Saturday ~ 9-26-2015

Nothing major to report this week. I worked three days and felt achy for most of the week, so I was grateful to have two days off this week. 

We went to the Goodwill store here to look around Friday evening. We picked up a few things for 99¢ for the kitchen, and a couple of shirts for my daughter. 

We went to Publix also to get in on the buy one get one free Welch's grape juice deal. I also picked up a free crescent roll and free cinnamon roll from Pillsbury using coupons from that site. No other grocery shopping this week. 

I've been busy cleaning, laundry, and taking off garbage again, which are my usual Saturday chores. 

Dinner tonight so far is green beans with potatoes, and carrots. That is as far as I have planned. 

Finally, I would like to share a few useful links with you today...

Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals - This is an oldie, but a goodie. I used to have a hard copy of this, but the publication is online now and offers several made from scratch recipes to help people stretch their budgets. 

Better Times Cookbook - I've shared this link before. Bob Waldrop runs this site. I have the newspaper that he printed years ago, but the information is all online now and also offers made from scratch recipes to help people save money on many things. 

I hope you all have a great Saturday. 

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

This Week's Grocery Sale Ads

This week I checked out the grocery store ads online instead of buying a newspaper, which saved me 50¢ in the process. If I had been subbing at the middle school I would have gotten a free newspaper, but I was at a different school with no newspapers. 

Here is the list I initially made. I will check out these deals as time and energy permit, I will check for coupons, and make my decisions as needed. I've already been to IGA, which was a local stop after dropping dd off at school, and I plan on going to Food Lion tonight. I'll go to the other stores on Saturday while my daughter is volunteering. 

IGA

Ground chuck $2.99 pound

When I arrived at the meat counter, I noticed the ground beef was on sale for $2.59 per pound, and looked about the same as the ground chuck. Since I planned on making taco meat/chili with this, I went with the cheaper meat and will simply drain it after I am done browning it. 

They also had some good deals on spices. If you recall, I went through a lot of spices this summer and ran out of a few of them, so I have been looking to replenish those. While I was shopping at Walmart last week, I noticed the small jars that used to sell for 50¢ are now $1.00, so I did not buy any of those. While shopping at IGA today I noticed they had large jars for $1.00, so I picked up several of those. 

While I was there I noticed that they had one pound bags of white rice for 59¢, so I bought ten bags. Now I know that brown rice is better for you nutritionally, but when you're truly hungry you're not going to care if your rice is white or brown. :)

IGA has two pound bags of carrots on sale for $1.29 this week. I am still enjoying the two pound bags of carrots I bought last week at Aldi for 49¢. That is the power of shopping the sales. 

Save A Lot

Onions 99¢ pound
Grapes 99¢ pound

Wouldn't you know it that the moment I buy onions for $1.50 they go on sale the very next week for 99¢. That is Murphy's Law for you.  

Cooke's

Sugar (4 pounds) $1.49
20 pounds potatoes $3.49
Ground Chuck $2.99 pound
Pork Sirloin $1.79 pound
Boston Butt Roast $1.29 pound

I could not find the sugar anywhere in the store today, so didn't buy any, but when I was leaving I saw they had it outside the store. Such an odd place to put it. The had two heads of lettuce on the reduced rack for 99¢, so I bought that. I also bought four cans of black olives for 89¢ each. And they had the large jar of strawberry preserves for $2.59, a good price for that item, much better than the smaller jar for $2.27 at Food Lion this week. 

Food Lion

Country Style Pork Ribs $1.49 pound
Food Lion Strawberry Preserves $2.27
Hanover Beans 89¢ (coupons)

The Country Style Pork Ribs were a good buy, so I bought two packages of those. The strawberry preserves did not have the size in the sale ad and were for the small jar, so I did not buy those. I can find a better deal on those elsewhere. I bought four cans of the beans, dark red kidney beans, and had coupons for those. They ended up costing 62¢ each. 

Publix

Tuttorrosso Tomatoes (28 ounces) B1G1F (coupon)
Campbell's Soups - $1.00 (coupon)
Mt. Olive Dill Chips - B1G1F
Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Raisin Bread B1G1F

The Tuttorrosso Tomatoes were a good buy, and I had four coupons for 55¢ off three cans, so I bought twelve cans and paid 82¢ per can. I bought ten cans of Campbell's soup, mostly for cooking, like cream of potato and beefy mushroom. The coupon was for $1.00 off five cans and I had two coupons, so 80¢ each.  

I am wiped out this evening. I worked hard today cleaning, doing garbage, and getting groceries and carrying things up and down the stairs. This was my first big paycheck of the year and I stocked up a lot on food this weekend. I finally feel like my pantry is filling up again. I am ready to call it a night. I hope you all have a good evening.  :)

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

Sunday ~ 9-13-2015

Since we were able to buy cream cheese this past week I decided to make some  Tuna Pate today for lunches this week. This is one of our favorite tried and true recipes, but it had been a long time since I've made it because cream cheese has been close to $2.00 here for a long time. I would rather just do without than pay that price. 

I also decided to make some Ranch Dressing today since we were out and I had on the ingredients on hand to make some. 

I also cut up some honeydew melon that had finally ripened. And I cut up some carrots and potatoes to make for dinner today. We'll have these with some field peas and cornbread. 

And there was a bowl of scraps for the compost pile. 

Driveway Maintenance

Where we live we have to be able to do regular maintenance on our gravel driveway. We have hard rains here and live on a hill, so the water runs off and makes deep trenches in the driveway unless it is regularly maintained. My Dad used to take care of this for me, but moved to Illinois last year and I've not had anyone to help me with this until today.  

My BIL Jody and his friend George came over on Saturday to help me with this project. It looks so much better now and they even mowed the grass for me. This would have cost me a lot of money to pay someone to do this for me, but they did it for nothing, although I did give them money for the diesel they used.  

Here is a photo of George on the tractor.

As usual on Sundays, I've been getting ready for the work week ahead. 

How has your weekend been?

Belinda

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

Saturday Update ~ 9-12-15

This past week I ended up working three days and have three days scheduled for next week as well. I actually missed a call to sub on Thursday because I was away from my phone for about a minute, which was disappointing. I spent Friday night and Saturday doing the usual chores and errands for the week. Cleaning, laundry, garbage, et cetera. Here are some other things that went on this week:

Grocery Shopping

On Thursday since I wasn't subbing, I went to town to do some grocery shopping. I've already made a post about what I bought at Food City, but that was not the only place I shopped that day. I also went to Cooke's because they have the best Crash & Burn section in town these days. 

Cooke's had Red Gold Chili Beans in the C&B section for 45¢ each. Now I normally cook my beans from dried beans, but chili beans are one of the few canned beans I will buy because they have a lovely sauce with them that thickens my chili. And if I can find them on sale, all the better. Finding these for 45¢ was a great deal! I bought 24 cans, which is enough to last me quite a while. 

Another place I stopped at was Aldi because they have two pound bags of carrots on sale this week for 49¢, which is another great price! I bought eight bags of carrots along with one bag of red onions for 99¢. While I was at Cooke's I also bought two - three pound bags of yellow onions for $1.49. I have not been able to find them lately for 99¢, so this was the best deal and I have been out for a couple of weeks. Once I got home they went into pantyhose and were placed in the pantry. I do this so the air circulates around them, which helps them last longer and saves money.  

Free Food

My friend that gives me free food from time to time gave me 15 packages of a store brand macaroni and cheese dinner. Since we do not care for these very much, I took the macaroni out of the boxes and put it into a large plastic container. We were completely out of elbow macaroni, so this was perfect. I figured this would be a good way to use this up into things we like and will eat. Here is a photo of the container with the 15 pounds of macaroni inside. 

Target Clearance Find

I found this griddle on clearance at Target last spring for $18.16, which was marked down from $25.99. I finally pulled it out of the box one day this week when we were ravenous after school. I wanted something I could make quickly and this fit the bill. I made several grilled cheese sandwiches in about half the time it would have taken in a skillet on the stove. The next day I used it to fry canned potatoes and hot dogs. I even grilled the buns on the griddle. 

Twice this week we had hamburgers for dinner. I found a package of Angus beef patties marked down on Thursday, so I made hamburgers for dinner on Thursday and Friday night. On Friday I made fried potatoes to go with them. 

Freebies 

This week in the mail I received a free sample of Nivea lotion and a free tire gauge from Skoll. 

How was your week? 

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

Food City

I just wanted to make a quick blog post about Food City, which has bought out Bi-Lo in our area and is currently in the process of switching over this month. Sale ads come out on Wednesday, and Bi-Lo has stopped putting out ads, so I went online and checked out the Food Lion sale ad in Harrison, Tennessee, which is between here and Chattanooga.  

This week they are having a sale on certain items where if you buy 10 they will take $5.00 off your grocery bill. By using this promotion I was able to buy pinto beans for 69¢ a pound, cream cheese for 99¢, butter for $2.49, and canned vegetables for 39¢. In all I spent $54.34 and had $20.00 taken off my order for this promotion. 

They also had the 48 ounce bottles of vegetable oil for $1.99. 

Here is my order on the conveyor belt... 

I bought four pounds of butter...

2 bottles of vegetable oil...

14 blocks of cream cheese since it has been a long time since we found it for 99¢... 

10 pounds of Pinto Beans for $6.90, which is a great price!  

And I bought some Honeycrisp Apples for $1.69 a pound, a good price for HoneyCrisp.  :)

I also bought 12 cans of vegetables, which you can see on the conveyor belt, but I had not brought them in the house yet. 

The sale ad says their prices will be lower than Bi-Lo prices, but they do not offer double coupons, which Bi-Lo had always done. So time will tell as to whether or not we save money there, but I am pleased with today's purchases and will definitely be checking their sale ad each week. 

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

Saturday

I'm grateful because I was able to work all five days this week. We have a three day weekend since Monday is Labor Day, and after that I have three days scheduled for next week so far. 

On Friday night I started getting ready for next week. I went to the outside freezer and pulled the last of my breakfast burritos out and stored them in the inside freezer. There are enough to last all week long. I also pulled out two loaves of bread as we used up what we had in the house. 

I also pulled out some flour tortillas and Flat Out wraps to use as pizza bases this weekend. Freezing food to serve at a later time saves me a great deal of money. 

This pizza was made with a Flat Out Wrap, which we bought for free with coupons, a squirt of ketchup for the sauce (free with coupons), and cheese we obtained free as well. Now, we do not always get free cheese, but this mozzarella cheese was free. Otherwise, we are sometimes able to get cheese with coupons. Anyway, these cost me nothing to make, and feeding my family in the most affordable way is what I am after these days.

All breakfasts, lunches, and dinners were eaten at home this week in order to save money. Dinner on Friday was pizza using marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and some Flat Out wraps as the base. 

There is a company that always donate bottles of water to all the schools in our county. This year the middle school has taken to stocking the teacher's refrigerators with these water bottles, so whenever I sub there I am able to get a free water bottle for the day. This week I was able to get a free bottle of water on two different days. A very nice little perk that trickles down to the subs. I love it.  :)

Fresh N' Low is having a one day sale today and they have Oscar Meyer hot dogs on sale for 99¢ while supplies last, which means no rain checks. I had ten coupons for 75¢ off two packages, so I went early this morning, as soon as they were about to open, and bought 20 packages, which cost me 62¢ each after the coupons. I also picked up some cheese, butter, mayonnaise, and buttermilk while I was there. 

The last time I bought hotdogs way in May when Piggly Wiggly had them on sale for 99¢. We had just finished using up those hotdogs about two weeks ago, so I know that those lasted me for three months. At that rate these should last for six months, although sometimes my daughter will eat one for breakfast. Fine tuning this process by figuring out how much we consume and how often these go on sale will help me save money.  Adjustments to our budgets and goals are constantly needed to continue to live frugally. 

Last night I put Field Peas on to soak to make for dinner today. I've already made some cornbread, and I plan on making fried potatoes to go along with that for dinner tonight. 

What is on your menu for tonight?

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