January 2015 frugals

[lessisbest]

Wow-I'm impressed with that chicken usage. We roasted a very small chicken yesterday with vegetables but ate half the chicken. Other half tonight with rice and mushrooms. Maybe I should see if I can get one more meal out of it? DH likes his meat though. Also, I don't have a separate freezer so can't store a lot of frozen broth everytime I roast or boil a chicken. As far as frugal moves, I tallied the majority of expenses by category from this past year and was blown away by how much spent on certain ones. I am embarrassed to say but now know which ones to be more careful about...so that we can retire sooner rather than later.

We ate more roasted vegetables and only a small portion of meat - we tend to fill up on the high-fiber foods - and I also served a small portion of cornbread (also high-fiber). We split one large baked apple for dessert (the apple was free). Over-eating anything is wasting food - loving it doesn't make it any less so. Most people don't have any idea how many servings they need or how many they consume. I only have my refrigerator freezer (no stand-alone freezer), so I have it down to a science when it comes to storing food in there, and my FoodSaver is also a huge help.

[cdttmm]

Happy New Year everyone! And great start on those January frugals!!!

Our big claim to frugal fame over here is technically from December, but I'll share here, nonetheless. Our local grocery store was running a promotion through December 31st that if you bought $500 in gift cards you got a $50 gift card free. Well, that's a very nice 10% return on one's investment, so we each went in and bought $500 in gift cards and got our free $50 gift card. Nice easy way to "make" $100 for about 90 seconds worth of work. Usually we buy groceries out of the joint bank account, but this time around we each just bought the $500 in gift cards from our personal accounts so that we could each use rewards credit cards. This purchase helped push me over the spending limit required to get 50,000 bonus Delta airline miles from my credit card. Woo-hoo! Those 50,000 miles should net me two free airline tickets this summer to travel to my various races, which is equal to about $900 in airfare. Boo-yah!!!

The other frugals are just the usual stuff. Brought my lunch and tea to work today. We're eating leftovers for dinner. And combining our trip to the gym tonight with a necessary errand.

[Azure]

Wow, cdttmm! That is awesome!

[catherine]

This doesn't sound frugal but I went to my local grassfed beef provider and bought $46 worth of soup bones--about 10 lbs worth. I'm hoping I can get maybe 4 gallons of broth from them.

[kimberlyf0]

I'm simmering a soup made with bok choy stalks; I used the leaves in a meal back on the 23rd and the stalks have been sitting in the fridge unused. I added every leftover potato in the house, some carrots, onion and garlic, and some Better than Bullion that we've had since I made a soup at Thanksgiving. It's not something I normally buy so I need to think to use it. (Edited to add that it was a wonderful soup and well-received by the entire family.)

I've decided to track my groceries differently than last year; I'm going to use a notebook to record what I bought and what I paid rather than only keeping track via YNAB. I don't use a price book as we shop mostly for produce and eat local and seasonal foods, but this will still help me, I think. I'm going to broaden my categories in order to simplify things; I'm not going to break down the purchases specifically for smoothies or cycling. I'll have bulk items (grains, etc.), produce, general groceries, and unnecessary groceries. That one is important because it helps me see how the foods we buy but don't really need (canned olives, etc.) affect the overall food budget. Another thing I intend to do this year is track food waste.

[chrissieq]

Happy New Year all! Frugals so far - no post Christmas sales; went to lunch with former co-workers yesterday and ate at home ahead of time with the plan to get a cup of tea while visiting but ended up just chatting; walked to library, post office and to the lunch so no use of the car yesterday; have eaten all meals at home but for one trip out with family over the holiday; had a discussion with DH about buying nothing new this year and he seems to be on board; planned to go to Michael's for some yarn and remembered DD's stash stored in my basement and was able to find what I needed there.

We did cut our food budget by $100 per month - I was using excess grocery money as kind of a "slush fund" as in "well, there is still some money in the grocery budget - sure let's grab a meal out" - I think this will help us find those extra $$ for savings or at least more purposeful spending.

[cdttmm]

Making chick peas in the crock pot today. Got two free tea bags as samples yesterday when I stopped at the grocery store. Keeping the heat at 57 degrees in the house, down from 58 degrees. Doing a little meal planning, grocery list making, coupon organizing. Going to bake some English Muffin toasting bread later today or tomorrow. Need to get moving and make a giant pot of cabbage soup today, too.

[danna]

Jan 02..03, 2015
My big frugal back in the fall, not sure if I mentioned it then but, it has worked out really well so far this winter. I have never really liked home frozen veggies I get the texture just okay not great. So when carrots, celery root, onions, beets, red & green cabbage and zucchini were cheap in the fall….I grated or very thinly sliced in the processor and froze in snack size baggies …no blanching and easy to squeeze the air out.
Also, froze puree cauliflower, pumpkin, squash in these small bags,…..
I have been using these in soups, stews, spaghetti sauce, in ground beef , beans & rice dishes etc. this not replace the veggies served with a meal but, it sure has upped my veggie intake at a great price, taste and convenience.

1.--yesterday I made a pot of soup using some chicken broth that was in the freezer and lots of these veggies and had it with leftover rice today I had it with some pasta that had been served in a cream sauce.
Great Lunchs.....and supper tonight was Black Beans (from freezer and rice on nachcos with cheese and guacamole and enough for tomorrow.
2.--in the last two days I have done a total inventory of all food stuffs in the cupboards, 2 freezers, and fridge and now know what I have too much of (that is several things) and what items I need to fill out meals,

3. --made a weekly plan for meals, Dd and I usually eat together but, have decided that the
----two days a week that I go out in the afternoons we will just do our own thing (we are finding that we are missing some of the foods that one of us likes and the other doesn’t for me that would be more seafood).
--Two nights we will cook a larger from scratch meal and then the
--other two nights we will have meals from leftovers or something vegetarian
--one night a Breakfast for Dinner night.

4. Made Christmas gift tags from my Christmas cards I do have a lot but, now get a lot less cards so the stockpile will dwindle………I have not bought a gift tag in twenty years.

5. No Spend today and yesterday was only about $5.00 worth of food.

[Tiam]

Making chick peas in the crock pot today. Got two free tea bags as samples yesterday when I stopped at the grocery store. Keeping the heat at 57 degrees in the house, down from 58 degrees. Doing a little meal planning, grocery list making, coupon organizing. Going to bake some English Muffin toasting bread later today or tomorrow. Need to get moving and make a giant pot of cabbage soup today, too.

Well, you ARE inspiring CD. I've been a bit of a weeny this last two weeks when the temps took a dip. But I've been telling myself to toughen up. I already wear 3 layers: two shirts and a sweater and long john bottoms and a pair of pants and heavy duty socks. But I still am tempted to heat the house more. The last two days I've been making myself wrap in a blanket and while it isn't as cozy as my footsy heater, it's cheaper!

May I ask: Are you making the englishmuffin toasting bread from scratch? Does that require yeast rising? And if so, how is it warm enough to rise?

[Azure]

I had a no spend day today. I was supposed to go to the credit union to deposit my check but the roads were pretty nasty this morning. So I had a no drive day too. Of course, that was cancelled out by the driving of my youngest later in the day.

I finally got around to signing up for direct deposit for my paycheck. Since I had not worked in about 20 years I wanted to actually see a real paycheck lol But I guess the thrill is gone. Direct deposit will save some running aroundj.

Spent some time figuring out meals for the next week. Using ingredients already on hand it looks like I will only have to buy a few things this week.

One son is back at school now. The other goes back tomorrow. I am going to miss them like crazy, of course, but the water, food & electric bills should be dropping lol