View Full Version : January 2014 Frugals.........
Jan 01,2014
1. two loaves of bread in bread machine
2. set up all this years new spreadsheets and finished all of last years
Checking to see were I overspent or sometimes actually underspent
3. Cold out so it was a no spend, no drive day...too cold to go out.
try2bfrugal
1-2-14, 12:07am
Bought some sheets for one of the kids - used a $50 Penney's gift card I bought for $10 off at a Safeway special, the sheets were on sale, also used another coupon for 15% off and paid the balances with a 2% cash back credit card.
For our chocolate fix we bought dark chocolate chips on sale at Target, instead of buying candy bars. I also found out Target had the tea I like to drink for $1 less than our discount grocery store. They also had soup the kids like for a $1 less, too so we stocked up and used a cash back card.
I eliminated a couple of business expenses that were costing $200 per year.
I joined Penfed Credit union. They have car loans for 0% plus dollars off discounts for members who cars buy through their True Car links, and 1.99% for other car loans. Their 5 year CDs are paying 3%, so we plan to get a loan for our next car instead of paying cash and invest the difference in a CD. We are looking at a used car but one that still has a year or so of warranty left.
Ate freezer and stockpiled stuff for dinner, with my cinnamon tea and dark chocolate chips for dessert.
Ordered dish free dish towels for product reviews.
Leftover from December - played pool on free pool night at the local sports bar and split a beer, for a $7 cheap date night.
This year I started an allowance. I opened a separate checking account and I have $160.00 going into it every pay day. I also with draw 30.00 cash for a total of 190.00. All I carry in my wallet is a check register to track spending. This is all I get until the next payday. I use this for gas, groceries, hair cuts, shoes, clothes, etc. My re-occurring bills like mortgage, and utilities are paid from my main account. I keep this in a separate wallet that stays at home in my safe. My goal is to not use my credit card for any purchases this year. I will pay cash for everything.
I owe about 28,000.00 on my home. I am attempting to become debt free in two years. I have about $14,000 in credit card bills for a total $42,000.00 in debt. My current mortgage is $230.00 a month. I am going to pay off the smallest credit first. I pay extra against my mortgage but I am going to up this amount
Teacher Terry
1-2-14, 1:35am
It sounds like you have a plan. From everything I have read it seems like you should pay your credit cards first & then tackle the mortgage. I have done it & it is so worth it. I would not pay extra on your mortgage until the credit card debt is gone. Look at Dave Ramsey, Simple Dollar & Mr.Money Mustache for inspiration. Good luck!!!
Worked on New Years budget and today will update freezer list. Will be focusing on using up what's in the house and keep grocery purchases to a bare minimum.
Yesterday had chicken pot pie, homemade from the freezer. No going anywhere, tooooo cold and hunkering down for today's storm.
Made a lentil soup from some of the leftovers like rice and chili adobo from taco night, and things on the verge of going bad like celery and sausage.
Roasted a small turkey purchased on sale. Ate that meal and then portioned up four packets of meat for the freezer. Froze the carcass to make future soup which should provide another 2-3 meals.
Set up auto withdrawal savings accounts for vacation and property tax expenses.
Had some large empty clay pots so planted lettuce and cilantro seed.
In what is becoming a New Year's Day tradition, we ran a 10k race yesterday. It keeps us from going out late on New Year's Eve and the $60 (combined) for race registration probably pales in comparison to what we'd spend going out the night before. Of course, if we had pre-registered we would have saved ourselves $10 (combined), but that didn't happen. The race is only 2.5 miles from our home so there isn't a huge expense involved in getting there and we come straight home afterwards so no added unnecessary spending. Ate leftover rice and beans for lunch, a good post-race refueling, then watched TV shows and movies courtesy if Netflix and iTunes. We received iTunes gift cards for Christmas so this is how we get most of our entertainment provided for very little cash outlay.
Today should be a fairly low key day as it's snowing here. Only driving will be to take our new kitty to the vet and trip to the gym if the weather allows.
Mon-Wed were no driving/spending days and today should be another.
We received enough free calendars for both the house and work.
Yesterday I mailed in a rebate for a free bag of coffee. Love free coffee!!!
Most of the family was sick, but Cheyenne and I went to my great-aunt's house yesterday and came home with a lot of leftovers. We have ham (with a ham bone for soup), rolls, salad, jello, stuffing, calico beans, cookies and cake. We will get somebody meals out of that. I am going to serve the calico beans with cornbread for lunch next week (I froze them) and we had some of the rolls and ham and salad last night for dinner. She also sent a bag of stuffing she had bought that she didn't think she would use and some dried cranberries she had bought that she didn't like because they had a sugar coating on them. I can use those in a salad and I'm sure they will be fine.
This morning for breakfast we had a loaf of pumpkin bread we received as a Christmas gift from a neighbour and some clementines we got as a gift from someone else. Free food. For lunch the kids requested blueberry oatmeal. It's cold out and they all thought that would sit well in their sick tummies. They ate it with gusto, so they must be on the mend. It was a frugal lunch, anyway, which balances tonight's slightly more expensive dinner, stir fried beef and broccoli.
Bella and I have been working on some indoor plants to cheer us up in the cold winter. We got some houseplants at Home Depot for half off after Christmas. Then we repurposed a kitchen jar and Bella made a terrarium with some wheat seed that I had in the pantry. Next we are going to try some micro-green pea shoots. I had Zach install a shelf in the kitchen that we had pulled out of the family room when we built the loft to hold our mini garden. It's much cheerier in here and there was even room for two of my fruit bowls, which will help keep the toddler fruit thieves at bay. :)
When the mini-monkeys nap this afternoon I am going to make some banana bread with some overripe bananas I have and do a little cleaning. It's a nice, quiet, frugal day.
Trying to ride my bike more and drive the gas-guzzling truck less. I'm in SoCal where it has been near 80 all week so I can easily do that.
Trying to eat at home more often - or at least make stuff like a sandwich to take with me.
Trying not to spend money on anything and just do things with the stuff I already have. No new toys for me right now!
*Bought calendars and pocket planners on clearance for 40cents each.
*Found out we qualify for our bank's senior accounts (actually qualified last year but didn't need it). Moved our business account over to the Summit Checking/Savings which earns double what a regular saving's earns (a big .2%) and it also includes free checks (no more pretty checks just plain). No more monthly business account fees.
We stayed in today and are prepping for the bitter cold. Carried wood in and put down extra bedding for the animals.
I made oven hashbrowns and scrambled eggs with fruit for lunch. My chickens are laying overtime and I'm trying to use up the eggs.
DD and I did "at home manicures" today. A little quality time and cute nails for free. We didn't leave the house. I work at home and am so thankful for it on days like this.
No drive/spend for the past 3 days. Today I ran some errands and met some former co-workers for lunch. The last lunch I ate out was with them in the late summer just before they went back to work. Tomorrow I will have to drive to the shop to set up for this month's sale but we are meeting early AM so no meal will be involved.
I did order a new Lands End coat and boots but with sale prices and a $15 off coupon, I spent less than $70 for $180 value - although, let's be real, I would never pay full price. The great thing about Lands End is that if they are not right, exchanges are easy and quick.
Pulled out the American Heart Assoc cookbook that has lots of good recipes - low fat but with lots of flavor - mostly via salsas and marinades. Committed to cooking from scratch as much as possible!
Frugal surprise today. Our trip to the vet was a free visit because the shelter we adopted him from has a program with our vet that provides us with an initial vet visit for the adopted pet for free. Wow -- what a deal! We have never adopted a pet from a shelter before, but we have used rescue groups when adopting our dogs. This turned out to be a great experience and I'm glad that we donated $55 during the adoption as this shelter is clearly doing good work.
Baked two loaves of bread today.
And contested a charge on the credit card. Long story, but hopefully it's resolved now.
Butchered three roosters on Sunday and cooked two of them yesterday. Yesterday's supper was roast chicken, turnips from the garden, sweet potato, carrots and cabbage that I had in the fridge, glazed with maple syrup that I buy locally for a really good price.
Tonight's supper was a kidney bean, chicken and rice casserole that was super yummy! (All from leftovers) There is enough leftover for my and DH's lunch tomorrow and another meal. The original recipe is here: http://dinoheromommy.com/2013/09/17/slow-cooker-chicken-rice-and-beans/ DH modified it slightly, using cream of chicken soup for the liquid and baking it in the oven, rather than the slow cooker. Very yummy!!
Started using myfitnesspal.com again to TRY to get this FAT under control! :(
Sold 7 dozen eggs, so that will pay for a bag of chicken feed, with $5 left over.
No spend days yesterday and today.
Jan 02
--fun for the day was volunteering at Seniors home, feels good and useful at the same time
bought a ticket for a raffle and a coffee $2.50...cheap day, went to library to do returns on my way there.
--leftovers for supper
--trying to keep heat down, but hard when it is this cold.
--put away some of Christmas stuff and sorted as I went about 10 things can be sold or given away
a decluttered organized home is a frugal home this is my mantra for 2014....lol...and I need to keep repeating it
over and over..
A snow day here in lovely New England. The college where I work was closed yesterday and is closed again today. I don't mind the extra two days of vacation or the snow. Unfortunately, as an hourly employee, I do mind missing out on earning a paycheck this week. Oh well, simply living means that I can swing the loss of income without much trouble. We adopted a new cat on December 31st and I think he's happy that I've been around these two days to help with his continuing adjustment to the house of chaos.
Today will be a pretty frugal day that involves snow removal and later some snowshoeing or cross country skiing. I made a batch of brownies for a treat. Granted they were not from scratch, but rather a gluten free mix I bought a while back, so not the cheapest of treats. But if it keeps us home to eat, then I consider that a frugal win. I'm making up a huge platter of black bean nachos now to refuel us from the snow removal adventures and fuel us up for the fun in snow later.
Spent a little time this morning considering future purchases that can go on the airline miles earning credit card. We don't buy many plane tickets each year, maybe 2 for my mom to come for a visit and 1 for me to go to see my family over the holidays. I'd love to earn figure out how to earn enough miles to cover 2 of those tickets each year as that would I easily save between $500 to $1000e every year. But we're so used to using debit cards for everything that I want to be sure we go about this in a strategic fashion.
Not much else to report. Hope everyone is having a fabulous start to 2014!!!
January 3 - My kids are still home from school, bitter cold weather kept us from running errands. Lunch was home made beans and leftover chicken made into quesadillas. Can't believe my teenager actually enjoyed the beans, they weren't from a can so I wasn't sure how it would go over. Happy about that.
My kids aren't terribly picky eaters, they'll eat all kinds of things like raw kale and butternut squash which a lot of their friends won't touch, but I'm bringing them further along the path to more whole foods.
Dinner is fish I found tucked away in the freezer and we'll stay in tonight watching netflix.
Hi, everyone! I always intend to pop on here more than once a month, but it never seems to happen! DS has been sick with ear infections and upper respiratory stuff, so my time and attention has been going to him!
January 1--No drive, no spend. Stayed in and enjoyed the day with DH and the kiddos.
January 2--Made arrangements with MIL to bring over a big girl bed for DD. We decided to do a twin instead of a toddler bed since we would have to buy either a toddler bed or a conversion kit for the crib and then buy a twin later anyway. MIL has a twin size mattress, box spring, and headboard she said we could have. She is bringing over a waterproof mattress pad, some sheets, some blankets, and a pillow as well. Oh, and the rains for the sides so DD won't fall out. This will save us a ton of money! I did break down and buy DD some Minnie Mouse bedding since she is apprehensive about leaving her crib. I spent $50 on it (on sale), but she really likes it, so...meh. Money well spent if she adjusts well and doesn't have a melt down every night because she misses her crib. She asked for a Thomas the Train pillow, too, and I decided to make one out of some Thomas material I got for free through Swap Mamas. She also mentioned a dust ruffle, too (her crib had one), and I think I will try to cut down and old queen sized dust ruffle I have. It is white, and I can dye it pink or purple to match her new bedding.
January 3--No drive, no spend again. We had bagels and cream cheese with fruit for breakfast (berries for 79 cents a pint from Aldi's), and DD was sad her daddy couldn't eat breakfast with us (he was at work). So I started some apple, cinnamon, raisin oatmeal in the crock pot so we can eat breakfast for dinner with him tonight. I'll scramble up a few eggs and call it good. Lunch was leftover beef stew and some biscuits. We played all morning in the toy room and will probably play and read library books after everyone gets up from their naps.
Gardenarian
1-3-14, 4:58pm
Spent a lot of irritating time on the phone, but now have several little retirement accounts from different jobs rolled over into one IRA. Yay!
Towards saving energy and water, we have been using one mug per person (avoiding having a lot of cups and glasses filling the dishwasher) and simply rinsing and wiping a lot of dishes. This has cut down on dishwasher use from around 4-5 loads a week to around 2. We save the rinse water for use in the garden, which sorely needs water in this drought. This has been such an easy work/money/ energy/ time saver that I'm embarrassed I didn't do it sooner.
Being stuck in bed, have spent time online searching for the best deals on items we frequently use, with some success. Herbal teas are much less online than in the store.
We've been doing a huge de-cluttering over the past 10 months or so and dh has been doing well selling stuff on Craigslist.
Gardenarian
1-3-14, 5:14pm
FLoat On,
Thanks for the Senior Bank Accounts tip - I had never heard of such a thing, and I turned 55 this year. Cool!
Now I'm going to find out what other discounts I can get for being 55! Crazy - I feel more like 25.
Started January by having a no-spend day on the 1st.
I just remembered that I saved $2 on dog food by waiting to buy it. It was on my list Friday when I went grocery shopping but I decided to wait to see if it would go on sale on Sunday. It did so I bought some after work on Monday.
We are getting a refund on some of DS #1's tuition. yay!
Jan 03
---no spend....spent the day putting away more of the Christmas stuff...sorted more to be sold or given away
this was my exercise and decluttering/cleaning all in one....lol
---fish tacos for supper frugal and goo
---two items sold by my ebay consignment people not sure what I got but more then I had from these items before.
Bunch of frugals since the end of December:
- DW and I chose to stay in on NYE. We were invited to a party, but we just didn't feel it, so we stayed home and struggled to stay up till midnight.
- We tried to watch a DVD earlier this week. The DVD player, purchased secondhand and an inhabitant of the same shelf for its entire life here, decided it had just had enough. Sadly, there is no fixing a DVD player that was sold several years ago for all of $30-40. But we recycled it at Best Buy, which accepts such items for free, rather than our local recycler's, which charges to recycle it.
- We were going to buy another cheap DVD player -- new prices for name-brand players are within $5-10 of the decent ones people sell on craigslist -- but decided instead that we will just use the DVD player built into the TV downstairs.
- Courtesy of the freezer inventory I did last week, grocery shopping was cheap this week. I made more freezer-clearing chicken soup and have a couple of ham bones for when I buy some more greens (forgot...).
- A few no-drive days, though I'm trying to drive my car every 2-3 days in this extreme cold just to make sure it starts when I need it to. I bunch my errands around when I need to start the car.
- DW borrowed some videos from the library. Cheaper than renting... and all it took was a bit of planning ahead.
- Our electric utility offers a free copy of the Chinook (coupon) book for energy-conscious users. Usually it's $20-25. We use enough of the coupons to pay for the book a couple of times over and we have months to use them.
I went grocery shopping with DH yesterday (he usually goes alone) and we spent about $40 more than usual! So I think that every week I keep out of the grocery store I will count as a frugal!
Steve: Just curious, what types of things are in the Chinook book?
Gardenarian: May I ask where you set up your IRA? We're looking at possibly rolling over DH's 401K to Vanguard, so would be interested in any input you care to offer.
Yesterday didn't exactly go as planned. My dearly beloved was too exhausted after the snow removal project to go out snowshoeing or skiing, so we hung around the house and watched a few episodes of "Lillyhammer". I really felt the need to workout though and almost drove to the gym to run on the treadmill. Then I thought about the fact that I just spent $170 on winter running gear and decided to just dress appropriately and run outside. It was dark by this point so I put on my headlamp and went for a little 4 mile jaunt. It was cold but fun! And I saved about $7 in gas by not driving to and from the gym.
Today it's cold but the sun is shining so we're going to take the dogs and go snowshoeing up the mountain. It will be good training for all involved as my dearly beloved is running the Empire State Building stairs in February and I'm preparing for another ultramarathon in April or May. Hopefully I'll have enough energy to make up a huge batch of cabbage soup when we get back and we can eat that for the next few days.
I've been on vacation for so long that I lost track of which Fridays are paydays. I happily discovered that I got paid yesterday for a week's worth of work in December. I put the payday schedule for 2014 on my electronic calendar so that I don't have to think about it and now I just need to try to construct a budget to follow for the year.
We have plenty of food in the house and so unless we decide to head over to the gym later today it looks like we'll have another no drive day, again. Tomorrow I have a Tae Kwon Do class so if we have any other errands to run hopefully we can combine them with that.
That's all for the moment! Stay warm, everyone!
Gardenarian
1-4-14, 3:18pm
Rosarugosa - I use our county credit union.
Jan. 4--Intended to be a no drive/ no spend, but DS has yet another ear infection, so I had to take him back to the dr. The new antibiotic he was precsribed was very expensive, but our insurance covered it, thank goodness!
DH went to lunch with an old friend today. The plan was for all of us to go, but I decided to stay home with the kids instead. It's cold and the baby is sick. Plus this way it costs less and DH can have a little adult time.
While the kids napped, I finished sewing the Thomas pillowcase for DD and a hooded bath towel for DS. I also sewed a button back on DH's coat. Felt good to finish these projects, using up what I had.
This afternoon we will get DD set up in her new bed. Dinner will be leftover oatmeal, which was very good!
early morning
1-4-14, 6:19pm
Well, I wasn't very frugal last month, so I really need to get back on the bandwagon! Been buying our cat food from Amazon but the price really jumped so I ventured back to Wallyworld for a bag, $10 cheaper. Forced by the county to hook up to sewer line although our septic was beyond code - called around and hired some locals that had a low bid, know the families slightly, they were wonderful, fast, and they have come back already to re-grade and rake up gravel (from our old leach bed), after a rain. Planning a simple evening of free DVD watching from the library. I have "mom duty" tomorrow so DD and I will group our errands around that and get home hopefully before the snow starts flying. Have laundry washing in cold water - will hang one load, the other will probably have to go in the dryer, sadly. I just don't have enough space for tons of washcloths... I've been busy and the weather's been crap so I've sort of put the laundry off too long, lol.
I feel so much better this afternoon. Had my hair done, trimmed and retouched the color. I use the Aveda Institute about 25 minutes from home. I cannot color my hair at home. My gray is very color resistant and I just do a terrible job when I try. I know that it is pretty vain of me but I just feel so much better when my hair is colored. The gray just washes me out. And my hair strands are sooo fine that without the color it is very frizzy & fly away. So for $53 plus parking I think it is a good deal.
Gave my last $2 cash to the homeless guy at the intersection.
Not a frugal day at all today. DH is driving Ian south to school and I am driving Ty north to school. Break is over and we want to get them back before the really bad weather hits. Going to miss them :( but the food, water & electric bills should be dropping lol
Tomorrow should be a no drive no spend day except for what I put in the collection plate at church. Then I will come home, put on my jammies and watch the snow fall.
Simply Divine
1-4-14, 9:17pm
This week, I saved a lot of money grocery/toiletries shopping by buying almost everything as store brand.
I also activated my TracFone and won't have to pay for cell phone service again until Dec. 31. This saves me $460 this year. It's also a better phone than my previous one, go figure.
I asked my favorite store to restock a makeup item they had missed for over 5 weeks instead of pay an extra $3 next door. I can wait.
new2oregon
1-4-14, 10:21pm
For any of you people that sell online and need shipping supplies like envelopes and tape etc. I buy from valuemailers the seller is threerb on ebay. I sell on ebay and get free boxes at dollar stores and grocery stores, Post office has free boxes for priority mail, I try to recycle get free packing peanuts and bubble wrap where i can.
Jan
04
--no drive, no spend
--house is clean, Christmas is put away
--supper was a great beef stew with veggies and dumplings with plenty for tomorrow, beef was in freezer and bought really cheaply
carrots/potatoes/onions last of stuff bought really cheap in fall and corn from the freezer
--washed/dried two loads of clothes weekend cheaper hydro
I used the ham bone and some of the leftover ham from my great-aunt to make a big batch of baked beans. They were fabulous. I am going to serve some tonight with oven fried chicken and freeze the rest. My dad, Charlotte and I had some as a snack yesterday, they were that yummy. The rest of the ham I used in a ham and rice soup that we will eat today for lunch.
Today is Epiphany and I want to make a treat. I have a loaf of French bread that is dried out, so I am going to make my Calvados bread pudding. It's delicious and inexpensive.
Since it's supposed to be really cold today and tomorrow I am not going anywhere. We are going to hole up in the house and hibernate.
January 5 - So pleased with my frugal days. Had some friends over last night, whipped up some buffalo chicken dip with ingredients on hand, made a cookie plate with some homemade cookies out of the freezer and cut up some celery and carrots that needed used up with ranch dressing, Voila, party time.
Today I baked up some sourdough english muffins and gluten free blueberry muffins for breakfast this week. I keep sourdough alive in the fridge and I have tons of blueberries to use up.
Dinner is roast chicken, rotisserie style, roasted white and sweet potatoes, broccoli. Lunch was homemade soup out of the freezer.
No spend day yesterday, today I will stop at the store with a very specific list, right now just salad greens and milk. WooHoo!
early morning
1-5-14, 5:09pm
Grouped errands carefully today so there was no unnecessary driving. Have another load of laundry drying in the house. Bought a large bag of salt cheaply for the porch and walkways - need to get it into containers.
Blackdog Lin
1-5-14, 5:47pm
Thanks TMC, for reminding me that I did do a frugal: cheap entertaining. Had a couple friends over to watch the playoffs last night. My first food idea was my fabulous glorified cheese dip - but that would cost over $10.00 in ingredients. Decided to raid the fridge and pantry for ideas and remembered that I'd bought cream cheese on sale over the holidays, and it needed to be used anyway, and there were tortillas in the freezer etc. Ended up serving a nice little snack platter that we all enjoyed with tortilla rollups and marinated olives, cheese and veggies - and the only money I had to spend on it was $1.60 for leaf lettuce and green onions. A frugal win.
Thanks TMC, for reminding me that I did do a frugal: cheap entertaining. Had a couple friends over to watch the playoffs last night. My first food idea was my fabulous glorified cheese dip - but that would cost over $10.00 in ingredients. Decided to raid the fridge and pantry for ideas and remembered that I'd bought cream cheese on sale over the holidays, and it needed to be used anyway, and there were tortillas in the freezer etc. Ended up serving a nice little snack platter that we all enjoyed with tortilla rollups and marinated olives, cheese and veggies - and the only money I had to spend on it was $1.60 for leaf lettuce and green onions. A frugal win.
And I'm sure a good time was had by all. Party on. :laff:
Blackdog Lin
1-5-14, 9:49pm
Thanks for the good wishes - and a good time was indeed had until the second half. When my beloved team BLEW A 28 POINT LEAD!!! JERKS!!! SPITWADS!!! UNDEPENDABLE JERKWADS!!!
Sorry. At least we ate (and drank - had to drown our sorrows :)) well, for little bits of money, in the spirit of frugality and Simple Living.
sigh.
rosa, the ChinookBook has coupons for goods and services, largely "green" in nature. So there will be coupons for whole-foods stores and local co-ops and the some of the food you can buy in them. And coupons for greener dry-cleaning services, hardware stores, energy- and material-efficient building trades, gift stores offering green or locally-made goods, bike shops, picture-framing shops, nurseries (both kinds), all kinds of restaurants and entertainment venues,... Ours even includes a pass good for a free trip on Metro Transit.
The book usually is $20-25 depending on when you buy it and the coupons are good for a year. There's a coupon in there for $5 off $40 at our co-op and similar coupons for other local co-ops, most of which I'll use over the course of the year. I save at least as much as we pay. And, getting it for free, the return is even higher!
Zach and I had a good planning session for the year, planning our spending and how much we will need to bring in from side work to fund our projects. We live mortgage free, but our house needs some maintenanceand were working on making it as functional as possible for 9 people. We planned out about a project per month, not including March, when "have a baby" is the main to-do list item. :)
Our dining room/entryway/bathroom needs to be painted this month. My dad offered to buy the paint if we will do the work. My friend, who's kids I babysit for free on Wednesday mornings, is going to take my younger kids for a Saturday, and my next door neighbour and some other friends are going to help me paint, since I can't get up on ladders right now. I will order pizza and make it fun. It should make a big difference for the cost of some pizza and pop.
Zach's next project is building loft beds for our big girls. That will greatly increase the floor space in their room. He has a really fun plan in place that will give them almost a treehouse feel to their lofts, which will be semi-enclosed with a window in each one and will be connected by a small bridge between the feet of them with a trap door, so they can lock their little sisters out, in the floor of the bridge. :) They are going to build themselves each a small bookshelf and another small shelf for their water bottles or other things they want to keep in their own space. Based in the cost of the play loft he built, he is estimating he can do it for about $200 for both bed frames. Charlotte will then take one of the daybeds we currently use for the big girls as her big girl bed so the crib is available when Veronica needs it. $200 is a pretty reasonable amount for two beds and it makes room in their room for the foosball table and a seating area. The other daybed will be the "couch" for the seating area until Veronica is old enough to need a big girl bed. We will need to get some inexpensive twin mattresses for the new beds also, which should be about $200 if I can't find one for free. Overall, though, it's going to make their room a very functional space for four girls of varying ages.
Those are the January projects. I am also making banana bread today from some overripe bananas and some carrot bread from some carrot pulp I froze when I made carrot juice last. I may also use up some cranberries for cranberry orange bread.
Jan. 5--Had to leave to get gas and milk. while I was out, I found some jammies for DS for $2 and a cute Hello Kitty coin purse for DD for .49. My in-laws brought dinner the past two nights and there are plenty of leftovers.
Jan. 6--It is -20 today, so we're staying in. We're wearing fleece jammies and snuggling under blankets. If it were just me, that'd be enough, but I did turn up the heat for the kids. Don't want them to be cold. I made SOS for lunch to use up the last of the old milk and some stale bread. Wanted DH to have a hot meal, too! He is going to pick up the infant ibuprofen I forgot yesterday on his way home from work to save gas. I wish today was a no-spend, but I did have to renew my license. I was able to do it online, though, to save gas. While I was at it, I bought more minutes for my phone. Used a code to score 30 free minutes. Dinner will be homemade mac n cheese.
Soooooo cold here. Holy cow. Turned down the heat to conserve propane and cranked up both the fireplace insert on the first floor and the wood stove on the lower level. Managing to keep the cold at bay, we have plenty of wood to burn. I think we're just going to sleep in front of the fireplace rather than try to keep the second floor heated too. Even as teenagers they still think it's cool to camp out in the living room. :)
Had to go run errands today, needed gas and some odds and ends at the grocery store. I was shooting for $100. food money allowance this week, spent $107. That's because I bought extra milk, hopefully it will all even out.
Going to the grocery store is horrible these days, I can't seem to get out of there spending less than $50.00 at a pop.
1354
It was so cold yesterday that the bananas Zach bought on his way home blackened on the 5 minute car ride from the store. Crazy!
I got most of my bread baking done and ended up with four loaves of carrot bread instead of the two I thought I would have. One of those was breakfast today.
Zach and I decided that we are going to take the kiddos to the children's museum on Sunday. It should be warm enough to go out by then and we have been stuck in the house a lot lately. We have a membership to the Children's Museum, so it's just a matter of paying a few dollars for parking. The play loft has really helped keep the cabin fever to a minimum. The kids have a way to get their energy out.
We all decided that breakfast for dinner sounded good tonight. I am going to make waffles and scrambled eggs. I saved the apple peels from last night's Pork Chops Normandy so I can make apple cinnamon pancake syrup. I will also make cherry sauce from some frozen cherries I have. Tomorrow we have Faith Formation, so I think we will have wild rice soup, that way people can eat at different times.
Stella - re: peeling apples. In the past year I've found that the peels almost always cook down to nothing, whether being cooked in a pan or in the oven, so I never peel them for any purpose anymore. And the peels are where all the nutrients are, in addition to saving time!
Frugal: 2 no-drive, no-spend days. We've been eating a great deal from the pantry and freezer in the past month, both before we traveled for the purpose of cleaning out the fridge prior to leaving town and, unexpectedly, after, due to the weather.
Aarrgghhhh.....I have just had a real look at what I have been spending. I don't know what's happened to me but I suspect that Not Tracking leads to OVerspending.....
So here I am stating my intention to get back to normal frugality. Right now. I plan to check in here regularly even if only to read about everyone else's frugal activities. Though this evening I am cooking some beef I got from a local farmer for (relatively) cheap and using veg that I already have. Today won't be a no spend because the dog had his annual checkup early this morning but that should be the only cash outflow....I am still sitting here in shock at my recent (six month) spending.....thank goodness you can always have a new start!
That's right, leslieann . . . today is always the first day of the rest of your life!
Glad to see you, and looking forward to seeing more of you around the frugals thread.
Here we are doing pretty well, I should really see where our spending is at as well but we switched to You Need a Budget and it just hasn't really clicked for me yet - wondering if it was worth buying. At any rate, we have been home from school for an additional two days but still managed to just eat here at home and not really spend anything. I might order a few items from Amazon today. It's surprisingly challenging to get to the $35 minimum for shipping compared to the former $25 minimum, so we're just keeping a list going for whenever we order a bag of dog food (which is shipped in a box, which makes me giggle - I thought they would shrink wrap it or something). The dog food is $10 cheaper per bag on Amazon and is delivered to the door.
Tonight I think we we will have a pork roast from the freezer, guess I should get that on if we're going to have it. Not feeling super today either, so maybe I'll get DH on that. :)
He might go out and buy some thank you cards at Target using some of his gift card money from Christmas. He got a lot of generous gifts from his families and is planning to finish up his thank yous today.
I have a $25 gift card for Walmart and will probably stop there on Thursday after I finish at the laundromat. It will be for groceries.
Because of the insane cold, no one is going anywhere here, except for my neighbor who works at city hall, and that includes me. I have had upper resp stuff for a month and have pretty much eaten down my pantry. The only things left are a couple of soup ingredient (canned) and the things I never should have bought in the first place.
Thanks, fidgie....
Pretty cold here too, and I do notice that I have NO DESIRE to go out to do much of anything. So that's not such a bad thing. Frugal, too.
Nice job, everyone, in kicking off 2014 with a frugal first week! Not much to report over here other than the usual stuff. We're making a half-hearted attempt to eat down the stock pile in the chest freezer so I pulled out some corn chowder for dinner last night. The leftovers will be tonight's dinner. I spoke at a conference today and received two gift cards to Dunkin' Donuts as a thank you. I'm guessing they are $5 each and I'm not much of a DD consumer, but I would imagine they will come in handy at some point. I'm going to work tomorrow and plan to stop by the mall afterwards cto return a Christmas gift. It came from Macy's so I'm assuming I'll get a store credit. Not sure what I'll do with it since I don't really need anything from Macy's. I'm sure I can find something to spend it on, but I'd much rather put it to good use then spend it just to spend it. Not much else going on. Trying to keep warm in these frigid temps without simply resorting to turning the heat way up in the house!
Oh thought of one frugal that some of you might find slightly amusing. Months ago, one of my students gave me a coupon for $5 off a $75 purchase at a local grocery store chain. She told me her mom had received the coupon, but that they don't usually shop at that store so they weren't going to use it. It's not my usual grocery store, but I do stop there to buy a few things occasionally because they have the best prices for half-and-half and fresh mozzarella, but I never spend any where close to $75 in one shopping trip there. The coupon had an expiration date of 12/31/13. So I went grocery shopping on 12/30/13 and carefully bought only those items that I knew were cheaper at this particular grocery store and that I knew we would eat. I was so proud of the fact that at the register the total came to $75.64 before applying the coupon. I didn't think I would be able to get it so close to the $75 minimum purchase! Somehow I suspect that my frugalista friends here can appreciate my desire to do a little happy dance in the checkout line!!!
Gardenarian: That's great that your local credit union has good IRA options. I'll admit to not thoroughly researching that angle. I had just heard so many good things about Vanguard that I went with them.
Steve: That sounds like a great deal on the free Chinook Book!
Stella: This is goofy, but at first I thought that was a new profile pic, and I must say that I didn't like it very much! Those black bananas just aren't a good look for you :)
We're about to have a big change in our lives, because DH is going back to work full-time after 4 years. We were a little reluctant because we're living well enough with our current income, but this is a nice job that we think he will really enjoy, and it's going to make quite a difference in our ability to get some big things accomplished as well as boost our savings. So the challenge will be to continue to apply those frugal skills and avoid lifestyle creep!
January - 7 - Everyone is so sick of the fridgid weather but I do appreciate the time I have had trapped at home to get things accomplished. DH had a doctors appointment today and said he would buy a salad for lunch afterwards.
By being two steps ahead of him I had thawed chicken and was able to throw him together a chicken salad from home instead. Probably saved ten bucks.
Kids were home from school so we ate out of the freezer. Unearthed some frozen wedding soup for them with peaches and home made bread. Dinner was hot ham and cheese sandwiches and asparagus soup made with frozen asparagus from the garden.
No spend day just trying to keep warm.
We went 4 days without even starting the car! During that same period of time the only spending I did was on 3 Sunday papers for the coupons. I have a nice employee that works at the local gas station as well and she was nice enough to deliver the papers so I didn't have to go out in the cold.
Dh is really into saving at the moment and is encouraging me to stockpile freebies. Its so much easier to do my "work" when I have his support/help. He ordered a 50 lb bag of sugar for me today. Sugar lasts indefinitely and is a good preservative for other foods.
I've been trying to find nice ways to include my father in our lives more now that my mother is gone. I don't want him to be alone too much but need to balance things so he doesn't feel like I'm supervising him. We ran BBQ ribs for a special at work Saturday. I invited dad over for dinner at closing time and we ate some of the leftovers. They were delicious and something dad wouldn't make for himself. This was cheaper and more casual than going out to eat.
Today I am focusing on making my shopping list for tomorrow. I will also do a few sweepstakes. I did manage to print a couple of new rebate forms last night for cleaning products. Those are always nice to get for free.
Still trying to be frugal but it's a battle...
- My car hasn't moved since Saturday. I am hopeful the battery has not frozen solid. No need to drive today, and black ice is still quite prevalent, so I will wait till tomorrow when I have lunch scheduled with friends. I might heat one of those microwaveable body packs (think blue ice but warm) and put that on the car battery for a few hours to warm it up to, oh, maybe 0 degrees? >8) I'm hoping that not moving the car does not mean paying for a jumpstart.
- Dinners (and, as a result, lunches) have been exercises in clearing the freezer and pantry and enjoying food gifts I received for Christmas. Short ribs were kind of a bust (tasty but expensive meat and way too much fat and bone to make it worth doing again); tonight is (thawing) shrimp with sun-dried tomatoes and chiles (new recipe).
- I've been putting together paperwork -- health care reimbursement plan claims, supporting docs for taxes, etc. It'll be nice to get the money back but filling out spreadsheets is not the most fun I think I can have.
- I did score a camera lens off Goodwill's auction site. It's a good intermediate size for me; if I don't like it, I should be able to flip it for double-triple what I paid for it.
Jan. 7--No drive/no spend for me. DH did drive to work. I put a roast in the crockpot yesterday morning and am glad I did. DH helped his Dad change a tire and got home so late that we probably would have ordered out if supper wasn't ready already.
Jan. 8--Took DS to doctor and ran a few errands to save gas. Bought a huge 15 lb bag of grapefruit for next to nothing and a huge box of fruit snacks clearanced to $1. Don't usually buy those, but they will be nice treats for DD. Resisted temptation to stock up on 50 cent wrapping paper. Nice price, but I don't need any! Lunch was leftovers, and dinner will be at home. I am thinking maybe egg salad sandwiches...
I made a triple batch of wild rice soup tonight and I will freeze half of it. In sort of a comedy of errors, I initially I thawed my beef stock instead of my chicken stock. Oops. French onion soup it is, tomorrow night. :) I think we will survive.
Yesterday my neighbour brought over homemade banana and blueberry muffins. The kids had that and some fruit and peanut butter for lunch and the oldest kid and I split a fantastic coconut peanut soup another neighbour had brought over. Most of lunch was free.:) Bella is tiring of soup, but loves casseroles, so on Saturday I will use the leftovers of the big batch of wild rice I made for the soup ($10 for a huge bag at Costco!) in a wild rice casserole.
Blackdog Lin
1-8-14, 9:15pm
Didn't leave the house Sat-Sun-Mon (just too cold), so all no-drive no-spend days. Ran my couple errands Tuesday while I was out anyway to my volunteer gig. Had a marvelous dinner today of tempura shrimp and veggies, using the last of the bag of shrimp we bought for a Christmas treat before Christmas (expensive, but we got 4 meals out of the bag, so I would definitely purchase it again), and I ended up spending only $1.02 for some proper fresh veggies to go along with the shrimp.
Lin: How did you like the maple syrup? We got a quart that my BIL produced on his property in NH at our holiday gift swap, which I considered to be a great score.
Jan 08
Last couple of days have been so cold I have barely left the house...
but, don't want to think what it is costing to heat the place...
---did go to Costco today and got a good order mostly to stock up, but did not over spend
great buy on Dishwasher tabs 120/$15.99 bought 2 so will not need to buy for the rest of 2014.
---using a journal I had for a day planner, just write a date on each page works great.
---sold 4 items on Kijiji for $27.00 person got a really good deal but, I have the money and they are out of my garage.
---paying Dgrandson to shovel the drive, good for him to learn and helps him have a little extra and a lot less then I would
pay someone else to do it. Win/win.
---box of bran cereal with near expiry date so I made a double batch of muffins...very good.
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Last night was an excellent shopping night. I combined free coke coupons, a store deal offering $$ back on purchases, and several coupons for protein bars to receive the following for free last night: Eleven 12-packs of Coke products, 6 boxes of Atkins bars (these are great for a snack/quick meal when I'm busy at work), a candy bar for ds, and a jar of Biscoff spread.
Based on the prices that I normally pay for these items, I saved $84.09!!!
I price matched on Kleenex and used a coupon to save another $2.52.
We ate dinner at our favorite Chinese buffet saving about $10 by getting there in time for lunch prices and drinking free hot tea instead of ordering soda.
We passed several gas stations while running our errands last night and filled up at the cheapest saving 13 cents a gallon over the priciest.
Blackdog Lin
1-9-14, 10:32am
rosa - you remembered! We liked it okay, but it's not something we would seek out again for a special treat. Good but not awesome flavor, and mostly it's just not as sweet as the cheap imitation syrup we've been eating all these years and are used to. Maybe it's just the brand we bought - I have nothing to compare it to.
We'll use it all, we decided, by just mixing it half and half with our imitation stuff.
January 9 - I was thinking about what to post today, it's interesting that most of my frugal things are so passive. I did not eat out in two weeks, I did not buy wool boot socks, I just borrowed my husbands. So much of saving money is about doing "nothing". :)
So a lot of things the same here. Cooked at home, exercising in my basement instead of paying a gym and this weekend we have some cheap or free fun planned.
I will carry on with my frugal ways.
Yes, TMC, some months I think the thread could just as easily be what we DIDN'T do that saved money. So often it is the purchase NOT made, the action NOT taken that is the real frugal.
I was craving foods we can't generally have because of my dad's stomach issues and I was really, really thinking of getting a pizza since he wasn't home for dinner. In the end, I decided that chicken taco salad sounded just as good, and I had almost everything for it. I did send Zach to the store for one ingredient, but it was much, much cheaper than ordering pizza would have been, and healthier. It also used up some lettuce that I needed to use up.
flowerseverywhere
1-9-14, 10:45pm
I misplaced my car keys so we only have one set. We called the dealer and they charge $250 for a replacement. So DH asked at our local ace hardware and they gave him the name of a locksmith. Apparently it needs to be programmed but he will do it for $75. Still outrageous, but way better. I bet we will find the keys as soon as we get a replacement made
granddaughters birthday is next month, so I made her a doll quilt to match the one I gave her for Christmas. She is a little girl who likes dolls. DH is making a bed for the doll.
Jan 09
--supper from chicken bought yesterday at Costco...and plenty left to make a soup later (now in freezer)
--bought a family size pack of hamburger at Costco yesterday and made it up into 13 patties and 76 meatballs
froze all except enough for the next two nights supper of spaghetti and meatballs and fry mixed peppers (a whole bag of
mixed peppers bought on my way home from volunteering for $1.99)
--also got three bags of oranges all different varieties for $3.98 off mark down table all good
I misplaced my car keys so we only have one set. We called the dealer and they charge $250 for a replacement. So DH asked at our local ace hardware and they gave him the name of a locksmith. Apparently it needs to be programmed but he will do it for $75. Still outrageous, but way better. I bet we will find the keys as soon as we get a replacement made
granddaughters birthday is next month, so I made her a doll quilt to match the one I gave her for Christmas. She is a little girl who likes dolls. DH is making a bed for the doll.
The doll quilt is a very cute idea, something she will hopefully treasure as she gets older.
Agree with TMC and fidgiegirl, many of my frugals are because of things I DIDN'T do, as opposed to what I did do!
Took our three dogs to the vet yesterday for their annual exams. We get a multi pet discount if we bring them together so makes sense to get them all there on the same day. Bought a year's worth of heart worm preventative for each of them and got the paperwork to submit for a $36 rebate. Considering the overall cost of yesterday's visit, this is a drop in the bucket, but I have to keep in mind that the little things are what allows me to foot the huge vet bill without a lot of angst.
My MIL made goulash this week and sent leftovers home with my dearly beloved. He's happy as it provides him with dinner for a few days. He baked two loaves of bread yesterday to eat along with it. As a vegetarian, I can't participate in the eating of the goulash, so I made a huge batch of popcorn and enjoyed that yesterday instead of cooking up something more elaborate. Today I'm at a conference for work so free breakfast and lunch. Definitely not the healthiest meals I've eaten this week, but I'm just going to roll with it...
Didn't go to the gym on Wednesday night and saved on the gas expense. I'm trying to recover from a minor knee injury so I stayed home and watched a movie via Netflix instead. Good, frugal entertainment.
Found a coupon for a free ream of printer paper from Staples so will take advantage of that tomorrow.
Opened a new economy size jug of laundry detergent yesterday and transferred a portion of it to a smaller container to use. Last year I found that an economy size jug would last 3 months. We average one load of laundry a day at our house. I'm going to challenge us to make it last 4 months this year. Part of that is being more diligent about planning laundry so that there are fewer last minute, small loads. Part of it is about being more mindful about using the minimum amount of laundry detergent each time, too.
January 10 - Dinner is clean out the fridge night using up leftovers from what I cooked all week.
We have an event to attend for DH work so I did my own manicure. I work at home so rarely get "real" manicures. The cold weather really beats up my hands though so I find myself looking for manicures more in the winter. My job turned out just lovely.
I found something in my closet to wear for the shindig and I'm off like Cinderella to the (free) ball.
I have been wanting a slow cooker for a long time. DH has been wanting a deep fryer for a long time. However, since neither of these items were "necessary," we'd dithered about getting either one. Of all things, our friend recently told us about a wondrous machine that works both as a slow cooker AND a deep fryer. We found one yesterday, then negotiated the price down by about $25 USD, then used our store discount "club card" to get another 7% off.
Our friend also told us how to buy "Number 6" beef (in Israel each cut of beef is assigned a number, rather than a name), so I can start making yummy slow-cooker stews. This is great news, as DH and I are both working evenings now, and frequently both of us are working random hours between 2 and midnight, so neither of us has time to cook anything, much less eat at the same time. With this new machine, I can do the "cooking" in the morning, and then things will be ready for a quick plating whenever either of us gets a break.
fidgiegirl
1-11-14, 10:55am
Fab, Selah! Enjoy the new purchase.
Operation Clean Out the Fridge & Pantry is underway!
Made a huge pot of cabbage soup this morning...have been meaning to do that for about 10 days now and finally got it done. Used up a whole head of cabbage and a bunch of carrots from the fridge. We'll be eating cabbage soup for the next few days, but I plan to freeze several meals worth for later consumption.
Just whipped up a batch of chocolate chip banana bread. For some reason the bananas I had a few weeks ago that were turning brown wound up in the refrigerator instead of the freezer. I didn't seem to think this was a big deal until I opened the container with them in it today. Oh boy, fermented bananas! Banana wine, anyone? LOL Fortunately, they weren't too far gone so I just tossed them into the mix. Added an extra egg because it was the last one in the carton (with a "best by" date of December 5th, oops!) and used a chunk (yes, quite literally a chunk!) of brown sugar that had hardened in the less-than-perfectly-sealed package instead of using white sugar, which is what the recipe called for. I figure with all these random modifications this could turn out to be the weirdest banana bread ever, but the batter tasted pretty good so I figure it won't be inedible!!! I'll let you know when it comes out of the oven!
My dearly beloved is now baking bread for tonight's dinner. Wow, full day of cooking and baking here!!!
Not much else happening on this rainy Saturday. All in all it should turn out to be pretty frugal. Good thing, too, as last night's trip to the emergency vet clinic with the nearly 18 year old cat came with a hefty price tag. But he's so darn cute he's worth every penny!!!
rosarugosa
1-11-14, 7:10pm
Nice score Selah! We have a virtually unused crock-pot, and I'm thinking we should be able to get some value from it now that DH is going back to work full-time.
Cdttmm: Banana wine sounds downright scary! I have found that eggs are good long beyond the date on the carton. Hope your banana bread is yummy!
I had some cheap fun yesterday when my friend came to watch the kids so could go to the Well Read Mom book club conference, which was held this year at my own church. It was lovely. The entrance cost was $16, but it was 3 hours of interesting, engaging speakers, tea and biscotti, time spent with good friends talking about good literature and I got a free journal included with the free.
I got an email that Barnes and Nobel had a sale this week on classics, buy two get one free, so I decided to get a few books that I needed for this month and future reading. I got The Odyssey, Jane Eyre (one of my favorites) and Oh, Pioneers for $15 after my membership discount. Technically, this isn't the most frugal choice I could make, since I could get those books for free on my kindle app, but I am making a point of reading mostly hard copy books. I find it less distracting and I think it sets a better example for my kids to see me reading an actual book instead of staring at my iPad. It is also educator appreciation week, so the other books I got were 25% off with my educator discount. There was one book Barnes and Nobel didn't have, so I called an independent Christian bookstore owned by a friend of mine and ordered it through her. If I'm going to pay full price for something, I'd rather give the money to a friend. :) The money I spent today was out of my own Christmas money from my dad, so it didn't affect the budget at all.
Dinner tonight was a spinach-tortellini soup made with gifts I received for Christmas and stuff we already had on hand anyway. I had to make some volume adjustments to the recipe I used, but it's tasty and will feed us at least twice more. It's one in a continuing series of meals designed to use up items in the freezer and cupboards.
We had a slow cooker with a crock insert that had cracked long ago and, this week, finally cracked to unusability. We have another slow cooker in the house because we do use them enough for entertaining, but that still left the old tub/cooking element and cover. One for-free ad on craigslist and two hours later, three people asked after it and it was gone. :cool: Must be other frugal folks out there, huh?
I think that's about it for now...
Bummer - I somehow managed to forget to add December house payment into my check register. Now I have a lot less money than I thought I did ...sigh
I hate it when I do something stupid like that. The refund from U/M should about cover it, though.
early morning
1-12-14, 1:05pm
Same old stuff here. Nothing fun or glamorous or even interesting... we did buy three different kinds of porch lights for the next few holiday seasons half-off the already cheap OddLots price so that will be fun next year, to have different lights to choose from. We use LEDs and they replace the normal porch light. We don't see any appreciable increase in our electric bill at the holidays so I guess it's a frugal display, lol. I have two loads of laundry hanging in the house to dry- I'll do another tonight. Mostly cooking at home, taking lunch, coffee etc to work, not buying extras, groceries from ALDI, etc... Got a small raise, so I'm going to try to add that to savings.
iris lilies
1-12-14, 2:04pm
Selah, I'm not enamored of my slow cooker for much beyond beans. For me, the "stews" that have meat then cook the veg to death. I admit it, I don't use it much. But it IS really nice for beans and bean soups. The only thing that turns out perfect every time for me is split pea soups: hambones or ham shanks, onions, dried split peas.
rosa, the banana bread turned out great! I suspect the entire loaf will be gone before tomorrow... :)
The cabbage soup turned out great, too. We ate it for dinner last night and will have it for dinner again tonight. And I froze enough for six future meals, too.
Watched a movie via Netflix yesterday and we're headed to the gym this afternoon so that's providing us with some frugal entertainment. And, of course, the trip to the gym is good for our health, too!!!
Otherwise, not much happening today. Going to hard boil some eggs for lunches/snacks this week. Doing a *full* load of laundry. Too bad I can't hang it on the clothesline to dry this time of year. The weather is warmer, but not sunny or dry enough. The good news is that our heat has not kicked in all day.
Used our 32 year old crock pot to cook pulled pork for tacos on Christmas Eve and last night to make BBQ pulled pork for dinner with friends. In between did a pork loin roast. I bet we have had 5 years stretches where the crock pot sat on the shelf unused but so happy I never decided to get rid of it.
flowerseverywhere
1-13-14, 9:18am
My one year old washer had the lid lock light blinking. I was poring through the owners manual when DH came in. He unplugged and re plugged in the machine. Fixed. If I had been alone I probably would not have done that, and the manual,said nothing about it. I probably would have called a service tech. An electrical storm had blown through so it probably tripped something.
SteveinMN
1-13-14, 10:04am
My one year old washer had the lid lock light blinking. I was poring through the owners manual when DH came in. He unplugged and re plugged in the machine. Fixed.
Heh. Technician's first rule: Is it plugged in? If it is, unplug it and plug it back in again.
It seems unsatisfying to fix things that way, but it works too often to ignore. :)
Too much eating out this weekend. Some frugal successes, like line drying laundry. I also used a $10 off $10 coupon for Kohls to get a purple towel for DD. She needed another for when hers is in the wash. I will sew a hood on it out of the matching hand towel. Was going to buy matching thread but decided white would be fine since only one seam will show an its on the inside. No out of pocket cost for this project.
DH is also going to paint out bedroom for my birthday gift. It won't be to expensive and is something I really want. I feel so cramped in this house already; the idea of more stuff in here is less than appealing.
I think I will take the kids to visit my dad in the nursing home today. I will bring him some grapefruit and an article from the paper about his father's greenhouse.
Ugh! Sorry for all the typos. Am typing one handed on my kindle while the baby swipes at it. ;-)
I don't know if this is frugal or not, but a friend called me today. She said "I just got this great top and it doesn't fit me, but it would be perfect for you!" I replied, "girl, just take the top back...why are you buying things that don't fit you and then giving them away?" She replied, "I got it at the second-hand store, and I never try things on there because the 'dressing room' [a corner with a blanket as a 'drape'] is awful, and I can't take anything back!" So I will be the recipient of someone else's generosity, caused by a failed attempt at frugality. Second-hand frugality = free blouse as bonus gift!
By the way...DH made french fries in the slow cooker/deep fryer and they were amazing, and right now I can smell the stew cooking--beef, carrots, potatoes, onions, water and onion soup mix. YUM! So happy to have this machine! :cool:
More food related frugals happening over here.
First, I decluttered (read: ate) the entire loaf of chocolate chip banana bread. :)
Next, my dearly beloved discovered a ham steak in the deep freezer and decided that it would make a nice addition to the cabbage soup. So he put it on the smoker today and later we'll have cabbage soup. I'm a strict vegetarian so he'll be adding ham steak to his portion only.
We received a huge box of fruit as a Christmas gift from his aunt and uncle. It's some hybrid-orange-citrus fruit that is apparently only available in January. So they gifted us a box. Hmmm...not really my thing, but fortunately he is a huge juice drinker and so has been juicing a bunch every day for fresh "orange" juice. They will not go to waste and I don't have to try to figure out how to consume them myself.
Finally, the dearly beloved has been trying to cut down on his caffeine consumption so has been making a huge pitcher of decaf green tea every few days. He likes to sweeten it with honey and as beekeepers that is a no brainer. He just finished jarring some honey over the weekend from a 5 gallon pail so he poured his tea into the empty 5 gallon pail and used the last of the honey to sweeten it this time around. That was a serious waste not, want not moment. Usually we would set the empty pail out for the bees to clean out, but this isn't feasible in the dead of winter in New England.
Another tea related frugal. When there was a holiday special happening, I bought a box of 100 tea bags from Mighty leaf tea. I usually don't buy that brand because it's more expensive than buying loose-leaf tea. But the discount plus free shipping made it reasonably priced and I thought it would be a nice chance of pace from my usually tea. I've been using my Bodum tea pot for months now to make a pot of tea every morning. I figured out that if I skip using the insert/tea press gizmo that I could simply use a tea ball and have more room for water and therefore more tea! It works out to be about 40 ounces of tea so I figured I would need 2 of the Mighty Leaf tea bags to make it strong enough. Okay, fine, that means I'll have enough tea bags for 50 days of tea. One morning, after closer inspection of the quality of tea in the tea bags, I realize that perhaps I can get away with just one tea bag and 40 ounces of water. I figure it is worth a shot, worst case scenario, I have a pot of weak tea. Turns out, one tea bag works just fine. Score!
Gardenarian
1-13-14, 6:54pm
Dh has been experimenting with sprouting beans before cooking. Interesting...I think anything that involves using more dried beans is pretty frugal.
At the beginning of this year I had set some pretty lofty goals for savings each month. In order to reach these goals I knew I had to figure out where all our money is going. I decided to sit down and write my planned extra expenses for the month. Basic things, kids haircuts, money for school lunches, co-pays for scheduled dr appts, car registration. I now know how much extra I have for necessary expenses each month. I have also been tracking all of our spending and have a better handle on leakage.
I'm working on expenses for February and March, I'm trying to balance extra monthly costs to be able to keep up with my savings goals. DH told me today that the dog needs groomed, great, can it wait until February, I'll put it on the list for next month.
In the meantime we keep on track with cooking and eating at home. We have not eaten out since Christmas and that is a big deal for us. With two full time jobs and two teenage kids we are constantly running, it makes it a challenge to avoid eating out. It has taken a lot of advance planning but it is so worth it.
rosarugosa
1-13-14, 8:55pm
Cdttmm: Those sound like Honeybell mineolas. They are so good! They were a favorite treat when I quit smoking - for the first couple of weeks, Mom was rewarding me with daily presents of Honeybells and gourmet chocolates. We've been able to get really good mineolas at the grocery store these past couple of weeks.
rosa: Yes! I'm pretty sure you are right -- Honeybells sounds familiar! Hmmm...maybe I'll have to just try one to see what they are like. I just remember when I read the description in the card the first year we were going to receive them I didn't think they sounded like something I would be all that excited about. But maybe I should actually *try* something before declaring that I don't like it. LOL
Jan.13--No spend, though we did drive to visit Dad. Made enchilada casserole in the crock pot to use up lots of stuff from the freezer/pantry. Line dried laundry. Downloaded some free ebooks. Watched movies and read books from library. Found several books online that I want. Was tempted to buy them but will check interlibrary loan first. Supper tonight will be scalloped potatoes made with ham fr the freezer.
SteveinMN
1-14-14, 11:52am
TMC, it's great to budget ahead. I would suggest, though, if you have not already thought of it, that you budget ahead for some bigger-ticket expenses. For example, a four-figure property tax bill arrives on our doorstep twice a year. Not the kind of payment we can swing in a random month and not the kind that can be put off, either. Car and house repairs also fit into this category. You may already be doing this. But, if not, month-to-month could yield some real surprises.
TMC, it's great to budget ahead. I would suggest, though, if you have not already thought of it, that you budget ahead for some bigger-ticket expenses. For example, a four-figure property tax bill arrives on our doorstep twice a year. Not the kind of payment we can swing in a random month and not the kind that can be put off, either. Car and house repairs also fit into this category. You may already be doing this. But, if not, month-to-month could yield some real surprises.
Thanks for your advice. Luckily we do already do this. We have automatic transfers into various savings accounts, college, taxes, home maintenance and have accumulated some pretty hefty 401K accounts.
Despite these savings I knew we still had a lot of leakage, little things that added up to a lot spent on what? Halfway through the month I'm very pleased with what I have found and eliminated. It will allow me to put more money where we want it to go.
This week I'm doing pretty well at using up leftovers. Well, when the boys were home there weren't a whole lot of leftovers lol So far I have used the remainder of the rotisserie chicken in chicken a la king.
DH used up some bagged salad for dinner on Monday. He heated up some chicken nuggets and tossed them into the salad for a filling dinner.
Last night I used up the leftover rice & soy sauce marinated chicken in fried rice. Yummy. Too bad we're out of kimchi :(
Tonight I think I'm going to put some diced ham into the leftover scalloped potatoes. Plus warm up the leftover chicken a la king. It'll be a leftover buffet .
Now I am very tired of chicken lol
I got some reduced price ground beef at Meijer so it was only $2.39/lb which is about the lowest I've seen it in some time. I'm thinking chili sounds good.
I noticed that we had Jif Hazelnut spread on clearance at work. And I remembered that there was a coupon on Cartwheel for Jif. So today I bought 3 jars using the cartwheel plus my employee discount and Red Card 5% and got them for $2.05 each. That should last me a while!
I washed a blanket last night and when I took my clothes out of the dryer I put the blanket in but didn't turn the dryer on, thinking the residual heat would dry it somewhat and today I am hanging the blanket to finish drying.
The only spending yesterday was my Dh's doctor visit co-pay. But it was a frugal because he has finally been taken off blood thinners which will save us a lot of money! Plus he can now take motrin for his arthritic pain which will be cheaper than what he had been prescribed. And it works better than the rx too. So Yay!
A few warm January days sure make it easier to keep the heating costs down for the month -- woo-hoo! Now if only they could be sunny as well so that our solar panels would provide more of our electricity...but I'll take what I can get!
I think I found a way to break my afternoon vending machine habit at work. We had a bunch of dark chocolate mint Lindt truffles in pantry. They are good, but not great and we got a little tired of them...I know, I know, how does one ever truly tire of dark chocolate? So I brought them to work and basically decided that if I need a chocolate/sugar fix in the afternoon then I need to eat from stash and not hit the vending machine. It's only been a few days, but so far it's working. My vending machine habit was only costing me about $5 per week, but $5 is $5 and I'd much rather save it then spend it!
We had students on campus today for orientation, which means we had a handful of student volunteers as well. Our office provided the volunteers with lunch, which meant I got free lunch, too. Not the healthiest of lunches (Mac-and-cheese, rolls with butter, salad, cookies and soda). There were lots of leftovers so I stashed the salad in fridge at work and will eat it tomorrow (although I'll bring my own salad dressing because I didn't like the one we had). Free lunch number two! I sent the leftover Mac-and-cheese home with one of the students who I know is a single mom. Most of our students are not too proud to accept the offer of leftovers, but I always want to be careful about making them feel uncomfortable. So I packaged up the leftovers in a way that it wasn't obvious what it was and then asked her if she thought her kids would want Mac-and-cheese for dinner. She said yes and thanked me for thinking of her. I felt good about helping her out and not letting the food go to waste.
The free lunches also mean that I've been able to out off grocery shopping for a few extra days. I don't care if the meal options are unusual for a few days if it means the next trip to the store can be that much more well thought out.
Doing well on my efforts to decrease the number of loads of laundry around here. It helps when my dearly beloved is out of town because I'll opt to wear something else rather than do laundry just because I want to wear a certain article of clothing. Him, not so much. Getting better about using the absolute minimum amount of detergent, too.
Watched a movie via Netflix last night. Definitely still getting our money's worth out of our Netflix subscription. But I really should log on to the library's website and check out those options as well. There are some movies I'd like to watch that aren't available on Netflix and I don't want to pay to rent them via iTunes if I don't have to.
Didn't get to make the scalloped potatoes since DH ended up not getting home from the doctor until 7 pm! He worked overtime last night and has physical therapy tonight, so I probably won't get it made today either. We've managed to eat at home despite all this, and the overtime pay will be nice, but I struggle to get dinner made and on the table after 14+ hours on my own with two fussy kids two and under who do not want to nap. The baby doesn't want to sleep at night, either, so I am really exhausted! Anyway, I went shopping yesterday and bought some quick and easy convenience foods. Not the cheapest, I know, but better than ordering in, which I am always on verge of doing when DH is gone all day and at night, too. Hats off to single parents everywhere. I have no idea how you do it...things have been this way since September when DH got hurt, and it's killing me!
My big score while out shopping was a bunch of kid's pjs clearanced out to $2.50 and $3.48. I stocked up and used my Red Card for another 5 percent off.
Hang in there Kat, it will get easier.
Its been a fairly quiet week around here. I filled in at work yesterday instead of taking the day off making pretty good tips and lowering payroll.
While at the store the other day, I noticed several empty Coke boxes by the recycling. I tore them apart and took home coke codes from nine 12 pks. and 2 cases.
We used coupons for dining out that night saving ourselves $10-13 dollars.
Didn't get to make the scalloped potatoes since DH ended up not getting home from the doctor until 7 pm! He worked overtime last night and has physical therapy tonight, so I probably won't get it made today either. We've managed to eat at home despite all this, and the overtime pay will be nice, but I struggle to get dinner made and on the table after 14+ hours on my own with two fussy kids two and under who do not want to nap. The baby doesn't want to sleep at night, either, so I am really exhausted! Anyway, I went shopping yesterday and bought some quick and easy convenience foods. Not the cheapest, I know, but better than ordering in, which I am always on verge of doing when DH is gone all day and at night, too. Hats off to single parents everywhere. I have no idea how you do it...things have been this way since September when DH got hurt, and it's killing me!
My big score while out shopping was a bunch of kid's pjs clearanced out to $2.50 and $3.48. I stocked up and used my Red Card for another 5 percent off.
I understand what you're saying about the convenience food, I feel guilty when I break down and buy convenience food too. But I have to say I think you did exactly the right thing. There is only so much of you to go around and it is still cheaper than eating out or takeout and probably healthier too.
Somedays if everybody is fed and fairly clean that's all the accomplishment you need.
fidgiegirl
1-16-14, 9:31pm
Hi everyone!
Haven't felt particularly frugal this week. It's AMAZING how a lack of meal planning results in more spending and stress for us. I spent some time this evening making us a custom shopping list (since we order online, it was easy because they have our "master" list already in the system of everything we've bought in the last six months or some such time) so we can make the lists more easily. I am also going to make a list to hang on the fridge of meal ideas we have on hand. I don't like planning something for Monday, Tuesday, etc. because sometimes we just don't feel like making it that night. But if we at least know, ok, we bought the stuff for spaghetti one night, for burgers and home fries another night, for salads and soup another night, we can save the agonizing and feeling like "there's nothing in the house" desperation.
Hang in there, all . . .
Blackdog Lin
1-16-14, 9:55pm
fidgie: that was always my preferred method of meal planning too. Like you said, sometimes you just don't feel like having a particular meal, and some days are busier (and tired-er) than others - so having a list of 5 or 6 meals posted somewhere, and knowing you have everything in the house to make them - sure does make life easier. And cheaper.
I got in the habit of checking "the list" every evening, thinking about the next day's main meal and how busy or tired I would be, to see if/what I needed to take out of the freezer to thaw. And go from there. I still do this - only anymore I don't have any busy/worn out days to consider!
On the frugality front, same-o same-o around here. Mostly cases of "do you really need that?" (online ordering) And coming to conclusions of "nope, don't need that, don't want more stuff in the house. They're gonna have to discount that a bunch more to tempt me" etc. etc.)
early morning
1-17-14, 7:20pm
Stopped at Dollar General on the way home for a few items, which means the grocery trip can be put off another week. Thursdays we all congregate at Mom's for dinner (it's her hair appointment day, we fill her fridge for the week, fix her pills, put out her trash and recycling, etc) and I added our trash to hers as we don't have trash pickup. I brought home some leftovers for my lunch at work today and some scratch for our chickens.
I am also going to make a list to hang on the fridge of meal ideas we have on hand.
...this is how I meal plan. Based on what we have in the pantry/fridge/freezer, I come up with the meals and then as the week goes on I use the ideas that correspond to how busy my afternoon/evening is. It's super simple and I can change things as I wish.
Last week I asked DD to plan the meals. I gave her a list of protein foods (choose 1 for dinner) and a list of everything else (salad, veg, potatoes, grains - finish the meal) and she did a great job both in using the foods and in having diverse meals. I assigned the meals to the specific days since I understand time and schedule. This was useful for me on multiple fronts - she was guaranteed to eat the meals (not usually a problem, but she was recovering from a stomach bug and had a low appetite); I got to see her preferences; and I saved myself some time.
Great week with my laundry challenge -- only 4 loads this week, down from our usual 6 or 7. Now to just keep that up for the entire year!
Brought my lunch to work on Thursday and Friday, plus green tea and water. So no trips to the vending machine for me this week -- woo-hoo!!! Also was gifted three bags of cough drops and a bottle of ibuprofen at work so those went in my desk. We're not supposed to distribute stuff like that to students even though they are all adults. But let's be honest...it's going to happen and I would rather they use it then go without. I'm going to stock my desk with some hand sanitizer, too, even though I never use the stuff personally. And I have a coupon for $3 off a bulk pack of Lysol disinfecting wipes so will pick those up when I go to BJ's this week. I'll consider that my contribution to the cause...it's worth it to me if it prevents me from getting sick myself!
Been doing a pretty good job of eating out of the pantry and fridge. Finishing off a package of corn tortillas, the rest of the the oatmeal, the bananas, and most of the oranges so far. Have been snacking on raw almonds and hard boiled eggs. Are cabbage soup from the freezer for dinner last night. Feeling much better about our grocery spending this month so now just need to keep it up and stay focused! I'll make some brown rice today so that I can have it to eat next week for breakfast in place of my usual oatmeal. And my dearly beloved is home for a few days so I'll get on him to bake a few loaves of bread, too.
The cats are still sick with upper respiratory infections and that has made for some not-so-frugal vet visits. There's not much more I can do for them -- like humans, it just needs to run its course. So I've been locking them in the bathroom with me when I shower so that the steam/humidity can help to clear up their breathing passages. And I've been I warming up their Snuggle Safe heating pads in the microwave in the morning so that they can be warm and cozy throughout the day and I don't have of leave the heat turned up when no humans are home.
Why so quiet on this long weekend frugalistas?!? I'm assuming it's not because you are out shopping!!! :~)
Very productive on the frugal home front yesterday. Made a batch of brown rice in the rice cooker. Enough for eight portions, which I separated into containers and stashed in the refrigerator for a week's worth of breakfasts. Dearly beloved baked two loaves of bread. We had some with dinner last night, which was carrot-lentil soup from the freezer. And then I made a batch of yogurt in the crockpot overnight. This morning I set aside a little bit of yogurt to use as starter for the next batch, which I think will be a double batch because we tend to eat a lot of yogurt around here. And dearly beloved also made a gallon on iced tea to drink. Wish I could convince him to switch to water, but iced tea is still cheaper than juice so I'll take it.
The leftover ham steak from last week has been deemed dog food, so I've been cutting up little pieces and adding it to the regular dog food in the mornings and evenings. The dogs are happy and it will save a little on buying their expensive prescription dog food. Don't get me started on what a racket that whole thing is...
Been using the delayed start option on the dishwasher so that it is just finishing the rinse cycle about the time I get up in he the morning. Then I stop the cycle and open up the dishwasher to allow the dishes to air dry. Saves on electricity and adds some humidity to our very dry house. Hung part of a load of laundry on the drying rack yesterday, too, to help with the same issue. I would hang all the laundry, but dearly beloved protests so I hang my stuff and not his.
Surprise snowstorm yesterday evening and through the night so now there is snow to clear. Good thing it's a weekend and we don't need to be anywhere any time soon. My dearly beloved postponed his trip to Vermont until tomorrow. Thankfully that's not screwing up anybody's plans or causing stress.
Made it through the week on a single tank of gas. Will have to fill up today, but will do it when I go to the gym for my Tae Kwon Do class, which means I can seek out the least expensive gas. We hit the gym yesterday, too, and we were able to combine that trip with several other errands. I think we could probably do better in this regard...baby steps, baby steps.
Hope everyone else is having frugal successes!!!
rosarugosa
1-19-14, 5:28pm
Well, DH took a full-time job after working part-time for the past four years. We were excited about what this would do for our budget, but the reality of the job was awful. He came home from his first day totally dejected, with back pain from standing all day and hundreds of cuts all over his hands (he was told he would build up calluses and would get used to it). The work was incredibly boring as well. So we talked it through and decided this was not a good fit for him. He's been through a lot of medical crap in the past two years, and I feel pretty strongly about sparing him any physical pain that can be avoided, and while we would have LIKED the extra money, we didn't really NEED it. Although I think we are frugal lightweights, we have at least been frugal enough to be in the position for DH to turn down this job, which is what we opted to do. So that's a major score in terms of the freedom even a somewhat frugal lifestyle can give you. Luckily his manager at his part-time job (which he really likes) hadn't even taken him off the schedule yet, and she was happy to have him back as though he had never left. :)
Our favorite flannel sheets developed a hole in the fitted sheet. I considered patching it, but the location meant that someone would very likely be laying on top of the patch which would be uncomfortable. Luckily, LL Bean still carries those sheets, so I was able to order just a fitted sheet to match and they're having a 20% off sale if you use your LL Bean visa, so this turned out to be a lot less expensive than it could have been.
I'll be working tomorrow, so no hanging out at the stores for me!
That's an inspiring story about your husband's job, rosarugosa. That may be the best definition of simple living that there is.
So nice you were able to make that decision rosaruga!
We went to watch Tyler run on Friday so that was not a frugal day. But so worth it!
Saturday we went to Meijer and bought a few groceries. Including grape juice for a new wine recipe my DH is trying. Spent about $31. Now we have about $13 left in grocery money until Friday. I can't think of anything we'll need though.
Today we stayed at home. Paid a few bills on-line but otherwise didn't spend any money. Worked on the budget. Did some housework and laundry. Hung several things to dry. I had leftover chili for dinner and DH had grilled ham & cheese. A quiet & frugal day.
My crock pot is getting a workout! Cooked up a batch of chick peas yesterday, separated into small servings and froze for future meals. At the same time soaked some black beans and, after coming home from the gym, put those in the crock pot to cook overnight. Now I've got plenty of black beans for the freezer, too. Felt super motivated yesterday afternoon and made a batch of chocolate tapioca pudding. Put it into single serving containers before refrigerating it. Hopefully this will mean it lasts all week. I've been known to eat the entire batch in one sitting in the past...
Dinner last night was mushroom soup from the freezer and homemade bread. We're eating a loaf of bread a day around here...they are small loaves, but still... So I've started more bread in the bread maker this morning. We just use the bread maker for the dough cycle and then take it out to rise and bake it in the oven. Probably uses more energy that way, but we think it is better bread than what comes out of the bread maker.
It's amazing how much food we have in our pantry and our freezers. Now that I'm developing some focus around this I can see that we don't really need to grocery shop nearly as often as we have been. If I can just get that meal planning thing down that would be fantastic! :D
Other frugals are just the usual stuff...maybe one day soon I'll have something big and exciting to report, but for now it's going to be all about the small stuff. :)
early morning
1-20-14, 1:42pm
Haven't been home much this weekend until today. Didn't spend much money and had a lot of fun - Sat went to an antique show - paid admission but it was a fundraiser for a good cause. Did purchase a few items but spent less than I had allowed for. Sat evening my cousin scored free tickets to the local philharmonic, which performed with a Stones tribute band. Very interesting and fun show. We even got free garage parking (which was nice as the weather was crap and the car would have been snow and ice covered if on the street). Yesterday DD and I helped my DB and DSIL with some paperwork, for which they bought us lunch - and went to my mothers for the evening. Filled up the gas tank on the way home at the cheapest station (2.98 a gallon! cheapest in months!!). Barring something unforeseen, today should be a no drive, no spend day. I will write a few checks but it's a holiday so they won't be going anywhere, and thus I won't count the money as spent until tomorrow, lol.
Bread is baked! I discovered that baby bella mushrooms were on sale at the grocery store. So I stocked up and used my day off to make a huge batch of wild mushroom soup. I already had a box of dried gourmet mushrooms in the panty that were not slated for another use so into the soup they went! Smells so good in my house right now!!! Should be about 20 servings of soup in the end, which means we'll have plenty of quick and easy meals to pull out of the freezer in the future.
Later this week I need to tackle the giant butternut squash in my kitchen. Perhaps that will become soup as well... Now if only I could get motivated enough to make vegetable stock on my own, then I would really be making some frugal pots of soup!!!
rosarugosa
1-20-14, 7:51pm
cdttmm: We've used a modification of this recipe, which sounds like something you might like with the squash. It's from The Gardener's Cottage blog, which I enjoy. I'm not sure if this link will work, so I'm posting the recipe too.
http://thegardenerscottage.blogspot.com/search?q=butternut
2 cups cubed butternut squash
1 small onion diced
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup arborio rice
4 cups vegetable broth
salt, pepper, fresh or dried sage
Roast your butternut squash that's been drizzled with a little olive oil and s&p on a sheetpan in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes or so.
In a heavy saucepan saute the onion in a tablespoon of earth balance til soft then add the butternut squash. Add the arborio rice and thoroughly mix it with veggies. Add the white wine and cook until wine is absorbed. Then add about 1/2 cup of hot broth to the mixture, stir until slowly absorbed. Repeat this until all the broth has been added. The slow stirring is quite medatative. :)
I taste at this point and if it needs adjusting then I add salt and pepper. I garnish with fresh sage and cracked black pepper and serve.
fidgiegirl
1-20-14, 8:23pm
Mmmmm, soup talk . . .
We had a squash soup (http://grumpygranny.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/squeakin-in-battle-winter-squash/) tonight out of some acorn squashes and another winter squash that I don't know the name. Used up that coconut milk, too!!
Finished up a bunch of errands this morning. Not particularly frugal, though we did use gift cards for as much of it as we could, saving $60 at Target and had a Starbucks treat, too, on a GC.
Meals are planned for the week, laundry is folded, I am pooped!! We had a productive weekend, I groomed the dog but I think for the last time in a while. It is really physical, at least it is with squirmy fraidy boy and me with my low skill level - though now I figured out how to better utilize the blades I have, so part of it went a lot better. I had to take a nap when we were done.
Not too much else to report! We did break down and go out to eat this weekend. We've been doing super on that, and my DBiL and DSis had come to help us unload a piece of furniture, so we treated. Speaking of! That's a huge frugal! DH scored us a free oak buffet for our basement project. It was a built-in, and it's beautiful, though it needs a little help with new glass and such. For free, who cares?! We did rent a UHaul cargo van to go get it, so there was a small cost, but so worth it. It will become our wet bar.
rosa: that soup recipe sounds delicious! I've made a roasted butternut squash soup in the past, but never from a recipe that uses arborio rice -- that sounds like a fantastic addition and it just so happens that I have some in the pantry!
cdttmm, I keep a jar of Better than bouillon brand vegetable base in the fridge that I use to make a quick vegetable broth. It's pretty good in a pinch. I found it at Costco, though the grocery store might have it also.
This year I started an allowance. I opened a separate checking account and I have $160.00 going into it every pay day. I also with draw 30.00 cash for a total of 190.00. All I carry in my wallet is a check register to track spending. This is all I get until the next payday. I use this for gas, groceries, hair cuts, shoes, clothes, etc. My re-occurring bills like mortgage, and utilities are paid from my main account. I keep this in a separate wallet that stays at home in my safe. My goal is to not use my credit card for any purchases this year. I will pay cash for everything.
I owe about 28,000.00 on my home. I am attempting to become debt free in two years. I have about $14,000 in credit card bills for a total $42,000.00 in debt. My current mortgage is $230.00 a month. I am going to pay off the smallest credit first. I pay extra against my mortgage but I am going to up this amount
I'm also looking at changing some things to change lifestyle, pay down debt etc. I can't put this much away each payday. (sadly). I'm confused about what you are allowing yourself per pay period though.
Put that rotisserie chicken carcass in the crockpot with chopped celery and carrot and onion and garlic to make a chicken broth.
rosarugosa
1-21-14, 5:42am
The recipe I shared makes a creamy risotto, but I'm sure it can be modified to make a soup.
DH is doing some forensic examinations of our grocery bills and is becoming a finely-tuned comparison shopping machine. Since we usually buy pretty much the same thing every week, he is getting it down to an art form regarding where to shop for what, and how much to buy in bulk--that sweet spot that maximizes discount for bulk purchases, but minimizes wastage from spoilage.
I keep looking for tasty, frugal, and healthy recipes we can now make in our WONDERFUL slow-cooker. Since we both work from 2 p.m. up until 1 a.m. and often don't have a dinner break together, we're finding it much easier and less stressful to do slow-cooker cooking in the morning. Good for marital harmony and our pocketbook!
The recipe I shared makes a creamy risotto, but I'm sure it can be modified to make a soup.
Ahhh...that makes more sense in my brain now! :~)
Same old stuff around here. Been eating down the freezer/pantry. Made some yummy scalloped potatoes yesterday with leftover Christmas ham from the freezer, some cheese from the freezer (bought on sale), and threw in some leftover steamed veggies, too. We wanted to eat out the night before last, but I made homemade waffles instead!
Been spending time at the library. Got some great books and DVDs for the littles.
I am getting ready to do a big grocery shop. I have been putting it off until the sales are good, and this week, they're good! I will try to plan it out and budget well to make the most of our money.
Other than that, we've been trying to repurpose things around the house. I found a basket to use to contain DD's stuffed animals. DH also cut down some foam he had to cover the wheels on DD's bed. We were worried DS would crawl into them and get hurt. The protectors DH found online were made of foam and cost $20! He made his own for free! Makes me chuckle to see him turn frugal as he used to think I was ridiculous! LOL
Accepted some hand-me-down clothes for DS and picked up a few things on clearance, too. When I can kind nice, new items for $2-$3, I buy them. The Goodwill in our area is $2.38 per item unless it is quarter day. And while I have found some great things on quarter day, it's not a sure thing. So when I find new cheaper than used...I jump on it!
Several freebie meals lately! We provided lunch at work for our student volunteers yesterday: pizza and tossed salad. The pizza got scarfed up, but there was a huge bowl of mixed greens leftover along with a platter of sliced bell peppers, cucumbers, mushrooms, and other veggies. The students weren't interested in it so I took it home along with a half dozen dinner rolls and we had a free dinner last night and there was still enough leftover for a meal today. We had our annual professional development day for the spring semester at work today so I had both breakfast and lunch provided as part of that. Tomorrow I'm attending a non-mandatory workshop for faculty and will get an extra $70 for being there. One of my friends is teaching the workshop so I would have gone anyway, but the extra cash is awesome!
Normally I would drive to the gym for yoga on Wednesday night, but I have a conference call tonight so I stopped at the gym and used the treadmill on my way home. Will save a little in gas as a result.
Managed to plan for a single full load of laundry tonight, which means I should be able to get my laundry load down to 3 this week! We were at 6-7 per week for quite a while so this is a major improvement!
Got a call from the speciality vet clinic from when our cat was there back in October. We're getting a $100+ refund for a test that was delayed due to a screw up by the lab.
I think that's it for today!
I had been mulling over getting some kind of jewelry box, but every one I saw was overpriced, poorly designed, and woefully inadequate. I had decided on getting a specialist toolbox for about USD$75, which would be very functional as it had lots of different sized compartments. Not so beautiful, of course, but I was planning on decorating it. (For the past two years, I'd been getting by with a pile of Ziplock baggies--one for bracelets, one for dangle earrings, one for silver necklaces, etc.)
Anyway, I didn't want to spend the money on this toolbox just yet. Lo and behold, I find three old, wooden, letter-paper sized desk drawers next to a dumpster! There was a fourth wooden one, which was larger but magically fit over the top of the three upside down, like a box top. I cleaned them up, lined each one with some padded shelf lining, and arranged my jewelry in them. The larger "cover" tray makes a lovely spot for our cats to perch on and gaze out our bedroom window. Now I can see all my stuff, and keep it safe and organized. It's like I can go shopping in my jewelry box(es) every day now, because I'm seeing stuff that I haven't seen in years, as it was all lost in the pile.
Funnily enough, one of the trays had been lined with a Hebrew gas company calendar page from the 70's!
What a great find, Selah :)
I made it to payday with $3.79 left in grocery money. Yep, here I am back trying to once again reign in the food budget.
We also have $60 left in gas money. That is one tank of gas for DH's jeep. Not sure how that happened but I'll take it lol
We only had a few slices of turkey lunch meat left but instead of buying more to last til pay day I got some pulled pork out of the freezer to use up the remaining hamburger buns for lunches.
We had some shampoo that I wanted to try on clearance at work. There were 4 bottles. It was only 15% off so I was going to wait. But I discovered that Target had 2 different coupons that could be applied to the shampoo. Then I also found a coupon for $5 off a $20 purchase. Well, the shampoo was $5.08 each. So if I bought all 4 bottles I could use the $5 coupon. All in all with the coupons and my discounts I got them for $2.51 each. Not free... but I'm happy.
No buying for the last 2 days. But I did get a massage today. It was long over due and felt sooo good. Hopefully that will be a frugal in helping to keep me healthy.
rosarugosa
1-24-14, 8:35pm
Selah: You are the trash to treasure queen - well done!
Aure: You are so disciplined about reigning in foods costs. I think we're doing a little bit better than last month, but will see at the end of the month when I total up our expenditures. Good score on the shampoo, but only if you like it. Have you tried it yet?
Great job, Kat, Selah, and Azure!
My dearly beloved was supposed to be in NYC the second half of this week, but the snowstorm changed his plans and then, ultimately, other things changed and so I arrived home from work last night to find that he was still home! I was happy he was still here, but I have been putting off grocery shopping because I want to eat up what we have on hand to a greater extent than we usually do. My plan was to buy groceries before he came back from NYC -- he's a bit less excited about the "let's eat interesting meals and not grocery shop" challenge than I am. :D By last night, he had had enough. He asked me to go to the neighborhood store and buy bread ($6 a loaf) and ice cream. I told him that we have plenty to eat and that I was grocery shopping today so there was no need. Oh boy...he was not excited about having to scrounge up something to eat, but ultimately we made a vegetable paella from a dried mix that my mom had given me (I don't normally buy that type of stuff). Dearly beloved got in the spirit and chopped up some peppers we had lingering in the fridge to add to the mix and pan fried a package of tofu, too. It ended up being way too spicy for me to eat -- turns out the peppers he added were HOT peppers, but he enjoyed it. We also ate up a plate of sliced bell peppers that were leftover from salad fixings earlier in the week. Total frugal win. Woo-hoo!!!
I realized mid-week that I forgot to order the prescription dog food from the vet, which means I'll have to figure out a stop gap measure. Fortunately, it's prescription dog food for dental purposes and not for major health issues so if they eat something else for a few days it won't cause problems. (Yes, yes, I know, prescription dog food is not frugal, but it truly seems to make a difference for our three dogs, two of whom seem to be "blessed" with genetically bad doggy teeth.) Hill's makes a dental dog food that you can buy in the regular pet store and this morning I discovered a $5 off coupon for any Hill's pet food attached to the small bag of kitten food we had received from the shelter when we adopted our cat. Score! Of course, the cat doesn't want to eat that food so I've been feeding small amounts of it to the dogs as a treat. Waste not, want not, right?!? :~)
After grocery shopping today, I plan to make a double batch of chocolate tapioca pudding. It went over so well this week that it was gone by Wednesday! Definitely cheaper than the premium ice cream we usually buy (what can I say, we have a weakness for good ice cream!), and probably a bit less unhealthy, too. I'll also make another batch of yogurt, since that has all but disappeared as well. So happy that my plans for reducing the grocery budget seem to be working!!!
Busy, frugal morning in the kitchen here! Baked two loaves of bread, made enough brown rice in the rice cooker for the entire week, started a batch of yogurt in the crock pot (will be finished before I go to bed tonight), and made a double batch of chocolate tapioca pudding, which should be a week's worth of after-dinner treats for the two of us. Woo-hoo!
We have 5+ pounds of quinoa in the pantry so I looked up some recipes for making it into a hot breakfast cereal. Once I finish off the stockpile of brown rice (which I've been eating for breakfast in place of my usual oatmeal), I'll start in on the quinoa. It's going to take several weeks (or months!), but I'm determined to clear out some space in our pantry and stop stockpiling things we don't eat on a regular basis.
Yesterday, I resisted the urge to run errands and then go out a second time to go to the gym. Instead, went to the gym and then went grocery shopping afterwards and made one trip.
What frugal successes have the rest of you had this weekend?
fidgiegirl
1-26-14, 2:32pm
I have some dried beans in the crock pot right now in preparation for a chili later this week. I suppose I wouldn't have needed to cook them twice but I prefer to have my beans overdone than underdone - still mastering the art of the dried bean, I think. I will also pull out a big package of discount chicken from the freezer for this chili as well. It is my fave white chicken chili. (http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2012/01/gluten-free-chicken-chili-with-white.html)
Bought some cloth diapering supplies from CL this morning, but I didn't realize they are all for bigger babies. The bummer about that is that we could have waited to see if we're having a boy or a girl. Oh well, I had committed and didn't want to back out on her. We will be set for later months - now let's cross fingers that we like cloth diapering. ;) I guess worst case scenario is that we resell.
Oh, one more, in doing better meal planning (not at peak efficiency yet, but still . . . ) I remembered that I had a box of throat coat tea tucked away in the back of the cabinet. DH has had an icky throat and likes the tea when he feels this way. So I saved about $5 or $6 on having to buy a new box since we already had plenty. Good thing I took the time to look.
That's about all! Keepin' on keepin' on . . .
rosarugosa
1-26-14, 5:43pm
I completed DH's 401K rollover to a Vanguard IRA. The fees at Vanguard are supposed to be some of the lowest, and since we were rolling over enough to be eligible to buy Admiral shares, the fees were lower still. DH also seems to prefer having the money in a personal IRA rather than leaving it with the former employer. It was safe enough there, but I think he just feels more like it really belongs to him now. :)
He's been working longer hours the past couple of weekends, so Sat night dinners have been simpler since he is the cook. Last night we had pesto walnut raviolis ($1.00 a bag on sale and fed the two of us) and I made a nice salad (which felt free because I always have all the supplies on hand for my lunches). So it was a nice dinner for a lot less money than the cod or haddock or marlin or scallops I might have selected if my chef had more time availability!
We can really use (I can't quite say need) a new set of percale sheets for the warmer weather. I found the set I MUST HAVE from Cuddledown of Maine, but they cost $200. So I'm going to save to buy them with my allowance, and maybe they'll have some kind of sale in the next couple of months. I can take my time since the weather won't be warm anytime soon. I really like nice bedding and I'm willing to pay the price. I've seen some cheaper sets that I like, but these are perfect. I'm not a serial upgrader or into trends, so we'll hopefully enjoy them for a good long time. The lowest price tag isn't always the deciding factor. If I buy the sheets I sort of like, I could end up buying a few sets because I won't be satisfied (I've learned this about myself the expensive way). It will actually be cheaper in the long one to go ahead and buy the set I want.
Packratona!
1-26-14, 8:03pm
From a friend who knows a lot about healthy cooking I picked up the practice to soak the beans for 24 hours at least before cooking. It brings out all the nutrients that soaking them overnight does not. They also cook faster so you can plug in the crockpot, cook in the morning and then add the rest of the ingredients for chili etc. in the afternoon and they will be done for dinner.
Packratona!
1-26-14, 8:04pm
Yum chocolate tapioca. Must try. Do you have a recipe?
Yum chocolate tapioca. Must try. Do you have a recipe?
Yes! Here it is:
2-2/3 cups whole milk
3 tbsp tapioca pearls
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
Heat 2 cups of milk to just below the boiling point. Add the tapioca pearls while stirring with a whisk or fork to keep from sticking. Cook at just below the boiling point for 17 minutes, stirring constantly. Mix 2/3 cup milk, egg, sugar, and cocoa powder in a separate bowl. Slowly add chocolate mixture to tapioca mixture and stir well to combine. Cook another 10 minutes. Let cool -- it will continue to thicken. Makes 6 servings.
SteveinMN
1-27-14, 11:28am
It's easy to not spend money when you never leave the house (well, courtesy of mail order and the Internet, that's not always true, but...). Thank you, polar vortex! >8)
About the only frugal I can think of (besides the usuals) was that DW has been "remodeling" her woman cave (one of our spare bedrooms) and repurposed a cabinet we had just hanging around. She also wanted a chest of drawers, so we found one on craigslist; solid wood, metal drawer glides, in great shape, for $20 and a gallon of fuel and a few cents of Goo-Gone to remove a sticker one of the seller's kids had applied to a drawer. On the trip to pick it up, we got to have a long-overdue visit with some friends in her area, and enjoyed dinner together (they cooked).
Zach and I have been doing some planning for the upcoming birthday season. All of our kids have birthdays about a month apart. We have decided that, for the most part, we are going to build the kids' gifts this year. Since we have a family closet for our clothing in the basement, Zach is going to build our oldest daughter and American Girl dollhouse into one of the closets in the girls' room. It should cost about $50, if that, and she will love it. Her birthday is the day before our new baby is due, so Zach is probably going to build it this weekend to make sure it is done in time. Grandpa is getting her an acoustic guitar and my mom will contribute to Cheyenne's savings for her SCUBA certification. She has been saving for two years and has all but $50 of the money. I'm actually really proud of her. She will be 10 years old. Saving for two years for something awesome like that is a big accomplishment, I think.
my mom will contribute to Cheyenne's savings for her SCUBA certification. She has been saving for two years and has all but $50 of the money. I'm actually really proud of her. She will be 10 years old. Saving for two years for something awesome like that is a big accomplishment, I think.
Wow! That is super cool! As a certified SCUBA diver, I can say that I would have loved to have started much earlier in life. So great that Cheyenne has maintained interest for such a long period of time at such a young age. If you ever have any questions about diving, please don't hesitate to ask!
Teacher Terry
1-27-14, 5:54pm
Fidgiegirl, you will save a ton of money by using cloth diapers. When I had my first we used disposables and it cost a fortune. For the next 2 on the advice of a friend we used cloth diapers. My babies got much fewer diaper rashes with the cloth versus the disposable ones. As long as you have a washer/dryer I do not think it is that much work.
Just the usual frugals here today. Brought my lunch to work (leftovers) along with green tea to drink. We'll be having leftovers for dinner, too. Have two overripe bananas that will become banana bread tomorrow. Coordinated with my dearly beloved so that we will both go to the gym at the same time tonight and can carpool. Feeding some past-its-prime chicken to the dogs with their dog food tonight. They'll be happy and it will stretch the dog food until the order comes in on Friday. Not much else to report!
Packratona!
1-27-14, 9:24pm
Yes! Here it is:
2-2/3 cups whole milk
3 tbsp tapioca pearls
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
Heat 2 cups of milk to just below the boiling point. Add the tapioca pearls while stirring with a whisk or fork to keep from sticking. Cook at just below the boiling point for 17 minutes, stirring constantly. Mix 2/3 cup milk, egg, sugar, and cocoa powder in a separate bowl. Slowly add chocolate mixture to tapioca mixture and stir well to combine. Cook another 10 minutes. Let cool -- it will continue to thicken. Makes 6 servings.
Thank you. Now have to figure out where to purchase tapioca around here.
Packratona!
1-27-14, 9:31pm
I have been wanting a slow cooker for a long time. DH has been wanting a deep fryer for a long time. However, since neither of these items were "necessary," we'd dithered about getting either one. Of all things, our friend recently told us about a wondrous machine that works both as a slow cooker AND a deep fryer. We found one yesterday, then negotiated the price down by about $25 USD, then used our store discount "club card" to get another 7% off.
Our friend also told us how to buy "Number 6" beef (in Israel each cut of beef is assigned a number, rather than a name), so I can start making yummy slow-cooker stews. This is great news, as DH and I are both working evenings now, and frequently both of us are working random hours between 2 and midnight, so neither of us has time to cook anything, much less eat at the same time. With this new machine, I can do the "cooking" in the morning, and then things will be ready for a quick plating whenever either of us gets a break.
Just out of curiousity, how do you manage to live frugally in Israel? I hear it is tough to survive there economically. Oh, duh just noticed your link for your blog. Will read.
Proud of my dearly beloved who is really trying to be more frugal these days. He's been making a pitcher of green tea every few days of have on hand as his drink of choice. So much cheaper than the orange juice and carrot juice that he was drinking. And he's baking two loaves of bread today since we finished off the bread I baked the other day. He also willing ate the leftover vegetable paella that was just too spicy for me to eat. Now he just needs to remember to eat the leftover chicken soup in the fridge before he leaves for NYC to work for the next week. The eating down of the pantry and fridge mission continues!
We filled the car with diesel last night -- stopping at the least expensive station -- and then got an extra 10 cents per gallon off with a loyalty card.
I skipped the yoga class I was planning to attend this morning because I feel like I'm getting a sore throat. Stayed home and slept in and then gargled with warm salt water when I woke up. So saved a bit on gas from not driving and hopefully will minimize whatever illness I might be developing. Would hate to miss work, and therefore the associated pay, because I was sick.
early morning
1-28-14, 3:34pm
DD and i have the flu. Which you would think would keep us from spending money and thus frugal, but no.... between my trip to Dr. and Pharmacy..$65. And that's with good insurance. DD will probably get better at about the same rate, without spending for Dr. and Tamiflu. (Now if she'd just have made a selection of insurance plans earlier.... lol) Then DH went into "helper" mode - which is really sweet, but has resulted in multiple (and not really needed) trips out for bananas, soups, tissues, cough syrups, etc. Most of which we had, but not apparently in sufficient quantities for "Dr. DH". Oh well, it is all stuff we will use. Since I have nothing to contribute frugally I will just second what TeacherTerry said about cloth diapers. Saves money, better for the environment, not hard as long as you have a washer and dryer. Both my kids were cloth diapered, and I seldom used the dryer even, so I'd say if you have a washer and a good place to put a drying rack, you're still good to go! And no, I was not a stay-at-home mom.
Gardenarian
1-28-14, 4:01pm
DH has been doing a good job selling stuff on Craigslist. We decided not to have a garage sale but have been getting good response to ads - even to things like toys. And he finally decided to get rid of his 500+ airplane model collection (all unassembled :-/
So, making space and making money! Most of the stuff was in the back of our large and ugly laundry room. I'm going to use the freed up space as my office, as it is the quietest room in the house, and it has a door. This will give me space to work on my book, which maybe someday will make a few pennies...and gives me a lot of pleasure.
Right now, less is definitely more!
I've been doing really well with the coupons lately. I got 8 really nice ink pens for work for a total of 24 cents tax.
Two of my employees also work at the local gas station. They've been saving the coupons from any Sunday papers that don't sell and giving them to me. I got 2 sets last week and 6 sets this week! I think I'll put together a little goodie bag of freebies for each of them to say thank you. By the way, the papers are just going into the trash at the end of the night so it isn't any big deal for them to save them for me.
I just realized today that I qualified for a reward with my Rite Aid card that I had never claimed. I chose a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant that I think we would all enjoy trying. We have to spend $37.50 to use it but if necessary, we'll bring home lots of leftovers. Anyway you look at it, $12.50 is pretty cheap for dinner out.
I continue to shop at several stores each week, working on getting the best deals possible, and stockpiling things I know we'll use. Last week it was things like graham crackers, gold fish crackers, and peanuts. I also got 4 tubes of tooth paste for 24 cents tax and 16 rolls of bath tissue for 86 cents.
We had a ton of jalapeno peppers left over from the dinner we did Sunday evening. They were simply too spicy for the group we had and didn't get used. I picked up 5 lbs of tomatoes this morning and dh canned 24 pints of sauce. Not a drop of it will be wasted. We've been eating the leftover rice, chips and salsa and bread pudding.
I was SOOOO tempted to buy a hot cup of coffee while out running errands this morning but decided to wait and enjoy two free cups of coffee at home.
early morning: hope you and your DD are feeling better!
bke: nice job with the coupons, as always!
Got a bill from my dentist in the mail for a whopping $7 (so bummed I no longer have that insurance plan -- it was really good!) and called to pay it by phone rather than mail them a check. Saved the price of a stamp! :D
Had breakfast and lunch provided at work yesterday. It's the start of the semester so we've been having a week-long open house in our office with bagels and juice for breakfast. The juice (which is cheap, nasty stuff IMO) always get polished off, but there are always extra bagels (also far from gourmet, but at least edible) so breakfast for me! Lunch was offered at an open house for one of our student organizations so I was able to bring the lunch I packed home and will eat it today. There was a lot of leftover food from lunch, too, so at the end of the day I took home a huge container of tortilla chips because nobody else wanted them. We'll eat them with corn chowder from the freezer or make a pile of nachos with them. Not the most healthful of foods, but we are generally pretty health conscious when it comes to eating so I don't get too worried about it.
Very pleased to have finally finished off the apple butter we had in the freezer. Been eating a lot of toast (from homemade breads, of course) with peanut butter and apple butter. So now I'll move on to the strawberry jam we received from our neighbors. Slowly but surely the pantry and freezer will get eaten down!!!
Still feeling under the weather so no early morning gym visit for me yesterday or today. Saves on gas, but I'd rather spend the money on gas and feel great than save the money and have a cold. :(
I went to the dollar store on the way to pick ds up from school and used some of those coupons I love so much-haha. This time I bought six eight-load containers of laundry soap. Out of pocket cost: 36 cents!
I also spent $2.00 on a couple of small gift bags for the girls I mentioned yesterday. I filled them each with several useful full things that I've gotten for free. I hope they appreciate my strange thank you gift.
early morning
1-30-14, 8:00pm
We are feeling better, thanks, cdttmm. I went back to work today even! With, of course, my lunch, water, tea, coffee, and medication from home, lol. And I have a actual frugal - in the form of clean laundry, hanging about the house...
bke - great job - you are an inspiration!
Did my end of the month tally and spent soooooo much on food. $800. for our family of 4, but we have multiple freezers full of food. I went through the receipts and it did include $150 at Sams for things like nuts, laundry detergent and bottled water, we have well water we can't drink.
Also to give credit we usually spend way more than that. My goal is to get it lower next month and keep eating out of the freezers. We did great with not eating out, going to dinner once with a gift card so my OOP was $12.00 and I took the kids to lunch on a cold day off school, $30.00.
There also has been very little to no extra spending. Was able to sock a lot into emergency savings this month. Hoping to do the same or better next month.
Just an aside: I used disposable diapers for my first until I discovered cloth, just didn't occur to me to use them. Than finished that kid on cloth and the second used cloth. Second potty trained really fast. I also bought some disposables to have around for babysitters or overnight trips. Saved a fortune and was not really a big hassle in my opinion. I would highly recommend.
Thanks early morning!
We did our big shopping trip of the week last night. We had dinner out-eating early enough to get lunch prices and drinking free hot tea instead of paying for soda. I'm not sure how much we saved but we only spent $23 with tip for the 3 of us.
I picked up a ream of computer paper at Staples while we were out. After the rebate, it will cost me 29 cents.
We are re-doing the menu for work at the moment. I print it up on my computer saving us a ton of money vs. a professional printer.
We're putting a nice selection of salads on the menu for this summer and needed some dishes to create a nice presentation. We got very lucky and found 12 plates for $15 something at Target last night. Dh said it would have cost around $100 to order something similar through our normal supplier. Dh plated up a sample this morning and the plates are the perfect size.
The plates were marked 2 different prices, a difference of 50 cents. I pointed it out to the cashier and he gave them all to me for the lower price. I saved about $4.00 this way.
Dh and I have finally decided on the dollar amount we want to have saved before we list the restaurant with a realtor. Its going to take a few years to reach our goal I'm sure. I love the fact that I have something to shoot for-it keeps me all the more frugal. We are currently about 1/5 of the way to our goal. I don't have a wall chart but I have always kept a ledger with debt reductions. Now its time for a ledger with increasing dollar amounts and interest paid to us instead of to someone else.
Are there any great, new inspiring blogs out there that pertain to reaching financial goals?
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