Frugal Friday ~ April 26, 2019

This week I was able to work four days and got to stay home on Wednesday, so I decided to make our Easter dinner then. 
One thing that the water problem did was soak through some of my Dad's clothes that he left here when he moved five years ago. 
There is normally red clay mud at the bottom of our water tank/heater, so if it leaks red clay comes with it and his clothes soaked up a bunch of the water and mud and I didn't think the red clay would come out. 
I asked him if he wanted me to wash them or get rid of them and he told me to trash them. So there is a section of the downstairs that has been cleaned out as a result. It looks so much better than it did before.  
Some of the items we dried outside in the sunshine. I kept all of the towels and will use those for the cat beds. I'm not going to wash them in my washer with the red clay. 
Some things I did to save money this week include...
- Cut my own hair. My bangs were getting too long and annoying me, so I decided to trim them and decided to cut my hair in the process.
- Earned another $5 from Microsoft Rewards

- Perused the grocery store sale ads online. Here are some good deals I plan on picking up:

Kroger

Peanut Butter 99¢

Cheddar Cheese 99¢

Both of these involve digital coupons and you can purchase up to five, so we both picked these up on Thursday. 

I just opened the  last jar of peanut butter from Kroger's last sale, so the timing worked out well. 

We now have ten jars of peanut butter in our pantry and ten blocks of cheddar cheese (blocks as I prefer to shred my own cheese) in our refrigerator. 

Food City

Food Club Tomatoes 50¢ Friday Only

Luck's Beans 50¢ Friday Only

Smuckers Grape Jam 99¢ Friday Only

Kroger regularly sells canned tomatoes for 50¢ per can, so we picked up two cases (24 cans/$12.00) on Thursday. I was down to one can, so we definitely needed them. 

In my Frugal Kitchen this week I made another batch of granola bars. My daughter bought some Hershey chocolate chips last week when Kroger had them for $1.00 a bag, so I put 1/2 bag in this batch along with some coconut we had in the pantry. 

My recipe calls for 1 & 1/2 cups of peanut butter, but since I was on my last jar when I made them, I only used 1 cup and then used 1/2 cup of peanut butter powder, which helped me stretch my peanut butter and helped me use up the pb powder at least until I bought more on Thursday. 

I've been saving my peanut butter jars to reuse for other things. 

Hershey's Chocolate Chips 

$1.00 @ Kroger

The ham bone from our Easter dinner was put into the crockpot to make ham stock. I used some of the ham stock to moisten the cornbread dressing I made to go with the ham and it really added good flavor to the dressing. 

Beans I had in the fridge were put into individual containers and placed in the freezer as we were not eating them this week because I made a big ham in the middle of the week. 

One thing that I made this week and no one like was a package of cheese sauce. which I doctored with taco sauce. No one liked it though, so I need to decide what to do with it. 

Stir fry has been served in our home more often since I bought the Breville wok a few weeks ago. It's a good and healthy dinner, which is filled with vegetables and one that we all enjoy. 

This was a cabbage stir fry I made:

Rice in my Rice Cooker to go with the Stir Fry.

One day for lunch we had a marked down pizza we picked up at Kroger for $2.99. We also picked up some marked down chicken and ground beef. 

On Tuesday evening I made cornbread in order to make cornbread dressing on Wednesday for our Easter dinner. 

Here it is broken up as I was trying to get it cooled off before I crumbled it. 

Freebies this week included multiple free magazines such as Newsweek, Southern Living, Better Homes & Gardens, etc. A free Nibbler (chicken sandwich) postcard from Zaxby's for my birthday next month. 

Yesterday I felt like Sluggy when I found a quarter in the girl's bathroom at school. :)

Another free juice from one of the students at school. I'm so glad they've started asking me rather than throwing these away. This one was a combination of citrus juices and not just orange juice. 

That's all the news from here this week. How was your week? I'd love to hear about it in the comment section. 

Stay frugal my friends. :)

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 ~

Inexpensive Sources of Food

You know the old saying, Different strokes for different folks. The ways that I find to save money on food may be different than ways you or other people find to save on food. I've ran across many people over the years who do it differently than I do. 

Many people go off budget when it comes to eating than in any other area of their budget. From expired food to overspending at the grocery store to eating out. Making a weekly meal planning ensures that you actually use the items you already have, purchase only what you truly need, and avoid harried trips through the drive-through on busy nights.

The ability to manage your money in this one isolated area of your life overflows into other categories of your spending. For example, planning your meals will help keep you out of the stores, which will help reduce any impulse purchases. 

Eat at Home ~ This will save you so much money over eating out. So many families overspend by eating in restaurants on a regular basis. I love to eat out, but I know that if I do it several times a week I am not going to have enough money to cover our basic necessities and that won't work for me. Eating at home saves me money and here are some of the ways that I do that...

Shop at Discount Grocers - Such as Save-A-Lot, Aldi, The Dollar Tree. These will definitely save you money over big name grocery stores. Just the other day I found Secret deodorant at The Dollar Tree for $1.00 whereas I normally pay $1.96 for my favorite brand. These types of stores can definitely save you money. 

Shop the Sales ~ I use this tool over every other tool listed here. Every Wednesday I gather up the sale ads or look at them online and figure out which food items are at the lowest possible price and then I go and stock up on them. by doing this, I ensure that I am buying food at the lowest price possible for me. 

Couponing ~ The one website I use regularly for coupons is Couponaholic. If you see me mention I used a coupon for an item, 9 times out of 10 I have printed it from the Couponaholic website. 

Warehouse Clubs ~ Gale over at Faithfulness Farm and Brandy over at The Prudent Homemaker are two people that I know of that shop at warehouse clubs to save money. My friend Anna pays for her membership just with the savings they receive on medicine. 

Take an Inventory ~ The first step in managing your food supply is knowing what you have on hand and that means taking inventory. You can read about food inventories I've done in my home here and here. It is much easier to save money when you know what you have on hand to make meals with. 

Use the Food You Have ~ Have you done an inventory of the food you have on hand? How many meals can you make out of that food? You might be surprised by how many meals you can actually make with the ingredients you have on hand. The other day I came home and made some rice and then opened up a can of low sodium mixed vegetables, which no one had been eating, and mixed them both together. They were so delicious and very inexpensive. 

Salvage Stores ~ If you are fortunate to have a salvage grocery in your area be sure to shop there for inexpensive sources of food. We are fortunate enough to have United Grocery Outlets or UGO in our area. I have made posts here and here detailing the great savings we have found at our local UGO. Salvage stores are not like regular grocery stores that get new inventory each week, but rather sell items that traditional grocery stores won't sell any longer. They can be hit or miss, but we have found some great deals at our local one. 

Free Food ~ Don't overlook sources of free food. We have a friend who gives us free food regularly. My Mom has shared food with us before as well. Some people volunteer at an event and are able to take some free food home afterwards. Free food sometimes shows up at work events as well. I know just last week I received a free lunch from Chick-Fil-A while subbing at the middle school. 

Stockpile ~ We stockpile. I coupon for items that we use regularly, that have a long shelf life, when they are at rock bottom prices. And this reaps many rewards for us. Amy Dacyczyn referred to it as The Pantry Principle in The Tightwad Gazette. It is buying food at the lowest possible price and stocking up to last you through until the next sale.  

Crash & Burn ~ Do you check out the dented can section of your favorite grocery store? There are usually good deals to be found there. I always visit these areas in our local grocery stores. I have found some of my best bargains in the Crash & Burn section. Just the other day I found a five pound bag of rice for $1.00. 

Eat Leftovers ~ Oftentimes I've read that people don't like to eat leftovers. My family definitely eats leftovers and they enjoy them. My daughter loves to heat up leftovers from dinner the night before for breakfast the next day. This is definitely an area that will save you money, which leads me to my next point. 

Avoiding Food Waste ~

When food reaches the use by or sell by date it doesn't mean it needs to be thrown away. The dates found on food items are suggestions made by food companies to ensure peak quality and do not indicate food safety. Food manufacturers make more money when consumers  toss food they think has gone bad.  Some people discard food when it's reached this date, but the truth is many foods can be safely consumed after these dates. For example, I never toss out buttermilk as it is good long after the use by date has passed.

Dumpster Diving ~  Last but not least, I saved this one for last as some people are turned off by this concept, which I understand. If you're interested in the topic you can Google it and find all kinds of information about it. There was a lady on the old AOL message boards named Mary who used to Dumpster Dive and she found enough food that she was able to share it with friends. 

Be sure to browse through the archives here at the Frugal Workshop to read other ways we save money on food such as buying food in large industrial cans for example. And of course, my readers are a wealth of information on inexpensive sources of food. So please share with us how you find these sources. 

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.

Frugal Saturday

The weather here in Tennessee yesterday was wonderful. It was a cool fall day and perfect for yard sales. 

Here are a few things we picked up:

One pair of skinny jeans for $5, one pair of capris for $5, three pairs of shorts for $3 each, three shirts for $2 each, one pair of like new OPI sandals $1, and one American Eagle jacket for $4. The pants and shorts are all name brand. 

All of these are for my daughter. She was thrilled with all of it, but especially the American Eagle jacket. And the flowery shirt in the front will be perfect for a dressy event she has coming up at school. 

A brand new, still with stickers, double wall cup with lid and straw. We like these cups because they have the lid and they keep drinks colder for long periods of time. These cups retail for $5 and up at most retailers, but we bought this cup for 25¢. We still can't believe the person sold it for that amount. 

Other things we bought, but are not pictured are two boxes of thank you notes for 25¢ each, and a thermal blanket for $3, which was needed for the living room as the blanket I used in there has been permanently borrowed by my daughter. lol

Since I was in town, I decided to stop at Bi-Lo and Cooke's to check out their crash and burn items. I couldn't find any at Bi-Lo, but I was glad I stopped in anyway. Looked what I scored:

These are 30 count bags of tortillas for $1.19, but see the coupon attached? I carefully read it to see if it would double, since Bi-Lo doubles coupons up to 60¢, and I figured it would, so I tried it and it worked. That coupon doubled and gave me 70¢ off each bag, so 49¢ a bag...what a deal. I'm so glad I stopped in there today. Always be on the look out for peelies to see if you can score a good deal on an item.  

My other bargain of the day came from Cooke's. Their crash and burn cart was filled with one pound bags of black eyed peas for 50¢. If you look closely you can see the 50¢ on the package. This was such a great deal that I bought ten bags. I love finding great deals like this so I can feed my family inexpensively.  

These two items were the only food items I bought on Saturday. 

Once we got home I got busy cleaning, hanging our laundry up to dry, and doing some things in the kitchen.  

I made sure to put the onions I bought this week into pantyhose and hung them in the pantry. I mentioned in a blog post a while ago that I would let you know how my experiment turned out. 

Storing the onions in panty hose, where the air is able to circulate around them definitely helps to keep them longer. The ones I bought and kept in the original mesh bag sprouted after one month, but the ones I stored in panty hose lasted four months. As a result, I will be storing them this way in the future.  

If you don't have any panty hose, Walmart sells knee highs for 30¢, which is what I used in this photo, so one of these would only cost you 15¢. Not a bad price to help keep your onions longer. 

I do have one frugal fail to mention today, if you are interested. I scored this 42 ounce canister of oatmeal at a yard sale today for 50¢. I was  actually kicking myself because if I had gotten there sooner, I could have gotten all three that he had for sale. 

When I got it home I looked at it closely and it expired in 2009. I should have looked at it closer when I was buying it. Now I will have to Google non food ways to use up oatmeal. lol

We are on Fall Break this week from school/work, so I am looking forward to getting a lot of things done. 

How was your Saturday? Did you find any good bargains?

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"

Second Frugal Week of February

What a week we had here! School was called off for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday due to the winter mix of weather here. We were/are on Winter Break Friday, Monday and Tuesday, so no school here for over a week. I missed out on several days of working as a result. 

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were no spending any money days.

Thursday was bill paying day and all bills were paid online to save on postage. 

Friday was spent in town doing our big monthly stock up at the grocery stores. I spent a total of $202.77, used 82 coupons, which saved me $116.40 and does not even include the $50.00 savings at Food Lion for the sale on Powerades.  

Here is a breakdown of items we bought:

Family Dollar

Suave Shampoo - Same deal as last week. I had a $1.00 of coupon, so I only had to pay the 10¢ sales tax. 

Cooke's

Cheese, frozen dinners, cat treats, and 40 pounds of potatoes ($7.98 or 20¢ a pound). I found 14 bags of cat treats in the Crash & Burn cart for 90¢ each, and I had coupons for them, so I paid 40¢ each for them. 

Save a Lot

Eggs are/were on sale this week for 99¢ a dozen, so we stocked up and bought 8 cartons. We also used a $1.00 off coupon to score a free bag of salad. 

Aldi

5 bags of onions

Food Lion

I went on Friday to score the deal on Powerades. And then on Saturday I found some coupons to use, so after my daughter's volunteer hours were done, we went back to get more. In the end I bought 75 Powerades for my pantry for 20¢ each. This definitely beats her wanting to stop at the gas station on the way to school in the morning for a drink for $1.89. There are only 68 school days left this year, so she is all set. 

I also scored 16 FREE cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup. As I mentioned in this post the kiosk was printing out coupons for $1.00 off 2 Campbell's soup and they had them on sale for 50¢ each. Customers are only allowed to print one coupon sheet per day, but people tend to abandon these coupon sheets in their cart, so we picked up several that way. We also bought cereal, soup, diced tomatoes, and honey mustard here. 

Bi-Lo

Bi-Lo had their awesome cereal deal again this week. You buy 6 boxes of cereal and get a free gallon of orange juice. We had numerous coupons for the cereal and at least one of them was buy one get one free. We bought two of these deals and combined with the cereal deal at Food Lion, we ended up with 22 boxes of cereal. My family has gone through a lot of cereal this winter for some reason, so I was very glad to be able to purchase all of these.  

I also bought sugar, bagels, shampoo, and yogurt here. 

Publix

Some of my greatest deals came from Publix on this shopping trip. I used to shop at Walmart so much, but in the last two years I've realized that I can find better prices at the grocery stores and when I combine them with sales and the double coupons that Publix offers, I buy very little from Walmart now. 

Items here included cream cheese, oranges, fish, tea bags, Knorr rice packages, Kotex, Stayfree, ham, olives, beans, sour cream, salt, rice, butter, yogurt, tartar sauce, Alleve, peas and carrots, and chocolate milk (had coupons!).

I bought 18 bags of the Knorr rice for 14¢ each after sale and coupons.

Four boxes of Lipton tea bags were $1.12 each after sale and coupons. 

Four boxes of 40 count Alleve were 49¢ each after sale and coupons. 

Walmart sells my brand of Stayfree for $4.97, which I buy regularly. Publix sells the same package for $4.09, but with coupons I was able to get two bags for $4.09, which blows Walmart's price out of the water! 

It was a terrific shopping day and these are the things we got that were completely free: 

In the end I bought $369.17 worth of groceries for $202.77 and now the bulk of my grocery shopping is done for the month. All I will need to buy is milk and bread and some fresh produce. 

Other things we did this week to save money include:

Tuesday I entered My Coke Rewards points into my computer. A chore I dislike a great deal, but I do it for the free diet coke 12 packs for my Mother who is on a limited budget.

On Saturday we both had our hair cut and used a coupon for that as well. 

We rented a movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, with a free rental code from Redbox. CouponDad.net regularly has free rental codes on his blog. 

Breakfasts this week consisted of oatmeal, leftovers, scrambled eggs and toast, toast with butter and jelly, cream cheese with bagels, and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

Dinners were:

Monday: Baked Potatoes stuffed with Vegetable Chili
Tuesday: Hot Dogs & Tator Tots
Wednesday: Salisbury Steak, Beefy Mushroom Barley, Corn
Thursday: Macaroni & Cheese, Broccoli
Friday: Homemade Pizza
Saturday: Grilled Chicken, Mexican Rice, Steamed Carrots
Sunday: Pinto Beans, Collard Greens, Cornbread

That's our our week went, how was your week?

How did you save money in your home this week?

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Good Deal Alert: Onions

Aldi has onions on sale this week in the 3 pound bag for 99¢. 

The last time I stocked up on this sale was back on October 22, 2013. 

You can read my post about it here. 

I have one onion left from that sale, so the timing for this sale is perfect for me. 

I bought 5 pounds this time hoping to make it to the next sale on onions. 

In my last post, reader Mama P asked me the following question,

"Does putting them in those pantyhose knots really extend the life of the onion? I'm so tired of my onions going bad so quickly."

At that time, I told her this was the first time I was trying this storage solution and that I would have to get back to her and let her know. 

Out of all 28 onions, I did have one with a bad spot inside of it, but I cut around it and used the onion anyway. 

I think having the onions exposed to the air around them helped to preserve each one until I was able to use it. In the past I've had an onion go bad and then the ones next to it go bad as well because they were right next to it. I did not experience that with this batch of onions, so I will definitely be storing my onions this way in the future. 

While I was shopping it seemed like everyone had onions in their shopping cart, lol. This is a great deal and hopefully you'll be able to get in on this one. :)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Saving on Food ~ Buying in Bulk

I'm sad to report that my local Walmart is no longer carrying the 2 quart jar of Mt. Olive pickle relish that I blogged about here in May of 2011. I've looked around and couldn't find this product anywhere for sale near me and I even checked the Mt. Olive website, but no stores are selling this here. 

Fortunately for me, I have found another source for cheap pickle relish at Sam's Club. Now, because it is located in Chattanooga, we only go there a few times a year since we live 50 miles from there. But, this jar is big enough that it will last until we make our next trip in a few months. 

This is a photo of the one gallon jar of pickle relish, which I bought for $5.22, and is an even better deal than my previous source.  My previous source would have been $6.72 for a gallon, so a savings of $1.50 over my previous best price.

Now, you may be wondering about my Sam's club membership and the yearly cost of the $45 membership. The savings that I earn on medications, which I blogged about here, more than pays for the membership to Sam's each year. In fact, this month when I paid my membership fees they also gave me a $10 gift card, which I will apply to my next visit. 

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Tightwad Tuesday

Since it was so cold this morning, I started off the day by making some hot chocolate using the recipe on the side of the Hershey's cocoa canister. 

Afterwards, I started some eggs on to boil for egg salad. 

Egg salad is what we had on the menu for lunch today. 

I use pickle relish in my egg salad and used up the last of a small bottle and then had to open up the new gallon jar that I bought recently. To make things easier here, I always decant some into a smaller jar, which is easier and lighter to pull out of the refrigerator and use as needed. 

Did you know that a Parmesan cheese lid will fit a regular mouth canning jar perfectly? I first learned about the idea on Pinterest. 

Isn't that neat? I'm going to put baking soda in the pint size jar and keep it next to the sink to clean the sink.

Dinner tonight is Red Beans & Rice, Broccoli, and Cornbread. I also made a gallon of sweet iced tea. 

I tried a new to me recipe for the Red Beans, which came from my Crock Pot cookbook. I really liked this recipe and will be adding it to our regular menu. 

Here is the recipe:

Vegetarian Red Beans & Rice

Ingredients:

1 pound dried red beans
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped (I left this out because I did not have one)
2 ribs celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 (14.5 ounce) cans vegetable broth
2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt (I always use 1 Tablespoon salt for 1 lb. dried beans)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (I left this out)
2 cups hot cooked rice

Directions:

In a large pot, cover the beans with three times their volume of water and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes and then remove from heat. (I just soaked mine overnight) Cover and let stand for one hour and then drain. Combine all of the ingredients in a slow cooker except for the rice. Cover, cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Serve over hot cooked rice. 

We just got the call, Wednesday we will have another snow day, so no school or work for us three days in a row. I had a job to work on Wednesday too, so now I am missing work over this cold weather. I have another job lined up for Thursday, so I am hoping this cold weather moves out of here. 

What have you been up to on this cold Tuesday? 

Have you decided what you are going to prepare for dinner? 

I hope you have a warm and peaceful evening. :)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”