Third Frugal Friday of October 2024

 Welcome to Frugal Friday! 

My Frugal Week
Last Friday I woke up to 40 degrees outside and 37 on Tuesday, so it's definitely getting colder here, which it always does around Bailey's birthday, which was Thursday. The temperature inside the house was 65 and then 62, so I put a sweater on to keep warmer. 
I love this time of year as our air conditioner isn't runner and neither are our heaters, so we are only using around 35 kilowatts per day, which means a lower electric bill. 
I had an eye doctor appointment for eye injections on Tuesday, and we went to Publix afterwards. They had given me a bouquet of flowers for free for being a rewards member for four years, so I gave them to Bailey for her birthday. They had my favorite Siggi's yogurt on sale priced at ten for $10, so I bought ten of those. 
Freebie & Joy of the Week

Someone listed a free desk on Craigslist this week, so I now have a new to me desk. Some of the drawer pulls were hanging off, but Bailey had some drawer pulls she picked up second hand, so rather than pay for new ones, I used the ones she had on hand. Having spent no money, the desk and its drawer pulls are the epitome of frugal. 
Photo of the Week

Bailey's Birthday Flowers

Savings of the Week

I have to share this good deal. Amazon has Royal sugar free lime gelatin on sale for 65% off. You can get a 12 count box for $4.86, which makes them 41 cents per box. Great value is up to 98 cents. There is a limit of 5 total, so 60 boxes for $58.80 at Walmart verses $24.60 at Amazon, is a  savings of $34.20. Only the sugar free lime is on sale right now. 
When I make gelatin I use two boxes. One way I've saved money on this dish is by using one envelope of plain gelatin in place of one box of flavored gelatin. The flavored gelatin stretches to flavor the plain gelatin and it saves money. 
Two teaspoons of Knox gelatin is equal to one box of gelatin. There are over 70 servings in the container of Knox priced at $21.99, which makes the "box" 31 cents each. By using an equivalent amount of the Knox I will save 67 cents. I eat gelatin with fruit just about every day, with a scoop of cottage cheese, so the savings will add up over time. 
Avoiding Spending
We didn't avoid any spending this week as I had to buy a few things for Bailey's birthday on Thursday. We went to Publix for a free rewards deal of flowers, and yogurt, which was on sale, and a free tub of ice cream for her birthday. 

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

Frugal Friday

Good Friday morning to all my readers. I hope you've had a good frugal week. 
This week Labor Day fell on Monday and then an inservice on Tuesday, but I was still able to sub three days for which I'm grateful. As usual, I packed lunch & drinks all three days. 
The person who did our garbage went off to college in August, so we had to hire someone new. His first day was last Saturday. He asked me if we needed anything else done, so we had him do a few extra chores around the house. 
He trimmed several bushes, weed eated, hauled off the last of the lumber from when we redid our porch steps (A lot of it was given away on Craigslist), hauled off brush from bushes, and cleaned up the area under our stairs. The yard looks so much better as a result and was money well spent. 
This week I sold two items on eBay. 
On Thursday I was subbing and found myself with a couple of free hours in the middle of the day, so I went to IGA to buy a gallon of water (76¢). 
It was so hot where I was subbing that I'd drank everything I bought with me. They had water for sale in the 20 ounce bottle for $1.00, but I decided to go to the store and get it a little bit cheaper.   When I got there they had pretzel chips, tortilla chips, and cheddar popcorn all marked down to $1 per bag trying to move them. I definitely stocked up on the tortilla chips as I can make a meal with those and that is a fantastic price. 
This week we picked up Kroger's Friday freebie, which was a Kind bar. 
We also received two free magazines in the mail this week. 
We did not eat out this week as we have specific goals we are saving for and do not want to derail those by spending more money to eat than necessary. We stayed home and cooked our food from scratch to save money. 

Good Deal Alert: We happened upon a fantastic deal on Wesson oil at Publix this week. It's on sale for buy one get one free. And if you go here, you can print a coupon for $1.00 off making the bottle 64¢. Woo Hoo!

In My Frugal Kitchen This Week...
On Monday I used up some cans of pears and mandarin oranges along with some packages of jello and made jello cups to take for lunches this week. 
On Tuesday I made food to take for lunches to have this week and for lunches for those who are staying home. I made egg salad, pasta salad, cooked apples, and sandwiches. 
I tried a new recipe this week for Fiesta Rice. 
Fiesta Rice
Add the dressing ingredients together:
1/2 cup olive oil 1/4 cup red wine vinegar 1 garlic clove, minced 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cumin 1 teaspoon chili powder 1/4 teaspoon pepper
Mix well and add in the following:
3 cups cooked rice  1 can kidney beans 1 can black beans 1 & 1/2 cups corn 4 green onions 1 red pepper
Enjoy! :)
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Good Deal Alert on Suave Deodorant at Publix

There is a good deal going on right now at Publix on Suave deodorant. 
Publix has the Suave deodorant on sale for buy one get one free. 
The price of the deodorant is $1.99, which makes them approximately $1.00 each. 
Publix also has a coupon in their purple sale flyer for $1.00 off when you buy two of the deodorants.
Y0u can get the purple sale flyer as soon as you walk into the store alongside their sale flyers. 
You can use each coupon up to four times, which means you can buy eight of the deodorants. 
They will end up costing you approximately 50¢ each, which is a great deal. 
The sale is going on through Tuesday if you're interested. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

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 ~

Frugal Friday March 8, 2019

Welcome to Friday! I'm happy because I am feeling better and at three o'clock today we will be on Spring Break for a week. 
Days Worked:
This week I worked all five days, so I'm definitely happy it's Friday. I'm looking forward to having the next week off. 
The weather turned off cold on Sunday evening and I had to bring out my big winter coat. It was 27 degrees in the morning. We had to salt the stairs as they were iced over from all the rain. 
My daughter went sourcing yesterday and ended up at Ingle's where she found two great deals. 
The first one was two of these corned beef roasts. They were originally over $12, but on mark down they were $5.99, so she bought two of them and I already have them in the freezer. 

The second great deal she found was on corn tortillas. This was not in the sale flyer, but was an in-store special. These corn tortillas were only 50¢ each! 

These make other foods in your home stretch to make great meals. We use them on a regular basis. We bought twenty of them as they freeze well and we'll use them to make great frugal meals. 

She also found two pizzas on markdown at Kroger priced at $2.99 and $3.49. She made them for dinner on Thursday and we had plenty leftover for lunches today.

She was so sweet, she even packed my lunch for me today. 

Dinners This Week:
Saturday: Homemade Pizza, Salad Sunday: Tacos with lettuce, cheese, tomato, and onion Monday:  Taco Salad Tuesday: Chicken & Dressing, Mixed Vegetables Wednesday: Homemade Chili Thursday: Pizza Friday: Chicken & Dressing as we still have some left.    Other Stuff:
Our garbage man quit in February, but I was already able to hire someone new to take his place. I advertised on my Facebook page (which was free) and had someone new in about five minutes. 
Since I work as a sub and know the majority of students at the high school many of them are willing to do this small job for what we're paying. 
I've been playing Scrabble online for free this week. It really helps to keep my brain active, which is good for the aging process and it's also fun to try and come up with the best words. 
That's all the news I have from here this week. Thank you all so much for your concern with me being sick. It meant a lot to me. I hope you have a great weekend. 

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Target Purina Cat Food Deal

One deal we picked up this week was from Target. They are giving away one $10 Target gift card when you buy three bags of Purina cat food.
This is the only cat food we buy for our cats because it is not made in China. Target has this deal every couple of months or so and we try and stock up at that time. 
One thing we did to make this deal even better was to cash in some of my points from the Checkpoints app. We were able to cash in enough points for a $10 Target gift card. 
We bought three bags of cat food and paid $23 at the register. But, we also received the $10 gift card to Target, which lowered our cost to $13. 
$13 for three bags of Purina cat food (16 pounds) is a great price.  
This good deal runs through Saturday if you're interested. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Great Deal Alert ~ Reese's Puffs Cereal

We found a good deal on Reese's Puffs cereal over the weekend. This is one of my daughters favorite cereals. This was marked down since it was made for spring.

The price of the cereal was marked down to $2.00, but when we went to ring it up at the register, the price rang up for 91¢.

So, we decided to go back and buy more boxes. In all we bought 16 boxes for $14.56. 

The date on these are stamped February 2019, so they are good for a long time. 

These are the 22.9 ounce boxes and cost us 4¢ per ounce.

Amy Dacyczyn's rule on cereal was that she would pay no more than 7¢ per ounce and that was in 1992, which was 26 years ago. So, we know this is a great price for these. 

Here they are stored in our pantry. 

Plus, these have BoxTop for Education pieces on them, which I will sell on Ebay for $1.60, which lowers our price even more.

If you have a Walmart close by and like this cereal,  it would definitely be worth your time to see if they have this on markdown in your area.

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Frugal Friday

This was our deal of the week. We found gallon jugs of milk on August 1st for $1.39 at Kroger and the sell by date was August 12th. I was shocked! I bought three gallons and will put two of them in the freezer.

We bought four boxes of Lipton tea bags 100 count for $1.11 each. Publix sells them for $4.11, but had them on sale for buy one get one free and had a coupon for $1.00 off in their sales flyer. So, we were able to buy them for $1.11 each, which is a great deal for 100 name brand tea bags.  

Kroger had Kool-Aid & Country Time lemonade on sale this week for $1.00 each and we had six coupons for 55¢ off one, so we paid 45¢ for each of these. I figured they were a good deal since the sugar was already included. 

Some things I've done in my frugal kitchen today include...

I made cole slaw dressing this week to use with the cole slaw I bought on mark down at Kroger on Saturday. 
I used up three bananas that were on the verge of spoiling to make Banana Pancakes so as not to waste them.
I made a chocolate cake with homemade peanut butter frosting. 
And finally we are staying home today, so no money spent outside our home. 
How have you been saving money this week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~