My goodness, here we are at the end of another week. I don’t know about you, but it seems like the days are just flying by lately.
Our electricity went off last Friday due to a truck accident on the road where we live. It took about five hours for them to have the power restored. I had soapy water in the sink from dishes and I was glad since we have no water when the power goes out.
We didn’t go to any yard sales last week as the weather didn’t cooperate. Yard sales have not been as good here as in previous years, but that does happen some years.
I had to take a trip to Chattanooga on Thursday and passed by one yard sale, but didn’t stop as they didn’t have any clothes.
Tonight is one of Bailey’s book club meetings and then tomorrow she starts taking stuff to drop off at the consignment sale. We ended up with about two car loads full of stuff and it is so nice to see all that new space opening up in the house.
Saving Money In My Frugal Kitchen
This week I turned to some meals I had in the freezer in order to use up what we have in there. We didn’t buy any groceries this week instead making so with what we have on hand here. It’s been a good low cost week here for that reason.
Meals This Week
Friday: Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli.
Saturday: BBQ, Fried Okra, Potatoes with Peas, and Baked Pickles.
Thank you for dropping by my frugal blog, you are always welcome here. How was your week? Any frugal wins to tell us about? We would love to hear all about your week in the comment section.
Thanks to Vickie over at Vickie’s Kitchen and Garden, I won a three month membership to PureFlix, which is a streaming service that has faith-filled and family-friendly movies and shows. Woo Hoo, I’m so excited!
We had company from Florida come to see us on Sunday. We had originally planned to go out to eat with them and other family members, but they requested sandwiches for a quick and easy lunch instead.
So, I bought some Cracker Barrel chicken for sandwiches from the deli, had sliced tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, pickles and red onions. I also served it with cantaloupe and potato chips for those who wanted that. It was a bit of a splurge, but we’ve not seen them since before Covid, so it was well worth it.
We had a nice visit and then they were off to the John C. Campbell folk school for a week of classes.
We are preparing to get our driveway worked on very soon. Our driveway takes a lot of maintenance to keep it drivable. It is one-eighth of a mile long and has at least two hills, and the rain will wash it out rather easily. We are getting bids this week and might know something by next week.
Saving Money In My Frugal Kitchen
One thing I made this week was a cucumber salad. I made some Italian dressing and sliced and added the cucumbers and was going to serve it with dinner that night. Then I thought about and added a chopped red onion, which led to the addition of chickpeas and tomatoes. Turned out to be a good and refreshing salad when it was done.
We picked up slider buns when we went to the bread outlet last week. I turned those into ham and cheese sliders one day for lunch. Bailey recently had loose meat sandwiches at the library book club made with slider buns and says we need to recreate those at home.
There was no grocery shopping this week and all meals were eaten at home. Dishes washed up every evening to keep the whole thing in motion. LOL 😂
I feel like I’ve made a dozen gallons of tea this week. I know I’ve made a gallon of each (sweet & unsweet) about every day this week, so that is pretty close to one dozen.
Meals This Week
Friday: Friday Night Pizza
Saturday: Dirty Rice, Corn on the Cob.
Sunday: Plenty of sandwich stuff and pizza, so no need to cook.
Monday: Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes with Gravy, Green Beans with Onions.
Thursday: Better Cheddars, Mac & Cheese, Green Beans with Onions, Cucumber Salad.
What I've been Reading This Week
My doctor recommended that I read the book, Mastering Diabetes, written by Cyrus Khambatta and Robby Barbaro. So, I bought it from Amazon and just started reading it this week. It’s another plant based approach to the disease similar to Dr. Fuhrman’s book, The End of Diabetes.
Thank you dropping by my blog, you are always welcome here. I enjoy interacting with you in the comment section. We would love to hear about your week and see what you’ve been up to recently.
Speak to people in a way that if they died tomorrow, you’d be satisfied with the last thing you said to them. And I can’t emphasize that enough.
My Frugal Week
I’m sorry I didn’t get this posted on Friday. It’s been another busy week here. We took our new kitten, Beaux, to be neutered. The vet we used is in Chattanooga, so, rather than waste gas, we had to find things to do until he was ready to go home at 3:00. Yard sales were a bust, but we ran all of our errands, so that was good.
Other things that happened this week include calling Kimberly Clark about an inferior product I was using and they are sending me a $24 Visa card to replace the products I purchased. It pays to let companies know when a product is inferior.
I received another survey from Consumer Opinion Institute along with $5.00 for completing the survey. It’s odd to receive two of these in the same quarter, but it does happen sometimes.
I had some 32 cent stamps I found in my Mom’s room after she passed that were no longer sticky. I used two per envelope this week for some correspondence for her and taped them around the edges so USPS would accept them. They received more money than a first class stamp and they didn’t cost me anything. A win-win situation.
Saturday was laundry & garbage day, plus we put together a new garden shed we bought from Home Depot, also cleaned out the pantry to store items back there and pulled more consignment items, so it was a work filled day.
Sunday: Homemade Italian Sausage Meatballs & Sauce, Spaghetti.
Monday: Italian Pasta Salad using the noodles from Sunday night dinner.
Tuesday: Movie Night Pizza
Wednesday: Grilled Chicken Burritos, Cilantro Brown Rice, Fresh Veggies.
Thursday: Dirty Rice, Corn on the Cob.
Money Saving Links
@itsbrittanybakes on TikTok has a series of freezer meals on her page to help fight inflation. She says times are tough, eat at home. This week is a short blog post as we are preparing for company on Sunday. I hope you all have a blessed week and I’ll be back again next Friday.
The Sweetweepeets consignment sale starts at the end of this month. I’m still going through stuff here to add to the sale. On Tuesday I went through the silverware drawer. When I find silverware secondhand I buy it and take out the pieces I want to keep. This leaves silverware I don’t need in another drawer. I went through that drawer and added what we don’t want to the consignment sale pile.
This week I called our electric company to talk about our electric bill. We average a usage rate of $220 per month and that is for an all electric house. We have no other utility bills such as gas or water.
Bailey and I split the electric bill in half each month, which is one way we save money on expenses by living together. The bill was especially high in July because of the heat wave, but we make up for it in the winter months with much lower electric bills.
Our electric company does not do the average monthly bill where you pay the same amount each month. So, I created a slush fund to pay into for when the bill is lower than my set budget amount of $150.00 per month. That way when I have an especially high month, the money will already be in my slush fund account to pay for it.
I also called my auto insurance company this week. First off, I had them take Mom off my auto policy. Then I added a homeowners insurance policy to my account. Since Mom passed away I needed a policy in my name in case of an emergency. My insurance agent said having this second policy on my account will save me money on my auto insurance.
Since this was the first week of the month, I paid all of my bills that are not already automated.
On Thursday I had an eye doctor appointment and we ran several errands to save money on gas. We stopped at the bread outlet and bought Dave’s Killer Bread for $3.00 a loaf, post office, library, book store, stopped in to vote, Petco for flea medicine, Staples for copies, CVS for an RX, and Publix for ground beef, cheese, butter, and salmon. Whew, it was a busy day!
It was funny as the RX from CVS didn’t cost me anything, but they gave me $7.00 in extra bucks. I can buy a can of Salmon for $4.99 and make a meal out of it with the extra bucks. At the library we both picked up a free book for participating in the summer reading program.
Joy of the Week
We stopped in at the Book and Cover book store in the North shore area of Chattanooga. Bailey is a member of their book club this month and picked up her copy of The House in the Cerulean Sea. The bookstore was so quaint and lovely I just had to share a photo of it.
Saving Money In My Frugal Kitchen
We’ve been in use it up mode this past week when I did stop in Publix on Thursday and bought just a few items. With the high cost of groceries right now I am not stocking up at the moment. I’m just buying what I need to feed us for right now.
It seems that the loss leaders are far and few between, so we have to make different choices. I bought one can of salmon for $4.09 when normally I would buy a couple. I bought cheese to make Rice & Cheese for dinner one night to serve with a vegetable as that is an inexpensive meatless meal that we enjoy.
We are definitely using up what we have, making different choices, and making more inexpensive dinners as a result. This is what we are doing differently at this time until something changes.
