Tag: saving money

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Every Day

A Little of This and A Little of That

I went to Niagara Produce this week to get 4 dozen eggs to fill up my 5 dozen container in the refrigerator. They were still on sale for $.99 each. I also purchased fresh broccoli crowns( $1.49 a lb.) for $ 1.59 to cook as a side for a couple of dinners this week. I always check for marked down meat. While I was looking, I saw this package of on sale cheese and parsley Italian sausage. It was $3.99 a lb. so it cost $ 7.14. This will give us two homemade meals: a pasta one and a pizza one. My total was $ 12.69.

Then I went to Aldi’s to get sliced mushrooms for $ 1.29 for burgers this week and peppers($2.55) to make fajitas last night for dinner. I also got the flour tortillas for $ 1.95 for the fajitas. The organic ketchup was $2.15. The cantaloupe was $ 2.49 and the brioche buns were $3.99. I picked up 2 more butter at $2.89 lb. to add to my freezer stash. The frozen California Medley vegetables were $ 1.15. My total was $21.65.

I stopped at Panera Bread and purchased the dozen bagels Tuesday deal for $9.99 using my Panera giftcard that I purchased 3 to 4 years ago on the Top’s deal at Christmas. They give you 13 bagels so I got 7 asiago cheese and 6 cinnamon crunch. I froze most of them for future meals.

Top’s was my second to last stop. We rarely buy cereal but we do use Rice Chex in our party mix so I picked up 2 boxes on sale for $3.00 a box. The Kraft salad dressings were on sale for $ 3.00 each. We eat a lot of salads in the spring and summer so I am now stockpiled on dressings. The Skinny Pop was a treat for me. It cost $ 3.50. I got 2 Peter Pan peanut butter on sale B1G1F so it was $3.69 for 2 of them. We love this for a snack with celery. The Smithfield pork tenderloins were on B1G1F for $ 9.99 for both. We will cook these on the grill for a couple of meals this summer. The leftovers will get used in pork fried rice. The grapes were on sale for $1.88 a lb. so I paid $ 3.42 for $ 1.82 lbs. They will be used in chicken salad and for snacking. The bread was on sale for $ 2.99. I use this for French toast for my grandson and Hubby on Sundays when we are all together for breakfast. The cheddar cheese block was $ 1.88. My total for all was $ 37.47 minus my 6% senior discount of $ 2.25. So OOP was $35.22.

My last stop was at Consumer Beverage where I returned bottles for $6.00 which I used to defray the cost of a 24 pack of Yuengling Lager that cost $22.99 plus bottle deposits of $1.20 – $6.00 plus $ 1.84 in tax totaled $20.03. I am also submitting an $ 8.00 rebate. This is Hubby’s treat after he is done mowing the lawn.

We needed food so I finally had to go shopping. The only way I could get through it was to use a lidocaine patch. But I was totally exhausted when I got home.

I submitted a $6.00 rebate for 3 bottles of Kendall Jackson wine.

We have not turned on the A/C yet even though we have had a couple of 80+ days. Our home has high ceilings so we stay pretty cool in here. We also have ceiling fans in 2 bedrooms, a portable fan in the 3rd bedroom, and ceiling fans in the breakfast room, which is where we eat all of our meals, the great room, and the office. We have only had to use select fans a couple of days.

Our landscaper replaced the tree that died since he planted it last fall. It was under a year warranty. It is a nice red maple and is a bit bigger than the one that died. I pray that this one survives.

In the month of May, we had $ 1078.83 in extra income and rebates.

What have you been doing to save a few dollars?

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Every Day

Eating Through Our Food

First let me say, it is not easy to stay out of the grocery store for a month. I am so used to looking at the ads and just buying the loss leaders. But I am 14 days in and we are doing it! It helps to throw the ads out without reading them. By the end of the month, that will be $600. saved to use for meat stock ups in the future. So I feel good about it. However, I do not think that we will continue this in February since it is frozen food month among other sales. So just giving you a heads up.

We have been trying to use up our produce first. We have been eating a lot of salads. Last night I made 2 different stir fries that will feed us again tonight. I do this because Hubby is adverse to most vegetables and mushrooms. I love them all. I cooked Hubby’s with chicken, onions, and red and orange peppers, and stir fry sauce. Mine had mushrooms, edamame, broccoli, red peppers and onions with the same sauce. We served it on Jasmine rice. I hate Jasmine rice but we are trying to use it up and I will not buy it again.

Any produce that will go bad soon is being used up first. I do food saver (take the air out) a lot of my produce in mason jars so that it lasts longer than it normally would. So things like lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, grapes, etc. go bad first and get used first. Sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, cabbage, onions, celery, mandarins, carrots, and apples last longer and get used last. Onions, carrots, and potatoes can be frozen. I cut up potatoes and parboil them and then freeze them. I dice or slice onions and carrots and freeze those before they go bad. The potatoes can then be used in soups, fried, or mashed. They make for quick meals. I use the carrots and onions in many recipes. I have frozen celery but I quickly realized it would disintegrate in soups so I quit doing that. I just chop it up fresh.

When the fresh stuff is gone, we will use the frozen veggies, then the canned ones.

We try to eat the meat or fish in our freezer first. We do eat it almost every night. I sprinkle in some canned meat every once in a while. I can a lot of beef, pork, turkey, and chicken. We also like canned chicken from the grocery store so we have a bit in storage. The chicken I can gets used in casseroles, soups or just by itself on our plates. It all depends on how much time I have that day.

Eggs get used almost every day. We love eggs, some kind of meat, and avocado for brunch. I am out of fresh avocadoes right now but I do have some in chunks in the freezer that I am using up. I serve bagels with cream cheese or just yogurt once in a while as an alternative. We do have some oatmeal which we put diced apples or blueberries in. I also do hard boiled eggs in my instant pot every week for snacks.

I used to drink about 4-5 cups a day of coffee but now I only drink 2. Hubby has given up coffee. So it will take me longer to go through our stockpile.

Ground meat and fish do not last as long in the freezer as do steaks and roasts so that gets used up regularly. I have very little fish right now. I am looking for a good source of wild caught salmon when my freezer gets down. I love salmon and make it for me when I make haddock for Hubby. Sometimes, I bake it to go with my eggs for brunch. I think I have found a great source: https://wildforsalmon.com/ . Has anyone here ordered from them? If so I would love to hear about it.

I also want you to know that I am trying to get photos back working but I just don’t seem to be able to do it. So I have to wait until my son comes out again which won’t be for at least 2-3 weeks to see if he can fix it for me. Meanwhile I will still try each day.

How are you using your food up? What is your plan?

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Every Day

How We Will Save Money In 2026 (Part 6)

I know we all like a snack once in a while. But those bags of chips, Poppables, Cheetos, etc. cost a fortune now. $ 5.96 for quite a while for some of our favorites. They have come down to $5.00 now but I still won’t buy them for something that unhealthy. We still have a few in our pantry that we bought for company that we will use up this month. We have decided except for popcorn kernels, tortilla chips and salsa, nuts, and pretzels to make our party mix, we will not be buying them.

We have an electric popcorn popper and a microwave one. They both work really well. If you don’t have those, you can use a skillet or pan to pop yours on the stovetop. That is the way our parents and grandparents did it.

I purchased enough ingredients this year on sale to make two large canning kettles of Chex mix. Hubby made one yesterday. This will last us about 6-8 weeks. We use rice Chex, wheat Chex, Cheerio’s, pretzels, and 3 cans of mixed nuts in ours. Then he makes the sauce and bakes it stirring it at various times while it is cooking at 250 degrees. When you buy everything on sale, it costs less per serving than buying the equivalent bags of snacks.

We not only use tortilla chips with salsa but we use them to dip in our taco bowls and soups, and for other Mexican meals.

We have a variety of nuts in our freezer including pecans, walnuts, and cashews.

We also make our own dill dip and onion dip for eating celery, cucumbers, and carrots. If we are craving a chip to dip, we can make our own from sliced potatoes using our oven with the air fryer function.

I also consider ice cream, brownies, quick breads, cakes, pies, cookies, fudge, etc. to be snacks or desserts. When we are craving something sweet, we will make our own. I have some mixes on our shelves to use up first. We try to eat all of these things sparingly.

Our very favorite sweets are strawberries or SF pudding with zero whipped cream. We thaw our frozen strawberries during the winter or use the fresh in season. Pudding and fresh and canned fruit are a year round treat.

Our plan is to use up what we have and then get back to making things ourselves. It is so much cheaper to do it yourself and healthier too. I am really tired of making the big corporations rich.

Do you make your own snacks? Willing to share them with 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

How We Are Saving Dollars

I am using the cash station to fill up our SUV because the price is $ 2.83 per gallon vs. $ 2.99 at the Top’s station. With no gas points to use because of the lack of much shopping, we save $ .16 per gallon and it is much closer to my home.

I had to go to the Urgent Care on Monday. I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and 2 ear infections. The Urgent Care is only 3 miles from my home. My doctor is 17 miles and couldn’t get me in for a few days. The Urgent Care had me in and out in 15 minutes. Fortunately the 2 drugs they prescribed were cheap. So I picked those up along with another one that had been refilled for me and only had to pay $13.75 for all 3.

I got a $ 5.00 liquor rebate in the mail. I have more coming. Every little bit helps.

We earned a $100. cashback rebate by using my credit card. We never pay interest so this is a win-win.

We had a meal of the free potstickers last night. Hubby steamed them and they were so good. We finally finished up all the chicken I had cooked.

For dinner tonight, we will have Chef’s salads to use up some of the produce and meat in the refrigerator. I will hard boil some eggs in the Instant Pot.

Breakfasts this week have been eggs, French toast, and bacon and grilled cheese and meat sandwiches. I think today, I will have soup that is leftover in the freezer. Soup is my comfort food and I don’t have much of an appetite with these drugs that I am on.

We have decided to go to Applebee’s one night this week for dinner again. We have discounted gift cards that will pay for it to use up. I am worried that with all the restaurants going out of business, we will lose that money.

Hubby has been trimming our bushes little by little. He is doing it so that when the landscape crew comes they won’t have as much to do. Plus we won’t have to pay for trimming when they do the spring cleanup and mulching.

I am now using a larger box that I already had for Eloise’s cat litter. She was using a much smaller box and when she would go in there and kick to cover everything up, half of it would go on the litter rug that is underneath the box and on the tile floor. She is almost full grown now and she is a very long cat so this is working much better. The past two nights since I put it in there, she has not gotten any litter outside this box. Less for me to clean every night. When I made the change, I spring cleaned the entire laundry room that the box is in. It felt good to get that done. Besides working on the freezers and pantries, I am trying to spring clean a room every couple of days too. Today I will be cleaning our master bathroom.

I was going to go run some errands today because it is Senior Discount Day at Top’s. But I don’t feel that good today so I will have to do it another day this week. I lose that 6% off but I only have 4 items that we need and my health is much more important to me.

We are trying to be very careful with how much electricity and natural gas we are using. It is still cold here. Overnight it was 27. I think about it every time I go to cook, do laundry, take showers, use the computers, and the TV’s. I am very conscious of lighting. No lighting during the daytime unless it is stormy and dreary. It is sunny today so that will help the heating bill. I have the window coverings open when the sun is on them.

As I go through each room that I am spring cleaning, I am getting rid of clutter. I do this every year. Since it is garbage day on Thursday, it will go or be donated to Goodwill.

We had some big expenses in March. Our homeowner’s and auto insurance we pay yearly was due. It reminded me that we have been in our home here for 15 years. Time flies! But because of that we were only able to save $4500. towards our goal.

I hope you guys are saving what you can. I know it is hard because everything is so expensive. But if there was ever a time to be frugal, it is now. President Trump and Elon and Doge keep reminding us how fragile our economy is and the mess that they inherited from Biden. It is not an easy fix and the accountant in me is really worried that we could all lose everything if our economy collapses. Biden and his administration brought us right to the edge of the cliff. They are trying to fix it but only time will tell if they can. Personally I think these people who robbed us to enrich themselves should all go to prison.

What have you been doing lately to be frugal and save some money? It doesn’t have to be big. The little things add up faster than you think.

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Every Day

My Project That I Am Working On

I am trying to get more organized in my freezers again. It seems that I have been so busy over the past few months that things have just gotten thrown in them wherever they fit instead of being really organized with a good plan.

So this past week in between appointments and other things, I have been tackling my two freezer drawers in my refrigerator. First thing I did was make a plan. I decided that all frozen vegetables and fruits, potato items like French Fries, quick prepared meal items(any purchased from the market or homemade leftovers), breakfast meats, ( bacon, sausage, ham, Steakums), ice cream, homemade preserves, and the meat I would be using in the next two weeks for dinner would go in these drawers. That will save me from running downstairs so often and opening the chest freezer.

The jars are the preserves and leftover homemade soups. Things that we can grab quickly for brunch.

We always keep a bag of frozen potpies because they are my guilty pleasure, some tortellini which I use in soup, avocados to go with my bacon and eggs once in a while.

I just went to B’J’s on Thursday. Hubby had his physical therapy that day. So I dropped him off and went to the warehouse club to pick up one item. B’J’s was only 2 and 1/2 blocks away. I had a free coupon for a 56 oz. Ling Lings Potstickers that was expiring this coming Tuesday. It was free because we have no tax on food here. By going with him I didn’t have to spend any more for gasoline doing a second trip.

You will see in these drawers that I have two plastic bags with white things in them. Sorry about the pictures but I am still having trouble with my phone. The white things are the potstickers. I repackaged them so that we could get 4 meals out of them and be able to fit them in these freezer drawers. I have a bulletin board on my refrigerator where I put directions from packages so I have them when needed.

I think this plan is going to work well for us. Time will tell. If it doesn’t, I will tweak it.

It took me a long time to do this with the short period of time I had because I had to go through my chest freezer to pull out the things that I wanted upstairs. Then I had to bring things from upstairs downstairs to make room for all of the things. Now my downstairs freezer needs major attention so I will work on that this week in between two medical appointments for me. That is going to take a lot of the rest of my time.

My son and West came for breakfast this morning. Afterwards I planned on going to our town’s electronics recycling with the frame that died the other day. My son said he would take it to his college’s recycling. That saved me a trip. I made eggs, bacon, and French toast for breakfast today. Everyone was happy!

We have been eating chicken for the past few days. We should finish it tonight.

I think I have a sinus infection and possible ear infection. I doubt that I will be able to get an appointment quickly with my doctor. So I may make a trip to urgent care in the morning.

That’s it for now.

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Every Day

Things That We Have Been Doing to Cut Our Grocery Bill

I don’t have to tell you how expensive groceries have gotten over the past 4 years. As I track the price of things that we buy over and over again, it is really obvious. There are many things that we will not buy because the prices have gone up.

At the top of our list is junk food. We no longer buy candy, chips or any other snack like these. Instead we are buying fresh mandarins when we can find them on sale. Lately they have been on sale for $ 2.99 for a 3 lb. bag. If we need a snack in the afternoon, we just grab one of these. They satisfy our sweet tooth and are a good source of fiber. We also buy apples on sale for snacks and to make pies. Both of these last a very long time in the refrigerator.

If we need muffins, brownies, a cake, cupcakes, or cookies, we now make them at home. No more sweet treats from the bakery at exorbitant prices.

We want zero waste of food in our home. We did well this week. We used up all of our leftovers. Yesterday, I had one hamburger and some potato salad left from two other meals. That was it. So Hubby wanted to finish those. I thawed a bowl of turkey soup that I froze when we had roasted our turkey not too long ago. This week we will eat a lot of produce and leftover ham and turkey in salads. Last night, I made a homemade pizza. Today, I will make corned beef and cabbage since it is St. Patrick’s Day. I ended up buying another corned beef for $ 4.89 a lb. this past week at Aldi’s. It was about $ .80 cheaper per lb. than the one I purchased at B.J.’s. These will give us many reuben sandwiches over the next year.

We still buy eggs even though they are so expensive. We just don’t have them every day like we used to. They are a part of our diet that we do not want to give up. I am happy to hear that the price of eggs will be coming down in the next couple of months.

We are trying to stick to proper portions of beef, chicken, lamb and pork when we have them. The same goes for fish and shrimp. I have not purchased scallops in over a year because the price is too high.

We eat salads a lot for dinner. Sometimes for brunch instead of eggs.

We want the prices of food to come down. To make sure they do we are only buying foods made in the U.S. No foreign food for us to avoid the tariffs. It is harder than it sounds. I have been researching the products we buy and a lot of it comes from Brazil, Mexico, China, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany and Vietnam. You even have to watch your fresh meats and fresh produce. Many are coming in from outside our country.

We no longer buy fresh milk. Hubby and I do not drink milk so many times after making puddings and other recipes, we ended up throwing it out because it had spoiled. We use evaporated milk, powdered milk, and shelf stable milk when we need some.

I have started to replace Eloise’s food with homemade. The store bought prices are outrageous. I have made a recipe with ground cooked chicken, rice, and gravy that she loves. She hates liver and I won’t give her tuna because of the mercury. But we are working on some other recipes for her.

Hubby and I thought about buying a second freezer because there have been so many sales lately on them. However, we decided against it. We have a full freezer right now that we need to use up. If we had a second one, we would fill that up and things would not get eaten in a proper amount of time and spoil. We have decided to use what we have and then replace those items with steaks, hamburgers, chicken, pork ribeyes, etc. These will be things that we will grill outside over the summer instead of using electricity and natural gas to cook in our kitchen. The money that I have been saving on our grocery bill each month will help us buy those meats when they go on sale.

I had planned on doing this post last Friday but life got in the way. We had company, nice weather to enjoy, and many appointments to deal with. Getting old is a pain in the butt. Too many doctors to deal with. UGH!

I am going to try to post as frequently as I can. We will see how this week goes.

What are you doing to cut some of your grocery costs?

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Every Day

A Little Of This And A Little Of That

It has been a very busy week of appointments and errands. Our week started off with my son and West coming for breakfast on Sunday. I cooked a lb. of bacon, a lb. of sausage, and scrambled eggs(about a dozen and a half), and made French toast which took 4 more eggs. These eggs are getting expensive. I think I will start thawing the eggs in my freezer for our next big breakfast. It is still cheaper for me to cook than take everyone out to our Greek restaurant for breakfast. Then we spent a few hours playing rummy which this Grandma loves!

We ate all of our meals from our stockpile. We finished the turkey making a big pot of soup. We had a filet mignon, baked potato, and broccoli for dinner last night. Tonight we are splurging and getting take out fish fries from Chiavetta’s. We have not had them since last Lent( they started selling them again in November) so this will be a real treat. This weekend I will put a chuck roast in the crockpot and make a stew with plenty of carrots, onions, and potatoes. That will last us 3-4 days.

Two days ago I ran a lot of errands. I had to go to the Post Office with mail, to Home Depot to dispose of three Ion Recyclable batteries that were no longer charging, fill the car up with gasoline using my $.30 off a gallon, to Top’s for on sale cat litter and a half gallon of Half and Half, and to the liquor store. After that I was beat.

Yesterday, I went to Niagara Produce and purchased a chuck roast to put in the freezer. It was only $4.99 a lb. They also had a huge package of chicken tenders on sale for $2.49. That is the cheapest price I have seen in a long time. I am very low on chicken. Today after I run some more errands, I will pressure can all of it to put on my shelf.

I went back to Top’s yesterday on a 3 day sale to get an almost 9 lb. turkey breast for $ 1.29 a lb. Since I haven’t been able to find much chicken, I will substitute the turkey instead.

That was all I purchased this week so I did not spend a lot of money. After I call my eye doctor for an appointment when their office opens this morning, I will finish the errands that I didn’t finish the other day. I couldn’t get the car washed because it was raining. I will try again today. It is so dirty that it needs a good bath. I tried to bring some bottles back to Fast Cash but they weren’t open yet so I will try again today.

Other than all of these things, we have been cleaning, doing laundry, and watching our shows that we DVR so that we can watch them without commercials. Hubby also installed a new kitchen sink caddy to hold my brush, sponges, and dishcloth. My other one broke. He was having a very difficult time getting the sticky off the adhesive part that held the old one to the sink so that he could install the new one. So I gave him Goo Gone and that took care of it. I remembered that I used to use that many years ago.

Also I finally got the Federal and State taxes done and filed. I am glad to have that out of the way.

Did any of you guys save money or find some good deals this week?

I will we back this weekend with another post. I didn’t forget to tell you about the utility bill. That is coming.

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Every Day

What We Have Been Doing To Cut Costs So That We Can Add To Our Net Worth

About once a week now, I am using my Instant Pot Max to hard boil 12 eggs to be eaten with dinner, brunch and for snacks. Meat has gotten so expensive that eggs are cheaper to get the protein that our bodies need.

My last 60 count box of eggs cost me $ 19.26 at Walmart. That is $.321per egg. Even if the price of eggs goes up, I believe they will be cheaper than beef, pork, sausage, shrimp, fish, and chicken per meal. I buy my large hams on sale at Christmas and Easter which we slice up to always have fried ham to eat with eggs when we want some. Hubby and I eat one hard boiled egg with bacon(which has come down a bit in price here) for brunches. That meal comes in at about $1.00 for each of us. I also have a lot of eggs scrambled raw in the freezer that I can thaw when I need them along with a piece or two of breakfast sausage that I always buy on sale. As a back up in case we can’t find eggs, I have freeze dried eggs and Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer to use in baking. Hubby had raisin bran for brunch. I have not eaten yet. I will probably make a steak-umm and eat a hard boiled egg to go with it.

This afternoon I will cook a lb. of bacon in the oven to have it ready for brunches. We will also use it in our homemade Cobb salads for dinner tonight along with a sliced up egg in each. I cook my bacon on a silicone baking mat instead of “throw away” parchment paper. I save my bacon grease to cook with.

We got our Rakuten Rebate for the last quarter. It was for $23.53. That will go into our savings. Every little bit helps!

Hubby took about 1/2 of our returnable bottles to Fast Cash the other day. He got $ 4.00. That also will go into savings.

I have submitted a $7.00 digital rebate for Michelob Ultra Beer. That will also go into savings.

We will get a senior rebate deducted from our school taxes this year. After 15 years of not qualifying, we have qualified because NY raised the income limit. It had been going up a little here and a little there but it went up quite a bit for this year coming up: 2025-2026. We just found out and we are elated. We don’t know the amount yet but last’s year’s deduction was $ 950. The amount is set by the state according to what county you are in. However, they will be reassessing us again so one may wash out the other. Time will tell.

Hubby and I went out to dinner on Valentine’s Day Eve to celebrate without the crowds. We went to Applebee’s and had a wonderful dinner of rib eye steaks. I paid for our meals and the 20% tip with gift cards that we got discounted at Christmas.

We are almost out of dish liquid. I have been researching how to make homemade. Does anyone here have a recipe they use and like?

I have been trying to cook up a whole bunch of meals at once to save on energy. As you all know, our electric and natural gas bill was almost $300. last month. The company just let us know that the meter reading is due by Friday. It is the month that the meter reader is supposed to read. However he doesn’t read if he can’t get the to the meter because of all of the snow. Let me assure you that we have lots of snow. It is been snowing here almost every day the past 6 weeks. Worst winter since we moved here. It snowed a bit this morning and now the winds have whipped it up. The snowplow guy has been here a lot this winter. Three times just yesterday and he just came 5 minutes ago. Our temperatures have been frigid too. We are at our high of 17 degrees but this afternoon it is supposed to go down to 8 degrees. Ugh.

To continue talking about the utility bills, the company just notified us that they will be adding a flat rate on our bills on as a separate line item for about $10.00 a month to pay for infrastructure repairs and associated costs. I assume this bill coming will have it on it. I believe they will charge this $10.00 per month for 6 months and then they will drop it to $5.00 per month forever. This will be on every NYSEG customers bills. Because of all of this and the horrid weather, I expect my next bill will be over $300. I have to find more ways to cut. This is getting ridiculous.

I am sitting here in the dark writing this. All lights are off in the house. All shades are down except for on sunny windows. We can’t turn the heat down any further. Hubby and Eloise would freeze. Eloise spends a good part of her day laying on the heat registers in the floor.

I will continue this in the next few days.

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Every Day

October Savings

I am always honest with you. We only saved $ 471.70 in October. The biggest reason is all the expenses we had to get our property ready for winter. We had Aqua Systems come and blow the lines out on our sprinkler system which was over $100 . The bill came for $ 648. for the trees that were taken down the end of September. We put a $ 500. deposit down on the railing that is being made for our back steps. We will owe another $1100. when the job is done.

We paid $ 200. in doctor bills and $70 in prescriptions for me.

We spent much more than we had been spending on groceries in order to stock up on food, household items, and OTC medicines for the winter. That was an extra $1000. I did not show any of this on this blog.

We needed many things for Eloise and I wanted to stock up on some food and litter for her for the winter. Chewy is very happy with my spending on her. Those bills came to $438. Pets are expensive as I am finding out.

I paid my domain charge for the blog for a year. Spectrum bills went up by around $10. a month. Our electric and natural gas bill went up.

We went out to eat twice. Those bills added up to $180.

We paid our Texas property taxes.

We sent a housewarming gift to friends of ours for $100. Hubby also sent $ 150. to Tunnels to Towers. He gives them money twice a year.

I spent $200. on clothes for me which is very unusual. However some of my things were getting threadbare. I also purchased a fit bit type watch to monitor my heart.

Hubby purchased a really good cover for our grill for the winter. We plan on using the grill weather permitting most of the winter. He also bought a large thick rubber mat to park the snowblower in the garage when we bring it up from the shed. We have a plow guy for the winter but not until December 1st. We may need to snow blow if we get snow in November. Fingers crossed we don’t have to.

We plan for all of these extras by saving money every month. However, once we put money into savings and investments, we do not like taking it back out. So these things we spent on this month came out of our checking account. That is what we try to do every month.

I expect some large expenses this month also. I have to get all of the monetary Christmas gifts ready for December. The same goes for both of my son’s birthdays.

We will have another large expense but I won’t talk about that until December.

With the exceptions of those expenses, we will be saving as much as possible in both November and December.

Did you save any money in your investments and savings in October? Ours was small but every little bit helps us get to our goal.