Tag: cost cutting

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I Have A New Schedule And Some Cost Cutting

As I age I do not have the energy I used to have when I was young. Lately it is getting harder and harder to get things done. So starting today, I have put myself on a new schedule. I will spend one hour a day cleaning or organizing and one hour a day cutting costs. This does not include doing dishes or laundry. If I have more stamina on a particular day, I will up that to two hours. When I have appointments or errands to run, I will limit that to two and a half hours one day a week. Meals will only take 30 minutes per day hands on time. Laundry will be done once a week.

Hubby got up with Eloise at 2:30am this morning and I was able to sleep until 6:30am which gave me 8 hours. What a difference when I can get good sleep.

After making my coffee, I immediately started making my homemade fajita mix. I used my last two packets when I made a double meal of fajitas on Saturday night. I have made homemade before and will make it permanently from now on. It is so much cheaper than buying the packets. I had all the spices I needed to do it. Most of my spices I buy at Aldi’s, Walmart, or B/J.s. They have the cheapest prices for me. I used this recipe: https://therecipecritic.com/fajita-seasoning/ . I made 6 times this recipe. I skipped the sugar in my seasoning. I filled my spice jar and put the rest in storage for the next time it needs to be filled. When I use it, if it is too thin, I will use a little arrowroot powder to thicken it.

I made my brunch and dinner plans for today. I took two containers of homemade turkey soup out of the freezer to thaw for brunch. Dinner will be an egg roll each and 1/2 of this Tai Pei Spicy General Tso’s chicken for each of us. If I decide that it is not enough food for us, I will make some scrambled eggs too. I am trying to use up any meals in the freezer whether they be homemade or store bought convenience foods.

This morning as I checked my e-mails, I got reminded by my electric and gas company that they will read our meters on 2/18/2026. Oh I can’t wait to see how much they charge me for the data centers this month to help the billionaires. BTW, I found out that 25% of the delivery charges on my bill in NYS goes to the state to help pay for HEAP and EAP for low income people. They should actually show what it pays for instead of trying to bury it in the delivery charges. You should all find out if your state does this too.

I have all of our blankets and sheets in the washer and dryer right now. I did not have enough energy to do them yesterday. Hubby is going to flip and turn our mattresses in a bit and then the beds will get made when all of the bedding is dry.

Only winter clothes that fit me are in my closet now after putting the spring and outgrown clothes in a separate closet. Medical supplies that I keep in shoe boxes on the shelves have been sorted and put in by date to use the oldest first.

I dropped my hairbrush today on the tile floor in our master bath and it broke in two. A replacement like it is hard to find. So Hubby has super glued the handle. We will let it set overnight and then see how long it lasts.

The beds are now all put together. I will start dinner around 4-4:30pm. My sister will be calling me tonight. So that’s it for today.

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Frugal Things The Past Few Days

Let me start off by telling you that we had extra income in the month of January of $1160. I was thrilled because I was going to put it towards the $3000. that we thought we were going to have to spend from our emergency fund. However, it turned out that what broke was under warranty so I got it replaced for free because of that. I just had a nominal charge of $99. I was very relieved! That additional income has now been put into investments.

I have been trying to catch up laundry lately. My back has been giving me issues so I had three loads that needed to be done. Because I am organizing and cleaning the house, there has been extra things to wash like blankets, a shower curtain(guest bathroom), and various throw rugs besides the weekly sheets and our clothing. I washed it all on the Eco wash using cold water. But I used our dryer for most of it because it is too hard to hang to dry. I did use the Eco cycle with my wool balls. Only the clothing got hung to dry.

Two rebates totaling $20. were mailed. I have also been scanning receipts into Fetch. I bought some household cleaners online from Walmart that gave me $6.00 in cash back.

Hubby paid the company who does our lawn fertilizing for this coming season early. He did that because they gave us 3% off the total cost.

Our alarm monitoring company also offered us 3% off if we paid the bill 1 year in advance so Hubby paid that also.

Hubby and West drink Zero Sugar Fanta Orange soda. I have now gotten ten 12 packs for about $4.16 each on a B2G3 sale. That should last them quite a while.

I got another dozen of Xtra large eggs at Niagara Produce for $.99 yesterday on the way home from an appointment. This is the last week of the sale. I just wanted to make sure that my 5 dozen container of eggs was full. They also have had butter on sale for $ 2.99. I had bought all of our butter for the year at Thanksgiving time for $ 3.49 each. But I am replacing what I am using up at this new low price. So each time I go there I will pick up one pound.

I have our two extra bedrooms heat registers closed and the doors shut. There is a cloth snake in front of each door. There are also two other snakes in front of our two basement doors. A large rolled up towel is in front of our main door into the house. We have only been using the garage door to leave the house. With this cold weather and the wind chills at -30 here last Saturday, we have not been going out except when we have appointments and can run errands at the same time.

We have been making meals at home. Brunch has been salmon, bacon, ham, or sausage with scrambled eggs. Dinner has been egg rolls, chicken pattie sandwiches, hamburgers, Chef’s salads, rib eye pork chops, and soup. When I am busy organizing and cleaning, I do easy meals. The homemade soup is in portions in the freezer so it is easy to just thaw and microwave. However this week or next(when it warms up outside), we will be going out to the brewery for a meal. We have not been there since my son was visiting at Thanksgiving and we love their food and beer.

We filled up our car with gasoline using Top’s points that gave us $.30 off per gallon. The car was almost empty and I don’t like it when that happens in the winter.

I did our Federal and State taxes early this year and received a nice refund from the Feds because of the extra $12,000. deduction for seniors. That gave us back about $1,000. more than we would have gotten.

What frugal things have you been doing? Please share with all of us.

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Every Day

Cutting Costs

My son and grandson came for breakfast this morning. I momentarily thought about taking all of us out for breakfast at Kalamata’s but I decided I did not want to spend $80.-$90. with tip. So I cooked eggs, pancakes, French toast, and sausage from our stockpile this morning. I can get a lot of sale items for the cost of that meal out.

When Hubby fixed our sink, I did not have the strength to help him tighten one part. It is no longer leaking but we needed the piece tightened. My son helped his Dad do it today.

Also I have not been able to download pictures so that I can put them on the blog. He tried to fix it today and we thought it was. But I went on to test it after he went home and it is not fixed. From researching I believe that I need to uninstall one drive and then reinstall it. I will work on that tomorrow.

I took my 3 minute Navy shower this morning. The water was cold coming out of the ground and it took forever to warm up.

After I got dressed, I grabbed the laundry basket and put a load in the washer. I am washing with cold water and minimal detergent. I hung it to dry after my son and West left.

We played a dice game after breakfast.

Dinner tonight was turkey club sandwiches. Hubby loves them and I had all the fixings. I cooked the bacon up early this afternoon.

Early this morning I vacuumed the house all except the great room carpeting. Hubby did that last night for me. When I was done, my back was hurting so I took some Advil and rested it for a bit while the pills starting working.

Tonight, I will check the ad for Top’s that starts tommorow. Anything on sale that I might buy, I will check the price against Walmart’s. I looked at the Aldi’s ad and there was nothing that interested me. I am hoping that Top’s has Zero Sugar Fanta on sale. I like to stay stocked on it for West and Hubby. They both love it. I refuse to pay $ 8.64 for a 12 pack at Walmart. I won’t shop Top’s until Tuesday because that is Senior 6% off discount day.

My plan for groceries is to buy the great sales and ignore everything else. So very little money will leave our pockets in February. I will continue to eat as much as possible in our stockpile. I always check my freezer, pantry, and fridge to see what meals I can make with what I have in stock.

This will be a non consuming year as much as possible. We will use up what we have that we already spent money on.

So what did you do to save money today?

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Saving a Few Dollars Here and There

We purchased some groceries from Walmart. I checked the Top’s ad for next week to see if anything is on sale that is at a great price. They have bags of 5 pound Pillsbury flour on sale for $ 3.99 but Walmart had it on a rollback for $3.47. I bought 2. They had Top’s chunk cheese on sale for $ 1.88 with a super coupon but Walmart was at $ 1.87. I bought 1. I needed swiss cheese for corned beef( leftover from my last one that I froze) reubens next week. The Rosina Meatballs are on sale for B1G1F and I have four $1.00 coupons so I will get them at Top’s next week. I can’t make them for this price. Top’s has eggnog on sale with a super coupon for $ 4.59 but I got it for $ 3.56 at Walmart. I bought 4 which will last us through Christmas. Always check your prices to make sure you are buying it at the cheapest store.

I got 3 of the Rosina Meatballs coupons in the mail yesterday. Just in time for this sale. I already had 1 coupon that was expiring the end of this month. I love contacting companies and asking for coupons by going to their sites online. It is so easy and many of them are very generous.

I deposited 2 checks totaling $13. at the bank. I love rebates.

I had Hubby thread a needle for me so I could do some mending and not have to replace those items. I can’t see well enough to thread the needle anymore.

I scanned a few receipts that had piled up into Fetch. I also checked my coupons that will expire the end of December to see what I might use.

We have been eating crockpot ziti the past two nights and will eat it again tonight. The rest of the leftovers will go in the freezer for a future meal. I had everything to make it here in my pantries and freezer: Italian sausage, ziti, spaghetti sauce, garlic, onions, Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, and Parmesan cheese. The recipe made 8 servings.

I am gathering all of the soda cans and bottles to take to the beverage center where I have a coupon to get $.06 per bottle or can instead of $ .05 deposit I paid. We need to get some drinks for Christmas so I will spend the $10. that the coupon requires.

Hubby went to Home Depot to get something to make a repair outside the house. His bill came to $ XX.03. They rounded down to $ XX.00. It will be interesting to see what other stores do. Have you run into this situation yet? What store?

I washed two load of clothes in cold water with minimal detergent not the huge amount the big corporations tell you to use. I dried one load( it was bedding that is too big to hang) in the drier and hung the other to dry.

I am organizing personal care products a little bit better around here so I can find what I need quickly. It is just amazing how much free toothpaste we have from the dentist. Also I will never have to buy a toothbrush to clean with ever again.

With the news that came from a Campbell’s executive that “their soup is for poor people” and ” he wouldn’t feed it to his family” and other tidbits about bio-engineered chicken etc., I went down to my pantry to check the cans we have left on the shelf. People are showing cans online that show it is bio-engineered or GMO and they are throwing them out. I bought most of my cans a few years ago. Sure enough they have real ingredients in them so I did not have to throw them away. Lesson: Read the ingredients when you purchase something. Things and ingredients may change at any time as the corporations try to squeeze a few more pennies of profit.. Other Lesson: Since I purchased them, I must be poor.

Hubby taped a new show called Sheriff Country. We started watching the episodes yesterday. It is so good! That was our entertainment. Tomorrow we will watch the Buffalo Bills play Cincinnati at home. We have so many injuries it is going to be a tough game.

I need to go put my microfiber cloth on a mop head that I used to use throw away pads on. No more. The microfiber works just as well with a little but of cleaner on it and I can wash that cloth. So I am off to clean the bathroom floors.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

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Every Day

How We Will Save Money In 2026 (Part 6)

I know we all like a snack once in a while. But those bags of chips, Poppables, Cheetos, etc. cost a fortune now. $ 5.96 for quite a while for some of our favorites. They have come down to $5.00 now but I still won’t buy them for something that unhealthy. We still have a few in our pantry that we bought for company that we will use up this month. We have decided except for popcorn kernels, tortilla chips and salsa, nuts, and pretzels to make our party mix, we will not be buying them.

We have an electric popcorn popper and a microwave one. They both work really well. If you don’t have those, you can use a skillet or pan to pop yours on the stovetop. That is the way our parents and grandparents did it.

I purchased enough ingredients this year on sale to make two large canning kettles of Chex mix. Hubby made one yesterday. This will last us about 6-8 weeks. We use rice Chex, wheat Chex, Cheerio’s, pretzels, and 3 cans of mixed nuts in ours. Then he makes the sauce and bakes it stirring it at various times while it is cooking at 250 degrees. When you buy everything on sale, it costs less per serving than buying the equivalent bags of snacks.

We not only use tortilla chips with salsa but we use them to dip in our taco bowls and soups, and for other Mexican meals.

We have a variety of nuts in our freezer including pecans, walnuts, and cashews.

We also make our own dill dip and onion dip for eating celery, cucumbers, and carrots. If we are craving a chip to dip, we can make our own from sliced potatoes using our oven with the air fryer function.

I also consider ice cream, brownies, quick breads, cakes, pies, cookies, fudge, etc. to be snacks or desserts. When we are craving something sweet, we will make our own. I have some mixes on our shelves to use up first. We try to eat all of these things sparingly.

Our very favorite sweets are strawberries or SF pudding with zero whipped cream. We thaw our frozen strawberries during the winter or use the fresh in season. Pudding and fresh and canned fruit are a year round treat.

Our plan is to use up what we have and then get back to making things ourselves. It is so much cheaper to do it yourself and healthier too. I am really tired of making the big corporations rich.

Do you make your own snacks? Willing to share them with us?

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Eating Up What We Already Have

It’s time to eat up what we already have in our home. Most of our food was purchased in the past few years. Many, many have long expiration dates. To be truthful, they are mostly sell by dates and can be eaten for years after those dates. Always check your cans for dents especially ones on the seams. Do your due diligence by doing a smell and taste test. If it tastes or smells off throw it out. Also when you open a can, if the food spurts at you, throw it out. That is a sign of bacteria. In all of my years, I have never poisoned anyone.

I am a canner and I alternate my jars by date also. After putting in all that work, I do not want to waste my jars of food. I also check my lids every once in a while to make sure they are still sealed. I do not keep rings on my jars of food so that I can do this.

We have had to throw very little out in our home. I check can seams and for dents when I am buying items. If they have any of those things, I do not purchase them. My Walmart delivery orders have had cans that are dented. I get a refund from Walmart and pitch those cans.

We rotate our food whether it is in the pantry or freezer. Oldest cans go to the front of the shelf. Newer ones get put behind those. Oldest meat is always kept on the top of the freezer and the newest put underneath. I have a chest freezer. It is a pain to do this but it is necessary to not waste your food. One exception, the turkey I just bought is on top so that I can easily take it out to cook at Thanksgiving time. Any other turkeys that I purchase will get put on the bottom of the freezer.

As you all know, food prices continue to rise. Yes, a few have come down in price recently but most have risen. Until the Fed cuts interest rates more than just a 1/4 %, inflation will be with us. They should have been cutting for months. But I can’t control them. I can only control what we are doing in our household. So we are going to eat up over the next 6 months what we have stored.. The reason is prices. They are too high right now so we will eat the food that we stored when the prices were reasonable. We store food for emergencies and so that we can get through winter without shopping very often. But the biggest reason was the food inflation that I knew was coming when Covid hit. My stockpile was built a little at a time to protect our money. It’s food insurance. While most people are out shopping at these inflated prices, we are eating food that was so much cheaper.

I will be buying the foods that go on sale for rock bottom prices for Thanksgiving but only those that I am very low on. I will buy a couple of cans or packages of meat when I am low on those items. But other than those, I will not be doing a lot of grocery shopping. I will shop from my stockpile. You will not see a lot of grocery hauls. What you will see is what we are eating and how I am using things up.

We have a lot of fresh things in our refrigerator now so we will work on using those up too. Only when I am out of fresh produce or other items that I deem absolutely necessary will I buy those items again and always on sale.

Tonight, we will be making a sheet pan meal using the above pictured food from my freezer. I will be making us a small tossed salad also. It should make us a few meals.

Are you cooking from your pantries now that prices are so high?

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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

Savings Goal & How We Cost Cut

Remember a while ago, I told you we wanted to save a large amount of money to get to our net worth goal of well over $100,000. The goal is in a prior post. We have been working really hard on that this month of June and will be cutting every cost we can possibly cut for the rest of the year. After the month of May’s savings, we are getting very close to our goal. We are hoping to reach it by the end of the year or before.

We needed gasoline so I filled up using points and saved $.30 per gallon. Hubby has had to go to PT for weeks and most of those weeks he has gone twice a week. The therapy center is in the next town so it is a hike. Needless to say between those appts. and other appts., our gasoline bills have skyrocketed. We used to be able to only fill up once in about 6-7 weeks. Now it is every two weeks. However, the last scheduled PT appointment is the end of this week and then he goes back to the doctor to be reassessed. It would be nice also if he could just do the therapy at home and we wouldn’t have to pay $ 40.00 in co-pays a week.

Yesterday I had to go to the dermatologist to get a precancer on my ear taken care of. The doctor froze it and said it should be gone and give me no more trouble in about 6 weeks. If I hadn’t noticed it and had it taken care of it eventually would have turned into cancer. While I was there she asked if I wanted anything else taken care of so I mentioned that I only had 3 warts that I would need to have removed. She said they take those off by freezing them also. I told her that I would think about it knowing full well that I would find a way to take care of them myself. When I got home and told Hubby about the warts, he said he sees the cans of the stuff to freeze them advertised on TV. Since I don’t watch TV, I never knew that. I did my research online and ordered a can. It will be here tomorrow. The cost was $ 16.49, no tax, and free shipping. That is a whole lot cheaper than it would have been to have her remove them.

We got notice yesterday from our health plan that effective January 1, 2025, there will no longer be co-pays for insulins or for telehealth visits. This is June and they are just getting around to telling us? Weird! But we knew about the insulins because the drug stores have not been charging us. However, we did not know about the telehealth visits. We will take full advantage of that for anything minor.

I have been very picky about what I buy at the grocery store. This week strawberries and corn on the cob have been on sale. The strawberries were already going bad so I skipped those. Our local strawberries will be ready soon. They ran out of the corn the first day of the sale ($.39 an ear) so I got a raincheck for a dozen ears. We eat some but most of it we cut off the cob and freeze it. You can’t even buy a can of corn for that price and this tastes so much better. The only thing I did buy was 2 packages of fresh Italian sausages for $2.99 a lb. which was cheaper than I have been able to pay for them in about 2 years. Each package had 4 large ones. So that will give us 8 meals. I mostly use it in spaghetti sauce. They also had BS chicken breast on sale for $ 2.49 a lb. But I got some at $1.99 a lb. over Memorial Day. I am hoping they will repeat that sale for the 4th of July. Then I will stock up again. Extra large eggs at my store are $ 2.99 a dozen. When I get close to running out of eggs, I will be stocking on those.

Hubby and I treated ourselves to appetizers from Applebee’s. We had enough for two meals. We used our discounted gift cards that we purchased the end of last year via a Top’s deal to pay. I am afraid that Applebee’s is not going to be in business much longer so we will be using these cards up sooner rather than later. We did the drive thru to pick them up and ate them at home.

I am very mindful of scanning my receipts into Ibotta and Fetch. I want to keep those free gift cards coming.

I used to do mystery shopping in Arizona and loved it. I am looking into doing it here.

I received $4.00 in rebates last week. They were online ones so I didn’t have to use a stamp. BTW, remember, that they are going up on July 13th so get your Forever stamps if you need them before the increase of $.05 each. I will be getting a 100 count roll.

I have been watching the price of silver for a very long time. I have never seen a price this high ever. I believe it will go up a bit more. We have a lot of sterling silver pieces that we no longer use. I will sell it soon and make some money off of it instead of letting it sit in a cupboard.

We continue to leave the lights off in the daytime hours. If I can cook something on the outside grill, I do. If I cook in the crockpot, I do it outside to keep the heat out of the house. Heat has been off since my last post. We have had 3 days that it was near 90 and humid here but we did not turn on the A/C. We kept the shades and blinds drawn on the sunny windows. If it cooled off at night, we opened a couple of windows. We would like to keep the A/C off as long as we can. If it gets stuffy and hot in here, we use the ceiling fans.

I have been watching our daily energy usage online. The data is always 2 days old. I am seeing that we have a spike at brunch time and from 4pm until we go to bed. We are trying to be mindful during those periods. They are mealtimes, downtime so TV’s are on and darkness.

I did the $30. gift card deal at Chewy’s when I purchased Eloise’s food. I am saving it for the next time I need food or litter.

Our driveway is being sealed today. The company is only charging us $140. which is cheaper than we can buy the product to do it ourselves.

Top’s again has sent me 4 weeks of $5. off a $50. order coupons and 4 Free coupons for fresh bananas, pasta, shredded cheese, and ice cream. They start next week.

I got my Amazon CC bill and earned points worth $ 12.36 from buying a few Amazon purchases and charging over $700. in dental bills to that card. That money will be used when we actually NEED something.

This is it for today. I will be back soon. How are you saving as much money as possible?

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Every Day

Cutting Costs The Last Few Days

These are the things we have done the last few days to cut costs:

Two loads of laundry(clothes and sheets) were washed in cold water with 1/3 cup of liquid detergent and hung to dry.

Purchased $ 350. worth of Applebee’s gift cards for $ 280. using my Top’s reward points. Lowe’s was my first choice but they were out of them. Applebee’s is 3+ miles from our home. I kept $200. of the cards for ourselves. We gave away $150. worth of them as a gift. We also have $250. in gift certificates for our favorite restaurant, Russell’s Steakhouse. I have 3 Panera giftcards that I got with rewards last year. These will be most of what we will use for eating out or to go for all of 2025.

I cooked a 10 lb. ham the day after Christmas when our son came to visit for a few days. We sliced up the rest of the ham on our meat slicer and I sealed it up into food saver bags for future sandwiches.

I baked a cranberry cake using frozen fresh cranberries that I purchased at Thanksgiving of 2023. They were $ .99 a bag.

I filled our car up with gasoline using the $ .90 off per gallon using Top’s gasoline points that I earned. I paid $ 2.13 per gallon. The cash station was $ 2.85 per gallon so getting the gas at Top’s was a no brainer.

I picked up a prescription for Hubby for no co-pay.

We had a shrimp dinner last night and tonight I made knock off Chick Fil A chicken sandwiches.

I only had to run the dishwasher twice this past week.

We watched our Buffalo Bills win yesterday for entertainment. Hubby has been enjoying the College Bowl games.

Happy New Year to all of you! Enjoy the next two days!

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Every Day

Cutting Costs

We had teriyaki noodles ($.89) and filet mignon for dinner last night. We grilled it outside at home. Filet mignon at restaurants is $35.- $ 59. Ours was cut by the butchers at Niagara Produce when I purchased a whole tenderloin almost 2 years ago. I paid $10.99 a lb. Each one is 5-6 oz. so these cost us about $ 4.13 or $ 8.26 for both for dinner tonight. It is so much cheaper to eat at home. It pays to have a food saver because food keeps a very long time in the deep freeze when you remove the air. They were delicious.

For brunch, I had a cheese omelet. Hubby had an English muffin with the homemade peach jam that I made.

Hubby is down to his last bottle of Irish Cream Skinny Syrups to put in his coffee. I looked on their site and there was no sale. So I contacted them online and they gave me a code to get 15% off my entire order. It never hurts to ask.

I have been dealing with a mess that was created by Fetch. After months of trying to get it straightened out, I finally got a person that understood and I finally have all of my points proper on my account and it is under the correct telephone number. I was actually able to scan the last two weeks of receipts and order a $10. Walmart gift certificate with some of the points that I had accumulated. Patience pays off!

Our Rakuten rebate check for $ 5.17 came in the mail yesterday. By the size of it, you can tell that I don’t shop much. But every little bit goes to savings.

I continue to get 3 magazines in the mail that I have never requested and will not purchase because they are mostly ads. But I will be glad to scan them if they keep coming.

The utility meters were read yesterday so I should be getting my electric and natural gas bill within the next few days. I am hoping that it is not as large as last month.

I needed some fresh lettuce. Niagara Produce had the 3 count of Romaine lettuce for $ 1.99. I got 1. Top’s had a Super Coupon for Daisy sour cream which I was out of. With the store coupon you paid $1.99. But I also had some $ .50 off coupons for Daisy products which Top’s doubled so I paid $ .99.

We used up most of our gasoline getting home from the Adirondacks on Monday. Since I had no gas points for Top’s, I filled up at the cash only station for $ 3.35 a gallon which is the cheapest in my area. Top’s right now is $3.55 a gallon. Both Top’s, N.P., and the gas station were on my route today.

It rained here while we were away so we have not had to water except for our hanging baskets that are under the front entry so they don’t get the benefit of the rain. Actually we have not had to water a lot so our quarterly bill should be much less than last year.

We have found a snowplow guy for the winter. He stopped by our home yesterday and we hired him. It will cost $500. for the winter which is the same amount we paid last winter. This winter is supposed to be really snowy so I believe we will get our money’s worth.

I did a load of wash yesterday to clean the clothes we used on the trip and some others that were in the laundry basket using cold water and a couple of tablespoons of detergent. Most were hung to dry.

Every year I have been buying the Passionate Penny Pincher’s yearly planner. It had been very expensive. This year I tried to check the price for 2025 and it is not ready yet. I am assuming the price is going up. I then checked She’s in Her Apron’s planner and it is $ 67.98 for the weekly and for 6 months of the daily it is $ 58.95. So I would assume you have to buy two and that would be $ 117.90. All these prices are ludicrous. I will save my money and put it into investments. I will use a notebook that I got on clearance a long time ago for $ .10. and keep a running list of everything I have to do in it. I will use my outlook calendar to track our appointments.

What have you been doing to save some money?