Tag: miscellaneous

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Every Day

A Fun Day Yesterday

First, I have a piece of business to take care of. If any of you tried to get into this blog yesterday or today, it was down. I did not know it until Chris sent me a message that she was having problems commenting last night. My admin who is my son has fixed the issue and we are up and runnng again. Thank you for your patience.

I always have a wonderful girl’s day out with my friend. We left about 11am yesterday to go to https://www.tatteredtuliphome.com/ to browse and see the Christmas decorations. They were beautiful but I did not buy anything. I have enough Christmas things now. After browsing for a while, we went to https://www.platterschocolates.com/ where I purchased a few gifts.

Then we had lunch at https://woodcockbrothersbrewery.com/ . The service and food was wonderful. My friend treated me. We are taking turns doing that.

I had asked my friend when she picked me up if there was a Wegman’s close to where we were going. She said yes that it was very close. So after lunch we went there so I could buy a Shady Brook turkey which was 14.85 lbs. Using your Wegman’s card you could get 1 for $ .48 a lb. that cost me a total of $ 7.13. This is the best turkey deal that I have gotten in 2 years. I could get a Top’s turkey for $ .58 a lb. but I will save $ .10 a lb. any day. Since it was so close to where we were, she saved me from driving a 19 mile round trip to my store. I had brought a bag to keep it frozen while we were at our last stop. It is the last turkey I will buy unless I see a markdown deal at Walmart after Christmas.

Our last stop was at https://arrowheadspringvineyards.com/ where we enjoyed a glass of wine.

Since we didn’t get home until dinnertime, Hubby made easy ham and grilled cheese sandwiches.

I will be back tomorrow with my Top’s shopping haul of loss leaders that are the cheapest this time of the year.

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Every Day

This is a Very Difficult Economy for Many

So many people are trying to stretch their money to make ends meet. It is not only the minimum wage earners. I am seeing so many people who make six figures a year having the same issues. It is especially hard for people who are single and only have one income or seniors who are living on a fixed income. Prices just keep going up and eventually the money does not stretch any more.

Many have tried to get better jobs and have sent out hundreds of job applications with no response to any of them. Others have taken on a part time job along with their full time jobs. Many can’t even find part time jobs in their areas. Companies just aren’t hiring because their expenses have gone up also. This time of year you could always pick up a part time Christmas job. Not any more! The companies are trying to stay afloat too by downsizing their budgets.

People have not gotten raises for years now. If they have, they have been minimal and don’t even come close to keeping up with inflation. I know seniors have gone quite a few years over the past 15-20 without a raise. The January raises they do get do not keep up with inflation. Everytime you get that raise, your medicare cost goes up too. So if that is your only source of income in retirement, you are having a very rough time right now.

So what is important to pay when you are in any of these situations that I have mentioned. Your first priority is your mortgage or rent. You need a roof over your head or you will be homeless and living in your car. Food is your second priority. If you can’t afford it, go to the food banks. Hundreds of thousands of people are doing that right now. Many have incomes over $ 100,000. a year. Most food banks are not income based. You may not get food that is your favorite but it will sustain you.

If you still have money for food, buy the cheapest. Beef is out unless you can get it reduced for quick sale. Pork, turkey(this month) and chicken are your best buys when they are on sale. Buy whole chickens and break them down yourselves instead of buying chicken breasts. I can get a whole chicken for $ 1.64 a lb. and get a lot of soup stock from it too. Beans, eggs, and peanut butter are great sources of protein. Eating breakfast for dinner a couple of times a week will save you money. Toast and eggs make a great meal. Make a soup with leftovers. Never waste food. The food you throw away is the most expensive food you have purchased.

Health insurance is always a priority especially if you are over 50. One broken bone or operation will break you for good.

Your next priority should be life saving medications. Look for coupons online to save on these. Many manufacturers of drugs will give you coupons for your prescriptions. Most pharmacies will take these coupons along with your insurance. Look into Good RX or many other savings cards to see if it is cheaper than your insurance.

I would say heat if you are in a cold climate is your next priority. You do not want to freeze to death. Some states can’t shut off your power from November 1 to April 15. These are the dates here in New York. If you have a medical condition that requires power, they can’t shut you off. I am not saying “don’t pay your power bill” because eventually you will have to catch up. But if money is really tight one month, keep those dates in mind. If you are going to be late paying it, make sure you call them and make arrangements to pay.

Do whatever you have to do to keep the power bill low. No one needs more than one light on at night in the room they are in. Use a battery powered one if you have one. Or bring a solar light in that has soaked up the sun each night. If you have a choice between cooking with electricity or natural gas, the gas is cheaper. Use your outside grill if you have a full tank of propane, even in the winter.

Next priority is your car insurance and car payment. Those need to be paid no matter what. You need your car for work and to get groceries, etc. You don’t need to be paying delivery charges and tips to have food delivered.

Gasoline is your next priority. Buy it at the cheapest station which is usually B.J.’s or another warehouse club if you already have a membership. You can find your cheapest station by checking Gas Buddy.

Most importantly on all of your bills: Pay them yourselves. Do not let anyone take the money directly from your checking account unless it is absolutely necessary. If your checking account balance goes below zero, your will get a NSF charge when those bills hit. Then you will start a cycle that will never end. So shut off any direct payment that you can ASAP! Go! Do it now!

I know you won’t want to hear it but you know I am going to say it anyhow. Here are the things you do not need to be buying until you dig yourself out of this hole:

Do not buy fast food or eat out in a restaurant. No coffee while you are out and about unless you make it yourself and bring it. No costly entertainment like movies or streaming services. No cable tv. Get a Roku and watch You Tube or free streaming services. Do not buy junk food at the grocery store: no snacks, beer, liquor, or soda. Bake cookies, muffns or quick breads from scratch. Eat cheese and crackers. Hard boiled eggs are a great snack. No clothing or shoes unless yours are so worn out that you can’t wear them. I mean threadbare!

Your first priority when you dig yourself out of the hole you are in is to build an emergency fund and some savings so that you never end up like this again.

I really hope this helps someone. Please add anything that I haven’t thought of in the comments so that you can help these people too!

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Every Day

A Little of This and A Little of That

On the way home from getting my stitches out on Monday, I stopped at B.J.’s. They are having a 42% off Birthday Celebration sale. I had no Bubba Burgers left so I picked up the 12 count box for $ 31.49. These are Hubby’s favorites. Since they are $ 19.99 elsewhere for a 6 count box, this was a great deal. Of course, I had to pick up a rotisserie chicken for $ 4.99. We had chicken sandwiches for lunch and then I picked all of the meat off and ended up with 2 bags worth for other meals. The carcass is in the freezer with others waiting until I have time to make broth next week.

The 43.5 ounce coffee was $ 15.89 after a $ 2.40 digital coupon. But the best deal of the day was the 80/20 ground beef. I only had about 3 – 1 lb. packages of ground beef left in my freezer. It ended up costing me about $ 2.71 a lb. for 10 lbs. after the 42% birthday discount. It cost me $ 27.09 total. I bought one but I am having second thoughts. I will pick up another 10 lb. roll next week when I have to travel down that way. There is a limit of 2. Twenty pounds should last me until summer when we see sales again. I food savered it up into 1 lb. packages. I don’t think I have seen a price this low in a couple of years.

On Tuesday, I finally had the time to roast my turkey. Hubby and I had a nice turkey dinner that night. Last night I ate some leftovers and Hubby ate a Chef’s salad using some of the turkey. After dinner I picked the carcass clean. We have enough meat left for 3 more meals and some to make soup. So the carcass will cook tonight in the crockpot to make the broth.

Earlier this week, the $ 90. deposits from the government to help with Medicare costs hit our bank account. That was sure quick. So any seniors who are expecting that money, check your account for the deposits.

When we had company staying here for Hubby’s birthday weekend, we kept our bedroom door open so that Eloise could sleep in with us and still get to her food and her litter box. I was concerned that she would keep us awake all night. Nope she didn’t but she did still get me up a little after 3. Then the next night, she didn’t get me up until 5:45am. This seems to work and I am getting more sleep than I have in over 2 years. Some nights it is longer and others shorter. She sleeps on the foot of one of our beds and seems to be content with that even though she has her own comfortable bed in our room. This is working and proved to me just how sleep deprived I was. I was always so tired. Now I have energy and can get many things done each day again.

I am so looking forward to later today. A very good friend is treating me to lunch to celebrate my birthday early. We are going to a town I loved when Hubby took me there years ago. We will also do some shopping.

I hope you all have a great day!

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Every Day

Loss Leader Shop and the Party

Hubby had such a good time at his party on Sunday. My oldest son came on Friday and stayed until Monday. Chris, who has been reading my blog since the beginning, and her Hubby arrived on Saturday afternoon and went home on Tuesday. My youngest son, his wife and my grandson and my wonderful new friends from the neighborhood came in time for the Buffalo Bills game at 1pm. We had a blast rooting for our team.

The best part was that family was here and our friends, who feel like family were too. My neighbor made a very nice chaccuterie board and Chris made her Skyline party dip for the game. I want to give a special thanks to them for doing the dishes after the party. I was so tired after working so hard to make this nice for Hubby. He just loved everything about the day.

Hubby got lots of giftcards, food and drinks from everyone. Chris came loaded as usual with beer, wine, cookies, Buckeyes, etc. and a gift for Eloise which she is loving. My new neighbors brought Hubby’s favorite beer with all of these balloons. There were 5 of them and today is Friday and they are still inflated.

My daughter in law worked very hard making a notebook for Hubby that has every crossword puzzle from his birthday each year since he was born. They are from the New York Times. He is really enjoying them. He loves crosswords.

My oldest son made banana bread at home and brought it to us. It was enjoyed as part of the breakfasts every morning.

Dinner was his birthday celebration. I went to the catering at Wegman’s and had a large cold cut( I chose which ones) platter made along with 4 different kinds of fresh rolls from their bakery. I made homemade potato salad and a macaroni tuna fish salad. We put out chips. pickles and condiments. There was beer, all kinds of liquor and mixers, and soda of your choice.

I had Hubby’s cake made at the bakery in town owned by my neighbors. It was beautiful, delicious and had Hubby’s favorite filling which is raspberry. His name was on it but I erased it to keep it private. Thanks to Chris’s Hubby for taking many pictures for us.

Thanks to everyone who made his day perfect! If I forgot to mention anything, I am sorry. The only regret that I have is that we couldn’t all sit together for dinner. My table wasn’t big enough. So 6 were in the breakfast room and 4 of us were at the game table in the great room.

I have spent the last few days getting my home cleaned from the party and washing sheets and putting them back on the guest room beds and towels, etc. When I wasn’t working, I was napping! It was badly needed.

Now for the loss leader haul this week. I went to Top’s and purchased 2 cans of Top’s petite diced tomatoes and 4 cans of regular diced tomatoes on sale for $1.00 each. I also got 2 Rao’s spaghetti sauces on sale for $ 5.99 each. BTW, this company has sold to Campbell’s so I am watching that the ingredients don’t end up with a lot of junk in them. So far they haven’t. My son made me aware. He is now buying Carbone’s from Walmart because it is clean. The last items were 2 PICS cranberry stuffing mixes on sale for $1.50 each. My total was $ 20.98.

Many items in my stockpile have been eaten or donated so I need to spend a few days reorganizing the shelves. The same goes for my freezer.

BTW, Chris has made me aware that Kroger’s has turkeys on sale this week already for $ 1.24 a lb. Seems early!

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Every Day

Inflation and the Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh spoke on September 11th. He gave a warning to all Americans in his speech that inflation is going up. Of course we all have been aware of that. Remember, that food and gasoline are not in those inflation numbers. Because of the inflation numbers they looked at in August, they will probably raise interest rates on September 16th. I believe they will raise them again in the next 6 months. This is the only way they will get inflation under control.

He said, “If the Fed gets inflation wrong and judges the economy wrong, who gets the worst of it? Not the financial highfliers. Hard-working Americans are the ones left to deal with inflation that is too high or jobs that suddenly appear less secure.” He needs to do this to control inflation and stabilize prices. In my estimation, this should have been done years ago under Powell.

They should have learned from the history of the Carter Administration. We had the same scenario we have today but I believe inflation is worse now. During the Carter administration they raised the interest rates and they went up to 20% over a few years. Finally inflation started cooling. Prices went down somewhat but never returned to what they had been. They won’t now either.

I know most people will not like it. But it is a necessity to raise interest rates to get inflation under control. This will raise mortgage rates, loan rates, and credit card rates. Most likely people will not buy homes when the mortgage rates get too high. So your home value may also take a dive.

Inflation is making everything cost more. We all know that the necessities of food, most products, appliances, our utility bills, our water bills, our property and school taxes, the cost of medical, home, and auto insurances, and gasoline have all been affected. We see it every day in our daily lives. Inflation has devalued the dollar. It will continue to do that until the Feds get this under control.

Since I believe that it will take a few years to get inflation down, it is important to realize that the rest of 2026, 2027, 2028 or beyond will not be easy.

Add to this the fact that Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline was blown up and has been taken down while they try to fix it will affect the stock market on Monday. Oil prices will surge. Hopefully, you all have full tanks of gasoline before that happens.

You can take all that I have said with a grain of salt or you can prepare yourself to deal with it. Only you can help yourself which I have said many times over they years. NO ONE is coming to rescue you!

The first thing we will do is try to cut expenses where ever we can. You should too.

I will post more on how we will do this starting sometime this week. I have a busy schedule of doctor appointments this week along with getting ready for Hubby’s party.

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Every Day

Is It Stress or Procrastination?

It has been so stressful the past 6 weeks. I keep putting off things that need to be done……like writing here. I keep telling myself that I will do it tomorrow but it doesn’t get done. Perfection is not my strong suit! It is so easy to procrastinate.

So what have I been doing? Besides taking care of Hubby, Eloise, the house, and my wound in my back, I don’t have much time for anything else. At least that is what I have been telling myself. I am tired all of the time.

But yesterday, I said to myself enough is enough. Things need to get done around here. I am planning Hubby’s birthday celebration the end of this month and so much needs to get done. Besides cleaning my home which has been neglected the past few weeks, I had ordering to do. Yes, you heard that right. My family and Hubby convinced me to order out as much as I can for his celebration. It’s still work but not as much. I am very thankful that we have saved so that we can let other people help with things when needed.

Yesterday, I went to our favorite bakery, which is owned by one of my neighbors, and ordered Hubby’s birthday cake. It will be exactly what he wanted. Next week when I have time to go to the town south of us, I will order cold cut platters. I am going to see if I can order the rolls I need from their bakery ahead also. I was planning on having hot food catered in by a restaurant but it’s Hubby’s party and this is what he wanted. I have been shopping for the other needs for the party when I see a loss leader sale. I got some soda 12 packs on a B2G2 free sale a week or so ago. Yesterday I got Ruffles potato chips on a B2G2 free sale. We have plenty of pickles, mayonaise, and mustard in our pantry. We have plenty of beer, liquor, and wine along with mixers.

I will be making a potato and macaroni salad most likely the day before. I do not like to buy them out because a lot of them come out of a can. So I will make my own. Really good friends are coming from another state to stay with us for 3 days. Perhaps she can help me make them unless I get them done before they arrive. My neighbor will be making a chaccutterie board to munch on in the afternoon since we will not be having dinner until 5-6. I am grateful for their help.

We also have family member from out of town coming to stay with us. I am so excited because I have not seen this person in 10 months. My son and his family(who live close) will be here too. So we will have a houseful of company from Saturday to Tuesday and we will enjoy every minute of it. Meals will be an issue but we can do some eating out or ordering in or eat leftovers if we have any.

Since the Buffalo Bills will be playing that afternoon at 1pm we will be starting this party early and enjoying the game too. I originally was going to have people arrive at 2pm but then I realized there was a game and most everyone here will want to see it. So the party will be in full swing by 1pm.

Besides cleaning the house, we have another project that Hubby is going to work on. I have 6 chairs at my dining room table. Two of the seat covers are stained. Both done by family but accidents happen. I have been putting off getting them recovered. So I had Hubby take one of the seat covers off the other night. I went to the Fabric Warehouse yesterday. I found the same heavy material in the same weave that we had. But it is just a little tiny bit lighter in color but will match other colors in the room. It will be perfect! I needed 2 and 1/4 yards to do them. Hubby will make a pattern and lay them out on the material before he cuts it. No room for mistakes. I paid about $ 70. for this material. But having them professionally done would have cost us a lot more. He will do a great job because he has done it before in one of our other homes.

Besides all of this I have a special birthday card to order along with paper plates, cups, candles, forks and knives. I told everyone no stuff for his birthday. We have enough stuff that we are slowly getting rid of. If someone really insists on giving a gift, Home Depot, Amazon, or Walmart gift cards are the way to go but they are not a necessity.

Hubby and I are combining our birthday gifts to each other since my birthday is two weeks after his. Sometime between his birthday and mine we will be ordering new furniture for our great room. Our leather chairs have seen better days and are worn through from constantly using them for 25 years. I hate to see them go because they are so comfortable but hopefully we can find something just as good.

I have done very little grocery shopping except for things for the party. We still are eating from our stockpile. I am neatening it up a bit because I will have someone shopping from it soon. We have been trying to eat up as much as we can from the refrigerator too so that I have room for party stuff. We did order a pizza from a restaurant that we had never gotten it from. It turned out to not be that good. We just can’t find good takeout pizza near us. So I will continue to make our pizzas. This morning I will be saute a pound of bacon to use for BLT’s for dinner tonight and to go with eggs for brunches. I will take a pork loin out of the freezer and thaw it in the fridge. That will be our meal in the crockpot for tomorrow since we have a Bills game to watch.

I brought our annual school tax payment to the school and have already gotten our paid receipt. That amount went up because we did not qualify for the enhanced rebate for seniors due to making too much money. I guess that is a good problem to have. We have only qualified for it twice in 16 years.

I have a $10. rebate that came in the mail so that will get deposited when I get to the bank soon. I also earned another $10. gift card for Walmart. I have been using those for my prescription refills.

I will be having my surgery at the hospital soon. When that is done and over with my life should be a little less stressful.

Here is hoping that I will be back to doing my frugal posts soon.

I hope you are all healthy and happy. I miss writing for you.

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Every Day

Grocery Hauls, etc.

I went to Aldi’s and got broccoli florets($1.15), a 4 pack of greek yogurt($2.65), and the small Naan flatbreads($4.99) for a total of $8.75 after rounding. I wanted the large Naan flatbread but they were out of stock. These will do for our pizzas for now.

Next I went to Walmart to pick up Hubby’s prescriptions for $ 0 co-pays. I was down to about 7 eggs so I needed the 60 count to get through the next couple of weeks. They were $ 8.12. They only had one zero sugar creamer that I like which was the pumpkin spice for $ 3.94. I also got 1 heavy whipping cream for $ 4.74 and 1 half and half for $ 2.56. My total was $ 19.36.

Last stop was Top’s where I purchased the Coffeemate creamer for $ 4.69, the bag of Vidalia onions for $ 6.49, and the white cheddar cheese for $1.88 for a grand total of $ 13.06.

So my groceries came to a total of $ 41.17.

However I did spend $60.00 more on groceries at Top’s. I struck up a conversation with a young woman who had her 3 year old little boy shopping with her. I came upon them in the store when I heard the little boy ask his mom if he could have some real cheese sticks. She nicely told him they could not afford those today. The little boy accepted that with no tantrum. I said to her things are so expensive now. I had noticed that most things were up $1.50 since I shopped Top’s 5 weeks ago. She said she has a family of 7. I can’t even imagine how much she spends for groceries for that size of a family. She is a stay at home mom and her husband works. I imagine that daycare for 5 children is too expensive for her to work. She told me they do not get food stamps. She said they were on Obamacare but the premium for the new year is going to be in the thousands so they will go without it and just pay as needed. I noticed besides some healthier cereal and milk she had a few other healthy items. Not much for such a large family but it could have been a fill in the gap shop. So I got in line behind her to pay for her groceries. The little boy asked his mom if she would take him for a ride in the cart. She said to the cashier to ring her items up and she would be back in about 2 minutes. I quickly handed the cashier a $100. bill and told her it was to pay for the young woman’s groceries. I did not want the woman to know I was paying. Too late because she came back quickly and saw me hand the cashier the $100. She told me I did not have to do that. I told her I know but I want to and I can afford it. She was so grateful. I remember when my boys were little and how hard it was to make ends meet while I was a stay at home mom.

It has been such a hard few weeks between my open wound and Hubby’s heart attack. The Lord has been good to us through it all. So it made my heart feel good to help this family out.

I think I told you yesterday that Chewy was going to replace my chunky Delectables for free. The package arrived a few minutes ago and they sent 2 boxes instead of 1. They are such a great company! I am very glad I found them when I got Eloise.

We continue to make most meals with what we have in our pantries.

I appreciate the couple of people who gave me ideas on what to take to the cookout tomorrow. I ended up being very busy today so I made chocolate fudge brownies with a bag of butterscotch chips thrown in. I may or may not frost them in the morning. There will be lots of desserts there so I only made one pan.

I did get my gas and electric bill today. But that is for another post.

Hubby is taping our preseason Buffalo Bills game because we will be at the cookout for most of the game and I don’t want to miss it.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

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Every Day

Older Age is Getting The Best of Us

Sorry that I have been missing in action again. But my husband had a heart attack last Sunday night about midnight. I have been rather busy since then. He came home from the hospital after a few days but we have not seen his cardiologist yet. So we don’t know what he can do or not do. He is feeling so much better. I am so thankful to all of the people that prayed for his recovery.

I am thankful to my son for getting me to the hospital in the night. I don’t drive at night anymore. We stayed all through the night until 11am the next day. Then we came home for some much needed sleep. But I couldn’t sleep so I went back to the hospital.

I am thankful for my new neighbor who knew how tired I was and without even being asked offered to drive me to the hospital the next day. I accepted because I was so tired. After we visited him for about 4-5 hours, she took me to eat and then home. I had not been eating and I was so hungry. She also cleaned my wound in my back and rebandaged it. She is such a great friend.

Lastly, I am thankful to my next door neighbors who without being asked offered to drive me to the hospital, feed Eloise, look for packages that I had coming, and mow our lawn that really needed it. He did that today and he did a terrific job.

I have my hands full right now. I also have my minor surgery on Monday that hopefully will take care of this wound once and for all.

So I do not know when I will be back blogging until we each see our medical doctors this week. I am hoping by the end of the week.

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Every Day

I Apologize: Here is The Post About My Day on Tuesday

I had every intention of writing this on Thursday. However, I ended up in the hospital getting emergency surgery to remove an infection in my back. I have to go back tomorrow to get the drain removed. That can’t come fast enough for me. It is still oozing blood so when I am not laying down, I am in old clothes that I can just throw out when they get messed up. I am sitting here pretty uncomfortable while typing this. Fortunately Eloise seems to know that I don’t feel well. So instead of sitting on my lap, she is sleeping next to my feet.

Anyhow let’s talk about Tuesday. It was the best “girl’s” day out with my new friend and neighbor. I had not had a girl’s day out in over 26 years except with family. She knows other towns in our area that I do not and she took me on quite an excursion.

We started out from here at 9am. After Hubby got my Yeti cooler and grocery bags in her car, I grabbed my umbrella and we were on our way. First she took me to see the house she lived in before moving here. The neighborhood was very nice and reminded me of the one we lived in for 24 years when we raised our boys.

Next we went to Olympia Greek Restaurant in North Tonawanda for a nice breakfast. Their portions were huge so I could eat less than half. I had a steak omelet, home fries, and toast. It was very good! I would go back there again.

After leaving there we went to https://pellicanosmarketplace.com/ . That is why I needed the cooler. I got pastrami, pepperoni, and salami so that Hubby could make himself an Italian salad for dinner that night. I froze about half of the meats because every once in while that is what he wants for dinner. I also picked up a large package of ground beef so that Hubby can make a big pot of chili when it cools off in September. I purchased a couple of beefsteak tomatoes, a few packages of their made on site Italian sausage patties and a 5 lb. bag of breaded white meat chicken patties on my friends recommendation. Her Hubby uses these to make chicken parm. So I tried his recipe for dinner the next night. It was so delicious and so easy. Hubby loved it. I will have to go back there and bring Hubby because he would like a lot the things that they have including the olives. My last purchase was a bag of ice to throw in the cooler along with the food.

Then we went to thehttps://www.facebook.com/people/Tattered-Tulip/100064759474267/ . It was huge and had such beautiful home decor. Not wanting to bring anything into my home that wasn’t a necessity, I just purchased four beautiful dish towels in my color scheme to replace some that were old and frayed.

Next we went to https://www.platterschocolates.com/ . After walking around the home decor store for a long time, my back was killing me and I needed to sit down. So we got ice cream and sat for a while in Platter’s. Then we went and looked at all of the chocolates and of course I brought home 4 boxes of them.

Our last stop before we went home was here: https://arrowheadspringvineyards.com/ . We enjoyed a glass of wine and purchased some bottles of wine to bring home.

The best part of the day was chatting with my new friend. We seem to like the same things and we get along so well. She is so sweet. She had as good a time as I did because she wants to do another “girl’s day” out this month. I am game! I am getting to know her and different areas around me that I have never been to. It is such fun! So a huge thanks to her for taking me!

Was the day frugal? Nope! But it was worth every penny!

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Every Day

What is This Generation Thinking? How Did They Become So Irresponsible?

I know I promised to tell you today what I did yesterday. I will do that another time. I went to sleep last night watching this You Tube video and it was very disturbing. So I want to talk about this. Here is the video if you want to watch it: People Have Stopped Paying Their Bills… And It’s Worse Than Many Realize

Who raised these people to be so irresponsible? I was just aghast that people don’t care if they pay any of their bills back. Do they have any morals? I am not sure they do. Do they realize that will damage their lives forever by this kind of behavior?

What is truly troubling is that they use every excuse for not being able to pay their bills except blaming themselves. They took the loans, they ran up their credit cards, they took the mortgages, or they rented an apartment they cannot afford. They purchased the car they can’t afford. But they do not want to change their lifestyles to be able to pay them off. Some even want to bankrupt the country by trying to convince others to not pay their bills back.

Don’t get me going on how so many people are putting groceries on credit cards. Give up something else to pay for food. Cut back to basic food: some kind of protein, veggies/or fruit is all you really need. Stop buying snacks, sodas and sweets if you can’t afford them. I will talk about this in another post or this one will be 10 pages long.

So many of them are complaining it is because everything is going up. We have been in so many situations like this in all of our decades. About every 10 years we have had some kind of recession. But people cut back on what they spent to survive. They didn’t spend a fortune on cellphones, eating out, picking up coffee, so many clothes that they can’t wear them all, streaming services they can’t afford, and the list goes on and on. When gas got expensive, they car pooled, stayed home except to go to work. They combined a ride home from work with running errands. They did not use their car otherwise. How many of them today are doing that? I would bet not many! They are still going out to meet up with friends or using gasoline for other things that are not a true necessity.

Do you think that our bills have not gone up? Of course they have just like everyone elses. We will be retired 25 years next month. The money that we had to spend during retirement has been devalued by inflation over those 25 years. Since the month we retired until now, our money today needs to be 1.88 times what it was when we retired. We stayed frugal our entire life knowing this would happen and we saved every month. Do I like that our bills have gone up so much over the past 7 years? No of course not and I do complain about them especially the electric and gas bill. But I meet those increases head on. I consider it a challenge on every thing.

I have posted so much content over the years on my blog trying to help other people and I know that many of my readers have been helped. But there are others who do nothing to help themselves. It falls on deaf ears. They do not listen so I have stopped trying. They got themselves into their own messes and they can get themselves out.

That said, I will again do a series on how to cut back and survive these times.

Tomorrow, I will tell you about my day yesterday!