How did I save money today?

[LadyLocust]

Extending it one more day Waiting until morning to go to the store. I don't like to go in the afternoon - they do the cleaning at night. Also, fewer people out and about early.
And the reeeeaaallllllyy good news. Paid my car off today. It was a 3 year loan paid off in 14 months. I despise car loans - grrr. So saving several hundred dollars on interest.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

No spend day.
Will wait till Tuesday to go to Wal*Mart at 0600 to get new produce, fresh items.
Will have to go to Alidi then too.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

on paying the car loan off so early @LadyLocust well done .

We hate loans too but still got the house to pay off but making good ground and over 12 months ahead on payments in just over a year since the loan started.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Got to day 6 of not spending any money and then busted on Friday when I purchased a no flat wheelbarrow tyre online but I did save $16 over buying it in local hardware stores even including delivery.

Back to day 1 of not spending any money today.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

No spend day.
But grand daughter informed me we were out of noodles.
She likes to "cook" with Granny.
By noodles she means Ramen noodles.
Granny and her just add fresh vegetables,bits of meat with them for her to have complete meal.
Tuesday will have to get noodles.
Otherwise we will use spaghetti noodles.

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

I save all the peels from citrus fruit. When I have a pot full I cover them with water and simmer for 3-4 hours then let it sit and steep until I get around to straining it. This is how you make a concentrated cleaner that is very effective. I like to boil it in a pot that is stained from cooking and hard water. Cleans it right up. The used peels can go in the compost heap.

I keep it in an old laundry jug and it will mold and go vinegary but that is when you also get disinfecting qualities. A piece of cloth rubber banded around the spout keeps the mother/mold out of the picture.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

No spend day

 

[LadyLocust]

Real groceries, I’m doing well at keeping to my envelope, but I did go and buy a bunch of canning lids yesterday. Those aren’t cheap but under the circumstances, I thought better to have them than not. I am pretty sure I have plenty of jars.

 

[WVDragonlady]

Yesterday at the local grocery I bought BOGOs and other on sale items that totaled $50.97. With my store card that dropped to $27. I rounded the change up to give to the local food bank ( every penny counts ya know)

This morning I had a certificate for a free ham. I got a 10lb spiral ham that cost $44 retail for nothing. That will feed us a good many meals

 

[LadyLocust]

Yesterday at the local grocery I bought BOGOs and other on sale items that totaled $50.97. With my store card that dropped to $27. I rounded the change up to give to the local food bank ( every penny counts ya know)

This morning I had a certificate for a free ham. I got a 10lb spiral ham that cost $44 retail for nothing. That will feed us a good many meals

Good deal on the ham!
Your BOGO made me remember- not sure why Joanns is essential but glad they are. I needed cream colored thread. Have been going through it. They had buy 3 get 2 free. I use all cotton so got 5 of various neutrals of the largest size. Should last a while- I hope.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

No spend day

 

[MoBookworm1957]

No spend day maybe.
Either need to make biscuits, or bread.
Otherwise will spend a buck at dollar tree for bread.
Grand daughter and I are making biscuits on Saturday.

 

[LadyLocust]

In addition to turning the furnace off for all but evenings, this morning I was finally able to get the freezers consolidated and unplugged the spare. Now the only things using power during the day are clock on coffee pot, fridge, and freezer. Looking forward to a much lower power bill.

 

[backlash]

I asked my wife for a money update because she does the checkbook. We had quite a bit more than normal. I hadn't thought about it but with her staying home and me doing the shopping we spend a lot less money.
So I guess my saving money plan is to just stay home, or at least have my wife stay home.

 

[SheepDog]

My wife expressed concern over managing money when we were dating. I helped her through her bankruptcy and let her know I would manage the money. I've done a good job and only rarely have to tell her "no" when she wants to spend. We both do the shopping so I can control what we buy. It took her a while to see the point in buying more than we need of things that don't spoil.
We have plastic bags, honey, sugar, beans, rice, wheat, salt, oats, maple syrup, and canned goods stocked and replaced all year. I keep the spices in the freezer so they stay fresh for years. When we buy meat we can about half of it although I have never canned beacon. I do have eight pounds in the freezer and when we open a package it gets replaced. I do have a few packages of dry yeast but I don't use it because I prefer sourdough. I haven't gotten her to understand that when she sees food on sale to get a lot of it but she will catch on, she's a smart girl.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Got to day 5 of not spending any money and busted yesterday when we went grocery shopping to pick up a few things.

I did save by buying chocolate on special, 4 x 6pk bread rolls on markdown, mince on markdown and used our $10 off rewards we get from accumulating points buying our normal groceries saving $29.62 on usual prices.

Back to day 1 again.

Today I also banked more into our 3 month living expenses emergency fund bringing us to 60% of the way there and paid an extra small payment off our mortgage too to save bank interest and time paying the loan.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Just spent $2.88 on Wal*Mart .com forgot item I needed for the coming two weeks added it to my two week grocey haul for fresh items. Will be dehydrating more mushrooms soon for mushroom gravy mix.
Even with my son living here right my grocery budget only went up $5-10 weekly, so it will go back down when he gets his place net week.

 

[LadyLocust]

I am about $35 over my envelope amount but haven’t been going to the store much and ended up going to 2 of them last week so stocked up on a couple things. Trying to keep my pantry topped just because. We don’t currently “need” anything so the only grocery purchases between now and end if month might be milk and fresh veggies if needed.

 

[Peanut]

Twice in the last 3 weeks my electricity has been off... total, about 45 hours. This spring seems to be much more active weather wise than the last couple of years. Heck, there were 15 tornadoes in my state Sunday night. No deaths but 20+ deaths in the rest of the southeast due to the storms.

Today I took gas cans to town that were emptied since Sunday night. I put a couple extra cans in the truck. They are old and the plastic brittle but they don't leak yet. Gasoline prices are also the lowest they have been in years so it seemed the wise thing to do.

It looks like there will be shortages of hamburger and other meats in the short term. Today I bought 9lbs of ground beef, 7lbs of ground chuck, 5lbs of bacon, 3lbs of sausage, 5 packages of hotdogs, 3lbs of bologna and 8lbs of chicken. I have plenty of room in the freezer and a foodsaver vacuum sealer. I might as well stock up. If worse comes to worse there are 43 head of cattle in the pasture but things have to be really bad before they will be touched.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

No spend day again.
But did get surprise when I got into pancakes that I had son pick up.
I don't normally eat a lot of sugar.
Imagine my surprise when I bit into chocolate chip pancakes.
He bought me what he normally buys for his daughter.
Curios to see what else he bought, that now resides in my freezers.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Hard to know where to put this because today's spend covered so many bases.

So today was pension day.
Went to the budget butcher and got meaty lamb offcuts, crumbed chicken wings and a whole sliced rump.
Went to the supermarket during their community pensioners hour and got sausages, beef mince, bacon, yoghurt, Easter buns and bread.
I then went to Bunnings to buy irrigation gear. They didn't have any 19mm line so I had to rework my whole plan into 13mm on the spot. One female employee wanted to argue the point with me everytime I asked for a fitting. Damned me if I didn't have to justify each and every fitting with this person and I think she did it because she thought my physical disability merged with my mental capacity.
NOT SO.
I got my fittings but it was like pulling teeth.
I got chaff for the guinea pigs and I was very, VERY grateful to be home.

I didn't get bread yeast but I have a recipe for potato yeast that stretches your store brought yeast so all is not lost.

I have $80 left over to put towards my electricity bill if the gov. doesn't make good with their promised helicopter payment.

 

[Peanut]

Glad you got something that will work for you @Tank-Girl I hate having to change plans in the middle of the creek (local expression). I detest annoying sales people also... I usually ask them questions I know they can't answer, seems to help in adjusting their attitude.

I have an update on my above post. The national weather service now says 22 tornadoes touched down in alabama sunday night. There are still no reported deaths in alabama but the total for the entire southeast was 26 dead, more than 200 injured. This is what "super cell" storms produce. This was the first one of the season, hopefully there will only be one or two more. I get as nervous as a long tailed cat on a porch full of rocking chairs when I hear the words "Super Cell". My home was destroyed by a tornado during a super cell storm in april 1974. 319 people were killed that night and over 5400 were injured.

The power companies have their updates also.... They say monday morning 281,000 customers were without electricity in my state... explains why it took them 34hours to get mine turned back on.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

Got to day 6 of not spending money and broke yesterday.

Yesterday we went shopping and I picked up both bargains and specials saving in total $39 in total on -
- A pair of sandals for $3 reduced from $19 at BigW.
- 4 x blocks of Old Gold Chocolate for $3 reduced from $5 at BigW.
- 10 kiwi fruit for .40c each reduced from .70c each from Coles.
- 8 tins of Harvest long life meat and vegetables for $2.50 ea reduced from $4 ea at IGA.

I am happy with the bargains we got today on items we needed and especially the savings and I should be set up for sandals for next year now with the other 2 pairs I picked up earlier for $3 a pair too.

Back to day 1 today again.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Hoping to only spend $20 today on Apartment warming gift for oldest son and grand daughter.
Will be checking prices on smaller microwave, as mine will be going with son to his new apartment.
It's his to start with.
My apartment warming gift are practical gifts.
Noodles for the grand daughter, towels, hand towels, wash cloths for both.

 

[MountainGuardian]

Yesterday I came up with a way to mount my old electric meat grinder unit to my Mark V lathe as my gears wore out and burned up the electric motor after 8 years of use and abuse. Now it may as well be a commercial duty meat grinder, I was able to grind 20 pounds of sausage in about 15 minutes with ease. This works vastly better than the original motor and gear which were noisy as all get out and not all too powerful, it generally took me an hour to grind 20 pounds of sausage before. Quite happy with this mod... We buy oversized hogs in the 600 to 1,000 pound range at the livestock auction 3 or 4 times a year for between $1 an animal up to 1 cent a pound. I make a lot of it into burger and sausage and over the last 8 years I have ground a little north of 1,000 pounds with this grinding unit. It has been a heck of a good grinder and I am blown away with how well built and tough the actual grinding portion of it is. I will likely be using this little unit for another decade a more imagine. We paid $75 for the original unit which is now about $125, not a bad investment for how good a product it has been but I am cheap... Gotta love it when being cheap leads to a better working meat grinder...

Earlier this morning I also planted some leeks that I bought from the grocery store. I cut them off and used the tops of them to cook with and then put the bottoms in planters in the house and allowed them grow up a bit again. Now that our night time lows seem to be up to freezing or a bit above I went ahead and planted those out in the garden this morning. I didn't want to have to wait two years to start getting seed so I figured I would buy some this spring and eat them and replant the bases to go to seed this year.

Later today I will be planting some of my carrots and onions that I have done the same thing with outside in hopes of getting seed from those as well this year rather than having to wait until next year.

Yesterday I saved money by pulling out my old Alaskan mill system that I built so that I can use that out in my southern forest to cut my logs into beams there, rather than haul them back to the house to my mill. Mostly it saves my back trying to load all of those logs on the trailer to be honest (lol) but also saves some time and money as well...

 

[WVDragonlady]

@MountainGuardian don't forget to hill dirt up the sides of the leeks to blanch them as they grow


Tiny bit of my celery got frozen last night but have already bounced back after it warmed up this morning. The ones sitting on the deck did better than the ones on the porch rail.
Parsley got hit hard but it came back. It did handle winter out on the deck so I was hoping it would handle the cold last night.
Chives did good.
Thyme looked kinda pale but its getting the color back as the sun gets stronger.
The tiny little growth on the other thymes did really well last night. I was surprised since they're so young and small.
Gonna keep the lettuces in the sunroom one more night then I'll have to keep bringing them in and out over the next week it looks like.

 

[MountainGuardian]

These are just growing to produce seed so I won't be harvesting them. I have a few hundred others planted for eating this year. I just didn't want to have to wait until next year to start collecting leek seed. I have drainage areas between my ponds that I want to try and get the leeks growing wild in, that will require a bit of seed to accomplish. I also want to try and get leek growing in my forests as well. Rather than spend a bunch of money on seed or wait until next year to collect from seed I have planted this year I figured I would buy leeks now and let them go to seed this year. Oddly I have found they seem to grow better if you actually cut them down and plant just the base. So I have been enjoying a lot of leek in everything from soups to stir fries, the wife is already hooked and wants me to start growing a lot of leek.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Hoping to only spend $20 today on Apartment warming gift for oldest son and grand daughter.
Will be checking prices on smaller microwave, as mine will be going with son to his new apartment.
It's his to start with.
My apartment warming gift are practical gifts.
Noodles for the grand daughter, towels, hand towels, wash cloths for both.

Well, deep subject I know.
I kept to my budget of $20 for bath towels, hand towels and wash cloths.
Blew the budget on the grand daughters.
The one that's here got $8 worth of (4) long sleeve shirts in size 3 as the weather has turned off cold, chilly, rainy here.
Grand daughter that is on the way got $ 6 (3)of long sleeve shirts size 12 months, 3 pairs of little pants costing $3.
Little pants are size 6-9 months and 12 months sizes.None of the girls shirts match.
Strawberry got spoiled too.
She got medium size box dental chews for $8.
So all the girls should be happy.
Washing up the towels,washcloths, and the grand daughters clothes now.
Everything is in the dryer now.

 

[WVDragonlady]

I have 3 leek cuttings that I saved in a big cup in the kitchen window. They have a good root system going and 2 of them are growing up right now. The 3rd one is being stubborn but it is growing roots. I think I cut it too low and it didn't have enough stem left maybe. Its trying though.
Next time I go to the store I think I'll get another bundle(of 3) and start another batch lol
I want mine for eating. Who knows maybe I'll try growing them in the bay window this winter. I have a grow light at the top of it

 

[MountainGuardian]

Surprisingly I noticed that the ones that I cut down further have regrowm better than the ones that I left longer. I think that the plants may actually root better with less stalk left. I cut mine down to about six inches in length leaving nearly all of the white portion intact to plant. Thes last two were quite a bit bigger about 2 inches in diameter and the white portion was about 8 inches so I cut them down to about six and left 1 inch stubbed out above the soil. We will how they work.

The first batch I did I cut down to between 6-8 inches and the best rooting and growing one was a six incher, so my second batch were all cut to six inch and they all grew better than the original longer cuts. I have 7 out in the garden and two in the house at the moment.

I In cutting mine off I am cutting them all about 1 inch below where the leaves start to unfold which leaves me a full circular leaf wrapping all the way around which holds them together well for my cutting them when I cook with them. That might be another way to estimate where to cut them for good growth.