December Frugal's...last one for 2015!!

[freshstart]

Freshstart: It's Reny's and it's a really cool store. They have everything from clothing to hardware to housewares to groceries to Maine souvenirs, and their prices are great.

you did great! I want one of those here!

[cindycindy]

Bought some holiday wrap for next year at 50 cents a roll at 50% off at Dollar Store. 75% off holiday stuff at CVS. Picked up some holiday hand lotions for next year for office exchange and some candy gift boxes for some family visits this New Years Eve weekend. Holding off for grocery shopping as a grocery store near us does a big can-can sale in January where I stock up on olive oil, cooking oil, canned beans and detergent, but did stock up on some boneless chicken at $1.79 per pound as well as some store made sausage to have on New Years' Day with DS and DDIL. Have had a very spendy month. Stayed pretty much within budget for Christmas gifts, but due to not planning, did not have a lot of home made meals during week at home.

[rosarugosa]

Nice scores, Cindy! Sounds like you'll be starting out the New Year with some good homemade meals.

[gettingthere]

I have a few for the month:
*My drying rack broke but I looked through my dad's old toolbox that he recently passed on to me and found a screw that was just the right size. Good as new!
*I couldn't get my seat belt to latch the other day. I took a flashlight and looked inside and realized that a tissue had somehow gotten squished down in there and torn to shreds. 30 minutes and some random thin pieces of metal from around the house and I got it out. I'm sure a mechanic would have charged me a ton.
*Went on some day trips with the family this month. Packed sandwiches, snacks and drinks so there were no food expenses.
*I've been trying to eat a few meatless dinners a week. Lentil tacos, homemade pizza and pasta/veggie combos have become family favorites and are definitely keeping grocery costs down.
*My phone's car charger also broke this month (this has been quite the month for things breaking!). I looked through my glove box and found an old charger with a USB port. I'm able to hook my new(er) phone into that but I just have to bring my wall charger back and forth from the car.
*Made cream of turkey soup tonight with leftover Thanksgiving turkey and homemade stock from the freezer and the last bit of some cream cheese in the fridge.
*I picked up a part time job every other Sunday. It's about a 45 minute drive from my house but I get paid $200 for 4 hours so it's worth it. Plus the job is right near a friend's house so my daughter goes to play with my friend's daughter while I'm working and I get in quick visits with my friend afterward.
*Made homemade granola for a few Christmas gifts this year. I've already had a call asking for more
*For my daughter's teacher's gift, my daughter made her a coaster during kid's craft time at our local Michael's ($2), I got a mug on clearance and a box of tea on sale/combined with a coupon. Much less expensive than previous years' teacher gifts.
*This one wasn't on purpose but we couldn't get our act together to do Christmas cards this year. I thought about doing New Year's cards but realized that by the time we pay for the cards and stamps we're spending close to $200. It's just not in the budget this year.

By the way, I LOVE Reny's. We're about 10 miles from one and we always get great bargains when we go. We did a little Christmas shopping there this year.

[rosarugosa]

Gettingthere: We do a few meatless meals each week too, usually eggs, homemade pizza, quesadilla's, entree salad ( sometimes we include chicken or fish on the salad, but sometimes not). Good work with the repairs instead of hiring/replacing.
You are lucky to live near a Reny's, I think. I'll admit that I cannot resist shopping when I'm in Portland, but since Reny's opened, I can scratch that shopping itch affordably and pick up some practical things we really need for reasonable money. So Reny's actually turns out to be a frugal for me. I used to always pick up mustard at Stonewall Kitchen in Portland, but last year I discovered Raye's at Reny's, which is just as delicious for less than half the price. They seem to carry a fair number of locally-made products, and I like that. I've also read that they're a good employer with lots of loyal, long-term employees, so that's the kind of company we want to keep in business!

[SteveinMN]

I got my wish for New Year's; we're staying home. Usually we visit friends of ours who host family and friends -- lots of people and babies and pets coming and going. It's kind of a zoo, really, and it calls for shopping for and preparing a dish to share with the group and getting by with a lot of other carb-y processed food that we're better off not eating. The hosts like to make an afternoon and a night and a morning of it (more carb-y processed food and a long lingering goodbye). It may sound as if I don't like these people; I do, for the most part (we don't discuss politics and now I can discuss babies). But a solid 24 hours of being cooped up in their house... DW wasn't up for that much partying this year, either.

So instead we're staying home. On NYE I'm cooking a steak, sweet potatoes (as steak fries), and broccoli, all of which was on sale at the local market. On NY Day I'm cooking a soup called ozōni, traditionally served in Japan for New Year's. I had to buy a few ingredients, but I had most of them in the house already. So it will be a low-cost low-energy low-drama New Year's.

Lots of no-drive days lately. Still cooking lots of meals out of a freezer stocked with sale items. My mom is emptying her basement freezer and is giving it to us because she just doesn't get to the food in it fast enough. I think we will, so we're happy to take it and it comes at the best price (it's also new enough to not be an energy hog). And it will help with my goal of reducing our food expenses 10% next year.

Last year we started replacing the 40-plus-year-old windows in our house. The first window came with a bit of sticker shock, but we chalked that up to it being by far the biggest window in the house. But even with two estimates for the next windows to be replaced, sticker shock is setting in. The payback on these windows will be far longer than we ever anticipate being in this house. And most of the windows are still in decent shape. Taking cost out of these new windows will leave us with windows that aren't be appreciably better than the ones we have. So I think we're putting the brakes on a purchase that would have cost us around $10 grand over the next few years and just will replace the windows that fail.

On to a more frugal 2016!

[cdttmm]

Been a mostly frugal week over here. Sure, I splurged on a few items at the grocery store for my SIL and BIL's visit earlier this week, but it's all food that will get eaten so it's not a huge deal. Been doing lots of home cooking as a result. Made a huge pot of carrot-lentil soup with carrots I picked for free from the rooftop farm in NYC on Christmas Eve day. Then made a crockpot full of black beans from dry beans. Now we've got plenty of freezer meals or elements of freezer meals ready to go. I also baked mint chocolate cupcakes and realized that although they are good, I much prefer the denser nature of muffins to cupcakes. So in the future muffins will be on the agenda when the urge to bake something chocolate-y presents itself. Last but not least, I tried my hand at making sot suppe (sweet soup), a Norwegian holiday favorite AKA fruit soup. It is essentially dried fruit made into a soup-like concoction. It came out pretty good, but nobody else was all that excited about eating it, so I won't be making that on a regular basis.

We had our first snowstorm of the season and cleared the snow ourselves. Can't believe we used to pay someone to do that job. Although, the sheet of ice that covered the snow made it a real nightmare to clear so maybe it would have been worth it to pay someone else just this once!

Did splurge a bit this week and joined the YMCA so that I can swim with the Masters swim team. Fortunately, this particular Y is very close to work and practice is 6:30am-7:30am MWF and I teach at 8:00am. So there's real additional driving involved during the semester, just a need to get up earlier and be super organized. I've been to two practices already and am very happy to be back in the water so the expense will be well worth it!

Tallied our grocery/household goods expenses for 2015. Sheesh. Need to do better in 2016. But at least now I know the numbers and can make decisions and changes based on that information. We'll be eating a lot more beans and rice this next year; I'll be baking loaves of English muffin bread for toasting instead of buying pre-made bagels; and we'll be making more of an effort to grow and preserve our own food. I'd like to get the annual number down by 20%, but I'd be happy with a 15% reduction. I would have said 10%, but that just seems too easy and is a goal that allows a high degree of laziness on my part.

[rodeosweetheart]

Last year we started replacing the 40-plus-year-old windows in our house. The first window came with a bit of sticker shock, but we chalked that up to it being by far the biggest window in the house. But even with two estimates for the next windows to be replaced, sticker shock is setting in. The payback on these windows will be far longer than we ever anticipate being in this house. And most of the windows are still in decent shape. Taking cost out of these new windows will leave us with windows that aren't be appreciably better than the ones we have. So I think we're putting the brakes on a purchase that would have cost us around $10 grand over the next few years and just will replace the windows that fail.

On to a more frugal 2016!

This is a very wise decision. I investigated this thoroughly after buying that SC house with mid century modern metal windows. Here is a great article about the wisdom of your decision:

http://thecraftsmanblog.com/replacem...he-real-story/

I thought this idea intriguing, for the Northern climates:

http://www.indowwindows.com/storm-wi...aign=Affiliate

[Williamsmith]

This is a very wise decision. I investigated this thoroughly after buying that SC house with mid century modern metal windows. Here is a great article about the wisdom of your decision:

http://thecraftsmanblog.com/replacem...he-real-story/

I thought this idea intriguing, for the Northern climates:

http://www.indowwindows.com/storm-wi...aign=Affiliate

A great example of placing variable value on advice depending on the obvious bias of the source. Frugality is making people earn your money instead of just throwing it away. Nice website for an alternative to sending off perfectly good technology to the dump.

[nswef]

My husband made indoor storms for the living room, dining room and 2 kitchen windows. I like to have the ability to open a window or two in the winter so none in the bedroom and bath. However, they have worked very well. He made a simple pine frame of 1 x 2s and I covered them with the hair dryer plastic. We screwed them in and they make a huge difference in our comfort level. They are hardly noticeable, easy to install and easy to remove in the spring. They are in addition to the outdoor aluminum storm windows. Our hand person keeps pushing replacement, but I just can't see doing that. We did get replacement windows in the basement as those two were rotten clear through. They look fine.