Tag: frugal things we do

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Every Day

Living on Less to Save Some Dollars

Are you sick and tired of all of these price increases on everything? I know that I certainly am. It is time to really start ramping up our frugality even more than we do now.

Finally, we were able to turn the heat off. We have gone from winter to summer this weekend. Right now(5AM) it is 77 in my home. It is comfortable. That is because we kept the windows closed and the shades and blinds drawn on the windows where the sun was coming in yesterday. It was 89 and humid and the overnight temperature is only going down to 67. Today the high is supposed to be around 84 but much more humid However, we have not turned on the A/C. I would like to see how many days we can go without it. We used our ceiling fans to stay comfortable while we watched our hockey game last night and the ceiling fan is on overnight in our bedroom. We will use them in any room we spend time in today.

The results of me tracking when we turn things on that use electricity is showing me that the worst offender is the dryer. I used it the other day to dry some sheets and towels and that is what is spiking my kwh’s. It is incredible how much it uses. Fortunately, I hang a lot to dry. I wish I had a place to hang these big things but I don’t.

Did you hit your Memorial Day Sales this week? I went on Sunday and bought 6 lbs. of ground beef for $ 4.29 a lb. which I will be taking back today because the meat is bad, 3 lbs. of Sahlen’s hot dogs for $10.99 only to find out that Niagara Produce has them on sale for $9.99. I will be going there and stocking on a few more packages to get us through the summer. I also purchased a 6 lb. package of boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.99 a lb., a 30 oz. jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise using a digital coupon for $ 3.79, and 3 32. oz. bottles of Heinz Ketchup for $3.99 each.

I have been taking inventory of the food in our home and I will be trying to fill in the necessary gaps this week. We have used quite a bit of our pantry foods since January. But we still have a lot to go through. We are carefully rotating the items we are using by date- the oldest gets eaten first.

So sometime this week, I will fill in those gaps. I have a trip planned to BJ’s in another town to get produce, 2 of their roasted chickens at $ 4.99 each, and stock on a cheese spread they have that Hubby loves to put on wheat thins or triscuits. One of the roasting chickens will be kept on warm in the crockpot for dinner that night. The other will go in the fridge. I will cut up all of the meat except for our dinner that night into portions for future meals and freeze them. The bones and skin will be put into the crockpot to simmer in water in the garage all night. Then I will have my bone broth for soup. On the way down I will quickly stop at N.P. to see what their produce looks like and how much it costs there on the fresh things that we need. I will buy 2 more dozen extra large eggs for $.99 each. I will also pick up the Sahlen’s hot dogs. I will then compare their produce prices with B.J.’s and buy whatever looks healthy and costs less at each of those stores. I can quickly run back in again on my way home to N.P. if need be.

I will also stop into Wegman’s and Trader Joe’s to look at their meat and produce and gather some prices for my price book.

Last stop will be to get gas to fill up the car. My cash station is $ 4.39 a gallon. BJ’s is $ 4.37. However, Top’s is $4.49 a gallon. I will have to check and see how many gas points I have. It is rare for these three stations to be this close together on price.

After those trips, I will not be buying much. I am getting really tired of making the billionaire corporations richer and richer and then listening to them whine about how people aren’t spending much these days and when they do they are buying store brands. Here is my tip for the big guys. Lower your prices and perhaps more people will come in and shop! I know all the reasons everyone is giving for all of the price increases but I still think they are somewhat gouging us also because they can use those excuses. BTW, Walmart announced that they are removing all of the self checkouts because of all of the theft in their stores. They say it is millions of dollars a month. They also said they are laying off 1000 executive people because not as many people are shopping or buying as much as they used to.

Since it is so hot here, I will be bringing my Yeti cooler with me. I don’t want anything I buy to go bad. My travel mug will be filled with ice and water to keep me cool and hydrated. I also always keep protein bars in the car in case I get hungry while I am out.

We will be eating what we have in our home. Prices are getting so high on food that I won’t pay for most things. If I do any shopping it will only be for a great meat deal (on any beef) or something that is a necessity like produce. If produce prices skyrocket this summer, we will go without except for an occasional tomato to make BLT’s with. Many times the frozen fruits and vegetables cost less than the fresh. I will be comparing prices. I am hoping that when our local crops come in season that there are some better prices than what we are seeing now on shipped in items.

We are also rationing our food by eating the proper portions.

We are trying to get our electricity bill down. We will keep the A/C off as much as we can. We will cook outside on the grill when we can. Crockpots and other small appliances can be used outside or in the garage. That will keep the heat out of the house. I have also stopped using the blow dryer to dry my hair. That also spikes the kwh’s. The same goes for the curling iron. I just brush it and let it dry by itself. We will have our new bill on May 21st. I will let you know about it soon.

Our cellphone company is offering internet now. Hubby is researching it. So far it looks like it would save us $49. a month unless our cable company ups our bill when we cancel it. We will still keep the home phone and cable TV. To me that is a bundle but they may up the price.

I am off to cook 3 lbs. of bacon. I will undercook it so that I can freeze it in portions and then reheat it in the microwave. Some will be kept in the fridge to reheat with our eggs this week.

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

Sorry that this is a day late. We had the new furnace installed yesterday and they didn’t leave until late. I had about enough time to heat up a can of soup for dinner and then make my Monday night call to my sister. When I hung up with her, I went to bed.

They have all the rest of the add on work that I talked about to do today. They wanted to get the furnace in and up and running because it is cold here. They did not want us to be without heat. My old furnace was so noisy. This one you can’t even hear turn on. It is so quiet and much more efficient. It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference in my heat bill. They made sure that both the heat and A/C were running well when they were done.

Hubby can keep an eye on them and Eloise today. I have a hair appointment and I need to get a package of new furnace filters on the way home. This furnace takes bigger filters than our other one did.

I may or may not stop at Top’s. I think my list only has three items and I am going to take a look to see if I really need them or can substitute some things that I already have in my stockpile. Recently I had finally spent enough money at Top’s to earn a $10.00 gift card from the game they are running. So I will use that to pay the next time I do go.

I will be stopping at Panera Bread to pick up the Tuesday dozen bagel deal with my gift cards that I purchased many years ago. Panera and Home Depot are in the same plaza so no extra gasoline.

Last week I did my shopping at Niagara Produce. I just got 2 dozen extra large eggs because they were on sale again for $. 99 a dozen. The sale was finished last Friday but the new ad has the same price again. So I will get more next time I go there. We go through a lot of eggs for brunches and snacks. So I just keep filling up my 5 dozen box and rotate the eggs.

I have also been doing a lot of baking so that I can fill up the oven when I do turn it on. Baking takes a lot of eggs. I have been filling up my freezer with the baked goods so that when it finally gets warm here, I won’t have to turn the oven on. We will be set for the summer.

Meals have all been at home for the past 10 days or so with the exception of when my son took me and hubby out to breakfast for Mother’s Day. I have done soup out a can and homemade turkey soup that I had frozen in portions. I marinated two large pork tenderloins. One I froze with the hoisin sauce recipe that I used to marinate them. The other I cooked this weekend and we ate 2 meals from it. We had enough left that I was going to freeze a portion and make pork fried rice out of the rest of it. However Hubby has not been feeling well lately so I am lucky if I can get him to eat soup. So I froze the rest in 2 portions for 2 future meals. I also made pasta salad and we had that 2 nights and for 1 brunch. I made shake and bake chicken breasts and mac and cheese as a side for 2 meals. I also had broccoli which I could eat every day but Hubby doesn’t like it. So we have salads more often. Breakfasts have been muffin melts or eggs with bacon, sausage, or steak umms. We also have eaten some homemade pumpkin or banana bread with those meals.

I am faithfully writing down when I turn my appliances on. I just put them in my planner for each day. I put what appliance and the time that I turn it on and it turns off. This will give me a better idea of how many kwh hours I am using with each one. It is a lot easier than using the handheld kwh meter to do it. Our smart meter stats on the electric and natural gas company site are two days delayed. This way I can just look at my planner when each day gets updated and see what I am actually using per appliance and what is causing big spikes in the kwh’s. I am really trying to lower our bill.

I am still washing my laundry with cold water and hanging most everything to dry. I only run the dishwasher when it is really full which is about every three days.

Well that is it for now. What have you been doing to save a few $$$’s?

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Every Day

More Money Saving Days

Let’s get you caught up since last Sunday on what we have done to save a few dollars and a few that we spent too. First, I want to mention to you that I forgot something on my last money saving post. I used a $15. off coupon that I earned at BJ’s to buy a big container of cashews for Hubby. It was $17.99 so I only paid $ 2.99 OOP.

Sunday:

We had hamburgers and FF’s for dinner and eggs and sausage for brunch. They were all cooked from our stockpile. I cut up some carrots and froze them before they went bad. They will be used in soups ot stews or just cooked up as a side.

We had a lot of celery too. Celery does freeze but when it gets used in casseroles, stews or soups, it tends to disintegrate. So we use it up spread with peanut butter as a snack.

We ate a lot of salads with our meals to use up romaine lettuce before it went bad.

Hubby and I watched the golf tournament on TV. I was disappointed that during overtime, Scottie Scheffler did not win. I just love watching him. Hubby has been watching our Buffalo Sabres in the ice hockey tournament.

Monday:

We finished the leftover spaghetti for dinner and made the rest of the bread into garlic bread to go with it. Breakfast was granola and oatmeal.

I started washing some outsides of windows. I had already done all of the insides. They will get done slowly but surely. Some I will have to have Hubby do because they are too high up for me. At one time, I thought about hiring someone to do them. That was a few years ago and they wanted about $ 600. I can’t imagine what they want now. So we will do them.

Tuesday:

I made eggs and bacon for breakfast. I always cook the entire pound and we use it for many meals. Dinner was chicken patties on buns with Chick Fila Sauce. We weren’t real hungry so we just added dill pickle slices as a side.

I spent some time straightening up the basement pantry. My grandson had taken some bags downstairs that had been lingering at the top of our stairs. So I needed to work on getting those on the shelves.

I did a load of wash and hung it to dry. I used cold water as usual.

Hubby again watched the Buffalo Sabres game. We also watched The FBI that we had DVRed.

Wednesday:

I had eggs and salmon for brunch and Hubby had granola again. For dinner, I used up the rest of our discounted Subway gift card that I purchased at Amazon. It got me a sub and Hubby a wrap. I was just too tired to cook.

I again worked in the pantry in our basement.

I am again back on our treadmill to get some exercise. I love it but some days my back is so bad I just can’t stay on it long.

Hubby mowed the lawn.

Thursday:

Breakfast was eggs and bacon. As I mentioned to you last week, we went out with our new neighbors for dinner to the Big Ditch brewery. I had a double mushroom swiss smash burger with fries and 2 beers. Hubby had a double bacon cheese smash burger with fries nd one beer. It was happy hour so the beers were only $4.00 each. We did bring home 2 desserts. The entire bill just for us was $90. with tax and tip. We always tip 20%. This was expensive but it was so worth it to enjoy our new friends. They are such a pleasure to spend time with. We have decided to go out once a month for dinner with them. We save in other areas so that we can enjoy this pleasure. We know restaurants that they don’t and vice versa. Perhaps next time they will pick a restaurant that they like and we will experience a new one.

Hubby again watched the Buffalo Sabres game which we won. We are now 1 game ahead of the Boston Bruins.

Friday:

Breakfast was apple fritters. For dinner, Hubby cooked strip steaks on the outside grill. We had them with tater tots which he loves. We brought home some French fries from the restaurant that Hubby couldn’t eat. I warmed them up to add to my dinner. We again had a small salad with it.

I went out when Hubby got up and picked up a prescription for him. Usually our co-pay is $60. for this script. Yesterday, it was $.00. The cashier said insurance paid it because it looks like he has hit the gap because this medicine is majorly expensive. So it should be $.00 for the rest of the year. It was the most expensive co-pay that we have. So here is $ 60. we can put towards the loss of our school tax deduction.

When I got home, I took a long nap. I was so exhausted.

Later we watched the finale of Matlock. Wht a surprise that ending was! Now I can’t wait for it to come back in 2027.

Our ads for next week came in the mail today. Two things popped out at me for next Wednesday at Aldi’s. They have avacados on sale for $.49 each and grape tomatoes for $ 1.49. The ad doesn’t start until next Wednesday.

The Top’s ad which starts on Sunday has a Zero Powerade for $ .29 when you add the doorbuster coupon to your card. I like to keep these for when we do not feel well. They also have Top’s 8 oz. chunk cheese for $ 1.88 with the super coupon, limit 1 and 1 lb. of Jimmy Dean bacon for $ 4.99 with the super coupon, limit 1. In produce, they have vidalia onions for $1.28 a lb. They are our favorite onions. Tomatoes on the vine are $1.88 a lb. I may get some of those because tomato prices are skyrocketing. We like them for BLT’s. That is really all that interested me. They have on SALE four 80/20 ground beef burgers for $8.99. It will be a cold day in h*** that I will pay that price for ground beef on SALE. Remember that Memorial Day is coming and I am hoping to catch a sale at a good price for ground beef. I also am lacking in my mayonaise storage so I am hoping condiments will be on sale too. I only have two jars and that will not last with salads this summer. I could also use a good sale on ketchup.

We watched NCIS Sydney for our entertainment.

Today:

Hubby and I had 1/2 of our strip steaks left from last night. We will make eggs and garlic butter steak slices to go with our eggs for brunch. I will also have an avocado.

I have already cooked up Italian sausages to use in our meals. I got them discounted at 50% off recently. I did two bags worth. One will go in the freezer for a future meal and one will go on our pizza that we will make for dinner tonight. I will use Aldi’s naan bread for the crust. Then add leftover sauce from the spaghetti, spices, the sausage and mozzarella cheese. Following the directions on the back of the bread, it only takes 9 minutes in the oven. Since it is only 42 outside and it has been raining all night and still is, I don’t mind heating the house up with the oven. It is so chilly today. Because of this I may fill my oven today with some breads and brownies to freeze for later this season when it is hot out.

If the sun ever comes out, I will open the blinds and shades. For now I only have 2 window shades up because Eloise likes to sit in them and look outside. Hence, I have 2 lights on until that happens so that Hubby and I can see. It is so dreary and dark outside.

Sports will most likely be the only thing we will watch on TV today. I may do some reading. I will definitely go back to the pantry in the basement to do some work.

Tomorrow:

I plan on ribeye pork chops done on our outside grill for dinner. Our son and grandson will be coming for breakfast. We haven’t decided if I will cook or if we will go out for breakfast. They both do so much for us and spend so much gas to get here and back to their home. They live an hour and 1/2 away so we like to treat them once in a while. They do this 3 hour round trip quite often and gasoline is so expensive right now. They haven’t been here in a few weeks and we have not taken them to Kalamatta’s in a while. Hubby will ask my son to put the snow tires up on the ceiling rack now that our tires have been changed over. He will also ask him to help get our furniture and large umbrella out of the shed. Then we will be set for spring and summer. We will enjoy their company for most of the day.

I have no idea what else we will do except watch the Buffalo Sabres game.

How did you save some dollars this week?

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

This past week has been busy. I am getting ready for all of my family to come for Easter dinner. Those ribeye roasts that I purchased will be the main course. I think I will roast both of them in my turkey roaster since there will be so many of us. I have planned mashed potatoes, cauliflower rice, broccoli, corn, and gravy for sides. I will also have fresh strawberries with whipped cream for dessert. I have to keep the Keto people happy. We have not been together in a long time so I am so looking forward to a great time. My son who lives across the state in the Adirondacks is coming tomorrow night. I haven’t seen him since Thanksgiving .So we will enjoy having him here for a few days. I am hoping to fly out to see him this summer. I just have to drive an hour+ to get to an airport that has a direct flight. Or maybe I can hitch a ride with my son when they go to visit his wife’s parents in NH. He can drop me a few miles away where my son can pick me up.

We are also having new friends for dinner next weekend. We can’t wait. It has been a long winter and we are all starting to be able to get out in the nice weather and meet people.

Just yesterday, Hubby’s sister let me know that she is flying out to visit us in August. She lives in Houston. Hubby is very excited about that. We haven’t seen her in two years. So this wlll be a busy spring and summer.

I haven’t seen my baby sister in a long time(7 or 8 years) . Her Hubby isn’t well enough to come and visit. My sister does not drive except to go to medical appointments. I told her she could take the bus and we would pick her up here in Buffalo. I even offered to pay for her bus tickets. She finally told me that she is not coming because she is afraid to leave her Hubby home alone. Neither Hubby not I want to drive such a long trip anymore. So I will just have to take the bus and surprise her one day this year.

Well enough about family.

We have done a few things to save money this week. I went to the bank this week and got our cash that we use for various things. I deposited two checks into a different account than the one I take the cash from.

We have been eating easy things this past week while I get everything ready for the weekend. We have had homemade pizza, roast beef sandwiches, soup, salads, etc. I am actually using paper plates from my stockpile to have less dishes to wash.

I am still washing laundry in cold water and hanging most of it to dry. We are mindful of how much electric and natural gas we are using.

I can’t believe that it is April already. Our landscaping people will be here this month to do our spring clean up. We also have a few bushes to remove that have gotten too big. We will have them replace them with somethiing else. Our sprinkler system people will be here to open our system and make sure that everything is running smoothly for the spring and summer. I have hired an ECO friendly carpet cleaning service to come next week. They will clean carpeting and my fabric furniture. ECO is important to me because of Eloise. All of that will cost a ton of money but that is why we saved for years so that we can easily afford to do these things. Hubby has always cleaned our carpets with our own machine. I have decided it is too much for him any longer so that is why I hired this company.

We had a good March. We did not spend all of our grocery money but we did spend more than we did in January and February. That is because I stocked so much beef on loss leader sales and some other loss leaders. We did have extra income this month of $ 1128.75. Not as much as other months this year but we didn’t spend as much as in the past two months either. So we continue to build our net worth.

That’s it for today. I have last minute cleaning to do since my family starts arriving tomorrow.

I hope you all have a nice Easter.

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

We have a set of green pans. I have had them for a few years. All of a sudden, everything is sticking in them. Hubby asked me to buy new ones. I researched and found that they have gotten really expensive. I don’t need an entire set. Just the three frypans. I have a set of capahlon and a set of stainless steel that we are not using. Hubby agreed with me that the new pans are very expensive. So I am going to dig out my stainless steel pans. I also have a Lodge iron fry pan that we can use.

Dinner on Thursday night was Chef salads using up romaine lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, and various meats and cheeses in the fridge. I made the other half of the baguette from Aldi’s to make more garlic bread to eat with it.

Friday and Saturday night’s dinner was Texas chili(only meat- no beans). We eat it on rice. Hubby makes his Dad’s recipe all the time. It is so good.

Brunches have been scrambled eggs with carmelized onions, sausage, and some sourdough toast.

My son sent me a message late Friday night that West is still sick so he can’t come to visit. But my son came out Saturday morning to visit us for a while. I made us a breakfast of scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage, and protein yogurt. He stayed for about 5 hours which was really nice so that we could chat and catch up.

I was considering throwing out a bath mat that we have in our guest bathtub. It is one that has the round indentations in it and they get very dirty. I have taken the time for years to clean them by hand which is a lengthy process. As I was looking at it, I thought there is no reason that I can’t try to wash it with some laundry detergent and oxi clean in the washing machine. So after my son left, I did just that and used the delicate cycle. It came out sparkling clean and dried on the shower rod. I don’t know why I never thought of that before. But it saved me from all that work by hand or buying a new one.

Today is Sunday. I made these homemade banana butter pecan muffins for breakfasts this week. We enjoyed one while watching the USA( we won) vs. Canada men’s ice hockey game for the gold metal this morning. My kitchen smells so good.

Hubby is making breaded pork ribeye chops for dinner. I will throw some crinkle cuts fries in the air fryer oven. We will also have broccoli.

I am tired. Hubby got up with Eloise about 3:20am. But I was never able to get back to sleep so I got up at 5am. It will be early to bed tonight because I have errands to run in the morning. I hope you all have a good evening!

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Every Day

Frugal Things The Past Few Days

Let me start off by telling you that we had extra income in the month of January of $1160. I was thrilled because I was going to put it towards the $3000. that we thought we were going to have to spend from our emergency fund. However, it turned out that what broke was under warranty so I got it replaced for free because of that. I just had a nominal charge of $99. I was very relieved! That additional income has now been put into investments.

I have been trying to catch up laundry lately. My back has been giving me issues so I had three loads that needed to be done. Because I am organizing and cleaning the house, there has been extra things to wash like blankets, a shower curtain(guest bathroom), and various throw rugs besides the weekly sheets and our clothing. I washed it all on the Eco wash using cold water. But I used our dryer for most of it because it is too hard to hang to dry. I did use the Eco cycle with my wool balls. Only the clothing got hung to dry.

Two rebates totaling $20. were mailed. I have also been scanning receipts into Fetch. I bought some household cleaners online from Walmart that gave me $6.00 in cash back.

Hubby paid the company who does our lawn fertilizing for this coming season early. He did that because they gave us 3% off the total cost.

Our alarm monitoring company also offered us 3% off if we paid the bill 1 year in advance so Hubby paid that also.

Hubby and West drink Zero Sugar Fanta Orange soda. I have now gotten ten 12 packs for about $4.16 each on a B2G3 sale. That should last them quite a while.

I got another dozen of Xtra large eggs at Niagara Produce for $.99 yesterday on the way home from an appointment. This is the last week of the sale. I just wanted to make sure that my 5 dozen container of eggs was full. They also have had butter on sale for $ 2.99. I had bought all of our butter for the year at Thanksgiving time for $ 3.49 each. But I am replacing what I am using up at this new low price. So each time I go there I will pick up one pound.

I have our two extra bedrooms heat registers closed and the doors shut. There is a cloth snake in front of each door. There are also two other snakes in front of our two basement doors. A large rolled up towel is in front of our main door into the house. We have only been using the garage door to leave the house. With this cold weather and the wind chills at -30 here last Saturday, we have not been going out except when we have appointments and can run errands at the same time.

We have been making meals at home. Brunch has been salmon, bacon, ham, or sausage with scrambled eggs. Dinner has been egg rolls, chicken pattie sandwiches, hamburgers, Chef’s salads, rib eye pork chops, and soup. When I am busy organizing and cleaning, I do easy meals. The homemade soup is in portions in the freezer so it is easy to just thaw and microwave. However this week or next(when it warms up outside), we will be going out to the brewery for a meal. We have not been there since my son was visiting at Thanksgiving and we love their food and beer.

We filled up our car with gasoline using Top’s points that gave us $.30 off per gallon. The car was almost empty and I don’t like it when that happens in the winter.

I did our Federal and State taxes early this year and received a nice refund from the Feds because of the extra $12,000. deduction for seniors. That gave us back about $1,000. more than we would have gotten.

What frugal things have you been doing? Please share with all of us.

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Every Day

September Things We Have Done To Save Some $’s

Since I feel pretty good today, I am going to post the first half of September’s savings today.

One day it started to rain unexpectedly. I turned our sprinkler system off. We do not want to pay for water when we can get it free. Yesterday, our sprinkler service came and blew out the lines for the winter. No more sprinkling so our water bill should go back down to around $57. per quarter. This past quarter with all the watering, our bill was $ 285. I had Hubby stop at the town drop box one day so that we could pay it. that saved us a $ .78 stamp.

We did 2 deal grocery shops the beginning of the month. One to buy a little over 6 pounds of boneless skinless chicken for $ 2.29 a pound. The following week they had ground beef(80/20) on sale at Top’s using a Super Coupon for $ 3.99 a pound. We bought 6 pounds.

We finally qualified for the Enhanced Star Rebate on our school taxes. It was a savings of $1080.49.

Hubby wanted a check register insert for our checkbook. Ours was falling apart. He found a 5 pack on Walmart. With tax it was $9.67 but I used $3.00 in Walmart cashback to get it for $ 6.67.

We were down to our last book of checks so Hubby ordered more. We get them from our bank for free because of one of the savings plans we have.

I received a $5.00 liquor rebate in the mail.

I sent in a $3.00 wine rebate. I won’t send any rebate in under $3.00 because of the postage.

Hubby needed to fill his two 5 gallon gas cans and our car. He saved $ 7.21 because we had enough for $.40 off per gallon with Top’s points.

Hubby made a big crockpot full of chili. We ate it on rice for two nights and had some to freeze. Another day I cooked a corned beef that had been in the freezer since last March. We ate reuben sandwiches for many days and then I froze the rest of the corned beef and the rye bread to save to have another sandwich in the next month or so. He has also made cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, and BLT’s recently. I think tonight we will have ribeye pork chops and broccoli. I am having him mainly cook out of the freezer and I try to think of things that are easy for him.

I scanned most of our receipts into Fetch. I still have to scan in the receipt from our lunch at “The Ship”. This restaurant is a keeper. They have Monday specials where all of the entrees are marked down. I saved $ 4.00 off my steak sandwich which was so delicious. Hubby saved $3.00 off his chicken wrap. We will probably go there once a month for lunch. I also have a coupon for a free basket of fries which we will use next time. Their fries are the best we have ever had. Really crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. Our waitress told us they make their own.

My son, Sean, helped Hubby trim a tree that shades the patio. It needed it badly. With Hubby’s direction he took a lot of branches off. They piled them up by the bottom of the driveway. The town does brush pickup for free this week. Last year, we paid for a tree service to do some other trees. It was expensive so my son saved us some money.

My son stopped at Niagara Produce on his way here and got me a package of hamburger buns which we badly needed. I tried to get them on a delivery order from Walmart but they were out of stock. He would not let me pay him the $ 2.49 they cost either.

My son also fixed my Bosch dishwasher in about 15 minutes. A button fell out of the the control panel over a year ago. I was able to keep the other buttons in place. They are the ones you push for what cycle you want. Hubby kept putting it off. I finally asked my son and he did it. It wasn’t easy because you had to take off the entire front of the dishwasher to get at the panel. But he got it done and still got home in time to watch the Buffalo Bills game which was an away game.

We have watched both Buffalo Bills games which is our free entertainment. We have also been watching Tony and Ziva on Paramount+ which we get free with our Walmart+. We do an episode a day.

Well that is it for now. I will post the last half of the month on September 30th.

I hope you are all having fun trying to save as much money as possible. Please share with all of us what you have been doing.

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Every Day

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.

Categories
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

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?