own reusable one a number of months ago. I buy coffee in bulk on sale and use coupons. I have cut our coffee costs in half. Now I am going to try to persuade Hubby to get rid of his and I will buy bagged decaf coffee for him. 


8. I don’t buy coffee out while running errands. I have my coffee at home and also have a refillable to go cup to bring if I want some. Right now in this heat, I just bring a refillable cup of water.


9.  My grandson let me borrow the game “Ticket To Ride” for when my granddaughter visits so that I don’t have to buy it.


10. We have spiders this time of the year. I hate them but instead of hiring an exterminator to keep them out of the house I use spray that I buy at Walmart and spray the foundation outside the house. I also use cheap glue boards in the garage and basement that I purchase from Amazon. All of this does the trick.

11. We were getting low on wine glasses. Over the years, we have broken a few. With company coming, I found these wine glasses at Dollar Tree. So for a total of $4.00 they do the job and are kind of fun.


These are all easy things that save us money. Saving money is a necessity when you have been retired 17 years on a fixed income. 

I will pop in again before the summer is done.

Categories
Every Day

Are You A Shopoholic?

While I am taking the summer off, I was thinking about why people shop every week or so. Why do we get the urge to spend, spend and spend?

So I am going to give you some things to ponder over the next couple of weeks in the form of questions for you to think about. Oh no, it’s a test!

No, it’s not. It’s just to get you thinking about what you spend your money on. Are they necessities or do you shop because you want to? Does the urge hit you to go to the mall or the local Kohl’s, Dollar Tree, or your favorite grocery store? Is that urge because you need something at those stores or is it because you want something from those places? So here goes.

Do you shop once or twice a week at the grocery store or drugstore even though you have plenty of food, HBA, personal care products and cleaning products in your home stockpile? Do you continue to make those purchases while your stockpile languishes in your pantries and things expire? 

Do you stop on the way to your shopping at Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds or Starbucks for a coffee and perhaps a donut or muffin? Could you just as easily bring a cup of coffee in a to go cup and a home baked muffin, donut or slice of quick bread with you?

Do you order in or stop for fast food a few times a week because it is easy? Do you think about how healthy that fast food is or don’t you care? Could you have whipped up a quick easy meal at home instead? 

Do you make a weekly browsing trip to Walmart or Target because you want to see any new items that they might have? Do you realize that you will most likely buy something? We all do the same thing at Dollar Tree.  

Did you buy a lot of things on Amazon on Prime Day? Did you do that because you thought they were a great deal or because they were an absolute necessity?

Do you pay cash for those items you shop for all week? Or did you whip out your credit card? Will you pay that credit card in full when it comes due? Or are those cc purchases being added to your credit card that you owe interest on each month? Those good deals that you had to have are costing you more than you think if you have to pay interest on them. 

Have you purchased a new or new to you car this summer even though the car you traded in you still owe money on? Did you have to take out a loan with high interest to do this? 

Do you coupon shop for almost free items each week even though you won’t use them? Do some things in your stockpiles purchased with coupons sit in your pantries for years without being used?

Do you buy new clothes every season even though you have a closet full of things to wear?

Are you replacing carpeting every couple of years because it’s not getting shampooed enough? Do you change your furniture and decor every few years? 

Do you throw parties, dinners or cookouts that you can’t afford to impress your friends?

Do you contribute money to every party, gift, etc. that your co-workers ask you to whether you can afford it or not?

There are a million more questions that I could throw at you but I think these are enough. However I do have a couple more very important questions for you to think about:

Do you do all or some of the things mentioned? Then when an emergency comes up, you don’t have the money to deal with it? Some think that an emergency won’t happen to them. But we all know that they have a way of rearing their ugly heads! The furnace, A/C, plumbing or appliances break. The car breathes it’s last breath. You or a family member needs expensive medical or dental work and you don’t have the money. I could go on and on but you get the idea! 

Last questions, I promise. When a crisis hits like those mentioned, would you like to be stress free about it and have the money to pay for it?  Then go back and really put the time and effort in to think about all the questions I gave you before the crisis hit. Can you change some things so that your financial life will change?

Continue to enjoy your summer and we will discuss a lot of these questions come Fall. I may pop in when the urge hits me and I have some free time. 

Categories
Every Day

Going on Hiatus

I have decided to take the summer off from blogging.  My summer is so busy this year with tons of company coming and many projects. So rather than feel stressed trying to keep up with the blogging, it is being put aside until the fall. After all I am not getting any younger so I move a lot slower than I used to.

I will miss all of you and your comments that you share. As of now I have every intention of coming back to blog in September.

I hope all of you have a wonderful, safe and happy summer.

Categories
Every Day

What We Have Done Frugally Recently

These are the things we have done frugally the last few weeks:

– Baked 4 loaves of pumpkin bread. Froze 3. We load that oven up when we do use it.

– Made our own tartar sauce.

– Used our air fryer at least 3 times a week to save the energy of using our oven or toaster oven. The air fryer takes so much less energy as do so many other small appliances.

 – Been eating out of the pantry, freezer, and fridge for weeks now. I rarely go to the grocery store for anything but veggies, milk, and half and half.

– I have only been doing 2 loads of wash in the HE per week and then hanging them to dry.

– I found an outdated bottle of acetaminophen so I called my pharmacist. He told me since they are pills they are probably good for another year or two. Obviously, the manufacturer wants me to buy more. But I would never take an outdated pill- prescription or OTC without calling him. So always check with your pharmacist before you even attempt to use an outdated medicine.

– I asked my dentist for Poligrip samples in case they are needed. He stocked me up but told me not to use it until I am fully healed. He also told me that Polident to soak my denture is a waste of money. Cleaning it well with water is all that is necessary. I will run a test with it since I use those tablets to clean my toilets.  

– My son gifted me very expensive name brand cleaners and hand soap this weekend. They are all natural which is what I use. Five cartons of all purpose cleaner, hand soap, window cleaner and toilet bowl cleaner. I was ecstatic. He was gifted many cartons so he shared with me. I will not have to buy these things for at least a year which is a huge savings. 


– Our heat is off and we will try to keep the A/C off as much as possible. We have many ceiling fans and other portable fans we can use.

– We must be doing something right. When I read the electric meter to submit to the company, we used 200 less KWH than last month. I know part of that was the furnace clicking on and off but we have done everything possible to lower our electric bill the past 4 weeks.  Most of our cooking has been on the grill and in the air fryer. We have also been eating lots of salads. I am going to try eating one tonight to see if I can do it. I was able to eat chicken yesterday. Lights are off during daytime hours. TV is never left on for noise. Computers are off when not in use. Our gas usage was also down but that is less heat and rarely using our stove.

– I deposited two checks into our savings yesterday.

– I purchased another pair of jeans and a top on sale and defrayed the cost using $20. in Kohl’s cash.   

– The last two weeks I have not had to make a huge breakfast for my family because they have brought and paid for donuts. This weekend I will again start cooking.

– I am still enjoying flowers from both of my sons families that they gave me for Mother’s Day. They have lasted a long time. I know have 4 white roses as good as the day they were delivered in a different vase. Soon I will have blooming flowers outside that I can cut and put in a vase.

– I washed the car and cleaned the interior and windows. That saved us $30. to $40. depending on which car wash I took it to. We never pay for a car wash in the good weather.

– I am no longer using K cups for my coffee. Now if I could only talk Hubby out of his. I am using a disposable cup with ground coffee. I had a B1G1F bag of coffee that we purchased when we were in Florida in January. It has been in the freezer to keep it fresh. Right now I am using that and then will use up free Dunkin Donut coffee samples that I have. MY DIL was kind enough to let me know that $5.99 is a good price for the large cans of coffee. Since it was on sale this week, I picked one up. I don’t care what brand of coffee I use as long as it is strong. Hubby is stuck on Green Mountain Breakfast Blend Decaf.

– I have been walking every day for exercise. On the days it rains, I use the recumbent bike. 

– Hubby went to the greenhouse at Niagara Produce and purchased two hanging baskets for the front porch. They were the best nursery price in town.

– I am again stockpiling tap water in used and washed out bottles.

– Hubby has been cleaning and organizing his work benches. This way he can find his tools and doesn’t have to run out and buy a duplicate. He is doing a great job. I am very impressed.

-We did our own bug control when spring finally arrived. I don’t want ants or spiders in our home. A large container of insecticide is so much cheaper than a bug service especially since we buy it at Walmart.

– Finally they are putting the road in behind us and will start building houses again. This should break up the wind and eventually save us on heating bills. 

– I sewed two buttons back on two shirts. They came off in the washing machine. 

– I cut three pair of old jeans off to make shorts. I will not have to buy any shorts this year. I have two new ones I bought last season for going out and these for hanging around the house.

– We are going to sell our weed whacker that we replaced on Craigslist.

– I took Hubby’s bottles to Fast Cash and reaped $ 6.30.

– So far I have charged all of my large dental bills on a cash back credit card. I will continue to do that right through getting my permanent denture. This will give us a nice wad of money back. We always pay our CC bills when due. I love making money off the CC company. We never pay interest.

That is about it for now. Please feel free to share with all of us what you did to save some money lately in comments. 

Categories
Every Day

A Few Questions

I have run out of my favorite K cups. We have a bag of decaf coffee that was leftover from my Disney World Trip. Yesterday, I perfected making a cup of coffee with my reusable K cup. 

Since we haven’t bought regular coffee in years, I have no idea what a good price is. When we bought the coffee on our trip, I really didn’t pay much attention to the price.

Since the K cups are so expensive, I will be using the disposable cup from now on for my coffee. Hubby still has about 100 decaf K cups. But I regularly drink caffeinated. So I will be on the hunt soon for mine.

So could you smart people who know what a good price for coffee is these days, please leave a comment and give me an idea what price I should be looking for? Thanks in advance.

My project this week is to find a place to sell most of my frugality books that I have collected well over 100 books over the years. Frugality is so ingrained in me now that they are just collecting dust in a bookshelf in our basement. Slowly but surely I would like to sell them.

Any of you have a favorite place to sell them? Do you use Ebay or Amazon? I am not even sure they will sell right now. But if we have a downturn in the economy(which I am not hoping for), they will sell quickly. I loved selling my books to different used book stores when we lived in Arizona. But alas, we don’t have any good ones here.

So wanting to clear these books out and use all of that space for stockpile, do you have any suggestions? Let me know in the comments. 

My son and grandson are on their way here for breakfast. They are again bringing Tim Horton’s donuts. I can’t eat the breakfast I would make them and I am sick of eggs. So we figure, if I cut the donuts into small pieces for me, I should be able to enjoy them.

He sent me a picture of some boxes in his van. They are a surprise he has for me. I can’t wait to see the contents. If the contents hold something good I will share it tomorrow. 

Categories
Every Day

Spending To Save Money

Some of the spending that we do is to buy things that save us money in the long run. Hubby made just such a purchase yesterday. 

As long time readers know, we have a landscape company come once a month, after the spring cleanup, right through October. They spend 3 hours here doing whatever needs to be done on our property. They plant perennials and bushes that we order through them. They do all the weeding, trimming of bushes, raking the lawn, raking leaves, splitting bulb plants, etc. One job that we added on last year was weed whacking around all of the stonework that we have around all of our garden beds. This weed whacking job only takes them 15 minutes a month. However at their hourly rate it is an expensive job that could free up time for something more important. 

The reason for this is two fold. Hubby always did his own work and has always loved working outside. But his back no longer lets him do it for any length of time. Prior to the landscape company doing this job, the neighborhood teenager offered to do the weed whacking around the stonework for $5.00 per time. Hubby said no that was too cheap and he offered him $15.00 every time he did it. It needs it every second mowing which is about once a week. Hubby also told him he could use our weed whacker and gasoline and oil. We were happy to give this teenager the job so that he could make some money. Plus this boy was planning on starting his own landscape company when he graduates and was very interested.

The teenager started out doing a good job. We would always pay him right away after he was done.  However after the first couple of times he came, he told us that he would rather use his Dad’s weed wacker because he was used to it. After a couple of months, he started do a lousy job. He would miss gardens and then one day he quit and went home without a peep to us. He had only done one side of the yard. Hubby called his house and found out that his weed whacker had broken and it needed to be repaired. It would have been nice if he had knocked on the door and told us why he left after only doing 1/2 the job. That took a month and he didn’t want to use ours in the interim. 

He started back up again and then he told us he was going away to work at a camp for a few weeks. Well okay, we would wait for him to come back. Then he returned and everything went smoothly. 

The last time he came, he told us that he and his family were going on a month long vacation in the southwest. Well when they returned, he never came again to do the job. Not a word from him. Our lesson was that he evidently did not want to work. We would never hire him again.

So we added this job on to the landscape company’s list. We are paying a lot just to get this job done and because they only come once a month, the stonework wasn’t getting trimmed as often as it should be.

So Hubby has been looking and researching weed whackers. He wanted a battery operated lighter weight one. One that he could easily use and not have it hurt his back too much.The gasoline and oil one we have is very heavy. He found this one pictured above that he had been researching at a great price in this week’s Home Depot ad. It not only included a battery operated weed whacker but a blower also for cleaning the edge of the stonework and driveway after he trims them. And it was only $149.00 for both. The cheapest price he had seen before this was $179.

So he went and purchased it and figured he would see if it was lightweight enough for him but would get the job done. After charging the battery, he went out to do the weed whacking of the gardens and trim the grass on the edges of the driveway. He also used the blower. He is very happy that both were light enough that he can do it once a week. I also think he enjoyed being able to do it. 

The $149. will pay for itself in just two trimmings by the landscape company. They will be freed up to do more tedious jobs. And Hubby is happy, so it is a win win.