Thrifty Hacks That Save Me A Lot Of $$

 

Over the years I’ve cultivated and fine tuned several things in my life, hacks if you will, that have saved me a ton of money over the years.  Many of these tried and true, time tested hacks are not only things I do, but many of you have shared that you do the same thing too.  I thought it would be nice to list some of these things in this post in hopes that you find some inspiration yourself.

 

Toiletries & Housekeeping Supplies 

I am rather minimal when it comes to toiletries.  I stick to one soap, one moisturizer, one shampoo and one conditioner, one deodorant, no makeup anymore, no hair styling products of any kind, a toothbrush, some floss and a tube of toothpaste, a comb, a hairbrush and a few ponytail holders and barrettes.  I dilute my shampoo and conditioner.  That is all I need to look absolutely gorgeous! 

For laundry I use homemade detergent, bleach and white vinegar.  To keep my house clean I use Comet cleanser, Barkeeper’s Friend cleanser, Sprayway glass cleaner, bleach, white vinegar, dish soap and diluted Fabuloso (3 parts water: 1 part Fabuloso) as my all purpose cleaner.  The glass cleaner is my one indulgence as I like the way it works, especially on the windshield of my vehicles.  I use shower gel I get from Bath & Body Works (FREE with a coupon) to make foaming hand soap solution to refill the dispensers I keep at each sink.

 

Groceries 

I keep a list, stick to a budget, only shop for items that are on sale, grow and forage what I can, buy REAL food, meal plan, meal prep, cook from scratch, eat my leftovers and avoid food waste at all costs.  Using up what I have on hand in the refrigerator first before I buy more helps me to make sure I keep any potential food waste minimal.  My beverages of choice are water and coffee.

 

Heating & Cooling 

In the winter I keep the thermostat pretty low, I dress in layers, wear slippers in the house and use a throw blanket when I’m sitting for any period of time.  I don’t turn the main heat on until I absolutely have to each year and off as soon as temperatures begin to warm again in the spring.  I have an electric fireplace in the living room that warms the house quite nicely and because heat rises I do not turn on any heat upstairs except in the bathroom when I shower. 

During the summer I use a box fan to bring in the cool morning air each day, then close up the house before the temperatures rise.  We do get hot here in the summers so I used two window A/C units to cool the upstairs level while the downstairs remains comfortable.  I typically install the A/C units on 4^th of July weekend (I check and clean the filters) and then remove them on Labor Day weekend which is really all the time I need to use air conditioning in my home.  Just two months a year.

 

Gifts 

I love to give edible gifts, items I have made in my own kitchen.  It may be a jar of preserves or something I’ve canned like soup, salsa or pasta sauce, or it may be something I have baked like a fresh loaf of bread or a batch of cookies. 

Useful gifts are another item I like to give such as gift cards, cash, even a coupon for a chore I can do for someone.  Something as simple as a dish or wash cloth, hand towel and bottle of Bath & Body Works hand soap (FREE or discounted with a coupon) is well received.  Any extra products I accumulate using coupon or rewards points offers are used to fill up my gift shelf in my linen closet. 

I reuse gift bags and tissue paper.  I buy gift wrapping supplies after the holidays when they are on clearance.  I am not opposed to wrapping a gift with a brown paper shopping bag and tying a ribbon from my sewing stash around it either.  I make my own greeting cards to give or send out.

 

Transportation 

I drive an older vehicle.  It is paid for (has been for a very long time) less expensive to license, insure and maintain.  I do routine maintenance so it keeps running and I’m able to do a lot of it myself.  I walk, ride the city busy and have a bicycle.  If I can utilize one of those resources instead of driving I do it as often as I possibly can.  Not only does it save me a lot of money, but I get also so get some really good exercise.

 

Clothing 

I keep a minimal all season wardrobe dressing in layers as the weather dictates.  I have one heavy winter coat, a jacket with a hood for rainy days, a light jacket and a few sweaters and hoodies.  I only keep what I wear on a regular basis plus one outfit for special occasions.  I buy solid good quality shoes for everyday use, especially as I walk a lot.  I keep a pair of sandals and a pair of flip flops on hand for summer use.  I have a pair of trail shoes and a pair of hiking boots for hiking in the foothill and the forests.  I also have a pair of winter boots for cold and snowy weather.  I also keep an older pair of flip flops and a pair of cross trainers as my yard shoes so I don’t ruin my good shoes doing “yucky” chores.  When I purchase clothing or shoes I try to get the best quality at the best price always and I use coupons whenever possible to lower the price even more.

 

Store Rewards, Programs & Credit Card Points 

I am big on any legitimate opportunity to earn additional funds.  I am signed up with two of my local supermarkets for their store rewards program as well as DSW and Bath & Body Works where I get some really good offers for reduced and FREE products on a regular basis. 

Earlier this year, when I started riding the bus, I signed up for a program that allows me to earn points for each time I ride the bus.  Rewards points can be redeemed for gift cards.  Last spring they did a promotion that allowed me to earn a gift card in addition to the regular points I was earning.  So far this year I’ve earned $30 in gift cards which I used to buy groceries at a Kroger store and I’m still accumulating points.  I also do online surveys that allow me to earn points toward gift cards as well, although this year I haven’t had a lot of time to do those, but it is still an option. 

I use my credit card to pay for everything I can including gasoline and groceries.  I pay off my card each month in full so I never accrue any interest charges.  In the process I rack up rewards points on my purchases which I will save up until they can be redeemed for gift cards I use either as gifts or for my own purchases.

 

This is just a handful of the things I do on a regular basis to make my hard earned dollars stretch and really work for me.  If this type of subject appeals to you, let me know in the comments.  I’ll be happy to share more of the things I do to save money.

 

REAL Food Recipe – Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

 

With Thanksgiving up ahead and then Christmas coming I thought I’d share my dinner roll recipe with all of you.  This is one that is always requested of me to make pretty much for any get together regardless of the occasion.

 

Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls 

2 cups flour                                                          1 tsp. salt

1 cup wheat flour                                                 1 ¼ cups warm milk

1/4 cup sugar                                                       1 egg

2 1/2 tsp. yeast                                                     2 Tbs. melted butter  

Select the  bread machine to the dough cycle.  Place dry ingredients in pan and select start.  Add milk, melted butter and egg.  Once dough forms a smooth ball (you may have to add a little flour or water depending on humidity) close lid and allow cycle to run completely. 

Once dough cycle is complete, remove dough from machine and knead lightly on a floured surface.  Dough should be smooth and not sticky.  Butter a 9” X 13” baking pan.  Pull off pieces of dough and shape into balls about the size of a golf ball.  Line dough balls up in pan, cover lightly with a dish towel and place in a warm, draft free area.  Allow dough to raise until doubled in size, approximately one hour. 

Bake rolls in a preheated 400° oven for 15 to 18 minutes.  Remove from oven and brush tops with butter.  Makes about 2 dozen rolls.  Serve warm butter and homemade jam.

 

A batch of these rolls & a jar of homemade jam
would make a nice holiday gift 😋

These turn out soft and fluffy.  You can definitely make these by hand without a bread machine.  I find they freeze well too if you want to make them ahead of time and just warm them up in the oven prior to serving.  I’ve often used these rolls to make sliders with as they are the perfect size.  Perhaps these will make it onto your Thanksgiving Day table this year.

 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 135

 

Hello Everyone!  It’s November! Already!  It was time to get hopping so I had another busy week planning and preparing for the upcoming holidays which included some strategic grocery shopping where I literally purchase five pounds of butter for only $1.75!  Best deal ever!

 

Free butter! 😃

I had downloaded a digital coupon offer for butter at $2.49 each at Fred Meyer plus I had previously downloaded a Best Customer digital coupon for 70¢ OFF a pound of Kroger brand butter and I redeemed some of the rider rewards points I had earned riding the bus this year for a $10 gift card.  By the time I used the gift card and the digital coupons I only had to pay $1.75 out of pocket!  I also used another digital coupon to pick up a 2# block of sharp cheddar cheese for $4.99.  I now have plenty of butter and cheese to get me through the holidays and last me the remainder of the year and well into the next, I think.

 

I can get quite a few groceries home with my
backpack & my reusable shopping bag

I continued to ride the bus this past week to get back and forth to work.  In the process I continued to log my bus rides and I am earning more points to redeem for future Kroger gift cards.  I’ve decided I like FREE groceries.  I’m varying my routes each day and walking a bit further to get my steps in while catching the bus at different stops.  A couple of times I walked through one of our beautiful parks, which I absolutely loved.  This past week we’ve been hovering around the freezing mark at night so all of the trees are changing colors and it is spectacular.

 

I stopped and said hello to this fine gentleman as
I made my way to the bus stop

I made it home on the bus with my latest grocery shop.  All eggs were intact!

My monthly shopping list was rather short and I knew the best place to pick up the handful of items on that list at the lowest possible cost would be Winco so off I went after work one day to get my shopping done.  I was able to disburse the weight of my groceries between my backpack and my Trader Joe’s shopping bag so it was no problem to carry everything home.

 

I had to reinforce the straps on my backpack with extra stitching

I’ve been doing some repairs lately, one of which was to add some stitching to my backpack to reinforce the top of the straps.  I had noticed a few stitches had popped loose so I wanted to get on top of that ASAP.  I heavily rely on my backpack these days.  Another repair was to stitch up a loose seam on the side of a pair of underpants before it got worse.

 

"New" water bath canner

A co-worker of mine is moving so she gave me a snow shovel she no longer needs which is perfect because I had one on my list of things I need to replace this year.  Excellent timing!  We have a thrift store inside the senior center where I work and I scored a water bath canner for $7.49 to replace my rather worn out one that is chipped up and starting to rust inside.  I think my old canner will now become a flower pot in the backyard.

and this darling little electric fireplace

Another great find I got at the thrift store was a small electric fireplace for $19.99 which I am planning to put in my guest room.  I had been thinking of adding one there for quite a while and now when I sew or work in there or have guests it will be a nice ambiance.  I was also thinking of making part of the downstairs bedroom into a den of sorts and if I do I can also use it in there.

 

I am now well supplied with bungi cords

This meal was fabulous!  Perfect on a windy, chilly day

I spent Halloween with a gal pal and we went to Harbor Freight to pick up a few items we needed to use around our respective houses.  Then we came back to my house for a good visit and had some delicious hot soup, a great salad and some homemade dinner rolls for supper.  It was the perfect end to the month and to my retirement week.  I hope you enjoyed a wonder week as well.

 

Pruning Trees & Cleaning Up Garden Beds - Section 3

 

The third section of my yard is also along the side of the house and near the front entrance.  It also includes the garden bed where my golden delicious apple tree lives.  First up was to finish picking apples, which this year turned out to be quite a chore as this tree was loaded this year and I was thrilled!  Another bumper crop of fruit from my very own trees!

 

Once the fruit was picked this tree was given a bit of pruning to remove oversized or damage limbs and bring it back in line.  I cut out crowded and crossing branches and brought down the height a bit.  I will be doing a bit more pruning in the spring as new growth arrives and I need to thin things out.

 

It will be a process, once again, to get all of the limbs and debris cleaned up and disposed of as it was for the pear tree when I did it a few weeks ago.  In the meantime I piled all of it in the front yard near my trash bins and I will be working on it each week until it is eventually all gone.

 

My helper rolling around in the leaves that have fallen so far
He's a great helper!

I cleaned up underneath the sycamore tree and then used my leaf blower to give the lawn a good once over.  The sycamore tree itself is going to be getting a good pruning this year.  When the professionals come out to remove the maple tree they are also pruning this big girl.

 

This girl is getting a new hair do!

It is a lot of work, but also very satisfying

I am nearing the finish line on this year’s Fall yard project list and I couldn’t be happier with all of the progress I have made so far.  It may sound a bit weird, but I truly do enjoy this kind of stuff.  My reward of course is to see it all completed.

 

This Month's 2024 Extreme Budget Grocery Spending – October

 

At the beginning of the month my refrigerator looked pretty slim inside, but this was actually a very good thing.  What it told me is that I had done a really good job using up and eating the fresh food I had on hand and didn’t allow it to go to waste.  I even dwindled down some of the condiments.  I had a few corn tortillas and a dozen flour tortillas in the bread drawer.  I also had half a pound of butter, a pint of cream, a pint of homemade vanilla yogurt, two blocks of cream cheese, half a jar of grated parmesan, a little bit of sour cream and a dozen eggs.  My chickens have stopped laying now so I’ll likely need to start buying eggs at the store pretty soon.

 

Slim pickings means zero food waste! 👏

A few eggs & some dairy on the top shelf
I keep leftovers on the middle shelf - all eaten! 😋
Potatoes and my bread baking supplies on the bottom

Steadily making my way through the condiments
Progress is progress!

In the produce drawer I didn’t have much left after all of the cooking, baking and canning I had done.  However, I did have a fully loaded apple tree and a bucket of pears in the pantry as well as a container of tomatoes ripening so a good amount of fresh produce to start this month off with.  I also had an abundance of frozen and canned fruits and vegetables in the freezer and pantry, not to mention all that I had canned and put up in the LTFS.

 

A great deal on a quart of cream plus a pint
of pickled asparagus from one of the ladies at the senior center

I did not do any shopping the last two weeks of September and I didn’t really need to go the first week of this month either, however Albertsons offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse.  A digital coupon for a quart of heavy whipping cream (I use this in my coffee for my 10:00 coffee break each day) for $5.39 plus a $5 OFF a $5 Purchase digital coupon, made this purchase only 39¢!  Yes please and thank you very much!

 

My big grocery shop this month at Winco
plus a 3# package of peppered bacon from Fred Meyer

That same week I had a short list of pantry staples to get for my LTFS so I stopped at Winco on the way home from work one day and picked up those items.  I also picked up a half gallon of organic milk and a tub of sour cream.  I plan to make another batch of homemade yogurt with the milk.  On the way home from Winco I stopped into Fred Meyer to pick up a loss leader item which was a 3# package of peppered bacon.  I ended up dividing the bacon up and vacuum sealing it in portions before tucking it away in the freezer.

 

Two pound bag of cheese for $1.99!

The next week when the ads changed Albertson’s offered me another $5 OFF a $5 Purchase digital coupon so I used that to pick up a two pound package of Monterey Jack cheese.  It was on sale for $6.99 but after using the digital coupon I only paid $1.99.

 

Five pound bag of potatoes for just under a dollar!

When the Albertson’s ads changed again I redeemed the rewards points I’d accumulated for a $1 OFF Any Purchase digital coupon.  I stopped on my way home from work once again to pick up five pound bag of red potatoes on sale for 1.99.  After the digital coupon I spent 99¢ out of pocket for the potatoes.

 

Lots of fresh homegrown produce helps a lot!

Although I made quite a few trips in and out of the grocery stores over the period of a couple weeks I didn’t really do a lot of shopping this month.  I do feel the extra trips to use certain digital coupon offers and rewards points paid off and was well worth it just to go in and get one single item each time.  I netted three pounds of bacon, a quart of cream, two pounds of cheese and a 5# bag of red potatoes for the rock bottom price of only $12.34.  Those were some really good deals!  Too good to pass up in my opinion, not to mention very helpful in managing to work within an extreme grocery budget.

 

I am pretty happy with this month's tally! 😍

My final total for food this month came in at $48.32 and I still have a little bit leftover to roll into next month’s budget!  Whoo hooo!  What do you think?

 

Planting Garlic

 

Last Fall was the first time I had ever planted garlic.  I purchased organic garlic at the grocery store and planted the cloves in a section of one of my raised garden beds.  I added bunny litter on top and hoped for the best.  It came up in the spring and I harvested it in late June.  Let me tell you something.  There is nothing better than your own homegrown garlic.

 

This year's yield - not bad for my first try!

I used the majority of what I harvested in several of my canning projects this year including some very delicious black bean corn salsa.  In fact, it was the only garlic I used in the canning projects I did that required garlic.  Fresh garlic tastes so much better, minces so much better and I couldn’t have been happier about my first attempt at garlic farming.  The only complaint I had was that I would’ve liked a bit more.  It was that good.

 

Two large garlic bulbs set me back over $10
I hope they grow!

This year I picked up garlic cloves at the feed store and they were expensive.  But I wanted to go legit and try it out to see how it compares to what I did last year.  I’m sure I’ll bet a better yield and some bigger bulbs, at least that is what I’ve been led to believe.  We shall see.

 

Last year's garlic on the left
This year it is planted on the right of that bed

Because garlic is a heavy feeder I wanted to give it the best chance I could so this year I planted in a section of the garden I didn’t use this year.  It was where I had attempted to grow cucumbers, but the grasshoppers made sure that didn’t happen.  Instead I dumped bunny litter in that area and tilled it in.  Then I laid down some fertilizer pellets and planted the cloves.  After a layer of mulch they were ready for their winter nap and hopefully in the spring they will pop up and get to growing.  Once that happens they will get some more fertilizer and a fresh layer of bunny love.

 

If you have never planted your own garlic I strongly recommend that you try it.  You can grow it in a flower pot if you don’t have a garden.  There is simply nothing like crushing open a freshly harvested clove of garlic to cook with.

My Tireless Retirement – Week 134

 

Our Fall weather has definitely arrived.  I awoke last Friday and it was 60° in the house and 36° outside.  There had been a frost advisory, however where I live it did not get that cold, however some friends that live closer to the Boise river did get frost.  I started up the fireplace to take the chill off the house in the morning and let the sunshine warm it up from there.  We are still having some warm weather afternoons.

 

Later that day I had the privilege of taking a group of seniors to the Stein Luminary at Boise State University.  It is an interactive educational exhibit that allows you to get up close and personal to works of art, photography as well as many other facets of computerized graphics and design.  The space photography was my favorite part.  You truly realize just how small we are in the grand scheme of things.  It was a super cool experience.

 

Jack helped me

I was still energized when I got home from work so I grabbed the ladder and a couple of boxes and finished picking the apples off of my tree.  I filled up both boxes and even started pruning the tree for a bit before it started to get dark.

 

The next morning I did some meal prepping projects I had on my list.  Baking some apple crisps was on the agenda.  I made three, kept out one and froze the other two for later.  I really needed a day spent in my kitchen doing all the things I love to do.

 

This week I started back to riding the bus to and from work again.  My broken toe has healed, the heat wave is no more and my knee injury (that I did not tell you about because it was stupid!  I stepped on a pear, it rolled and I hyper extended my knee in the process because I can’t do the splits – never could) is all good so I was out of excuses and, to be quite honest, ready to get back to it.  In the spirit of jumping back into it I redeem some of my rewards points I had earned by riding the bus so far this year for a $10 Kroger gift card and I have plans to use it next week for something very important.  Butter!

 

After work Thursday I walked over to city hall where they had set up early voting and voted.  I’m glad to have that over and done with, especially as my regular polling place is not near my house, for whatever reason, so now I don’t have to drive out of the way to go vote on November 5^th.  I walk past city hall every day on my way to and from the bus station so this was super convenient and I was able to get right in and out.  I’m just glad to be done and have it behind me.

 

I used the last of my birthday money to order the new raised garden bed I want to add to my backyard as well as a hoop tunnel system so I can hopefully keep the grasshoppers off my plants next year and slow down the squirrels from wreaking havoc.  The garden bed was on clearance for 35% OFF and the hoop tunnel was half price.

A couple of you asked for my Thai soup recipe so here you go!

 

This weekend I’m planning to continue with my work outside pruning the apple tree and getting all of the limbs cut up and ready for the weekly pick up.  What has been keeping you busy lately?