Tag: frugal things we do

 These are the things that we have done frugally the past few weeks:

– We have only gotten take out once which I got a dozen free shrimp with a meal and I also was able to use a $5.00 off coupon that I received for my birthday. All other meals have been cooked at home from our stockpile.

– I did some more Christmas shopping. I only have a couple of things left to purchase. I try every year to have my Christmas shopping done by the end of October.

– I received a $5.00 rebate in the mail.

– I believe I got the last 12 pack of Samuel Adams Octoberfest in town. My son drinks this. My beverage center has the best price too.

– Hubby set up his office so that Alexa could do her virtual schooling while she visited. This worked out very well. She was comfortable and had her privacy.

– She loves spaghetti and meatballs. So I made a huge crockpot full from scratch one night. Another night we had hamburgers and French fries. We kept the menu teenager friendly.  

– My son had business that was 2 hours and 30 minutes away round trip from where we lived. He was willing to drive it every day so that we could all spend time together. We were very thankful for that. The last day that they were here, we took Alexa to him there after her school day ended at 3PM. At least that saved him driving back here and then all the way across the state again. I filled up the car before our trip getting $ .60 off a gallon using Top’s gasoline points. 

– Hubby returned bottles and got $ 5.60 in deposits back. 

– We went to the dentist for our 3 month checkups and cleanings. We have paid for the insurance plan again this year so they were discounted. I also convinced my dentist that I do not need to go for cleanings every 3 months. He agreed to me coming every 6 months so that will save us a lot of money. 

– We have decided to change our cellphone plan. I have been paying my son $596. a year because I am on his plan. However we have found a plan that is satisfactory for us for $180. for a year. This will also give us a telephone number that is in our area code. My son’s is not.  

– Our monthly electric and natural gas bill came and it was $10.00 less than the same time last year. Since there has been a rate increase in that period, I think we did well keeping it under control.

– I have done minimal grocery shopping. I am still saving money to shop for Thanksgiving turkeys and other sale items.

– I mended a pair of pajamas and hemmed a pair of slacks.

– I continue to do my fall organizing and cleaning. It is getting done slowly. I should be done in a couple of weeks.

– I continue to use the HE washer and hang most everything to dry.

– I use whatever appliance is the cheapest energy wise to do our cooking. So the toaster oven, air fryer oven and pressure cooker get used a lot. I am going to hard boil a dozen eggs this morning. 

– I have been doing very well using up produce before it goes bad and using up all of our leftovers.

– Our son and granddaughter visiting was PRICELESS.

What have you been doing frugally? Please feel free to share with all of us in the comments.   

 These are the things we have done frugally the past week:

All meals were made at home. No takeout or restaurant food was consumed. We enjoyed Cobb salad, lamb chops, Chef’s salad, turkey club BLT’s, tacos and soup.

We only spent $ 62.92 on food at the grocery store.

We washed the John Deere lawnmower to get most of the grass and dirt off from the spring and summer.

I received $ 11.00 in rebates in the mail.

I took cans and bottles back to Fast Cash and got $3.20 in deposits.

We had to turn on the heat because the temperature has dropped into the 40’s at night here. But we have it set low enough that it barely runs during the daytime.

I cut chives from our garden to put in a couple of omelets and on potatoes.

We watched the Bills game and a couple of Prime movies for entertainment. 

I washed some windows on the inside. With winter coming it is senseless to wash them outside in the Fall.

I purchased a couple of gifts that were on sale for Christmas.

We have decided our protection is important so we will not give candy out on Halloween. This breaks our hearts because we have done trick or treating for the kids the entire time we have been married. But since we are in the high risk group, we have decided it is not worth the risk. That said, I purchased two big bags of organic animal crackers that I will take to my two neighbors for their little ones to share. 

I am reorganizing my refrigerator so that it will be easier to not waste food. I am spring cleaning it while I am doing it. This is a slow process because I pulled my back out a couple of days ago. I have been spending most of my time on the heating pad. When I just can’t lay down any more(which is very hard for me), I do a shelf or door bin. I will show it all to you when I am finished. 

Hubby washed all the dirt and grime off the front door to get that done for the winter. So many things need to be done and they are getting done but slowly. We need to speed it up because the month of October is predicted to be way colder this year than normal. 

I decided we will no longer eat microwave popcorn that you buy in the grocery store. Not only is it expensive compared to popping your own but the list of ingredients is not very healthy. So I have set up a popcorn area of my pantry with kernels, paper bags to use in the microwave, coconut oil, and an assortment of shake on flavorings. The flavorings probably aren’t healthy but are a lot better than the list of ingredients on what we have been using.

Well it is time to go and marinate a whole bunch of chicken breasts in some Italian dressing. Hubby will grill some for our dinner tonight and some that I can cut up and put in the freezer for some future quick meals. 

What have you done frugally this past week? Are you doing trick or treating this year at your home?

These are the things we have done frugally in our home recently.

We received another $ 13.00 in two rebates. They are always worth the few minutes it takes to fill them out and send them in.

My Amazon order came and it was leaking. I had ordered 4 bottles of 32 ounce hand sanitizer. One bottle had the cap off when it arrived. What a mess it was in the box. Half of one bottle had leaked all over the other three and the box. I cleaned it up and contacted Amazon. I got the best customer service ever from them. They told me to either keep, throw out, or donate the order. They credited me for the entire order. So I now have free sanitizer. I believe that Amazon is very leary of the new Walmart Plus so they have really upped their game on their customer service. You can see how much is gone in the bottle on the right.

That roast beef that you saw me cook yesterday has a story behind it. It was dated in 2018. Somehow it got away from me in the dungeon of my chest freezer. Except for turkeys, I rarely keep meat that long. I was wondering if I should toss it or cook it. So I gave it the test. I thawed it, checked to see if it looked okay, and smelled it. It passed those tests, so I cooked it. Then I quickly tasted a small piece when Hubby cut it. It was as good as if it was a new piece of meat. It was delicious and we have another two meals we can get out of it. I am so glad that I didn’t toss it which was my original thought. Waste not want not is my motto.

I washed 3 loads of clothing and towels. I washed the towels in my HE washer using warm water and dried them them using my wool balls which allows me use less time in the dryer. I washed the clothing loads in cold water and hung them to dry.


I redeemed a free to me $10.00 giftcard at Walmart.

My free Better Homes and Gardens magazine came in the mail. I am glad it was free because I skimmed it for about 4 minutes and there was nothing I was interested in.

The pest control company came and got us all set for the winter months. I hate bugs of any kind and the spiders are trying to come inside now that it is cold. 

I washed the car in the driveway. Soon I will be going to the car wash so I want to do as many as I can in the driveway before it gets too cold. I actually have enough reward tickets from getting the car washed last winter, that my first one will be free when I go.


We have been watching You Tube and movies on Amazon Prime for entertainment along with watching football.


I have been cooking all of our meals at home using the best energy saving appliance for the job. 

Lastly, but not money saving, I had to take a picture of the aster bush that I did prior in a post. It is in full bloom now and so beautiful!

What have you been doing frugally?

These are the things we have done frugally the past two weeks:

– We paid our school taxes from our sinking funds account for them. It is always nice when that large bill comes to know that the money has been set aside for those each month for the past 12 months. Even though we were reassessed again, the taxes only went up by $ 102. 

– Since I had to go to a bank to pay them, I stopped at the town hall and paid our quarterly water and sewer bill. It was on the route and saved me using a stamp. 

– I also stopped along my route at Top’s and picked up on sale Hellman’s mayo using a $1./1 Q and a raincheck. This was out of stock the other day. 

– I purchased two pair of denim shorts on clearance for $ 9.00 each. That was a whole lot better price than the $27. each that they were before they went on clearance.

– I am cooking mostly from scratch again since West went home. We did not buy take out this week. I am cooking two meals at a time when I can.

– I signed up for Tasty Rewards last week and look what I got in the mail this past Monday. I already used the 3 $1.00 ones on sale Poppables this week. 

– I wrote another company and they are sending me some coupons for a product that we use all the time. It never hurts to ask. 

– We received $ 9.28 in rebates in the mail.  

– I did two loads of wash this week using cold water, minimal detergent and the laundry sanitizer. One was hung to dry. The other consisted of sheets and towels and was dried in my dryer using the dryer balls. 

– Hubby maintains our hardwood floors for us and we have a lot of them. He uses Bona cleaner and a mop with a reusable head to do it. That saves us a lot of money by not hiring outside help to do them. They look magnificent even though they are over 10 years old.

– I continue to organize and maintain our pantries.

– Hubby and I sat down yesterday and went through our container of OTC medicines. I need to get 5 more for the fall and winter just in case they are needed. I will be researching sales and prices for them.  

So what did you do frugally this past couple of weeks? Feel free to comment and tell us all about it.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend!   

These are the frugal things we have done the past week or so:

– Hubby needed replacement brush heads for his electric toothbrush. He had a $5.00 rebate form for buying them. I found that they cost the same amount on Amazon and Walmart. They never seem to go on sale. So I spent the $19.78 to have them delivered via my Amazon Prime. I mailed in the $ 5.00 rebate form today. When we need something, we always try to get a rebate on it. 


– For 11 days, I skipped the monthly grocery shopping. We had plenty of food to choose from our main pantries and refrigerator/freezer. 

– I ordered a Christmas gift for a person who will love it. I got it $10.00 off. It’s never too early to start looking for sales on Christmas gifts.


– I washed and dried our SUV in our driveway. I also cleaned the entire inside. Our car is like new with only 34,000. miles and it is over 13 years old.


– I washed our clothes and West’s clothes using cold water detergent and Lysol sanitizer. I hung most of them to dry. I used the wool dryer balls for the ones I dried in the dryer. Those balls cut many minutes off the dryer time plus you don’t use dryer sheets.


– Our electric and natural gas bill came for the past month. We used less KWH and the same natural gas but the bill was $4.00 higher than last year. I was curious to know why so I looked at both bills. It looks like there was a rate increase. I guess I am going to have to really concentrate on lowering these bills again.


– I cooked most meals from scratch. We did do take out from KFC.

– I picked up two more free frosting buckets for storage from Top’s.

– Both Hubby and West want ramen noodles for dinner tonight. I don’t understand why they like them so much. I will not be eating them. YUCK!

– I got a free rotisserie chicken at Top’s yesterday.

– I have spent a lot of time training West to turn the lights and TV off in his room. He is always leaving them on when he is not in there.


– We have spent many days playing board games. That is frugal entertainment and lots of fun. 


– Even with West here, I have been getting my exercise in on the treadmill. 

– The toothbrush heads arrived so I filled out the $5.00 rebate and mailed it in.

– We have been using the automatic timer on the sprinkler system to water the lawn all summer. No water wasted because we forget to turn it off.

What have you done frugally the past week or so?

These are the things we have done frugally the past week or so:

– Washed laundry in cold water using sanitizer and hung clothes to dry

– Picked up library books curbside

– Made pancakes for all of us when my grandson and son came on Sunday from the Keto mix that has been sitting on a pantry shelf

– My son bought a large lot of furniture and a 75 inch big screen TV from a local business for a really good price. The TV was in a conference room so didn’t have much wear. The furniture included a number of desk chairs. He gave us a new office chair(new to us)which we needed badly.

– My son also brought us homemade dill pickles, 2 cucumbers, 2 tomatoes, and an eggplant.

– I deposited two checks into one of our savings accounts

– Found a new lab that is covered under our plan. It is close to home(less than 2 miles) so it saves me driving an extra 12 miles each way to the lab we were going to

– I got really tired of onions going bad before we could use them up. I remembered how I used to keep them from going bad when I was newly married. I have reverted back to that method. This is how I used the cheap nylons I got in my subscribe and save order. Back in 1960’s, I wore nylons to work every day. So I would just use an old pair with runs to put my onions in. I would cut the one at the bottom off to get an onion. Today, I don’t wear nylons. So rather than keep buying nylons, I just untie the knot(that is on the hook they hang on) at the top and take an onion out when I need it. I can easily add onions too. I have them hanging on a hook in a kitchen pantry. I never had an onion go bad using this method. 

– The end of July I received two orders of chunky soups from Target. The first order, which came on a Saturday, was for 14 cans and was a box that was too big for it with no bubble wrap or packing material in the box. When I opened it, the cans were all jumbled up inside. There were two cans that had dents but they were very small and the cans were usable, so I didn’t complain. The next day my order of 10 cans arrived. The box was 1/2 open and one can was missing and 4 cans were badly dented(not usable) . Again it was packed with no wrapping material in a box that was too big to hold the cans. At this point I was not a happy camper with Target. So I called their customer service and got a rep who was very well trained. He apologized and arranged to have 5 more cans shipped to me. He also was letting the warehouse know about the lack of packing and the condition my orders arrived in. I also told him about the condition of the 2 cans from the day before but that I could use those. Not only did he have the 5 cans shipped to me but he sent me a $10. gift card that I can use at the store or add to my account for my next order. I was a satisfied customer when I hung up. My 5 cans have shipped and should arrive tomorrow. So we will see how they are packed. I am planning to use that $10. gift certificate in the store on either marked down meat or on sale items that I can use. 


– Hubby replaced the flapper on the guest bathroom toilet. That was a cheap repair.


– All meals have been made at home.


What have you done frugally in the past week or so?


I will be back with a low spend post later today.

This July has been the one of hottest on record here. I think we had one day that wasn’t in the 80’s or 90’s. Because of that we have used more electricity to air condition our home and to run our dehumidifier in the basement to keep my pantry dry. So I cut back in other areas by not doing laundry as often, using cold water when I do wash, hanging clothes to dry, making sure that no lights were on in daylight, turning off computers when they are not being used, and watching very little television. Hubby has set our air conditioner for 75 instead of our normal 72. We saved on natural gas by not using the dishwasher and  washing dishes by hand with a minimal amount of hot water. We have an on demand tankless water heater so it is not as expensive as having a standard water heater.  I also did very little cooking with our gas stove. Most of our cooking has been on the grill or in the air fryer.

We have been watering our lawn every other day in the early morning when it is not as hot out. We have been using the sprinkler system timer. Finally, we had a soaking rain so we shouldn’t have to water for a few days.

I have been saving the shower warm up water to water our outdoor hanging baskets. 

We have received $8.00 in rebates and I submitted $ 17.00 in rebates for two bottles of liquor that Hubby wanted. He has been restocking our bar bottles. 

Our fan would not work in the master bathroom. Hubby traced it to the timer switch. I ordered a new one and paid for most of it with reward points. It came quickly and Hubby put it in. It is nice to have that fan back to get the moisture out of the bathroom after showers. 


Instead of watching television, I have been reading Behind The Green Mask:U.N. Agenda 21. What an eye opener that book is.

I have not had any shorts to wear all summer because of my weight loss. I have looked and looked for shorts that aren’t ripped or so short that I won’t wear them. It has been impossible to find ones I like. So I went to Running’s today in the hope that they might have a pair or two that I could use for the rest of the summer. It has been pretty hot wearing my jeans. They had none left. I will have to keep looking or go without until spring. If anyone who reads from Buffalo has seen shorts anywhere, please let me know by leaving a comment.

Our meals were all made at home from scratch with the exception of one weekend night, I made a frozen pizza.

My son and grandson came to visit on Sunday. We had scrambled eggs, bacon, apple juice, and homemade cheddar biscuits for breakfast. It was so good to see them.


I have been using the treadmill and recumbent bike every day for exercise.

My subscribe and save order came last weekend. They kept telling me that the Hubby’s Green Mountain Decaf K cups were out of stock. They said they would notify me if they got them back in. They never did so I wasn’t expecting them to show up. As you can see, they did. The panty hose are for a project. I bought the cheapest ones I could find. They are fine for what I need them for. The Gatorade both liquid and powdered are for my stockpile. West loves the sugar free Ice Breakers so they are a treat once in a while for him.


I paid $7.78 for 12 cans of spaghetti sauce that I use as a base for my homemade sauce or $.65 a can. I paid $ 1.29 per can for 12 cans of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Noodle soup. Both deals were a phenomenal price for me.  My entire order came to $92.40 which comes out of my stockpile budget.


We have been cooking enough for two days each time we cook to save both time and energy.


The SUV needed a bath so I washed it in the driveway using the pressure washer. I also cleaned the windows and inside. I do not pay for car washes in the nice weather. 

What have you done the past couple of weeks frugally?