Tag: a little of this and a little of that

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Every Day

Cutting Costs

Even though we are decluttering. we are still cutting costs when we can.

We have leftovers today from the other night when we had the rotisserie chicken. So I will be using those to make a chicken salad for dinner using some of the green grapes in it along with celery and mayonaise. It will be an easy dinner that I will prepare this morning. Waste not, want not!

I have been going through a lot of garbage bags and they as you know are very expensive. So I have been packing them as full as I can.

A piece of trim had fallen off at the bottom of the cupboards where they meet the hardwood floor. It didn’t take Hubby long to realize that they glued the trim on and didn’t nail it. So hubby used some heavy duty glue that we already had to put it back where it belonged.

Hubby is going to take some time today to fix the button that popped out of our dishwasher panel. This happened a while ago but eventually Hubby gets to things especially when I make him a to do list. It will be time consuming because he has to take the entire panel apart.

Hubby is done going to physical therapy so that will save us $50. in copays a week and gasoline for a 24 mile round trip twice a week . They have done all they can do for him and it has really helped. He will continue to do the exercises at home.

The black plastic part of the top of the key for the riding lawnmower broke. Superglue worked like a charm.

Hubby has been keeping up with all the trimming of flowers and weeding the gardens but we have so many that it is hard for him. So he is looking for a gardener not a landscaper to maintain them all summer. This won’t be cheap but this is why we have been frugal so that we can afford help when we need it.

Hubby wants me to hire a housekeeper to clean our home every two weeks. That won’t work because I am a perfectionist and I will just end up firing them. We have tried this twice before when my sons were babies and when I worked. They did not clean the way I did and I couldn’t stand it. So this is one of the reasons why I am decluttering. It will make it easier for me.

I found a basket in the basement to use to corral all of Eloise’s toys. I pick them up before I go to bed and in the morning I find she has taken a lot of them out overnight and put them under a chair where I sit at my computer in the kitchen. It is her way of telling me she wants to play. I already have a small caddy for things like her brush, nail clippers, and battery chargers for some of her water things and birds and a duck that makes noises.

I have been taking soda and beer cans back when I get one bag’s worth and I am running errands. If I am going to Top’s, I use their new return room. They have 3 machines that take plastic and cans that are super fast and if I go when it opens at 7am there is no one there. This way I don’t have bags of them piling up in our garage. Then I just cash in my receipt for them against my grocery bill.

I continue to scan my receipts into Fetch. I am almost up to where I can get another Walmart gift card which helps defray costs when I get delivery orders.

We still have our A/C on because this summer has been so hot and humid. But we are keeping the temperature at 74 instead of 72. We can’t go any higher because the humidity is so bad here. Our utility company has just asked the state regulating agency for a a 33.5% increase in natural gas delivery rates and a 23.7% increase in electricity delivery rates. As if our bills aren’t high enough now! They say they need it to upgrade critical infrastructure upgrades. They probably do because the grid is aging. But this is going to hurt on top of how high the bills are now. So more cutting is going to be necessary. UGH!

I am already trying to make cold simple meals for dinners as much as possible to keep the costs down this summer. We use the outside grill when we can. If it is really humid outside, we can’t tolerate that so we have used it less than other years.

We were able to not use our sprinkler system until about mid June. But we haven’t had much rain recently so we have had to use it.

I submitted $10. in rebates this week.

Lastly, we had an unexpected savings last night for our anniversary dinner at a local restaurant. It could have been a disaster but they made it right. I almost always order the Queen size prime rib for dinner there. They have always been quite delicious. Not last night. I ordered it done medium and it came well done. Not only that but it was only about 1/2 inch (if that) thick which is extremely unusual. I tried a piece and it was unchewable(so tough). I mentioned it to the waitress and she said I see a little blood on top so try it and walked away. When I realized how tough it was, I pushed the plate off to the side of the table and ate the French fries that came with it. The waitress came back to check on it again. I said to her you know I get prime rib every time we come here for the last 15 years. I told her this is the worst prime rib I have ever had. It has always been fantastic before but this time I don’t even know if it is prime rib. She agreed that I always get it I should know. She took the plate of it and asked me if I would like a 6 oz. filet mignon instead. I said sure. It did not take them very long to cook it to perfection. It was one of the best filets I have had. I realized there was a difference in price. The prime rib was $31.99 and the filet mignon was $27.99. They charged me the filet price and they also took a draft beer off the bill. The draft price was $6.00. So our anniversary could have been a disaster and they would have lost a customer but they did the right thing. Yes, we will go back again because we all make mistakes. But next time, I will order the filet mignon.

I am off to declutter a lot more things because tomorrow is garbage day. You guys have a good day!

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Every Day

Grocery Hauls The Past Two Weeks

Here is last week’s Top’s haul. I needed one more bottle of Italian dressing for my large pasta salad that I took to the 4th of July party. It was $ 2.50. I was almost out of Bubba Burgers and they were on sale for $14.99. I only got one because I am going to a Grocery Outlet soon and they are much cheaper there. The Kraft singles were on sale B1G1F so they were $3.00 each. We only use them for grilled cheese. So one got frozen. The sour cream was on sale for $2.00. My total was $ 25.49.

Today I went and got a rotisserie chicken on sale for $6.99. It is in the crockpot on warm until we have it for dinner. I will serve green beans and salt potatoes that my neighbor gave me with it. All I have to do is warm them. Ignore the large bag of rice. I took it out of the closet when I was decluttering it. I still have to get it into a food grade bucket and put it away.

I purchased tomatoes for $ 2.47, seedless green grapes on sale for $4.50(we love them in chicken salad), and a carrot cake for $12.99 to celebrate our 58th anniversary tomorrow. That is all we needed this week. So I spent a total of $26.95.

The sales have not been remarkable lately so I don’t have much desire to get a bigger shop.

The decluttering is going well. I filled another garbage bag and a 1/2 of a bag with stuff as I continue along this journey. I now have 3 and 1/2 rooms done. I am hoping to have 5 bags worth by garbage day on Thursday. It is also our bulk pickup day so a large artificial plant is going since Eloise keeps knocking it over along with anything else I can find.

I did not tell you about this when I was talking about our goal money a few posts ago. Drill Baby Drill! That is what President Trump has been pushing. It is paying off for us because we own property and mineral rights in Texas. This is money we were not expecting. We did well during his first term but then it all dried up during Biden’s term. Now the spigot is open again so we should reach our goal a lot sooner than expected.

That is it for today. I am going to do some more decluttering until dinner and then I will chat with my baby sister for a while tonight.

What are you guys up to?

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Every Day

Back From a Badly Needed Break

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Every Day

Spending As Little As Possible

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Every Day

Happy Mother’s Day Tomorrow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What have you gals and guys been up to?

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Every Day

My Project That I Am Working On

I am trying to get more organized in my freezers again. It seems that I have been so busy over the past few months that things have just gotten thrown in them wherever they fit instead of being really organized with a good plan.

So this past week in between appointments and other things, I have been tackling my two freezer drawers in my refrigerator. First thing I did was make a plan. I decided that all frozen vegetables and fruits, potato items like French Fries, quick prepared meal items(any purchased from the market or homemade leftovers), breakfast meats, ( bacon, sausage, ham, Steakums), ice cream, homemade preserves, and the meat I would be using in the next two weeks for dinner would go in these drawers. That will save me from running downstairs so often and opening the chest freezer.

The jars are the preserves and leftover homemade soups. Things that we can grab quickly for brunch.

We always keep a bag of frozen potpies because they are my guilty pleasure, some tortellini which I use in soup, avocados to go with my bacon and eggs once in a while.

I just went to B’J’s on Thursday. Hubby had his physical therapy that day. So I dropped him off and went to the warehouse club to pick up one item. B’J’s was only 2 and 1/2 blocks away. I had a free coupon for a 56 oz. Ling Lings Potstickers that was expiring this coming Tuesday. It was free because we have no tax on food here. By going with him I didn’t have to spend any more for gasoline doing a second trip.

You will see in these drawers that I have two plastic bags with white things in them. Sorry about the pictures but I am still having trouble with my phone. The white things are the potstickers. I repackaged them so that we could get 4 meals out of them and be able to fit them in these freezer drawers. I have a bulletin board on my refrigerator where I put directions from packages so I have them when needed.

I think this plan is going to work well for us. Time will tell. If it doesn’t, I will tweak it.

It took me a long time to do this with the short period of time I had because I had to go through my chest freezer to pull out the things that I wanted upstairs. Then I had to bring things from upstairs downstairs to make room for all of the things. Now my downstairs freezer needs major attention so I will work on that this week in between two medical appointments for me. That is going to take a lot of the rest of my time.

My son and West came for breakfast this morning. Afterwards I planned on going to our town’s electronics recycling with the frame that died the other day. My son said he would take it to his college’s recycling. That saved me a trip. I made eggs, bacon, and French toast for breakfast today. Everyone was happy!

We have been eating chicken for the past few days. We should finish it tonight.

I think I have a sinus infection and possible ear infection. I doubt that I will be able to get an appointment quickly with my doctor. So I may make a trip to urgent care in the morning.

That’s it for now.

Categories
Every Day

A Little Of This And A Little of That

It has been a busy 6 days. I finally had my haircut at the new salon where my hairdresser went. She does a great job and I warned her what a horrible job the new girl did on my hair at Great Clips where she used to be. So she had me wait a couple of more weeks for it to grow in so she could fix it. Yesterday was the day. She was shocked at how bad it was. But she also had other clients who this other girl had butchered so she wasn’t surprised.

She cut it really short so that she could take care of most of the damage which was fine with me. She said at my next appointment she thinks it will be grown in enough to get back to my normal haircut that she always did. Best part is she only charges $20. for a haircut. Anything else is extra. She is renting a chair at the salon. Thank you Erika for doing such a great job yesterday. I was so sick of walking around looking awful or wearing a hat when I went out. Hubby loves the cut you gave me.

While I was out, I ran most of the rest of the errands for the week. I went to Home Depot to drop off another ION battery at their recycle bins. I missed it when I brought the other ones up.

Then I went to Top’s to get our groceries this week. Their ad was not very good. But I did pick up needed celery for $.99 and 1 lb. of Oscar Mayer Center Cut Bacon for $5.99 with a Super Coupon. I will be going to B.J.’s tomorrow combining the shop with an appointment. I have a Free coupon for a large bag of Ling Ling’s Potsticker’s that is expiring on March 30th. It will be no cost to me because we have no tax on food in my state.

We got our Electric and Natural Gas Bill for the past month. It was $270.84. I used 84 more kwh of electricity than the same period last year and 10 more therms. The bill for the same period last year was $208.81 so this one is much higher but $ 41.00 less than last month so at least we are headed in the right direction. Hopefully, it will warm up soon but we are in a bitter cold spell and it is snowing right now.

I am hoping that one of my sons has a chainsaw. We no longer do. We have 2 trees that need to come down. They aren’t that big so I think it is okay for us to take them down without hitting the house. I hate to pay a tree service to do it. They are so expensive. We had two trees that were close to our home taken down last year and it cost a fortune.

We have been trying to use up leftovers the past week or so. We have had 2 turkey BLT’s using up turkey that we thawed, bacon for brunch meals of eggs and bacon that was leftover, tomatoes that needed to be used up and the same for romaine lettuce. Other meals have been rib eye pork chops with fried apples and crispy crowns(emptied a bag), stir fry with chicken and sesame sauce on rice. Tonight will be grilled filet mignon, baked potatoes( I will bake extra for potato salad), and brussel sprouts.

I have done 2 loads of laundry in cold water and hung one and dried the other of sheets in the dryer.

We had a weird thing happen to us yesterday. I heard a noise in Hubby’s office. Every few seconds I would hear it. Eloise followed me because she heard it to. We couldn’t find anything but it sounded like it was in the wall behind one of our ladder bookcases. I am thinking mouse but we have never had one. Eloise was interested but not that interested which surprised me. I got Hubby but I didn’t know if he would hear it because he has lost hearing in one ear and most in the other. He could just barely hear it but couldn’t see anything either. It was above my pantry. I was getting worried that we might have a mouse down there. But we have never had one. As I was about to leave the office to go down and check, I saw our electronic picture frame(on the shelf of the bookcase) turn on and the screen become black with a red line across it. I told Hubby and he quickly unplugged it. We listened and the noise was gone. We haven’t heard it since. We got this electronic frame when Alexa was born that holds lots of pictures which recycle in it when you turn it on. It was almost 18 years old so I guess it bit the dust. So we have thrown it out. But I am glad it wasn’t a mouse! And I am happy we have those pictures on other devices.

I have been working on our food storage a few hours this week and I continue to do so. I will be showing you what I am doing on Friday. I don’t think I will have time tomorrow.

So what have you been doing? Saving any money?

Categories
Every Day

Cutting Costs on Groceries, Etc.

We are now making our own yogurt. I had to buy one container to use as a starter. But with each successive batch, I save some to make the next batch.

We eat what is in our home already. The biggest reason is so that things do not go to waste. The next reason is that some of the prices over the last couple of days are starting to come down especially on eggs. They are now down $4.00 for a 60 count since the last time I purchased that box. By keeping my price book, I can tell when something has been reduced. I think they will continue moving in that direction so I will be buying nothing that is already on our shelves or in our freezers. That food was a whole lot cheaper than the prices now so while prices fall I will use up that food.

We continue to make more and more bread items. We are now making our own pizza dough every 2 weeks.

I buy fresh potatoes so that I can make baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, wedges, French fries, fried potatoes, hash browns and potato pancakes. I can get the fresh for about $ .40 a lb. That is a lot cheaper than canned or frozen.

We make our own puddings and jellos from the boxed. Buying the ready made is so much more expensive. I stockpiled about 100 of each over the last 4 years at $.68 each. They are now $ .98 each and up.

We buy generic(store brands) when we can. They are much cheaper. But they have to have very few ingredients when I do that.

I always shop with a list. That prevents me from impulse buying.

Hubby is hooked on diet cola again. I am trying to get him to drink more iced tea. We do buy pomegranate juice that we each drink about 1/2 cup a day for our health.

I am now buying chunks of cheese and grating my own. We have decided that we don’t want the cellulose in our food.

Ninety eight percent of the time I only buy on sale items. I will buy a lot when there is a a good deal. That way I rarely have to pay full price for anything.

I use Fetch to scan my receipts to earn gift cards which I use to defray the cost of groceries.

Well that is enough for now about groceries.

The picture above is of my brunch yesterday. I had my pomegranate juice with 2 eggs over easy and a piece of salmon. One of the reasons we watch our pennies is so that we can afford to buy salmon occasionally. This had been in my freezer for a couple of months. I bought it on sale for $7.99 a lb. which is a great price for my area. It was such a treat. Yes, I pan fried it in butter. I like the crunch.

We have been eating reuben sandwiches the last couple of nights using up the corned beef that I cooked for St. Patrick’s Day. Hubby makes them using the indoor grill in our home. I think we will probably have them again tonight. The rest of the corned beef I will freeze for other meals.

Hubby and I have watched our shows that we DVR for entertainment this week. We have also taken advantage of the warm weather and sunshine by sitting outside.

Hubby has been trimming the bushes. Our landscape guy will be coming the beginning of April to do the real Spring cleanup and mulch all of our gardens. Unfortunately we have lost 1 tree and are about to lose 3 others in our yard. Our pear tree which was so beautiful is dead due to a blight in this area. The same blight is killing 3 spruce trees that are about 20 ft. tall. We are trying to figure out what we want to do to replace them or have them cut down. Trees are so expensive. We are getting older every day and probably won’t be around to see them grow. So most likely we will have them removed and take the stones up that encircle those areas and plant grass.

It was our turn to read the electric and gas meters so I read them yesterday and submitted them to the company. We used 120 ccf’s of natural gas which is about what we used for the same period last year. Our electric usage was 490 kwh which is about normal for us. I expect our bill will be huge. I will let you know when we get it. I never realized until President Trump mentioned that New York state has the highest energy prices in the nation and that is why he is working with our Governor to bring the pipeline in. He says it will lower our costs. I hope so because right now it is so expensive.

I perused the new ads for next week and I don’t see any good deals that I can use. So I will probably not grocery shop.

That is it for today.