Weekend Update

Hello to all my frugal friends.  :)
Last weekend I ended up hurting my back while lifting a garbage bag into our county dumpster, so much so that I went to the doctor who prescribed me pain medicine and a muscle relaxer. The pain was rough and while not 100% yet, is better than it was. I ended up working every day this past week even with the pain.
My long term sub job ended on Friday and since Monday is a federal holiday there will be no school. But, I do have a job lined up for Tuesday already. 
My daughter stepped up to the plate for me this week as making dinner was causing the pain to be even worse. We made it through though and did not succumb to any take out food. 
My daughter received her scholarship funds within the last week and created a very detailed budget for every dollar. She moved some of the money into her savings account and will use those funds to pay her monthly car insurance until September when her next scholarship funds come through.  She is very good at managing her money, has no debt, makes sure all her bills are paid on time, and is a whiz with couponing, which saves the whole household money. I'm very grateful for this. 
Friday was payday for me, so I've been going over my budget the last week with a fine tooth comb. I transferred money into both our emergency funds savings account and our "new home" savings account. I have five paydays left until the end of the school year, and I want to make sure that my budget will work based on my income and our expenses during the summer will be as small as possible. 
Our electric bill was down this month to $133 instead of the $200 bill from last month. We've had a mild winter here this year, hardly using any heat, and our bill reflects that. 
Some deals that we were able to get in on this week include:
24 boxes of Barilla pasta for 4¢ each. Here is a video my daughter made about the deal. 

Since we have all this pasta, I'm going to be making a pasta salad for lunches this coming week. I like to combine ranch dressing with Italian dressing for the sauce in my pasta salads, but I am out of ingredients to make my homemade version. 
I do have some Greek dill yogurt dressing that my daughter bought but did not care for, but I think I can substitute it in the pasta salad and disguise it. That will save money over buying ingredients for homemade ranch and I'll be using this dip instead of tossing it, a win-win situation. 
For dinner on Saturday I made soup using up the remainder of a pork roast that I had stored in the freezer, along with carrots, potatoes, onions, and corn. I seasoned it with a bay leaf, Hungarian paprika, Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper. 
Then on Sunday for lunch I thickened the soup with some cornstarch and turned it into a stew for lunch ad served it with bread and butter slices. 

Other frugal things this past week...
- I received a $25 Amazon gift card this week for renewing my Norton antivirus protection last December.  - Picked up a free newspaper at school with the sale ads inside instead of paying 50¢ for one.  - The last three days I've stayed home to rest my back as much as possible, so it has been a no spend weekend. Did not use any of the gas in my car either, so a win-win situation there as well. 
How was your weekend? Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Online Bill Pay

Save Money by Paying Bills Online

I have used online bill pay since March 11, 2011 when my bank sent me an email asking me to sign up for online bill payment and offered me a $50 bonus for registering.  At the time, I signed up just to receive the $50 bonus, but as time went on I continued to use online bill payment because of the convenience and monetary savings.  Eventually, I realized this habit had saved our family a significant amount of money in the past seventeen months.

I did some figuring and broke it down to see how much money I have saved over the past seventeenth months. I currently have twelve bills that I pay every month and one bill that I pay twice a year. 

I wasn’t sure about the cost of a postage stamp since the invention of the Forever Stamp, so I had to check online to make sure that a postage stamp costs 45 cents. 

My checks come from Carousel Checks, since they have always been the least expensive checks for me. I can order only half a box of checks, since one box will last me for years, which is 125 checks for $3.99, which works out to 3¢ per check. 

Cost of Checks 3¢ per check

Cost of Stamps -45¢ per stamp

12 monthly bills would cost me $5.76 per month 

4 bi-yearly bills would cost me $1.92

Yearly Cost $71.04

Total Cost Saved Over 17 Months: $100.08

This amount might not seem significant to some people, but to me $100.08 would go a long way in my budget because every penny I save is a penny I don’t need to earn. It is enough money to pay for at least four of my monthly bills. For many people this number will be significantly higher depending on the number of bills they have each month. 

If your bank charges for online bill pay you can shop around and find a new bank that does not charge for this service. Banks need your business and there are many large reputable banks that offer free online bill pay. Personally, I bank with First Tennessee and have been very pleased with their online bill pay service.

Do you use online bill pay? If so leave a comment and tell us about your experience with online bill pay.

 

Belinda

© Belinda Richardson and Frugal Workshop, 2012.

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”