Grocery Stores SE Tennessee

Have you ever thought about where you grocery shop? 
Do you consider how many miles away your favorite store is and if it's worth it to make the drive there for groceries? 
We live in a rural area so, I am used to driving long distances to get most anywhere. 
We are fortunate that we have over a dozen grocery stores to choose from. I've listed these in order from the closest store to my house to the store that is the farthest away. 
Shopping at the store closest to me will save me money on gas and wear and tear on my car. Saving money in as many areas as possible will get me and you the most mileage on our frugal journeys. 
While some of these grocery stores are farther away, if we are in that town, we usually always stop by to check out any good deals.  It's in our best interest to stop in and check out their deals. I do not shop at all these stores regularly. Some of them I shop regularly in and others less often. 
My grocery budget is $300 a month, which allows me to spend $10 a day on food. Planning our menus around what is one sale saves me money each month, so I make sure to peruse the grocery sale ads every week.
Having said that, here are the stores we are able to shop at...
Fresh & Low (5.8 miles away) This is the closest grocery store to my house and they have some very good deals such as 5 items from the produce section for $9.99. But, they do add 10% at the register, so that has to be factored into the prices. 
IGA (9.9 miles away) CLOSED This is the ONLY grocery store in the town where I work. As a result of that, prices are high and food quality can be low, especially on frozen vegetables. I practically refuse to buy them as I've had freezer burn from them before.  
Food City (15.1 miles away) We actually have two Food City locations in town and one just over the state line in Georgia. Food City has become my favorite grocery store. They have good sales and I can also get some of my prescriptions for $4.00 there. 
Save A Lot (15.4 miles away) Honestly, we have so many grocery stores to choose from that I rarely shop at Save A Lot. I'm sorry to say this, but this store is on hill and I've watched as more than one person has let their shopping cart go careening down the hill, once they are done unloading the groceries, and let it smash into another car. I don't want my car hit this way, so I steer clear. 
United Grocery Outlet (15.5 miles away) UGO has some of the best prices on canned goods, which I've blogged about before. Their prices have risen since the Great Recession, so they don't have as good of prices as they used to, but they can still be a good source of inexpensive groceries. 
Cooke's Hometown Grocer (16.7 miles away) I love Cooke's and they also own the local Fresh and Low grocery stores. They used to have the best crash and burn items, but lately the items have been overpriced, so it's been a while since I've bought any there. They carry some of my favorite dried beans, so I always look at those when I'm there.    Food Lion (16.7 miles away) There used to be two Food Lions in town, but they closed one of the stores. I used to shop there more often than I do now. The produce can be iffy, so I try to be careful. Lately they seem to be doing more of the "you can get this sale price, but only for 1 or 2 days" and I don't care for that. I like to combine errands to save money, so this type of sale does not always work for me. 
Aldi  (17.3 miles away) Aldi has some of the best prices on produce and non-sale frozen vegetables. 
Publix (18.2 miles away) Publix no longer had any competition once Bi-Lo left town, and it really showed. Their sales and coupons are not nearly as good as they once were and they even stopped doubling coupons.  As a result, I shop there less and less often than I once did. 
Piggly Wiggly (20.8 miles or away) I've noticed that Piggly Wiggly and Cooke's offer the same sale items each week, so I have to wonder if they are somehow related . I like Piggly Wiggly for their sale on Oscar Mayer hot dogs and bologna, which they have every three months. They also double coupons, a win-win in my book. 
Ingles Markets (23.3 miles) Located in Georgia. Honestly, their prices tend to be higher and they don't stock a lot of product, so I am not much of a fan of Ingles. They do honor double coupons, however. 
Kroger (28.7 miles away) Located in Georgia. This is the grocery store that is farthest away from me, but if I will be in that area I am sure to stop in as they have some of the best yellow sticker deals we can find. We live in a rural area so, I am used to driving long distances to get most anywhere. Kroger also offers double coupons. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Frugal Workshop Podcast #3: Part 1 Saving Money on Food

Another podcast went live on Monday, but I didn't get the opportunity to post it yesterday, so here it is today. I hope you enjoy it.

Good morning and welcome to the third podcast of the Frugal Workshop blog. I'm your host, Belinda Richardson and I want to welcome you and all of my readers from Frugal Workshop. I'm so glad you decided to join us.

Today we’re going to be talking about saving money on food, so let’s get started. 

Sometimes people find managing the kitchen and meal planning to be a big challenge. Coming home after a long day of work and going into the kitchen to prepare the family dinner is not something people always have the time or energy to accomplish. 

Because of this many people have come to depend on fast food, restaurants, and convenience foods to deal with this challenge in order to feed their families. Convenience foods like inexpensive $5 pizzas help to make mealtimes easier, but oftentimes those convenience foods cost more money than food prepared at home.

Families who rely on these foods too often find themselves with financial problems as a result of eating out too much.

Do you find that you are spending a lot of money every week or each month by eating out or getting food and bringing it home? The average American household in the U.S. spends about $3,365 per year eating outside of the home according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

There are all sorts of reasons why people enjoy eating out at restaurants and I enjoy eating out as much as the next person. However, if you are eating out for convenience's sake the majority of the time, you would definitely save money by cooking at home. 

Grocery shopping is one area of the family budget where you can save a tremendous amount of money. In this podcast, I will examine several areas that can save you money and restore some savings to your family budget.

Using resources wisely (time, money, food) is one area of my life that is important to me. Keeping a well-stocked pantry and meal planning are important tools towards this goal. Having meals planned out has always made my life so much easier during the times I’ve utilized this tool. 

Now, I do have days where I forget to take something out of the freezer or times when it seems like I am only able to plan meals on the spur of the moment. But the times when I have been organized in my meal planning have been the times when I felt the most at peace with myself, which in turn makes my household run smoother.

Planning is the key to saving money on your grocery budget. And you need to prepare yourself before you go shopping. 

Take inventory of what you already have on hand and then make a list of as many meals you can make with that food.  It could be that you have enough food at home to where you might not even have to go grocery shopping. Wouldn’t that be great?

Having an inventory of what I have in my pantry helps me a great deal by knowing what foods I actually have on hand and then using that knowledge in planning meals using those foods, which stretches my resources further. 

By inventorying what I have on hand, I can see several different meals I can make that I hadn't thought of making before I inventoried my supplies. That will help me save money by using up our inventory. 

I continue this practice all month long, creating meals from my inventory, scouring cookbooks and Internet resources, to find ways to create meals out of what I have on hand.

Amy Dacyczyn describes The Pantry Principle in her book, The Complete Tightwad Gazette, which she said she first learned about in a book written by Barbara Salsbury and Cheri Loveless called Cut Your Food Bill in Half.

 Amy states that the idea of planning meals thirty days in advance is not the most frugal way to go about planning menus for your family. She thinks that planning meals in advance is backward and that stick-to-your-list thinking does not allow an individual to take advantage of unadvertised deals.

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. The purpose of grocery shopping then becomes a trip to replenish your pantry, and not a trip to purchase specific ingredients for specific meals, which usually ends up costing you more money. 

Amy claims that many families do not take the concept far enough to save the maximum amount of their money.

Barbara Salsbury, who invented the Pantry Principle, has a new book titled ,”Beating The High Cost of Eating”. If you’re interested in learning more about her ideas and concepts this book is much more affordable than her older book. 

The next step you need to do is to utilize the grocery store ads and see what they have on sale this week. 

Wednesday is the day our newspaper has the grocery store sales flyers in them, so that’s the day I can go online and peruse the sale ads and make a note of what is on sale and if I need anything I add it to my list. 

Nowadays Walmart along with some other stores have their prices posted online, so it is easier than ever to compare prices between stores. 

One way we save money on food is by shopping at discount grocers such as Save-A-Lot, Aldi, and 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. 

Another place people can save money is by shopping at warehouse clubs. Several people I know shop at warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam’s Club in order to save money. My friend Anna pays for her membership just with the savings they receive on medicine. 

Another place to shop and save money are salvage stores. If you are fortunate to have a salvage grocery store 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. 

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. 

Another way to save money on food is by looking for sources of free food. We have a friend who gives us free food from time to time. And we’ve had many gardening friends who share fresh produce with us.  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 last school year I received a free lunch from Chick-Fil-A while subbing. 

Check out the website Falling Fruit.org (https://fallingfruit.org) to find areas in your part of the world that have free food for forging. It’s a wonderful concept to rescue this food and use it to feed people. 

Let’s not forget the Crash & Burn section of your grocery store. Do you check out the dented can section of the grocery stores where you shop? 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. 

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 don’t toss out buttermilk as it is good long after the use by date has passed.

We’ve already mentioned that meal planning, using your inventory of food, will be an important tool to help you to save money. If you have trouble coming up with meal ideas there are plenty of websites to help you get meal ideas on the food you have at home.

Websites such as Supercook (https://www.supercook.com/#/recipes) and My Fridge Food.com (https://myfridgefood.com/) allow you to enter the ingredients you have on hand and will give you meal ideas for that food. 

Don’t forget to include a meatless meal or two in your menus as they will save you money as well. 

Using Coupons

We are unable to get home delivery of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, so our use of coupons is practically non-existent at this time, which was not always the case.  Your mileage may vary on this method of savings. 

Name Brands versus Store Brand

Try not to be name brand loyal. Many times, the companies who make the name brand foods also manufacture the store brand foods. And the store brand products cost a lot less than name brand, although that may not always be the case, so check your prices. 

If you are brand name loyal, just buy one or two store brand products a week and try them on your family. If your family likes them, you will save money by buying that item. If your family ends up not liking the store brand product, switch back and when a sale comes up on that product, stock up! 

Price Book

Have you ever been shopping and happen across a sale and think, is this really a good price? This is where a price book comes in handy. It’s a small notebook that you use to keep track of the lowest prices on items that you buy.

You will find that as time goes by and you familiarize yourself with prices that a price book is not necessary, but it can be a very useful tool for those who are just beginning to learn how to save money on food.

Stocking Up

When I find an item on sale at a price that I cannot beat, I usually stock up. Sales tend to run in cycles, and that helps me to determine how much to buy. But this is not always the case and it helps to know your stuff. When you find a good sale on a product that you use, stock up on it.

Using the Freezer

Our freezer has been a great asset to us in saving money. We stock up on meats, sugar, flour, and vegetables when they go on sale, and freeze them for later use. For example, when we find markdowns on meat we will buy as much of it as we can afford and store in our freezer. If it comes in large packages I’ll bring it home and package it into smaller packs and stack it into the freezer to be used later. Consider buying a separate freezer when you can find it on sale, It is a very good investment.

Clean the Kitchen Every Evening

It will be much easier for you to go into your kitchen and make dinner for your family if the kitchen is already clean. It is harder for me to motivate myself to get in there and cook dinner if the kitchen is a mess. I would rather go out and eat if the kitchen is messy and so that defeats the purpose of saving money by cooking at home. It is a little known fact that a person will save more money and eat healthier when they cook meals at home.

In Conclusion

I hope that I have given you plenty of ideas to save money on food. There are many more ideas that I have not even mentioned here and as you begin your journey of saving money in the kitchen, I hope you find some new ideas that can help you save a bunch of money. I hope that my article has been helpful to you and thank you for taking the time to read it.

Next week we will have Part 2 of this podcast as I found this topic to long to discuss in one week. 

Beating the High Cost of Eating: The Essential Guide to Supermarket Survival by Barbara Salsbury

If you would like to discuss something I've spoken about on this podcast please feel free to DM me on Instagram. My handle is @frugalworkshop. Or you can always comment on the Frugal Workshop blog or email me at Bar2969@gmail.com.

Resources:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cesan.pdf

Beating the High Cost of Eating: The Essential Guide to Supermarket Survival by Barbara Salsbury

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.

Wednesday: Grocery Store Sale Ads

Today is Wednesday, the day our local grocery stores put out their sale ads. I check the ads online, so I don't have to spend $1.00 on the local newspaper as they do not send them to us through the mail here. 
I've noticed since the pandemic started that the sale ads are shorter than they used to be. The reason, I suspect, is that people are not going shopping as often as they normally did. 
Since the pandemic started, we have not physically shopped in any store, so I'm only including the stores where I would pick up items through their curbside pickup. 
If you're more interested in what grocery stores we are able to shop at here, please refer to this grocery stores located in SE Tennessee blog post. 
The stores also have many more items on sale and if you're interested in looking at the ads, simply click on the title of the store and it will take you straight to the weekly ad.

So, items I would pick up this week come from Food City.  

Food City Red Seedless Grapes 99¢ pound Food Club 18 count eggs 2/$3.00 5 pounds Idaho Potatoes 5/$10.00 ($2.00 each) 5 pounds Mini Peppers 5/$10.00 ($2.00 each) Split Chicken Breast 99¢ pound

That is a great price for chicken, considering how much ground beef costs right now. I will definitely be picking up some of that this week. 

Any good deals in your area this week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.

Are Your Family’s Grocery Expenses Thrifty or Liberal?

How can you figure out if your family’s grocery expenses are reasonable for the size of your family?

Every month, the  U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) releases four budgets, which results in a food purchase formula with four price ranges: 

Thrifty Plan, Low-Cost Plan, Moderate-Cost Plan and Liberal Plan, and these figures are updated monthly.

The U.S.D.A. has been doing this for years based on what Americans really eat and based on accepted nutrition recommendations.

Here is the latest chart for December 2019:

Using the December 2019 chart, with my family, I could expect to spend $75.90 per week or $328.70 a month on the “Thrifty” food plan.

But based on my records, I’m actually spending about $250 a month for two people in my home, which averages out to $125 a month per person. 

Now, how do we manage such a low grocery bill?

For starters we have a lot of frugal tips in our toolbox such as drinking water, and making tea or lemonade and koolaid to cut down on expensive soda pop. (I do keep Sprite on hand for medicinal purposes)

We make home baked cakes instead of commercially made ones, oatmeal made from old fashioned oats rather than instant packets. 

We shop the Crash and Burn sections of the grocery stores and will buy food with the yellow mark down stickers if it fits within my budget. 

We eat meatless meals, such as Bean & Cheese Enchiladas, or homemade Veggie Burgers, or Red Beans & Rice. 

We eat leftovers or reinvent them into a new dish. For example, we turned leftover mashed potatoes into Potato Pancakes.

We make soups, which can be very economical depending on what ingredients you use. 

We shop at discount grocery stores such as United Grocery Outlet, Save a Lot, and Aldi. 

We look for and buy discounted groceries at all the places we shop including the flea market. 

We peruse the sale ads online and make a list of items on sale and then stock up on those. We keep a price book to check prices. 

Another way you can save money on food is by using grocery rebate apps like Ibotta, Checkout 51, Dosh, and Coupons.com. Just Google the grocery store app and read about them and do your research first.

We re-purpose food scraps to make other things like vegetable, chicken, or beef broth. 

We utilize The Pantry Principle, which you can read about here. We keep a well stocked pantry of food bought at the lowest price and we cook from scratch.

We search for recipes that are cost friendly. We scour yard sales, used book stores, and flea markets for economical cookbooks. 

One online resource you can use is the online cookbook located here:  Recipes and Tips for Frugal Healthy Meals. 

There are multiple ways you can reduce your grocery budget and I've only scratched the surface here. 

Your way of saving on groceries may contain other ideas I've not mentioned here such as growing some of your food in a garden. 

Let's share ideas with each other. 

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.

The Pantry Principle ~ Managing the Grocery Budget

Amy Dacyczyn describes The Pantry Principle on pages 172-173 in her book titled, The Tightwad Gazette II. Amy states that the idea of planning meals thirty days in advance in not the most frugal way to go about planning menus for your family. She states that planning meals in advance is backward and that stick-to-your-list thinking does not allow an individual to take advantage of unadvertised deals.

The best approach that Amy suggests is what she calls The Pantry Principle which she first learned about in a book written by Barbara Salsbury and Cheri Loveless called Cut Your Food Bill in Half. Amy claims that many families do not take the concept far enough to save the maximum amount of their money.

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. The purpose of grocery shopping then becomes a trip to replenish your pantry, and not a trip to purchase specific ingredients for specific meals.

Make an Inventory of what you have in your pantry and freezer and that will help you use up those items. After you’ve done that you can make a meal plan utilizing those items.

We have a lot of frugal tips in our toolbox such as drinking water, and making tea or lemonade and koolaid to drink instead of buying soda. We do keep Sprite on hand for medicinal purposes.

We make home baked cakes instead of commercially made ones, oatmeal made from old fashioned oats rather than instant packets. 

We shop the Crash and Burn sections of the grocery stores and will buy food with the yellow mark down stickers if it fits within our budget. 

We eat meatless meals, such as Bean & Cheese Enchiladas, or homemade Veggie Burgers, or Red Beans & Rice. 

We eat leftovers or reinvent them into a new dish. For example, we turned leftover mashed potatoes into Potato Pancakes.

We make soups, which can be very economical depending on what ingredients you use. 

We shop at discount grocery stores such as United Grocery Outlet, Save a Lot, and Aldi. 

We look for and buy discounted groceries at all the places we shop including the flea market. 

We peruse the sale ads online and make a list of items on sale and then stock up on those. We keep a price book to check prices. 

Another way you can save money on food is by using grocery rebate apps like Ibotta, Checkout 51, Dosh, and Coupons.com. Just Google the grocery store app and read about them and do your research first.

We re-purpose food scraps to make other things like vegetable, chicken, or beef broth. 

We keep a well stocked pantry of food bought at the lowest price and we cook from scratch.

We search for recipes that are cost friendly. We don’t buy foods that cost more than our budget will allow. We don’t buy beef roasts, steaks, or expensive seafood or alcohol. We scour yard sales, used book stores, and flea markets for economical cookbooks. 

One online resource you can use is the online cookbook located here:  Recipes and Tips for Frugal Healthy Meals. 

There are multiple ways you can reduce your grocery budget and I've only scratched the surface here. 

Your way of saving on groceries may contain other ideas I've not mentioned here such as growing some of your food in a garden. 

Let's share ideas with each other.

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Second Frugal Friday of October 2022

Welcome to Friday! 
Quote of the Week

“I can face the winter with calm. Crisp and sparkling days, long pleasant evenings, cheery fires. Good work shall be done this winter. Life shall be lived well. The end of the summer is not the end of the world. Here’s to October.” ~ A.A. Milne 

🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂
Price of Gas this Week
$3.23 ~ The price of gas here rose 24 cents per gallon over the past week. 
My Frugal Week
The weather definitely turned cooler this week. I was able to turn off the air conditioner and open the windows several days. As a result, I’m looking forward to lower electric bills the next few months. 
With the cooler weather comes the changing of the colors of the leaves. We’re starting to see multiple color changes here and are looking forward to more.
Bailey spent last weekend with a friend in Knoxville, Tennessee and they went to multiple thrift stores. She was able to find a bunch of shirts in my size, so she bought them for me to go through. I picked out several to keep and the rest went into her inventory. 
What I love about this lot of shirts is that two of them are in a smaller size of my favorite shirt that is now too big for me. I love it when that happens. 
On Sunday I went to Food City to cherry pick some sale items. There was a time that we only bought groceries that were on sale, but with Covid we didn’t really enter the grocery stores, but in our efforts to save money I’ve decided we need to be doing this again. I went after the church crowd went through, so it was relatively empty. 
One way we are saving on food is buying some foods in cans, like salmon for example. I bought two cans in this haul for $3.39, and even though I have bought it cheaper in the past, this still makes an inexpensive meal for us with leftovers. 
We bought enough food to make at least twelve meals buying only items on sale for $33.48, which works out to $2.79 per meal for the protein portion of these dinners. Prices at the grocery stores have been frustrating lately, but thankfully we have the tools needed to help us manage as we weather this latest financial storm.

I received another $5.00 survey from Consumer Opinion Institute this week.  
I perused the grocery stores ads online for free rather than buy the newspaper for $1.50 to see them. 
Photo of the Week
Our black walnut tree is loaded this year. It seems to produce very well every other year and this is the year for that. 

Black walnuts from our walnut tree

Helping Others
We donated several food items to some of the Blessing Boxes/Little Free Pantries in our area. One of them, located by one of the schools, needed cleaning and straightening, so I took the trash out and lined the food up, so it looked more presentable. 
Avoiding Spending
We had five no spend days this week. We spent money on Sunday for groceries and then on Wednesday for my Dad’s 80th birthday. I had Cracker Barrel send him his favorite meal: Meatloaf, Pinto Beans, Fried Okra, and Hash Brown Casserole. He loved it and thank me many times over. 
Saving Money In My Frugal Kitchen
The Dirty Rice I made this week turned out to be very spicy to the point where I didn’t eat it as it was too spicy for me. It was even a little too spicy for Bailey, so rather than waste it, I added it to some eggs for breakfast with a little sour cream to cool the rice. I rolled them up in flour tortillas and we ate them for breakfast with no problem. Zero food waste. 
Speaking of not wasting food, I used the liquid off the canned salmon I made for dinner one night. I used it to wet the dry cat food that I fed to the cats and they ate it all. 
Meals This Week
Better Cheddars, Rice and Cheese, BroccoliDirty Rice, Carrots, Green PeasSalmon Patties,  Green Beans, CarrotsBreakfast for Dinner: Homemade Biscuits & Gravy, Sausage and Scrambled EggsHomemade Pizza Ham, Carrots, BroccoliMeatloaf, Pinto Beans, Okra
Recipe of the Week
Both of my parents and their families came from Kentucky and although I grew up in Illinois, my language and cooking definitely has southern roots due to my heritage. This recipe is part of that heritage. 
This is a “recipe” for gravy, but you don’t really need a recipe to make gravy. I learned to make this gravy from my Mom who learned it from her sister Clara Belle. And I watched my grandmother make it many times as well. 
You just cook your breakfast meat, remove the meat and use the drippings and then add flour to make a roux. Stir that over heat enough to remove the taste of the flour and then add your milk. Stir until bubbly and thick. 
You can also leave your sausage in the skillet to make sausage gravy. Gravy is affordable and delicious and you can even reheat it the next day if you’re lucky enough to have leftovers.
Bailey and I had breakfast for dinner on Monday evening and we had enough leftovers to have it for breakfast the next morning too.
Breakfast Gravy
Ingredients:
1/4 cup drippings from bacon or sausage1/4 flour3 cups milkSalt & Pepper to taste
Directions:
Place meat drippings in skillet and heat through.Add flour to make a roux.Stir until desired color is present. Add 3 cups of milk.Stir continuously until gravy is thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Saving Money YouTube Videos
One thing I do when doing certain tasks, like ironing, is to also listen to money saving YouTube videos. It passes the time while doing chores that are rather dull. 
How to Live on $30 a Week ~ Prepper Princess
How Little Could You Live On if there is Another Great Depression ~ Prepper Princess
Saving on Entertainment
We do not pay for cable TV here as there is enough free entertainment online without having to pay for it. 
Loretta Lynn Life Story (1990) 
What I've been Reading This Week
Living  on Almost Nothing by Amber Storck

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

BelindaMortgage & Debt Free~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree