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 ~

Make Savings a Lifelong Habit

The America Saves.org website has an article today about making savings a lifelong habit. The article is about the lack of savings for Americans aged 65 and older and encourages people younger than 65 to save for their retirement. Here is a piece from the article:

  

These findings only reinforce the message that everyone needs to make saving a lifelong habit. With people living longer, it is more important than ever to start saving for retirement at a young age. 

  Here is a link to the article:  Make Lifelong Savings a Habit 

Earlier this year after reading Ramit Sethi's book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, I automated my savings by following the directions in his book. Ramit says that once your savings "is automated, that money will be shunted from your checking account right into the appropriate account without your even thinking about it" (129). For me, having money automatically deducted from my checking account at the first of the month has helped me to become a more consistent saver. It is something I don't even have to think about anymore as it is done automatically for me. I would recommend reading his book and I would borrow it from the local library.