End of October

I hope all of my readers have had a good week. I worked four out of four days this week. School is out on Friday this week, so today was the end of the work week for me. The students were so excited this week for Halloween. I loved seeing them in their costumes on Thursday. 

Groceries

In September I spent $334.22 on food for our family of three and said I wanted to do better in October. Well, I totaled up everything I spent on groceries this month and it came to $324.37. A difference of close to $10.00. While I definitely wanted to do better than that, I have to say that the kitchen is well stocked right now, so I'm happy with that.  

I left home early this morning to snag a couple of deals that were one day only sales and while supplies last. The first stop was IGA where they were offering milk for $2.99 a gallon, which is about an 85¢ savings. I also picked up some ground chuck priced at $2.99 a pound. I plan on making Tacos and Hamburgers this weekend. 

I also stopped at Fresh n Low for Wampler's pork sausage in the one pound packages for $1.99. I bought five pounds of the sausage and put one in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. They had three carts filled with Crash & Burn items. I bought several things including Bubble Bath for hand washing for 50¢ a bottle, Suave body wash for 75¢ per bottle and several packages of Jello for 40¢.

Ebay

This month I made $13.94 on Ebay sales. I mentioned earlier this month that my sales were down from last month. Seemed to me that people were just not buying. My Dad says people are afraid to spend money right now because they don't know what the future holds, which is certainly understandable. 

Gas

Gas for my car is one of my biggest expenses each month because we live out in the country and have to drive a ways to get most places. In October I spent $169.09 for gas for my car. It was nice to see the price drop this month though. On my first fill up of the month, I paid $3.09 a gallon while the last fill up of the month was $2.62 per gallon. My Dad says it's because of the November elections coming up, but I read an article this week about OPEC, the price of a barrel of oil, and US supplies were the reason the price dropped. Either way, I'm happy that the cost of gas has come down so much, and I hope it stays that way. 

Dryer News

We've been dryer shopping last week and this week. We stopped in at the Habitat for Humanity store to see if they had any dryers, but no luck. We stopped in at a locally owned appliance store and found one for $356. Home Depot has one for $314 as well, which is probably what we will go with, but for now we are still hanging laundry up to dry. Our electric bill was $45 less this month, so we are already seeing a savings there. 

The thing that I noticed about hanging laundry to dry is that, if you save up your laundry for one day or are washing large loads, you can run out of places to hang it fairly quickly. 

I cannot hang our laundry outside to dry here because of my daughter's allergies. We live on forty-one acres of land that is mostly wooded and she is allergic to many of the trees and grasses here along with the pollen and the ragweed count is very high right now. 

S0, allergies are the reason we hang our laundry indoors. I have four sets of chairs back to back with brooms and mops on them and one clothing rack and it can fill up quickly. I hang shirts on hangers and then hang them on the broom sticks to save room. As a result of this, I have been washing smaller loads, which is not the most frugal way to do laundry. We are going dryer shopping again today, so I'll keep you updated on that front. 

That is my end of the month report from here. I hope you've had a good frugal month in your corner of the world.  :)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
Professor Penny Pincher 
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 and beyond.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"