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Every Day

Monday’s Shopping

Tomorrow is Senior Citizen 6% discount day at Top’s but it is supposed to be nasty weather. So I decided to go today instead. 

Bananas were on sale for $. 49 a lb. The mushrooms were $1.34 and were needed for dinner tonight. Hubby is grilling a 1 and 1/2 inch thick NY strip steak( from my freezer) that we are going to share. I love sauteed mushrooms on my steak. I will be baking some potatoes and making a salad.

The Rana Fettucine($2.)and the Bob’s Red Mill Unbleached All Purpose flour($1.99) were on sale but after MQ and store Q they were free. The milk was $ .99 with store Q. The yogurt, the 16 oz. Muuna Cottage cheese, the Sure deodorant and the sun dried tomatoes were  free after MQ and store Q’s.

The bacon bits and Very Berry Cheerios were full price. Those were a miscalculation on my part. I had no idea we were out so I couldn’t wait for a sale. But when they go on sale again, I will stock.


The ice cream($ 5.99) was on B1G1F sale. The Lean Cuisine was on sale for $2.00. My total OOP was $ 18.16. I may make one more trip this week to get some more of the free items if I have time. I have a $75.00 per week budget for groceries so I have $ 56.84 left for the rest of the week.

Did you get any good deals this week? Please share with us.

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Every Day

Organized Spices

My spice cabinet has been a mess forever. The bottles were all different sizes and shapes and it did not look very neat. Actually it drove me crazy especially when Hubby wouldn’t put them back where they belonged. So I spent some time and money this week organizing the spices, hopefully, for the last time.

I purchased square spice jars here. They came with  a few labels but most of the ones I needed were not with the jars. So I purchased a large label collection
here. It has blank labels and labels that I could use in my pantry also. It is an awesome collection!

I also purchased an expandable spice shelf for the first shelf here.  I already owned the other spice shelf on the second shelf. 

I just emptied my old spice jars into the new ones. I attached the proper label each time I did one. Large spice jars that didn’t get emptied are now in quick access storage so that I can lay my hands on them easily when I need to refill.

What I like about the way I arranged them is that I can see each and every label and they are in alphabetical order. Hubby has promised to let me get out the spices when he uses them. That way this will stay organized.

The ideal for my spices would have been a drawer with special shelf inserts made for the spices. However I do not have a large drawer near my stove which is where I use the spices so this was the next best alternative. I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

I hope you all are having a great weekend! 

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Every Day

Lamb Roast

As most of you know, Hubby and I have been married more than 50 years now. One of the first recipes that I cooked for us was a lamb roast. Hubby has absolutely loved it ever since. So I surprised him and roasted it today for dinner.

My SIL gave me “The Children’s Hospital of Buffalo Cookbook” for my bridal shower gift in spring of 1967. I knew nothing about Buffalo at that time so it is amusing to me that I now live near Buffalo. It was the first cookbook I got and I have used it all these years. It fell apart but I still use the recipes that I learned to love and that taught me to cook. I had no idea how to cook or bake when I said “I do”.

So today’s dinner recipe is in that book for Lamb Pot Roast. However from the first time I cooked it, I roasted it in the oven and tweaked the recipe a little bit to accommodate that. Here are the ingredients:

1 leg of lamb
Oil
2 tsps. salt
1 tsp. of oregano
1/2 tsp of pepper
1 minced garlic clove
1 can of beef consomme
1 small can of tomato sauce

I brush the lamb with some oil. Then I sprinkle it with the salt, oregano, and pepper. I mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and pour just enough to wet the roast on it. Then I pour the rest of the sauce into the pan. I roasted it at 325 degrees for about 2 hours. I baste the roast every 25 minutes or so. This roast was a small one- about 3 lbs. and only had a small bone. It cooked to medium. You can thicken the gravy but it was thick enough for us tonight. I always put some little potatoes in for Hubby. He loves them with the sauce spooned on them. We both love the sauce spooned on a slice of lamb. It was so delicious and tender tonight.

The pics show the roast resting for a few minutes after I took it out of the pan. The other pic is of the pan with the potatoes and sauce still in it.

Did you cook a favorite for dinner tonight?
  

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Every Day

I Am Loving Walmart

Today I went to Super Walmart to do my weekly  grocery shopping. I only got the few things that we  really needed. I am pretty well stocked on just about everything else.

Because my regular supermarket, Top’s is so expensive except when items are on sale, I have decided to shop more and more at Super Walmart and Aldi’s.

This week I only needed the above items and I was so surprised at the prices which I have put on my lowest price list that I am updating with current prices. This is what I purchased:

– 1 Mylanta – $ 6.97

– Romaine Hearts(bag of 3) – $ 2.28

– 1 Cucumber – $ .54 

– 1- 2lb. bag of Wild Caught Salmon – $ 7.52

– 2.33 lbs. of Bananas – $ 1.03

–  1 Equate Nasal Spray – $ 1.88

My total OOP was $ 20.22. That leaves $ 54.78 left for the rest of the week.


I was so happy to find this frozen salmon there. I have been paying a whole lot more for it elsewhere. I like these portions for lunch or dinner and sometimes with breakfast. They had the cheapest price I have found for the romaine lettuce and cucumber. 

I also purchased the above pictured 4 packs of dish towels to replace some of the ones that are worn out. They have improved these towels so that they are thicker and more absorbent. They cost $ 4.97 for each pack for a total out of our Other Budget of $ 10.74 including tax. We use brown to dry our hands in the kitchen and green to dry dishes and pots and pans. 

I know some people hate Walmart but we all have our likes and dislikes. Right now it is working for me. 

Do you shop at Super Walmart for any food? What is your favorite item that you always buy there? Mine has great produce. When Aldi’s produce is looking a little old, I always know that SW will have good looking produce. I also know that I can get produce reasonably priced at Niagara Produce but today I wanted one stop shopping.  

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Every Day

Are Warehouse Clubs Worth The Money You Pay For Membership?

This is a question that I have been wrestling with for a long time. I wasn’t going to renew my membership a year ago and then I did. 

My membership is due to be renewed tomorrow. I have decided to not renew it. After keeping track of the mostly basic items that I bought like olive oil, rice, floss, liquid soap refills, etc., I have determined that I didn’t have enough savings to even equal the $55. membership fee I paid for the year.

There are so many good options for getting rock bottom prices in other stores and on Amazon that I don’t need the warehouse club anymore.
 
I can get meat cheaper through Zaycon Fresh, bulk sale buying from Niagara Produce, grocery store sales, and my local meat market.

Produce is cheaper at Aldi’s and Niagara Produce and I don’t have to buy it in such large quantities.

My Super Walmart carries a lot of bulk items at great prices. Krusteaz pancake mix is one that I buy there all the time in a huge bag. It stays nice and fresh for us because I transfer it to an airtight container.  

Best Buy and Amazon give B.J.’s a run for their money on electronics. B.J.’s would be great for tires but they do not offer the off size ones that we need.

They offer a very limited supply of vitamins. But we get ours either at Walmart or Puritan Pride.

Shampoo and conditioner is cheap at Walmart or with a coupon at a drugstore sale. My latest stockpile of those was built for free at drugstores. The same goes for deodorant and toothpaste. 
 
It used to be the best price for Hubby’s razor blade refills. But now so many places have refills like Daylogic at Rite Aid that fit Hubby’s Mach 3 razor. Dorco and other online shopping places beat those prices too.

They do carry discounted gift cards but there are many places on line where you can get discounted ones.  


I will miss my discounted stamps but I only save pennies on them and we use them rarely anymore.


They have a good book selection but my library is free.


Except for socks, I don’t buy clothing there. Socks I can buy cheap at Walmart or Target.


I finally realized that I don’t need the warehouse stores anymore.

How about you? Are you still shopping at the warehouse store? Are you actually saving money above what you pay for your membership. If you are not sure, track it.        

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Every Day

From Scratch

An easy stir fry for dinner tonight that I cooked from scratch. Peppers, onions, pineapple and chicken in a stir fry sauce served over rice that Hubby cooked in the pressure cooker. This was delicious.

Breakfast was a strawberry, blueberry, banana and almond milk smoothie. Lunch was a tossed salad with lettuce, cucumber, tomato, carrot and vinegar and olive oil.

What did you have for dinner?

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Every Day

Frugal Things That We Have Been Doing

We have been really busy around here doing a myriad of frugal things. 

I have been doing our Federal and State Income Taxes. We have to file 7 forms this year because our taxes are so very complicated. I was thinking that I would either take them to a tax accountant or get Turbo Tax. But since I have done them for 50 years, I decided that I can do them and save the money that I would spend on the tax software or accountant. I have been working on them all day so that is why I haven’t had time to write until now. I am taking my time and hope to finish them by Sunday.

Hubby has been working with the insurance agency to lower our homeowner’s and car insurances. He brought the draft of the new policies home for me to look at. I like what I see, so we will sign them and he will take them to the agency in the morning and pay for them. This will save us about $180. a year.

I deposited 3 rebate checks into our savings account.

I returned two items that were defective when we purchased them. I got replacements that were perfect.

I returned toothbrush heads that Hubby purchased at Amazon that were the wrong ones. I sent them back and they are crediting us for the full amount.

I found the right toothbrush heads online at Walmart and ordered them for free pickup at my store. I picked them up while running other errands near there. 

I only grocery shopped once this week so I have not spent my full grocery budget. I am accumulating grocery money because the chicken order from Zaycon Fresh will be due next month and I want to make sure that I have enough grocery money to pay it.

By only running errands once per week, I am saving on gasoline.  Gasoline prices have really increased here over the past month or two.

Hubby has been having trouble with the Green Mountain Decaf Breakfast Blend K-cups that we purchase through Amazon. They only make a half cup even when you put the coffee pot on the large cup setting. It has happened before and with two different coffee pots. It’s like the water won’t go through the cup. When you open it to remove the cup, you get scalded. He was telling my son about it and my granddaughter said to him that he should write the company about the cups. So he found the Keurig website and tried to send them his complaint but it wouldn’t let him. So he called them. He got a customer service rep who was of no help. So he got a supervisor who understood his complaint. She asked him how many K-cups he had. He told her 5 boxes of 12 and about 6 from the 6th box of 12. She asked him if Fed Ex could pick them up so that they could get them back and have them tested. He said sure. She said she would replace the 6 boxes. She shipped it overnight so he wouldn’t be without coffee for long. The K-cups arrived today and she sent him 6 boxes of 24 cups each. Wow! We weren’t expecting to get double the amount that we purchased. He will try the new cups and see if they work the same as the Amazon ones. If not, then I would say the problem may be the Amazon ones. We’ll see.  But anyway, it pays to tell the company when you have a problem. We have had no problem with any other brand of K cup.

We have been doing the usual to save on electricity and natural gas. We don’t let water run in sinks while we brush our teeth or do dishes or pots and pans. We use our dishwasher on the energy saving cycle. I use the express wash cycle on the HE washer. I use 6 balls in the dryer so that the clothes dry faster when I use the dryer. It has been hard for me to hang laundry while I have my broken toe. We take navy showers.

I used a $ 100. Amazon giftcard that was given to us for our last subscribe and save order that arrived. It had the coffee in it that I spoke about above.


We ordered pizza and wings when our family was here last weekend. I paid with a Domino’s gift card.

We have been eating most of our meals cooked from scratch here at home. This week we have been finishing up leftovers from last weekend. I did make taco meat one night- two pounds of it. I froze 1/2 of it after it was cooked for future meals. 

I made homemade pumpkin bread to go with our breakfast on Monday. I made two loaves and sent a loaf home with my son. My DIL and granddaughter love pumpkin bread.

My Hubby paid a fortune for a hearing aid about 3 years ago. It has been back to the manufacturer at least 7 times with problems that they never seemed to be able to fix. It went out of warranty just before the 6th time. Hubby contacted corporate and told them that they should make the repairs free to us because they has never been able to repair it correctly during the warranty period. They said to have the place where he purchased it ship it back and they would look at it again. They sent it back and said it was fixed. Within a couple of days, there was so much static and it wouldn’t go away. So they said send it back. The woman who has been shipping it back each time called him a week or so ago and said that the company is sending him a brand new upgraded hearing aid with a full warranty and that she would call him when it came in. She called today and scheduled an appointment for him to come in and have it set to his hearing. If he hadn’t stuck with it and complained to corporate, we would be out buying a new hearing aid.


What have you done frugally lately?

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Every Day

Many Happenings

We had a wonderful weekend with our children and grandchildren. My granddaughter is so tall and such a wonderful young lady. Her parents have raised her to be so polite and considerate. I just love chatting with her. I hated to see her go home yesterday.

I cooked 7 meals over the weekend and we ordered pizza and wings for carryout for the 8th meal. I would have loved to have taken my family out to dinner but I am leery of crowds and people hacking and coughing in restaurants with so much flu around. I was taking a chance getting the carryout. But I told my family that next time they come, we will take them out to dinner.

Shortly after they left yesterday, I was racing around the house stripping beds, gathering towels to wash and just some general picking up. I was racing down the hallway and I slammed my baby toe into the board that our railing is set in. I broke my toe. You ought to see it today. So many different colors and so sore. I knew I wanted to do errands today but it was too painful to put my sneakers on. So I put on my loafers which were a little easier on the toe. But now I am resting it and writing to you.

I went to CVS, Aldi’s, Walmart and Top’s this morning.  At CVS, I purchased cashews, M&M’s, and 2 boxes of Puffs. After using $8.00 in ECB’s that were expiring tomorrow and a 25% off regular priced product coupon, I paid $ 2.39 including tax. Hubby had been wanting cashews for a long time but they are so expensive that I kept waiting until I could get them on sale. Needless to say he is very happy today.

Next door to CVS is an Aldi’s so I stopped in and bought potato chips, a 3 pack of peppers, tartar sauce, 1/2 and 1/2, a 3lb. bag of mandarins and 2 bags of semi-sweet morsels. My total was $ 14.03.

Next I went to the pick up counter at Walmart. Hubby had ordered 3 brush refills for his Waterpik toothbrush. They come out of the $100. Other budget this week.

Last, I went to Top’s where I purchased celery, 2 Philadelphia cream cheese, 2 lbs. of bacon, 4 yogurt, 2 baking mixes, and 2 fresh mozzarella balls. My total was $ 26.35 after sales and coupons.

So far this week, I have spent $ 42.77 of my $ 75.00 budget. I doubt that I will shop any more this week. My toe does not like it. 


We got our gas and electric bill today and it was $ 238.60 for one month. Yikes! It is amazing what cold weather will do to a bill. We keep our heat at 71 because Hubby is always cold. Because of this our heating bills have been very high this winter. I am just happy that we have saved and invested over the years so that we can afford them. 

Since I will most likely be home bound the rest of the week, I will just do some cleaning and organizing around here. I am also working on a lowest price list for all of the foods that I buy. As I am building my stockpile again, I am marking the prices I pay and that way I can see what the lowest prices are that I purchase things at. If I have enough for three months or more in my stockpile, I won’t even look for more until the last month of my stockpile and then I will look for the lowest price on that item.

My toilet paper stockpile was getting low so I ordered this at Amazon. It is 80 rolls. This is thin toilet paper which is what most people who have septic tanks use. It works out to about $ .008 a square foot which is a stock up price. We use it on the recommendation of our Roto-Router man who unclogged the elbow in the sewer pipe out near the road for us when it got clogged. Roto Router is expensive so I will take his advice and try to avoid another clog. It is still on sale if anyone needs it.


On that note, I am off to cut up veggies for our taco  meat salads that we will have for dinner tonight.
  

 

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Every Day

I Hit Up the 50% Off Valentine’s Candy Sale and Other Things

It has been a busy week filled with such anticipation of my family arriving. I can hardly wait. So I have been trying to keep busy planning menus, etc.

This morning I went to Walmart to make a return and hit up the 50% off Valentine’s sale. I was only interested in candy for baking and Halloween. I just freeze it for those purposes. It actually keeps without freezing it for a long time. Happy that I went early because they did not have much and I was shopping for us and my DIL. So I bought a lot of chocolates to make cookies, cupcakes, muffins, party mix, etc. I paid with grocery money that I roll and a Walmart Gift Card. 

While I was up that way, I stopped at Home Depot to pick up a 3 way LED bulb. Until I researched online, I had no idea that they made them yet. I paid full price for one because our regular bulb died last night. I paid with a Home Depot gift card that Hubby got for Christmas. I will be looking for a sale on them so that I can replace the other 3 way bulbs that we use.

I also stopped at Panera Bread and used one of the $400. worth of discounted Gift Cards that I got a year ago from supermarket deals to buy bagels to go with breakfast on Saturday.


My last stop was at Dollar Tree to make a return and get the product replaced. I picked up 4 small bags of Valentine candy that were marked $ .50 each. 

Hubby has been busy the last few days trying to get our Homeowner’s Insurance cheaper. He finally decided to go to an agency that handles a lot of companies. They can check companies and prices a lot easier than we can. Our homeowners which is due in March went up $ 140. this year alone. Since we bought this house almost 8 years ago the premium gone up 150% and we have never had a claim. Our auto policy, we just paid in December and that has risen rapidly also. We knew that we wanted to consolidate them but we did not want to take a hit for cancelling the auto policy so soon after we paid the annual premium. So the agency checked all of that for us. They found out that our company that we are with now does not charge a huge fee for cancelling early. They just pro-rate it and give us the money back. So we are considering a nationwide company who will insure us for the exact insurance that we have now on both policies and consolidate them so they both come due on the same time. We do not insure for the minimums. We carry hundreds of dollars worth of insurance on both our home and our SUV. The new company is charging us $200. less for both policies combined. Now of course, we run the risk of that company going up on renewal but so will the other one go up. And we can always have the agency look for a cheaper policies again on renewal. We also checked each companies BBB rating and they are just about the same. So we will make our decision in the next couple of days. 

My son and granddaughter are arriving mid morning tomorrow and not leaving until Monday. So I will be back posting on Tuesday. I hope you all have a great weekend.

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Every Day

This Week’s Shopping and Solving a Dilemma

I hope you all had a good weekend. We spent ours indoors watching the Olympics. With the exception of Hubby snow blowing the 11 and 1/2 inches of snow we got, we never went outside.

Today, I did the weekly shopping. I put my $75.00 in my wallet and spent almost all of it. I spent $72.32. I was totally out of bacon so I picked up some regular and some turkey bacon. I always need to keep breakfast things for our Sunday family breakfasts. I am needing more for this weekend but more about that later. The hash browns are also for this weekend along with the ice cream and Hershey’s syrup.

Our ground turkey was gone. It was on sale but only at 33% off which is not a great price so I only bought 2 lbs. However the sirloin tip roasts were on sale for $ 3.99 a lb. so I purchased one to cut up for stew meat.

I purchased one extra newspaper because there were 3 inserts this week. I always need Half and Half. So I got 2. The Kleenex, oatmeal, veggies, and Kikkoman sauces were great prices after sale and coupons. So they will go in my stockpile. The soy sauce sale was just in time because I only had about 1/2 inch in my last bottle.

I only spent $38.00 last week so I have $ 37.00 that I could spend if I do need something since I have lots of company this coming weekend.

Yes, my son is coming out on a business trip on Friday or Thursday evening depending on the weather. He is bringing my granddaughter and they are staying until Monday. We are so excited. We didn’t think that we would see them for another month or so.

And my grandson is coming at 11AM on Saturday and staying until noon or so on Sunday. That was a previous date that we had on our calendar. So that left us with a bedroom dilemma. We only have three bedrooms. My granddaughter will stay in one and my son in the other spare room. 

My grandson likes to stay up all night talking and my granddaughter likes her sleep. We tried sleeping them in the same room once and that did not work out well.

So my son is bringing my grandson’s air mattress and sleeping bag. But where can we sleep him? We can’t do the great room because we adults will be up in there until midnight. There is no room in our bedroom.

So Hubby and I thought about it and this is what we came up with. We will put him in our office. It’s pictured above. Excuse the mess but Hubby is cleaning it. We will move the writing table over in front of the windows and take the chair out and that will give my grandson a large spot in the middle of the room for his bed. 

However we have French doors on that room and they are not great for the privacy that a young man needs. Remember that large roll of paper that I purchased to wrap presents a long time ago. Well, Hubby cut two large strips of it and taped it over the windows using painter’s tape so that it wouldn’t hurt the paint on the doors. 

All we have left to do is find our extra nightlights to put in that room for him.

He should be very comfortable sleeping in there for one night.

The grandchildren are very excited that they will get to spend time with each other for a day. They don’t see each other very often.

And of course, Grandma has to spoil them while they are here. That is what the ice cream and Hershey’s syrup is for. I will bake some brownies and make brownie sundaes for dessert on Saturday night. We will top them with whipped cream and maraschino cherries. I am also considering ordering pizza and wings for dinner that evening. It will be easy for me and the kids and we adults will love it.