Category: Every Day

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Every Day

Back From a Badly Needed Break

Am I the only one who gets overwhelmed sometimes? These past weeks it has hit me hard. I find it hard to run errands, blog, keep the house running, cook. etc. Those who know me will tell you that I am a perfectionist who likes things just so but my body has been telling me to slow down. It is very annoying! I am a planner who starts her day off with a routine and a to do list. Lately I am lucky to get just some of the things done. When I do go out and run errands, I can only do 2-3 things not the 6 that I did a year ago. I come home exhausted and need a nap. I am hoping it is just the heat and humidity. It has been intense.

Not only that but we actually got take out 3 times this week because I just couldn’t get my act together to cook. Shame on me! As a frugal person, I hate it when I spend money on takeout.

After a lot of thought, I finally decided there is just too much stuff in my house getting in my way. I need to make things easier for me. I have always tried to keep the stuff down to a manageable amount by tossing or donating things a couple of times a year and organizing everything. But it isn’t enough. I need to be ruthless and get most of the stuff out of here. I don’t want my children to have to do it when we die. Believe me when I say that your children do not want your stuff. They have enough of their own stuff!

I also need to make simpler, easier meals and prep them in early morning when my energy levels are higher.

I am not doing a lot of shopping because we are trying to eat what we have in the house. But we still need some items like produce and Hubby’s soda which is too heavy for me to carry. So I have decided to get Walmart delivery more often. It is so easy and saves me so much time. I do not buy any meat from Walmart except for bacon and sausage rolls but I need none of that right now. We are well stocked. Every few weeks I will get a $35. order of the things we need. That will be one thing that I can control for a while and it will save me time and gasoline.

That time saving will be useful to declutter. So last week, I started in our third bedroom, hall closet, and guest bathroom. I took 4 garbage bags of stuff out of the closet, end table, drawers in the TV stand, bathroom vanity, and off the shelves in the hall closet. I got rid of exercise equipment and tapes from Richard Simmons. I got rid of an entire collection of motivation tapes from Tony Robbins. All of these tapes were decades old. I decluttered Christmas gifts that I would buy on sale and never use. I threw out most of our wrapping paper since we only give money gifts now. Stamps to make cards and the pads I used with them are no longer here. So many more things went. And you know what, it felt good. I am now on a roll!

I will be working today in the closet in the second bedroom where Chris and her Hubby stay when they visit. As you can see, it is a disaster. Yes, that is a bag of rice. It was 20 lbs. which I cannot carry up from the basement. My pantry is full up here so it had found a temporary home in that closet. UGH! I am going to go through everything in my home. If it doesn’t fit, we don’t like it or we just have no interest in it anymore, it is getting thrown out or donated. We have sterling silver flatware and serving trays. We haven’t used them in decades. Silver prices haves skyrocketed recently so it is the time to sell it and get it out of here.

I thought about quitting blogging because it does take a lot of my time when I post. But that is worth my time because I enjoy it! So that will stay in my schedule.

I hope you all had a great July 4th. We went to a party at one of our neighbors and as usual we had a wonderful time.

I made a large pasta salad to share. This bowl is about 1/2 of what I brought there. People seemed to like it. For the first time in our lives, we had grilled venison and sausage burgers. They were so good. I only had venison one time before many years ago and it was awful. It tasted gamey. Not this burger, it was scrumptious. We came home about 8pm. It is a good thing we did because then all the fireworks in the neighborhood started and they were so loud. Eloise was terrified! My Hubby ended up holding her until midnight, when they stopped, to try to calm her down. She was trembling. I am hoping that no one does anymore this weekend. UGH! My neighbor brought over a container of cooked salt potatoes today. She had too many left. They will be a great side this week.

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Every Day

We Did It and Cost Cutting Continues

We got our first full electric and natural gas bill using the new smart meter. The bill was for 29 days and was $ 148.72. We used 19.6 therms which was for skillet cooking on the stove top, a couple of days of heat, and heating our water with our tankless water heater. Everything else was electric: sump pump, computers and those accessories, chest freezer, lighting, refrigerator and freezer, small appliances, microwave, air cleaner, televisions, cable box, and small 11 in 1 oven, etc. We used 387 KWH which I think is probably the lowest we have ever had. I was thrilled when I saw the bill this morning. It sure beat last month’s which was $ 225.23.

Last year’s bill for the same period was $ 176.60 for 29 days. We used 7.2 therms and 525 KWH.

We put our A/C on for the first time 2 days ago. We are having a heatwave here. We kept it off as long as we could. When the humidity got bad, we had to turn it on. However, we have bumped it up to 74 degrees.

We have been trying to cut costs where we can this week. I grocery shopped and purchased some ingredients for when my online friend, Chris, and her Hubby come to visit. I have menus made out so I was able to buy many things on sale for them including strip steaks which were on sale for $10.99 a lb.

My oldest son let me know he will be coming to visit soon also. We are very excited to have everyone here. We absolutely love Chris and her Hubby and have some things planned to do.

We have not seen our son since the end of December. We do not drive long distances anymore so he has to find the time to come to us. His work and business keep him pretty busy. I can’t wait to get a hug. I hope he is bringing Hotch, his dog. Eloise loves to play(torture) with him.

For those of you who have been with me since I started my first blog, do you all remember when we lived in Arizona and Alexa was born? Well, she is no baby any longer. She turned 18 yesterday. I don’t know where the years have gone.

Now I will tell you what we have been doing to cut costs. Every bit of money that is not spent during any particular month is invested to create passive income. We keep our costs low so that we can save as much as we can each month.

I have been actively looking for rebates on the things that we purchase. For example, I have sent in a number of rebates for liquor and beer that we have stockpiled for company. If it doesn’t have a rebate, I don’t buy it.

I broke another whiskey glass when I was putting it in the dishwasher the other night. We were down to 2 glasses. So I found a set of 4 marked down and then applied my cash back in my Walmart account to make them even cheaper.

We ran the sprinkler system this week so that the lawn won’t burn out. It is the first time we have used it this year. We only use it when we don’t have rain. Most of the spring, it rained all of the time so we did not have to run it. Our summertime water bills should be way down.

I needed to buy some catnip toys and some treats for Eloise. I bought them from Amazon and just spent the minimum to get free shipping. Then I used up all of my Amazon reward points to keep the cost down.

I switched our Mint cellphone accounts to their senior plans and we now get unlimited everything for the same price we were paying.

We are eating our third night of pasta, meat, and sauce. I made Hubby spaghetti sauce on penne with meatballs the first night. I made me alfredo sauce with penne and chicken which I ate for 2 nights. Hubby had a hot meatball sandwich last night. Tonight, he again will have a sandwich and I will eat the little bit of alfredo that is left with a salad. We still have alot of penne left so I will make a cold pasta salad for dinner tomorrow to use it up. Waste not, want not!

I hung the laundry to dry again this week.

I have switched to drinking a lot of water with a bit of lemon juice when I am thirsty.

That is it for now. What have you been doing to cut your costs?

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Every Day

A Small Grocery Haul and Some Cost Cutting

I missed a great deal when I went to Top’s this week. I don’t know how I did that. Since I had to take a bag of bottles back and drop off a prescription drug at the drop box at the pharmacy to safely dispose of it, I went up early this morning. No one is ever at the bottle return room when I go at 7am.

They had a pork shoulder on sale for $ 1.49 a lb. However, if you used the Super Coupon, it was reduced to $ .99 a lb. At the sale price, it was reduced to $ 15.57 for a 10.445 lb. roast. Using the Super Coupon, I paid $10.34.

They also had corn today so I purchased 4 ears at $ .39 each. I am saving my raincheck to use when our local corn is ready. I surprised Hubby with his favorite ice cream which he eats sparingly because he is a diabetic. Perry’s had his MintTingALing on sale for $4.00. So my total for all 3 items was $ 15.90. I had saved up the receipts for our last 3 trips to the bottle return. They totaled $ 14.75 and I had them taken off my bill, so I paid $ 1.15 OOP.

I am planning on cooking the pork shoulder in the crockpot outdoors tomorrow. I will shred up the meat and add BBQ sauce. We will have BBQ sandwiches for a couple of days and the rest I will freeze in portions for future sandwiches.

Tonight, we are grilling hot dogs and we will each eat one corn on the cob for dinner. The other ears of corn will be eaten tomorrow night.

I transferred some money from our checking account to our high yield savings account. The next time I go to the bank I will open another share certificate to get much higher interest.

We always use our credit cards to get the best rewards back on different items that they give cash back for. I spent some time yesterday refreshing my memory on those.

I have been researching the best price on tissues because we are down to our last few boxes. It looks like $ Tree has the best price( $.007) per tissue when you buy the 175 count box for $ 1.25. I have not yet researched Sams Club and B. J’s.

Hubby and I have been discussing dropping collision on our car. We just renewed so we have plenty of time to think about it before it renews again next March. Right now, the SUV is only worth $7,000.

I am back to using cloth napkins as I run out of paper ones.

We are trying to only make 3-4 meals a week with enough leftovers to easily make 7 or to just make a meatless pasta salad for a couple of meals.

Every time I go into Top’s, I see a line of people getting coffee. It always amazes me that people will spend a fortune for a cup of coffee there. I just make mine at home and take it with me. All the money that is saved by doing that goes straight into investments and savings that give me passive income.

I will be cancelling my Peacock subscription next week. I got it for about $19. a year ago on a deal and did not plan on paying a fortune for it to renew. However, now my cable company has added Peacock, Disney, Max, Paramount which I already have via my Walmart + membership, VIX premium and AMC +, all for free to our plan.

We always try to repair items instead of replacing them. I have a Shark handheld vacuum that I love. It would not turn on for more than 3 minutes after charging it so we thought the battery was dead. We were about to throw it out. But I decided to take it apart to see if I could fix it. The reusable filter was really dirty. .I didn’t even know that it had a filter. Hubby used to always take care of these kinds of things but he didn’t seem to know why it wouldn’t work. I cleaned the filter and took the whole thing apart and cleaned everything really well. I left it apart to dry overnight and now it is working just like it is new. That saved me spending $ 89.99 for a new one.

I got $ 2.25 cash back on a small delivery order from Walmart. I will use it the same as cash on my next order. I like to do the cash back on items that we use because it helps pay the tip.

My dentist appointment a couple of weeks ago reminded me that we never pay for toothpaste or floss. Our hygienist gives us samples of Crest Gum toothpaste and many different kinds of floss at our appointments. Hubby has an appointment coming up so there will be more. If we run out before we go again, I look for a $1.00 off coupon for an on sale $.99 tube.

I changed the filter in our A/C today to get ready for when we need the A/C.

That’s it for today. I hope you are having a frugal money saving day.

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Every Day

Savings Goal & How We Cost Cut

Remember a while ago, I told you we wanted to save a large amount of money to get to our net worth goal of well over $100,000. The goal is in a prior post. We have been working really hard on that this month of June and will be cutting every cost we can possibly cut for the rest of the year. After the month of May’s savings, we are getting very close to our goal. We are hoping to reach it by the end of the year or before.

We needed gasoline so I filled up using points and saved $.30 per gallon. Hubby has had to go to PT for weeks and most of those weeks he has gone twice a week. The therapy center is in the next town so it is a hike. Needless to say between those appts. and other appts., our gasoline bills have skyrocketed. We used to be able to only fill up once in about 6-7 weeks. Now it is every two weeks. However, the last scheduled PT appointment is the end of this week and then he goes back to the doctor to be reassessed. It would be nice also if he could just do the therapy at home and we wouldn’t have to pay $ 40.00 in co-pays a week.

Yesterday I had to go to the dermatologist to get a precancer on my ear taken care of. The doctor froze it and said it should be gone and give me no more trouble in about 6 weeks. If I hadn’t noticed it and had it taken care of it eventually would have turned into cancer. While I was there she asked if I wanted anything else taken care of so I mentioned that I only had 3 warts that I would need to have removed. She said they take those off by freezing them also. I told her that I would think about it knowing full well that I would find a way to take care of them myself. When I got home and told Hubby about the warts, he said he sees the cans of the stuff to freeze them advertised on TV. Since I don’t watch TV, I never knew that. I did my research online and ordered a can. It will be here tomorrow. The cost was $ 16.49, no tax, and free shipping. That is a whole lot cheaper than it would have been to have her remove them.

We got notice yesterday from our health plan that effective January 1, 2025, there will no longer be co-pays for insulins or for telehealth visits. This is June and they are just getting around to telling us? Weird! But we knew about the insulins because the drug stores have not been charging us. However, we did not know about the telehealth visits. We will take full advantage of that for anything minor.

I have been very picky about what I buy at the grocery store. This week strawberries and corn on the cob have been on sale. The strawberries were already going bad so I skipped those. Our local strawberries will be ready soon. They ran out of the corn the first day of the sale ($.39 an ear) so I got a raincheck for a dozen ears. We eat some but most of it we cut off the cob and freeze it. You can’t even buy a can of corn for that price and this tastes so much better. The only thing I did buy was 2 packages of fresh Italian sausages for $2.99 a lb. which was cheaper than I have been able to pay for them in about 2 years. Each package had 4 large ones. So that will give us 8 meals. I mostly use it in spaghetti sauce. They also had BS chicken breast on sale for $ 2.49 a lb. But I got some at $1.99 a lb. over Memorial Day. I am hoping they will repeat that sale for the 4th of July. Then I will stock up again. Extra large eggs at my store are $ 2.99 a dozen. When I get close to running out of eggs, I will be stocking on those.

Hubby and I treated ourselves to appetizers from Applebee’s. We had enough for two meals. We used our discounted gift cards that we purchased the end of last year via a Top’s deal to pay. I am afraid that Applebee’s is not going to be in business much longer so we will be using these cards up sooner rather than later. We did the drive thru to pick them up and ate them at home.

I am very mindful of scanning my receipts into Ibotta and Fetch. I want to keep those free gift cards coming.

I used to do mystery shopping in Arizona and loved it. I am looking into doing it here.

I received $4.00 in rebates last week. They were online ones so I didn’t have to use a stamp. BTW, remember, that they are going up on July 13th so get your Forever stamps if you need them before the increase of $.05 each. I will be getting a 100 count roll.

I have been watching the price of silver for a very long time. I have never seen a price this high ever. I believe it will go up a bit more. We have a lot of sterling silver pieces that we no longer use. I will sell it soon and make some money off of it instead of letting it sit in a cupboard.

We continue to leave the lights off in the daytime hours. If I can cook something on the outside grill, I do. If I cook in the crockpot, I do it outside to keep the heat out of the house. Heat has been off since my last post. We have had 3 days that it was near 90 and humid here but we did not turn on the A/C. We kept the shades and blinds drawn on the sunny windows. If it cooled off at night, we opened a couple of windows. We would like to keep the A/C off as long as we can. If it gets stuffy and hot in here, we use the ceiling fans.

I have been watching our daily energy usage online. The data is always 2 days old. I am seeing that we have a spike at brunch time and from 4pm until we go to bed. We are trying to be mindful during those periods. They are mealtimes, downtime so TV’s are on and darkness.

I did the $30. gift card deal at Chewy’s when I purchased Eloise’s food. I am saving it for the next time I need food or litter.

Our driveway is being sealed today. The company is only charging us $140. which is cheaper than we can buy the product to do it ourselves.

Top’s again has sent me 4 weeks of $5. off a $50. order coupons and 4 Free coupons for fresh bananas, pasta, shredded cheese, and ice cream. They start next week.

I got my Amazon CC bill and earned points worth $ 12.36 from buying a few Amazon purchases and charging over $700. in dental bills to that card. That money will be used when we actually NEED something.

This is it for today. I will be back soon. How are you saving as much money as possible?

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

I needed some food for Eloise so I planned on placing an order with Chewy. To my surprise when I went online to do that they had a deal where if you ordered $100. worth of products, you got a $30. gift card for your next order. I stocked up and the $30. gift card will get used when I need something more for her. I also used autoship so I got 10% off my order.

Hubby needed a new wallet. His was at least 15 years old and falling apart. We found him a new one that he absolutely loves for $15.99 marked down from $ 34.99. However, it is now marked down to $12.99 if anyone is in need. It is here https://www.walmart.com/ip/Aursear-Wallet-for-Men-Slim-Genuine-Leather-Mens-Wallet-RFID-Blocking-Credit-Card-Holder-with-Money-Clip/1189202732

We have been keeping all lights off in the daylight hours. I just turned the heat off because I am tired of the high utility bills. It is chilly in here but we have put sweatshirts on. We are trying to cook most of our dinners on the outside grill. Today I will use the washer to do a load of clothes in cold water with minimal detergent. They will get hung to dry. I have been washing the dishes in a dishpan in the sink to save on water. I am not using the dishwasher to see if that saves on the electric bill.

I made turkey club sandwiches for dinner last night. I cooked the entire package of bacon so that we have some to go with eggs for brunch today. We will have lasagna for dinner tonight. The small oven we will bake it in will help take the chill out of the house.

I did a bit of grocery shopping yesterday. At Aldi’s I bought 2 – l lb. packages of fresh strawberries for $ 1.69 a lb. I also purchased a package of brioche hot dog buns to go with some hot dogs that I already have in the freezer. They were $ 2.49. For the first time in a long time, I found some red stickers in the meat dept. They were breakfast sausages with $1.00 off stickers. So I got 2 packages for $ .98 each. I am always on the hunt for meat for our family Sunday breakfasts. All purchases were cheaper than Walmart, my other cheap store.

Then I went to Top’s. After I got rid of some old prescriptions that we were no longer using at the lock box in the pharmacy, I did a bit of shopping. I purchased a large onion at $.99 a lb. for a total of $ 1.28, a Free carton of Top’s ice cream with a coupon ($ 4.29) they sent me, used my raincheck to get another large package of BS chicken breasts for $ 1.99 a lb. for a total of $ 10.27( one package of the three I got this week is pictured above), 3 packages of Fresh Express Salad Kits for $ 3.00 each, 1.75 lbs. of tomatoes at $1.88 a lb. for a total of $ 3.29, 1 lb. of Ronzoni elbow macaroni for $ .99, and 9 cans of Mary Kitchen corned beef hash at $ 3.99 each minus $ .75/1 coupons that doubled to $ 1.50 each for a total of $22.41. My total for all came to $ 51.53. Then she took off my $5.00/50.00 coupon that Top’s sent me for a total of $ 46.53 and the $4.29 coupon for the ice cream for a total of $ 42.24. Hubby loves the corned beef hash so I stocked for him. The coupons were from prior cans that had them. The ones I got also had the coupons on them so I will be stocking more. I rarely buy the salad kits but these were a better price than I have seen in a long time. They will make dinners easy this week while I catch up all the work that didn’t get done while I was dealing with my sciatica.

I am off to pay some bills. Did any of you save a little bit of money this week? Please share with all of us.

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Every Day

Spending As Little As Possible

Our Top’s had BS chicken breasts on sale this week. I had just inventoried the freezer last weekend with some help. Lots of beef and pork but very little chicken which surprised me. I guess we had been eating it up faster than I thought. So my intent was to look for chicken on sale. I did not expect that to happen anytime soon. However, our ad came for this past week last Sunday. There was a super coupon to get a 5-6 lb. package for $1.99 a lb. I don’t shop on weekends so I waited until Monday and they had been wiped out of the chicken on Sunday. So I got a raincheck. They told me they might get a truck in on Tuesday. I had an appointment that took me right past Top’s that day. So I stopped in to see if they had more chicken which they did. But they only had 3 packages so I snagged one. There was a limit of one. Yesterday, Hubby had to go out yesterday so we snagged another one of two that were there. Later in June, I will use the raincheck when things are better stocked. I had not been able to get chicken breasts for this price in years.

So now we are pretty stocked for the summer. Since meat is so expensive, we are weighing out 4 ounces for each of us when we eat it. That is all the protein anyone needs for dinner. Some days we have more if we use a bit of bacon, ham, or sausage for brunch. But not every day! Tonight we will each have 4 ounces of scallops and a tossed salad.

It’s hard to believe that it is Memorial Day weekend already. It has been so cold this spring that we feel like it is still winter. We had to turn our heat back on after only a few days with it off because it is so cold at night. It is still on and it is almost June. It is supposed to warm up this week. I hope so because we are sick of the cold and rain.

We got our electric and natural gas bill this past Thursday. I was in shock when we saw how much is was. It was for 33 days and was 455 KWH and 43.3 therms. For any of you who have noticed, I have been putting the wrong amount for therms on my prior bills. I was using the daily average instead of the monthly therms. Sorry! Last year’s bill for the same time period was only 30 days and was 412 KWH and 37.1 therms. So 3 more days than last year, 43 KWH more and 6.2 more therms. Last year’s bill was $70. less than this year’s. Our latest bill was $ 225.23. I expected this bill to be bigger but not this much bigger. I told Hubby the heat is going off soon no matter how cold it is. He can put on a blanket, sweatshirt or coat. Some of this bill was with the new smart meters and some from the old. I am hoping they get the daily usage up on our account soon. The meter has been in for a while. I stopped in last week at our utility company’s customer service center because I could not get ahold of them by phone to find out when it would be up on their site. The rep told me within the next 2 weeks. I want to be able to watch the usage so that I know what is using the most energy.

Update on my denture repair: It cost $276. and lasted less than 24 hours. So Hubby dropped it off to the dentist this week so it can be repaired again. I hope to get it back midweek next week. But I am leery that it will work this time. My sister is having the same issue. She thinks that they are not making them as good as they used to. Her first denture lasted 22 years. The new one has been repaired twice and she has not had it very long. I believe she may be right. Thank God I have a spare.

With the exception that our landscape service will be coming soon with a new tree for the front yard, I don’t see any major expenses until our September school tax bill. Hubby went down to the nursery to scope out a tree. We have decided on a red maple. So Hubby trusts our landscaper to pick out the largest one he can get that is nicely shaped. Ben gets a better price than we do. My son and Hubby cut down both dead trees last Sunday leaving enough stump for Ben to be able to pull them out with his truck. We have decided not to plant one in the side yard because it a wind tunnel through there and the tree won’t survive like the last one didn’t. So we will have Ben take both stumps out, plant the new one out front, take up the stone that encircled the one on the side, and either he or we will plant grass there.

As you can see by our chicken purchases, we are spending as little as possible. I believe we have enough meat and fish now to last until at least the September Labor Day sales. However if I see chicken again at $ 1.99 a lb. I will buy more. We have enough food that I will only have to shop for fresh dairy and produce. I will be making most of our own bread. The cheap bread in our stores is awful unless I can get Italian from the bakery at a good price at Walmart. And then it doesn’t last long unless I freeze it!

We were craving a take out pizza last night but instead I made a homemade one that was just as good.

I am feeling better so I hope to blog a few more times this week. I hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend. It will be quiet here just the two of us. We will probably grill out a few times weather permitting.

How have you been saving money? Did you buy any great sales this week?

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Every Day

Happy Mother’s Day Tomorrow

I hope you all have a fantastic day! We will be enjoying the day by cooking filet mignon on the grill. That is my favorite meal!

I wish I could be on here more often but my sciatica has been horrid the past month or so. It hurts to sit and stand. Advil is not working for me. So I have been doing a lot of reading lately laying down. I am trying to work through frugality books that I have read before. A special online friend and her husband are coming to visit again this summer. I am making a pile of the books as I read them to see if there are any she would like to take home with her before I donate them to our local library.

Hopefully the pain will go away soon. I have been doing exercises to try to get that to happen. You all know how active I am, so I am hating this! I seriously thought about ending my blog. But if you will be patient, I will continue it when I can and be back to normal soon. Prayers if you are a praying person. I would really appreciate those.

But we have been as frugal as we can right now. I am working on a # of problems. It looks like Mint Mobile is not billing us correctly and QVC put someone else’s charge on our bill. So hopefully I will have that all straightened out this coming week. The one time I went out two weeks ago, I lost my credit card. No one had used it. But I cancelled it and they say it will take 2 weeks for another to arrive. Fortunately, I have another one to use. I did not realize that I had lost it until I went to pay $ 402. for my dental cleaning and X rays at the dentist. That was a week later. I gave the dentist my denture to repair. I had a tooth pop out of it a while ago. But I have a spare, so I waited for my appointment to bring it in to him. The repair will cost $276. when I go to pick it up. UGH!

The other bad thing that affected us this week is Rite Aid is going out of business. So we have been switching every prescription to a new pharmacy. Second time we have had to do this in just a few months. What a pain!

Hubby and I went to our appointment to see the town assessor two weeks ago to dispute the $33,000. raise in our assessment for our home. They had raised us tentatively from $ 470,000. to $503, 000. The assessor agreed with us and they are leaving our assessment at $470,000. We have a letter to show that. We had to sign it and get it back to them. I did that the same day it came in the mail. Of course, we made a copy of it. Also we have qualified finally for a reduction of our assessment because we are old for the school taxes. We have been paying full school taxes since we moved here. So our assessment for school taxes only will be $ 383,900. Needless to say until we get the tax bills I won’t know what we will actually save. But I am happy about all of this!

We have barely had any sales on decent meat in my grocery or warehouse stores. Especially on beef and chicken. So we are working on eating the chicken in our freezers. However last week, Niagara Produce had cowboy steaks on sale for $13.49 a lb. Not a great price but since we have been doing very little shopping, we had money saved up from our grocery budget. I bought 6 for $ 168.00. That will give us some beef to grill along with the filet mignons and strip steaks that we already had. This should give us plenty of beef for the summer. However, I am always looking for those sales.

During the Walmart + benefit week, I was able to fill up our car at $.50 off a gallon. I was also able to get a Free Express order and not pay the extra $10.00 for it. I also used the scan and go and spent $15. on stock up items to get $5.00 Cash back.

We were able to save $4,000. for the month of April. We are slowly getting to our goal. We spent landscaping money to the tune of $1700. which was an extra expense.

That is about it for now. What have you done frugally the past 2 weeks?

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Every Day

Cutting Costs Recently

I won a $10.00 Top’s gift card playing the Monopoly game. That will buy some meat the next time I go there.

Instead of going out to breakfast at Kalamatta’s Restaurant on Sunday, we cooked at home for my son and grandson. Hubby made waffles and I cooked the bacon, sausage, and eggs. I really wanted to go to the restaurant. But I decided it would save us the $80. it costs including tip to just cook at home. My son helped Hubby get all of the patio furniture out of the shed and get the snowblower put in there. West took our winter coats, gloves, and hats down to the storage bags in the basement. He also took a few bags of groceries to the pantry for me. They are a big help to us. After that was all done, we played rummy which is free entertainment.

Just as my son and grandson were leaving, my other son called. So we had a long enjoyable chat.

I cut open a free sample of toothpaste from the dentist to get the very last bit out. There is always enough left to brush my teeth at least two more times. The larger tubes have even more left in them. So don’t throw them away. Use it all.

One of the hems on a rather new dish towel came undone. So I repaired it.

I scanned many receipts into Fetch.

I took inventory of my canning jars, lids and seals. I have enough for this year so I was happy that I didn’t have to buy any of those things.

I baked 8 potatoes the other night. I used two for dinner and made potato salad with the rest yesterday. Thinking ahead when you bake something saves on energy. Fill up that oven.

My new gas and electric smart meters were installed yesterday. I wouldn’t let the girl put them in until I read our meters and wrote the readings down. She was standing right by the meters when I went out there and she said she would read them while I wrote them down. I immediately went in the house to look at my last bill’s readings which was created on April 17th. I realized that she had read the electric meter wrong. She had added 1000 kwh’s. I have never used that many kwh’s in 11 days or a month. My electric readings are very consistent over the 15 years we have been here. So I went out to tell her and she was very apologetic and said she would change the reading to correct it. What I actually used in that period of time was 184 kwh’s. I am glad we were home because they take the old meters back to the company. Then you have no proof. The gas reading was correct and appeared on the gas meter. But the electric meter started at 000000. They have to take the electric meter to the company and the reading and then they add the usage from the old meter and new meter together. I would have been shocked if I had a bill in May that was 1000 kwh’s more than we use. I will be calling the company tomorrow to make them aware of her mistake and make sure they have the correct reading. I also want to ask them how this all works online. They left no literature on it. But the moral of this story is that you should always read your meters when the company is replacing them.

Our landscaping company came last week and did the weeding, trimmed all the bushes, and mulched our many gardens. The owner decided to charge us the same amount as last year. I was thrilled because I am sure his costs went up the same as everything else has.

I discovered water in the cabinet under our kitchen sink last week. Hubby could find no connections in the pipes that were leaking nor was the garbage disposal leaking. I have run the dishwasher twice since then and no water is leaking from that. So he has finally determined that the seal that holds the sink into the stone countertop needs to be resealed. It seems to be worn out in spots. He will be removing the old seal and installing a new seal today. A tube of that stuff is a lot cheaper than hiring a plumber.

I have washed a few loads of laundry in cold water this week and hung them to dry. When I spring cleaned my laundry room, I cleaned out the cupboards. I found a container with a bit of homemade powdered detergent in it. I am using it up instead of throwing it out.

This is Walmart + week. There are many benefits that members will have. It started yesterday. I will be taking advantage of the gas savings and the express delivery and perhaps a few more things.

I have started a new batch of vanilla using new vanilla beans and a very cheap bottle of vodka.

We continue to keep lights off in the daytime. I turned our heat off tonight finally. We will see if we will be able to keep it off.

I have started to reread 4 bookshelves of books that I own. As I finish each one, I will donate them.

Hubby is now only going to therapy once a week instead of twice. That is saving us gasoline and one $25. co-pay a week.

Peacock will be expiring soon. We have enjoyed it but not enough to renew it.

We are eating all meals at home this week. Have you noticed that beef and chicken rarely go on sale anymore? The word online is that fresh fish and seafood will be the next thing to skyrocket in price. So if you like fish, shrimp, or scallops get them now. I have been watching for sales these past few weeks on beef. Finally Top’s has their NY strip steaks on sale at $11.99 a lb. I purchased 6 of them yesterday. I will continue to pursue the sales on beef but it is very rare that I will see any. Pork is cheap here but nothing else.

That is it for today. How are you cutting your costs?

I am almost done with the post I have been working on. So that will be up when it is finished.

Categories
Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

The below post I wrote one week ago. I thought I had published it. But I must have forgot. Sorry about that.

It has been another busy week. We had 4 appointments this week and we have 4 next week. They take a chunk out of our time especially when they are scheduled midday. They will be easing up after that because Hubby is cutting back his PT to once a week. He will do the second one at home. He ordered the little bit of equipment that he needs. Fortunately, it cost under $35. We have a heating pad and ice bag which he has been using at night before bed. We joke about the ice bag. It is almost 58 years old. I purchased it when we got married. I suppose we could buy a new one but this one works perfectly fine.

In between all of the going out, I have been spring cleaning our home. Hubby has always cleaned and polished all of our hardwood floors and we have a lot of them. He can no longer do them so I have added this chore to my list. I did all of them this week and they turned out beautiful. I was very proud of myself. It hurts my back a bit but I am in better shape than Hubby right now.

I have also been getting my downstairs pantry into better shape. Over the past few months it has become messy when I don’t have time to put away the grocery hauls. It is starting to look much better now.

I have been trying to find time to clean and organize the downstairs freezer. But every time I schedule time to do it, something comes up.

I am hoping to get the SUV washed and clean the inside. I may take it to the carwash this week which will save me some time. Then when I get home, I will vacuum and wash the inside and do all the windows. Now that we finally have some nice weather coming, it should stay cleaner longer. It has been so cold and crappy here. We still have our heat on. I got a huge electric and gas bill for the past month. It was for $ 281.58. It is 66 right now as I write this but raining. It is supposed to clear up this afternoon and then be cloudy tomorrow and 52. Then 53 to 62 the rest of the week. That is much better than it has been. Maybe if the nights get warmer, we can turn off our heat soon.

This week we got a $10. rebate check in the mail along with a Pillsbury coupon good for any product up to $8.00. We also got a notice from Rite Aid to join their class action suit because my info was hacked. So got that taken care of today. So many companies are not keeping your info safe.

Hubby made a big pot of his homemade chili this week. We ate it for 3 nights and then had some on hot dogs one night. Last night we picked up 2 fish fry dinners from Chiavettas since it was Good Friday. They come with French fries. They were so good and we have leftovers for tonight.

Did any of you watch the Matlock Finale this week? It was so exciting and such an ending. I am happiest that it has been renewed for another season.

My son had a really busy week so he is staying home and resting this weekend. We will miss him and West but will see them next weekend. So I think I will continue to spring clean my home. I can work in a couple of bathrooms today and the laundry room tomorrow.

Now this is the current week. I cooked a turkey breast this week. We had turkey dinners two nights in a row. Then I put the rest in the freezer in 2 person portions to use in the future.

I have been working so hard this week that Hubby decided we should treat ourselves and go out to dinner on Thursday night. We have a new brewery in a close by city called the Big Ditch. It is a beautifully renovated space. The food and beer were excellent. Service was outstanding. We will have to take your Hubby there Chris when you visit again. I think he would like it.

We ended up with 4 appointments this week and our only free day got booked by our landscape crew to do the spring cleanup and mulching. They will be back to take 2 trees out that died. They got a blight. They will replace the one out front and just seed where the other one is. It never did well on that side of the house because of the wind tunnel that goes through there anyhow.

This week I picked up some shelf stable milk at Dollar Tree. I also picked up a few items at Aldi’s one of which was a carrot cake that Hubby and I love and it was marked down by $2.00. That was about it for shopping.

We got our tentative assessment for our property. They raised us again this year by $33,000. That brings us almost to the assessment that they tried to raise us to the last time that we fought it. So we have an appointment to fight it again next week. Housing has not been selling in our neighborhood. The house partially behind us has been on the market for over 2 years. Getting the builder to have the lawn mowed is another problem we have. When it gets higher, I will contact the town about it. I dealt with the sales rep last year and she was nasty. So I will report them this year. It is a code violation. A neighbor put their house on the market for three months and took it off because it didn’t sell. I believe they are not selling because interest rates are too high. Anyhow Hubby is working on the grievance so that we have a strong case.

Well that is it for right now. I have another post that I have been working on to help you. It is 1/2 done. I will try to get it on here within a couple of days.

What have you gals and guys been up to?

Categories
Every Day

How We Are Saving Dollars

I am using the cash station to fill up our SUV because the price is $ 2.83 per gallon vs. $ 2.99 at the Top’s station. With no gas points to use because of the lack of much shopping, we save $ .16 per gallon and it is much closer to my home.

I had to go to the Urgent Care on Monday. I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and 2 ear infections. The Urgent Care is only 3 miles from my home. My doctor is 17 miles and couldn’t get me in for a few days. The Urgent Care had me in and out in 15 minutes. Fortunately the 2 drugs they prescribed were cheap. So I picked those up along with another one that had been refilled for me and only had to pay $13.75 for all 3.

I got a $ 5.00 liquor rebate in the mail. I have more coming. Every little bit helps.

We earned a $100. cashback rebate by using my credit card. We never pay interest so this is a win-win.

We had a meal of the free potstickers last night. Hubby steamed them and they were so good. We finally finished up all the chicken I had cooked.

For dinner tonight, we will have Chef’s salads to use up some of the produce and meat in the refrigerator. I will hard boil some eggs in the Instant Pot.

Breakfasts this week have been eggs, French toast, and bacon and grilled cheese and meat sandwiches. I think today, I will have soup that is leftover in the freezer. Soup is my comfort food and I don’t have much of an appetite with these drugs that I am on.

We have decided to go to Applebee’s one night this week for dinner again. We have discounted gift cards that will pay for it to use up. I am worried that with all the restaurants going out of business, we will lose that money.

Hubby has been trimming our bushes little by little. He is doing it so that when the landscape crew comes they won’t have as much to do. Plus we won’t have to pay for trimming when they do the spring cleanup and mulching.

I am now using a larger box that I already had for Eloise’s cat litter. She was using a much smaller box and when she would go in there and kick to cover everything up, half of it would go on the litter rug that is underneath the box and on the tile floor. She is almost full grown now and she is a very long cat so this is working much better. The past two nights since I put it in there, she has not gotten any litter outside this box. Less for me to clean every night. When I made the change, I spring cleaned the entire laundry room that the box is in. It felt good to get that done. Besides working on the freezers and pantries, I am trying to spring clean a room every couple of days too. Today I will be cleaning our master bathroom.

I was going to go run some errands today because it is Senior Discount Day at Top’s. But I don’t feel that good today so I will have to do it another day this week. I lose that 6% off but I only have 4 items that we need and my health is much more important to me.

We are trying to be very careful with how much electricity and natural gas we are using. It is still cold here. Overnight it was 27. I think about it every time I go to cook, do laundry, take showers, use the computers, and the TV’s. I am very conscious of lighting. No lighting during the daytime unless it is stormy and dreary. It is sunny today so that will help the heating bill. I have the window coverings open when the sun is on them.

As I go through each room that I am spring cleaning, I am getting rid of clutter. I do this every year. Since it is garbage day on Thursday, it will go or be donated to Goodwill.

We had some big expenses in March. Our homeowner’s and auto insurance we pay yearly was due. It reminded me that we have been in our home here for 15 years. Time flies! But because of that we were only able to save $4500. towards our goal.

I hope you guys are saving what you can. I know it is hard because everything is so expensive. But if there was ever a time to be frugal, it is now. President Trump and Elon and Doge keep reminding us how fragile our economy is and the mess that they inherited from Biden. It is not an easy fix and the accountant in me is really worried that we could all lose everything if our economy collapses. Biden and his administration brought us right to the edge of the cliff. They are trying to fix it but only time will tell if they can. Personally I think these people who robbed us to enrich themselves should all go to prison.

What have you been doing lately to be frugal and save some money? It doesn’t have to be big. The little things add up faster than you think.