Tuesday

What's for Dinner

Last night I put some soup beans (Great Northern) on to soak overnight. This morning I put them in the electric pressure cooker with an onion, and some rainbow carrots. I also cut up the last of a ham that I had in the refrigerator along with the last little bit of vegetable broth I had lingering in the fridge. I added some turnip greens and made some cornbread as well. 

Frugal Living Forum

Have you ever read the Frugal Living section on your local Craigslist website? It reminds me of the old misc.consumers.frugal-living forum where every other post was a troll. Not a lot of gems to be found there. But one I found had to do with free courses at openculture.com, which has 800 MOOCs & Certificate Courses, all free. There are courses on finance, teaching, computers, etc., and even one on Laura Ingalls Wilder. 


Pharmacy News

The last couple of months I had noticed when I went to pay for our prescriptions, they were costing more than usual. Last night I finally sat down to figure out what was going on with them. Turns out I was charged $10 in February, March, and they were going to charge me in April for an rx for my daughter that should have been a $0 copay. I went Monday afternoon to pick up our prescriptions for this month and picked up a $20 refund they owed me. It definitely  pays to stay on top of these things and make sure you are not being overcharged. 

In other pharmacy news, our local Fresh & Low just put in a pharmacy in the local grocery store. They are offering an incentive to customers who  fill or transfer a prescription. The incentive is a $20 gift card to Fresh & Low. I have an rx for Vitamin D and the pharmacy I normally use charges $7 for one pill. I decided to transfer the rx for that to the new Fresh & Low pharmacy. Turned out to be a real savings for me. I was able to pick up 3 pills for $6.00 and I earned a $20 gift card for groceries. Neat!

I also had a coupon for a free package of bacon when you spend $20, so I was able to use that as well for some free bacon. I see BLTs on our menu sometime soon. I also picked up cheese, beans, corn, tamales, vegetables, potatoes, sour cream, bologna, and olives.  

My grocery total came to just over $32, but after using the $20 card and a coupon, I only had to pay a little over $9. Here are just some of the groceries I picked up today:

Lunch Meat

I read an article on another blog recently where the author said if you were trying to save money you should not buy lunch meat.  I'm sorry, but some saving money tips like that do not take into consideration sales and or coupons. I recently bought name brand bologna in one pound packages for $1.40. It might not be the healthiest dinner, but I have been known to fry bologna for dinner when times are tough and $1.40 for a pound of bologna is definitely cheaper than a pound of ground beef these days. 

How was your day today?


Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.

My Frugal Week

Frugal things we did this week include...

- Rescued a laundry basket from the garbage, just had to duct tape it to fix it using the technique I blogged about here. 

- Bought six bottles of BBQ Sauce, which were 99¢, but had $1.00 coupons attached, so free to me. 

- Bought my daughter's prom ticket at the reduced rate instead of waiting until the price goes up later. Savings was $10.00. I did the same thing with her yearbook this year. I bought hers at the reduced rate in the fall instead of waiting until spring when the price was higher. 

- Took off our own garbage as usual, which cost us nothing. I would love to delegate this to an outside service, but they are very hard to find here and I would end up paying for this service as well.   So, for now, I will continue to do this myself for free. 

- I started the work week with no days to work, but by the end of the week I had worked every day. I count my blessings for this and many other things. 

- I was gifted with multiple boxes of gluten free macaroni and cheese, which we will try and then decide if we like or not. If we don't like this, I will donate to the food pantry. I was also given one bag of onions, and one container of butter. 

How was your week?

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.

Free Rabies Vaccines

Big Kitty, napping

Mozzie & Big Kitty (napping again)

The Animal Care Center in Ooltewah was giving free rabies vaccines to animals on Wednesday, so we took Big Kitty & Mozzie to get their free shots. This was a savings of $12 each, so we saved $24 on our visit today. 

We found out about the clinic during Spring Break from a flyer on the bulletin board at the Samaritan Center. It always pays to check out the local bulletin boards in your area.  And you can even Google, "free rabies vaccines" and may come up with a free clinic in your area. 

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.

Neat Find

My daughter and I just happened to be at the right place at the right time today. We were driving by and just happened to see a local store employee tossing out these beautiful Easter flowers. These are flowers with the bulbs attached, which can be planted and will come back year after year. There were also two Hyacinths, which are my favorite flower. I smell them every time I go in the grocery store at this time of year. I'm so tickled over this find.  :) 

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.

The Samaritan Center Thrift Store

One of the places we visited on Spring Break was The Samaritan Center in Ooltewah. They have recently done a big remodel there and this is what you see when you first walk in now. The left side is the Thrift store, where prices are a little higher than the Clearance center on the right side. 

I love the Clearance center! Clothes are only 50¢ each there and one day they had a 50% off sale from that, so 25¢ each. I bought several things including forks. Somehow a lot of our forks have went missing, so I bought about a dozen and now we have plenty. I also bought several dishes for less than 50¢ each. The prices in the clearance section are really low. 

If you are interested, they can be found online here: 

The Samaritan Center

Or, on Facebook here:

The Samaritan Center on Facebook

Happy Thrifting!

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.