Categories
Every Day

A Small Meat Haul and What I Plan To Do With It

Since the Buffalo Bills weren’t playing until tonight, I decided to get some of the sale meat items at Top’s yesterday. Figuring that most people would be home watching football, I went once the games started. Oh Boy was I ever wrong. I think every women in my little town had the same idea. It was packed. So I got in and out as quickly as I could.

I snagged a big pack of 80% lean ground beef at $ 2.99 a lb. I will be cooking it and canning it this morning.

Finally, they had split chicken breasts in my store and they were on sale for $ 2.19 a lb. My store has not had them for a couple of years. I am going to ask Hubby to grill them tonight using up the quart of homemade BBQ sauce that I made when my sister- in- law was here . That will give us at least two meals. But they are huge so maybe the meat will give us a couple of brunch meals too.

I also purchased a top round roast for $ 4.99 a lb. This will get cut up for stew and either canned or frozen for a couple of meals. I make my stews in the crockpot so it tenderizes the meat. I can’t buy stew meat for this price.

I decided to start thawing the mystery meat I showed you. I will let you know what it is when it thaws.

Excitement was in the air when I got up and sat down with my coffee this morning. I opened my e-mail to find that my bins to do the freezer are coming tomorrow. I can’t wait. So I may get a head start on organizing it a bit today. At least I can pull out all the rest of the meat that I am going to can up and get it thawing in the refrigerator.

Any veggies, fruits, and cheese that are in the chest freezer will go into the refrigerator freezer. I don’t have too much of that because we eat a lot of fresh. Any meat that is in the that freezer will either get canned or go down to the chest freezer.

It is looking like I will be pretty busy this week. But I can’t wait to see the finished project.

Today, we have 240 lbs. of pellet salt for our water softener being delivered via Fed Ex. I expect that the driver is not going to be a happy camper. I will have to be especially nice to him. They are coming in 40 lb. bags each with a separate tracking number. This is what will get us through the winter. We can’t get them at the store because they are too heavy for us. If we can just get them in the garage, my son and grandson can take them down to the water softener for us the next time they come out.

What are you guys up to today?

Categories
Every Day

A Big Mistake and Changing The Way We Use Our Freezer

Does anyone know what this is? When I was getting something out of my freezer yesterday, I spotted this. It was wrapped in butcher’s paper and this was inside. I made the mistake of not marking what was in it. I don’t even remember buying it at the butcher shop. It looks like it could be ground beef. I guess we will find out when I thaw it. If it is, I will can it.

My chest freezer is out of control! I can’t find anything without unloading many things. I have tried so many ways over the years to keep it neat and sorted and eventually they just frustrate me. I was using reusable bags for a while and that was working but then they started falling apart. The handles would fall off or the bag would rip as I was removing it from the freezer.

I could buy an upright but they are expensive and I don’t want to spend the money on one. Our money is being saved for another goal. So Hubby and I decided to make the chest freezer easier to navigate.

I measured the freezer yesterday and set out to find a way to organize it. We have these on order from The Container Store:

https://www.containerstore.com/s/blue-6-gal.-stackable-recycle-bin-with-white-handle/d?q=stack%20and%20carry%20bins&productId=10032152

I purchased 6 of them. Only 5 will fit in the freezer because it has a built in shelf over the motor. The sixth one I am going to use to carry things from the freezer to my kitchen. I have had this freezer for 13+ years. I always thought it was 7.2 cu. ft. However, when I pulled the information on the freezer out of our file yesterday, I realized that it is actually 8.8 cu. ft.

Realizing that the containers will take up space, I am canning more of my beef and chicken. I have been doing this for a while to get as much meat shelf stable as possible in case of a power outage.

We have also been eating out of the freezer for months. It is still grilling season, so we have been enjoying steak and barbecued chicken using homemade BBQ sauce.

When these bins come, I will rearrange everything. I like to keep my fruits, vegetables, and cheese in the upstairs freezer. The meat goes into the deep freezer. But that has gotten out of control lately too. So there is a lot of organizing to get done.

How do you guys keep your freezers organized? Any tips you would be willing to share?

Categories
Every Day

It Feels Good To Be Back

I am happy to be back blogging. It has been a hectic 5 weeks. I needed the time off to can a lot of meat among other things. My latest was 7 pounds of ground beef. I have many more stored away besides these. Each pint jar will give us 2 meals each.

Hubby helped me to can the peaches. I purchased a 1/2 bushel at Niagara Produce that were ready to be canned. I already had all the canning supplies which I purchased last year. Walmart has the best price on good canned peaches. They are $ 2.44 each. I got my peaches at under $ 1.54 for each jar. Yes, a bit of time was needed to do it. But I actually love canning and so does Hubby. We had a little bit left over that we had cut up and they were so delicious. I ended up with a total of 20 jars. Plus I made 6 jars of freezer jam. I think Hubby has eaten a bit of one of the jams already on bagels.

I also got the ground beef at $ 2.99 a pound. I made a big meatloaf that Hubby and I had for 3 dinners and canned the rest of it. A can of purchased Keystone Ground Beef is going for $ 5.04 a pound. Canning it saves me a lot of money.

My freezers are slowly going down. I have not been doing a lot of shopping the past 5 weeks. Plus I am canning all of the chicken and ground beef in my freezers that I am able to. They are predicting a very cold and snowy winter for us. I do not want a lot of food in my freezers in case we have a power outage.

We had an outage last week but fortunately it only lasted a couple of hours. When the power came back on, we had a communication failure with our alarm system. I was concerned that the system was blown. But after calling our alarm company, they said it was working on their end so we were protected. They gave Hubby directions to clear the panels and waited on the phone till everything was cleared. It is working fine on both their end and ours now.

Right now, I am roasting 2 large roasting chickens in my big turkey roasting pan. They should be done in about 25 minutes. Top’s has rotisserie chickens on sale this week for $ 7.49. But my 2 roasting chickens were purchased at Walmart in the Perdue Twin Pack for $ 1.14 a pound. I got some a few weeks ago and I was surprised that they are still at that price. I paid $ 12.87 this morning for these and they are much bigger than the ones that are already cooked at Top’s. We will have one for dinner tonight and tomorrow night. Then I will take the rest of the meat off that one and the other one and freeze it for many meals. The carcasses will go in the crockpot overnight to make bone broth. That I will can. This saves me from having to buy broth at the store and mine turns out thicker and tastier.

Because food prices are rising so quickly and I believe that the prices will keep going up into 2024, Hubby and I have put a new plan and budget in place for groceries. More about that in another post.

We also had so many doctor appointments and tests that needed to be done this past month. I needed to concentrate on those.

Then the last half of the month, West came to spend a weekend with us.

We also had family on my Hubby’s side come and visit us from Houston,Texas for 5 days. So as you can see we had a very busy last month.

I am actually glad that company is gone and I can get back to what needs to be done around here.

I really hope you are all well and had a wonderful August and Labor Day weekend. I missed you all.

Categories
Every Day

I Wanted To Let You Know

I need to take some more time off. I hope to be back posting after Labor Day.

Categories
Every Day

Run, Don’t Walk To Aldi’s

I don’t have time to do a full grocery blog post right now. I just got back from Aldi’s. I went up for the pound packages of the Organic Ground Beef that is on sale on the front page of their flyer for $ 3.99 a lb. which was a great price.

When I got there, most of their packages expired tomorrow. So I asked at the register if they would reduce the price. I got 6 pounds because that was the limit in the ad. They said yes and I got them all for $ 1.99 each.

The reason I tell you this is that the ground beef comes into the store stamped by the manufacturer with the date so bet is that your stores have that date too.

Categories
Every Day

Frugal Things The Past Few Days

I want to let you know that most of the things that I showed you that were leftovers in my recent post have been eaten or frozen.

So here is a new group of leftovers plus 2 other ingredients that I made into a couple of different meals this week.

I had leftover hot Italian sausage in the spaghetti sauce from the other night. I cut it up and used 1/2 of it on pizza along with some mushrooms also. Hubby likes the sausage. I love mushrooms. I also used an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce from my storage on the pizza because I find leftover spaghetti sauce too much on pizza. I make pizza on the artisan bread that I purchased at Aldi. Just add mozzarella cheese and seasonings and it is delicious.

Last night I heated the leftover spaghetti sauce after I took the rest of the sausage out and cut it up for another pizza which I will make soon. I added the sauce that was left in the jar too to the pan. Some of the mushrooms and the spaghetti were microwaved to heat them through.

Meanwhile I air fried two pieces of chicken after preparing them with the Shake and Bake. I added some mozzarella cheese at the end. So we had chicken parmesian on the leftover spaghetti and I added some mushrooms to mine.

All I have left is the sausage, some mushrooms, the tomato sauce for pizza. The leftover spaghetti sauce was frozen for our next spaghetti meal. We also have two pieces of chicken breast to use tonight. I haven’t decided yet how I will fix that. Depending on the weather, we may grill it and add BBQ sauce.

We did have a lot of Italian meals this week but we haven’t had them in a long time and we were craving them. Rather than waste leftovers, neither one of us care if we eat the same things made into new meals over and over again.

I had to run to the drugstore for a prescription yesterday so I stopped for a loaf of bread. That cost me $ 2.99 so now my grocery budget that is left for the month is $ 346.71.

Our lawn is so dry that we scheduled the sprinkler system to run every other day. But if I get up in the morning and it has rained overnight, I turn it off until the next day that it is scheduled for. I believe our water bill the end of this month will be much less than last year’s. Our system broke this year and we had to wait 6 weeks for them to come out to repair it. That is how booked up they were.

We only eat two meals a day and have been doing this for a very long time now. That is saving us money but honestly we didn’t do it to save money. We just aren’t hungry in the morning. Coffee is enough.

We continue to drive our 10 year old SUV. We take immaculate care of it and make sure to take it to the garage for necessities like inspections and oil changes. It only has 47,000 miles on it and has never had a repair. The only time it has been to the dealer is for recalls. Maintaining things that you own pays off in the long run. My son has done some brakes for us.

Hubby is cutting my hair again tomorrow. Finally all the color from my salon appointments will be gone. My white hair I like and so does Hubby so I will not be coloring it again.

I ran the dishwasher really full. I am using the auto wash setting which I find uses less water and electricity.

That is it for today. What have you done recently to save some money?

Categories
Every Day

My Journey To Keep My Grocery Shopping Under Control

We had the spaghetti with Hot Italian Sausage last night. It was so good. Since we have sauce and sausage leftover, I will make a pizza tonight using that and the Artisan flatbread I purchased today. I will also add some mushrooms for me.

I ran errands today to Top’s and Aldi’s. At Aldi’s I purchased three of the Artisan bread. Each package makes 2 pizzas for us. Since this is our favorite pizza crust and it is often out of stock, I put one package in the fridge and the other two in the freezer. Six crusts will last about 6 months for us. My total cost for this at Aldi’s was $ 10.77.

Last stop was Top’s where I purchased 5 Shake and Bake. When you bought 5 you paid $ 2.99 each. I love using these for a quick meal in the air fryer for pork or chicken. Especially in the winter when we are not grilling outside. The cucumber was $ 1.00. The celery and carrots were on B1G1F and ended up costing me $ 3.49 for both. The half and half was $ 5.99 for a half gallon. I stock this ahead in my fridge because it has far out expiration dates. We use it in our coffee and for any milk that we need. We used to buy milk for pudding, cereal, etc. but it always went bad before we could use it up. So I quit buying milk and we use half and half instead for everything. It works well for us. Out total for Top’s was $ 25.43. My total for today is $36.20. I also purchased a 60 ct. box of eggs at Walmart this week for $ 5.18. So my total for the week is $ 41.38.

I started with $ 391.08 in my grocery budget less the $ 41.38 leaves $349.70 left for the rest of the month.

I am off to do some cleaning. I hope you all have a great day!

Did you get any bargains at the grocery store this week?

Categories
Every Day

Frugal Things We Have Done the Past Few Days

I had every intention of writing to you about our special day last Saturday. However our celebration turned into the entire weekend.

On Saturday and Sunday, we celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary. Because we went out to dinner with friends last week, we decided to cook at home on both days. We had the same dinner each night which included a drink before dinner. Then Hubby grilled filet mignon each night for each of us. I baked a dozen potatoes in the air fryer so as to not heat up the house with the oven. We each ate one and one ear of corn on the cob each night. Dessert was cherry ices. With the exception of our son and grandson coming for breakfast on Sunday, we had a quiet weekend just enjoying each other’s company. We spent a bit of time outside in our yard because it was so beautiful outside.

On Sunday, I made scrambled eggs, French toast, many sausages and a pound of bacon. Our grandson is now a teenager and he can sure pack the food away. After breakfast, we played rummy.

It was a wonderful weekend full of good food purchased on sale, good conversation, and no cleaning.

On Monday morning, I made scrambled eggs and sliced up the leftover filet mignon and heated it through with some garlic and butter. We had leftover cold cut sandwiches and potato salad for dinner. Hubby made it from the leftover baked potatoes.

On Tuesday night, we had potato salad and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. Breakfast was easy over eggs and leftover sausage and bacon from the weekend.

Breakfast this morning was a big slice of cantaloupe. Tonight I will be making spaghetti with Hot Italian sausage and sauce. We have not had spaghetti in quite a while and we are craving it.

I will be grocery shopping tomorrow for just a few things we need.

Hubby has been busy around here. The hinge on our bottom folding cupboard door broke. He found a hinge on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0879F97QV?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details . Boy, it was expensive.

It turned into a bigger project than he thought though. The hinge is installed on the cupboard but it does not line up with the original holes. So Hubby will fix it as soon as he can get the stuff he needs to do it.

He also has been doing a great job keeping up with the weed whacking and dead heading the flowers. I have been pulling weeds as I see them.

Our lawn is lush and green again after having the sprinkler system repaired. Now it gets water every other day that it doesn’t rain.

I have done two loads of laundry this week using cold water. Some of the clothes were hung to dry and others were done in the dryer.

We should be getting our prompt from the utility company to read our meters in a few days. I can’t wait to see what difference the new efficient A/C does for our bill looking at the same period last year and accounting for the high heat we have had this time including some 90+ days.

What have you guys been doing to save some money?

Categories
Every Day

Our Journey To Keep The Grocery Budget Under Control

On Thursday, I made another turkey sandwich for brunch to use up the rest of a tomato, some turkey, and more lettuce. I also added two very small pieces of bacon that were leftover last night.

Hubby made himself some scrambled eggs with sauteed onions and a bagel with butter.

That night we actually went out to dinner which is a rarity in our home. We have good friends who we go out to dinner with every once in a while. As a thank you for them helping us out a few times this past year, we treated.

We went here to https://spatricks.com/ We had good food, drinks, and lots of laughs. It was a very enjoyable evening. This does not come out of our food budget but from our entertainment budget.

On Friday, Hubby ate his leftover reuben sandwich from dinner for brunch. I pulled some deli roast beef and 2 kimmelweck rolls that I had frozen from the freezer to thaw. I cooked up a packet of au jus gravy and made a beef on a weck for brunch.

For dinner I ate my leftovers from the restaurant which was some turkey and stuffing with gravy, cranberry sauce, and a medley of steamed cauliflower, green beans, and multi colored peppers. Hubby finished the pork fried rice.

We have quite a bit of deli meat and rolls in our freezer from when we had company recently. I don’t like to freeze it for long so you are going to see lots of sandwiches until it is all used up. That is fine with me as I try to get my strength back from being ill. We also have a huge stockpile of paper plates and paper containers that are square that I got on deals. The plates were purchased at a low price just as Covid 19 started. So we are using up many of them. It is saving me from washing dishes so often and saving on water. I finally ran our dishwasher last night after 5 days because I had been using paper so often.

On Friday I went to Niagara Produce to get some fresh romaine lettuce for $ 1.99, green seedless grapes at $ 1.99 a lb, and some cheddar cheese for $ 2.69. I could have purchased the cheese cheaper elsewhere but it wasn’t worth the gasoline to drive there. My total was $8.92. Since my budget for July was $400., I now have $391.08 left.

Today is a very special day! I will be back to talk about that tomorrow. I hope you all have a great day.

Categories
Every Day

Instead of You Having to Reread My Previous Post, I am Posting Two Additions to it that I Forgot to Add

I had a nice container for bacon grease. I dropped it and it broke. So rather than buy a new one for $25. plus a hefty shipping charge, I am using a canning jar. I have many of them. If you look hard you can see the grease from the little bit of bacon I cooked yesterday. I will just keep adding my bacon grease which I strain each time I put it in here. I keep it on the lazy susan near my stove. I use it for many things like cooking eggs, with veggies, etc.

Sitting next to the bacon I cooked is my brunch. I was not hungry for much yesterday. So these few triscuits and aged cheddar cheese filled me up.

Next time I won’t rush when I am writing to you so that I could run errands. Sorry about that!