Categories
Every Day

Grocery Challenge Last Week

As you read in a prior post, I am doing a grocery challenge for the month of September. We are eating out of our stockpile and spending no more than $ 25. for the week on necessities.

We needed milk. I have been drinking a lot of it lately and we use it to cook. Top’s had it for $ 1.59 after store coupon. The half gallon of creamer was $ 2.53, the breakfast sausage were $ 1.50 a package,  and the tomatoes were $ 1.98 a lb. at Walmart.


We were down to our last quart of creamer so we desperately needed this. We are very low on breakfast meats so when I spotted this, I purchased one for breakfast this morning and one for a future Sunday breakfast. I have never paid less than $2.50- $3.00 for a package recently. So this price was a bargain. The tomatoes which ending up costing $ 5.21 were the cheapest that Walmart had and we needed them for salads. So our grand total for the week was $12.33 which is $12.67 under budget. The leftover money will be rolled into next week in case I see a rock bottom price on something that we can stockpile. 

Last night was “clean out the produce drawer” in our home. We made quite a dent in it. Hubby, who sometimes is my resident Chef, made Chef’s salads. I had leftover chicken on mine from a whole chicken I cooked recently. Hubby had ham. Mine looks good even without the Catalina dressing on it yet.


After our family breakfast today, which will be eggs, sausage and cinnamon rolls, I will make homemade chicken soup using the chicken carcass. It will taste good on a cold day like today. 


Those of you who are joining in on the Grocery Challenge, feel free to tell us how you did in the comments.

Categories
Every Day

Family Number Two

The second family who has asked for advice are the Jones(not their real name). They are in their 20’s.  Mrs. Jones is pregnant with their first child. They rent an apartment in the Midwest. Their net income after all deductions is $ 28,281. divided by 12 months equals $ 2357.

Here are their expenses each month:

Rent: $ 950. 
Groceries: $ 150.
Restaurants and Take Out: 60.
Clothing: $100.
Entertainment: $75.
Household: $25.
Travel: $100.
Medical Co Pays: $100. 
Car Insurance: $95.
Gasoline and Oil: $55.
Cell Phone: $ 64.
Electric and Gas: $75.
Emergency Fund: $50.
Renter’s Insurance: $ 10.
Miscellaneous: $ 50.

Total Monthly Expenses: $ 1959.

They have been putting the extra $ 398. into a savings account in case they have extra medical expenses with Mrs. Jones high risk pregnancy. They have a good health insurance policy through Mr. Jones employer.

This is what they have saved:

Retirement Fund: $2100.
Emergency Fund: $2000.
Medical Savings:  $1592.


When they were married a year ago, they took their cash wedding gifts and opened their retirement fund and their emergency fund. Mr. Jones has started contributing to his 401K through work and it is a deduction from his paycheck.

With a baby on the way, they are starting to think about buying a home. They would like to save a deposit of 20% down so that they don’t have to pay PMI. Housing is not really expensive in the area they live in but they still need to save $20,000 – 30,000. depending on how much they spend plus closing costs.

They want to know if they should start putting some of that $398. into a house deposit account? They also want to be able to save more money than what they are saving.


I told them I thought it was great that they didn’t have Cable TV or internet. He said it is included in their rent. They also have no car payment because they have a paid for car that her parents gave them as a wedding gift.


Mrs. Jones is not working because of her high risk pregnancy. They will rethink that after the baby is born. Her parents live close and would love to babysit. 


When I first looked at their finances, I thought this couple is doing great and they are for only being married about a year.  I also think it was very smart of them to fund some of their savings with wedding gift money.


I have had many conversations with them since they first contacted me. I have told them that I would continue to earmark that $ 398. for the high risk pregnancy. Then when they baby is born, if all or most of the bills get paid, they can just earmark it for their home deposit savings. I also reminded them that they need to get some life insurance for when the baby is born. Mr. says he already has it through work. 

They had a little outstanding credit card debt;however since I first starting talking with them, they have paid that off.

Since they would like to save more money out of the paycheck, they need to cut their expenses. I do not believe that they can cut their groceries. It is pretty low. Nor can they touch the household amount because they will be needing diapers soon. However, they could consider cloth diapers which would be much cheaper in the long run. 


The expenses I think they can lower or cut are clothing, restaurants and take out, entertainment, travel,and perhaps their car insurance although it is pretty low compared to what I pay. So these are the ones they need to work on.

Okay, now it is your turn to give them your $ .02!
What do you think they should do?

Lastly, I wanted to let you know that Bruce and Noreen want to thank all of you who gave them advice.  

I will be updating you once a week on what they are doing.   


Categories
Every Day

Family Number One

I told you previously that I have agreed to give advice that hopefully will help two families who have asked for my help with their finances. Both families have asked that I keep their names anonymous. I have agreed. 

So couple number one are Bruce and Noreen(not their real names). They are in their mid- forties and have one son who they would like to see go to college. Bruce has a professional office job and Noreen is a stay-at-home mom. They live in a home in suburbia in one of the Northeastern states.

I am going to give you their net income and expenses after Bruce’s Federal and State taxes, Social Security, Medicare taxes, 401k deposits, and healthcare payments through his employer have been taken out. They have $ 55,397.  yearly left for all other expenses.

I want to remind everyone that this is a no judgement site. I and you are here to help with suggestions not criticism. Bruce and Noreen have told me that they made some bad choices in the past so they have $21,000. in credit card debt. They have consolidated them onto the lowest interest card and they pay $1500. a month towards paying them off.  

Their monthly spending that is deducted from the $55,397. figure is as follows(all numbers have been rounded):

Mortgage and Property Taxes:  $1298.
1 Car Payment:  $ 570.( a second car is paid off)
Groceries: $ 300.
Restaurants and Take out: $150.
Clothing: $100.
Entertainment, Hobbies, and Misc, etc. – $250.
Household: $160.
Travel Savings: $120.
Car Insurance(2 cars): $160.
Gasoline and Oil: $ 121.
Car Registration and Inspection: $ 19.
Car Repairs, Tires and Other Maintenance: $100 
1 Cellphone: $60.
Home Telephone: $43.
Electric and Gas Bills: $ 183.
Cable TV, Internet: $123.
House Insurance: $ 71. 
Credit Cards: $1500.


Total Monthly Spending: $ 5328.
Total Yearly Spending: $ 63936.

They have $125,000. in 401K savings.They have drained their bank savings to help with their credit card payments. They only have $2,000. left which is $500. more than one monthly payment. They have no emergency fund. 


Any spending that they can’t account for they have added into their entertainment, miscellaneous figure above.


They are spending $ 8539. more per year than income. Hence they have asked for advice on how to fix this. They were absolutely shocked once they started tracking their income and expenses to find how much money they were in the negative. This is the reason why everyone should track this every month. Otherwise you have no idea what you are spending and for what.


I asked how they have kept afloat and they told me by spending down their savings which was an inheritance they received. But as you can see they don’t have much left.  They also rob Peter to pay Paul within their budget.


My first look at this told me a few things. They are paying too little on their debt so the interest is eating them alive. They must cut expenses and Noreen needs to make some income by either finding a job outside the home or finding one that she can do from her home at least until the credit cards are paid off. They need to sell anything in the home that is not being used to help pay their debt. I don’t think their grocery spending is out of line for a family of three. But with careful use of every morsel of food and all the other tips that I will give them via the blog this month, they should be able to knock $100. a month off of that spending. The restaurant and takeout and clothing budget spending needs to stop until their credit card bills are paid. The miscellaneous budget needs to be reduced. 

I asked them what the household amount encompasses. They said it is everything for the house inside and outside except for food. So basically it is HBA, cleaning products, personal care and yard and house maintenance. That probably can not be reduced by much. But they can try.

I also noticed that they had no money shown to pay for garbage pickup or water and sewer. They told me that it is included in their property taxes. 

The monthly travel savings needs to be stopped until their debt is paid. 

They can research other auto and home insurance companies to see if they can lower those amounts. The gasoline and oil figure is reasonable since Bruce commutes to his job and Noreen only runs local errands. 

Perhaps they can cancel the home phone since they have two cellphones. Bruce has one that his work pays for and Noreen uses the one they pay monthly for.

I will show them how to reduce their gas and electric bills. 

Can they look at cancelling cable and using some other services that are cheaper until their credit card debt is paid?

The lack of an emergency fund is one of the reasons that their credit card bills became so high. Every time prior to the inheritance, they would use the cards when an emergency came up.  

I also see no money spent on gifts and I asked them why. They said they charge them especially at Christmas. 

They have to do everything they can to reduce expenses and bring more income in to the household to pay off credit cards, bring spending into line so that it is less than income coming in. They have no choice or they will lose everything in the long run. They also need to do this so that they can save an emergency fund and save some money for their son’s college education.  


Being in their mid forties, they also need to ramp up their retirement savings.

These are my quick thoughts. This month I will show them how to cook cheaper meals at home and never get takeout or eat at a restaurant. They do have a stockpile and are doing the stockpile challenge this month along with me and others.

Anyone that has any quick thoughts for this couple, please feel free to comment.   

I will introduce the other family in my next post.

Categories
Every Day

Frugal Things That We Have Been Doing

These are the things we have been doing lately:

– My granddaughter is a history buff. She just soaks up everything she reads. Right now she is reading about WWII by borrowing books at her library. Hubby and I had a WWII book that we inherited from Hubby’s mother. But we thought we had donated it to our library in Arizona when we moved to NY.
I was thrilled when I found it in our basement bookcase this week. The book is 68 years old. The binding was coming off the book so Hubby researched online how to fix it. He followed the instructions on how to glue it, did it and let it dry. It is as good as new. We probably could have looked for a bookbinder but they are far and few in between since the internet. So we saved some money by doing it ourselves. My granddaughter will love it. 

– I made a mandarin chicken teriyaki stir fry for dinner one night. We had almost enough leftover for dinner the second night. It had plenty of chicken but needed more veggies. So I sauteed more peppers and onions and added them to the heated chicken dish.That gave us more than enough for our second dinner.

– We are now exclusively using our Eco egg for our laundry. Every drop of laundry soap is out of our home. The egg is doing a great job cleaning our clothes. 

– Our cellphone wouldn’t work. I kept getting what some people were saying was the “black screen of death”. Hubby tried to fix it by taking the battery out for a few minutes and then putting it back in. It would work until you turned the phone off and then I would get the black screen again. It was useless. I talked to my son and he said, let me bring an old phone out and perhaps we can switch the sim card. 
When he came out this weekend, he decided to do some research on the bad phone. He found that the peel on the phone had been updated recently by Sprint and that a lot of people were saying to uninstall it. That the update was causing a lot of problems with the cellphones. He tried to uninstall it and it wouldn’t. So he disabled the peel and made sure that no update on it would pop up again so that Hubby nor I would accidentally install an update on it. The cellphone is now working perfectly. Yeah!  We thought we might have to buy a new one and the cost was between $600.- $800. when you are not renewing a plan. We still have 5 months left on the contract. Yikes! 


– We are eating from our stockpile and have been for a couple of months. Right now we are trying to eat up everything in the fridge. It is pretty full. There is way too much cream cheese. I will have to get some bagels today at Panera Bread because they are discounted on Tuesdays. I still have a lot of money on our Panera gift cards that I purchased 2 years ago. So I will just have the $6.99 cost taken off one of the cards. If anyone else knows how to use up cream cheese or has a good recipe to do it, please share in comments. 

– It is so hot and humid here that we have had the A/C on almost non-stop(only a day here and a day there that it was off). Our electric bills this summer were running $25. more per month than last summer. I am doing my best to keep the shades and blinds closed as the sun moves around the house. We hardly use our stove and oven. I can’t wait until we can turn it off permanently.


– I sprayed the entire perimeter of the house for bugs again since we had heavy rain. The spiders are liking to come in since it got a little colder at night. 


– Our favorite local garage keeps e-mailing Hubby saying it is time to bring the car in for an oil change. Hubby checked his paperwork to see what the mileage was last time and checked the mileage on the SUV now. We still have many miles to go before it needs to be done. I am glad he didn’t take their word for it. They have no idea how little we drive every month. 


– Our John Deere riding lawn mower was giving Hubby a little trouble last time he mowed. It just shut off by itself while he was doing it. He checked and it looks like it needs the filter changed. So rather than have the John Deere place do it, Hubby will do it himself. He found the best price on the one it needed at Amazon. It was only $ 4.51+tax. 

– I had my yearly mammogram and my every other year bone density scan last week. Both were good.  Make sure all of you women get yours done when they are due. Your health is your most precious asset!  Take good care of it!


Please feel free to tell us about your frugal endeavors in the comments.

  

Categories
Every Day

September Eat From Your Stockpile Challenge

I meant to post about this yesterday. However I was very busy doing things with company and time just didn’t allow. Since everyone is sleeping right now except me, I now have the opportunity.

We are doing a Stockpile Challenge this month. $25. per week will be allotted for necessities like bread, milk and produce. Any of the $25. that doesn’t get spent can be used for an item that has a rock bottom price.

We will be eating from our pantries, the refrigerator, and the freezers. We are hoping to use up a lot of random stuff that has been hanging around. My hope is to free up some space, especially freezer space for those November and December bargains like turkeys, hams, cranberries, butter, etc. 

Yesterday, I did Eggo’s with real maple syrup and strawberries for breakfast for my grandson. The rest of us had oatmeal and strawberries for breakfast. The strawberries were getting really ripe and needed to be eaten. The Eggo’s were left over from enjoying my granddaughter’s company earlier this summer.

Lunch was turkey and ham and cheese sandwiches with added tomatoes and lettuce on them. I used some of the meat that I purchased this week.

Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs. I was going to make homemade meatballs but I found a 3/4 full bag of frozen in my upstairs freezer. We had tossed salads on the side with lettuce, celery, onions, tomatoes, and carrots.

Today we will have scrambled eggs, fried ham, and homemade hash browns for breakfast. I grated all of the almost 5 lb. bag of potatoes so we will be having hash browns a few times this week either at breakfast or dinner.

We rarely do lunch on Sundays because of the big breakfast which is eaten about 10am. 

Our company will be leaving sometime this afternoon. So dinner will be the leftover meatballs and sauce (pictured above)on leftover buns with melted mozzarella cheese. We will have guacamole halves on the side. 

The two couples that I am mentoring are also joining me in this challenge. They both want to cut their grocery spending and eat some of the food they have stored. More on their numbers later this week.

If anyone else would like to join in, feel free. 

Categories
Every Day

My Thought Process

I told you recently that I will be mentoring two couples that have asked me. I will give you more information on their circumstances next month. However they both have outstanding credit card debt and after looking at their after tax spendable income and their expenses, I have come to the conclusion that both families are spending way too much money on food. One family shops 3 or more times a week and the other spends way too much money eating out.

So some of the recent posts that you have seen me post is to get them thinking about their food spending. You may have seen this information before because I have had a # of blogs since I started doing it 11 years ago. Some of you probably know me as Precious. 

However, every one needs a reminder once in a while. So today I am again going over my thought process on how I grocery shop. You saw on Monday that I purchased 7 sirloin tip steaks on sale to grind into ground sirloin and how I saved on that. You all know that I buy at rock bottom prices on sale when I can.

I hadn’t planned on going to the market again this week. However you know what they say about the best laid plans. We have a dry erase board in the kitchen where Hubby and I write down things to get at the store. Well, it had quite a few things on it this morning and I have company coming tomorrow for the weekend. So today I needed to shop.

Above is the list I copied from the dry erase board minus the hash browns which Hubby had me add when he knew I was going to the store. 

The list here is after I thought about every item on it. Hubby does not go down to the basement unless it is absolutely necessary. It’s hard on his back. So he doesn’t have a clue what is in my pantry down there.

He wanted taco sauce to make a crock pot full of meat chili soon. We had a large bottle down there and part of a bottle in the fridge. So it got deleted from my list but put on a list of items that I don’t need right now but need to keep an eye out for a good sale price and coupons.

He wanted hash browns for breakfast this weekend. I have a 5 lb. bag of potatoes so I will grate them instead of buying a package.


We had a large can of Chinese noodles and Panda Express orange sauce in the pantry so they got crossed off and put on my other list.

That left the items above that I needed to purchase. I looked at the sale ads and pulled the only coupon I could find and marked it on the list along with a saving star rebate. Have you noticed that the coupons stink since the “Extreme Couponing Show” was on TV? They have even gotten worse recently. I actually know a coupon blogger from this area who did the matchups for Top’s each week. She has quit doing them because the coupons have gotten so bad and the sales are just as bad. Aldi’s and Walmart look better and better every day.


Then I went to both Top’s and Aldi’s. I could get the Kikkoman stir fry sauce for $.34 after the $.55 doubled coupon and a rebate at saving star for $.55 at Top’s plus I wanted to check their prices on other items so I went there first.

So this is what I purchased at Top’s:

stir fry sauce – $ .34
18 ct. large eggs – $2.19

This is what I purchased at Aldi’s:

American cheese singles – $ 1.99
Romaine Hearts – $ 2.29
4 qt. container of Vanilla Ice Cream – $ 3.99


My total for my grocery shop was $ 9.16.


The eggs were cheaper than buying them at Aldi’s by pennies. The BOGO free Kraft singles were $ 5.29 for
2 packages or about $ 2.65 each. I knew that I could get them for $ 1.99 at Aldi’s. Top’s romaine hearts were $ 3.49 or $ 1.20 more expensive than Aldi’s.

And yes, I purchased the ice cream that wasn’t on my list. It was a great price and we can use it for desserts for company this weekend. Root beer floats and hot fudge sundaes come to mind. I was going to bake something but when I saw the ice cream I changed my mind. I won’t heat up the kitchen since my A/C is still on. I sure hope we can turn it off permanently soon.  


I hope you all have a fun and safe Labor Day weekend. We will enjoy our company and have a great time.

Most of the children in the Northeast go back to school next week. I wish them all a great school year. I know that my granddaughter and grandson are excited that school is starting.

And lastly, we had a rainbow yesterday which I didn’t get a picture of and shortly after a beautiful sunset. The blues and oranges were magnificent.


I will be back posting soon.


Categories
Every Day

The Cravings Were So Bad!

Yesterday, when I was at the market, I was craving an Arby’s roast beef sandwich. Fortunately, it was too early for Arby’s to be open.

However, today I had to go to the drugstore and pick up two prescriptions and my cravings for Arby’s was in high gear especially because it was lunchtime. I only remember the cravings being this bad years ago when I smoked and urgently needed a cigarette. 

While I was driving to the drugstore, I kept trying to talk myself out of going to Arby’s. I reasoned that there was no coupon out for them in my coupon folder or online to make them cheaper. I had looked before I left home. They were not on sale for $1.00 or $1.50. I had even signed up on Arby’s site this morning and they said they would send a coupon. I kept looking in my e-mail and the coupon never came. However, I could almost taste the roast beef with the horsey sauce on it. Yup folks, those cravings were bad.


Finally I reached the drugstore and went in to get the two scripts. As I got back in my car, I knew I had to make a decision quickly. 

Then the voice of reason really kicked into high gear. I knew I had tons of food at home and it wouldn’t take but a few minutes to make lunch. Two roast beef sandwiches and a large order of curly fries for Hubby and I would cost me with tax about $12.50 since nothing was on sale. Going to Arby’s would add 2.1 miles to my trip and would cost more in gasoline. I had just paid $100. for the two prescriptions I had picked up. Did I want to spend more money at Arby’s on top of that? I started the car and the cravings continued.

As I was driving I got to the intersection where I could continue onto Arby’s or take a turn and head home. In a split second, I turned the car toward home. 

After I got home and put the drugs away, I grabbed some cheese and the turkey that I purchased the other day for sandwiches. I made a delicious grilled turkey and cheese sandwich, added some chips to my plate, and grabbed an orange to go with it. The sandwich and chips satisfied me and the orange ended up going back in the fridge. My cravings for Arby’s were gone. Maybe some day when the roast beef is on sale for 5/$5.55 I will get us a couple or if the free coupon ever shows up and then it will only cost me about $4.12+ tax for 2 of them. Or I will wait for them to go on sale and only pay $1.11+ tax for 2 of them. Maybe I won’t have a craving for them for a long time. Who knows?

But what I do know is that my lunch today only cost me about $1.25. Hubby wasn’t hungry for lunch.

Also what I do know is that the roast beef sandwich was a want not a need. The lunch I made was a need because I was hungry.


Now as a side note, the $100. for the prescriptions was a need not a want. But we are working to get healthier and get off of one of those scripts. One is necessary.

I have often been accused of overthinking things but you can’t teach an “old dog” new tricks. And overthinking things has served us well for the 51 years that we have been married. 

It will save you money too that you could save for something more important like private schools or college for your kids or an early retirement. You could use that money that you didn’t spend to pay off debt or save for your emergency fund.

The money I saved today will do more for my net worth than giving it to a big corporation.

So when you have a craving whether it be for food, clothing, incidentals when you are browsing the mall or a cup of coffee, just think about it a little more when the urge hits. You may be surprised when that craving all of a sudden doesn’t seem that important. 

As usual feel free to leave a comment. Do you ever have these cravings? Can you shake them?  

Categories
Every Day

Saving On Meat

We have heard many ways to save on meat. They run the gamut from buy on sale to buy at reduced price to buy in bulk when you see a rock bottom price.

But I have other ways to save on meat by just buying less. Don’t get me wrong, we love our meat here.  But none of us need more than a 3-4 oz. portion of meat at a meal. That gives us enough protein along with the cheese or vegetables that may be in or with a meal.

Some days we get those protein portions by making meatless meals. We love beans and rice or omelets. Breakfast for dinner is on our menu at least once a month.  Hubby will make scrambled eggs, omelets or scrambled egg burritos. We have a side of fruit or vegetables with those meals. 


I save a fortune in one year’s time by using beef crumbles. I cook up a large amount ground beef at a time. I use this meat masher to mash it into the smallest crumbles. Then I freeze it in half pound portions using my food saver. When I am making a skillet dish or casserole for us, I pull out one bag for it. Many times when we have lots of pasta, rice and or vegetables in that skillet dish it will last us two nights. 


Another way that I have learned to save is to dice meat into smaller dices. One time when we were visiting my son and his family, I noticed that my smart daughter- in – law diced her chicken into smaller pieces than I did for stir fry. I thought to my myself that is a great way to make the meat stretch further. I always chunked my meat much bigger than hers. Now I dice it smaller.  

I do the same with dicing pepperoni, ham, and turkey for salads or pasta dishes. You can dice your beef smaller for beef stew. Mine were always too big. 

Another thing I do is grind my own meat. My Top’s has sirloin tip steaks on sale for $ 3.99 a pound this week. It is the only grocery purchase that I am making this week. So when I went to the market this morning, there was only 1 in the case. I asked at the butcher shop and they said they would cut me 6 more steaks fresh. So I purchased about 5.57 lbs. of steak which was 7 steaks total. I paid a total of $22.23 for all of them. They are pictured up top.


We don’t like sirloin tip steak grilled so I grind it into ground sirloin. Today the ground sirloin is on sale for $ 4.99 a lb. so I only saved $1.00 a lb. But most of the time it is priced closer to $5.99 – $ 6.99 in my stores. I made all of the bags for my food saver from on sale cheap rolls that I had stockpiled. But I would repackage the meat even if I had purchased the $4.99 lb. ground sirloin. $1.00 a pound savings on ground sirloin is well worth my time. Those dollars add up over a year into many dollars.


Hubby helped with the grinding, using our Kitchen Aid grinder attachment while I cut up the steaks and trimmed the little bit of grizzle that was on them. I left a very little bit of fat on them to flavor the meat.  I think it tastes better especially for hamburgers.


I didn’t have time today to cook up the ground meat so I used the food saver to package it raw into the portions I wanted to freeze.

But first I weighed them on my kitchen scale after zeroing out the bowl that I put the ground meat in. 


Then I used the food saver to package them up. I ended up with seven 1/2 lb. packages for skillet or casserole dishes. One 2 lb. package because Hubby wants to make chili soon. One 3/4 lb. package for mini cupcake meatloaves. And lastly a one pound package wrapped in saran wrap that I stuck in my fridge for tomorrow night’s hamburger dinner. We grill 4 hamburgers outside. Any that don’t get eaten get crumbled up into the next night’s spaghetti sauce.

Yes if you do the math, we ended up with 7.25 lbs. of ground sirloin even though the meat price stickers showed 5.57 lbs. that I was charged for. The butcher obviously gave me extra because he didn’t trim them as well as he might of if they were individually packaged in the meat case. I took a tiny bit of grizzle off of them. Yes I used a bit of fat but not much. There is no way that those trimmings came to a 1/4 of a lb. So I ended up paying $ 22.23 for 7 lbs. of ground meat or $3.18 a pound. This happens a lot when I have the butcher cut something for me. So in the end, I saved $ 1.81 a pound!
 
Any time I need ground beef, turkey, chicken or pork, I look at the ground prices and all the other cuts of meat to see what is cheaper. I have ground sirloin tip steaks and roasts, chuck steak and roasts, round steaks, chicken thighs or breasts, whole chickens, the dark meat from turkeys, and turkey breasts so many times over the years. Besides saving money, the other advantage that is important to me is the fact that I know my equipment for grinding is super clean and so are my hands.


I realize that not everyone has a Kitchen Aid with a grinder attachment. But I have seen many hand grinders in thrift stores for a couple of dollars. They look like my Grandma’s old fashioned one that she used to attach to a chair and hold a bowl under it.


I would love to know your tips on saving on meat for your family’s meals. Please leave a comment and share with all of us.  

Categories
Every Day

More Than Free

I have owned this book since it was first published. It is my very favorite of all of the ones I own except for The Tightwad Gazette.

When my sister was here to visit, she asked if she could pick a couple of books from my collection of frugality books to read at night while she was here. She chose this one and another. She read the other one first and had only gotten less than half way through this one. I told her to take it home and just give it back to me the next time we see each other which most likely be another two or three years.

Since I liked it so much I thought she would too. So I set out to find another copy so that I could gift her this book. I looked at all the used book places in my area and the thrift shops but no luck. Next I looked online for a used book. I found one at Amazon.

It was marked as a Prime offer even though it was sold by another seller on Amazon. So I ordered it. Even though that was on August 3rd and it was marked Prime, they said it would not arrive until between August 10 -August 17th. I didn’t need it right away so that was not a problem. That started the saga I am about to tell you about.

I was charged for this book on the 4th. The next e-mail I got told me that the book had been shipped on the 7th but the seller had not given them any tracking number or any other details. So since it was coming from a state that was very close to me, I started to look for it every day when the mail came. No book arrived. Then I got another e-mail telling me the seller had shipped the book on August 11th and they gave me a tracking #. So I kept looking. Looking up that # daily, it kept saying that it was awaiting the shipment from the seller. Every day through the 17th it said that. I was running out of patience and decided there might be some kind of scam going on here.

Finally when it didn’t arrive by the 17th, I sent an inquiry to the seller and noted all the different dates I had been given and how it looked to me like he or she had no intention on mailing the book to me. I informed them that I wanted a full refund.

The same day I got an e-mail informing me that they were refunding my money and that I didn’t have to return the book. I am thinking to my self, huh? I thought is that a comment to make Amazon believe that they shipped the book and I probably got it. I ignored it and watched my credit card account for the refund. Amazon informed me that the seller was refunding what I paid for it plus a goodwill credit of $.74. Don’t ask why that much because I don’t have a clue. In about 3 days my credit card charge was refunded.


The saga continues! I get another e-mail informing me the book was shipped on August 17th. I track the # on the Post Office site and finally a day or so later, it shows up as the book finally arriving in their possession. The book actually arrived yesterday – August 23rd. That surprised me. I really didn’t believe that I would see it.


I was exhausted from all that went on regarding this. It took a lot of my time to track things. I have a question for all of you.  Would you give this seller a review? I am assuming they sent the book even though they had refunded it along with the $.74  goodwill credit so that they would not get a negative review. Would you give the seller a negative review anyhow but advise that they finally made good on it? Or would you not give them any review at all? I am tempted to do the latter. I don’t know for sure but I am thinking the seller didn’t have the book when she sold it. That is because the book was shipped from a different state than the one she lives in. It was an adjacent state to her.

Anyhow buyer beware!  After loosing hundreds of dollars on the Zaycon mess, I an getting very leary of buying from anyone except a reputable large business that has shareholders. 

Please leave a comment on what you think I should do as far as the review. 

Categories
Every Day

Cheaper Cold Cuts

I had not shopped all week until today. We keep a dry erase board on the side of our fridge and Hubby had added the following to it:

Head and Shoulders Shampoo
Szechuan Sauce
8 oz. container of whipped cream cheese(Hubby loves adding cinnamon & brown sugar to make his own spread for bagels)

Since it was a nice day, I planned an efficient trip to the drug store to pick up a prescription, to Walmart, and to Top’s. Top’s carries the sauce and Walmart doesn’t. However the sauce and cream cheese are cheaper at Walmart. Tops and Walmart are almost next door to each other so the cost of gas isn’t an issue.

Just before I went to go out the door, I asked Hubby if there was anything else he wanted. He said turkey and ham cold cuts. My heart sank because cold cuts are $ 6.99 – $ 10.99 in my area on sale. And sometimes the better brands are even more. Hubby also has a habit of wanting them and then only eating them for lunch a day or two and then ignoring them and they go to waste. So I have not been buying them.

I usually cut our own from a ham or turkey that I cook. But it has been so hot since May that we have not used our oven.

Many times I purchase a chub of ham, turkey ham, or turkey and slice it on our slicer that you see pictured. I can usually get that chub for a few dollars less per pound than what is sells for at the deli. If you don’t have a slicer, you can take it to the deli and they most likely will slice it for you. Before I had my slicer not one market ever turned me down.

So I decided that I would get a chub of turkey and of ham. Knowing what the deli prices were at Top’s for them and for the chubs, I went to Walmart first where I was surprised at what they have. They had a few different brands to pick from. Both stores carry Smithfield ham but Walmart’s price was $1.27 cheaper per pound at $ 3.72 than Top’s price. The Kentucky Legend Oven Roasted Turkey Brand was $ 5.22 a lb. Top’s does not carry turkey chubs. We have had the Kentucky brand before and it is delicious.

Can you look at the picture of the chubs and see something that even surprised me? They are already sliced! So I had to buy them to show those of you who don’t have electric slicers.


Right now the cheapest turkey is $6.99 at my deli and the ham is $ 6.99. Since I purchased 2.57 lbs. of ham and 1.78lbs. of turkey, I saved $ 11.55 by not purchasing it at the deli. 

Obviously Hubby and I could not eat all of this at once. So the ham is good in the shrink wrap until October 21st  and the turkey until October 13th. 

So I put a third of the turkey in my fridge and we will work on eating that. Then I used my food saver to package up 2/3’s of it into two different packages to freeze. Once we open the ham we will do the same thing but put it into more food saver packages for the freezer. Whenever we need cold cuts, I will take a frozen package out and put a paper towel under the meat to soak up the liquid as it thaws. Then I will replace it with a new dry paper towel. This will keep bacteria at bay while we eat it.

We also use these cold cuts to put in Chef’s salads  which we love. And the ham can be diced to put in ham and cheese omelets for breakfast.

For lunch today we had turkey and lettuce sandwiches on croissants that I picked up on the marked down rack at Walmart for $ 1.99 for 4 large ones. I haven’t figured out how to make nice buttery croissants yet. But I will!

No matter what you purchase at the grocery store, think hard about how you can do it cheaper. Better to keep your money in your pocket than give it to a business. Businesses watch their bottom line like a hawk and you should be too.

I will be back with another post tomorrow.