Monday, January 6, 2020

frugal choices

We used gas buddy to find the cheapest fuel for the trucks.

I turned off the furnace 3 times and opened the doors to air out the house when it got up to 50 degrees. We now turn the furnace down 2 degrees when going to bed.

We went back over the budget to see if we could find any other place to cut back or cut out completely. We have $500 in medical going out above the cost of our health ins this month. Also I have truck and car tags to get. 

I washed clothes in cold water using homemade laundry soap and hung either on drying rack or porch clothes line.

All Christmas lights was turned off Dec 31 at 11 pm. That is the day when our electric bill is read at 11:59 pm by computer. So the holiday lights are only on 1 bill instead of 3 like last year.

We changed 3 nightlights...still LED but light up the rooms better with 1 bulb instead of a dozen.

Hubby installed more air barrier. Still more to go. But we can really tell the difference in the house.

We ate from the pantry and didn't order anything on line or go shopping.

We spent time just resting over the holidays and talking about goals and plans and taking care of our health.

We wrote out what our 2020 goals were and I posted them on the wall at the calendar so we would see them daily.

We batted around thoughts on how to have fresh produce, produce for stocking and the costs of it all. We both understand we need some garden and Hubby now acknowledges he didn't think it would be that much work by putting it in ground where I wanted to stay with square foot gardening for the majority of it.

We also know we have to find a better place to store potatoes and winter squash as the area we used is still too warm (thanks to warmer winter) and we are starting to lose it 3 months before usually. I Will be canning a lot this week.

I washed out 3 plastic bags and the insert to a box of cold cereal that we bought at the discount store for 99 cents.

How did your first week of the new year go?

Blessed Be




From the pantry Dec 30th to Jan 6th

Week 2 of eating from the pantry. Not being a problem since I have meals listed that can be fixed fast.

Dec 30th pork chops green beans, sweet potatoes and pears

Dec 31st sausage patty, canned potatoes fried, canned spinach, canned 3 bean salad and canned mandarin oranges

Jan 1st BBQ *Mother's recipe for sauce* ribs, canned kraut, instant mashed potatoes and canned black eye peas. Christmas pudding( steamed UK pudding) that I didn't like but Hubby thought was good in milk. Made me think of a very dry fruit cake.

Jan 2nd Left overs

Jan 3rd  Sara Moulton White chicken chili ... I used ground turkey as ground chicken in not available in this area. I used my own canned broth and 2 cans of Great Northern beans (now out of those canned beans) We are odds and ends of veggies and fruit from lunch

Jan 4th  Leftover chili and chunk pineapple

Jan 5th 177 Milkstreet Pork tapas, hot pickled cauliflower, green olives, ripe olives, cheese and crackers.

Jan 6th egg sandwiches, apples.