My Frugal Week

Although Monday was a holiday this past week, I was scheduled to work every day, but then inclement weather came and school was cancelled for two days. Ugh. This next week I have three days scheduled, so we will see what happens. 
Good news for us, we won a free steak dinner from Fresh & Low this week. There was enough there to split it between the both of us and it was delicious. 

This week I also won a contest from Kroger and won $25 worth of free groceries. They applied the balance to my Kroger card and although we've not been there yet, I'll post about it when we do go. 
This week I worked on saving money on our prescription drugs. I don't order them all from the same place as some places offer better savings. 
It is hard to beat the 90 day prescription drugs for $7.50 from Publix, so we have some there. Another RX I  get from Food City, but learned that Walmart will beat their price and save me $15, so I will make the switch this week. 

Food Lion has Oscar Meyer beef hot dogs on sale for $1.99 this week when you buy five. So, I stopped in there on Friday and bought five. 
Food City has Hunt's pasta sauce on sale for 69¢ each when you buy ten. So, I stopped in there on Friday and bought ten. 
We stopped in at the bread outlet and stocked up on bread and hot dog buns for the upcoming week. 

Payday came this week and my check was actually correct and included those missed days from last month. So, all the bills were paid this week. My car registration is also due at the end of March, so I went ahead and paid it too. 
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.

Frugal Friday ~ 2-14-2020

Good morning to all my frugal readers. I hope you've had a great week. 
On Monday I received a call to sub, which I was grateful for since I missed three days last week. 
The rain here has not let up though and on Monday students were let out at noon due to more flash flooding.  School was cancelled for Tuesday also, so I missed another day of work. 
On Monday we went to town to buy a pair of jumper cables. My daughter's car had a dead battery and since someone stole my Dad's battery charger, we didn't have one. So, we went and bought a new set.  

We also bought five packages of Royal ready to eat rice priced at $1.88. We used an Ibotta rebate for $1.50 off and paid only 38¢ each. Ibotta let us use the rebate five times. 
This week I earned a $10 Amazon gift card from Microsoft Rewards. 

On Wednesday I subbed in a classroom with no microwave, so I brought my Crock-Pot Lunch Crock to heat my lunch during the day. 

Family movie night this week consisted of homemade pizza and popcorn. We also watched the film The Blind Side, which is a family favorite. 

Since I had extra time this week I decided to work in my sewing room.
My daughter picked up a pair of jeans in her size recently, but someone hemmed them and she needed them to be longer. 
So, while I was off work this week I took my seam ripper to them and undid the hem. Now they are long enough for her to wear. 
She has been going through some of her inventory and getting rid of anything that hasn't sold. 
She gave me two dresses that I cut up for the material to make other things. On Thursday I used some of the material from one dress, which I upcycled into a cloth pad. 
I used my 2019 Susan Branch calendar and turned the pages into envelopes. 

I took the presser foot and plate off my sewing machine and cleaned out all the lint and dust and oiled the machine. Taking care of my equipment helps it last longer, which saves me money. 

After all of that was done, I ended up making three cloth pads. 
The one on top has Minions and Curious George.  The middle one used to be part of the dress. 

I also cleaned up and organized a little in there this week. 

How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.

Are Your Family’s Grocery Expenses Thrifty or Liberal?

How can you figure out if your family’s grocery expenses are reasonable for the size of your family?

Every month, the  U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) releases four budgets, which results in a food purchase formula with four price ranges: 

Thrifty Plan, Low-Cost Plan, Moderate-Cost Plan and Liberal Plan, and these figures are updated monthly.

The U.S.D.A. has been doing this for years based on what Americans really eat and based on accepted nutrition recommendations.

Here is the latest chart for December 2019:

Using the December 2019 chart, with my family, I could expect to spend $75.90 per week or $328.70 a month on the “Thrifty” food plan.

But based on my records, I’m actually spending about $250 a month for two people in my home, which averages out to $125 a month per person. 

Now, how do we manage such a low grocery bill?

For starters we have a lot of frugal tips in our toolbox such as drinking water, and making tea or lemonade and koolaid to cut down on expensive soda pop. (I do keep Sprite on hand for medicinal purposes)

We make home baked cakes instead of commercially made ones, oatmeal made from old fashioned oats rather than instant packets. 

We shop the Crash and Burn sections of the grocery stores and will buy food with the yellow mark down stickers if it fits within my budget. 

We eat meatless meals, such as Bean & Cheese Enchiladas, or homemade Veggie Burgers, or Red Beans & Rice. 

We eat leftovers or reinvent them into a new dish. For example, we turned leftover mashed potatoes into Potato Pancakes.

We make soups, which can be very economical depending on what ingredients you use. 

We shop at discount grocery stores such as United Grocery Outlet, Save a Lot, and Aldi. 

We look for and buy discounted groceries at all the places we shop including the flea market. 

We peruse the sale ads online and make a list of items on sale and then stock up on those. We keep a price book to check prices. 

Another way you can save money on food is by using grocery rebate apps like Ibotta, Checkout 51, Dosh, and Coupons.com. Just Google the grocery store app and read about them and do your research first.

We re-purpose food scraps to make other things like vegetable, chicken, or beef broth. 

We utilize The Pantry Principle, which you can read about here. We keep a well stocked pantry of food bought at the lowest price and we cook from scratch.

We search for recipes that are cost friendly. We scour yard sales, used book stores, and flea markets for economical cookbooks. 

One online resource you can use is the online cookbook located here:  Recipes and Tips for Frugal Healthy Meals. 

There are multiple ways you can reduce your grocery budget and I've only scratched the surface here. 

Your way of saving on groceries may contain other ideas I've not mentioned here such as growing some of your food in a garden. 

Let's share ideas with each other. 

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.

Frugal Friday 2-7-2020

This week was going to be a good one financially as I was scheduled to work every day. Then on Tuesday the announcement came that school would be closed for the rest of the week due to illness, unfortunately. 
It then started raining on Tuesday and we received a months worth of rain in two days. Other school systems around us were closing because of all the flash flooding. I'm positive that school would have been called off anyway due to all the road closures. 

On Thursday we ran a few errands. My daughter wanted to coupon this week, so we did. 
We went to Publix where we bought multiple packages of Kotex for 50¢  per package. 

We picked up two bottles of Herbal Essence for 57¢ each. 

We also picked up multiple packages of Equal sweetener for free. We won't use those, so we donated them to The Little Free Pantry.  
You can see them here in the lower left hand of the photo.   
We also stopped at Walmart and found a box of Crackers for 58¢, one container of I Can't Believe it's Not Butter for free, and three packages of Cup Noodles Stir Fry Cups for 78¢ each. Ibotta is offering a rebate on those, so they were free.

 

We watched the movie Harriett for our movie night this week. Based on the true story of Harriett Tubman, we both really enjoyed the film. 

Gas is down to $1.88 per gallon here this week!
We went to the bread outlet this week and scored thirty hamburger buns for $1.99. 
I got a new book this week: 

Image Credit

The Berkeley Co-op food book: Eat better and spend less. I've not finished reading it yet, but I like what I see. 

We received multiple freebies this week. 

Yeast & some coupons:

One Bar of Soap:

Stickers from Stickermule:

Cottonelle Wipes from Freeosk:

How was your frugal week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.

My Frugal Week

Last week I didn't post a Frugal Friday blog as I was recovering from the flu. I'm feeling much better than I was then, but still have a lingering cough. 
This week I was able to work three days and made sure to rest the other two days. Of course, I packed lunches and drinks all week. 
We made it to the end of January and I'm happy to report that we did not eat out in January. My daughter also had a successful no spend month. 
This week we ended up pet sitting for a friend. She took Bailey out to eat as a treat when she picked up her dog. 
I had an abundance of oranges this week and made some fresh orange juice. It was delicious and a very rare treat. 
I took a package of hot chocolate mix that we were gifted for Christmas and mixed it up and put it in a pitcher in the fridge. We will drink it better being cold than we would hot. We've been making plenty of hot tea such as echinacea and elderberry as well with the sickness in the house.

We spent $157 on groceries in January, but mostly we ate from the pantry and freezer. We avoided any food waste. For breakfast several morning we served cinnamon raisin bread and blueberry bagels.

We put together a Mary Engelbreit puzzle this week for free entertainment. There was one piece of the puzzle missing if you can tell from the photo. If you look under the arm of the girl in the red sweater you'll see it. Clicking on the photo helps too. 

I sold a couple of items on eBay this week and reused packages for those rather than buy new ones. 

My bangs were getting too long for my taste, so I used my hair cutting scissors and trimmed them. 

We have some cold days and some warm days, so we've only had to turn the heat on an as needed basis. 

What did you do this week to save money?

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.