I took all of the chicken that was left off of our first chicken and did the same with the whole second chicken. I made homemade chicken soup for dinner and it will probably last for 3-4 meals.
I forgot to tell you yesterday that on one of my Top’s shops this past week, they did not give me the 200 gas points I earned. So when I went on Thursday I went to customer service with my receipt and they gave me the additional $.20 off per gallon. That brought me up to $ .40 off per gallon and after shopping that day I was up to $ .50 a a gallon. So I will be getting gas soon. Watch your receipts closely. They make mistakes sometimes. $.20 off per gallon is valuable today.
One load of laundry was done using cold water and about 3 tbsp. of laundry detergent. I never follow the directions on the detergent bottle or box. A repairman told me years ago to use only 2-3 tbsp. He said you do not need more than that because the agitation does most of the cleaning. I hung that load to dry.
I cleaned a bedroom today. I didn’t get the windows done so that will be on my agenda tomorrow.
Breakfast this morning was bacon and eggs again. I ate the scrambled egg that was leftover the other day. Waste not, want not! I also sent an e-mail to Top’s customer service letting them know that the quality of their bacon is tasteless and it is like chewing rubber. Their bacon has always been delicious. I don’t know what has happened to it. I will not be buying it again.
I also contacted Walmart. I have never gotten my Florastor order. They kept saying it was delayed. I really needed it as quickly as they told me it would be here. I am only taking 1/2 a dose of what I should be taking trying to make it last. They told me it is lost(probably stolen). Well, why should I have to contact you? Shouldn’t you have let me know me know and refunded my money? They issued the refund for $ 53.77 which will take 10 days. UGH. Now I am back to square one and will have to see where else I can find it.
My arthritis has been bad especially when it rains and we have had a lot of that. I tried Advil, Tylenol, and aspirin and nothing worked. My son suggested I try Aleve. He has some medical background and said many people say they get relief from it. I did and it works. I am hoping it continues to work.
I used my credit card reward points to get $100. cashback in the form of a credit on my next credit card bill.
All the years of our marriage, Hubby and I have had some lofty goals. We have met them all including buying 4 brand new homes, putting our sons through private schools and college, 2 in ground swimming pools, moving cross country twice, and giving away many thousands of dollars to family and charities, etc.
We have one last goal before we die! It is to give a certain amount of money to four family members upon our deaths. I am not going to tell you how much that totals up to because we want to keep that private. We have been saving many years for this goal. What I will tell you is the amount we still need to reach that goal is $ 113,028. Yes it is a lot of money. But we want to speed the savings up so we are going to extreme cost cut. Another reason I am doing these cost cutting posts is to help a family member. Plus if I only help one of you, I have done my job here.
I am aware that we all want to talk about what we save. It is really more about what we spend. Every dollar that we fritter away is a dollar that can’t be saved and invested for any goal that I or you want to reach. By fritter away, I mean waste. You all know the frivolous things I am talking about. We have talked about them many times.
I don’t know how fast we will reach this goal but I am hoping it will be under 3 years. I will let you know at the end of each month how much money has been saved toward this last $ 113,028. from our different streams of income. I will be very mindful that every dollar we spend will not be there to lower the amount we need.
So lets get started on the cost cutting with some of the things that we have done so far this week.
Hubby has decided to cut a birch tree that has grown larger than we thought it would so it needs some serious trimming. It is near our house and when the wind blows here the branches whack the roof. We had a tree company come out last summer to get an estimate. He told us he would it do it for $350. when he had another job in the area. That was the last time we heard from him. Whatever Hubby can’t reach, we will ask one of our sons to do when they visit. This way we won’t spend that $ 350. or most likely more because prices are always going up.
You read my small grocery haul post yesterday where I am trying to keep what we spend on groceries very low. I do this by purchasing only sale items, using coupons, and taking advantage of senior discount day 6% off. I also take advantage of deals for extra gasoline points if we can use that food. Gasoline is very expensive here in NY mainly because of all the taxes on it. So I like the Top’s and B.J.’s deals to get cheap gasoline. I always check prices before I fill up and if our cash station has the better price than those stores after the points and deals, I fill up there. Right now I am trying to wait until my tank is very low so that I can fill up and get the full benefit of those points or deals.
That free rotisserie chicken, that I purchased on Tuesday, will make 2 or 3 meals of sliced chicken and a big pot of chicken soup which will give us 3 more meals. I will be making my own broth in the crock pot instead of spending $ 1.37 for 32 ounces. I can get twice that from the chicken carcass. skin, and water. That will save me $2.74.
Hubby made a Caesar salad with his chicken and used up the last of the lettuce last night. I just ate a chicken sandwich. It was nice to not have to do any cooking.
We turned our A/C off about 10 days ago because the weather got cooler. We had to turn it back on mid morning yesterday. It was so hot and muggy here. I made sure all day that the shades were drawn on the sunny windows. But 10 days less of A/C on our next electric bill should make a difference.
Hubby has the sprinkler system on a timer three days a week. I usually get up before it comes on so I check and if it rained during the night or is supposed to rain that day, I turn it off. Our water rates have gone up this year so I do everything I can to not waste water.
I got a haircut at Great Clips before I shopped at Top’s yesterday. I had a $2.00 off coupon and had my stylist punch my card. You buy 7 haircuts and you get your 8th haircut free. I have 2 punches right now.
Fast Cash Bottle Redemption is in the same plaza so I took 3 bags of bottles back to get $ 2.55 in deposit money. Our deposit here is $ .05 per bottle or can. But it looks like NY wants to raise the deposit to $.10 a bottle and expand the deposit to other beverages including wine, spirits, and hard cider. It is in the legislature and I expect it will pass.
I used to buy big packs of water bottles to stock up for an emergency. I have quit paying for that. I now just wash out any plastic bottles when they are empty and fill them from the sink. I rotate through them to keep the water fresh.
Another thing that I have been doing is replacing my jars of spaghetti sauce with McCormick’s Spaghetti Sauce mix. It is cheaper and takes up less space. When my jars are gone, I will only use this or make my own homemade.
The flowers in the picture are for Mother’s Day from my son who lives in the eastern part of NY. They are just beautiful with so many roses and lilies. Seven lilies had yet to open when they came. Today they are all open. I have been enjoying them while we eat our meals.
I use a car wash that gives a free wash after you collect 5 coupons for other washes. I had 5 so I went up and got the SUV washed. That saved us $12.00 and they also gave me a coupon for the free wash. When I got home I cleaned the inside of the car and vacuumed it out. It is amazing how many stones were on the mats.
While I was out, I went to Fast Cash and redeemed $ 3. 50 worth of bottles.
Hubby never cut my hair because he had an achilles problem and can’t stand for too long. Since my hair was so bad, I found a $ 12.99 coupon for Great Clips and had it cut. The stylist did a great job so I will continue going to her when I need to. I got a $ 2.00 off my next cut coupon.
We got a refund check from the hospital for my last CT scan for almost $29.52. I wasn’t sure why and was about to call them. Then I remembered that they made me pay my co-pay up front. That is unusual because between Medicare and my health plan, you never know what they will pay. So it was a refund of that over payment.
Top’s had NY premium strip steaks on sale again for $10.99 a lb. I picked up 3 more packages of 4 each. We really love these.
This past week, Hubby grilled steaks, and fried haddock. I made chicken fajitas and red beans and rice. We ate all the leftovers the other nights. No take out or restaurant meals for us.
We always have leftover steak from dinner so Hubby sliced it up and cooked it with butter and garlic. He made eggs to go with it for a late breakfast.
The landscapers came a week ago Friday and weeded all of our gardens, put a new garden in by the shed, and mulched all the gardens. Then they transplanted two bushes from the garden that has our spruce trees in it to the new gardens near the shed. The garden with the 3 spruce trees was planted over 14 years ago and they have kind of taken over. So the smaller things needed to be moved. The garden that was done last year needed a couple of more bushes. Hubby knew exactly what he wanted but the landscaper said he would have to have the nursery order them because they don’t carry them. Hubby said no he would order them and plant them. They came last week and he has done that. That saved us quite a bit of money.
We also had two bushes in the garden out front that had gotten big and scraggly over the years. So the landscaper removed them and replaced them with smaller bushes that are similar.
Two loads of laundry were done: one load of clothes which I hung and one load of winter blankets that I washed, dried, and stored for the winter.
Because I am doing so much scratch cooking, I am using my dishwasher more often unless I use paper plates. So it has been run every other day.
Have you done anything to save a bit of money?
I want to wish all of you Mothers on here a wonderful day tomorrow. We will be staying home and Hubby will most likely grill filet mignon and I will put some baking potatoes in the small oven and cook some broccoli. This is my very favorite meal.
Ninety percent of our meals were made at home this week including homemade chicken soup, taco bowls, and turkey sandwiches.
Leftovers were eaten other days. Waste not, want not!
For entertainment, Hubby and I watched the NCIS, FBI, CSI, and Equalizer shows that Hubby had saved on the DVR.
Hubby planted the daffodil plant that my son and daughter in law had given us for Easter. We were thrilled to see that there were 3 bulbs in that pot.
We are still going through our home and getting rid of things that we no longer want by donating them. Hubby took all of our old electronics: computers, cellphone and tablets to the electronics pick up at our town hall this morning. This did not save us money but it is saving us space and clutter.
I inventoried our canning jars not only for the seasonal things this year but for more meat. We have been using up the meat that was canned in 2021 and 2022. So I need to put up a lot more beef and chicken. I do have enough jars, rings, and new lids.
We have been making lots of pudding for snacks this week. I also have celery and carrot sticks that we eat with homemade veggie dip.
If you have a thrift store close to your location, run in there when you are doing other errands and see what they have. You never know what you may find. I rarely find clothes but often I find cheap books and greeting cards. It only takes me an extra 5 minutes when I am out.
We got our electric and natural gas bill for the past month. It would have been $ 193.09 for 31 days but we got the NYS Energy Credit on this bill which New York is giving to everyone. So our bill after the credit for $24.23 was $168.06. We are now having very cold weather for this time of year. It has been in the 20’s at night so I expect this next bill will be higher.
We have been doing the usual: one to two loads of laundry a week using cold water and hanging most to dry. We have been cooking either on the range top or in the countertop 11 in one oven. The dishwasher is run once to twice a week.
Hubby will be giving me a haircut today. It has been a year and a half since I have gone to the hairdresser and I am enjoying saving the $ 140. I was spending going every 5-6 weeks.
Made almost all of our meals from scratch using food we already had in our home.
Made lemon bars, carrots and celery sticks to dip in homemade onion or veggie dips, banana muffins, jello and pudding for snacks. We no longer buy junk food. I don’t know what the corporations have done to it but it does not taste the same as a few years ago and it is very expensive.
I have been doing only two loads of wash a week done in cold water with 2 tbsp. of detergent for each load and hanging most of it to dry.
Instead of changing our tablecloth in the breakfast room every day, I have been using place mats on the cloth. They keep the tablecloth cleaner and I just throw the mats in with the regular wash.
I am washing our windows a few at a time using homemade cleaner. Hubby will be doing the outsides soon as this rainy weather breaks using the pressure washer. They have not been done in a couple of years because of all the building of homes behind us. Those are now done so I feel it is safe to wash them now and we won’t get blowing dirt to make them dirty again. I thought about hiring a company to do them but did not want to pay the $850. they wanted to do them.
We have not heard from our landscaper about a spring clean up of our property so Hubby has done it himself a little at a time. Hubby will contact the landscaper for mulch to be put down and a new garden put in around the shed in May. We did pay in full getting a discount for fertilization of our lawn this season. They usually start the end of April so they should be coming soon.
New York State is providing funding to our electric and gas company to give a one time credit of $ 9.52 on our electric bill and $ 15.66 on our natural gas bill as an effort to address energy affordability due to inflation. It is in the state budget which has not been passed yet, so who knows when that will show up. It will show up sometime down the road under the miscellaneous section where all the fees and surcharges are. It’s not much but as I always say, every little bit helps.
We put a metal rack out with our garbage last week and the garbage company did not take it. So I put it back out last night hoping they would take it today. Within an hour of me putting it out last night, a man took it. I am happy that it is gone and I didn’t have to use my gasoline to donate it.
I have only used my big oven once recently. Otherwise we use the countertop 11 in one oven for everything.
I continue to take navy showers which saves on our water bill.
Our son and DIL gave us a daffodil plant for Easter. Hubby will be planting it in our garden soon.
Our lawn got so long that Hubby has been mowing it for two weeks now. It looks great really early this year. I believe it is because we had a warm winter and lots of rain the past couple of weeks. Our flowering trees are all in bloom which always makes me happy. Our cherry tree is blooming and setting cherries. We should have lots of cherries this year earlier than normal.
We have been using up all of our produce and eating all of our leftovers so as to not waste anything. Food is way too expensive to throw out. We have been eating beef stew, made using homemade beef broth, for the past two nights. We will eat it again tonight and then it should be gone. All made from scratch using a sirloin tip roast that I got on sale many months ago for $ 4.99 a lb. I cut it up into stew beef. I refuse to pay $7- $8. for stew meat. I added fresh potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery and then made gravy towards the end of it cooking.
Be aware that the post office is talking about raising the price of a first class stamp again to $ .73 on July 14th after just raising it to $.68 earlier this year. I am so glad that I bought a 100 count roll of forever stamps at $ .66 before the last increase.
Some of our winter coats can be washed at home and I will do that. But a couple have to be dry cleaned. So I am keeping my eye out for a discount coupon.
My chives are in full bloom so we have been using them on baked potatoes with sour cream.
It seems like gasoline is rising almost every day due to the mess in the middle east. So I filled up our gas tank today getting $ .20 off per gallon with my Top’s gas points. After the points I paid $ 3.20 per gallon.
Hubby got 4 new all season tires put on our car yesterday. We had to buy new ones due to the fact that our car is 11 years old. The snow tires we bought at the beginning of the winter will be stored on the ceiling in the garage. The tires were $1,000. We have odd sized tires that have to be preordered. The rubber that tires are made from has really gone up. But these tires should now last until we no longer have the car. We paid cash with money we had saved for this purpose.
I picked up my prescriptions at my Rite Aid pharmacy for the very last time. They are closing my store in a week or so. Hubby and I have to decide who we are going to use now. We still have 2 Rite Aids in our area but I hate the customer service at one of the stores. The other is much farther away from me. We are considering two other chains and two grocery store pharmacies.
What have you been doing to save a bit of money lately?
I hope you all had a great holiday. For those of you with kids home on spring break, enjoy them. They grow up too fast.
While I am sipping on my coffee this morning which I needed desperately after waking up at 4:30am, I am planning out my week. I am going nowhere today so that I can do a number of things around here.
My chest freezer needs to be defrosted. So after my breakfast of eggs over easy and a slice of turkey with a slice of cheese melted on it, I will tackle it. I need to set up some ice chests to put the food in while it is out of the freezer. Then I will set up a table next to it for the overflow. I get the freezer defrosted so quickly that it never has a chance to thaw.
I use my blow dryer and a plastic scraper to melt the ice off. I put the big chunks in a bucket to empty when I am done. When all the ice is out, I dry the freezer really well using some old bath towels. I do all of this when it is unplugged. When I am done, I always remember to turn the freezer back on. Then I put all of the food back: oldest on top. I am hoping I have no freezer burn. I usually don’t. I will take inventory while I am returning each item to the freezer.
While I am doing this, I will pull out all of the frozen bananas. They are everywhere in every freezer. I plan on making some muffins later today using all of them. I will keep some out for breakfasts and snacks this week and freeze the rest for future meals.
We had a wonderful Easter dinner of leg of lamb with a great sauce that I have been making for years, roasted potatoes, broccoli, mashed cauliflower, corn on the cob, and olives for my son who loves them. We topped it all off with Keto peanut butter ice cream for those who wanted it and Tillamook waffle cone ice cream for those who didn’t.
My son and his wife gave me a beautiful plant of mini daffodils. Daffodils are one of my favorite flowers. Hubby has already researched how to plant them in our yard the end of May. They also offered to bring wine for dinner. They brought two bottles: one sweet and one dry. Only the dry got opened. So we have part of that bottle and the other bottle left. I am not crazy about dry wine but will finish it up in my recipes.
Dinner tonight will be all the leftovers from dinner last night. I think we will have enough for another night after that.
What are your plans for today? Feel free to share.
After a week of snow, I was finally able to run a lot of errands yesterday. I left the house at 8:15am to go to Top’s. Pictured is what I purchased.
The pizza I always keep on hand so that I am not tempted to order one from take out was $ 3.99 with a Super Coupon. I have been having trouble lately trying to get distilled water. It is usually out of stock. But they had it so I got 2 gallons which will last a couple of months. They were $1.49 each. The Steak-umm’s were still on sale so I purchased a larger package at $ 8.99. They had a Bison deal which included sour creams(got 3) and dips(got 2). They were on sale for 5 for $10.00 and I got 100 gasoline points too. We were out of sour cream and we have some potato chips from the holidays to finish so I got the 2 French onion dips. I got a package of American cheese which we use for our grilled cheese sandwiches for $ 2.09. My total for all was $ 28.05. Last week I earned a coupon to get 100 gas points with my shopping this week so I ended up with 200 gas points toward my next gasoline purchase.
I also went to Aldi’s and Walmart. I got distracted when I got home and forgot to take pictures of those items before I put them away. But I will tell you what I got and what I spent. At Aldi’s I purchased two of the three packs(4 lbs. each) of 85/15 organic ground beef that we love. It was on sale for $ 17.96 a three pack. I was getting low in my freezer so I stocked up. I also bought some fresh whole mushrooms for $ 1.29. My total came to $37.21.
At Walmart, I got 2 bags of Indiana Popcorn Fudge Drizzle. I had two free coupons from the manufacturer. The bags would have cost me $ 2.98 each.
My last stop was the drugstore for 2 prescriptions that cost me $20.00 OOP.
Yesterday for brunch we had leftovers. For dinner, we ate shrimp cocktails with salads.
Today, I will make eggs and bacon for breakfast. Hubby is going to make his homemade meat chili in the crockpot after he browns 2 of the packages of ground beef that I purchased yesterday and sautes up about 2 lbs. of onions. We will have that tonight over our choice of rice or cauliflower rice. Most likely it will last well into the weekend.
I have been doing some baking this week. I made an apple pie for desserts. I also have some cranberries thawed that I purchased on the Thanksgiving sales for $.99 a bag. I will be making cranberry orange muffins.
For entertainment yesterday, Hubby and I watched NCIS Sydney. Then I called one of my best friends, whom I have known for 46 years. She is very special to me. I wanted to call her because it was her 90th birthday! She is sharp as a tack. So we spent about a half hour catching up on what she had been doing since we last talked and catching up on how all of our children and grandchildren were. It was the highlight of my day.
I got my estimated bill yesterday for my electricity and natural gas for the past 32 days. The bill was $ 259.13. It was $28.03 lower than the same period last year. We had higher usage than last year because it has been so cold. So the supply and demand charges being cheaper must have been the difference. I will find out how accurate this estimated bill is when I get the next one when the meters will actually be read.
That is it for now. Have you saved any money this week shopping sales?
Last week I ordered three sets of LED lights. One of the cupboards that I have a lot of trouble seeing into is under my kitchen sink. So I had Hubby install two strips of them on the right and left hand walls of the cupboard. . These lights work on motion sensors so when I am not in the cupboard they are off. I keep cleaners for the kitchen, dishwasher pods, Brillo pads, and sponges in this cupboard. Behind the wastebasket that holds my recyclables, until I take them out to the garbage can in the garage, are a few jars that I reuse to get rid of grease. Never allow grease to go down your sink unless you want to have to call a plumber. When the jar gets full, I place it in my garbage and start a new one. Anyhow this lighting allows me to easily get out what I need.
I had one set of lights left so Hubby hung that in one of my kitchen pantries. Today I ordered some more for the other pantry and two other closets- one that holds coats and one that holds all of my cleaners and vacuums.
I got a lot done today since I arose at 4:30am. When I have my coffee now, I just quickly check my e-mail, Facebook messages, and blog comments. Then I had to make some changes to our budget since I had forgotten about the bill that came yesterday for our lawn fertilization this year. By paying it today, we saved 3% off the bill. So I had to add those figures to our landscape budget and I have made some other small changes too. The posts have been updated.
Next it was time to read a couple of verses of Matthew in my Bible. I do this every morning while finishing my coffee.
Next I made my grocery lists for this week. I only need a few things at Top’s and Aldi’s. I most likely will not get out until the end of the week. It snowed here again today and will tomorrow and we may have some freezing rain into Wednesday.
After making brunch which was pizza, I did up all the dishes, cleaned my quartz countertops and kitchen stove top. Then I ran the dishwasher.
Next I threw a load of wash into the dryer that mainly consisted of a terry robe, bathroom and kitchen towels, and a tablecloth, then folded them and put them away.
Then I cleaned our two bathrooms.
I did some organizing of a dresser in our bedroom and then organized our Master Bathroom vanity. I also organized my desk area. After the mail came, we paid two bills.
Hubby and I sat and watched a You Tube video. Then it was time for me to reheat the homemade chicken soup for dinner that I made yesterday. It always tastes so much better the second day. I used 2 pint jars of chicken and broth that I canned 2 years ago. I took the rest of the meat off the carcass from the rotisserie chicken I bought last week, added rice, fresh carrots and celery. Then I seasoned it all. This gave us two dinners and will give us a lunch tomorrow.
We have company coming in about 15 minutes so I have to close.
We did not go out anywhere yesterday. It is too cold and too snowy. Roads are not in the greatest condition either. The news is saying they are very icy. Since they are predicting another major storm today and tomorrow, we will stay safe and warm in our home. Staying home saves on gasoline and also saves on natural gas because are not opening doors to go outside which lets warm air escape.
For a few days now, I have been using darker and richer coffee in our reusable cups in the Keurig. This allows me to use less coffee by only filling the cup 1/2 way instead of full. I also am using 1 squirt of Skinny Syrup instead of 2. I can’t really tell much difference between the 2 and the 1. I use the half and half sparingly too. Just enough to make my coffee taste good. Not only is the half and half expensive but it is in short supply here right now. I try to stay stocked up with 3 half gallons but that is not easy with the shortages.
Yesterday for brunch, Hubby finished the rest of the ham and noodle casserole. I ate some other leftovers… a bit of this and a bit of that. The remainder of the ham I have frozen in portions for future use. Today, we had egg, sausage, and cheese McMuffins. We are being mindful of using up what is in our pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. But we also are eating all of our leftovers. Waste not want not. I am buying as little as possible this month so I can use up some of what we have here which saves me money on gasoline also.
I have not been grocery shopping at all this week and I don’t think I will get out. Knowing the forecast, last Sunday I went on the Walmart site to place a grocery order. The first day I could get a delivery was tomorrow. I think most everyone was scheduling orders because of our forecast. Well, we got another 5 inches of snow yesterday which brought our totals since Saturday up to 20 inches. Then it started snowing again today and we got 6 more inches. So we are at 2 ft. 2 inches so far. Walmart cancelled my order for tomorrow because of the snow. We have more snow coming tomorrow and a lot more on Friday. God Bless my snowplow guy, Nick. He has been here plowing my driveway three days straight. And I don’t think he is done with more coming. We don’t have it as bad as the south towns. Orchard Park which is where the Buffalo Bills Stadium has been getting nailed since the game on Monday was played. They have had a total of 18 inches since the storms started on last Saturday. Less than us but they have to shovel the stadium out again for a game on Sunday. And they are predicted to get another 14-18 inches more before things calm down on Saturday so they will be hustling to get the stadium cleared again.
Dinner last night was peachy pork chops and olive oil and garlic rice. I cooked up 4 small pork chops so that I would have 2 pork chops for dinner tonight. I will dice them to make stir fried rice for dinner. I will add the pork, sauteed onions, diced carrots, and an egg to the rice along with some soy sauce. Hubby cooks up the rice for me in our small rice cooker. It turns out perfectly and gives us just enough for 2 meals.
It was very dark when I got up this morning at 4:30 am. So I had to use lights in the kitchen. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to start writing this post for you. It is now 7:17am and it is still dark. The sun should come up at 7:43 am. We will see if we get sun or the storm rolling in. They predicted the storm starting during the night but it hasn’t started yet. 99% of the schools in the area are closed today and tomorrow.
Our utility company sent me an e-mail to read our electric and gas meters. It is our turn to read it this month but they only gave me today and tomorrow to read it. It was like a blizzard out there today so I am hoping it won’t be as bad tomorrow and I can read it in the morning and submit it. I managed to make to to the mailbox today. We had no mail delivery since last Saturday. All I got was a rebate check for $22.99.
We are doing everything that we can to try to keep these utility bills down but it is a never ending battle. Since most of the country has been in a deep freeze for a week or more, the demand is up so the cost will be up. But we are still only using a light when it is dreary in the room we are in. I am mindful of how I cook to save energy. I still save warm up water when the shower is getting hot to reuse to clean the house or flush toilets, I am still taking navy showers. I close the bathroom door for a while before we take showers so that the room gets really warm. In the winter we only take showers every other day. Our skin gets so dry if we take them every day. The heat is programmed on our thermostat. When I got up this morning, it was 64 in here which is what it is from 10:00 pm at night to 7:00 am in the morning when it goes up to 68. At 9am, it will go up to 70. I just layer when I get up in the morning until the heat comes up. Hubby is always cold and he layers when it is 70 in here. I have to keep him comfortable. We have plenty of blankets on the beds so that we are very comfortable at night.
We watched NCIS Sydney again this afternoon that Hubby had taped. I am liking it a lot. I did some reading, cooked dinner, and ran a very full dishwasher afterward. I don’t run the dishwasher ever until I can’t fit another dish in it.
I watched a couple of You Tube videos too. I am going to share one. The you tuber is in Brittany, France. She and her husband are retirees from Great Britain. They have about 2721 euros net to live on monthly after taxes etc. are taken out of their money. That equates to about $2916. a month U.S. or about $ 34,992. net per year. It would be considered low income here. But any income earner can learn from this video. She shows her budget every month and has many other videos that you might find interesting. I like watching her once in a while to see how other people in other countries budget and live. Here you go:
We had a very quiet weekend, 15 inches of snow, and frigid temperatures. Needless to say we didn’t go anywhere.
On Saturday, I cooked the ham that I purchased on sale in December. We had pineapple, brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes with it. On Sunday, I made a ham, noodle, and cheese casserole and served the rest of the pineapple and brussel sprouts with it.
On Sunday morning I fried up mashed potato cakes with those leftovers, scrambled eggs, and fried up some ham.
Saturday night, Hubby took most of the ham off the bone. We left some on to make bean soup. I also made some dices for the soup. That was all frozen until sometime in the future when we want soup.
The rest of the ham was sliced for sandwiches and breakfasts and diced for ham salad and casseroles. Most of it has been frozen.
Our Buffalo Bills playoff game was moved from Sunday to this afternoon because the snow and winds were very dangerous yesterday. We had gusts up to 65 miles per hour. It snowed most of the day and the wind blew it everywhere. I was glad that they changed the game day because I was really worried about my son and daughter-in-law making their way there. Right now, they are making their way to the stadium and hoping to get a parking spot. It is still snowing at the stadium right now but it is supposed to ease up. Just shoveling the roads for people to get there, the stadium, and the parking lots is a huge issue. It will be really, really cold there. But that won’t stop the fans from showing up.
We watched a movie “Let It Go” on Saturday. Then there were other playoff games on. Yesterday was another lazy day and Hubby watched more football and basketball. I did wash a large load of clothes in cold water and hung most of them to dry. Then I read my book.
Later I started looking in my pantries and freezer to see what we could find to eat during the game today. I dug deep in the freezer and found these yummy appetizers that are pictured above. We will air fry them in our 11 in one oven. I also have some ranch dressing and carrots and celery sticks to add for some nutrition. It will all be a nice treat during halftime and will be our dinner.
Not much else going on here now. I am off to read and then watch the game later.
