Started out the month by turning on the heat. It was 64 degrees inside and I didn't have to. So no frugal start for me, but it felt good.
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Started out the month by turning on the heat. It was 64 degrees inside and I didn't have to. So no frugal start for me, but it felt good.
Jeppy: We've turned on our heat the last 3 mornings, so you can feel frugal by comparison. We just let it cycle briefly to warm up the house, and then turned the thermostat back down, so at least we are doing it mindfully and only as much as needed.
My first Consumer Cellular bill is less than expected. They are giving me a new customer discount that offsets the taxes and fees.
Our heat has been on the last two nights. We heat with a heat pump, so it is economical…relatively…compared to the otherwise electric baseboard heat.
Hubby and I had our monthly budget meeting yesterday. We looked at our current net worth statement, our financial goals, and the budget analysis. The latter included going over a list of frugal ideas to try, and determining what worked last month and what we want to try this month. It also looks at current expenses total for 2021 vs. Current budget total for 2021. We made a few adjustments to the budget in our favour.
We have company coming for 9 days over Canadian Thanksgiving (next weekend). She is Asian. So yesterday I made three small batches of different types of kimchi, plus some spicy pickled radish.
Today I’m making applesauce and vegetable stock. I’m also cleaning out my upstairs fridge freezer, which has entirely too much stuff in it. We are going to a friend’s for supper and games night.
This looks like a great agenda for a monthly budget meeting. I am going to propose this agenda to DH for us.Quote:
Originally Posted by RedSpruce
Frugal start is refusing to turn on the heat and it is FREEZING here and I am contemplating moving to Florida, which would not be frugal.
Yep, Tybee, Husband is COLD! I have the window in the bedroom open at night and it's been down to 42 for a few mornings. But we do not have the AC on!
Not only would it not be frugal, but Ron DeSantis would be your governor, just saying. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Tybee
Ew.
Still running air conditioning here.
No heat or AC. It’s 67 when we get up and 75 by the afternoon.
Actually, the temps are a bit different but we've never had AC in this house and we haven't turned the heat on yet. I'm loving the fall weather!Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
I solved our heating problem during the day…I cook. Not frugal, as I’m sure the stove uses a lot more electricity than the heat pump! However, I’m still busy canning etc.
Today’s Frugal things were making cranberry jelly, making apple peeling and core jelly, and roasting tomatoes for the freezer. I have red currants straining to make jelly tomorrow morning.
Tyvee, I learned about budget meetings from Hope and Larry Ware’s YouTube channel, Under The Median. The key to getting buy-in from my reluctant Hubby was emphasizing we were on the same team and working as a team together! It didn’t hurt that I made sure to sweeten him up with a mid-morning dessert/snack for the meeting. :laff::laff::laff:
I cooked in the oven yesterday and it warmed up the house.
I actually made the red currant jelly last evening, along with some failed strawberry jam, which is now strawberry syrup. :( I’m not sure what’s up today. I hope to do some baking, but we’ll see.
Been regularly bringing lunch to work and the savings are adding up.
RedSpruce: I think warming the house as a by-product of cooking is frugal. Now if you were just running the stove to heat your house, that might not be the most cost-effective way to do it.
Thanks rosarugosa! :)
Today I switched to baking. I made 24 blueberry oatmeal muffins and 30 two-bite brownies. I have yogurt making in my Instant Pot. It’s almost finished.
I’ve been a bit tired today, so .I’ve spent a lot of time resting. Also a lot of time texting with family and friends.
It's fairly nice weather here so no heat or ac needed. Windows open at the moment. Have not run the dryer for about a month as I've been able to do laundry between the rains. Second child has moved back home for a bit to retrain for a new career (hoping it works out for them!!). As we have been supporting them for a l o n g while, we are hoping this will save us some money and help them rebuild their battered self-confidence. I just hope the savings isn't outweighed by mental health "costs". So far, so good, but it's early days. Trying HARD to break my habit of buying what we want, when we want it. As we don't want much it's not too bad - and mostly food centered- but I have gotten out of the habit of watching costs closely. We are eating much healthier and I don't want to go back to rice and beans, pasta, and other inexpensive foods, but do want to make sure we're getting as much bang for our bucks as we can, within reason. Do have some mini-frugals: pulled some fall silk flowers/leaves from my yard-sale stash and made a quick arrangement this AM for DH to take to the cemetery. He goes every other month, when we have to go to town for a bi-monthly med apt. Saves the cost of new flowers, either silk or real. Brought home the old arrangement to clean and refresh for another time. Coordinated other errands along today's route, and was able to fill the gas tank for 30 cents a gallon less than our local stations were this morning. So not much, but something! :- )
Bought some stuff at the last auction that included our outgoing furniture & stuff: a small spring scale, a drawer full of kitchen tools ($3, it has 3 pieces I want), rakes and a dethatching tool. There's an extra leaf rake in there, but other than that, the garden equipment pieces are all things I'd contemplated buying and hadn't. The spring scale is my only indulgence. I'll use it with a basket of viny house plants.
I'm picking up the small items of mine that didn't sell and probably dropping off a marble piece for making candy, which I don't ever do these days, and the piece of an apple ladder we used to hang our pots & pans for a long time.
If she agrees and I can take those, then the yard will be cleaner. Yay!
My Instant Pot yogurt turned out watery, so I’m straining the liquid out of it. Out of a gallon of reconstituted skim milk I will get 2 quarts of whey and 2 quarts of yogurt. I’m not sure it’s worth it if I have to go through the extra step and time of straining it. Plus trying to figure out what to do with the whey. The Instant Pot costs more than the yogurt maker to run, but it also makes twice the amount of yogurt. But the yogurt is lower quality in my opinion. It also takes almost twice as long to set. Hmmm…
Early morning, I hope the career change is successful for your child. My son is actually doing the same.
I am pondering how much to spend making copies of my presentation for the next Board of Health meeting. Some of the graphs would look best in color - which is 35 cents per page at my local copy place, whereas black and white is 10 cents per page. I also do not know if I should estimate high or low on the number of people who will attend.
thanks, tt - hope it goes well for your son, also! Did a little routine kitchen maintenance this AM - ran vinegar through both sides of our coffee pot, hoping to keep it fit and working for a long time! The used vinegar then gets put into the toilet bowl to remove lime. Hot water used to clear coffee machine afterwards is poured into kitchen drain to keep it from greasing up. I don't use a lot of really hot water in the kitchen sink, so that's always a concern of mine. We've never had a problem with the kitchen sink drain, and I aim to keep it that way! I try to do this every month, as life w/o a coffee pot is dark, indeed! :~) Of course I have a tiny gas burner and a French press, and always keep coarsely ground coffee in the freezer - so we are actually covered for coffee in case of a power outage. In addition, I have a small back-up pot, plus a Keurig that I had in my office before I retired - so I guess I'm pretty safe in the coffee machine area, also! I would like a hand-crank grinder, though. Just in case. :|( I count coffee as a frugal, because it's cheaper than therapy!
Oh dear--I guess I'd have to grind beans with a mortar and pestle. Though I think I have a string-operated chopper around here somewhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by early morning
While I love my coffee, I'm not an aficionado and will do instant in a pinch. When I need my coffee, it's better than nothing. :)
Can you do two slides per page, double sided? I'm assuming if it's a presentation, they can follow along with a smaller version. Can the Board of Health store it on their site, where people can access it after the fact?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
Also, my DD recently gave me millennial insider knowledge that if you call it a Powerpoint presentation, it will date you. It's now called a "slide deck" So, beware! :)
I'm with you! Back-ups for coffee are essential! Over the past few years I went from a Keurig, to a Cuisinart auto-grind/drip. When we moved up here, I switched to French press, which I love.Quote:
Originally Posted by early morning
I actually figured out the cost per cup of coffee the other day, because I hate to spend money on the good stuff (Green Mountain) but I also don't like the cheap stuff. So it turns out the good stuff is .27 an 8-oz mug, if I buy it NOT on sale at about $10/13oz, and the cheap stuff is .17 a mug.
However, I often find Green Mountain on sale for $6 so that brings it to roughly the same price as the cheap stuff. In any case, a bargain!
My other coffee-frugal is I never throw any away. The French press makes 3-4 cups/mugs. If it gets cold, I nuke it. it's fine. I don't waste any.
Forget about instant. Blecchh.
Yeah, I get that a lot - LOL. Normal mornings coffee is ground pour-thru single cup. Weekends is coffee press. Instant, again, is in a pinch. lolQuote:
Originally Posted by catherine
Oh, and like you, we don't waste any coffee. Leftover goes in the fridge to be reheated whenever.
Portorico.com Delicious coffee- I like the Organic Fair Trade French Mexican and get it ground to one notch past Melita. They go on sale a few times a year and you save $1 or $2 a pound. They ship free if you order $75 worth.
Is there a secret to French Press? I tried it a few times ( not an expensive press) and wasn't thrilled...messy, got cold fast and I hate microwaving coffee...will drink it cold rather than reheat it.
This is my french press. Actually keeps the coffee hot for quite a while.
https://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Vacuu...75016209&psc=1
I can't find mine on Amazon but it's this style: it's thermal, but not as thermal as Thermos
https://www.amazon.com/Large-French-...garden&sr=1-17
nswef: One of the things that I do that gives me great tasting French press coffee is I use an electric kettle with pre-sets to heat the water to the right temperature. You shouldn't use boiling water for coffee. It doesn't seem messy to me--I usually give it a couple of quick stirs before plunging to break the vacuum that sometimes is caused by the grounds floating to the top. And I think it's a lot easier to clean than more sophisticated machines and pots. I just rinse out the plunger, and the pot is very easy to wash.
You brought up a good point about the coffee--I try to buy shade-grown coffee, but it's not easy to find. Sometimes Costco has it, but it doesn't always. I once ordered it from a company, but I didn't like the coffee enough to start a subscription. Maybe I'll look around more.
AC was off all day, for the first time since the end of April, though I did run a fan in my office for a couple hours this afternoon.
hopefully it will be at least a couple of weeks before we have to turn the heat on in the early mornings.
new refrigerator is an Energy Saver, estimates $53/year. That will be nice.
Is anyone else trying to delay purchases in the hopes that we move from inflation to deflation down the road? Or are you too concerned about shortages and not being able to get what you want?
We usually buy Kirkland Colombian whole beans, which are currently at 17.99/3lbs, but we've been trying some others recently. There is a shade-grown bird friendly line at our local Wild Birds Unlimited that is good, and we got some excellent David Lynch organic beans at a local shop. We tried a couple of different types from some roasters in the Berkshires while we were out there. These boutique beans seem to run in the 15.00 - 18.00 range for 12 oz bags, so a bit pricey. Most recently, we got a 2-lb bag or organic dark roast from the Vermont Coffee Company at Costco. It was 15.99 for 2 lbs, so a very affordable luxury compared to some of the boutique beans we've been using. I don't know if it's going to be a regular at Costco, so maybe I should pick up some more while they have it.
Jeppy: my concerns definitely run more to shortages, although I'll admit that I haven't made any significant changes in my shopping patterns other than trying to make a Costco run every other month instead of monthly.
I don't have a scarcity mentality in general. My expectations are that moving forward, I'll get what I need when I can afford it when it comes to the big stuff like roof repair. When it comes to the small stuff, I'm trying to think of a purchase I plan to make that will be driven by thoughts of inflation v. deflation and nothing comes to mind. My DH's truck will probably have to be replaced at some point, but I think, again, we'll wait until that time comes. When the thing breaks down for good, we'll have to replace it, no matter what the economic trends are looking like.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
Kind of ... neither?Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
I expect "market corrections" on prices for things like used houses and cars, for which scarcity drove up the price and for which ready availability (getting chips installed in cars, people finishing their remodels, etc.) will either cause prices to go back to where they were or just flatten the curve.
I don't expect deflation. Materials costs may go down but labor costs are going to go up. Restaurant workers and personal care assistants and truckers and school bus drivers and many other jobs are going to remain empty until wages increase enough to make it economically viable for people to take those jobs. If you want to pay just $1200 and no benefits for a job that requires a worker to pay $1200 in day care, there's little point to them going to work.
[ETA] I also expect many prices to follow the "for your convenience" model (which never is for your convenience). If people were willing to pay X for something at its highest price, why not find out how much extra they'll pay under less stressful circumstances? As 9/11 did, the pandemic will provide cover for companies no longer doing things they wanted to quit doing anyway.
We're being strategic in buying before shortages make things unavailable or just too expensive. I've read a couple of stories about paint shortages looming; painting is one of the home improvement tasks that hasn't yet fallen off our list for this year so we're thinking of getting the base paint now and tinting it once we're ready to actually put the stuff on the walls. I will be buying ahead on meat as I shop for groceries, as I did before the pandemic, mostly to pick up sales rather than avoid shortages. We may get our holiday turkey early, though our preferred vendors offer frozen turkeys only seasonally and I don't want to freeze a big fresh turkey on my own. But when I see a sale on beef roasts or chickens, I'll buy extra and stash them in the freezer.
I have a stash of some toilet paper but could use more, but have not wanted to buy at current prices. There are other similar things.
Got it. Well, as far as TP goes, I have been so thankful for my "price protected" subscription of it. I would love to see higher meat prices incentivize DH to eat less of it and more plants.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
I generally don't pay too much attention to prices--I'm always amused at friends who parse gas prices to the penny. If something seems outrageously expensive, I'll do a workaround. Aside from my obscene property taxes, my basic needs are very reasonable--housing, fuel, food. I'm having to pay more attention to food spoilage since I seem to be eating less of it. I'm not sure why you're keen on restricting your husband's meat-eating, but the longest-lived men in my family were inveterate carnivores, if that's any consolation.
I'm not against his eating meat at all. It's what he does and that's fine. I'd like to see a little more diversity in his diet, that's all.Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneV2.0