Second Frugal Friday of October 2024

Frugal Friday

 Welcome to Frugal Friday!

My Frugal Week
There was a definite break in the weather this week as much cooler mornings took place, and the wind really kicked up here on Thursday. I checked on all my Florida family on Thursday morning and all is good with them. I hope and pray for all of those in the path of these horrible storms. 

Last Thursday I went to Target  and found these Figmint glass bowls on clearance for $3.00. We love these glass bowls and I even have some of the divided ones on my Amazon wish list. They had four left and I bought all four of them. I also found a bra marked down from $20 to $14 and two Christmas presents marked down from $9.99 to $2.99 each.
On Friday I had to go back to town for more errands. I did a couple of grocery shops to cherry pick sale items. 

At Publix, I got two jars of bread and butter pickles on markdown for $1.60 each, Fairlife milk priced at 2 for $8, which is a good sale for Fairlife and is Bailey’s favorite milk. And I bought Crest toothpaste on sale for buy one get one free, so I bought six tubes for $1.49 each, which was a great sale! They also had their salad kits buy one get one free, so I bought four of those. 
At Food Lion I picked up two bags of onions that were on sale for 2 for $5.00, which is cheaper than Walmart ($3.98) these days. I remember the days when you could get them for 99 cents. Sigh
Rather than yard sale, I stayed home last Saturday and measured and processed clothes for Bailey. She went to the Renaissance Fair in Harriman, TN, so I was on my own for dinner and rather than order pizza out, made my own at home. 

On Sunday we went to the $1 dash at the Grown Zone consignment sale in Ringgold, Georgia. I picked up a drying rack for $1.00, two pillows, one pair of reading glasses, one pair of sunglasses, one BeltBro, one Bubba glass, and one red square plate, all for $1.00 each. 
Afterwards we went to Kroger to cherry pick sale items. 
They had the Silk cashew milk, which Bailey prefers, on sale for $3.49 when you buy five, and the sell by date is way into February, so a good buy. They also had her favorite Celestial Seasonings tea, Bengal Spice, on sale for $1.99 a box when you buy five, so we got five of those too. We also found four salad kits on markdown. 
Freebies
Mother Earth News has these beautiful guide s on Self-Sufficiency for FREE! There are over one dozen to choose from and even some from sister publications. The first one I am downloading is the soup guide. There is even a free coloring book included. 
Photo of the Week

This number ten can of peaches from Kroger cost me $8.99, which is a good deal. Here is an article I wrote years ago, but updated on how you can save money by using number ten cans. Saving Money with Number Ten Cans
Saving Money YouTube Videos
Can You REALLY Feed Your Family for a Week on Just $30 from Aldi?
My 20 Item Capsule Grocery Haul | Meal Planning Made Easy


How was your week?

Thank you for dropping by my frugal blog, you are always welcome here. 
We would love to hear all about your week in the comment section.

BelindaHomemaker at HeartMortgage & Debt Free~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

Menu Plan Monday ~ Saving Money in my Frugal Kitchen ~ October 7, 2024

What’s for Dinner

Monday ~ I put chicken thighs in the slow cooker along with some Italian salad dressing as a marinade and then added taco seasoning later. Bailey loved it! I served this with the last of the cucumber salad, potatoes, and carrots. 

Taco Tuesday ~ We used the rest of the chicken from Monday and had Chicken Tacos. 

Wednesday ~ Salmon Patties, Baked Potatoes, Green Beans with Onions. 

Thursday ~ Grilled Chicken, Pinto Beans, Corn Salsa. 

Friday ~ Grilled Chicken Salads, Apple Salad, Cucumber Salad. It was a salad kind of night. 😂 

Saturday ~ Using a fifty-one cent Crash & Burn pizza crust mix from Martha White, I made this Homemade Pizza. Turkey Pepperoni & Black Olives were toppings. 

Sunday ~ Grilled Chicken Salads after a long day of consignment and grocery shopping.

What’s been on the menu in your home this past week?

Belinda

Homemaker at Heart

Mortgage & Debt Free~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

First Frugal Friday of October 2024

Welcome to Frugal Friday! 
My Frugal Week
Things I did this week to save money:
- Did not use the dryer and hung my clothes up to dry instead. - Thawed a container of soup from the freezer for lunch two days.- No heat or air conditioner needed this week. - Washed stored blankets & added to my bed for warmth on these cooler nights. - Ate leftovers. - I sold one item on eBay for $75, which was a wooden cutting bowl. Bailey sold an item for $200 this week!
Other things I did include pulling up the old carpeting in the hallway by our back door as it was time. We recently found a brand new box of floor tiles second hand, which we will put there instead. 

On Tuesday I went to town to take advantage of some free groceries one of the colleges was giving away. Afterwards I went to Kroger to get in on the last day of their sales. I picked up the 32 ounce blocks of cheese for $4.99, grapes for 99 cents a pound, pasta for 99 cents a pound, and eggs for $1.99 for the 18 count. 

In Kroger's Crash & Burn section I found granola bars marked down to $1.05 for a box of six bars, which makes them 18 cents each, which is a good price. I also found this half gallon of milk for $1.21.

I browsed through the meat aisle to check on any markdowns and did find a pork loin chop for $1.56. I looked at the beef, but declined all of it due to the price. 
I perused the grocery store sale ads on Wednesday and wrote down a few good deals, but as usual, am surprised at how expensive some things are now. 
Freebies

The October issue of Southern living came free this week. 
Order four free Covid Tests. 
1952 Homemade Mixes - The cornbread mix looks interesting. 
Essentials of Home Production & Storage
Photo of the Week

Three of our sweet kitties enjoying the cat tower we moved to a window seat. Maisy is on top, Archie on the second, and Scrappy on the bottom. 
Saving Money on Entertainment
This week I've been watching The Conners on Tubi for free. The storyline where Roseanne & Jackie's Mom Beverly starts to get dementia is a well written storyline. At times we see her being her usual self, and then we see her telling Jackie to tell Roseanne to come see her and Jackie realizes her Mom doesn't remember that Roseanne died. It's a really good storyline. 
What I've been Reading This Week
Bailey picked up The Blue Zones American Kitchen for me at the library when she went to book club on Saturday. 
How has your week been?

Thank you for dropping by my frugal blog, you are always welcome here. 
We would love to hear all about your week in the comment section.

BelindaHomemaker at HeartMortgage & Debt Free~ Living Life in Rural Tennessee Within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

Menu Plan Monday ~ Saving Money in our Frugal Kitchen ~ September 30, 2024

 My Frugal Week

One way we save money on our grocery budget is by keeping our grocery spending under control. We spent $62.89 on groceries in September. We did that by relying on our food storage and by looking for opportunities to get free food in our community. 

Several organizations give away free produce at certain times and sometimes people will do a pantry cleanout, so I look for those. Free food is a great way to improve your food economics. Some people will turn down free items offered to them for various reasons, but if you need the items, then by all means, accept the free items. Accepting and using free items is a good way to save money. 

Other ways to save money include making a grocery list and sticking to it and our budget. Going without a list is not an option if I want to stay under my grocery budget. Of course, if I come across a good markdown I'm always open to the possibilities. 

When I do go out of the house to run errands, I make sure I'm prepared for the day. Being prepared means having a plan for my spending. I make sure to have breakfast before I leave and bring a lunch or snack with me depending on how long I'll be out of the house. 

Since we live rural, our travel times are more than if we lived in town, so I prepare for that. The food I bring ensures I'm not buying fast food.  Eating out and convenience foods are more expensive these days. 

If you are prone to picking up dinner on the way home because you are tired, plan your meal the night before. Place meat to thaw in the refrigerator, cut up vegetables, and set out the slow cooker to be ready in the morning. 

Toss everything into the slow cooker and dinner will be ready when you get home. Doing this ensures I keep on track spending wise because it's easy to order food or go out to eat when I'm tired.  

 

We plan meals around basic foods and what is on sale. We very rarely include steaks or roasts or lobster in our menus. If we do it's because I found them on markdown or on sale. 

We also serve meatless meals each week to save money on meat. I keep an inventory of the foods I have on hand and update them every few months or so. In fact I did an inventory of my tomato products just this past week. 

We do our very best to avoid food waste. We find ways to preserve food like canning, freezing, or dehydrating when we cannot eat it all. If we have leftovers we eat them until they are gone or  freeze the leftovers. We do not have extra money to be throwing away food. 

Doing without and making do was something people did during the Great Depression and the war years that followed. Many people didn’t have a choice if they wanted to eat. People ate a lot of beans because they were cheap and nutritious. Casseroles and soups were made more and became popular because little bits of food could be mixed together to make a more filling meal.  

What’s for Lunch

We've been enjoying our planned overs from Souper Sunday soup for lunches during the week. Soup is a great money saving and a healthy food for lunch. I know I've lost a couple of pounds this month as I've been incorporating it more and more into my diet.

Another lunch item this week involved potatoes, both sweet and yellow. Sometimes we have leftover potatoes from dinner the night before, so I took some of them this week and would reheat them in the air fryer. They made a delicious lunch a couple of days this week.

 

What’s for Dinner

Meatless Monday & Tuesday ~ Vegetable Soup & Cornbread. This soup started off with an onion sautéed in olive oil. Then I added tomatoes, beans, corn on the cob that I cut off the cob, and carrots as well as a few spices like bay leaves and fennel. It was like a big bowl of comfort. 

Wednesday & Thursday ~ Turkey Burgers made into Salisbury like Steaks with mushrooms in Tomato Gravy, Roasted Potatoes, Field Peas, Toasted Garlic Buns.

Also on Thursday evening I put some pinto beans on to soak overnight and then on Friday I cooked those in the Instant Pot with onions and garlic. I want to have these on hand for meals over the weekend.

Friday ~ Salmon Patties, Cabbage, Carrots, Cucumber Salad.

Saturday & Sunday ~ Chili ~ It's chilly, wet and rainy here, which makes it the perfect time for chili. I used some of the pinto beans I made on Friday, added ground beef, tomatoes, onions, green chilies, garlic, chili powder, salt & pepper.

What’s been on the menu in your home this past week?

Belinda

Homemaker at Heart

Mortgage & Debt Free~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

Fourth Frugal Friday of September 2024

Welcome to Frugal Friday! 
My Frugal Week

Bailey got this really neat tool at the consignment sale for 50 cents. It's a premium empty bottle kit and they sell them on Amazon. It has a pull down spout so you can get the product out without having to put it into another container. 
Freebies
Freebies was the name of the game this week. 

On Sunday our local Sharp agency had a free pet food clinic. I went and came home with a fourteen ounce bag of Meow Mix and a bag of cat litter. 
Utah State University has a free Soup or Sauce Mix (SOS) booklet on their website.  There are fourteen pages in the booklet with recipes for different soups. 

Pictured are two free towels from the recent trade/swap day. They are 100% cotton and nice and fluffy. I also picked up a reusable Cracker Barrel bag that I washed, but the outside disintegrated in the washer, so that’s my frugal fail of the week. 😂

We used our Pizza Hut Rewards account to get a free movie Tuesday night. 
And finally, here is a list of twenty websites where you can download unlimited books for free:
1. Planet eBook
2. Free-eBooks. net
3. ManyBooks 
4. Librivox 
5. Internet Archive 
6. BookBub 
7. Open Library
8. BookBoon 
9. Feedbooks 
10. Smashwords 
11. Project Gutenberg
12. Google Books 
13. PDFBooksWorld 
14. FreeTechBooks 
15. Bookyards 
16. GetFreeBooks 
17. eBookLobby 
18. FreeComputerBooks 
19. LibriVox 
20. ManyBooks

What I've been Reading This Week
50 Nifty Tricks from Big DIY Savings from This Old House

Thank you for dropping by my frugal blog, you are always welcome here.
 I hope that you find something in this post helpful or encouraging.  
We would love to hear all about your week in the comment section.

BelindaHomemaker at HeartMortgage & Debt Free~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

Meal Plan Monday ~ Saving Money in my Frugal Kitchen (9-23-2024)

 My Frugal Week

Ceylon Cinnamon is the best type of cinnamon to use, and is considered better than the Saigon variety. But, I recently ran out of the Ceylon variety. So, I've ordered more Ceylon cinnamon, but in the meantime I'll use up these other two varieties that we have on hand. 

McCormick Cinnamon Sugar

McCormick Roasted Cinnamon

I've been reading Jackie Clay's Pantry Cookbook for free online this week and she writes, "with the ease of our fast-paced society, keeping a well stocked panty has fallen into disuse." She goes on to say that, "gardens were let go too". 

I find that so sad to think about and is something I've realized the older I get that generations younger than my grandparents do not garden the way my grandparents generation did. 

I've discussed it before, but my grandfather had multiple gardens all year long and my grandmother preserved all of it, so they would not go hungry. 

All meals and snacks were prepared at home this week as usual. We reserve eating out for special occasions in these days of higher restaurant prices. We served two meatless dishes this week to save money on our grocery budget. .

Recipe of the Week

This is from Grandma Donna's website: 

Pate Chinois 

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

6 medium size potatoes

One can of creamed style corn

½ onion chopped

A small amount of milk and butter. 

Directions:

If you don’t have milk and butter you can still make this dish.

First peel and cut up your potatoes. 

Boil the potatoes until done to make mashed potatoes.  

When you boil the potatoes and drain them you can save the potato liquid to add in another dish or use the liquid when mashing the potatoes if you do not have milk and butter. 

Brown your ground beef in a skillet and then add chopped onion.

Cook until the onion is just a bit cooked. 

You are going to layer this dish in an oven proof pot or oven proof deep dish. 

Place the cooked meat and onions in the bottom of the pot. 

Add the can of cream style corn then on top of the corn add the mashed potatoes.  

Place in a 350 degree oven and bake for about 30 minutes.

 

What’s for Dinner

Monday ~ Roasted Turkey Breast with Homemade Gravy, Orange Mashed Cauliflower, and Sauteed Cabbage with Onions. 

Taco Tuesday ~ Cauliflower Taco Meat, Corn Tortillas, Lettuce & Tomatoes. 

Wednesday ~ Turkey Pot Pie, Jell-O Fruit Salad. 

Thursday & Friday ~ Tacos, corn tortillas, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. I had a two pound package of ground beef thawed, so I split it into two meals. I made tacos with one pound and stretched that meat with potatoes and beans and then made meatballs with the other pound and saved those for another meal later. 

Saturday ~ Pate Chinos, which is from Grandma Donna's website and reminded me of my cheesy potato recipe. I served it with Corn on the Cob, and Steamed Carrots. 

Souper Sunday ~ Vegetable Soup & Corn Bread

What’s been on the menu in your home this past week?

Belinda

Homemaker at Heart

Mortgage & Debt Free~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27