Dishwasher detergent deal

I went to Kroger and they had a display in the aisle with this detergent marked down from $10.98 to $3.49! Four of the boxes are 75 tablets and then the other two have 96 in them. So for $20.94 I got 492 washing tablets which works out to $.04 each. That is more than a year as we usually wash one load a day.

Eating out of the Freezer

I cleaned out my inside and outside freezers two weeks ago because they were so stuffed we couldn't get another thing in them. I organized them and made an inventory of what all I had so that I could eat up the frozen meat and vegetables and get ready to put up new vegetables as they come in this summer.

Last week the only thing I bought at the store for our menu was milk, bread, and eggs. I did buy pizzas and bacon to use my $5 off $30 purchase at Dollar General. So the boys had pizza one night. I made up Tater tot casserole (half a bag of tater tots, hamburger meat, frozen french green beans, cream soup.) I used up two frozen Steamer bags of rice with broccoli and a bag of precooked chicken to make a casserole with cream soup and cheese. Chili. I broiled smoked sausage and steamed broccoli and then mixed it together with Italian dressing. For the family you add in spaghetti noodles. I had four preformed Angus hamburger patties so we had that with corn on the cob I put up last year. I was going to have fries but forgot to put them in. Then, I made spaghetti.

This weeks menu:
1.Use frozen roast in crock pot juice, add carrots and potatoes for a beef stew over rice.
2.Quiche- have a Kroger coupon for free eggs. Will add diced ham, cheese, onion.
3.Chicken tostadas- Have cooked chicken. Will mix that with taco seasoning, corn, black beans and serve over corn tortillas with lettuce, tomato, and sour cream.
4.Broccoli cheese soup- I bought the Sams bag of broccoli and we don't like it steamed as well as the Walmart store brand. The pieces are too big. So I am going to use it up in the soup.
5.BBQ or Italian grilled Chicken, corn on cob (put up last year), and lima beans
6.Ham and potato casserole- I accidentally bought two bags of potatoes so I need to use them up and have chopped ham from Thanksgiving/Christmas time where I put up the rest of our hams.
7.Tacos

Lunches
We have a large package of ham for sandwiches. I need to buy some more American cheese.
Leftovers
Tuna sandwiches/salad
Chicken fajitas for me- have two bags of pregrilled chicken.
Stir Fry kit for husband/kids- I can't have it b/c it has gluten in it.
If I need anything else I will make a pot of soup using up bits of vegetables, and the tomatoes I put up in the freezer last year.

Breakfasts:
Pancakes- I'd like to try some pumpkin gluten free ones for me
Biscuits
Cereal
Grits and eggs
mini quiches- with hash brown crust
burrito with egg, sausage, cheese
Smoothies- use Greek yogurt, frozen strawberries and frozen bananas
I have a bag of bread end pieces so may make a breakfast casserole for the family with them.

Frugal things done lately

 I've been mainly eating out of the pantry and freezer for three weeks. I ran by Publix for the last day of their sale to pick up some bagels. I love to have these on hand for a quick breakfast or an in between snack for my many teens that live in my house. They were buy one get one free so they came up to $.95 a bag. I got 4 plain and 3 cinnamon raisin and also some cream cheese. I bought honey butter the other day for my daughter to put on them.

 I haven't done a lot of garage sales this year. I don't really know why because we've always gone every Saturday. I guess I got to the point where I have so much stuff and it is hard to find teen clothes and I just haven't gone. Well, we went Saturday. It was a pretty good day. I got this package of kitchen towels and dishrags for $3. I cannot have enough. I seriously have at least 10 in each load per day. We grab them to wipe up everything instead of paper towels.

I got three pair of athletic pants for my 12 year old. Only two are pictured because the other pair, which were navy, were already worn. They were $.50 each.

I went to Walmart and when we got home the kids put up groceries. I later looked and we had ribs and brisket. I called and Walmart cannot restock the items and so I got free meat! I made this recipe. They were very good! I used peas we had in the freezer. The last of the potatoes that were going bad and the last of cheese to make scalloped potatoes. I got the tomato in an Amish village for $.79 a lb.

I put a dry rub on the brisket and baked it in a roasting pan. After it cooks an hour you turn the temp down and add beef broth to the pan. It was OK but not great so I will not link the recipe. I used butter beans and corn from the freezer that I put up this summer.

I have a whole turkey thawing in the refrigerator and am going to roast it and make up some meals using turkey instead of chicken like turkey pot pie, turkey enchiladas, turkey and rice soup, and turkey king ranch casserole. That was a big item to get out of the freezer.

I have used a lot of my cooked chicken, all the cooked or frozen hamburger, broccoli, used a lot of flour to make cinnamon rolls, pancakes, and biscuits. I still have a lot of flour! Trying hard to use it all and restock. I've used 2 cans of milk that are expired and have 2 or 3 more. I have added it half with regular milk in pancake, cinnamon roll, and biscuit mixes. I have a partial jar of chunky peanut butter to use to make peanut butter cookies.

We have 6 opened jars of peanut butter! I have taken the new unopened jars out of the main pantry so they can't open another one. I think I will also take a few of the opened ones out because they are all almost full. That is so irritating. I bought 6 jars at Sams. I've heard the price was going up for two months on the boards. With it being said on Newsweek and the main evening news shows I knew I better get some more. Sams had not raised their price, but there were many empty boxes in the place. I had to crawl under the shelf to the very back to get some. I may go back and get a few more.

An Aldis opened in Huntsville so my daughter picked me up 8 carton of eggs that were $.45 a carton. I am going to make up muffin tin quiches with ham or sausage. I think I will make some breakfast burritos, also. I am having a hard time using them now that I got them. I need to make a quiche for supper and tuna fish, and deviled eggs and let my husband take them for a snack.

I got green peppers at the Amish village 3/$1. I picked up 6 and cut 4 in strips and froze them for fajitas and peppers and onions.

I know I can go another week with cooking from my freezer. My meal plan is:
Wed- turkey pot pie
Thurs- quiche
Friday- turkey enchiladas
Sat- chicken stir fry (have a stir fry kit from Sam's I need to use)
Sun- turkey and rice soup
Mon- Red beans and rice ( bought smoked sausage at Sam's for $2 a lb)
Tue- turkey king ranch casserole
Wed- black bean soup

hopefully I can eat up some of the free boxed vegetables I have in the freezer  in the pot pie and with enchiladas and the casserole. I can add any leftovers to the turkey and rice soup.

Alabama tornados

Our area was hit on Wednesday April 29Th by the tornadoes that came through Alabama. It was a long day beginning with tornado sirens going off around 5:30 AM and continuing on and off throughout the day, all the way until around 5 PM. We had multiple waves of cells come in with torrential downpours. My front yard was underwater and we gained a creek in the back yard where water flowed down the elevation in the yard. All day the sirens went off with each cell and tornadoes were being spotted all around us, heading our way. Around 4 PM our electricity went off. All the transmission lines were destroyed so most of upper AL was without power, knowing it would be probably a minimum of 5 days to get lines back up.

Since we knew it would be days we decided to get up early and head to Nashville, TN, about 90 miles north of us, so that we could look for a generator to keep our freezer food from spoiling. We went to Sams and Walmart and got extra water, peanut butter crackers, goldfish crackers, peanut bars, large package of hot dogs, hamburger patties, extra batteries, eggs, ham, 2 large gas containers, 2 large water containers, chips, beenie weenies, spaghettios, Lara bars, and cash. We first bought a 1500 watt generator for $200 minus 10% because my husband asked if they were giving a discount to AL residents and the guy gave him one! Always ask! Later, we ran into my husband's boss and he told us about a place that had 5000 watt generators for $450 so we got that one. We sold the smaller one to friends. We made sure to fill our tank and also the gas containers before heading home and also ate a meal in TN.

Having a generator was great. I was able to use food from the freezer and keep stuff cold which gave us many more options over canned food. We used our grill and a camp stove and pretty much camped in luxury for a few days. We had friends over, the kids had friends spend the night, we made a campfire for smores each night, family went to clean debris on two different days, and hung out together. The devastation is horrible. One church member lost his daughter in the storm that hit the University of Alabama. Our church assisted another member's parents sift through debris and clean up who survived a direct hit which destroyed their home. The dad was in the bathtub and the mom and sister in a closet. The mom and sister were sucked out and redeposited somewhere else injuring them with multiple broken bones. A family from our old church lost their home. A coworker of my husband had his house moved off the foundation about 20 feet and the roof torn off. Our former pastor of 11 years in Florida is now in Tuscaloosa. His church was heavily damaged and his wife is in 3rd week of chemo/radiation. Many many people that have lost all they have and it is heart breaking. The beauty is how our community has come together to help one another. People will give all they have to assist others. The gas stations and grocery stores opened using generators to operate. The utility workers have worked around the clock to bring life back to our community. We had church Sunday without power or lights. It was so great to come together to love one another and thank God for our safety and pray for all the ones affected.

I had just bought a peculator the week before. I don't drink coffee, so it was odd that I bought it. My husband loves me. We used it to heat water for tea also. I had a set of camp pots and pans I bought at a garage sale and had never used. They are really good to have. I always pick up candles at garage sales, even the wonky ones. They are great to have. I keep an extra propane tank for the grill at all times and small ones for the camp stove. We couldn't go long without electricity, though. Using the grill to cook uses a lot of gas and we would be in trouble if we had to do it an extended time.

We had hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled chicken, grilled pork loin, roasted potatoes, corn, sauteed onions, green beans, and even a peach cobbler using my home canned peaches and a gluten free batter. I had a hard time having anything gluten free when the family ate sandwiches, spaghettios, and such. I tried each flavor of Lara bars and am going to get a couple of boxes from Sams to keep on hand. I also need to can some gluten free soups and stews.

The solar yard lights work to bring in at night or recharge AA batteries. Our favorite lighting was stand up lanterns. Candles didn't put off as much light and the kids seemed to play with them. I worried about leaving a room with one lit for fear they would catch the house on fire. I have an oil lamp that I never got out. I also have head lights I didn't get out. I found that my kids really messed around with the matches and lighter sticks. I put them on the bar so I would know where they were and when I got up at 3 AM couldn't find them. I sat a flashlight, all I could find, on my shoulder to light a book to read. I will still buy candles at garage sales because they are so cheap and good to set around. If I was unable to keep batteries in our lanterns they would be very useful. We like to light them for regular use also, so they are worth keeping.

The first night it was storming after we lost electricity and the tornadoes had passed us. We couldn't use the grill or camp stove. We had no way to heat anything. I am going to get a box of the heat packs that soldiers use to heat their MREs. I have also seen where you make a table stove that uses a hanger bent with legs and a surface to hold a pot. You place 3 tea light candles under the pot to heat food.

I think all in all we had food, water, gas, a way to cook, light and all we needed to survive a few weeks without power. The generator was a bonus. If I didn't find one I was planning to can some of the freezer stuff using our turkey fryer. May have worked and may not have, I haven't tried that. I have a few things I want to try or do now. I have not pressure canned and want to make up some soups, canned meat, canned beans, canned broth. I want to try the tea light stove. And I have wanted to make a solar oven with the boys for awhile. That would have been fun to try to cook some meals in a solar oven. I also want to make some sun tea by paining a milk carton black to help absorb the heat of the sun. It is all kind of fun...except for the major loss to many.

What I've been doing

We have a friend from Florida that is staying with us for awhile. He is retiring from the military and took a job here so is staying with us while they wait for their home to sell. He has been here two weeks and it has been good to hold me accountable to cook supper. I don't feel I can just say I am tired and go get hamburgers or pizza. I also have tried to stretch our food budget to feed an additional person and have been more careful to plan and use leftovers and stuff.

I bought 2 large packages of chicken legs and 2 large packages of split breasts. I seasoned the legs with a spice blend of onion and garlic that I picked up free awhile back. I didn't feel like taking the skin off all the meat so after that one package I just boiled up the breasts and second package of legs and put up the meat. I got about 8 containers of broth. Since I am eating gluten free I can no longer use the chicken bouillon cubes or powder so I have to be careful to make my own broth and freeze or can.

I used one package of the meat I put up to make a gluten free tortilla casserole. It was 2 cans of Rotel tomato mixed with taco seasoning. I layered corn tortillas, the chicken/Rotel mixture, cheddar and mozzarella.

Today I am making red beans and rice. I have put the recipe on here a couple of times. I can't wait until supper! I need to make some sweet cornbread muffins to go with it.

I still have not made up a lot of items with my flour. I bought a lot of 5# flour at Walmart for $1.28 lb and froze it. It needs to be used so that I can buy a bunch of fresh flour. I have been planning on making up biscuits, pancakes, waffles, french bread, rolls, cinnamon rolls, peanut butter cookies (to use the last of the jar of Peter Pan peanut butter the kids won't eat). I made some of these items but still have about 30 lbs of flour left.

I finally used the last two boxes of Betty Crocker au gratin potatoes. I got these free or very cheap with coupons and I can't have them because they have gluten and we don't like them very much. Still working on about 8 cans of canned milk that are close to expiration. I used one for the milk in the boxed potatoe mix last night. I was going to use the rest when I made up biscuits and pancakes.

My husband and I looked at the laundry room last night and he is planning on putting me in some shelves for food. I have a long rod for hanging clothes and we decided to add a double rod to use more vertical space. That would give me enough room to the right of that for him to make some shelves. I want some cereal box heighth and then a lot of canning jar heighth. I would like to leave room on the floor for gamma sealed buckets of grains.

My second child graduates and starts college this fall. We somehow need to get a car for him to drive. He can't take my car every day. We have been working around everything for two years and it is just getting too tough. We had the third car as a "family" car but my daughter was going to college and working so it just didn't work out for him to ever use it. Our kids pay for their own college above what scholorships cover. My son has been offered a partial scholorship to the university in town. So, he will be working to pay tuition above that. In the midst of trying to save and put up money we know this is something we need to try to help with. The good part is that today is annual reviews where my husband works so we find out what his raise will be. He was offered another job last fall so this company matched that and his boss said that at annual review they would give him a cash bonus- they gave him a very good raise to match the other offer so could not go any higher at that time. Hopefully the bonus will buy a very old car???? I don't know, I don't expect much, and we don't know what to expect.

Stocking Up

i am struggling a little with fear. they are making 1000 cuts within the group my husband works for, supposedly 500 this year and 500 next year. this past thursday 80 people in Huntsville were cut off from computer access and then called friday morning to tell them not to come to work. no two week notice. scary.

my husband feels his job is okay, but you never know. and seeing how quickly it can happen and without notice is not a happy place for me. the planner.

i have always shopped sales and stocked groceries. i try to buy at the best price i can and put up as much as i can so i can spend less, but also have what i need without running to the store so much. i have a lot of food, but i need to get more.

what i am really worried about is money. a couple of months without an income and we'd have food from what is in my pantry and freezer but we couldn't pay our house payment very long. we'd be in trouble. we had a good emergency fund but used it to put on a roof and do some other things. so... my job is to lay up as much cash as we can for a "what if" situation.

• we were planning on putting up a fence with our income tax return. we decided to put that off and just put that money in savings.
• i am extending our garden from four 4X8 raised beds to seven plus a bed 2' wide that extends behind all the beds on the back side. so it will be like 2'X34'.
• i also hope we can get a couple of fruit trees in before it is too late to plant them.
• my husband will work all the overtime he can and we will just put that over into savings
• i have been very lax lately with coupon shopping. i was tired of it and took a month break. i am back on board.
• i won't be buying non-necessary items, even if very cheap at garage sales.
• i have a LOT of material. i need to sew up some items to sell.
• i am being careful to use leftovers. i have saved about 8 bags of bread end pieces in the freezer and this week will make an overnight breakfast casserole with them. i am saving all my little bits of vegetables and rice for a soup.
• i am going to go room by room through my house and have a garage sale very soon and get rid of everything i don't need.
• i just used our vision coverage and got a pair of glasses and prescription sunglasses. i am not due until june for an exam, but our coverage would pay starting january 1 for new glasses. i don't know if the people laid off this week were immediately cut off from medical coverage or not. i know there is cobra insurance for them but i wouldn't be able to pay $1000 a month for insurance if we lost a job. i would feed and house my family first. so, i am not putting off any medical care and keeping prescriptions bought ahead.

i don't want to make it sound like i am freaking out or really living in fear. i trust the One who is my provider. i just feel i have a responsibility to do what i can. we have a wonderful job that provides way more than our needs so it is rediculous we are so close to homelessness without a job. we could cash out retirement funds and be good for awhile if it was the last choice- it would kill me to pay all the early withdrawal penalties! it has been awhile since we have HAD to watch our penneys, but i am thankful for the lean years that taught me the skills to do it.

Eating from the pantry

I looked in my freezers and made a list of what all I had. I am working on getting more food stored when I find sales so I would like to clean out and inventory what I have. I would like to use up some of the older items so that I can start fresh with new meat and vegetables. I am going to try to use up all I can through the end of the month, but I will continue to buy all the almost free coupon deals through the month. I don't plan on purchasing any meat or vegetables unless I see a really good deal. I hope that I can get by with buying eggs, milk, fruit, and bread.

This is my meals that I have planned using what I have:

I have 7 lbs of hamburger

1. spaghetti


2. tater tot casserole


3. hamburger goulash


4. burgers


5. hamburger helper


6. hamburger vegetable soup


7. spaghetti

I have 8 bags of cooked chicken

1. chicken and white bean soup


2. chicken taco


3. chicken pot pie


4. chicken and rice soup


5. tortilla chicken casserole


6. king ranch chicken casserole


7. chicken and rice bake


8. chicken taco

I have two bags of chicken breasts- each with 7 breasts

1. chicken marsala


2. bbq chicken

One whole turkey

1. baked turkey


2. turkey shepherds pie


3. turkey tetrizinni


4. turkey noodle soup with white beans

Miscellaneous items I have

1. bag roast beef- make a stew over rice


2. 2 burritos/1/4 bags of fajita meat, 2 corndogs- pull out all of these and eat it up one meal


3. bag meatballs- make Wedding meatball soup


4. lentil burritos


5. butterbeans and cornbread- add any other vegetables that are left overs


6. quiche- add in any leftovers

So, this meal plan will take me through February 14th. I may go further if we have leftovers or cereal nights. So, my goal is to only spend $50 through the end of the month on groceries.

How to feed your family on very little money

I had a reader ask me for ways to feed her family when she is out of a job and has a very limited food budget. When we first started our family I wanted to stay home and had to really find ways to stretch our budget. I had $35 a week to feed three people. Then, when we moved to Alabama from Florida four years ago our home in Florida did not sell for 15 months and I again had to really stretch our food budget. That time I was feeding seven people, two being teenagers, for $300 a month.

One of the first things I would say is that cutting coupons and looking for the loss leader and marked down items is key. I get many items for free when combining coupons and sale items each week. You can provide more meat when you search for marked down meat and prepare or freeze it before the expiration date. Make it your job to economize and find deals. The payoff of what you save if you break it down in an hourly rate is really high. It can even become addicting!

Where to find coupons

Organizing your coupons

Get more food for less money

Next, I buy as much as I can of a sale item. If I see a large package of pork chops or chicken for a low price I go ahead and buy it and cook ahead for future meals. Chicken can be grilled, baked, or boiled for meat to add to casseroles. If I grill or bake it I then flash freeze individual pieces and then place them in a ziploc or use my food saver to freeze them in. Flash freezing them keeps them seperated so you can take out one or the whole bag of pieces to cook. I brown extra ground beef and freeze portions in 1 lb quantities. I grill porkchops and freeze them. I dice ham to add to dishes. If I chop onions for a meal I go ahead and chop and extra one and freeze the extra. It saves me time later when I need diced onion in a dish.

Cooking Ahead

I have been slowly learning to garden. We built 4- 8'X4' garden beds and I have been trying to reduce our budget by growing as much as I can. The food is so much better that I almost cannot eat a store tomato. You know what is sprayed on (or NOT!) and can really save a lot of money.

Now, the main ways I saved money cooking

1. I save all the little bits of green beans, carrots, corn, broccoli, rice, noodles, tomato or beef sauces, meat that are left at the end of a meal. Not the ones off our plates, but the little bit that was left in the pot. Most people think it is not enough for anyone so they throw it out. Get a jar or plastic container and put this, plus all the cooking liquid in the jar and freeze it. Keep adding to it. When you have enough thaw it and make a soup out of it. You may need to add some chicken broth or tomato sauce to have enough liquid.
2. Save all the bread heels or any bread that is getting dry in a bag in the freezer. You can either make croutons, bread crumbs, or a breakfast casserole with it.
3. I reduce the amount of hamburger meat in dishes. Instead of 1 lb. reduce it to 3/4 lb. or even 1/2 lb. When we were really tight I started doing this and adding beans. I add a cup of black beans to tacos; pinto or kidney beans to chili, burritos, Mexican dishes.
4. Serve casseroles, stirfries, and noodle dishes instead of seperate meat, vegetable, and starch dishes. You can stretch two chicken breasts to feed seven people if it is served over spaghetti noodles in Chicken Tetrizinni or in a stir fry dish. Some great chicken recipes are chicken pot pie, pasta salad, chicken roll ups in flour tortillas, chicken quesadillas, fajitas, chicken and rice soup, chicken enchiladas, chicken noodle casserole, chicken and rice casserole, chicken noodle soup, chicken and dumplings (use the cheap biscuit dough to roll out for dumplings), grilled chicken over salad greens, chicken salad sandwich.
5. Baked potatoes, pasta, rice, and beans are great fillers. You can bake a bunch of potatoes and freeze extras. They are a great base to add leftover chili, taco, broccoli and cheese, chicken fajita mixes. We stretch chili by serving it over a bed of rice. Add rice to bean burritos, serve red beans and rice, serve fajita mixes and stir fries over rice. Cook up a pot of beans and freeze 1 cup portions. Add to soups, beef mixtures, make black bean soup, burritos, chicken and white bean soup, black and white bean chili with corn, taco soup, ham bean soup. Just look on the internet for ideas of how to serve beans, there are many recipes.
6. Eggs are a great stretcher. We often had eggs and bacon or sausage for supper. Make a quiche and add in some ham,sausage, or meat pieces and any leftover vegetables. Use your leftover spaghetti noodles and make a frittata adding eggs and leftover pieces of meat and vegetables. Eggs mixed with a biscuit mix and some cooked sausage make a great breakfast casserole.
7. Don't throw away leftovers. I have already mentioned using them to make a soup and adding to quiche, but you can add to casseroles, stirfries, quesadilla, use as a pizza topper, make a flour tortilla roll up, to top a salad.

I will try to work on a post that has some more specific recipes, but hopefully this will be a start

Stretching Your Money

1. oil lamp and oil $1

2. Wilton pans- 4 for $1

3. bike for $15

4. desk $10, lamp $2, computer $20, cork board frame $2

I have been frugal for so long that many things I do are second nature and I don't even realize they are not normal for other people. First, I would like to make it clear that there is a very big difference between being frugal and cheap. Being frugal is making thought out purchases for quality items. Some people confuse that with cheap people who steal ketchup packets from restaurants or sneak into people's garbage for stuff. I have picked up items on the side of the road for bulk pick up, but wouldn't go into someone's garbage can for anything. Also, there are people who take stuff just because it is free and they really do not have a use for it. It ends up cluttering up their home, taking their time, and is not a benefit to their lives.

One of my favorite Saturday activities is going to garage sales. I find so many things and it has become unwise for me to spend full retail on items I can find for such deals. I get clothes that are name brand, from nice homes, and they look brand new. Some need some love in the way of a coat of paint, but most are perfect the way they are.

So, I thought I would share some of the items I look for secondhand.

1. picture frames- I am collecting all I can to make a frame wall going up my stairs.



2. candles- even melting ones can be used when the lights are out



3. clothes, winter gear, snow boots/pants



4. decor items



5. oil lamps, lanterns, flashlights



6. white dishes- I love to find pitchers, platters, bowls, and more to add to my collection



7. dishes- I look for colorful dishes to mix in for different tablesettings. I also look for platters, single plates, or bowls that I can use when I make a food dish for someone else. You don't have to get the dish back.



8. tupperware containers



9. pyrex, corningware, and baking pans



10. jewelry pieces- they add so much to your outfits



11. totes and backpacks- I always have extra backpacks for the kids.



12. extra phone chargers, cell phones, etc- we try to keep one back up phone around. We can never make it through our plan without something happening to atleast one phone.



13. books and magazines- I especially love to find great cookbooks



14. furniture pieces- think outside the box and imagine it painted a different color



15. table linens and curtains



16. fabric for sewing- it may be a moo-moo for a 500 lb woman with a great print. Look at things with an eye that it can be cut and redone. Sheets are a great source!



17. baskets and containers



18. games, puzzles, toys

Don't judge a book by it's cover or a really dumb Dollar Stretcher article

Last week on The Dollar Stretcher I read an article that just made me mad. I am not usually one to get so riled up but this article made such bias observations that were not using truth that I tried to address it with the editor Gary Foreman but was not happy with his response.

If you took the time to read the article you will see that the author said that if you want to see if a person is an Under Achiever of Wealth (from the book The Millionaire Next Door) then look in their driveway. If they have a SUV then they are a UAW. His reasons were that they cost more upfront, cost more to maintain because parts are more, cost more to insure, and cost more in gas. They also make the assumption that if a person would buy a SUV then the rest of their life is a life of consumption. Then, the funny part is they tell how wonderful people who buy Toyota Corolla/Camrys are because they probably bought them three years old from someone in the paper.

My problem was the strong bias this author took. He made rash judgements that if you have a SUV you paid full retail price and if you buy a Toyota you bought used. How? Where did he get this information.? When you compare items you compare like items. Compare new SUV to new Toyota or used against used. You can't just assume one is only bought new.

We own both an SUV- a Yukon XL and a Toyota Camry. Well, we actually have another vehicle, a full size GMC pick up. So, in all we have two large vehicles and a small car. We have no car payment. When we bought the Yukon it was 2 years old. We looked at vans and the closest we liked was the Odyssey. To buy within the same year of vehicle there was a $2000 difference. The benefit to us was that we have five kids and the Yukon was much more spacious for us. The Odyssey would not even fit a shopping trip of groceries in the trunk. It also would not fit all of our luggage when we traveled. During baseball season we have baseball bags in the trunk on top of these items. The Yukon has a large trunk space which I use all the time. We also have had a 31' camper and a ski boat that we pull with the Yukon and would have not been able to pull with the Odyssey. Is it wrong for us to choose a vehicle that works with the needs of our family? So, his theory that the initial cost is so much more is not true. We bought the GMC truck from our father-in-law. It was garage kept, he took it to the dealer for regular oil changes and maintenance, and rarely used it. It is a 2000 model and now has 46,000 miles on it. Yes, that is right, it is 11 years old and only has 46K miles! The Camry was my mother-in-law's car and we bought it for our teens to drive. It is a 1998 model.

His second assumption was it costs more to maintain. The oil is more for the larger vehicles, but we have not had maintenance much for any of our vehicles so we have not had the expense of maintenance. The gas is more. But, lets compare the true cost. We average 876 miles a month for the Yukon. At 14 miles per gallon that is 62.5 gallons a month X $2.40 a gallon= $150 a month in gas. The Camry gets about 28 mpg= 31 gallons of gas X $2.40 a gallon = $74.40 a month of gas. So, it is half the cost in gas, but most of those Yukon miles are put on when we vacation or our whole family is riding in the car so we would not have all fit in the Camry. I could compare it to a van that gets better mileage but the difference would be about midway between the Camry and Yukon so only about $35 at most a month in savings- not worth the gripe about how awful a SUV is for gas mileage. For $35 a month it is worth it for me to have something more comfortable and more useful for my family.

Now, the cost of insurance. I just got our insurance statement. We pay $42.86 a month for full coverage on our 2001 Yukon, $34.79 a month for our 2000 pick up, and $50.40 a month for liability only on the 1998 Camry. We pay MORE for liability only on the Camry than for full coverage on the Yukon! The Camry is higher because we have teens on it, but it is still funny to me that his theory was busted. To insure only my husband and me only it probably would be a little cheaper to insure a Camry, but not that drastic a difference to write an article stating that you pay so much more for a SUV. It is probably a $10-$15 a month difference if that much, and look at the age difference above: a 1998 vs. a 2001. I don't think comparing like model years would be that much difference. Right now Toyota is having some severe issues so a newer one is probably not on the top rate list.

My anger is that the author took such severe bias. His whole article is based on opinion instead of facts, and he clearly is of the opinion that no one should drive an SUV. Most of his points have been proven incorrect or misleading by my situation. I have two large vehicles, and I am also a very frugal person living below my means. He is making a judgement about me because of what is in my driveway, without looking at any more information. That is bias. If it was because I was black it would not be tolerated. If it was because I am a woman it would be clear that it was wrong.

I wrote my complaint to Gary Foreman, the creator of The Dollar Stretcher, and this was his reply:

"Thank you for your note. Clearly you can be frugal and still drive an SUV. But, I think that you'd have to agree that many people drive SUVs that do NOT need the extra space/carrying capacity. Sorry that you were offended. We just wanted to get people thinking.

Gary"

I responded:

"This article does not in any way state that you can be frugal and drive an SUV. It clearly states that if you have one everyone can assume you live above your means. Because it is written with such bias and clearly takes assumptions and tries to make them truths, I feel it is a bad representation for your website... I know may people with large families that lead a lifestyle very similar to mine and although there are people with an SUV that do not need the cargo space it is not anyone else's business what they drive. It is a big assumption to say they live beyond their means. This person is just clearly not able to take facts and opinions and write an article worth reading. I would just think an article could get people thinking without being so full of bull and bias and you would not want to associate with people so unable to clearly offer things to truly think upon."

Gary's reply:

"We've added an editor's note to the article. Clearly we've hit your hot button. I am sorry if it offended you."

The note? It said the same thing he replied about not everyone needed the cargo space. THAT WAS NOT THE ISSUE and that is not anyone's business if I need it anyway. I, as an American, can drive what I want. But, the best part- the editor's note is no longer there. He has removed it!

Thrift store finds

I am joining in Thrift Store Thursday to show what items I bought at the thrift store the past couple of weeks. The first is a jacket. I think I am going to shorten the sleeves and sew in the waist a little for a tad more feminine cut. It has an attached brooch and a ruffle hem which are really cute details.

This was the first item I saw when I entered this store. It is in a horrible part of town. I was very pleasantly surprised when I went in. Isn't this so nice and preppy. Imagine a cardigan tied around your neck. Add a monogrammed scrabble tile necklace. Some preppy flip flops.

A set of really cute napkins. The Kohls wrapper was still on them. They were $.50!

A sheet for $1. It has a ruffle edge. Can you see a cute apron? I wouldn't even have to add a ruffle to the bottom. So cute! I could add an orange pocket.

More sheets and fabric for $1 each.

This store had boxes of old patterns. I picked out a few that I would really like to sew some items from. I wanted to frame the covers for my sewing nook, but the price tags won't come off without taking up the print on the pattern. Suggestions?

A Shabby Chic green striped shower curtain. I want it for the fabric, but it is in perfect condition. I about fell out when I moved a piece of fabric and saw the orange leaf of the other fabric. I quickly grabbed it and saw the birdies on it!!!! It was a jackpot piece. Can you not see a little girls twirly skirt made out of it? All the items in the next three photos I got for $3. You get what you can put in the shopping basket for $3. I also bought a black shirt that I used to make a pirate vest. It was the reason for purchasing, so I looked around for anything that I could use the fabric for sewing to add to the basket.

Three shirts that I will use the fabric in sewing projects.

A wool sweater to felt. And the pink one will be great to cut to make stuffed animals. It is cashmere-ish.

Restaurant gift card bonuses- use for your free meals!

We signed up with both Moes and Lonestar to receive a free meal on your birthday. I just received an advertisement from each of them that if you buy a gift card for the holidays you get a free $5 bonus card. At Moe's if you buy a $20 card you receive a $5 card. At Lonestar if you buy a $25 dollar card you get a $5 bonus card.

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We didn't use my free Lonestar birthday dinner (It is August 11- I'll send you a wish list later. Go ahead and put it on your calendar) because we still would have had to pay for my husband to eat. At the time we were really cutting everything out so we decided not to go. My idea is to buy these cards and use the card to pay for the meal for the spouse to be able to dine with the birthday person. When I eat my free Moe's birthday meal we will use the gift card, then use the balance when my husband gets his free birthday meal. If we do not use it all we can use it for a quick lunch for my husband or give it to one of our teens as a treat out with friends.

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The link to sign up for the birthday meal is here for Moe's and here for Lonestar. Without searching their site at Lonestar I cannot remember if I received the birthday email for a free meal through signing up for the e-club or if it is somewhere else. I see a link to the kids birthday club.

Eating on $25.00 a week

An article on Smart Spending caught my eye. The Illinois food bank issued a challenge to state officials, leaders, and residents to try living off of the average food stamp amount of $25.00 PER PERSON a week. I am a bit shocked after looking at the referenced site in the Smart Spending article. The people were having a really hard time and they even give a sample menu on their site. They have macaroni and cheese with green beans two nights. It is almost as if they are purposely trying to make the menu as unappealing and pathetic looking as possible. I will say that it is a lot more difficult to purchase food for one person versus two or more. The more you have the larger the package you can buy. It is also harder to buy everything you need in one week. When you have to count the whole price for a can of salt but you only use 1/16 of it. Even on a real case where the person is living on assistance after the first week you build a stock of basic stuff that you can use for the next week.

For $25.00 a person a week that would be $175.00 a week for my family of 7. Um, that is $700.00 a month. I budget $500.00 a month, but have spent $600.00 the last two months building up a stock of supplies. I don't think the challenge even includes cleaning products or toiletries, which are included in mine. I have a LOT of toothpaste and shampoo and buddies soap and deoderant. If you stink please come see me and I can set you up.

I know this budget isn't extravogant, but I think the people who need to use the services of financial aid need to be better taught how to save money. Many come from homes where no one taught them how to cook or shop or save money. Teach them how to match coupons to sales and get better deals. Teach them how to shop the loss leaders and sales each week on meat and vegetables. Show them a better menu than the one listed, one that looks more appealing, so they have a desire to work a little to get the deals and spend time cooking. Show them how much extra they are paying for convienience items. Show them how to cook ahead and freeze meals, how to make baby food, how to use leftovers.... the list goes on and on. Anything, but hand them money for food, then expect them to know how, then try to make people feel sorry for them that they have to eat off of $25.00 a week. Can I hear an Amen?

Looking at one of the blog of the people who took on the challenge here read the first commentor. They also participated and listed their much better menu. I want to go to their house for supper.

What do you think? Could you feed your family for $25.00 a week. What would you do to stay within that amount? How much are you spending per week?

How much electricity do appliances use? and How to reduce your utility bill

Here is a table showing the typical costs to run all the appliances around your house. Some examples of costs are:

Air conditioner - running every day for a month $44.00
Electric heat- 90 hours $90.00
Electric range- 1 hr a day for a month $4.00
Electric oven 40 hours $6.60
Microwave $.60 an hour
Dishwasher $4.50 to run a cycle a day for a month
Refrigerator $3.00 a month
Freezer $3.00 a month
Clothes dryer $11.00 for 1 load a day
washing machine $7.50 for 1 load a day
Incandescent bulb .5 cent an hour
25 watt fluorescent bulb .2 cent an hour
Electric water heater $32 a month
TV 1-2 cents and hour

These are just a sampling of the items on the list. If you have gas appliances or heat they have listed cost of use for those items as well. One thing that is apparant is that we focus on the small things like leaving a light on or changing to fluorescent bulbs when they really don't make as big of a difference as some of the larger items.

Cook with a microwave or crock pot versus on your range on in the oven.

In the summer try not to use the oven because it heats the house.

Put your crockpot outside to cook on hot summer days.

When you do cook in the oven fill it up. Make several meals at one time. Bake a cake or batch of brownies. Bake some breakfast muffins. Throw in some potatoes to bake. Instead of wasting the energy take advantage and get ahead on your cooking.

When you make rice or pasta go ahead and cook extra. It will use the same amount of time but you will have extra for another meal. It will keep in the refrigerator or freezer.

Use ceiling fans to make it feel cooler.

Turn the air conditioner up when you are not home.

Turn the heat down at night and when you are away.

Invest in a programmable thermometer for your air and heat.

Only run the dishwasher when it is full. Use the same glass all day.

Let dishes air dry rather than use the heat dry setting.

Keep the coils clean on the refrigerator and freezer.

Keep your freezer full. If it is not full fill coke bottles or milk jugs and freeze. When you shop take a cooler with these frozen jugs. You can buy groceries and it will keep cold until you can get home.

I wash two loads of clothes a day. Quit washing clean clothes. The kids don't need fresh, clean clothes to play in. Keep clothes that have been worn to wear to play or for you to work around the house in. Don't wash until they are really dirty. When you wear church clothes or go out in a special outfit that you didn't wear long enough to get dirty take it off and hang it to air dry immediately. Wear an apron to avoid stains while cooking. Use your bath towel all week or at the least use for two days. Hang it up to dry so it does not sour.

I try to hang most of our clothes. We can't have a clothes line so I have three wooden folding racks that I put out on the deck. I spread sheets out over the patio chairs. I hang rugs over the deck rail. To save space I hang everything that I can on hangers in the laundry room to dry. Hang pants upside down by the legs. In the winter or on rainy days I place the drying racks over the floor vents so the air will dry them faster. If I run out of drying rack space I hang two towels per hanger with clothespins. I don't like to have clothes everywhere but you can use a bath shower rod to hang items. I used to place the folding rack in an extra tub and close the curtain. I like to dry buttondown and polo shirts and towels in the dryer for 10 minutes so that the shirts aren't wrinkled and the towels are not so crisp and stiff.

I have not done it but you are supposed to be able to turn off your water heater at night and it will stay hot for your morning bath. Then, you can turn it back on around 4 PM to heat up for washing supper dishes and let it heat again for your morning bath again. Has anyone experimented with turning off your hot water like this?

Turn your hot water temperature to 120 degrees.

I like to do batch cooking. When I find ground beef or chicken on sale I buy a lot and make up a bunch of meals to freeze. You use a lot less energy doing it all at once instead of heating and cooling the oven or stove multiple times each day.

Turn off your computer at night and when you are away from home all day.

Make sure your home is insulated well and caulked. You can put outlet insulators in your outlets to reduce leaks. Seal the cracks to the pull down stairs that lead to your attic.

Lock the kids out so they don't come in and out.

Keep your garage door shut so the heat/cold doesn't come into the house.

Open blinds in winter and let in the sun. Close them in the summer.

Use heavy drapes in the winter to keep drafts from coming in. You can even hang quilts. I have even seen people put up batting or foam padding in rooms that don't get used. If you have an entry to your home you can hang curtains at all the entry ways off the foyer. This forms a block for all the air when you open the door and keeps it out of the other rooms.

Put some clothes on in the winter. Don't walk around without a shirt or socks and say you are cold.

When you are sitting to watch tv or are online cover up with a blanket.

When it is really hot or cold go to a public place that will be cooler or warmer like the library or mall.

In the winter get moving to heat up your body. Clean house. Work on a craft project. Do your baking. Iron clothes.

Heat a water bottle and put it in bed with you to help keep you warm until you fall asleep. You can also use these when sitting under a blanket. You can also make and heat the bean bag warmers and use them as warmers while sitting, in bed, or in your jacket pocket.

Use a microwave to boil water instead of heating on the stove. Put a top on items on the stove while heating.

You can bring noodles and eggs to a boil, cover, turn off the heat source and then let sit for 10 minutes. It will cook the noodles and boil the eggs.

Turn off your hot water tank when you go away on vacation. Turn up the air or down the heat while away.

Change your filters on the air conditioner regularly. Clean out the dryer vent after each use. You can compost the dryer lint.

Snuggle.

New Budget and determination

I got lazy. I let money slip though our hands. I mentioned in a past post how we had to pay for three kids to go into orthodontics this year, two wisdom teeth removals and an aednoid removel. We also were slapped with college costs. My daughter earned a Presidential scholorship and it stated that if tuition and fees went up they would increase her scholorship. Well, dumb me, assumed it was paying all her tuition, but we would pay for the books. Nope, they paid over half but we still had $1400 in tuition and $550 in books for this semester. I never expected books to be THAT high so it was all totally not planned. In the mean time, we were cruisin to Mexico and continuing to make purchases for our home and living as normal people WITH MONEY. There was a little freak out when we realized we had to pay that much in tuition and saw how much of a hit it took on our finances.

I love Dave Ramsey. We have never had credit card debt, but know what it is like to be always scrambling to have money for your month. In making the move to Alabama we were split in that we finally could give up second and third jobs to make it, but we at the same time gave up the additional income of the second and third jobs. So, while we increased my husband's base pay so that we could make it without addional income, we gave up about $800 extra money a month that we had left after paying our bills. We went back to having enough income for our bills, but not anything extra. The whole time we were working extra we were listening to Dave and trying to follow his teachings.

When we were first married and really struggling we were accustomed to not buying anything. We didn't even have money for garage sales. I would sit all day waiting on my husband to call from work so I could tell him something because we lived over the county line and it cost $.25 for me to call him. $.25 cents! That was dedication and determination to make it. The pay off- I could stay home with my babies! We continued to be frugal in our spending: buying from garage sales and thrift stores and clearance racks. I continued to learn home economy and ways to cook and clean and shop and craft to reduce expenses and live a better life on less money. Another thing that I learned was to be content with what we had. To take what we had and make the best of it. Shine it up. Repair it. Paint it. I tried to make our life feel like we weren't doing without.

Somehow, when we were working extra jobs we slowly began to feel intitled to buying what we needed or wanted when the occasion came. We ate out a lot because we were tired from all the hard work. We saw something we wanted and we bought it. Now, we need to stop doing that and learn to save the things that we want for birthday and Christmas presents. We felt like we had the money and weren't in debt so we could do it. We saved a good emergency fund. We didn't neglect to find good deals. We just relaxed our gazelle intensity too much. I now need to pull in the reigns and try to really watch our expenses closer. We have been spending trying to get the house remodeled. We want it all right now. Some things will have to wait until we can find good deals or save more to complete. I have blogged about how electricity, water, food and gas are all more expensive so it is time to tighten the belt and not waste anymore money. Time to learn even more tricks to making money stretch.

These are some things that I want to do to stretch our money:

1. Build a solar oven- save electricity while cooking, but also not heat up the house.

2. Make homemade pizza crusts- I have been using the Walmart pizza packets that are $.33 each.

3. Try making homemade flour tortillas and hamburger buns.

4. Make my own laundry detergent.

5. Buy clothes at garage sales and thrift stores when $1.00 or less to sell at the Kids mart twice a year. I hope to make enough from this to buy my younger three children's clothes.

6. Make 4 rain barrels to collect rain for gardens.

7. Grow vegetables year round in my garden.

Frugal living

I sat down yesterday to add in receipts and do a check up on our spending and bills to make sure we are staying on budget. We have the orthodontic bill this month because the 3rd going into braces this year will be getting them on next week. I just paid $900 last month for my other son's palatal expander. I also had $550 in college textbooks to buy which we did not expect to have to pay. All this is adding up to a huge reduction in our money and has eaten a lot of our emergency fund.

When I was checking our budget and planning out the month of September it wasn't working out. We were going into the negative from what is in our budget account. I kept trying to figure it out and was coming up with what I could return to stores for money, how I could starve the kids, and trying to figure out how to make it work. After a LONG time figuring and praying and a call to my husband at work I realized I had not added in our second paycheck for the month of September. Man, that was a relief! I had almost made it work paying all this month's bills off half of our income.

Trent at The Simple Dollar wrote about how he spends $770 a month to feed his family of 4- that is two small kids. He explained that they spend more because they buy organic foods. If you look at the USDA national food average chart to feed my family under the thrifty plan it would be $1017 a month. I have a 18 YOgirl, 15 YO boy(playing football), 12 YO girl, 10 and 8 YO boys. I did a Quicken graph and have averaged $700a month the last 6 months. I budget $500. Well, yesterday I felt bad that I have been over budget, but today I see that I am still way under the national thrifty average. Another consideration is that I have fed two teenage boys almost every night for four out of the last six months and one of them the other two. On weekends we can have a group of kids here to eat with us. In the summer the smaller kids constantly had friends spend the night or over in the daytime. So, that is why I have not made my budget and am over. It is really hard to figure out how many people you will actually feed until you do it.

What is your thoughts on your grocery budget: are you like Trent that has made the choice to spend more because he has the money and would rather feed his family better quality food? Or you like a lot of the commenters on his post that eat really really cheaply and feel that he cannot write about a frugal life and spend that much on groceries? Does frugal living mean cheap living? Looking at some of the comments people do equate the two. I am somewhere in the middle. On one hand I cannot afford organic produce and expensive dairy products. When you go through a gallon of milk a day and a loaf of bread it is a lot of money to buy. I am trying to cook from staples and bought 25 lbs. of flour and 25 lbs. of bread flour, the bulk yeast at Sams so that I can make up pancakes, biscuits, bread, homemade tortillas, and other stuff. But, I choose to spend more to offer a home that welcomes my kids friends and always offers them food and drink. I want them to come and be able to know them. I feel that being frugal is more about buying the best quality at the best price. Don't overbuy products that have features you don't need. But, also don't buy things that won't last or that do not serve what you need. Sometimes you pay more so you get quality that will be better in the long run. You are investing in that area hoping to reap the rewards in the future.

It means that the money has to be cut from another area to increase the food budget. It all comes down to what choices we make with our money. Unless you are really in financial ruin you have a choice what is more important to you and where you want to put your money. Some people spend more on clothes. Some travel a lot. Some put money into traveling sports teams or dance or music classes. I would love for my kids to be able to take lessons, but we cannot afford it. I have had to trust that God will open the door for opportunities for anything that He wants to use them for in ministering. One example is my 15 year old son. I had him take a year of piano lessons at about age 7. The teacher made many comments about how "busy" he was so I finally felt like I was wasting my money and that we would wait a little while before continuing. He never showed any desire again to take lessons so I did not pursue it. Two years ago we bought him an electric guitar for Christmas. For almost a year it sat and he could not play it. All of a sudden he picked it up, picked out songs, taught himself how to read music and play chords. Within a couple of weeks he was playing songs that he memorized. He was playing around after service at church on one of the guitars and the leader heard him and asked him to play with the youth band. Everyone who has lessons and skills comments on how awesome he is on the guitar. He has a band with some friends. A new guy has a Fender guitar contract and has joined the band. With the contract they get free equipment. He has ordered two new guitars. We are learning more about this deal but it is so awesome to see how God has taken what we could not see and opened doors for him to minister with music. It is a God given talent and desire. We never fostered it, encouraged him by pushing him or in any way have been a part of this. It encourages by giving me another living exaple of how God gives us what we need to do what His plan is for our lives. Although it pushes me to increase our food budget I know this is an area where I am ministering right now and that God will provide what I need.

Finding "caught" water

Mrs. Darling commented that one pitcher of water would not water her plants and I wanted to clarify what I do. It does sound as if she has rows and rows of flowers and vegetables so I probably am in any way needing that much water. What I have is two 4x8 raised bed vegetable boxes and two patio tomatoes. Everything else is on the God watering system. I really want at least two rain barrels but haven't found them locally and haven't decided on ordering them.

I don't only use the water I collect from glasses to water my plants. I save the water I boil noodles, potatoes and eggs. I let it cool and use that. I mentioned that I have started filling my larger popcorn bowl with water and use it to rinse off dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. I use that water. I am becomming aware of catching the water that is running while waiting on the water to get hot. I have even used the small amount of tea and coffee. I either blend it with a lot of water or only pour it in the compost bin. I have a few really large plastic bowls that we use for popcorn that I run out to the patio table if it rains. I pour that into my watering cans or into milk jugs for later when it all dries out. When we go shopping or to ball I always fill bottles for us to have water. I use the water we didn't drink. Just be aware of water that is there and it is amazing how much you have that you throw out. When you paid for it coming in, you want to use it instead of just throwing it out.

This weekend my husband moved the drain hose from the air conditioner. It now drains into the ground right at the end of the vegetable bed. We are hoping some will seep over to the bed because it has a really slight slope down from that area.

I have not watered my garden daily. I think I have watered it 4 times since May. One of the advantages that I have is that we have clay soil. We didn't go by the Square Foot Garden recipe for making good soil. We got a truckload of topsoil which equals tilled clay. We added in two bags of manure. I don't even water with collected water daily. If I have a pot of water from cooking noodles or eggs I go ahead and take that to the garden. I will put two or three cups at the base only of each plant. My daily watering from the pitcher goes to my patio tomatoes. The only times I turned the hose on to water was when it dried out.

I have thought about taking a bucket up to our shower to collect the water before it turns hot. I don't know if I want to haul it down steps and I think my husband would really think I am nuts. If the bill is that high again I just might do it.

Reorganizing

I have been working on how to get back down to our budgeted amounts in the areas we have been going over. I had forgotten that we have $625.00 a month going into our Medical flex account. That is the largest thing that has hit our budget and at the first of the year I will not need to fund it at that level. We have three in orthodontic treatment this year is why I put $7500 a year into that account. This is a good example of how having money automatically taken out of your paycheck and put into another account helps you. I knew the money was there but "forgot" it is coming out. We became accustomed to living without it. Orthodontics is not an expense that will be occured every year- we pay it and that will be done.

I bought $1200 of Kroger gift cards in the last few months. For those of you without a Kroger, they had a promotion where if you bought a gift card worth $300 you got a bonus $30, $60 for a $600 card and $120 for a $1200 card. Kroger is my closest store and I can also purchase the cheapest gas without driving about 6 miles to Sams (I would use the difference in price to drive to Sams only for gas)

I have been looking at each of the areas where we have been going over budget. Before I just increase those catagories I want to try to decrease my expenses instead. Here is some of my ways to reduce the cost:

FOOD
1.We have been eating out a lot. Because I have not been prepared my husband has picked up lunch a lot of days. I am watching to make sure that we have lunch items for the kids and my husband prepared.

2. I am cooking food to have for quick meals. I used to do once a month cooking but that is too much work and time involved. It is easier to make up a few things at a time. I baked potatoes and made twice baked potatoes to freeze- those are great to pull out and microwave. I am planning on cooking up some things to freeze like brown rice, cook my dried beans, diced potatoes, more baked potatoes, pancakes, french toast, calzone/ hot pocket type sandwiches, uncrustable sandwiches, biscuits, ground chuck, chicken meals, cookie dough, and I really want to try to make homemade bread and tortillas.

3. I pulled up my squash and zucchini plants because the were attacked with vine borers and died this week. This weekend I replanted the spaces in my garden with pole beans and lima beans, a row of cauliflower, broccoli and lettuce. Hopefully we can get some of that to grow before it turns cool in November.

4. I am trying to be more watchful of what the kids eat. It seems like they eat as fast as I bring in the food. I need to monitor them more carefully so they don't eat me out of house and home.

5. I am watching my leftovers and using or freezing them. I have thrown away a lot of food lately.

6. I am looking for new menu items because I have been making the same things over and over. I like to try new things.

Electricity and Water
1. Changing the dishwasher to air dry at night instead of heat dry. If we have to wash in the daytime we have to heat dry because we need the dishes back. Our counters will fill up with dishes waiting to go into the dishwasher and I hate that.

2. My kids will take a bath at night then again in the morning because their hair was crinkled. What!? Stick that pumpkin under the faucet!

3. I have been doing this and it is working well so will continue to gather all the water for my plants and garden that I can. I take all the glasses that are in the kitchen and pour leftover water from melted ice into a pitcher I keep by the sink. I will have the pitcher full by the end of the day with "caught" water and pour it on the base of my garden plants. When I planted my tomato plant in a container I planted a water bottle with holes in it and I pour the water into that bottle to water it from the bottom. Sometimes I use my HUGE popcorn bowl and fill it with water. I throw in the crusty dishes and then rub off the gunk before putting them in dishwasher. I then take that bowl of water to the garden or compost pile if it is dry.

Our water bill was still $99 last month. Normally, it is around $80 so I am not sure why it increased so much. Whatever we intake in usage we pay for in sewage.

4. Hanging clothes to dry. I put them in the dryer for about 5 minutes so they aren't crunchy. I have three drying racks. I put them outside on my back deck on nice days or in my laundry room if it looks like rain. Anything that I can hang I hang in the laundry room. You can even hang towels- two to a hanger.

5. I am filling my oven when I turn it on. I either make two or three meals or make cupcakes or baked potatoes at the same time. Don't waste that space while you are already paying for the heat.

6. I read to put the crock pot outside to cook so that you don't heat up your kitchen. What a great idea! I also want to make our solar oven as a school project.

7. We have the air set to 78. The upstairs is on a timer and is higher in the daytime so it is miserable upstairs during the day. We spend our daytime downstairs and use the fans. I am not suffering all day to save anymore money in that area.

8. We have our main computer in our bedroom upstairs and a laptop downstairs. I have been turning off the upstairs computer because it really adds a lot of heat.

9. I have learned to say no to the kids about spur of the moment baking of cupcakes or cinnamon sticks. I was really wimping out and giving in to their puppy dog eyes and whimpering. I do need to pick up some things they can snack on that don't require baking- like freeze pops.

10. I need to make sure the kids put up their clothes that aren't really dirty so I am not washing so much. They don't need to play in clean clothes. Am I the only one that finds folded clothes under the dirty ones when you are sorting for the wash? That is lazy and really inconsiderate of them to make me work again for their clothes to be clean. I am addressing that character flaw.

11. We bought and installed some bamboo(?) shades in the family room and breakfast nook. The evening sun was horrible. I have been pulling the curtains shut on the family room windows to block some of it. Heat...Dark....Heat....Dark.... It is a toss up in your life.

Gas
I made a list of where we drive to try to figure out a gas budget. We have a YukonXL, full size GMC truck and Toyota Camry.

1. Drive the Camry whenever I can to use less gas. My husband has to go early to church on Sunday mornings. He was taking the truck and then we all would come in the Yukon. I realized that he should take the Camry and that would save a little.

2. I combine all our shopping into one big trip. Walgreens, Publix, Staples and Southern Market are all on the way to church. Target, Walmart,and Sams are all about 6 miles away. I am going to make those stores a monthly trip instead. We have a CVS, Kroger, Dollar General Market, and Rite Aid less than a mile away.

3. The only other trips that we make are for work and my daughter going to the college. We told her that she needs to start paying for her gas, but we provided it up to this point.

This is pretty much all the areas that I found to reduce these expenses. We just have a big family and that requires more food, water, electricity and gas than a smaller family. We are also all home all day so we use more than if the kids were at school or I was at work. A $500 grocery budget is really tight. I hope to add to my garden little by little and be able to produce a lot of our food, but for now it is a hobby. Our electric company said they expect to increase their costs by 10%. I would rather reduce where I can than absorb the increase in each of these areas.

Organizing your coupons

I clip all the coupons in the Sunday ads, pull out all the coupons in magazines and mail fliers. I just have an acordian coupon organizer that I sort them in by catagory. Once a month I pull out all the coupons that will expire that month and put them into a business size envelope. Any of these that will expire I record on a list with the item, quantit size and coupon value. During my shopping for the month I check prices to see if I can find a good deal on those items. I don't take the time to record items that I do not normally use so that I am not tempted to buy unneeded items.

I have a large accordian file box that I use for my bills. I have a section marked coupons that I put any loose or whole flyers from the paper into until I can clip and file them. It is easy to lose coupons if they are not in a specific place until I have time to clip.

I have regular sized envelopes that I have labeled with each store that I shop: Walgreens, Rite Aid, Publix, CVS, Kroger, Target, Walmart, Southern Market, Dollar General. As I prepare my shopping list I put the coupons for the items from that store in the envelope. My list looks like this:

Publix- $5 off $30 purchase

3 Hamburger helper 2/$1.59- $.75/3 Q= $.54 each
2-16 oz carrots- 2/$1.69
nature valley granola bars- $1.40- $.50(doubled)= $.40
2- Marie Callendar croutons BOGO - BOGO coupon= both free
Lance crackers $1.40- $1 Q= $.40
4 boxes Pop Secret popcorn-2/$4.89- 2-$50(D)= $1.40 each box
Hershey Bliss- $2-$1 CVS Q+$1 Man Q= free
2 6 pk Yoplait yogurt- 2/$2.79- two $.75 Q's=$1.04 per pack
2 speed stick deoderant- 2/$2.59-$.50 (D)= 2/$1.59
Loreal kids shampoo- $2.50- $1 publix Q+ $.75 Q= $.75
2- suddenly salad- $2.29 each- $.50(D)/2+ 2/$3.60
2 New York Pizza sticks- $2.79 each- two $.40(D)= $2 each

I list quantity to buy, item, quantity size of sale item, sale price, coupon value, my final price per item.

When I go into the store all I have to have is that one envelope. I do put the large one that has that months expiring coupons in my purse so that if I find a good deal I can pull it and buy that item. I put my grocery list for each store in the envelope. I carry the list that I made of expiring coupons so I don't have to flip through all of them, I just go down the list.

CVS/ Walgreens/ Rite Aid

Each month Rite Aid and Walgreens offer items that you purchase and fill out a rebate form and get the items for the cost of the sales tax. They both have made it easy and offer their rebate forms online so you can enter them without having to mail in a form. At Rite Aid you enter your receipt number and it automatically pulls up the items that offer a rebate. At Walgreens you have to enter the items you purchase. Rite Aid mails you a check that you can either cash at your bank or take into the store and use as money on your next months purchases. You can either mail in the rebate for or enter them online. They offer a check of gift card that is reloadable. If you choose the gift card you receive an extra 10% back. More free money!

CVS gives Extra Care Bucks back on certain purchases. You have to have a CVS card for your purchases. Look through the add and they offer items each month that they give back the ECB's. A lot of items are free. You have to buy them then an ECB will print out after you pay that is like store money to use on your next purchase. They also print out coupons for certain items. Try to combine those with a manufacturer coupon for free items. You generally have to make an initial investment the first month to earn your ECB's but then you continue to roll them monthly and have little out of pocket expense.

To start earning ECBs, instead of making all your transactions at one time, make one transaction that will produce ECBs. What is a happy day is when you combine a sale with a coupon and pay little for an item then receive more than you paid in ECBs. Then, calculate another transaction where you use coupons and your earned ECBs to buy those items for little out of pocket. You earn more ECBs to continue rolling them. Not every item produces ECBs so it does take calculating and working it to get the deals. I go to different stores or come different days or times instead of doing more than two transactions back to back. I don't want to make the cashiers hate me. The most I have done at one time is three transactions.

Walgreens offers Register Rewards that are similar to the CVS ECBs. Except, at Walgreens you cannot earn a RR for a certain brand product and rebuy that product and earn another RR. You have to use it to purchase other items.

At all these stores I am trying to use coupons on their sale items. Most of my toiletries and medicines are free after coupon and rebates or store bucks. Do you want to know how to MAKE MONEY????

This week at Walgreens you can work this deal:
Hershey's Bliss candy--$3 each
Buy 4 and use 2 $2/2 EasySaver coupon
Stack with 4 manufacturer's coupons here
Get a $5 rebate for buying $10 worth of Hershey's products (rebate #34)
Free plus overage after coupons and rebate

This week at Target you can work this deal:
Schick Razors (trial sized) - $0.97
Use the $2/1 coupon from the 5/11 SmartSource insert

Don't try to buy an item where it shows you have an overage. They are not going to hand you money. If you are negative pick up something else to make up the difference so it will go through their computer system.

There are great sites to go to that share deal scenarios.
Money saving Mom
More than enough
The centsible sawyer
Thrifty Florida Mom
There are also sites like A Full Cup and slick deals that have threads where people post their deals. It shows grocery stores, drug stores, and department stores.
These sites are where I find out about printable coupons. The printable coupons are usually higher value coupons.

Start slowly and don't try to catch all the deals. When I first started I was like an insane coupon lady and spent HOURS clipping, sorting, figuring out the deals and shopping. My family wasn't as amazed with me as I was. I was getting high off the success of the deals, which made me want more. I filled every nook and cranny with items and finally slowed down. I have actually gone weeks without shopping the deals out of wearing out. Balance it out. Thank God for His provisions. It does take time to clip and file coupons. Next I will tell you how I organize my coupons.