Tag: cutting expenses

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Every Day

Our Recent Meals And Some Yearly Expenses

Hubby cooked a can of corned beef for his dinner the other night. He only ate 1/2 of it so he finished it for brunch one day. I made a salad to go with it and had chicken for my dinner.

I made us hash browns, eggs, and cooked that leftover filet sliced up with butter and garlic yesterday for breakfast. I am using up a container of freeze dried hash browns that was in my stockpile.

Last night Hubby ate a 1/2 of can of Jazzy Jambalaya soup. It is his favorite canned soup. I purchased a case of it a couple of years ago. So the ingredients were not GMO nor did it have artificial meat. If it does now, I will not buy it. He will probably eat the leftovers for brunch today. I usually make our soups homemade but in the spur of the moment when he is craving it, it works. I had the last piece of chicken.

I think I will take a turkey out to thaw so I can roast it on Sunday or Monday. I will use the quick thaw method. That turkey will give us a few meals and some leftovers to put in the freezer. I will make easy sides: stuffing with homemade gravy and green beans.

Hubby has asked me to again make the little hot dogs wrapped in crescent dough and baked in the oven. Since I have all of those ingredients here in my home, I will make them for him tonight. We will have some applesauce on the side.

It has not been a good week moneywise. I did pay our property taxes the other day. They were $4561. That hurt a little but not as much as it would have if we hadn’t budgeted for them.

We also got notification of our Medicare Advantage plan going up $57. a month which brings our cost up to $6159. for the year. We do have a great plan so it is worth it. And by now, I think all seniors realize their regular Medicare plan has gone up to $202.90 per person from $185. in 2025. That costs a total of $ 4869.60 for a year for 2 people. All of these totals do not take into account all of your deductibles for doctors, tests, ER visits and hospital stays.

We also have no dental or eyeglass plan so all of those expenses come out of our pockets.

The Social Security COLA went up by 2.8% for 2026. Many, many seniors will have less spendable money in their pockets because they have small social security checks so the Medicare premium will eat up the cola plus more. I get a very small Social Security check because I did not work many years during our marriage. I stayed home to raise my kids and then worked a few years to pay for private high school and college for my boys. I am not complaining. Being able to stay home and raise my own children was priceless. Seniors are living longer so their checks are affected by inflation every year. The money just pays for less and less. Also Social Security was never supposed to give you a living wage.

Most of you probably don’t care about any of this except when the Social Security and Medicare deductions hit your paychecks. But you should. I tell you this because I want you to realize it is not cheap to be a senior and retired. You need to save for those yearly premiums and deductibles. Every year they go up for seniors just as your premiums do for your family plans. We were retired 24 years last summer. Can you imagine where we would be if we had not budgeted and saved for these future expenses? We would be up ____ crick without a paddle!

And while I am teaching you, save for your retirement too. I know a lot of you have retirement vehicles that you put money into like 401K’s and IRA’s. Many may have pensions too. But unless you are maxing out your 401K’s every year, you may not have enough saved. Plus any pensions that you may have(which are totally taxable) will get eaten up by inflation over the years. And the risk is always there that the pension could go belly up! Many people over the years have lost their pensions or they have been reduced because governments and companies can’t afford to pay them anymore. So they are not really reliable! Save and protect yourselves. No one will do it for you!

Two last things, don’t borrow from your 401K’s. That is a really bad idea. Secondly, don’t take a lump sum in retirement unless you know that you are schooled enough to manage it on your own. These big companies like Merrill like their commissions more than they like making you money especially if you are a small investor. There are lower commission companies out there. Just do a google search for the best ones.

I have to run some errands that I didn’t get to the other day. So I must close now.

How is your January saving going?

Categories
Every Day

Learning to live on 50% of Your Current Income

So many people have had their income cut for different reasons:

Loss of job (living on savings or unemployment, etc.)

Pension being cut in half or taken away

Retirement income being used up

Inflation cutting into the income you do have with rising food prices, gasoline, insurances, utility costs, etc. ( Yes! Inflation basically gives you a pay cut.)

Some of you purchased homes just before all of this inflation hit and at top dollar. Now you are having trouble making ends meet.

So many people are having to adjust their budgets right now and I believe that so many more will be losing their jobs in 2023. We are already seeing many companies lay thousands of people off.

To be totally honest, I do not see an end of this in sight for the next couple of years.

Every one is affected by at least one or more of the things that I listed. So we all have to cut expenses where we can and that is going to be my mission from now through next year and beyond if need be.

We will strive to live on just 50% of our income so that is going to take some major cost cutting. Will that be easy? Not at all. Will we be able to? I don’t know but we will be trying our hardest.

I know so may of you will not be able to join us because you are using every penny you have to just survive. However everyone can cut costs even if it is only a little bit. I have always said every little bit helps. So all the ways that I will be showing you how we are cutting costs should help in some way.

We are facing different and more expensive food costs because of the diet that Hubby has to follow. I have been making 99% of his meals from scratch since he came home from the hospital. Everything that he can’t eat has been taken out of our kitchen by donating it or disposing of it (open jars etc. in the refrigerator). This way he knows that he can eat anything that is in our kitchen and that he won’t be eating the wrong things.

We also are facing another expense besides some of the hospital and doctor bills and new drug costs. I am trying to find a snowplow driver for this winter. Please wish me luck because winter will be here soon and snowplow drivers are hard to find.

The best time for me to post on here is while Hubby is sleeping. He sleeps longer in the morning than I do usually. He is sleeping right now, hence the post. The rest of the day is taken up with our needs. So look for posts in the morning. I will try my very best to document every little or big things that we are doing.

I will start tomorrow if he sleeps in.

Categories
Every Day

Just A Few Little Things We Do To Cut Expenses

Since West is not arriving to stay with us until this evening, I have a bit of time to leave a list. I would be very happy if you would add to the conversation in the comments so that it will be helpful to me and to others who read here. We always think when we read tips that we already knew them. But there are newbies who are just getting into frugality who haven’t. And you would be surprised at how much I have learned from all of you over the years.

Here is our small list:

  • We make our coffee at home and take it with us when we go out. Starbuck’s, Dunkin Donuts, and Tum Horton’s are expensive. I can’t imagine paying a lot for a special coffee. A few times a week, I make a special one here at home. I add a squirt or 2 of Skinny syrup, some heavy whipping cream instead of half and half, and a dollop of SF whipped cream. I can do this for way under $1.00 even with prices going up.
  • Put the A/C to 74. It is comfortable even with the high humidity we have been having. Any higher than that and I can’t function in the house without sweating.
  • We earn money while we sleep with investing.
  • Hang dry clothing.
  • We are a one car family. When we retired many years ago, we donated our Jeep to the local fire department. We have never looked back. If we need a second car for any reason, we can rent it. The savings on insurance and gasoline is huge.
  • We never buy things to impress people. We buy what we need to make our home enjoyable for us. We buy comfortable Classic clothing that will last us for years. Our car is purchased to be functional for us.
  • If we need a minor repair in our home, we check You Tube to see if someone has made a video showing us how to do it. Hubby did this a year ago and fixed our A/C for under $10.00. The company we called wanted a couple of hundred dollars to repair it. We have saved many dollars with the use of You Tube.
  • We always prep our meals the night before we make them. Once in a great while, I will prep for the week on the weekend. I always try to incorporate produce into those meals so as to not let it rot in the fridge.
  • Most of the time, we cook two portions of meals to use on two consecutive nights. If we have any leftovers after those nights, they get incorporated into the next night’s meal or frozen for future use.
  • I freeze produce when it is starting to get older so as to not waste it. I do this with many foods. If I only use 1/2 can of vegetables for a soup, I freeze the other half. If I only use a few tablespoons of tomato sauce or paste, I freeze the rest to put in my next spaghetti sauce.
  • I don’t buy items just because they are on sale. I try to purchase clothing and household items only when we truly need them. When the need arises, I look for the best price, a coupon code, use a rewards program like Rakuten, and get points on my credit card. If I went to every sale, I could easily spend much more than I planned.
  • We are making almost all of our own bread these days. Bread in the markets are way over priced. The only time I purchase it now is if I am in a time crunch and Aldi’s has a decent price or Walmart has it marked down to under a $1.00.
  • While I am thinking about bread, don’t waste your crusts. You paid for them. I don’t understand why people throw them away. They can be used to make croutons or breadcrumbs, make meatloaf, or make stuffing. Freeze them until you have enough slices. We have also eaten them toasted.
  • I save glass jars rather than recycle them. We love Classico spaghetti sauce when I haven’t made our own and their jars you can CAN in. I realize most products come in plastic these days but save any glass jar you get to use for leftovers in the fridge or freezer. It will save you on buying so many baggies or plastic wrap, etc.
  • Yes, I wash and reuse Ziploc bags. I don’t wash any that have had meat in them. Those get tossed.
  • We only eat two meals a day: brunch and dinner. For us it is healthier, lets us do intermittent fasting, and saves us money.
  • We are buying more used or refurbished items rather than new.
  • I purchase store labels when I purchase one ingredient foods. For other foods, we try one first. If we like it then we continue to buy the store or private labels rather than brand names.
  • We have always maintained our homes and cars. This will save you a lot of money in the long run.

This is all I have time to list right now. I hope I have helped someone.