Tag: frugal things we do

It has been a rough week health wise in our home so I needed to do other things besides blog. Rachel, I am sorry that I was so late responding to your comment. I know you all understand. But between appointments and tests, we did manage to save some money by being frugal this week.

I was a bit late getting my Christmas cards written. I had a box of cards leftover from another year. But I ended up being about 10 cards short. I was going to pick up a box at Dollar Tree but then I remembered that I night have some in a Christmas box in the basement. I found them and I think I have enough for next year also.

I mailed those cards yesterday using forever stamps that I purchased two years ago. BTW, stamps are going up January 22, 2023 from $. 60 to $ .63 for a first class letter. You might want to consider buying some forever stamps before that date if you need them. I will be getting a 100 count roll. These increases have me thinking that the best way to do Christmas cards in coming years is to buy postcards. The stamps for those will rise next month too from $.44 to $.48. But they are a lot cheaper to mail than a first class stamp.

Hubby made a big crock pot full of his homemade Texas chili that his Dad taught him how to make when he was a teenager. It is all meat! He used 85/15 organic ground beef that I purchased a while ago on sale at Aldi. He used 2.5 pounds. It turned out so delicious. We rarely eat rice but you have to when you have chili. Tonight will be our third night eating it. Then we will freeze up the rest of it in meal portions. It can be used again when we are craving chili, to put on hot dogs, or over baked potatoes, etc.

We continue to think about how we can cook our food cheaper. For example, the meat and onions were cooked up in the electric fry pan then it simmered in the crock pot with all the rest of the ingredients for about 6 hours on low. Leftovers have been heated up in the microwave. The rice was cooked in a small rice cooker that uses very little electricity.

We continue to lower our heat at night to 64. I have the cloth snakes in front of the doors to keep any leaks of air outside. We haven’t had much sunshine except for one day, so the energy saving shades have been kept down.

Hubby decorated our front windows with wreaths with LED lights and we put the candles that are also LED in the windowsills. I had gotten C and D batteries for these months ago when I found a sale. We also considered buying 12 more candles to do all of the rest of the windows but after looking at how high the prices were on them, we said no. The ones we wanted were $38. for 4. Yikes! He and I decorated our little tree which we made a few years back from our large tree. I am allergic to real trees so we have used artificial ones for years.

Hubby also made some coleslaw which he loads up with apple and pecans. It made a nice lunch for many days.

Yesterday, I went out to run errands. I ran them in a 10 mile circle. I had to go to the liquor store for Christmas stuff. Then I went to Top’s to get a spiral sliced ham for $ 1.49 a pound. It was the same price as Aldi’s. Except if I hadn’t scanned the ad so quickly, I would have realized that I had to buy $30. worth of other groceries besides the ham. So when I got to the register, the ham rang up at almost $64. I was $17. short so I asked the front end manager if he would run back to the meat department and get me an on sale($4.99 a lb.) sirloin tip roast to get me that additional $17. He kindly agreed to get it. It took him a very long time but that is because when he couldn’t find a pre-wrapped for that price, he had the butcher shop cut one up fresh for me that was just a little over the $17. I was very grateful. But next time, I will pay better attention. However, that roast will get cooked until it is perfectly medium rare to slice for sandwiches. At $4.99 a lb., they are cheap cold cuts. I have a meat slicer that I bought back in the early 1970’s to use to save on food. Here we are again with prices out of control just like back then so it is getting used a lot.

My last errand was to pick up Hubby’s insulin and his needles. The insulin is not cheap. That was a $ 60. co-pay. But our insurance covered the cost of all of the needles. I find that the alcohol preps are the cheapest at Walmart so that is where I buy them. I was happy to get home because it was so cold outside.

Hubby and I watched the Buffalo Bills game again on Sunday and we watched Yellowstone for our entertainment. We get Paramount Plus for free with our Walmart+.

What have you been doing to save a bit of money? Feel free to share with us in the comments.

Hubby made homemade shower cleaner since our bottle was getting low. He makes it using 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide, 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol, 1 tsp. Dawn dish soap, 1 Tbsp. vinegar, and 3 cups of water.

Hubby refilled my homemade eye glass cleaner using 3 parts rubbing alcohol and 1 part water.

Hubby’s birthday was last week. I got him his favorite carrot cake at the bakery and then asked him what dinner he wanted me to make. He wanted meatloaf. He loves it and I hate it. But I will tolerate it on his birthday. I think he likes the leftover meatloaf sandwiches even better. It was an easy dinner for me to make along with mashed potatoes and a veggie.

My 2023 planner came and is just as beautiful as the one I have been using this year. Over the years I have used many different planners but this is the only one that I have purchased 2 years in a row now. It is the best one that I have ever used. The layout is perfect for me. The best part is that I had a $10.00 off coupon using my PPP rewards to defray the cost.

Hubby ended up eating the leftover tater tots for brunch one day. I froze the leftover rice to put in a future soup.

I purchased 2 packages of celery and 2 -2 lb. bags of carrots on B1G1F sales. I also got 2 cucumbers for our salads for $1.00 each.

I purchased a large chuck roast for $ 5.99 a lb. I cut it into 2 pieces, I made beef stew in the crock pot on Thursday for dinner. I used the beef, whole potatoes, onions, fresh celery and, carrots. We had biscuits with it also. There was enough left for 2 more nights. The 2nd piece went into the freezer for the next time I make beef stew.

Our loaf of bread is almost gone, so I will be making another one today. My bread maker is getting a workout these days.

We picked the rest of our tomatoes and took the plants out of the pots. That is it for this year. We will be having diced up fresh tomatoes and cottage cheese for the next few lunches.

I washed some sheets and towels this week. Since I was going to dry them in the dryer, I made sure to set the spin cycle to high. The more water that was taken our of this wash, the less time I had to run the dryer.

Last post I told you how Hubby fixed the humidifier after the man who came out to tune up our furnace for the season told him he needed a new valve. What I neglected to tell you is that, the valve was going to cost us $175. So by Hubby doing the repair on this which ended up only being a clogged tube, we did not have to spend that money. Since we now have our heat on, the humidifier is working perfectly.

Lastly, I filled the car up with gasoline getting $ .20 off a gallon with points that I earned at Top’s.

What have you been doing to keep more money in your pocket?

We had our gas furnace tuned up and checked by our family owned company that we use. We had a coupon to pay $ 69. for it. Then I checked my utility company site and found out that we could apply for a $50. rebate. Make sure that you check your utility sites for any rebates they offer. The heating guy checked our humidifier on the furnace too and said the water wasn’t moving in it. He said he needed a certain part to fix it and that he didn’t have it on the truck. Hubby didn’t think that it needed that part so he told him he would fix that himself. Sure enough, the tube was clogged. Hubby has repaired that.

I took my granddaughter bowling. I found a $10. coupon to defray the cost.

We had pizza delivered on Monday for dinner. They were running a football deal because it was Monday night football. We took advantage of that.

We all watched the Buffalo Bills game on Monday night. It was cheap entertainment. Go Bills!

My granddaughter and I spent many hours just chatting and playing UNO. We do not have to spend a lot of money to have a good time.

Lights are off during daylight hours.

We took a trip to the Amish store where we picked up some treats, fresh jalapenos, oatmeal, rice, bacon and spices that I needed. Their prices are so much cheaper than the supermarkets.

I did a load of laundry and threw my granddaughters clothes in to make a full load. That will save her from having to wash them when she goes home. We washed in cold water and hung many things to dry.

We are caulking and foaming places that need it to make sure we don’t lose heat this winter.

I am still picking tomatoes. I have been busy with my granddaughter since last Friday, so I froze them to can when I am not so busy.

Hubby cooked a sirloin steak on the outdoor grill rather than use the broiler in the house.

We have been trying to eat up all the leftovers: donuts, banana bread, chicken strips and tater tots, broccoli and cauliflower, deli meats, salad greens, etc.

Hubby sauteed the leftover steak in butter and garlic in the electric fry pan. We ate it with scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Our A/C has been off for over a week.

The nights are getting cold here but rather than turn on the heat we have piled on the blankets. I am debating whether we will use our electric blanket this year. A few regular blankets will save us money.

My son drove Alexa to our home and he stayed a couple of days. It is a cross state trip. Rather than us drive her all the way back on Saturday, we drove 1/2 way and met her mother who took her home the rest of the way. It saved us time and gas. I already miss Alexa. We had so much fun while she was here for 8 days.

We got our September 2022 electric and natural gas bill. We used 597 kwh and 4 ccf’s of natural gas. The bill was $ 122.62. The September 2021 bill was $ 132.12 for 828 kwh and 3.1 therms. It is a good thing that we watched our usage. If we had used 828 kwh like last year, our bill would have been huge. We watched everything we did power wise and it made a big difference. We will continue to conserve as much as we can. While I was looking at the bill, I decided to see how much we spent on these utilities the past year. From Oct. 2021 through Sept. 2022, the total bill was $ 2055.58. I would love to get that figure under $2000. but with prices on the rise, I don’t think it is possible. But you know I will try my very best to keep it down.

Hubby and I used up many leftovers last night. We made Chef’s salads for dinner. We used up the rest of the lettuce, one tomato, some purple onion that was diced up a week ago, leftover black olives and deli turkey, leftover sharp cheddar cheese, and leftover cooked bacon. We even finished up a bottle of ranch dressing. It was delicious! Tonight, I am hoping to incorporate either some leftover tater tots or rice. So we will either have tater tot casserole or fried rice.

What have you been doing lately to save some money?

Here are the frugal things we have been doing:

• We have Walmart + for grocery delivery. Yesterday, they added Paramount + streaming service free as one of their benefits for belonging. Hubby and I have already binged watched 3 episodes of “1883” which is the prequel to “Yellowstone”.
• Hubby sharpened the blades on our John Deere riding lawn mower instead of sending it out to be done.
• For dinner one night, we tried an Old El Paso Dinner Kit that I got on a sale back in 2020. It got lost in my kitchen pantry. The expiration date was February 2021. It was the Japanese one and it was delicious. The tortillas that came with it were in a sealed mylar bag so I knew they would be just fine. Mylar keeps things fresh for years. All I added to it was about 3/4 of a pound of diced chicken breast and a medium onion sliced. Hubby loved it. So I checked out the ingredients and realized how easy it would be to make from scratch. So that is how we will make it from now on. I actually have all of the items needed to do that in my pantry. We do have leftovers for a lunch.
• My garden is producing tomatoes so well that I have had enough to can a few batches for sauce.
• We have made an appointment with the local business that we use to have our furnace checked out before heating season. We want to make sure that it is in tip top condition over the winter. I found a coupon for that to be done for $ 69.
• Hubby finally took back the bottles to Fast Cash that have been stacking up in the garage for months. He got $ 9.10 back in deposits. While he was out he also filled up our gas cans. It was on his route.
• I went to the grocery store just once this week for some fresh produce and combined that trip with a trip to the drug store to pick up a prescription.
• We have had another string of rainy days so we didn’t have to use the sprinkler system. We already got our quarterly water and sewer bill which was for most of the summer through the end of August. It was $253. Now that things have cooled off we should not have to water things for much longer and our next three bills should be back to normal which is about $60.
• We are still doing a great job of not wasting any food. It is just too expensive to throw any of it away. I had some onions that needed to be used up so I diced them and froze them for future use.
• My son and grandson will be coming to breakfast tomorrow. I have plenty of eggs but I think all of the bacon is gone because we have been eating a lot of BLT’s to use up fresh tomatoes. I will just grab some sausage out of the freezer to thaw. I have a couple of almost empty bags of shredded cheese to use up. I am thinking I will put those in the eggs.
• I only did one load of wash this week using cold water and half the amount of detergent that it says to use on the bottle. I hung the clothes to dry.

What have you done recently to save some money?

These are the things we have been doing frugally.

Hubby and I always have gone to the doctor’s on the same day(consecutive appointments) which saves us on gasoline and time. We have had to switch to three different doctors because our prior ones have retired. This has happened three times in the past few months. Some of the appointments got scheduled on different days. I took some time to call them and reschedule us together.

We had our annual eye appointments so I had the doctor fill out the motor vehicle forms that we needed to renew our driver’s licenses. This saved us from making an appointment to go the motor vehicle office and taking the eye exam there. Then we were also able to renew it online which saved us stamps.

I upgraded my Sam’s Club membership to the Plus level. Our store is an hour and a half round trip for us. With the price of gasoline, the time involved and winter coming, we needed the free shipping. It only cost me an additional $43.10 and we deemed it well worth it.

I am only buying loss leader sales at Top’s or buying the cheapest price on the things we need at Aldi’s, Sam’s Club, or Walmart. We are planning our meals around those items.

This morning we harvested 3 large tomatoes from the garden. We were going to have homemade pizza for dinner but I have changed my mind. We have many tomatoes to eat or can so we will have turkey club sandwiches for dinner. It has been nice that we haven’t had to buy tomatoes since our garden started producing.

Yesterday, I renewed my library card online and had them add the e-card feature so that I can get e-books, audio books, movies, TV shows, music, magazines, and newspapers online. They told me there is so many that I probably won’t have to come to the library ever again. That works perfectly for us because the library is up in the city so we will save gasoline and it will be handy because winter is coming. I love to read so once canning season is over, I will be doing a lot of that.

We get free checks from our bank because of the type of accounts we have. So I ordered them.

In a prior post, I told you how our magnifying glass broke(the handle) so we purchased a new one from Walmart. Hubby never threw the old one out and has been working on a few projects lately. He decided to super glue the handle so that I could put it in my desk in the kitchen(which I always work at) and I wouldn’t have to go to the office when I needed one to read those small print liquor and grocery rebate forms.

Hubby has been filling the cracks and crevices that might leak heat this winter.

We continue to save by watching how much electricity and natural gas we use. I am only washing one load of clothes a week and hanging most of them to dry.

My electric toothbrush was getting old and needed to be replaced. I had been watching for a good deal for couple of months now. I had found nothing until I found this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072YVWBXH?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details. It was on sale for one day only last week for $ 24.95.

I ordered 96 Green Mountain Decaf K cups for Hubby at Amazon. When they arrived yesterday I was aggravated because they sent light caffeinated cups instead. Hubby cannot have caffeine and since they were $63.96, I tried to do a return. The system told me that I couldn’t do a return online that I had to call their customer service. I did and I explained the issue to the representative. They had no replacement in stock to send me. So they credited me the $ 63.96 and told me that I did not have to return the product. I could keep it, donate it, or throw it out. She sent me an e-mail with all of that info in it. I was thrilled because I drink caffeinated coffee.

I filled our SUV up with gasoline yesterday using Top’s points that allowed me to get $ .60 off per gallon. So instead of paying $ 3.99 per gallon, I paid $ 3.39 per gallon. That is still double what we were paying when Pres. Biden closed the pipeline on the first day he took office. So I was not celebrating. But the gas points help a bit.

I did all my errands for the week yesterday. I am trying to only do that one day a week every week.

We had two days of rain last week and it is raining today which is saving us from running the sprinkler system. We still have to water the flower pots on our porch but I am using warm up water for those.

That is about it for now. What did you do frugally the past two weeks?

This is my first homegrown organic tomato this year. I will be making BLT salads for lunch tomorrow and using it. I have three more ripening in a couple of days.

I noticed that a button was coming loose on a good blouse that I was wearing. I sewed it back on right then and there. The buttons on it are unique and would be expensive to replace.

Lately we have been catching warm up water in the kitchen to use to water our hanging baskets.

Those strip steaks were not the best on Friday night. We had 1/2 of them left so Hubby sliced them really thin and sauteed them in garlic and butter for dinner on Saturday night. They were delicious. He finished his potato salad and I sauteed some fresh zucchini. We never waste food.

We got our gas and electric bill for mid June through mid July. We turned our A/C on a couple of days into this bill and have left it on because we have had some really hot days. For 30 days it was $117.01. We used 570 kwh’s in electricity and just 2.1 ccf’s of natural gas. I was okay with that because the same bill in 2021 was $120.17. We used 728 kwh’s for that period and 5.1 in ccf’s. So this year’s bill was $3.16 less than last year’s. And we all know how high the rates have gone and the supply and demand charges. So the fact that I have really reduced our usage is paying off. If I had the same usage as last year, this bill would have been a lot more.

I have been spending many hours a day decluttering. Anything that we no longer want or haven’t used will no longer take up space in my home. Most things will be donated and some items of value will be sold.

I cut off a pair of jeans that were frayed at the bottom to make shorts. I hemmed them.

Wanting a book to read but not wanting to spend the gasoline to go to our library(which is a hike), I went through my collection of books and decided to read The Complete Tightwad Gazette again. I also realized that I have some books on my Kindle that I had not read yet so they are being read also.

I have already read and shopped the loss leaders this week. Today, I went to Top’s. This is the only money I am spending on groceries this week. This 4.46 package of chicken drumsticks was $ 1.19 a lb. for a total of $ 5.31. They are on sale at my Aldi’s for $ .99 a lb. but not until Wednesday. So I decided not to go out shopping again on Wednesday because the amount of gasoline I would have used would be much more than the $.20 a lb.

The lb. of bacon was $ 3.99 with a Super Coupon. The zucchini was 1.25 lbs. at $ 1.88 a lb. The cheeses were on sale for $3.00 each.

So my total this week was $17.65.

I divided up the chicken drumsticks into 3 packages. We each eat 2 at a meal. Tonight we will have a meal’s worth along with some sauteed zucchini. The other 2 meals were food savered and put in my freezer.

We filled up the car last week using points worth $.20 off a gallon. So we paid $ 4.40 a gallon.

When I shopped today I used a coupon Top’s had given me when I shopped last week to get 100 gas points or $ .10 off a gallon. That jump started my savings for the gas period that started yesterday.

I did a load of laundry today using cold water and hanging everything to dry. This is the first load I have done in 10 days. With energy prices so high, when we are at home we are wearing our clothing 2-3 days before washing them. Then I wash a very large load.

Lastly I redeemed Fetch points for a $25. Walmart gift card.

Feel free to share with all of us how you saved money this past couple of weeks.

It is getting more and more difficult to save money because everything is so expensive, especially groceries. But I am doing my best by shopping only the sales. I also plan menus using what I have in the refrigerator, freezers, and pantries.

My son who we visited recently gave us a tow behind dethatcher to use with our riding lawn mower. He had already purchased one for his. Then he found this old one in his shed. We had to borrow one from our other son the last time we needed one. Hubby was delighted and I was really happy with the price of free. This saved us over $150.

I made chocolate chip cookie bars to take to my son’s for Alexa. She loves chocolate. They called for chocolate chips and butterscotch chips. I did not have the butterscotch chips so I used what I had which was white chocolate chips. They were delicious! I substitute all of the time in recipes with what I already have in my kitchen. I will not run out to the store to get just one or two items especially with the cost of gasoline which is $ 4.90 a gallon.

We have been cooking all of our meals in the microwave, air fryer, toaster oven(rarely), and on our gas grill. I am hoping we have a lower gas and electric bill. I have been really watching what we use but the bills just keep going higher and higher. The meter reader was in here reading yesterday so we should have our bill by the end of the week. We still use natural gas for our on demand water heater. We have only used our A/C for 2 days this year. Our home has high ceilings and if I keep shades down on sunny windows our home stays cool.

The only water our garden got while we were away was rain water. It only rained a little and the plants cooked in the 90 degree temps. We came home to some yellow leaves on our tomato plants. So we have watered them well and I fed them some Miracle Grow for nutrients. Today once it gets light out, I will snip off the yellow parts.

Fortunately, we have only had those couple of hot days. Otherwise it has been cooler than normal which is really enjoyable. We have not had to turn our sprinkler system on for the lawn yet this year.

I had planned on making some strawberry jam this week so I was bitterly disappointed when Niagara Produce had the local ones for $5.50 a quart. They are very small and did not look great. Aldi’s had none and Top’s had no local ones. I purchased one quart so that we could have a few strawberry shortcakes. I will not be buying more unless I can find them cheaper and good looking. At least I have some jam left from last year.

My plan this week is to continue to can the meat up in our freezer. That mainly consists of ground meat, sausage and chicken. I will leave the steaks, shrimp, pork chops, and fish in there and we will eat them up in our normal rotation. I feel better with a lot of the meat on the shelves so I don’t have to worry so much about outages. Right now as I write this, we are in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm. I know how quickly we can lose power.

This week I am trying to use up produce in the fridge. So last night we had taco salads. We will do that again tonight. Wednesday and Thursday, we will have a shrimp dish, probably Giada’s dish that we love. Friday is homemade pizza night. Saturday will be Chef’s salad. Sunday will be chicken kabobs on the grill. With the price of produce, I am trying very hard not to waste any.

I looked for more canning jars at N.P. when I was there yesterday. They were $19.99 a case. Yikes! Needless to say I did not buy them. Instead when I came home, I looked online. I ordered them from Walmart for $ 11.97 a case. What a difference in price! I want to make sure that I have enough pint jars to make tomato and spaghetti sauce when the tomatoes are ripe. I also need them for meat.

I picked up two prescriptions at the drug store that were free. For some reason, this year we are finding that more and more drugs are free with our drug plan. They are mainly generics.

Well that is all for now. What have you done recently so save money?

We again will be planting some vegetables soon and eating some fresh this summer. The rest will be canned for next winter. Even if you don’t have space for a garden, you can do a container garden or a hydroponic garden. Every little bit helps with these produce prices.

We are watching our water consumption. We never just let the water run down the sink. We close the sink up when we wash or rinse dishes. Rinse water can be used to water outside. I do the same with pasta water. We don’t waste. When I brush my teeth, I wet the brush then turn the water off. I just turn it back on to rinse. We have low flow toilets so we don’t have to worry about that water. In other houses when we just had standard toilets, we put a brick or a bottle in the tank to displace some of the water. I take navy showers. I use water to wet down, turn the water off, soap up, turn the water on, then rinse.

We only wash clothes once a week on the Eco cycle with cold water. I do another load for towels and sheets. I only use hot or warm for really messy things. We never wash anything but a full load. I hang dry most of our clothing.

The dishwasher is never run until it is really full.

Today, I will be cleaning out my chest freezer so that I can defrost it. It needs it to function properly and it uses less power when it doesn’t have ice on the walls. I also want to put some of the butter that I got on sale at Aldi’s a couple of weeks ago in the freezer to get it out of my refrigerator. I don’t want it to spoil.

I also will be making enough from scratch blueberry pancakes to last a week or so in my electric fry pan. I have gallon bags of blueberries in the freezer that were purchased on sale in season last summer. Time to start using them up to make room for the new supply this August.

We are getting low on bread and Hubby likes sandwiches for his lunch. So he will make a loaf in the breadmaker. It is so much cheaper to make it from scratch than to buy it and it tastes a lot better too.

Leftover pasta and meatballs is on the menu tonight. I think I will make a beef stew tomorrow in the crockpot. I want to use up those large roasts before the weather gets really warm. That will last us the weekend and into next week. I am really enjoying not having to cook every night. It gives me more time to get the spring cleaning done and the windows washed.

I will also be making some more Keto ice cream. The Keto ice cream you buy in the market is so awful and hard to scoop out. The recipe I use makes ice cream that is more like scooping regular ice cream and is so delicious and it’s easy. We need a treat for football this weekend.

Last night I perused the ads for next week. I didn’t see much that I need to buy or will pay the price for. We have the basics here so we don’t need much. Cooking from scratch with simple ingredients purchased in bulk is so much cheaper than buying items for complicated and expensive recipes.

It’s time for me to get my work done today. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I will be back posting on Monday.

My son and West came for lunch on Sunday. He had to go to Niagara Produce to pick some items up. He brought me this package of State Fair Sausage as a gift. His family loves it. The sausage has cheese, peppers, and onions inside it. These sausages are so big that one for each of us is the proper portion. I cooked two of them for dinner on Monday night and they were so delicious. I will be picking these up at NP when I go there.

Lately, my gas stove top would not light with the electronic ignition. When I needed to use a burner, I would have to light it. Hubby did some research and found that it was most likely a problem with the ignition harness. So he ordered one: https://www.amazon.com/ForeverPRO-316580615-Harness-Frigidaire-PS3409151/dp/B082KK8VCM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1IKP9OTSHOQLY&keywords=ps3409151&qid=1644959112&sprefix=ps3409151%2Caps%2C349&sr=8-1

While my son was here, he and Hubby installed it. It took a while to take it apart to get it to where they could install the new part. But my burners are all now working like the stove is new. By doing it themselves they saved us all of the labor charges and the mark up on the part.

I only ran errands one day this week to conserve on gasoline. Our gasoline here is down $ .04 a gallon so we are paying $ 4.36 a gallon. But I am sure it will be headed up again. I picked up on sale pasta, eggs, bacon, and diet soda while I was out. I still buy Diet Coke for Hubby when I can find a good price in my area. I got a 24 pack for $7.99. When it is not on sale, he just drinks iced tea or water. The eggs were $ .99. The bacon was $ 4.99 and the pasta was $ 1.00.

I have been doing some organizing and cleaning around here this week. I have been using things that we already have in our home in the way of organizers, boxes, and cleaning products.

Hubby and I are wanting to put in another garden with a Japanese maple, some shrubs and some perennials in our backyard. We are also going to have some repair work done on our patio and a new wall built to protect our grill from the wind. We may have a new garden put in around our shed also. So we spent a day getting estimates done.

This week for dinners, I cooked the State Fair sausages, roasted chicken legs in the air fryer, made jambalaya with two jalapeno sausages and air fried some pork chops. Tonight we are getting fish fries from our favorite place just 5 minutes from us. We try to do this during Lent. We only order the fish fries, no sides. The fish are so huge that we don’t need sides and they make two meals for each of us. But the last couple of weeks they have been giving us French fries with them. They are some of the best French fries that we have ever had.

Well that is all we did to save some money this week. What have you done?

In the middle of this week our Keurig K Supreme Plus stopped working- no power at all! I was so sad because I love my coffee. I also was not happy because the one year warranty expired in mid- December. It made me wonder why so many things are breaking so quickly these days.

Being the organized person that I am, I knew that my last Keurig was in a box in the basement. It had started making noises which is why we purchased this one. So I grabbed it, cleaned it, and set it up so that we could have coffee.

I asked Hubby if I should start looking for a new one. He told me to wait to see if he could fix it. He started researching a fix and found one on You Tube that he thought might work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdE_4NIQEro

It took him a day or so to work on it. It was hard to get the pot apart to where he needed to reset it. He got there and used a paper clip to reset it. But before he put it all back together, he plugged it in to see if it had power. It did. It is now working perfectly again on our kitchen counter.

I had researched online to buy another one of these pots and the lowest prices I could find was $168. at Amazon and $ 159.99 at Walmart. So Hubby saved us a fortune by doing a bit or research and work to fix it.

All of our meals except one were cooked at home including this delicious breakfast: Eggs, turkey bacon, a slice of homemade cinnamon bread.

I picked up some bread flour($ 3.12), canned Angus beef chili, body wash, foundation makeup (1/2 price at Walmart), potatoes, cucumbers, etc. at the best prices I could find this week.

We conserved our electricity and natural gas the best we could this past week and all month. I submitted the readings and I am awaiting my bill. I will let you know how we did when we get it.

I have made out my grocery list for Top’s this coming week. There was nothing in the Aldi ad or Niagara Produce Specials that interested me. I only need a few things at Top’s.

We are making homemade French Bread pizzas for dinner tonight using a loaf of French bread that I got on reduced price for $.77 at Walmart. Hubby gets the day off from bread making to watch basketball.

We got our second set of Free Covid tests delivered by USPS.

What did you do frugally this past week?