Frugal Friday

Welcome to Friday! It's been a rainy week here with rain from Hurricane Zeta. 
Here is a free calendar for November 2020 if you need one. 

Graphic Garden

In My Frugal Kitchen
Did you know that Aldi is now doing curb side pickup for groceries? We were thrilled when we heard the news as their canned goods, produce, dairy, etc., are a good price here. This week we picked up apples, oranges, milk, fresh vegetables for salads, and one case of pears. 
This will definitely save us money over shopping online at Amazon and Walmart pickup due to Aldi's lower prices. We've been spending more in the grocery category since the pandemic began because we've stayed out of the stores. So now we will be able to save money by doing this curb side pickup at Aldi. 
We also did curbside pickups at Walmart, Ace Hardware, Lowes, Publix, and Panera Bread. 
Bailey has a Panera Bread card that she received for her birthday last year, so we did a mobile order and had it put in our trunk with our other items. We ordered a six pack of bagels  and still have money left on the gift card. 

I've always wanted one of these dish drying mats, but wouldn't spend the money for one. We found one in the yard sale stuff Bailey was able to pick up for free. I washed it and now have one in my kitchen for when my dish drainer is full and I need one. I usually use a dish towel for this, but the dish mat works better. 
I made a refreshing dish this week with 1 can of applesauce, an eight ounce can of crushed pineapple, and a sprinkling of dry pineapple Jell-O powder. It was good and refreshing and I'll be making it again. 
Camllia Beans has a really good article about beans here.  This article mentions soup beans, which my family calls them,  and their Appalachian history. 

Its deep simplicity and accessibility means you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone from the foothills of Eastern Kentucky to the hamlets of West Virginia who doesn’t have a spin on the dish passed down through their family, and after your first bite, you’ll be more than happy to snack on a big pot of leftover soup beans for days.

We will be starting the month of November stocked up on groceries for the month. Bailey is planning on having a no spend November.  I will be planning on paying the bills only and buying one Christmas present. 
Blog News
I wanted to send a Thank you to Deborah G. Thank you very much. I tried to email you, but it wouldn't go through for me. 
Saving on Entertainment
If you're a fan of the tv show M*A*S*H, you can find the entire series for free right here. 
The new season of This Is Us started this week with a two hour show, which is what we watched for movie night this week. 
In Other News
The Minority Mindset reports that 28% of Americans say they will be spending less on holiday gifts this year. 

BaileyAlexInc

We’ve been slowly cleaning out spaces and reorganizing during quarantine. While cleaning out the China cabinet recently Bailey pulled out a Pottery Barn pasta set we found at a yard sale a few years ago. 
She asked me if I wanted to sell it since it’s been in the cabinet all this time. She explained that it was Pottery Barn and might go for around $100. I told her if she could get that much for it to go ahead and sell it. It only took a couple weeks and sold for full price on Mercari this week.

Two free deodorant samples came in the mail this week. 
Tomorrow is Halloween and since we live so far off the beaten path, we have never had any trick or treaters here, so there is no need for us to buy candy for that reason. There are multiple Trunk or Treats going on here tomorrow if parents and children want to participate in those. 
If I had a child who was of the trick or treating age I would just plan on getting some candy myself and having a super fun day of things they wanted to do at home rather than risk being exposed to Coronavirus. 
Bailey read a tip on TikTok where a lady made ghosts out of tissue paper, wrapped a few candies for the head and tied them at the neck, drew on a face and hid them around her yard, hanging some from trees, and had her children hunt them like they would do Easter eggs. 
In my experience, I've found that weighing the odds when it comes to risking exposure to Covid  is a personal matter. I am willing to take the risk and mask up to go to the doctor if I need to, but I wouldn't be willing to do that for candy on Halloween if that makes sense. Your mileage may vary and that is perfectly OK. :)
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Would you like to support my site? 

 If you are encouraged by what you read here, please consider supporting this site via one of these ways. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop. 

This means that any items you place in your cart and purchase within 24 hours after going to Amazon from one of my links means I will earn a small percentage from that sale. So, if you're going to be making a purchase from Amazon this week, I would certainly appreciate it if you would help me by going through my Amazon link to support my site. 

 2. My PayPal Tip Jar

Frugal Friday

Welcome to Friday!
In My Frugal Kitchen
We did not buy any groceries this week, but used what we have here other than one birthday dinner. And we stretched those leftovers over several different meals this week. 
Michigan State University has three budget minded cookbooks on their site, if you're interested. 
Budget Saving Recipes
Stretching Food Dollars: Meal Planning Hints And Budget-Wise Recipes [1972]
Stretching Food Dollars: Meal Planning Hints And Budget-Wise Recipes [1973]
Balancing Money and Menus

Meals This Week
Broccoli & Carrot SoupGrilled Chicken, Mexican Rice, Grilled VegetablesGrilled Salmon, Brown Rice, Stir Fried VegetablesVegetable Lasagna & SaladJapanese DinnerLeftovers

Frugal Entertainment
Saturday was Bailey's 23rd birthday and she wanted to have a Harry Potter movie marathon, so that is what we watched this week for entertainment. We also ordered and had delivered her favorite Japanese food and I made her a birthday cake to celebrate. 
Other Frugal Things

We received a free bottle of gummie vitamins this week from FGBG. 
We made another batch of homemade sanitizing wipes using coffee filters. If you find that one wipe does not work for you, simply double them up as two wipes together is stronger and only costs two cents. 
Taco Bell is offering a Free Doritos Locos Taco at Taco Bell on October 28, 2020.

The dryer repairman did not make his Monday appointment this week due to an emergency, so he rescheduled for Wednesday, but was a no show. So, I made a few calls and had someone come on Thursday to fix the dryer vent and someone else came today to attach the dryer cord.   As of right now we already have two loads washed and dried. It's great to be back in business with the laundry. 
We had to go to Lowes to get a dryer cord this week and also had to buy gas. We stopped at our usual station where the price was $1.64 a gallon, but they were out of gas, so we went to the 76 station and paid $1.84 per gallon. 

BaileyAlexInc

We've been pet sitting this week for extra money. 
I sold two things on eBay this week, which will go towards bills this week. 
That is our week in a nutshell. How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Would you like to support my site?

If you are encouraged by what you read here, please consider supporting this site via one of these ways. 

As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop. This means that any items you place in your cart and purchase within 24 hours after going to Amazon from one of my links means I will earn a small percentage from that sale. 

So, if you're going to be making a purchase from Amazon this week, I would certainly appreciate it if you would help me by going through my Amazon link to support my site. 

 2. My PayPal Tip Jar

Frugal Friday

Welcome to Friday!
My Frugal Kitchen
We had a grocery store pick up delivered this week, so we are stocked back up on food for the next month or so. 
We bought twenty pounds of ground beef and divided it up into twenty different bags and stored it in the freezer. 
This week I made two dishes that we ate on all week and then today I will be making a Broccoli and Carrot soup for dinner. 
Frugal Entertainment
This week we decided to watch Hocus Pocus for movie night. 
Other Frugal Activities
This was the week for making phone calls. I ended up calling on my auto, homeowners, and life insurance polices to adjust those and was able to get lower rates on all three. The savings on all three policies will amount to $1,077.12 over the course of the next year. I decided this was better for me as I'm not subbing right now and can revisit the issue when I do go back to subbing. 
This week I decided to trim my hair, which looks and feels so much better. 
On Sunday we will have Echo and Rambo here to pet sit for ten days, which will give us some extra income. 
This week I had a Roamans reward certificate for $10 that was about to expire, so I used it to purchase new undergarments, which saved me about half the price on those. 
This week I sold one item on eBay and listed another item for sale, which already has bids on it, so it will sell this weekend. 

Stolen Mail
Since we live in a rural area, our mailbox sits on a country road about 1/4 of a mile from the house. We can't see it from the house and last Saturday, our mail was stolen out of the mailbox along with three packages. Our Saturday mailman has a bad habit of leaving packages hanging out of the mailbox, which is why I think they were stolen. 
One of the packages stolen was for Bailey's allergy prescription medications. We had to make multiple phone calls this week to get those replaced. Since she needed those meds now, we ended up going to town to pick up her new RX. 
Another package that was stolen was from Wazoodle where I had ordered Zorb and PUL to make Bailey some new cloth pads. That was $35 worth of material, so I put in a claim to the post office for that. The other package was a book for Mom from Amazon, which cost $1.29 plus shipping, so Mom went ahead and replaced that herself. 
Planned Obsolescence/New Washer & Dryer
Planned obsolescence is an industry policy of designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so that it becomes obsolete after a certain period of time. The rationale behind this strategy is to generate long term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases. It is the deliberate shortening of a lifespan of a product to force consumers to purchase replacements.
We bought our Roper dryer in 2014, so six years of service. And our Roper washer we bought in August 2017, so three years of service. We had the dryer worked on this summer when it stopped working, but then three months later, it stopped working again. Rather than spend the money on another dryer repair, we decided to buy a new mid-priced dryer. 
The new dryer came with it's own set of problems. We ordered the wrong plug and they refused to install it with our existing dryer vent since it was not metal. So we have a repairman (the same on who installed our a/c this summer) coming on Monday to install it for us. 
Our Roper washer has had its own set of problems. The transmission went out on it before it was a year old, so the repair on that was covered by the warranty. This past summer it has gotten to where it will not finish a load of laundry without stopping before it's finished. 
We tried to restart loads where they stopped, which didn't work, so we tried starting them over and sometimes it would work, but not always. And the machine was not getting clothes clean like it should. 
So, we decided to buy both appliances new and in the mid-price range, hoping they would last longer than the Roper models. 

We originally order a new LG set, but Lowe's cancelled that set on us as they're having a hard time keeping washers and dryers in stock, which is true across the board for all stores. So, we ended up buying this GE washer and dryer. Let's hope this pair works for a long time. 

Since the washer still works, we've been washing things and hanging them to dry in the house. This will definitely save on the electric bill. Both appliances were bought with cash that was saved up for things like this. 
Whew! That is our week in a nutshell. How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Would you like to support my site? 

 If you are encouraged by what you read here, please consider supporting this site via one of these ways. 

As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop. This means that any items you place in your cart and purchase within 24 hours after going to Amazon from one of my links means I will earn a small percentage from that sale. 

So, if you're going to be making a purchase from Amazon this week, I would certainly appreciate it if you would help me by going through my Amazon link to support my site. 

My PayPal Tip Jar

1975 Photo

Thanks to Anne  over at  Cooking and All That Jazz  for the inspiration. I don't have an infant photo of myself online, but here is a photo of my sister Tina, my brother Barry, and me in the orange shirt circa 1975. Today is my sister's birthday. She is the middle child and my brother is the oldest. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Frugal Friday

Welcome to Friday! We've had a good week here. Miss B attended the Virtual PoshFest 2020 last weekend. And we were both busy this week sorting clothes, steaming, photographing, processing, and listing.  Her business takes a lot of work, but she works hard at it and I'm proud of her. 

In My Frugal Kitchen

We picked up two free butternut squashes from a free pile of them at the 411 annual yard sale this weekend. 

One day this week I decided to make hot potato salad, which is basically boiled potatoes, mashed up a little with onions and mayonnaise.. You can add whatever other ingredients you add to your own potato salad. If you have leftovers they can go in the fridge and they are good cold the next day. 

If you run out of butter, this is a good substitute in order to still have potatoes.  You can also substitute sour cream for the mayonnaise. 

We had an order from Target come with a broken jar of pickles inside that soaked into two bags of sugar. My daughter called, was refunded, and said the sugar could be thrown out. Well, I made a batch of tea with it to check it and she said she could taste just a slight hint of the pickle juice, but I couldn't taste it. So I'm keeping it and using it for something else.  

Beverages This Week:

Water

Grape Juice

V8 Juice

Lemonade

Sweet or Unsweet  Tea

Meals This Week

Grilled Chicken, Brown Rice, Broccoli

Macaroni & Cheese with Ham, Green Peas

Salmon, Hot Potato Salad, Asparagus 

Tacos, Lettuce, Tomato, Onions, Tortillas, Salsa (sans cheese)

Ham, Corn, Green Beans & Onions, 

Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Carrots & Butternut Squash, Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Chicken & Rice Stir Fry with Pineapple, Mandarin Oranges, Broccoli and Carrots

Saving Money on Entertainment

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera is streaming on YouTube this weekend only, and it’s completely free. 

Other Frugal Things

Instead of turning the heat on in my bedroom at night, I just threw another blanket on the bed instead.  So far it's working to keep me warm enough at night.

The battery in Miss B's car went dead this week. She watched a YouTube video on how to charge it herself, but then called my Dad to show her how to do it. So, if it happens again she is confident that she can jump it off. It's a good thing to figure out how to fix and repair items. Keep your skills up and keep learning.

Miss B was also able to pick up some additional inventory again this week for free from a lady who had left over yard sale items. 

This week I repaired a stack of cloth pads on my sewing machine that that were getting worn from use. 

That's all the news to report from here this week. How was your week?

Belinda 

~ Living within our Means ~ 

My Linktree

Would you like to support my site?

If you are encouraged by what you read here, please consider supporting this site in one of these ways.

1. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which means I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop. 

This means that any items you place in your cart and purchase within 24 hours after going to Amazon from one of my links means I will earn a small percentage from that sale.

So, if you're going to be making a purchase from Amazon (paid link) this week, I would certainly appreciate it if you would help me by going through my Amazon link to support my site.

2. My PayPal Tip Jar. 

Thank you so much for supporting Frugal Workshop and contributing to the usefulness of this blog.

Frugal Friday

Welcome to Friday! We've had a good week here. We went to town last Friday to pick up groceries from Food City, and Miss B made a trip to pick up the free remains from a yard sale. The seller left her the items on her porch, so it was a contactless pickup. Other than those two errands, we've stayed home this week as usual. 
The weather here has been rainy for the most part keeping the back porch and steps soaking wet at the beginning of the week. After the rain, cool weather set in, although it would warm up in the afternoons. 
Food City sent me a text last Friday to alert me about a sale on ground beef, which was $1.99 a pound. We perused their sale ad and did a small curbside pickup that afternoon. 

They only let me buy five pounds of the ground beef and I also bought 2 cans of salmon for $1.99 each, 2 packages of cheese @ buy one get one free, and two ten pound bags of potatoes for $3.99 each. 
We only eat salmon patties about once per month. I already had two cans in our pantry and with the addition of two more cans I now have enough to last until January 2021, which by that time it will go on sale again, and I will be able to stock up again. This practice of grocery store items going on sale every 9 to 12 weeks, is part of the pantry principle system. 

While we were in town Papa John's texted me with an offer, and we decided to use our  $10 Papa Rewards. We bought two of the Papadias, which cost $6 each, so I ended up only having to pay $2.20 for these two pictured above. 
Food Shortages?
This week I read a comment on Princess Prepper's YouTube channel from poster hooliganbroome that gave me pause. 

I'm a truck driver that hauls food. Ya'll haven't seen the food shortage yet. The warehouses I go to are getting empty.  I make the same run up north weekly, and pick up from 5 different places to run back down and deliver to several different warehouses. Been driving for 14 years, always food. I've never seen the warehouses as empty as they are. Stock comes in and goes straight to retail. There is not the usual backup stock I'm used to seeing. Has been getting slimmer for about 2 months now. Seems like its getting unloaded in 1 door and getting broken down and sent straight to retail out another door. I've been around all these same warehouses for years and never seen it like this before. I delivered a truck load of an item to my local Publix warehouse and went to my retail Publix 2 days later and they were out of said item that I just delivered 2 days before.

My takeaway from reading that is, anyone who is stocking up now while they can is vey smart.  Could be that people are panic buying, which may be causing this, but I don't know for sure. I think it's wise to stock up while you can. 

In My Frugal Kitchen
The last time we bought a big grocery order was on August 17th, which was six weeks ago. As a result, we are running low on several things. I've babied the eggs, not making them for breakfast in the last week, and am down to one egg. We have one piece of bread left and it's a heel at that. LOL We will definitely have to do a grocery order in the next week to replenish items. 
One day I finished off the jar of strawberry preserves, although we do have a jar of blackberry preserves. Miss B likes strawberry, so I was able to use up two packets of strawberry jelly that we had from Hardee's. I was also able to use up the grape jelly packets I had from there a few days later. It's so great to be able to use up these items. And serves as a reminder that it pays to keep those items because you may need then later.
This week I saved maraschino cherry juice and pickle juice in my refrigerator. I will use these items at a later date to make fruit dip and chicken sandwiches. 
Meals This Week
Cheeseburgers, Seasoned Fries, Carrots with Ranch  Hamburger Steaks, Soup Beans, Carrots & Potatoes  Chicken Fajitas, Mexican Rice, Broccoli, Grilled Onions  Pork Roast, Potatoes & Carrots, Green Beans & Onions Ham, Soup Beans, Broccoli, Carrots, Corn Bread
Saving Money on Entertainment
On movie night this week we watched She’s All That, which is a 1999 teen romantic comedy adaptation of the 1964 film, My Fair Lady. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Zack Siler boasts he could make any girl in school popular. Miss B said it was definitely a 90s movie. The trailer was rather good, which is what made us want to watch this one. 
Other Frugal Things
Rather than use the checkbook register that comes with new checks, I regularly use a notebook as my check register because it will last much longer than the register. To save even more money, I use both sides of the paper. 
I've let my family members know that we are not going to be participating in any Christmas gift exchanges this year. That way they will be prepared and know what to expect ahead of time. 
My laptop has been acting up lately and I thought there was a short in the cord, so I bought a new cord on Amazon. Then this week the laptop completely died and we couldn't get it back up and running. So, I've been using my tablet to comment and post here. 
Well, guess what? 
There was a Dell Laptop included in the free yard sale stuff Miss B picked up this week. We had no hopes for it as it was free after all. But, Bailey was able to reset it for me and so far it is working well. 
We had even taken money out of the emergency fund to buy a new laptop, but ended up putting that money back into the emergency fund. And I've already opened a return at Amazon to return the laptop charger that I no longer need. 
Other free items from the yard sale that we will use include a brand new Avon body wash still sealed, small garbage can, jewelry, and she was able to get multiple clothing items to sell in her online shops, all for free. 
We trimmed the back of each other's hair this week. This is the hardest part to cut if you cut your own hair, so we do this for each other. No need to visit a salon and we save money by doing it ourselves. 
How was your week?

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Would you like to support my site?

If you are encouraged by what you read here, please consider supporting this site in one of these ways. 

 1. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop. 

This means that any items you place in your cart and purchase within 24 hours after going to Amazon from one of my links means I will earn a small percentage from that sale. 

So, if you're going to be making a purchase from Amazon this week, I would certainly appreciate it if you would help me by going through my Amazon link to support my site.

2. My PayPal Tip Jar.  

Thank you so much for supporting Frugal Workshop and contributing to the usefulness of this blog.