Tag: cost cutting

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Things We Will No Longer Purchase

With prices constantly rising for food, personal care, and household goods, these are the things that we will no longer be purchasing.

Chicken legs: The one meal serving that we have left, I am throwing out. I know most people can get them for $.99 a lb. and under. However, there is barely any meat on them and the last package I bought the skin would not crisp up even in the air fryer. It makes me wonder what they are washing them with or injecting into them. So for our safety, I am tossing them.

Bread: I have a bread maker. I will use up the bread that I bought this week for French toast for family and that is it. Bread has gotten really expensive and the quality has gone down. Have you noticed that both hamburger and hot dog rolls and sesame rolls fall apart when you eat them with your meat? I have also noticed that any kind of bread except fresh from the bakery lasts for weeks. No mold! Why is that? I have found recipes for making hamburg and hot dog rolls so I will make my own.

Personal Care Products: Conditioner, toothpaste and floss( I get plenty of samples from the dentist.), nail polish, and body wash. My hair gets oily when I use conditioner. I use bar soap in the shower and bathtub. It is cheaper and lasts a lot longer. I find Ivory soap and Dove soap to be the best.

Magazines and Books: I can read current magazines at the library. I can borrow books and read them online through my library.

Fast Food: We go out to local restaurants with friends once a month. We can get a meal for just a little bit more than we would pay for fast food and the quality is much better. The fast food restaurants are not going to survive between their high prices, poor quality food, and expecting a tip now. When we are not out with friends we cook at home except for our anniversary and birthdays. The only exception is getting take out Chinese once in a while from our local restaurant.

Energy Drinks: They have gotten so expensive and I have decided they are not that healthy for us.

Some Laundry Products: I haven’t bought dryer sheets in years. We rarely use our dryer. I only buy laundry detergent and Oxyclean. I put a tablespoon of the Oxyclean in each load along with my liquid detergent. Any stains easily come out.

Candles: I always bought scented but I can’t tolerate the smells anymore. We also don’t want Eloise around them.

Movie Tickets: The last time I bought tickets was when Alexa was little and wanted to see a Disney movie. She is 19 now so that was many years ago. There are so many streaming services now that I get free through Spectrum that we don’t need to go out ever for a movie.

Wrapping Paper: I have a huge roll of brown paper that I use that for wrapping gifts.

Cleaning supplies: I still have some left but when they run out I will make my own.

We have quit buying seasoning packets and gravies. We make our own taco and fajita seasonings. Just search online and you can find recipes for almost any that you would buy.

We used to use a lot of paper towels. I replaced them with microfiber cloths. I use about 1-2 rolls a year just to drain bacon.

We have a bidet so we only use about a roll and a half of toilet paper a month. I was thinking about getting a bidet for the guest bathroom but we don’t have enough company during the year to make it worth the price.

That’s enough for today. I have a lot of work to do around here that got neglected while my back was hurting.

What are you no longer buying?

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

I did just a bit of shopping this week for things that we really needed. I went to Dollar Tree and got 6 shelf stable whole milk and 2 shelf stable chocolate milk for $ 1.25 each. I know this milk has chemicals to preserve it but I don’t feel the pasteurization of regular milk is that great for it either. It tastes just like fresh when chilled. It also keeps a long, long time.

Next I went to Top’s and got tomatoes on the vine for $1.88 lb. One we have already cut into for hamburgers we had one night this week. But there are 4 whole ones left. I spent $ 2.97 for them. FYI: Tomatoes are going to be in short supply this season. 80-90% come from California and they have drought and a lack of water. The ones you are able to get will be very expensive. I have plenty of canned tomatoes of all kinds purchased when they were cheaper. If you don’t and use them, you should stock them now before the prices go higher than they are. If you can grow tomatoes, do it. If I see them at a good price at a farmer’s market or at Niagara Produce, I will buy just to eat fresh for BLT’s. Otherwise, we will go without fresh.

I had to go to Walmart to pick up 2 prescriptions for me. While I was there I browsed the grocery and household sections. I was absolutely shocked at how understocked they were. Their pasta section has shrunk down to one very tiny section. It should be gone by now. Their produce sections looked awful. Half of the shelves in some aisles were empty and fronted. Their candy aisle that usually is one full set of shelves on one side of the aisle had hardly anything. Their vegetable, fruit and canned meat and fish aisles weren’t much better. I have never seen it this bad. Either it is because the Strait of Hormuz is closed, people are worried about shortages, or worried that prices will skyrocket this month and are stocking up. The only things I purchased were in the household goods aisle. I got 2 boxes of 80 kitchen garbage bags for $11.22 each and 2 boxes of 30 gallon 40 ct. black garbage bags for $ 8.97 each. I hated to spend the money but this is one household good I can’t go without and I was down to my last box of each. Our garbage service will not empty your barrel unless everything is bagged. I may pick up a few more this month.

My last stop was Niagara Produce to pick up 2 dozen xtra large eggs for $.99 each. They have already been put in my 5 dozen box in the order that they expire. They also had the 3 count bag of romaine lettuce for $ 3.99.

I did stop at Top’s to get a lb. of Jimmy Dean bacon for $ 4.99 but they had none. So I got a raincheck.

I had a dental appointment earlier in the week and that is when I got all of the groceries. Six months ago when I got a cleaning, it cost me $ 276. This week it was up to $ 293. We have no dental insurance. At least the hygienist gave me a great goodie bag. It had 4 tubes of toothpaste, a toothbrush which I use for household cleaning( we have electric toothbrushes), 2 floss, etc. It has all been added to my stockpile.

While I write this, my dishwasher is running on the quick cycle and it is really full. I will open it to let the dishes air dry. We have been using really cheap paper plates when we can so we don’t have to run it as often. It should make a difference in our bill at least a little bit.

This week I only ran one load of wash and hung most of it to dry.

Our sprinkler system company came to open it up for the season and make sure everything was in good working order and all of the sprinkler heads were adjusted to hit the areas they should. We have no idea what the bill will be because they mail it. It will be interesting to see how much it has gone up.

Today is the deadline that NYS says the counties and towns must post the proposed assessments online that our next school and property taxes are based on. I have been very worried about that because each year they have been majorly raising it. Since we have lost our senior deduction for the school taxes in September, I did not want to see the assessment raised too. I was so happy to see that my assessment was not raised from what it was last year. That gives us a needed break at least for a year.

Besides hamburgers this week, we have had cheeseburger skillet dish with sausage that I had cooked up and put in the freezer, Chinese food, and ham sandwiches. Our breakfasts have been eggs and sausage, cereal with fruit, and English muffins with homemade peach jam.

Now that it is May 1st and I have all of my figures for April, we had extra income in the amount of $ 2644. 25. April was a good month.

How have you guys saved a few bucks this week?

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A Large Grocery Haul At Top’s

There were finally some good deals at Top’s yesterday. But it was a struggle to do all I had to do there. They open at 6:00am. However, the bottle return room does not open until 7:00am. So I went up when it got light here because I don’t drive in the dark. That was about 7:10am. The bottle return room has 3 machines. One needed to be emptied so it was not working. Another took glass only and I had no glass. The last one which was working but it was being used. I waited. Finally, I went into the store to go to customer service to get my $ 1.49 overcharge back from the reduced price produce that I purchased last week. Guess what? They weren’t open yet. They don’t open until 8:00am. So I went and did my shopping and then went there last. NY Strip steaks were on sale so I went to get them. They only had 1 package of 4 in the case. So I spied both the store manager and butcher shop manager having a chit chat in the aisle behind me. I went over and asked if someone could get me another package. More waiting while they cut them up! UGH! My day was not starting well. Top’s needs to get it’s act together. Either you are open or you are not open. Three different times is ridiculous and a waste of my energy. When you have to plan these things out, it is ludicrous! I like to go early so that I have less contact with sick people.

Flour was on sale for $ 2.29 for a 5 lb. bag. Since we are making our own bread products, I have been stocking up when I see a great deal! The 2 lbs. of carrots was $2.49 and I used a digital coupon for $.50 making them $1.99. I got a 3 lb. bag of seedless mandarins $ 4.99 minus a $ 2.00 digital coupon = $ 2.99.

Large eggs were on sale for $. 99. I paid that price for 2 of them. However, I had a blockbuster coupon for 1 dozen eggs from a new game that Top’s has. It has replaced the Monopoly game that they used to have. So I paid $ .49 for the third dozen.

I found this package of reduced price Italian sausage for $ 2.54 instead of $3.91. It expires today but I quickly froze it yesterday.

Sour cream was on sale for 2/$5.00. We were low so I purchased 2. The butter was on sale for the lowest price that I have seen here in almost 3 years. I got 8 lbs. for $ 2.50 each. They also gave me a coupon for $ .50 off one so I got all 8 for $ 19.50. They have been added to my stash in the freezer. I got another package of reduced for quick sale Italian sausage for $ 2.45. The 2 lb. container of fresh strawberries was $ 6.99 minus $ 1.00 digital coupon = $ 5.99. They have been cleaned and cut up for dessert and snacks this week.

The NY strip steaks were on sale for $ 11.99 a lb. so I paid $73.14 for them. I ended up with 8 steaks which I have repackaged into food saver bags. We grill 2 when we want them and it gives us a dinner and a brunch. We will be using leftover macaroni bacon goulash for dinner again tonight. But we will grill 2 steaks tomorrow night so that we can see if they are tender or not. You never know! If they are tender, I will be going back to buy a few more packages. I have a lot of money in my grocery budget leftover from the lst couple of months because I have been trying to eat from our pantry as much as possible and buying mostly loss leaders that we needed. That way we can afford beef when it is on loss leader. My total for everything today was $ 117.15 after they deducted my $ 2.35 bottle return slip.

I have shopped loss leaders for almost 59 years. I am really concentrating hard on them now. Prices are just too darn high to buy anything at full price. We eat what we have stocked at the best prices. We live in NY and food prices are high because we live in the Buffalo area. Buffalo is the second largest city in NY after NYC. Food is not cheap here. But you plan and work with what you know to be a good deal for you.

Perhaps you can guess what my topic will be tomorrow after this post today. See you then.

Did you get any great deals this week?

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Every Day

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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Every Day

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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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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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!