4th Frugal Week - January 2018

This week I emptied out the jar of strawberry preserves while making sandwiches for lunch one day. I had two small packets of strawberry jelly in the fridge, so I used those up to finish the sandwiches.   
In my pantry was a brand new bottle of jelly from Kroger that we bought recently, but I wanted to stretch what I had before opening it. 

I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but the snap down lid on the new bottle of jelly was broken off, which is how it was when I bought it. 
Since these bottles stand up on the lid, the jelly would just leak out. I was willing to do what I could with it for the savings. These bottles normally cost upwards of $2.75, but this one was marked down to $1.49. 
What I did was wash the old jelly jar and emptied the new jelly contents into the old jar.  Problem solved and money saved since it was on yellow sticker markdown.
My daughter and I both gave ourselves a haircut this week saving us at least $20 in the process. 
Since we've been cooking at home everyday I have used up a lot of the onions I had. Cooke's had the three pound bags on sale for 99¢ last week, so I bought four more bags. 
I earned another $5.00 Amazon gift card from Microsoft Rewards this week. 
I also received my $25 in PayPal money from Swagbucks, and a check for $27 from Inbox Dollars. 
Combined with the $25 PayPal money I received from MyPoints last week, that is $77 I will be putting towards my car insurance premium, which is due at the end of January.  
That is $77 that I did not have to earn, but spent just a few minutes per day working towards. 
The weather has warmed up this week, which allowed us to turn the heat off for a few days. The savings on the electric bill will be good. 
Our electric company put this YouTube video on their Facebook page to help customers dispel some energy myths, so I wanted to share it with my readers. 

I perused the grocery store sale ads online this week making note of several sale items. On Thursday I went to IGA to pick up some Nature's Own whole grain bread, which was on sale for 99¢. I bought four loaves. 
Two other markdowns made their way into my cart as well. IGA Herb Dressing Mix was marked down to 50¢ per bag, so I picked up four of those.  They also had Oscar Mayer Ham & Cheese loaf in the 16 ounce container marked down to 79¢, so I picked up six of those and put them in the freezer. 
This week I was able to work the first two days and was scheduled to work more, but became sick on Tuesday night and ended up cancelling the rest of the week.  
I suspected I had the flu and went to the doctor on Thursday. Today is Saturday and I'm already feeling so much better and will be able to return to work on Monday. 
That's all the news from here this week. I hope you've had a good week. Leave me a comment and let me know how you're doing.  I love to hear from all of you.  :)
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

IGA Meat Deals

IGA has the country style pork ribs on sale this week for 99¢ a pound, which is the lowest price we see them for here. We like to make them in the crock pot with barbecue sauce.  Time to stock up on them. 
I dropped off the garbage this morning and went to get some and ended up buying four packages. I have one of them going in the crockpot now and put the other three packages in the freezer. 
I also found two packages of meat on markdown. One was one pound of ground beef with a $3.00 off coupon, which I bought for $2.03. I'm going to make taco salad with it for lunch today. 
The other was a package of pork cut up like beef stew, which was $2.00. I was standing there wondering what to do with it, but I bought it. I can make a pork fried rice or something with it sometime. It was too good of a price to pass up today. I also put it in the freezer as well. 
So, for dinner tonight I will serve the ribs with mashed potatoes and green beans with onions and olive oil for seasoning. I've also already made a gallon of sweet iced tea for dinner. 
What's for dinner at your house today?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

A New Month

Wednesday started a new month as we turned our calendars to October 1st. A brand new month and a chance to start over again and see if we can do better this month than we did last month. 

This is an older clip from YouTube, but one of my favorites. It is an interview with Amy Dacyczyn, author of the Tightwad Gazette. I like this video because Amy talks about how small things add up. 

She says it is never too late to start learning tightwad ways. To start, simply write down the items you spend money on, no matter how small. The little things, she says, is where you are losing your money. Writing it down and adding it up at the end of the month can be a very eye opening experience. 





I kept track of my spending in September, which is something I don't always do diligently, but I did last month and found I had spent $334.22 on food for three adults. I'd like to see if I can do better in October, so I'm keeping a diligent track of my spending again this month to see if I can find areas to improve. 

On Thursday I stopped at three grocery stores for sale items. 

The first stop was IGA where I bought five dozen eggs, which were on sale for 89¢ a dozen. I also bought one, two pound bag of onions for $1.00, four large cans of Chili Mix on markdown for $1.00, and a dozen cans of mixed vegetables, which were on mark down for 59¢ each. Total Spent was $16.53. 

My second stop was at Aldi where I went for carrots and onions. Carrots were 49¢ for two pound bags, and sweet onions were 99¢ for a two pound bag. I bought four bags of the carrots, and two bags of the onions and spent a total of $3.94. 

This is such a great price for carrots! I can cook these in my electric pressure cooker in minutes and have a very affordable side dish for dinner. And other people obviously thought the same thing as they were almost gone when I got there and it was only the second day of the sale. 

My third stop was the Bargain Barn/United Grocery Outlet. They were advertising cheese loaf for $1.99. We went to see exactly what this was. Turns out it was the sixteen ounce box of 2% Velveeta. I have had this on my grocery list to make my sister's potato soup, but it has been too expensive to buy, so I just did without, making other dinner choices, until now. 

Today though, I bought two boxes and paid $3.98 for both, which is much cheaper than they $6.99 they want for it in the regular grocery store. I also wanted to check out the cream cheese they were advertising for $1.00. Turns out it was the Philadelphia cream cheese in the assorted flavors. I picked up two honey flavored ones for the cinnamon raisin bread I picked up last week. 

This week, I also made a monthly menu for October. It is very basic and does not have very much meat listed in there. As I find any meat bargains this month, I can add them to the menu. 

What I've Been Reading this Week

I stumbled across a new blog this week called Living Stingy. The author, Robert Bell, is a patent attorney living in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Some people may find his views on smart phones, cable tv, and fancy cars harsh, but he makes an excellent point about how these are choices that can keep us chained to a lifestyle of having to work just to pay for such things.  I really enjoyed reading his viewpoint on the topic and hope you do as well. 

This week I have scrutinized prices and shopped carefully. I'm keeping careful track of my spending and we are living better lives with less money as a result. I wish the same for you.  :) 

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

Found Sale on Ground Chuck

Image Credit

IGA has a two day sale on Fresh Ground Chuck this week for $1.89 a pound. It was only for two days and I'm not sure if you can see the yellow bubble inside the ad, but it says "While Supplies Last!" I thought to myself that they probably don't have very much in stock and it is going to sell out fast and I really wanted to get in on this deal. With ground chuck costing $4.00 a pound here right now, I knew this was a good deal.

School was cancelled yesterday due to the freezing rain here, and I had to take my Dad to the hospital for a medical procedure, but I did end up getting to IGA even with all of that and got in on this very good deal. 

There were a lot of people surrounding the meat case when I got there because they were having a good sale on several types of meat, but I only wanted the ground beef and did manage to pick up four packages of this ground chuck. The cashier told me people were panicking because of the freezing rain and she had been swamped all morning.

Here is a picture of the four packages I bought:

8.66 pounds - $16.37

8.57 pounds - $16.20

8.71 pounds - $16.46

8.63 pounds - $16.31

Here is a picture of my receipt as well: 

So, I ended up buying 34.57 pounds of meat for $65.34 or $70.57 with tax.

I came home and packaged this up into two pound packages for my freezer. I ended up with 18 packages with 2 pounds each for the freezer. There are 16 in this photo as I placed two of them in the refrigerator to use this weekend. I am planning on making tacos for dinner tonight.

Here is a picture before they went into the freezer:

The last time I was able to stock up on Ground Chuck was in August 2011, which was over one year ago. I know I've been talking about using up what I have in my pantry, but I also subscribe to The Pantry Principle. The basic idea behind The Pantry Principle is to stockpile your pantry with food that you are able to purchase at the lowest possible price. So, even though I am using up the food in my pantry, I would not pass up on a good sale like this. 

This will last me for quite some time and save me a lot of money. If I had bought this ground chuck at the regular price of $4.00 per pound I would have spent $138.28, so I actually saved $72.94, which was more than I paid for the beef. 

I am just tickled to have found this great deal and be able to stock my freezer with food bought at the lowest possible price.  

Make sure you are checking your weekly grocery store ads each week. This sale was for two days only and I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on it by not reading the store ads. 

Belinda
© Belinda Richardson and Frugal Workshop, 2011-2013.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

IGA Run

IGA coupon

Coupons can be found in many different places like the coupon pictured above. I found this coupon on our local IGA website. The coupon changes every week and they only offer one coupon per week. Is it worth my time to print the coupon out and use it? Honestly, it depends on what product is being offered. If it's something I know I will use it's definitely worth my time. Be sure to check out every available resource for coupons because sometimes you will find them in an unlikely spot.

I drive by this grocery store five days a week and usually stop in to check out the sale items anyway. This week's coupon was definitely worth it...a four pack of Angel Soft Toilet paper being offered for 25¢. I combined this run with several other errands and went right by the store, so this was a good deal for me.

Other deals I found there included:

One package of Clementines in the produce marked down bin for $1.49:

Pita Bread marked down to 90¢ per package. These will make good pizzas for lunch one afternoon.

Other items I picked up there today included a gallon of milk for $3.89. Ouch, but much better the the $5 gallon of milk being offered at Bi-Lo.  The news media is reporting that the price of milk may increase in the New Year. I certainly hope it doesn't.

Belinda
© Belinda Richardson and Frugal Workshop, 2012.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Grocery Store Ads 7-27-11

Grocery Store Ads here include: IGA, Bi-Lo, Aldi, Food Lion, Cooke's, and Super Saver. There aren't too many things on sale this week that I would consider a stock up price except for the Ground Chuck at IGA. I've included the links if you want to check the store ads for yourself. Following is a list of items I would buy for my family:

IGA

- Ground Chuck $1.99 a pound

- Sugar - 1.99 - 4 pounds

- Crinkle Cut Fries - 5 pound bag - 2/$7.00 

Don't forget, IGA has a weekly web coupon you can print out. This week it's a 24 ounce bottle of Hunt's ketchup for 49¢.

Aldi

- Red Grapes - 99 cents a pound

- Cherries - $1.49 pound

- Strawberries - 99 cents a pound

- Broccoli - 99 cents a pound

- Boneless, Skinless, Chicken Breasts - $1.69 a pound

Food Lion

- Red Grapes - 99 cents a pound