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Every Day

Washing Machine Help!

I washed a load of wash last night and threw it in the dryer. When I transferred the wash, I saw no water in the tub. When we got up this morning there was two full buckets of water in the machine. Has this ever happened to any of you? Hubby things the valve for the water may not have turned off.

So I bailed the water out and washed a small load this morning. It is drying now. There again was no water in the tub when I took the wash out. I am keeping an eye on the washing machine every 1/2 hour or so to see if I get water in the tub again.

I bought these HE’s second hand from my son and DIL. I think they had them about 3 years when they lived in AZ. So I believe these machines are about 12 years old. They are due to have something go wrong or just die. We do have a wonderful local family to owns a repair service who I can call if need be. But depending on the price to fix, I may be in the market for a washing machine or set.

These large HE’s are huge in my small laundry room so I would be in the market for smaller ones. I think they have smaller energy efficient machines now. Does anyone have them? I would love to know what brand and/or model you have and how you like it.

Thanks for your help.   

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Every Day

Dollar Tree Haul

Shopping at Dollar Tree is so much fun. I went today. I also went last week but I forgot to take a picture. Sorry! 

But anyhow today’s haul was a good one. I love, love, love their off brand magic erasers. So I picked up a couple of boxes. I keep one in every room which is handy for when I need it. After I dust baseboards, I use one to get any spots off. They can be used for a million things.

I was almost out of parchment paper so I picked up two. The coconut oil spray works really well and mine was almost gone.

You can tell that Hubby was really excited to get new pill containers. He tore the packaging off before I could get my picture. I actually picked up 5 of these. They are hard to find around here. He uses two and I use two (night time and morning pills). But when I put pills in them, I do two weeks  at a time so I use 4. I had found these last week and only bought one. I wanted to use it for a while and if I liked it then get more. Since I did like it, I rushed back to get them for both of us. These fit so easily in your hand and take up very little room. I think I will love it for my trip too. We have been using the large long ones but these are so much better.

I also picked up 6 of the long slim rectangular storage bins. I love these for vanity items and desk drawers. 

The magic erasers are sitting on two cabinet shelf dividers which I use on a shelf in my closet. They are flimsier than ones that I paid a lot more money for. But they are perfect for the lightweight things I will use them for.

And lastly, my favorite score of the day was 5 packages of cutting mats. They come two to a pack and I needed about 10 to do my refrigerator. I wanted something that would protect my refrigerator shelves when something gets spilled. I hate it when spilled milk or something else gets down in the cracks and crevices and you have to take everything apart to clean in the sink. These will prevent much of that. I can just wipe them off on the day before grocery day. So these will be a project for me in the next couple of days. Over the years I have looked at the expensive fridge mats and I don’t want to spend close to $100. to do my refridgerator. These may not be as good but will do the job for $ 5.00.

So this haul cost me $ 24.76 including tax.

Do any of you use these items? What else do you buy that you love? Please leave a comment and share with all of us.

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Every Day

A New Budget for 2018

We are doing things a little bit differently this coming year so that we can keep our eye targeted on the budget and not overspend. We have an expensive item that we are saving for so overspending is OUT!

As I told you in a prior post, we are budgeting $75. per week for the two of us for food, cleaning supplies, HBA, and plastic and food saver baggies. We have used this food budget the past couple of months and it is working well. 

So then we talked about how much should we spend on allowances( more on that in a moment), hair salon appointments, home decor ( little things, not furniture or flooring), clothing, car washes, etc.
 
Basically these are items that we have some control over and that fluctuate from time to time. As far as allowances are concerned, we don’t really use an allowance system. If we need to spend money, we just do it. So no allowances for 2018 for us.

Hair salon appointments have gotten out of control. I spend on average $ 110. to $140. a month on my hair. I have haircuts, color, and highlights every month/or every other month. Yes, it is a high end salon in our area and it is a luxury I enjoy. It also saves me from making a mess in my home when I am coloring my own hair. However when I realized that this works out to $ 1320. to $ 1680. per year just for me, I was aghast. I didn’t realize how expensive it was until I looked at the annual amount. Hubby spends $15. per month on his haircut or $ 180. per year.  

So I am going to try to go longer between haircuts. Perhaps that will be 6-8 weeks. I am also considering going back to coloring my own hair and forgetting about the highlights. I hate the idea but I also hate the idea of spending that much money at the salon every year.

Home decor are the little things like pillows, plants, candles, etc. that we bring home to add something new to the decor. These can add up fast if we don’t pay attention. Since I don’t like a lot of decorative things that I have to dust and maintain, I am pretty minimalist in this area. 

Hubby and I have all the clothes we need so we just replace things as they wear out or as we go down in sizes. I have to get some new pants soon. You should have seen me trying to keep my slacks up in the market the other day. I needed a belt. That is when I realized I had to go down a size. So I will be hitting the consignment store for a few new to me pairs. I don’t want to buy anything expensive because I plan on losing more weight. 

It will also cover all of the little things like stopping for a car wash, paying for dry cleaning, the little things we buy at the gas station store, a magazine we want, etc. You get the idea.

So after lots of conversation and deciding what this would cover, we are going to spend no more than $100. per week in this category. We believe that $ 5200. per year is more than plenty for this spending. 

So these are two categories that we have decided in our 2018 budget. We will be doing our best to stick to them and reporting it to you to keep us accountable. 

How are you doing setting your 2018 budget? If you have never set a budget before, take a look at your spending for 2017 and set a reasonable one. When you don’t know what you are spending that is when you get into trouble. I have heard from so many people that they didn’t realize they were spending $10,000. to $20,000. more per year than their income until they tracked it. They said no wonder we had so much credit card debt. It is a lot easier to track your income and expenses every year than it is so be stressed out and wondering how you are going to pay those credit card bills. Pay off the debt, don’t add another dime to it and you will see how nice it is to be debt free and saving for emergencies and things you want.

More to come soon. 

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Every Day

Dollar Tree Gifts, etc.

For those of you looking for stocking stuffers or a small gift for a neighbor or friend, I found these Bolero soaps at Dollar tree yesterday. They are natural and the scents are wonderful. I picked up the Vanilla Cream and the Apple and Cinnamon. But they did have others. 

If you are lucky enough to find the lotion that matches, you could make a small gift basket for someone. Mine did not have them. 

I have read that some offices are stuffing stockings for co-workers rather than buy an expensive individual gift for each one. Stockings are put up for each worker and then you put an inexpensive gift in each one. This soap would work, a lottery scratch off, a pen or pencils. You can buy the little Kleenex travel packs at 3 for $1.00 at my Dollar Tree. Target has nice Christmas socks for $ .97 each. You really don’t have to spend a lot of money to do this. 

You could even make something for the stockings like a homemade bookmark.  There are some ideas at
Tip Junkie . You could bake a couple of cookies for each one.


I have lots of neighbors who are teachers and I asked each of them what is their favorite Christmas gift that their students give them. Hands down it was a few Christmas cookies or baked breads in a pretty bag, tin,or box. They told me they love getting those because they either don’t bake or can’t find the time to bake.


Fortunately I don’t have stockings or co-worker gifts to do anymore. The co-worker gifts were the bane of my existence when I worked. We had a woman in the office who baked cookies, fudge, breads, etc. for over 35 workers every year. It made people feel inferior if they didn’t give everyone a gift at Christmas. So many of them spent money that they really couldn’t afford to give gifts. We did not make a lot of money at this particular job.


I was in our accumulation phase of money at both my early married jobs and while the boys were in private school and college. Money to pay for these things and to save for our retirement. I really did not want to spend a lot of money buying Christmas gifts for everyone. So I would bake also. I could put a few decorated cookies in a nice small Christmas goodie bag for every person and let that suffice. That didn’t hurt my budget and got the job done. 

I wish I had had the guts back then to do what another co-worker did when presented with a situation such as this. He took the Christmas party day off from work every year. He told me that most of the people were not his friends, just co-workers,  and he did not feel like he should give them a gift.


We always had some kind of gift giving situation in our office. Baby showers, bridal showers, every holiday imaginable party, etc. It was ridiculous! But my friend(co-worker) was never to be found at any of them. He never participated. He had the right idea. He invested his money in the stock market every week and today he is retired and traveling the world. I am happy for him that he is still able to do it.

So what do you do for gifts at work? I am very curious.  

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Every Day

When Your Meal is a Dud!

For dinner last night I put a large piece of chuck roast from the meat market in the crockpot. As the day wore on and the pot roast defrosted I took the meat out and cut it into chunks and put it back in the pot. That was not a good idea.

When we started dishing it up for dinner, most of the pot roast had shredded. Hubby likes a good chunk of meat in his stew not shreds. He ate some but asked what I could do to fix it for tonight.

Since he likes beef barley soup, I decided I would try to turn the stew into soup. There was more than enough meat, it was just shredded like you see in the picture above. I took all of Hubby’s potatoes out and will fry them one morning for breakfast for him.

Then I cut up the large chunks of celery that were in the pot and made sure there was enough carrots. I added water and some beef bouillon cubes. 

Next, I opened my large can of pearled barley from
Honeyville  and added some. We will let it cook on low. Then just before I serve it, I will add some canned veggies if needed.

In this home, I don’t waste food. So I will try to rescue a bad meal every time and turn it into something else. I will post a picture later of the finished soup. 

Honeyville cans of food are wonderful to keep in long or short term. I believe this can of barley was purchased over 3 years ago. It will get used up this winter for lots of soups. If I hadn’t opened it, it would last 10-15 years.


I also purchase some dehydrated celery, carrots, and onions from them for winter soups. They are so nice to keep on hand for when you need them.

Do you try to rescue meals that don’t turn out the way you want them to? Or do you throw them out?

This is what it has been doing here today. It has stopped snowing but the wind is brutal. I had to go out and get some pretty plates for my dessert that I am taking to the Christmas party. I filled up the car with gas using $.60 off a gallon that I earned at Top’s. So I paid $ 1.999 for 358 miles of gasoline. The wind was so bad that I had a hard time staying on my feet. 

Here is the finished beef barley soup and it was delicious. Half is going in the freezer for future meals and we will eat half tonight and the next couple of days.

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Every Day

Frugal Things We Have Done The Past Couple of Weeks

These are the things that we have done the past couple of weeks to save some money:

– I baked two loaves of homemade pumpkin bread. One is for a hostess gift for a Christmas party that we are going to. One is for this Sunday’s breakfast when my son and grandson visit. Both have been frozen until I need them.

– I made and froze in portions a pan of lasagna so that Hubby doesn’t feel the need to go out and eat while I am in Disney World. I put them in food saver bags that he can steam or microwave. I ended up with 5 in the upstairs freezer and 5 I am putting in the basement freezer after I take this picture.


– We have been turning off all appliances when they are not in use to save on the electricity bill. I turn the gas stove top off a few minutes early when I am using it. The residual heat on my gas burners lets me finish what I am cooking. I do the same when I am using the gas oven or the electric toaster oven. We use the toaster oven more frequently than the big oven to save on energy. 


– The only lights we use are at night, when it is dreary, or when I am taking a picture for this blog. We turn them off when we leave a room.


– I continue to take navy showers to save on gas and water. I capture the water in a bucket while the shower is warming up. It can be used to wash a floor or flush the toilet a couple of times or in the nice weather it can water plants outside. My water saving is what I learned to do in Arizona because water was precious there.

– I continue to take two books a week out of the library and read them weekly. I no longer purchase books unless it is a book that I will read over and over again. 

– I am sticking to my $ 75. a week budget for food, etc. It is working well.

– My son who was here over Thanksgiving changed our outlook from his server, that is on it’s last leg, to the cloud. He also installed a new router for us. Ours was not working well. Then he fixed some problems that I was having with my computer and cleaned up some things for me. My e-mail is working great now. He didn’t charge me a dime not even for the new router. Thanks to him for all his hard work and generosity. Both of my sons are very generous with their time and money.

– I developed a problem with my wireless PC constantly disconnecting from the network that our family is on. I couldn’t leave my computer for a moment without it disconnecting. It was very annoying to have to reconnect manually all of the time. Both of my son’s figured it was a hardware problem with my computer. Since I don’t want to purchase a brand new computer anytime soon since this one is only three years old, my younger son fixed the problem last Sunday. He installed a new Wifi adapter, no charge to us. Thanks to him for fixing this. I stay connected whenever I am on the computer now.


– I have been doing 2 loads of laundry a week. I use the HE to wash and I hang them to dry. 

– I have a 10 oz. bag of shrimp that I am thawing in the fridge for tonight’s dinner. We will have shrimp cocktails and big salads. Easy dinner!

– I deposited $ 46.34 in rebate checks via my mobile app. This saves me the gasoline to go to the bank.

– I mailed $14. in wine and liquor rebates last week.

– I had an expiring heavy cream in the fridge. I put it in my Vitamix and made whipped cream.


– We had leftover scrambled eggs from breakfast last Sunday so I made a couple of wraps with the eggs, bacon, and cheese and froze them. They will make a quick breakfast on errand day.


– Entertainment this week has been Arizona Monopoly, football, and You Tube Videos. I am watching decluttering videos right now so that I can get motivated to declutter our Christmas decorations. We don’t need all that we have anymore. 


What have you done frugally the last week or so? Please share with all of us.

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Every Day

Lasagna For The Freezer

I am making a big pan of lasagna to freeze in portions for Hubby. The first thing I did was get out the huge foil pan to bake it in and all of the ingredients.

OOPS! I forgot one ingredient. 

I sprayed the big foil pan on the sides and bottom with oil. Then I put down a layer of lasagna noodles which I smothered in spaghetti sauce. I never boil my noodles in advance. Cooking the lasagna in the oven for an hour cooks them perfectly.

Next I cooked up the ground beef and Italian sausage. I layered some of the cooked meat on top of the noodles. Then I layered some pepperoni. Next was a layer of fresh mozzarella, parmesan cheese, and some Italian seasoning. 

Then I layered the cottage cheese. I use that instead of ricotta because Hubby doesn’t like ricotta. I spread all with a layer of spaghetti sauce and Italian seasoning. Then I sprinkled a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese. Then I started another layer of noodles again and layered everything else again. After I put the spaghetti sauce on top, I put another layer of noodles and some sauce and a good sprinkling of mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.

Next I covered it with foil and put it in the refrigerator until 15 minutes before I was going to bake it. I baked it covered all but the last 10 minutes at 350 degrees for 1 hour. The last 10 minutes I wanted the cheese on top to crisp up a little. When it cools, I will freeze it in portion sizes so that Hubby can pull one out the night before he eats it. All he will have to do is put it in the microwave on his dinner plate until it it hot. 

Now doesn’t that look good? So good that Hubby wanted a large piece for dinner. I cheated on my diet and had a very small sliver along with a huge green salad. It was so delicious! Just waiting for it to cool so I can food saver it in portions.

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Every Day

Preparing For Freezer Cooking

I will be going to Disney World the beginning of January. The closer it gets the more excited I get.

Hubby is not going so I know I have to prepare some easy meals for him. If I don’t he will go out and buy junk or eat snacks. He is not fussy about eating the same thing over and over again for days. So I have decided to make a lot of two different meals that he can pull out of the freezer and just nuke in the microwave.

I decided to make a large pan of lasagna because he loves my lasagna. And I will also cook some chicken so that he can just cut it up on salads. I will also make a chicken dish that he can throw frozen into the crock pot and cook all day. He loves salad and applesauce so he can do those for sides. There is always fruit and cut up veggies in the fridge for him to snack on. He will also have tortilla chips and salsa for snacks.  

I had no ground beef in my freezers. So I have been looking for a decent price to buy some. In yesterday’s flyer, Top’s advertised their 80/20 ground beef meal deal. You buy a 4-5 lb. package of the beef and you get 9 named items free. Now I know that the ground beef will not be a great price for this deal. And I rarely buy these deals because of that and the fact that the free items are things we don’t normally buy. 

So I set out to investigate whether this was a good deal or not. I called my Top’s meat department and asked what the price per lb. was that they were charging for the meat. They told me $ 3.99 per lb. Then I looked on Wegman’s website to see what they are charging for their 80-20 ground beef. I had already noticed that Walmart’s was $ 4.99 a lb. when I shopped there yesterday. Wegman’s was $ 2.29 a lb.
I estimated that a package would be 5lbs. So at Wegman’s that would cost me $ 11.45. The meat at Top’s would cost me $ 19.95. That is a difference of $ 8.50.

However Top’s was giving me 9 items free with my purchase that they estimated would be $14.00 if bought separately. I looked at the list and we could use all 9. If I used coupons with a sale price on those 9 items I estimated that on sale, I could buy those items for $ 10.95. So I am paying $ 8.50 more for the beef at Top’s but I am getting $ 10.95 in usable product. That is only a $ 2.45 gain. 

But Top’s is less than 7 miles round trip from my house and Wegman’s is 26 miles away round trip. With gas topping off at $ 2.60 a gallon, this was a no brainer. I also asked myself if there were other necessary errands that I could run down near Wegman’s. I could go to the bank and deposit six checks that I have sitting here. But I could deposit those checks via my mobile phone. So I opted to get the Top’s deal. This is the kind of thinking I do on anything I buy to make sure that I am getting the best deal.

I bought a 4.63 lb. of ground beef ($18.47), a dozen eggs for $.69 with a store Q, one family size bag of tortillas chips ($4.49), 2 large containers of cottage cheese ($2.79 each). The 9 free items were Italian bakery bread, Fresh Express lettuce shreds, a jar of spaghetti sauce, a bag of Mexican cheese, a can of chili beans, a can of diced tomatoes, a bag of taco wraps, 1 lb. of thin spaghetti, and a package of chili seasoning. My total grocery bill was $29.23. That leaves me $18.39 through December 9th to spend. I am done with the big shops for the week because we have snow in the forecast from tomorrow through Sunday. If we need something desperately like milk, I will send Hubby to the gas station which is close.

I came home and used my scale to measure out the meat into 8 oz. portions because that is what Hubby and I eat at a meal. I will use 16 oz. in the lasagna along with a lb. of Italian sausage that I am thawing from my freezer. To my surprise when I measured it, I got a full 5 lbs. of meat not the 4.63 lbs. that I paid for. So I will be using the 1 lb. tomorrow when I make the lasagna. Seven of the bags I put in the freezer. One I kept out for dinner. Hubby can pull one out if he wants hamburgers while I am away. I did not food saver the bags of meat because it will get used up over the next few months and Ziplocs are cheaper than food saver bags.

Tomorrow, I will make and bake the lasagna. When it cools, I will freeze it in individual portions for Hubby’s lunches and dinners.  I will post this meal with recipe when I make it. 

Tonight we will have taco salad using 8 oz. of the beef cooked with taco seasoning, the lettuce shreds, onions, fresh tomatoes, black olives, taco sauce, hot sauce and Mexican cheese. Hubby will have tortilla chips with his. I just eat it like a salad.

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Every Day

Keeping the Groceries Under Budget

This morning I went to Super Walmart at 7AM to avoid the Saturday crowds. It was rather pleasant to shop with hardly anyone in the store.

We needed ingredients to make a dessert to take to a  Christmas party. I am making this Double Chocolate Mocha Trifle. I had planned on making this 
Peppermint Brownie Trifle. However I could not find the cream cheese pudding mix so I decided to do the other one that I had chosen. Hubby liked that recipe better anyhow.

So for the recipe I purchased:

Brownie Mix – $ 1.28
Heath Toffee Bits – $ 2.38
2 boxes of White Chocolate Pudding – $.98 each
Milk – $ 1.60
Instant Coffee – $1.00

I had all of the other ingredients. 

Yesterday, Hubby was looking for a fresh tube of toothpaste. Do you think we had any? Nope, my stash is gone. Knowing that we only have a little left in a sample tube, I purchased two of the Crest Cinnamon. They were $ 2.97 each. I will be looking for a good sale to stockpile some but these will hold us until I do. 

Hubby still eats a little snack once in a while and some carbs. The only carbs that I eat are in my food that I eat at meals…mainly veggies and meat.  So he asked for tortillas for his lunch wraps. They were $2.14 for a 10 ct. package. The chips will last him for a long time. They were $ 3.98 for the family size. He also drinks Crystal Light Peach Iced Tea. I purchased 2 containers for $ 2.48 each. I spotted a Great Value  SF Peach Iced Tea so I bought him one to try. If he likes that I will buy it from now on because it is cheaper than the Crystal Light. It cost $ 1.98. 

Lastly, I needed eggs to make some baked goods for gifts. I did not want to spend $ 4.98 for organic eggs for that purpose. So I purchased a regular large dozen for $ 1.28. 

I had $ 75.00 set aside in my grocery budget for Dec 1st through the 9th.  I used a $ 1.60 E-Cert GC from the Walmart Savings Catcher program to help defray the cost today. So I paid $ 27.38 for everything. That leaves me $ 47.62 left to spend through December 9th. 

I had ground chuck on my list but it was $ 4.99 a lb. at Walmart. I won’t pay that price unless I get it at my meat market. I will check the ads tomorrow to see if it is on sale anywhere this coming week. If not I will get it at the meat market when I have other errands to run up that way.

My monthly budget now is $ 300. a month for groceries, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, napkins, HBA and Ziplocs or other wraps. Since I divide the $ 300. into 4 week sections of $75.00 a week, it works well for us. I add the few days at the front of the month to the next week and the same thing works for the end of the month.  I like having a smaller amount to work with when I shop. It makes me be wiser with our money and I really think about what I am buying. I ask myself: Do I really need it? Can I substitute something else? Where can I buy it the cheapest? Is it worth my gasoline to run around to a few stores if the price difference is only pennies? 

I also rarely use coupons anymore. Most of the things we buy don’t really have any. I shop mostly at Walmart and Aldi and they have great prices so it is not worth spending a lot of time cutting coupons. If they are at my fingertips on the computer and I can print them quickly then I do. If I have to spend a lot of time searching for one, it isn’t worth my time. Have you changed the way you shop since coupons aren’t as good anymore? Have you changed your budget like I have recently? 

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Every Day

Keeping the Costs Low

Oh, the dilemma again over sending Christmas cards. Every year I try to knock down the number that I send out. I keep it down to family and really close friends. If I send a card to a family member 10 years in a row and I don’t get a response, then I feel that they don’t want contact and I take them off my list. I don’t send cards to anyone who I will see over the holiday season.

I would actually like to send e-mails instead but I don’t have most people’s e-mail address or they don’t use email. I know that is hard to believe but not in my generation.

So I sat down this morning and wrote them out. I ended up with 27 cards that are already in the mailbox. 

A few years ago, I caught a great after Christmas deal of $1.00 per box for very nice Christmas cards. So I purchased 10 assorted boxes. I am still using them so they were purchased and paid for long ago. The only other costs were my time and stamps. I am still working on forever stamps that I purchased before the last price increase. So they cost me $ .47 each instead of the $.49 they are today. Also when I purchase my stamps, I buy them in bulk at BJ’s and get a small discount. So mailing these 27 cards cost me less than $12.69 plus about $1.50 for the cards. So it is not an extreme expense.

A few things that I have been doing around here is cashing in 10 Coke code caps for $5.00 Amazon gift cards. I didn’t know that they were running this deal until my sister mentioned it. Fortunately, I still had some caps from Hubby drinking it.

All of my Christmas shopping is done. I have one more package coming today and when that is wrapped, I am all done. One of the last purchases I made was a Black Friday deal that I did online on Thanksgiving. Our Keurig is still running however I am afraid that it is on it’s last leg. It makes terrible noises. So when I found a Keurig on sale for $ 59.99 that included 40 K-cups and a bonus in the coffeepot box of 4 more plus  some iced tea ones, I jumped on it. I defrayed the cost of this by paying with some Amazon credit card points. I had been keeping my eye out for a deal like this since I did not want to wake up one morning and not be able to make coffee. I know that a Keurig is a luxury but it is one of the luxuries that we are willing to pay for but not at full price. We only drink one cup of coffee in the morning so it works perfectly for us. 

The only grocery deal I purchased this week was yesterday. Top’s had large roasting chickens on sale for $ .77 a lb. That is a really low price for my area so I purchased two for the freezer. One day when I am feeling better, I will take them out and roast them so that we will have lots of chicken already prepared. I will then freeze it until it is needed.


Not much else going on around here. We are just trying to stay warm. Anything new frugally with any of you?