Tag: what we eat

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

I did just a bit of shopping this week for things that we really needed. I went to Dollar Tree and got 6 shelf stable whole milk and 2 shelf stable chocolate milk for $ 1.25 each. I know this milk has chemicals to preserve it but I don’t feel the pasteurization of regular milk is that great for it either. It tastes just like fresh when chilled. It also keeps a long, long time.

Next I went to Top’s and got tomatoes on the vine for $1.88 lb. One we have already cut into for hamburgers we had one night this week. But there are 4 whole ones left. I spent $ 2.97 for them. FYI: Tomatoes are going to be in short supply this season. 80-90% come from California and they have drought and a lack of water. The ones you are able to get will be very expensive. I have plenty of canned tomatoes of all kinds purchased when they were cheaper. If you don’t and use them, you should stock them now before the prices go higher than they are. If you can grow tomatoes, do it. If I see them at a good price at a farmer’s market or at Niagara Produce, I will buy just to eat fresh for BLT’s. Otherwise, we will go without fresh.

I had to go to Walmart to pick up 2 prescriptions for me. While I was there I browsed the grocery and household sections. I was absolutely shocked at how understocked they were. Their pasta section has shrunk down to one very tiny section. It should be gone by now. Their produce sections looked awful. Half of the shelves in some aisles were empty and fronted. Their candy aisle that usually is one full set of shelves on one side of the aisle had hardly anything. Their vegetable, fruit and canned meat and fish aisles weren’t much better. I have never seen it this bad. Either it is because the Strait of Hormuz is closed, people are worried about shortages, or worried that prices will skyrocket this month and are stocking up. The only things I purchased were in the household goods aisle. I got 2 boxes of 80 kitchen garbage bags for $11.22 each and 2 boxes of 30 gallon 40 ct. black garbage bags for $ 8.97 each. I hated to spend the money but this is one household good I can’t go without and I was down to my last box of each. Our garbage service will not empty your barrel unless everything is bagged. I may pick up a few more this month.

My last stop was Niagara Produce to pick up 2 dozen xtra large eggs for $.99 each. They have already been put in my 5 dozen box in the order that they expire. They also had the 3 count bag of romaine lettuce for $ 3.99.

I did stop at Top’s to get a lb. of Jimmy Dean bacon for $ 4.99 but they had none. So I got a raincheck.

I had a dental appointment earlier in the week and that is when I got all of the groceries. Six months ago when I got a cleaning, it cost me $ 276. This week it was up to $ 293. We have no dental insurance. At least the hygienist gave me a great goodie bag. It had 4 tubes of toothpaste, a toothbrush which I use for household cleaning( we have electric toothbrushes), 2 floss, etc. It has all been added to my stockpile.

While I write this, my dishwasher is running on the quick cycle and it is really full. I will open it to let the dishes air dry. We have been using really cheap paper plates when we can so we don’t have to run it as often. It should make a difference in our bill at least a little bit.

This week I only ran one load of wash and hung most of it to dry.

Our sprinkler system company came to open it up for the season and make sure everything was in good working order and all of the sprinkler heads were adjusted to hit the areas they should. We have no idea what the bill will be because they mail it. It will be interesting to see how much it has gone up.

Today is the deadline that NYS says the counties and towns must post the proposed assessments online that our next school and property taxes are based on. I have been very worried about that because each year they have been majorly raising it. Since we have lost our senior deduction for the school taxes in September, I did not want to see the assessment raised too. I was so happy to see that my assessment was not raised from what it was last year. That gives us a needed break at least for a year.

Besides hamburgers this week, we have had cheeseburger skillet dish with sausage that I had cooked up and put in the freezer, Chinese food, and ham sandwiches. Our breakfasts have been eggs and sausage, cereal with fruit, and English muffins with homemade peach jam.

Now that it is May 1st and I have all of my figures for April, we had extra income in the amount of $ 2644. 25. April was a good month.

How have you guys saved a few bucks this week?

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Every Day

My Money Saving Days

Thursday:

We are again eating only from our stockpile of food here at home. We do have a night out for dinner next week with friends but the rest of the week I will be cooking at home.

We started this morning with coffee that I purchased back before the prices went up a few years ago. Then I cooked an egg and sausage McMuffin using 1 egg, an English muffin with butter, and two small sausages. Since our natural gas is cheaper to use to cook than electricity, I opted to cook the egg quickly in a small frypan. The sausages were already cooked but frozen so it was just a matter of putting them in the microwave for 40 seconds. Hubby opted to have a small apple fritter for breakfast.

We only eat 2 meals a day so dinner was grilled strip steaks, baked potatoes, and a salad. We had romaine lettuce that needed to be used up so we will probably have salads the rest of the week. We had planned on grilling outside but the rains came. So we did them inside using the air fryer setting on our countertop oven. We plan on using our outside propane grill to do most of our cooking this season when it is dry outside.

The Top’s flyer that came in the mail yesterday got thrown out without reading it since I will only be using the raincheck for the BS chicken breasts. I didn’t even bother to look at the Aldi ad that started yesterday. I do have to pick up some scripts that will be ready for Hubby next week so I will swing into Top’s and get that chicken. Walmart and Top’s are only one block apart so I will not be using up much gasoline.

I forgot about sheets that have been in the dryer since last weekend. Fortunately they were dry and I don’t care that they are a little wrinkled. So I folded them and put them away.

Eloise did not wake me up until after 4 am this morning. I was grateful. I fed her from her stockpile of food purchased a while ago on sale. Once it was light out about 6:15am, I opened all of the shades and blinds to let the sun in. It is supposed to rain later so I will use the sun while I can. Lights were turned off after the sun rose except for one lamp that Hubby only used while he did his newspaper crossword puzzles. Lights will stay off until dark.

Now it is time to go out and clean/detail our SUV. It is so dirty so this is going to take me a while. But since I will be not be spending $ 200. to get it done, I don’t mind doing it at all.

I called Spectrum to try to get the bill reduced. The only way I could do that was to go to a lower TV plan. They sent me everything that was included in that plan. So Hubby compared it to what we have now and he was not willing to give up what he already has. To keep him happy since he watches much more TV than I do, we are keeping what we have right now.

Friday:

Eloise again slept until 4am. I am liking this change.

I noticed when I fed her this morning that we are getting low on her delectables, dry food, and her cat litter. Chewy is offering a $30. e-gift card when you spend $100. You have to make sure that what you are ordering is in the deal. It doesn’t expire until the 19th. I was able to buy her delectables in bulk and get 2 of the cat litter using the discounted autoship prices and get the giftcard. That will allow me to buy her dry cat food which was not part of the deal uing the $30. gift card. Pet supplies are so expensive now that working these offers saves a lot of money.

While I was doing this deal, it reminded me to mention something to all of you. Amazon is no longer giving free shipping to anyone unless you have Amazon Prime no matter how much you spend. I refuse to pay $139. per year for that. I can get most items cheaper elsewhere or on Walmart with my + membership.

Brunch this morning for us was homemade egg McMuffins and coffee.

Last night when I baked the potatoes for dinner, I baked an extra 3 so that I could make potato salad for tonight. That has been done. We will have it with it with fish fillets for me and chicken tenders for Hubby. We are trying to use up small amounts from the freezer.

I emptied a thick large bag of toilet paper today. I have saved the bag to empty our wastebaskets into it until it full. The thickness of this bag satisfies my garbage company’s requirements.

I gave Eloise a dry shampoo bath. She does not like bathing in the tub. Since she is the cleanest cat we have ever had, this will suffice. She licks herself clean about 6 times a day. The dry shampoo also has aloe in it which is good for her skin and coat and won’t harm her when she licks.

Hubby and I watched 3 DVRed shows from this past week tonight for entertainment. Then I went to bed early so that I could get up early. Hubby watched football.

Saturday:

Again I was able to sleep to 4am before Eloise meowed at our door.

Breakfast this morning will be cereal. Oatmeal for me and granola for Hubby using shelf stable milk. We will have spaghetti with sauce and meatballs and homemade garlic toast on the side for dinner.

I need to do a load of laundry in cold water and then hang it to dry.

Having noticed that we had a spike in electricity a week ago, I started writing down when things are being used around here and at what time. We normally use from .53 to .81 kwh’s according to our hourly stats using our smart meter. At 8am one morning, we had a spike to 4.9 kwh’s. I found out what it was a couple of days later. I had turned on the flourescent light above my computer desk so I could see to do some work. I realized it when a couple of days later, I had turned the light on again. When the stats showed up online, I again had that spike. Needless to say I will not be using that light again. I will use our overhead lights in the kitchen because they use much lower kwh’s.

Today will be a reading day for me. I want to find some recipes using what we have in our stockpile. I also continue to read frugal books again before I donate them to the library.

I hope you are all having a money saving weekend. Please share with us so that we can learn from you.

Categories
Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

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

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

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

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

Well enough about family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hope you all have a nice Easter.

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Every Day

Our New Grocery Plan

So sorry this is so late today. I fell asleep for hours today after going shopping at Aldi’s. Eloise is still getting me up between 2am & 3am. After a while I have to catch up because I am so exhausted.

I went to Aldi’s today to get 2(limit) of their ribeye roasts at $8.99 a lb. I purchased them for $123.17. I also bought some naan( $3.55) to make 2 pizzas. One roast will be used for Easter in case I can’t find a leg of lamb. They had spiral sliced hams on sale for $1.49 a lb. I am going to wait until after Easter to see if they get marked down at Aldi’s or Walmart. We still have ham slices in the freezer from Christmas.

If you have noticed we are eating down our pantries and now buying only loss leaders. Yes, we have processed food to go through but I refuse to throw it out and waste the money I paid for it. We have eaten processed foods our entire life and it hasn’t killed us yet. But after all of the information that has come out about the chemicals in most of the food supply in our country, we will be buying very little of it anymore.

So we are basically buying from the perimeter of the stores which house produce, fish, meat, and dairy, etc. Now that Top’s is marking a lot of these things down that are soon to expire, I am finding some great deals.

We will can most of our vegetables and fruits in season this spring, summer, and fall. Otherwise, I will buy frozen that has only one ingredient.

We will buy baking supplies because we bake desserts, muffins, and breads regularly. I buy them in bulk. We also make pancakes and waffle with them. We only buy 100% Pure Maple Syrup to put on them which is in season in NY right now. We have a diabetic in the family but I have deemed that the SF crap is far worse than the maple syrup because of all the petroleum products in it.

We also buy flour, sugar, rice, dry beans, pasta, oatmeal, etc. in bulk when the price is right. We have an Amish store near us. I can make my own pasta because I have a machine. When my pasta is gone, I will make it again.

That’s our plan, buy ingredients and cook from scratch. Prepare some of the foods to put in our freezer to make easy meals. I freeze onions, potatoes, and carrots immediately so they don’t go bad. We also freeze berries when they are in season. With prices as high as they are, I refuse to waste food.

Tomorrow, I will make some banana bread for a new neighbor using up 3 bananas that are in our freezer. We have bananas that are getting really ripe so Hubby will make a banana salad to go with dinner tomorrow night.

Making it simple will be a theme also. Hubby is doing some of the cooking because after almost 59 years, it is his turn.

Categories
Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

I will be eating the last reuben sandwich for brunch today. They have been so delicious. We did take a break for Friday and got two fish fries at Chiavetta’s for dinner. They now give a 3% discount for cash but you have to ask for it.

I think I will make bacon macaroni goulash for dinner tonight. We will eat the leftovers tomorrow night. We have not made this in a very long time. So when I get done here, I will grab a lb. of bacon and a baguette to make garlic bread from the basement freezer and a box of macaroni from that pantry. We have fresh onions and some Rao’s spaghetti sauce in my kitchen pantry. I will prep the bacon and cut up the onions so I can cook faster at dinner time. I will dice up a half pound of the bacon. That will be enough for two meals. The other half pound will get eaten with eggs for brunches this week.

I was surprised when I got my February-March gas and electric bill yesterday. It was for 29 days and was billed on March 19th. I was expecting a $400. bill. However it was $ 300.58. We used 503 kwhs of electric and 5 therms of natural gas. Last year’s bill for the same period was $270.84 for 490 kwhs and 4 therms of gas. So this bill was $ 29.74 higher. Not as much of an increase year over year as my prior bills. But still too darn high. Hopefully we will eventually get some nice weather again. It has been cold and dreary.

Well the light that came on in the car may have been a warning that our battery was low. Hubby went to go to his haircut appointment one morning this week and the car was dead in our garage. He tried to jump it and it wouldn’t work. So he called AAA to get it towed. Hillman’s which is our repair shop sent their truck out to us after they got notified by AAA. The tow is 100% covered by AAA with the plan we have. The guy tried to jump it and he got nothing either. So he towed it. We told them to let us know what was wrong and to put a new battery in also because this one was old. We knew we would probably not hear from them until the next day because most of their guys were training on a new machine the day it was towed. Turned out that the battery was dead, no juice at all. Hubby was picked up by their courtesy ride van midday the day after and was home in just a few minutes. The cost of the labor and the battery was $224. Hubby has always put new batteries in all of our cars himself which saves the labor charges. But this time was the first we had a computer on a car so we really didn’t know what was going on with that light. We do now for next time. However that said, this is only the second battery in 13 years and we have never had a repair except for recalls. We just make sure the maintence is always done on it. We only have 54,000. miles on the car so it is good for a very long time. I am just glad that I didn’t get stuck out on a road somewhere. I was going to run 10 errands that day but only did 6 or 7 when my brain said go home. The rest can be done later. Someone was definitely watching over me.

When we got the car back, I made a quick trip to Top’s for a couple of things and picked up Hubby’s script that was ready at Walmart. At Top’s I found an organic coleslaw mix that was $4.99 reduced since it was expiring that day for $2.50. When I got home, I looked at my receipt and they charged me $3.99 instead of $2.50. So tomorrow when I shop for the week, I will get my $1.49 overcharge back. I just need to take the label to customer service. Hubby will make up his waldorf coleslaw salad with it today. I also so got a bunch of bananas for $.44 a lb. totaling $ 1.04. So once I get my money back I will have spent $ 3.54.

All the laundry got caught up yesterday and the sheets were all washed and the beds made up with new ones. I hung most of the laundry but did use the dryer for some especially the sheets.

So my plan today besides making dinner is to spruce up my basement pantry and make sure everything is in the front of the shelves that needs to get used first. Then I may watch the Buffalo Sabres Ice Hockey game and some March Madness games with Hubby.

What have you been doing to keep costs down?

Categories
Every Day

A Little Of This And A Little of That

It has been a very busy week. I got pretty much all of my organizing done this past week. I just need to tidy up the basement pantry a bit. So much clutter went out of this house. It will be so much easier to keep things neat and tidy.

The weather had gotten a bit warmer but now overnight we have about 4 inches of snow and it is still snowing. Hopefully it will melt soon. I am so over snow. My plans today were to go to Aldi’s and Top’s but because of the snow, I will not be going. I will wait until the roads are clear, possibly tommorow or Thursday.

There has been no shopping since mid week last week. When I went out with the car, a red light momentarily went on and off that I had never seen before. Hubby checked the car when I got home and the manual said the parking brake was engaged. He saw the same light go on and off when he started the car. We had never seen this light in 16 years. So Hubby took it to our favorite auto repair people yesterday. They took the parking brake on and off a few times and said there was nothing wrong and didn’t charge us. So we will trust them. Why we have never seen that light in 16 years is now a mystery.

While I was out last week, I took the car into the car wash and had the works done which included the undercarriage wash. I needed to get the road salt off everything. It was so dirty and I was not expecting more snow so that is one of the reasons, I will not go out in the car until it is gone again. Yesterday when it was 67 outside, I spent some time cleaning up the inside of the car. I now have 4 carwash slips that they give you when you buy a wash. When you get 5, then you get a free wash.

I cooked a turkey last week. We got 3 meals out of it and then had 2 nights of homemade turkey soup. I also have 6 containers of soup portions that I put in the freezer for future meals.

I plan today to cook a corned beef in the crockpot since it is St. Patrick’s Day. We will have it with boiled cabbage tonight. Then we will eat reubens the rest of the week until it is gone. When I was out this past week, I planned on getting another corned beef to keep in the freezer for future reubens but alas Aldi’s had sold out of the cheaper ones. The prices elsewhere were ridiculous so I did not get one. However if I see any clearanced after today, I will get one or two more. Now I will be on the hunt for a good deal on a leg of lamb for Easter.

We did use up all of the rest of the Applebee’s Giftcards last week for appetizers. Those gave us a few meals. Now I need to work on the Panera ones. Amazon had a deal last week for a Subway $50. giftcard for $ 42.50. So I ordered one. We do get subs there once in a while using coupons so it was a no brainer when I can save another $ 7.50.

Yesterday’s mail brought another class action suit check against Rite Aid. It was for $39.73 so that was a nice surprise. I need to go to another town and deposit a bunch of checks at the bank and stop at B.J.’s for a few things so perhaps next week I will do that.

I am expecting my electric and gas bill in a couple of days. With the warmer weather, I was thinking that it might be cheaper than last month. But then oil went up way over $100. a barrel because of the war so I think it will be more expensive. Oil affects those prices. So I will not be surprised if it is over $400. for a month. I will let you know when I get it.

That is it for now. How are you saving a few dollars these days?

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Every Day

Cutting Costs Again

Our mail brought us notifications that both Hubby and I are part of a class action suit because our doctors got hacked a couple of years ago. They have already decided how much money we will receive. We will each get $60. Wow! We have been part of these suits before and we were lucky to get $10. Believe me we are not complaining.

I took bottles back to Top’s today so I had $4.00 to go towards 5-12 packs of Zero Sugar Fanta that were on sale at B2G3F. Now all of my bottles are caught up from the winter. I was going to get a ham for $1.29 a lb. but they were all gone. It would have been nice if they had set aside some for the seniors to get since it was 6% senior discount day but they didn’t. So I will be on the hunt for a good price on hams the next couple of weeks. Anyhow, I got 5 of the sodas for $20.98 + $ 3.00 for the bottle deposits which I will get back and 5 Top’s chicken stock that were $.99 each when you purchased 5. I am getting low on stock since I haven’t canned chicken lately. My total was $25.93 minus $4.00 deposit return slip and $ 1.56(6% discount)= $20.37 OOP. I am no longer counting tax on my grocery bill. I am keeping track of that separately because I want to know how much I am paying in taxes this year.

While I was out running errands, I went to Niagara Produce and got 2 dozen Xtra Large eggs for $1.49 each and a 3 ct. package of Romaine Hearts for $2.99. My total OOP was $ 5.97.

The cash station was $2.839 for gasoline today. Prices have gone up because of the Iran situation. I had 181 miles left in my tank but I decided to fill my tank up because the prices will go up even higher. I got 6.67 gallons so it cost $ 18.94.

I have now decluttered our master bedroom and bathroom, the coat closet, the laundry room, and now I am working in the kitchen. I am getting rid of so many things in case we move again. It feels freeing because it is less to take care of.

Now that February is in the books, we had $2611.+ extra income this month. We get extra income from tax returns, interest, rebates, etc.

Dinner the last few nights was pizza at home and filet mignon. We finished Hubby’s coleslaw salad that he makes as a side with the filets. Dinner will be appetizers from Applebees that I will order on take out. I still have a lot of their giftcards that I got on a deal through Top’s a couple of years ago. They will pay for the entire order. I have heard through a good source that they may be going belly up so I want to make sure we use up these giftcards.

What have you saved recently?

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Every Day

A Little of This and a Little of That

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Every Day

Our Recent Meals And Some Yearly Expenses

Hubby cooked a can of corned beef for his dinner the other night. He only ate 1/2 of it so he finished it for brunch one day. I made a salad to go with it and had chicken for my dinner.

I made us hash browns, eggs, and cooked that leftover filet sliced up with butter and garlic yesterday for breakfast. I am using up a container of freeze dried hash browns that was in my stockpile.

Last night Hubby ate a 1/2 of can of Jazzy Jambalaya soup. It is his favorite canned soup. I purchased a case of it a couple of years ago. So the ingredients were not GMO nor did it have artificial meat. If it does now, I will not buy it. He will probably eat the leftovers for brunch today. I usually make our soups homemade but in the spur of the moment when he is craving it, it works. I had the last piece of chicken.

I think I will take a turkey out to thaw so I can roast it on Sunday or Monday. I will use the quick thaw method. That turkey will give us a few meals and some leftovers to put in the freezer. I will make easy sides: stuffing with homemade gravy and green beans.

Hubby has asked me to again make the little hot dogs wrapped in crescent dough and baked in the oven. Since I have all of those ingredients here in my home, I will make them for him tonight. We will have some applesauce on the side.

It has not been a good week moneywise. I did pay our property taxes the other day. They were $4561. That hurt a little but not as much as it would have if we hadn’t budgeted for them.

We also got notification of our Medicare Advantage plan going up $57. a month which brings our cost up to $6159. for the year. We do have a great plan so it is worth it. And by now, I think all seniors realize their regular Medicare plan has gone up to $202.90 per person from $185. in 2025. That costs a total of $ 4869.60 for a year for 2 people. All of these totals do not take into account all of your deductibles for doctors, tests, ER visits and hospital stays.

We also have no dental or eyeglass plan so all of those expenses come out of our pockets.

The Social Security COLA went up by 2.8% for 2026. Many, many seniors will have less spendable money in their pockets because they have small social security checks so the Medicare premium will eat up the cola plus more. I get a very small Social Security check because I did not work many years during our marriage. I stayed home to raise my kids and then worked a few years to pay for private high school and college for my boys. I am not complaining. Being able to stay home and raise my own children was priceless. Seniors are living longer so their checks are affected by inflation every year. The money just pays for less and less. Also Social Security was never supposed to give you a living wage.

Most of you probably don’t care about any of this except when the Social Security and Medicare deductions hit your paychecks. But you should. I tell you this because I want you to realize it is not cheap to be a senior and retired. You need to save for those yearly premiums and deductibles. Every year they go up for seniors just as your premiums do for your family plans. We were retired 24 years last summer. Can you imagine where we would be if we had not budgeted and saved for these future expenses? We would be up ____ crick without a paddle!

And while I am teaching you, save for your retirement too. I know a lot of you have retirement vehicles that you put money into like 401K’s and IRA’s. Many may have pensions too. But unless you are maxing out your 401K’s every year, you may not have enough saved. Plus any pensions that you may have(which are totally taxable) will get eaten up by inflation over the years. And the risk is always there that the pension could go belly up! Many people over the years have lost their pensions or they have been reduced because governments and companies can’t afford to pay them anymore. So they are not really reliable! Save and protect yourselves. No one will do it for you!

Two last things, don’t borrow from your 401K’s. That is a really bad idea. Secondly, don’t take a lump sum in retirement unless you know that you are schooled enough to manage it on your own. These big companies like Merrill like their commissions more than they like making you money especially if you are a small investor. There are lower commission companies out there. Just do a google search for the best ones.

I have to run some errands that I didn’t get to the other day. So I must close now.

How is your January saving going?