Tag: cutting costs

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Cutting Costs The Best We Can

We are doing the best we can around here to cut costs and save some money.

I had planned on getting our Birthday and Christmas cash out of the bank this week so that we would be prepared to give it to family as a gift. We have 2 birthdays coming up in November besides Christmas in December. However, I was able to take $400. less out than I had planned on. NYS sent out rebate checks and we got one. The checks are taxable so people will lose a portion of it to those. I bought the birthday cards at $ Tree instead of paying an outrageous amount for them elsewhere.

We have been eating from our stockpile. We have had cheeseburgers, chicken parmesan, steak, and chicken patty sandwiches. I had not made chicken parm in over a year and Hubby loves it. So I made enough for 2 nights.

I got a $3.00 rebate in the mail.

The cans and bottles had piled up in our garage while I was dealing with my heart issues. I finally returned them. The deposit for each is $.05 each. But our local Consumers Beverage put out a coupon to get $.06 per bottle if you spent $ 10. in their store. I was down to just 1 bottle of Michelob Ultra Beer and this is what my family drinks when they visit so I bought a 24 pack. They have the best price here. Then I submitted for a $7.00 rebate online. I also got back $ 19.98 in bottle deposits.

I took a 2 ounce bottle and made wound care spray that we needed. You just mix 1 oz. of hydrogen peroxide and 1 oz. of water. It works great.

We needed drain cleaner and I do not like the toxicity nor the price of the store bought ones. So I made a solution to unclog one of our bathroom sinks. It is 3 oz. of Dawn dishwasher soap, 1 tbsp. of salt, and 4 oz. of vinegar. Let it sit in the drain for a few hours then rinse down with hot water.

Pictured above are two cases of canned fried apples with cinnamon that I purchased at Aldi’s. They have the cheapest price in my area. They were $ 1.99 a can. I bought a case last year around Thanksgiving(don’t see them any other time of year) and I am down to one can. Hubby really loves these so he asked me to get 2 cases this year. We love them as a side when we have our ribeye pork chops. We now have enough pork chops in the freezer to eat them and the apples twice a month for the next year. The apples best buy date was April 2028.

You all know how frustrated I am with our electric and natural gas bills. Now that we have the smart meter, the company gives us information on what we are using but it is always two days old. So on the advice of a friend, I am keeping a dated spreadsheet of when I turn on an appliance, take a shower, etc. Then I can go back and see what is causing the highest spikes in our power.

In the evenings now, I am reading myself to sleep instead of watching TV. I have so many books in the house that I want to reread and then donate. It is a slow process because I am so tired at night since I usually am the one who gets up early with Eloise.

We are making no impulse purchases. They are all intentional and we research the best prices. Hubby has needed a nice desk chair for a couple of years now. The one he has, he says is not comfortable. I like his chair so I am stealing it for my desk. Finally, I found exactly everything he wanted in a chair at Walmart the other day. It has been difficult because he is fussy about what he wants. Not only is it perfect for him but it was on sale for $ 80.00 off. We paid $ 89.99+tax. Here it is: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coolhut-Big-and-Tall-Office-Chair-500LBS-Wide-Seat-Ergonomic-Computer-Desk-Chair-High-Back-Executive-Leather-Chair/5250574665

I had cash back from a couple of food purchases so that took the price down a few dollars less. It is coming in a couple of days and he is happy.

I have been setting aside $40. a month for produce purchases.

I scanned my recent receipts into Fetch. I just ordered a $10.00 Chewy gift card which will help defray her food costs. I have finally switched her over to dry cat food. She has been eating dry kitten food so that I could use a big bag up. My friend, Chris, who is a reader told me to mix the last bit of food with the new food. I did. At first, she turned her nose up at it. But I figured if she got hungry enough she would eat it. She is and is now loving it.

How have you people been cutting your costs?

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Things We Have Done To Cut Costs The Last Half Of September

We had our winter tune up for our furnace. The company quoted us $69. when we booked the appointment. When the service man finished the tune up, he said that would be $79. Hubby mentioned that we were quoted $ 69. He kept the e-mail that quoted us the $ 69. The serviceman called the office and they said to charge us the $69. If we hadn’t saved that e-mail, we would have had to pay the $ 79. We kept that $10.00 in our wallet. The serviceman asked if he could put a Buffalo Bills sign in our yard. The company is a sponsor of the Bills. We said yes. It is a nice sign and we are happy he put it there.

I refilled the waters and snacks that I keep in the car so I am not tempted to get takeout if I get hungry when I am out running errands.

I mailed in rebates totaling $ 18.00.

I got all those free things that you saw in my post from Walmart and manufacturers at the Grand Opening.

I scanned the rest of the month’s receipts into Fetch.

Hubby’s keyboard died. He purchased one that was marked down from $99.99 to $ 22.99. I clipped an additional $5.00 coupon. So we paid $ 17.99 and shipping was free.

I signed up for ShopKick using a friend’s code so that she would get a bonus. I don’t know if I will do it or not yet. It sounds like a lot of work.

I sewed on the buttons on my winter coat so they wouldn’t come loose while it is out being dry cleaned.

I continue to can on sale chicken to put on my shelves. Soup season is coming.

We do not have our furnace on yet. It had been pretty warm here for this time of year. The warmth will last at least through Sunday.

I was worried about 2 of the heart tests that my cardiologist ordered me to have done in August. I wasn’t sure what they would cost after insurance. We were thinking it would be about $200. The bill came today and it was $48. That was a nice surprise.

I used credit card points to get $100. cash back credited to my card on next month’s bill.

That was all. What have you been doing to cut costs?

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Every Day

A Small Grocery Haul and Some Cost Cutting

I missed a great deal when I went to Top’s this week. I don’t know how I did that. Since I had to take a bag of bottles back and drop off a prescription drug at the drop box at the pharmacy to safely dispose of it, I went up early this morning. No one is ever at the bottle return room when I go at 7am.

They had a pork shoulder on sale for $ 1.49 a lb. However, if you used the Super Coupon, it was reduced to $ .99 a lb. At the sale price, it was reduced to $ 15.57 for a 10.445 lb. roast. Using the Super Coupon, I paid $10.34.

They also had corn today so I purchased 4 ears at $ .39 each. I am saving my raincheck to use when our local corn is ready. I surprised Hubby with his favorite ice cream which he eats sparingly because he is a diabetic. Perry’s had his MintTingALing on sale for $4.00. So my total for all 3 items was $ 15.90. I had saved up the receipts for our last 3 trips to the bottle return. They totaled $ 14.75 and I had them taken off my bill, so I paid $ 1.15 OOP.

I am planning on cooking the pork shoulder in the crockpot outdoors tomorrow. I will shred up the meat and add BBQ sauce. We will have BBQ sandwiches for a couple of days and the rest I will freeze in portions for future sandwiches.

Tonight, we are grilling hot dogs and we will each eat one corn on the cob for dinner. The other ears of corn will be eaten tomorrow night.

I transferred some money from our checking account to our high yield savings account. The next time I go to the bank I will open another share certificate to get much higher interest.

We always use our credit cards to get the best rewards back on different items that they give cash back for. I spent some time yesterday refreshing my memory on those.

I have been researching the best price on tissues because we are down to our last few boxes. It looks like $ Tree has the best price( $.007) per tissue when you buy the 175 count box for $ 1.25. I have not yet researched Sams Club and B. J’s.

Hubby and I have been discussing dropping collision on our car. We just renewed so we have plenty of time to think about it before it renews again next March. Right now, the SUV is only worth $7,000.

I am back to using cloth napkins as I run out of paper ones.

We are trying to only make 3-4 meals a week with enough leftovers to easily make 7 or to just make a meatless pasta salad for a couple of meals.

Every time I go into Top’s, I see a line of people getting coffee. It always amazes me that people will spend a fortune for a cup of coffee there. I just make mine at home and take it with me. All the money that is saved by doing that goes straight into investments and savings that give me passive income.

I will be cancelling my Peacock subscription next week. I got it for about $19. a year ago on a deal and did not plan on paying a fortune for it to renew. However, now my cable company has added Peacock, Disney, Max, Paramount which I already have via my Walmart + membership, VIX premium and AMC +, all for free to our plan.

We always try to repair items instead of replacing them. I have a Shark handheld vacuum that I love. It would not turn on for more than 3 minutes after charging it so we thought the battery was dead. We were about to throw it out. But I decided to take it apart to see if I could fix it. The reusable filter was really dirty. .I didn’t even know that it had a filter. Hubby used to always take care of these kinds of things but he didn’t seem to know why it wouldn’t work. I cleaned the filter and took the whole thing apart and cleaned everything really well. I left it apart to dry overnight and now it is working just like it is new. That saved me spending $ 89.99 for a new one.

I got $ 2.25 cash back on a small delivery order from Walmart. I will use it the same as cash on my next order. I like to do the cash back on items that we use because it helps pay the tip.

My dentist appointment a couple of weeks ago reminded me that we never pay for toothpaste or floss. Our hygienist gives us samples of Crest Gum toothpaste and many different kinds of floss at our appointments. Hubby has an appointment coming up so there will be more. If we run out before we go again, I look for a $1.00 off coupon for an on sale $.99 tube.

I changed the filter in our A/C today to get ready for when we need the A/C.

That’s it for today. I hope you are having a frugal money saving day.

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A Little of This and a Little of That

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Every Day

Spending As Little As Possible

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Happy Mother’s Day Tomorrow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Every Day

Cutting Costs

One of the most important things that we do to cut costs is to use our time wisely. We all only have a finite amount of time to live our lives so we must use it well. Hubby and I are not ones to play online games. I realize that some people use it as a means of entertainment but I could easily see how that could take up immense amounts of time that you could use to cut costs, cook from scratch, track your budget so that you can really see what you are wasting your money on, and track grocery prices, etc.

I did Solitaire for a while because I felt it kept my mind sharp. But I finally realized that I could do that by writing my blog and reading. I love to read but don’t do it as much as I would like to. So I will be adding time for that into my schedule each week.

So getting up in the morning and immediately wasting hours of time online is not in my wheelhouse. I do check my e-mail and facebook messages during the day but very little time is spent doing that. My computer is turned off most of the day unless I am writing a blog post.

We have cut our morning coffee costs. Hubby very rarely has a cup of coffee in the morning. I used to drink 3-4 cups a day. I only drink one with my brunch now. Today I had that cup with my scrambled eggs and SteakUms. Hubby had a toasted cinnamon raisin English muffin that was in the freezer.

The only deals that got me to grocery shop the end of the week were 2 dozen medium eggs for $ 3.49 each at Top’s. And a few things I needed at BJ’s. I got 2 very large boxes of raisins for $10.49 each, one large bag of Skinny Pop( my guilty pleasure) for $ 6.79, and a 8.23 lb. corned beef for $5.49 a lb. for a total of $ 45.18. My total for all groceries this week was $ 79.93. The corned beef was the best price I could find in my area. Most of them were $ 8.09 to $8.69 a lb. Since it was so big, I cut it in half and we will have it for St. Patrick’s Day and I froze the other half for some meals late in 2025.

My shopping was combined with my two doctor appointments this week so as to not waste gasoline.

I have an envelope that I put receipts in so that I can enter them into Fetch every week to save for Walmart gift cards. I did enter them this week. It only takes a few minutes and it is so worth it.

We got our quarterly water and sewer bill midweek. It was for $ 58.03 and included a $ 3.+ sewer rate hike. We used the minimum amount of water. For those who don’t know, I take Navy showers which does not take much water at all. I use the dishwasher about twice a week but wash many dishes by hand like pots and pans, wooden utensils, wine glasses, and the lids to glass containers, etc. I use a dishpan with soapy water and a pan to rinse.

When I boil water for pasta, etc., I use the same water to water plants or flush a toilet. No water goes to waste in this house. We do get a large water bill when we use our sprinkler system to water our lawn about 4 months a year.

On Ash Wednesday, we had coconut shrimp with mango sauce for dinner. On Thursday, I made 2 meals of spaghetti and meatballs. I made garlic bread from a $1.00 loaf of Italian bread to go with it. On Friday, I went to Chiavetta’s and picked up fish fries and French fries. I was hungry so I ate all of my fish. Hubby has some fish left for dinner tonight. We have plenty of French fries leftover. Those items will get heated up in the air fryer. I am going to put some chili on top of my FF’s. Tomorrow night we will finish up the spaghetti and meatballs with more garlic bread. That should finish all the leftovers in the fridge. Waste not want not!

The only other spending we did was to get some Burts Bees Waterless Cat Shampoo for Eloise and some new underwear for me. Mine was 4 years old so it was time for some new. I never put underwear in the dryer so it lasts me a very long time. That was all under $35. I also spent $13.00 for a car wash. Of course the next day, it rained while I was out at the doctor’s so it is a bit dirty again. If it gets a little warmer in the next couple of weeks I will wash it in our driveway.

This afternoon I used my Instant Pot to hard boil a dozen eggs for next week’s brunches, snacks, and salads. I also used some shelf stable milk to make some SF pudding for the week.

In between errands and doctor’s appointments, I have been doing some spring cleaning. My windows are so dirty that I can’t wait until I can wash them.

Well I am off to hang my laundry. I will TTYL.

What have you done to cut costs lately?

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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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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?