Tag: cutting costs

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Every Day

Things We Are Doing To Save Money

Yesterday I roasted a 18.31 turkey that I got on sale at Thanksgiving. I served it with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy. After dinner, I cut all of the meat off of it and I will use it for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday meals. I also put all the skin and bones in the crock pot overnight. It made lots of turkey broth. The rest was frozen for future meals. This should make us 4 dinners, a huge pot of homemade turkey soup and a couple of casseroles. It should give us a total of about 15 – 16 dinners for each us. It is 16 degrees, cold and bitter out today. It’s a good day to use the big oven. I forgot to take a picture of the turkey when it was intact. But here is one while I was taking the meat off the bone.

Well, our snow plow guy was here again yesterday and today because it has been snowing for two days again now. We are so sick of this winter. I need Spring!

On Wednesday, I went to the market with a list of sale items. I was so disgusted with what was going on there that I vowed not to shop for as many months as I can. On my list was Mary Kitchen corned beef hash. This is a regular thing I buy when it is on sale because Hubby loves it with eggs for brunch sometimes. We were down to 3 cans and they had it on sale on B1G1F. My plan was to pick up 10 cans. It was well stocked but I soon knew why. Every can either was dented or rusting on the bottom. All of the dates had been stamped over. The old dates were expired but the new stamps dates were not. I grabbed the grocery manager to complain and to ask if he had any newer ones in the back. He said no. So evidently this store chain is emptying their warehouses of crap and trying to sell it and hoping that no one will notice. I don’t know if this is because food is not coming into the warehouses or just pure greed. But I will not be shopping there. Watch your cans when you buy them. I have also seen this at Walmart. Rust is compromising the cans. You can not safely eat it plus any can with a dent near a seal should not be purchased.

At the same store they had green seedless grapes on sale with a store coupon for $1.88 a lb. What a great price, so I was going to buy some for our chicken salads. However, they were of very poor quality. Always look at the stems. If they are brown and shriveling up, they are old. I passed on those too.

The last sale item that I refused to buy was a can of corn on sale with a store coupon for $ .49. The cans had not been dusted in forever. They also had the dates stamped over and rust on them.

I ended coming home with 1 box of angel hair pasta for $ .88 and 2 five pound of bags of russet potatoes that were on sale for B1G1F. My total for the potatoes was $5.49. So I didn’t spend much at the store.

Before I started shopping, I did what I usually do. I quickly ran through the store and took pictures of the prices with my cellphone of all items that I regularly buy so that I could update my price book. Almost everything has gone up by $ 1.00. I actually saw a few things that had increased by almost $ 2.00. Those are huge increases from week to week.

While I was out, I stopped at Home Depot to try to get some ice melt. They had none. Getting ice melt anyplace in the Buffalo area is not easy.

So needless to say, it was not a good shopping trip. Take note of this date of February 19, 2025. It was my last grocery shopping trip for a very long time. The only thing that will entice me to shop would be a REALLY rock bottom meat sale or sale produce that we love. Otherwise I will not be going to any grocery store. I want to see how long we can stay out of the stores and make delicious meals from what we already have. That will bolster our savings also and help us reach our goal early.

I also refuse to pay for produce that will go bad in a day or two. I got a small pickup order at Walmart the other day. I got a 2 lb. container of strawberries. I got them home and decided to wash them and cut them up and put them in a 1/2 gallon mason jar. I find they keep better that way. As I was cutting, I noticed that there was mold in all of the berries in the center. It was disgusting! I threw them all out because even the ones that looked good could have mold spores on them. Walmart is refunding my $5.32.

So no shopping for me. I refuse to pay these insane prices for inferior products. We will use up what we purchased when prices were lower.

Breakfast this morning will be a hard boiled egg and a cranberry orange muffin. Dinner will be leftover turkey and the side dishes.

I got our electric and gas bill yesterday. It was the highest bill ever since we moved here. But more on that soon.

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Every Day

What We Have Been Doing To Cut Costs So That We Can Add To Our Net Worth

About once a week now, I am using my Instant Pot Max to hard boil 12 eggs to be eaten with dinner, brunch and for snacks. Meat has gotten so expensive that eggs are cheaper to get the protein that our bodies need.

My last 60 count box of eggs cost me $ 19.26 at Walmart. That is $.321per egg. Even if the price of eggs goes up, I believe they will be cheaper than beef, pork, sausage, shrimp, fish, and chicken per meal. I buy my large hams on sale at Christmas and Easter which we slice up to always have fried ham to eat with eggs when we want some. Hubby and I eat one hard boiled egg with bacon(which has come down a bit in price here) for brunches. That meal comes in at about $1.00 for each of us. I also have a lot of eggs scrambled raw in the freezer that I can thaw when I need them along with a piece or two of breakfast sausage that I always buy on sale. As a back up in case we can’t find eggs, I have freeze dried eggs and Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer to use in baking. Hubby had raisin bran for brunch. I have not eaten yet. I will probably make a steak-umm and eat a hard boiled egg to go with it.

This afternoon I will cook a lb. of bacon in the oven to have it ready for brunches. We will also use it in our homemade Cobb salads for dinner tonight along with a sliced up egg in each. I cook my bacon on a silicone baking mat instead of “throw away” parchment paper. I save my bacon grease to cook with.

We got our Rakuten Rebate for the last quarter. It was for $23.53. That will go into our savings. Every little bit helps!

Hubby took about 1/2 of our returnable bottles to Fast Cash the other day. He got $ 4.00. That also will go into savings.

I have submitted a $7.00 digital rebate for Michelob Ultra Beer. That will also go into savings.

We will get a senior rebate deducted from our school taxes this year. After 15 years of not qualifying, we have qualified because NY raised the income limit. It had been going up a little here and a little there but it went up quite a bit for this year coming up: 2025-2026. We just found out and we are elated. We don’t know the amount yet but last’s year’s deduction was $ 950. The amount is set by the state according to what county you are in. However, they will be reassessing us again so one may wash out the other. Time will tell.

Hubby and I went out to dinner on Valentine’s Day Eve to celebrate without the crowds. We went to Applebee’s and had a wonderful dinner of rib eye steaks. I paid for our meals and the 20% tip with gift cards that we got discounted at Christmas.

We are almost out of dish liquid. I have been researching how to make homemade. Does anyone here have a recipe they use and like?

I have been trying to cook up a whole bunch of meals at once to save on energy. As you all know, our electric and natural gas bill was almost $300. last month. The company just let us know that the meter reading is due by Friday. It is the month that the meter reader is supposed to read. However he doesn’t read if he can’t get the to the meter because of all of the snow. Let me assure you that we have lots of snow. It is been snowing here almost every day the past 6 weeks. Worst winter since we moved here. It snowed a bit this morning and now the winds have whipped it up. The snowplow guy has been here a lot this winter. Three times just yesterday and he just came 5 minutes ago. Our temperatures have been frigid too. We are at our high of 17 degrees but this afternoon it is supposed to go down to 8 degrees. Ugh.

To continue talking about the utility bills, the company just notified us that they will be adding a flat rate on our bills on as a separate line item for about $10.00 a month to pay for infrastructure repairs and associated costs. I assume this bill coming will have it on it. I believe they will charge this $10.00 per month for 6 months and then they will drop it to $5.00 per month forever. This will be on every NYSEG customers bills. Because of all of this and the horrid weather, I expect my next bill will be over $300. I have to find more ways to cut. This is getting ridiculous.

I am sitting here in the dark writing this. All lights are off in the house. All shades are down except for on sunny windows. We can’t turn the heat down any further. Hubby and Eloise would freeze. Eloise spends a good part of her day laying on the heat registers in the floor.

I will continue this in the next few days.

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Every Day

Grocery Haul, etc.

I finally got to go grocery shopping yesterday at Top’s. Chicken is hard to find around here. Not only is it scarce but it does not look good, kind of gray in color and the price keeps going up. Top’s had some on sale for $.99 a lb.- leg quarters, legs, and thighs on the bone. They did not look good.

However they did have large rotisserie chickens on sale for $ 6.99 each with a limit of 2. I can buy them at B.J.’s for $ 4.99 each. However, it was not worth the gasoline to go down there. It is 30 minutes away and I had no other reason to go down. I can’t buy a whole chicken for this price let alone roast it. So this was a savings of both time and money. I can’t buy a large raw whole chicken for under $8.00 even at Walmart.

We had some of it on a huge salad for brunch yesterday. Then I made stuffing and gravy to go with it for dinner.

Today I cut all of the chicken off and used my food saver to package it in 2 cup portions for other meals like soup or casseroles. They are now in the freezer. The total cost for the chickens was $ 13.98.

They had chuck roasts on sale for $ 5.99 a lb. I purchased 2 large ones for a total of $ 41.15. They will make 2 stews and 2 beef barley soups. My last purchase was this Red Baron pizza that was $ 3.99 with a Super Coupon. This is for dinner tonight.

My budget for the month of January was $400. I spent a total of $ 145.93. So way under budget which I was thrilled with.

We will continue to eat out of our stockpiles here and spend as little as possible in February also. I do want to stock a year’s worth of corned beefs when they go on sale for St. Patrick’s day. We love reuben sandwiches. Meanwhile our freezers are going down so that I can stock on sale beef when I see it. Most of that beef will go on the bottom of the freezer. I believe that beef will skyrocket soon to where it is unaffordable. Once I have enough of that and chicken, I will stop buying meat.

Otherwise, I am buying as little as possible. The prices will not come down until people stop buying so much food. It is the inflation but also supply and demand. If the demand is down the prices will come down. So I will do my part to control it here at my home.

While I was out yesterday, I went to the drugstore and picked up one of Hubby’s prescriptions. I also went to Ace Hardware to pick up the battery operated shovel that I showed you in a prior post. Hubby ordered it online and they let us know it had been shipped to our store. He is outside right now trying it out on our walk. I just have to learn how to use it.

With the errands all done for the week. I will not be going out again this week except to get our mail.

Have any of you saved money on groceries this week? Have you gotten a good meat deal?

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Every Day

Sunday’s Doings

After rising early, I made us a breakfast of SteakUmm’s and 3 eggs each. I love this easy breakfast. Fortunately, I have a 60 count box of eggs in our refrigerator. It has gone up twice in price since I purchased them. So we are using them sparingly.

On Saturday night, I put the stainless steel racks from both of our ovens in one of our bathtubs, filled it up with hot water, and threw 4 Cascade Platinum Dishwasher Pods in the water to soak overnight. I took this picture this morning and you can see how dirty the water has gotten. It took all of the grease off them and most of the brown baked on stuff. I had to use a Scrub Daddy pad to get it all off but it was relatively easy. So the racks are like new.

One of our favorite charities is Tunnels To Towers. We give them large checks about twice a year. We don’t do the $11.00 a month thing but give much more in our checks we send. I finally braved the cold and snow to go out to our mailbox to get our last few days mail. We got these beautiful birthday cards from them. On the right is the cards and the matching envelopes are on the left. It is always nice to get a surprise from them.

When I came back in, our sweet Eloise was asleep on top of her favorite leather chair. I just had to share this pic with you to show you how big she has gotten. She is 8 and 1/2 months old now.

We had a quick dinner before the game last night. One of our favorites is shrimp cocktails. Later in the evening we had some monterey jack cheese on crackers.

One of the ways we save money is to always buy on sale. The shrimp was on sale a while ago for $6.99 a lb. We used the whole lb. between the two of us.

We finally got all of the forms that we need to file our Federal and State income taxes. I am afraid by just eyeballing it that we will owe this year. I will be very surprised if we get a refund. So I am in no hurry to do them right away.

I did two loads of laundry in warm water to try to catch everything up around here. I did use my dryer with our wool balls to cut down on the time needed to run it.

This morning I ran a lot of errands that needed to be done. More on that tomorrow.

Has anyone saved any money this past week or so?

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Every Day

Cost Cutting This Past Week

We did no online shopping this week so no money spent on that.

I did all of my errands for this week today. I went to Top’s to check out ham prices. No real deals to be had. I did pick up 2 lbs. of butter for $2.99 each using a rain check. I also used a rain check to get 4 SteakUms at the BOGO price of $3.99 for 2 of them so I paid $ 7.98 for all 4 packages. My total was $13.96.

Then I went to Walmart to check out ham prices which were too high in price. I looked for the $.25 a lb. turkeys that the online community is talking about but they had none. I did pick up a case of Clear American Sparkling waters for $ 9.36 to use for Christmas. I also purchased provolone cheese slices for $ 2.24 and a 2 lb. package of Bubba Burgers for $13.97. The total was $ 25.57. I paid with 2 $10. Walmart GC’s that I earned from Fetch and $ 5.57 in cash.

We watched our Buffalo Bills beat the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Our family was not able to come to celebrate Christmas this past weekend because of the flu.

I have been reading some frugality books that I haven’t read in a long time to get ready for 2025. Then I am setting each of them aside to give to a friend. This is giving me some time to rest my back.

My winter coat needs to be dry cleaned because I forgot to do it last spring. I am researching the price for the dry cleaner and the price to do it myself. Whichever is cheaper, I will do.

We are making all meals from our pantry and freezer.

I have set aside time in my schedule this week to make a bunch of quick breads from scratch. I need some for gifts and some for breakfasts meals for family that will spending a few days here during the holidays.

I have been slow walking on the treadmill which is helping my back.

I purchased a Sam’s Club Membership at the senior discount rate of $20.

All leftovers have been eaten this week.

I made 8 SF puddings for snack and desserts this week.

I did 1 load of laundry this week using cold water and hung most of it to dry. Towels and sheets I like to put in the dryer.

What have you done to cut costs?

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Every Day

Cost Cutting This Week and November Savings

Hubby filled the gas tank up when we got back from out trip at the cash station. We paid $ 2.89 a gallon.

Hubby arranged through our insurance company to have a windshield replacement company come to our home on Tuesday and replace our cracked windshield. It is fully covered under our insurance. I am thankful because it cost over $700.

I stopped at Top’s on the way home from the X-RAY place and got a loaf of Schwebel’s bread for $.99, 2 bunches of bananas for $ .29 a lb, 2 lbs. of butter for $ 2.99 each and egg nog on sale for $ 3.99. I also used some of my manufacturers coupons from the companies I write to to get 1 butter, 2 cottage cheese, 2 sour cream and 1 Rosina meatballs. Almost all the under $1.00 coupons doubled. We have been wanting banana salad as a side dish but until now the bananas have been too expensive. I got one yellow bunch and one green bunch so they will last longer.

It has been snowing here for a couple of days. Our snowplow guy showed twice and I think he will be back tomorrow because it is snowing again. He is all paid in advance so I don’t have to worry about that when he comes. I shoveled the sidewalk and porch so that the delivery people don’t fall and my packages don’t get wet.

I cooked a half pound of bacon and 3 eggs for brunch. The bacon was very fatty so it made a lot of bacon grease. I used some to cook the eggs and saved the rest to use for other things like sauteing potatoes.

For dinner last night I made hamburgers and topped them with sauteed onions and cheese. We have one leftover so that will get eaten for brunch today by one of us.

When our garbage man came, my neighbor brought the can up to my garage door for me because the snow and wind blowing it around was awful . I was grateful and let him know. It was so easy to just open the door and bring it into the garage. I have thoughtful neighbors.

Our water bill came for three months and is now down to normal again. It was $ 57.44. The last bill over the summer was $ 212.10 for 3 months. For the past year we have paid $ 367.49 for the gallons of water we use. I would like to reduce that by $40.00 in 2025. Using the dishpans all year and being very careful to take navy showers will help. We had a dry summer. Hopefully next summer it will rain more so we don’t have to water as often. We also pay for water and sewers in our tax bill in January.

While we were away, the free gallon of milk that I got did not get used. It is still good so I made a lot of SF pudding to use it up. Before it goes bad, I will freeze the rest.

You all know that we pay for grocery delivery at Walmart. Hubby was out of his favorite crackers and I was out of saltines to go with soup meals. So we placed an order of those things, romaine lettuce and fresh tomatoes for salads, and a few other items. I noticed that Walmart had given me a free express order(delivered within 90 minutes). It actually arrived an hour after I ordered. That was convenient last night rather than have to get up early this morning and deal with it.

I scanned all of my receipts into Fetch. I got a rebate check for $18. for other items.

Our November savings was only $1600. The reason is all of the Christmas money gifts that we give out and charitable donations that we sent to different organizations in November. We give a lot of money in large lump sums to Tunnel to Towers a few times a year. I also put $50. in the Salvation Army kettle at Top’s. I also tend to tip in larger amounts in November and December.

Lastly, we had many things that we bought for Eloise to make sure she is warm this winter.

I am debating writing Christmas cards this year. I have them because I bought them half price last Christmas. But the postage is so high now. Are any of you doing something else besides cards like e-mails?

However $1600. is a win for us and gets us closer to our goal.

Have you cut any costs the past week or so? Please share with all of us. It helps others.

My storage is used up on my computer. I need to get rid of some pictures before I can take any more pictures. I refuse to pay for more storage. I will try to get that done over the weekend.

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Every Day

A Wonderful Thanksgiving

We left at 6:30am on Wednesday morning to go to my son’s home in the Adirondacks. It was a 5 hour drive. We took Eloise with us in her cage in the back of the SUV. She had all of her shots and was spade at the rescue. If we had to board her, the new vet would have insisted on a full exam before they took her for boarding. She would have been boarded for 5 days. I decided to wait to get the new vet until she is due for her boosters in May. My son was agreeable that she was welcome.

I can tell you that it wasn’t easy. We had to take so many things for her with us. Our SUV was packed between her things and ours. I also had some food for Thanksgiving to take to my son: cranberry sauce, pickles, olives, party mix, and an apple and pumpkin pie. Plus I brought my son’s Christmas gift and a case of pumpkin for his dog, Hotch. Eloise finally settled down and slept after 2 and 1/2 hours of meowing in the car.

After we got settled in at my son’s, we went to https://harusaratoga.com/ for an early dinner. We love their Japanese Hibachi. Hubby and I had not eaten all day. So we all enjoyed appetizers, entrees, salad and soup. Not an inexpensive restaurant though but it is so good that it is worth every penny. The bill with tip was $ 152.

On Thanksgiving we woke up to heavy snow. By the time it stopped late afternoon, we had 8-10 inches. It was so beautiful especially on all the pine trees. We stayed home and I helped my son cook a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. He cooked a 22 lb. Butterball turkey that he got for $1.04 a lb. He is a good deal shopper too. He has many turkeys in his freezer. We ate and then watched some movies.

On Friday, we chilled in the morning and then visited two friends. The guy is my son’s business partner. They recently purchased a new to them home and they and my son renovated it. We were happy to get a tour of it and it is beautiful. They did a great job especially the brand new kitchen.

We enjoyed a couple of drinks and the best homemade popcorn that I have ever eaten. They surprised us with an early Christmas gift. It was a Yankee Candle called All Is Bright. It smells heavenly. They traveled to Massachusetts to get it for us. They also gave Hubby a bag of Fire Department Company coffee because it was decaf which is what Hubby drinks. It was so nice of both of them.

We got home and ate turkey leftovers. My son had so many leftovers that he froze some for us to take home in the Yeti cooler that I won from his fire department’s raffle a few months ago. After a 5+ hour trip home, it was still as frozen as when we left. Our plan was to eat some when we got home on Saturday for dinner. But they were not going to thaw in time. Rather than order food delivered, I rummaged through our freezer and took out coconut shrimp to cook in the air fryer mode in my countertop oven. We will have the turkey for dinner tonight.

The best part of this trip was seeing and spending time with my son. We were shocked at how much weight he has lost. He is so slim and looks great. He is busy between a full time job and his business. It is hard for him to get the time to come out to visit. But he is coming soon for a visit to us combined with a business trip.

Also we were a little concerned about how his dog and Eloise would get along. There was no worry. They were best friends. They played and Eloise had a game of let’s grab his tail on the way by and see if he will chase me. They were so good together. Rubbing noses was popular. My son will bring him out this month and I am sure that Eloise will be glad to see him.

The only money we spent on this trip was the Haru dinner bill, tolls on the Thruway which are discounted because they take them out of our checking account, 2 tanks of gasoline, some lifesavers, a bottle of gin, and 2 bottles of raspberry seltzer, 1 Chocolate Shake for Hubby, 1 Chick Fil A English muffin sandwich which was the worst thing I have ever eaten because they really burnt the bun. The entire bun was charred. Once you are back on the road and open the sandwich to eat it, it is too late to return it. I will be contacting them about it.

The worse part of our trip home was the ice on our car. It was almost impossible to get it off. My son got our windshield scraped. We left and realized just down the road that our windshield was cracked from a chunk of ice hitting it. The crack traveled and got bigger as we drove home. I was happy to get home with it intact. Hubby will call our insurance company tomorrow to see where we can get it fixed. I am hoping they can come to the house to do it.

Today I will be taking it easy because my sciatica and arthritis are really painful. Anything that I can do sitting down I will. But walking is a real problem.

I hope you all had a great holiday and I will post again tomorrow.

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Every Day

Trying to Cut Costs

I realized that I was running out of Eloise’s kitten food today. I needed a 14 lb. bag of her Purina Healthy Development Kitten Chow. So I did some research and realized that I could get it for $18.59 minus $2.00 in rewards money at Petsmart for $ 16.59. This was the cheapest that I could get it here.

While I was out, I stopped at the Top’s gasoline station and filled our SUV up. I had $ .40 off per gallon with my gas reward points. So I paid $2.66 per gallon. I needed gas and my area seems to up the price of gasoline the weekend before Thanksgiving. So I wanted to fill up before that happened.

I had the beef stew and Hubby had the beef barley soup that I made earlier in the week for dinner. We had 1 portion of beef stew and 3 portions of soup leftover. So we froze them in those portions for future meals.

Chris reminded me today that I posted my taco seasoning recipe a long time ago. For those who would like it, here it is:

https://frugalthingseveryday.com/2019/06/21/making-my-own-taco-seasoning/ .

This cream of chicken soup recipe that I make is from The Tightwad Gazette book. I will be making some tonight.

2 cups of dry milk

1 and 1/4 cups of cornstarch

1/4 cup chicken bouillon powder

2 Tbsp. dried onion flakes

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. basil

The thyme and basil are optional but I always use them. Mix all together and put in an airtight jar.

To use add 1/3 cup of mix to 1 and 1/4 cups of water. It replaces one can.

I was very conscious of electric usage today. It has been rainy and dreary all day so we used just one light in whatever room we were in. We heated our dinners up in the microwave. Hubby made French toast for breakfast using one pan on the stove burner. We had pure maple syrup and SF syrup to top it. We did no laundry and ran no dishwasher today.

Did you do anything to cut your costs today? Please share.

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Every Day

Monday’s and Tuesday Doings

As usual I have been up early with Eloise. She never seems to want to sleep past 3-4AM. After I fed her and we played for a while, I planned out a couple of days.

I made my coffee. Then I put a sirloin tip roast in the crock pot to make beef stew. I threw in fresh carrots and onions. After the beef had cooked about 3 hours, I took the roast out and cut in up into stew beef and put it back in the pot. The potatoes I threw in later in the day because I do not like them mushy. When Hubby got up, he asked what was in the crock pot. I told him and he asked if I would be mad if he asked me to take 1/2 of the beef and make beef barley soup. I said I would be happy to do that. After the beef chunks were tender, I put 1/2 of them into the soup pot. So I ended up making both beef stew and beef barley soup. I put both dinners in jars after we ate and it will be dinner for the rest of the week. If we get sick of it, I will put whatever is left over in the freezer. We will just reheat what we want to eat each night. I’m happy about that since I won’t have to make another meal for a long time.

Before I could make the soup, I needed to go to Top’s to get celery, I did not know that Hubby had used it all up. So I got 2 packages of it because it was on B1G1F so that 2 cost me $ 2.99. I also swung into Aldi’s and got 6 more pounds of butter. I usually buy 30-36 pounds of butter to last a year. But this year I am not going to buy as much because the price is so high and I still have some left from last year. We have decided that we will only use butter to spread on food like steaks, vegetables, English muffins, etc. We have enough oils to cook with including vegetable or canola for baking, olive oil and avocado to saute food. We always have cold pressed coconut oil and ghee also. Plus I save bacon grease to cook eggs and potatoes.

Last stop was the drugstore to pick up a prescription for Hubby. Cost was $.00.

I did end up doing a load of laundry using cold water and minimal liquid detergent. Then I hung it to dry. If I can continue to just do laundry once a week, I will be thrilled.

Hubby and I took some time to watch The Equalizer that was on the night before. That was my entertainment for the day. However, Hubby did watch the football game and I called my sister for our weekly chat.

Hubby went outside and removed the solar lights from the gardens to store them for the winter. He finished some odds and ends out there so we are now officially ready for winter.

So have you guys been stocking up on cheap turkeys? I have purchased one this year and got a free one, one of which we ate a couple of weeks ago and froze the leftovers. The other is in the freezer for future meals. I would have loved to buy more at such cheap prices but alas I just don’t have the freezer space. I only have a small chest freezer plus the freezer drawers in the fridge.

An acquaintance of mine who lives on only Social Security wanted to stock on turkeys this season and she had the space. The first one she purchased was $ 1.07 a lb. at Aldi’s. Her husband did not want her to buy it because he felt the price was too high. He was sure she could get it cheaper. She convinced him and she bought it. It was a Butterball Premium and well worth the price. Then she bought $ 150. in needed items to be able to do the free turkey deal at B.J.’s. You could get up to a 20 lb. turkey this week. However when she went to get it yesterday she could only find a 17 pounder. This happened to me last year and that is why I did not do this deal. She wanted to get more turkeys but her husband was adamant that she did not. He didn’t seem to understand the concept that you will not ever get poultry or meat cheaper than this. If you can get meat at these prices why pay more in the future especially when you are low income. Now I know some people don’t like turkey but he does. She knows that she can use the turkey in any recipe that calls for chicken. Why pay $ 3.49 a lb. or more for chicken? I use turkey in place of chicken in many of our recipes.

I just don’t understand his reasoning. I told her I would buy more if I had the room. So yesterday she went to Walmart and found a Shady Brook Farms one on sale for $ .88 lb. She had to sneak it in the house and the freezer. She told me and I was excited for her. Hubby has never forbidden me from buying something hence we have no secrets from each other. But if he did forbid me, I would be sneaking them in the house too. I will save money anytime I have the freezer space rather than pay more or full price later. I could understand his reasoning if they just didn’t have the money but they travel to timeshares a couple of times a year and eat out a lot. So a few cheap turkeys is not going to break them.

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Every Day

Cutting Costs Over The Weekend

Yesterday I went to Top’s very early in the morning to pick up my free turkey. I prefer Butterball turkeys but a free one is just as good. This was a little over 19 lbs. This picture was taken in the large bottom freezer drawer of my refrigerator. I had already lifted it too many times yesterday. It will stay there until I cook it sometime in the future.

I earned this turkey last week when I spent $100. on needed items for now and the holidays. It gave me a $10.00 off coupon to buy up to a 20 lb. turkey. The turkey was marked at $8.79 so the additional $ 1.21 was taken off the rest of my order. I also spent about $35. to pick up some on sale items. This was necessary to get the free turkey and to use a $5.00 off Super Coupon on the rest of my order. I had a Free coupon(saved $ 3.99) for a gallon of milk so I got that. I also had two different coupons to get 100 extra gas points so I now have $ .40 off per gallon of gasoline.

I now have 3 points to be able to get 3- $ 50. giftcards for $ 40. each. They only have certain gift cards on this Christmas deal. I will either get Lowes, IHop, or Chili’s cards this year. I haven’t decided yet. The card choices are not my favorites this year but those are ones I would use. I still have the Panera cards that I got last year. This gift card deal is our gift to ourselves for Christmas each year. It helps to defray the cost of eating out or getting things we need for our home like filters for the furnace, any repair items we may need etc.

I also stopped at Aldi’s to pick up 6 lbs. of butter for $3.49 each. That is the best price I can find in my area.

Over the weekend, we made eggs, bacon and had avocados for brunches. Yesterday, I tried a new recipe for dinner: https://www.plainchicken.com/french-onion-chicken-noodle-casserole/ . Hubby hated it. I liked it but it would not be my favorite. It made a lot and because I don’t waste food I portioned it our into quart size freezer bags. I will take one out every once in a while for my brunch until it is gone. On Saturday night, I baked some little smokies wrapped in crescent dough and we dipped them in mustard.

I had to read the meters to submit to my utility company. We used 33 kwh’s less than last year for electric and 15 ccfs less of natural gas. The bill should come within the next couple of days so we will see what it costs. I expect even though we used less the bill will be higher. I am hoping it is lower.

The last time I did a load of laundry it was a week ago yesterday. It has now been 8 days. I may have to do one today or tomorrow. It depends on how much underwear we have still clean. I am trying to cut back on how many loads we do a month.

I have been straightening up our pantry. I believe we have enough food for the winter.

Hubby made a trip to Home Depot looking for some locking clips for Eloise’s cage for when we need to use it. The ones that came with it are a pain to unlock and lock. He did not find any. So we are going to use velcro strips. While he was out he also stopped at Fast Cash to return bottles to get $5.50 back in deposits.

Our snow plow man that we hired came and marked our driveway for the winter. So we are now set for the first storm. This man is very reliable. He has been mowing some neighbors lawns for years and snowplowing eight driveways in here. We are happy that we found him.

Our free entertainment this weekend was watching our Buffalo Bills beat the Kansas City Chiefs yesterday 30-21. The Chiefs had not lost a game this year until now. We loved it.

As I sit her posting for you, I am hearing so many geese flying south. This has been a daily event for a week now. It is a stark reminder of what is coming. Ugh!

So did you cut any costs this weekend?