This Month's Grocery Spending - July 2022

 

It is unreal to me that July is coming to an end.  And!  I'm almost four months in on my super thrifty retirement already!  Time is flying by I tell ya!  Part of my thrifty retirement this year is to keep to my grocery budget and spend as little as possible.  Since my youngest moved out on the 7th of this month that made it much easier for me to keep costs low, especially the last three weeks.  I found myself doing mini weekly shopping excursions, mostly for produce and anything on sale I thought I might need.

 

It did help a bunch that I was able to find an amazing deal on meat at the beginning of the month.  Originally the plan was to pick up two or three pot roasts, which I did, but I also found marked down burger patties and meat balls so I added those to my cart as well.  I will get loads of meals out of these items, no problem and I do plan to share some with my youngest to give her a bit of a boost with her groceries too.

 

I was able to stock up on cheese that was on sale and I had several paper coupons to go along with making it only 99¢ a package for the grated cheese and $1.29 for some sliced pepper jack.  I love pepper jack for my grilled cheese sandwiches.  After that most of my money went for fresh produce and cream for my coffee.

Nonfood spending was only $3.99 for a twelve roll package of toilet paper that was on sale to add to my long term storage.  Other than that I didn't need or buy anything else nonfood.  My food spending came in at just $73.77 out of my $100 budget.  Not too bad, I'd say.

 

I'm curious now that I'm an empty nester to see how my shopping habits change and how much it impacts my budget.  With all of the stockpiling I did last winter in preparation of my earlier early retirement I really don't need much and I find right now I'm cooking less and consuming less so those groceries will last much longer. It will be interesting to see.  

How did you do?  Stumble across any great bargains?  What were you able to stock up on?

Do I Need A 3BR/2Bath House?

 

As a single woman do I still need a three bedroom house with two bathrooms?  The short answer is NOPE.  Ideally, I do see myself downsizing into a two bedroom one bathroom house on a single level as I age for that will be much more practical.  However, right now I am currently using every square foot of the house I currently live in.  Each room has a purpose and is used for that purpose.  And the truth of the matter is I am totally in love with this place.

 

I have lived here since the end of January 1995 and have been steadily working on improving the condition of this house and making it into a home.  Initially I made repairs, replaced the roof, replaced doors and windows, updated electrical and lighting, updated plumbing, repaired and painted the exterior as well as a host of other things, paying cash as I went along.  By the time the structural issues were addressed it was time to start again on the now dated and worn out interior updates that had also been made during that time.

 

In the past two years I've gone through nearly the entire inside of this house once again updating and making improvements which has included new trim, paint and carpeting.  There have been maintenance items to address too, such as new toilet seats and a garbage disposal.  And I paid cash as I went along because it is very important to me that I remain debt free.  At long last the interior of my house looked the way I had always imagined it in my mind and in my heart and it truly became a home to me.

 

Once the majority of the interior updates was completed I was committed to making the exterior of my home look and feel as good as the inside does.  I wanted both inside and outside spaces to be reflective of each other and this year I was finally able to do just that.  Many, many landscape changes have been made to my home and it now looks the way I had always imagined it in my mind and in my heart as well.

 

All of my children are now out of the house and I am officially an empty nester.  I think it is important that I have the opportunity to live in my home for a minimum of one year before I make any big decisions as to whether or not I will sell and move or not.  In fact, due to me retiring and entire year sooner than originally planned it might prudent for me to wait an entire two years before I make a decision.  The bonus for me is getting to thoroughly enjoy the fruits of my labor.

 

There are other factors for me to take into consideration.  I love living in the city I currently reside in.  My house is located near everything I need access too including a main city bus line and the airport.  I really enjoy my neighbors and I live in a very nice neighborhood, I know a lot of people cannot say the same.  I feel safe, which is extremely important.

 

Because I have lived in this house for so long it is also exceptionally affordable for me.  I've managed over the years to figure out ways to heat and cool my home so my electricity bill is relatively low.  I've made a lot of changes too that save on my water, sewer and trash bills.  And now that I live alone I expect to see even more savings as I'm no longer taking care of a family.  I seriously doubt I can live somewhere else for a lower cost at the moment.

 

Nothing is set in stone, we all have to remain adaptable and fluid because things happen and changes ultimately need to be made.  But for right now I am quite happy and quite content to stay right where I'm and enjoy this home I have created.  It has been a lot of work, a true labor of love.

 

My Thrifty Retirement - Week 16

 

The upstairs second bedroom renovation kept me busy last week while the hot temperatures continued on outside.  Although it has been a lot of stop and start as I've been waiting on my supplies to arrive I am quite happy with my progress so far.

 

I spent $5.16 a gallon for fuel (using my rewards card shaved 3¢ a gallon off the price) to add to my truck since that is the vehicle I've been driving the most lately.  My car still has three quarters of a tank left in it from when I topped up both vehicles in May so it only made sense to put my $25 budget toward the truck.  Needless to say that didn't buy me much, however the 4.853 gallons I did get brought the gage up to two thirds of a tank, which is plenty for me to work with.  I plan to put another $25 worth of fuel in next month and that should pretty much fill it up, I think.  Then in September I will add $25 worth of fuel to the car and just keep on keeping on.  Fortunately both of my vehicles are fairly fuel efficient so I don't think I'll have too much trouble keeping to my $25 a month gasoline budget.  If I was still working that would be a whole other matter in and of itself.

 

Nine quarts of cream for my coffee 😚

One of my neighbors gifted me with nine quarts of heavy cream as well as some pantry items.  She was overwhelmed with extras after an event she worked was over.  I was very happy to help her out.  I put the extra pasta into vacuum bags as well as the canned items and added them to my long term food storage.  A lot of the cream went into the freezer.  Quite a blessing to get these things unexpectedly.

Extra pasta & soup stock cubes for long term food storage

Canned goods for my long term food storage

In between working on the bedroom project and watering my flowerbeds as well as my meager little garden I pulled out some of my scrap yarn I had in my yarn bin and made some darling dollhouse rugs.  Why does she need rugs for a dollhouse you ask?  Well, because there just may be a dollhouse of sorts in my near future.  Let me know if you have any interest whatsoever in hearing about that.  I was totally experimenting with these rugs and I'm tickled with how cute they turned out.  Definitely not perfect, but fun to make and I love how they turned out.

 

I had fun making these dollhouse rugs

I may have spent a little bit of money on myself purchasing a few items for some upcoming projects that are just for fun.  I plan to have a lot more "just for fun" projects to work on once I wrap up the bedroom project.  I'm super excited about it.

 

 I ended my week with a couple of these 😏

I hope you enjoyed a great week!

 

A Thrifty Little DIY For My Fence - Under $4!

 

I love barn stars and I have several of them up around the exterior of my house.  Perhaps they are no longer in fashion right now because I've had a heck of a time finding any at the stores.  I did however find a few small tin stars at Dollar Tree in their craft section so I splurged and picked up three of them with the idea I would use them on my new fence.  I had put up a couple of them to get a feel for what I was wanting to do there and I liked it.

 

I was waiting for a sign to arrive from Amazon before I continued and once it was here and mounted I was ready to finish up my little project.  However, I decided I needed a bit more color so I raided my spray paint stash in the garage and came up with copper and claret wine.  I sprayed the flat star with copper and one of the tow corrugated metal stars with claret.

 

Once dry I got them mounted to the fence with some little finish nails.  It isn't much, but I think it dresses up the entry area to my front yard quite nicely.  And for $3.75 plus some paint leftover from previous projects it was pretty thrifty too.

 

I love this!  What a great way to come home. 😊

One Beef Roast = Many Meals

 

I cooked up one of my little pot roasts the other day.  I had purchased three of them when they were on sale for $2.99 a pound and put them away in the freezer.  I defrosted one of them (approx. 1.5 lbs - $4.48) and placed it in my medium slow cooker after sprinkling both sides with some dry onion soup mix, about half a packet.  I hadn't used that to make a roast in ages, but my mother used to use it all the time so I figured I would go ahead and do it this way too.  I let it cook all day on high and boy did the house ever smell good.

 

A couple hours before I was ready to eat I added three red potatoes and three carrots I had washed and cut up.  I peeled the carrots saving those peelings in my freezer bag of scraps for soup broth later down the road.  I let that cook until the vegetables were tender then I removed everything from the pot and poured the drippings into a small saucepan.  On the stove I heated that up with a cup of water and a beef bouillon cube and thickened it with a cornstarch slurry to make some delicious gravy.

 

I served myself two dinners of roast, potatoes and carrots with gravy.  Then I took the leftover roast and diced it up adding it to some leftover rice I had in the fridge along with the leftover gravy and a cup of frozen peas and carrots.  I stirred it all together in a small casserole dish and microwaved it until it was cooked through and piping hot.  I ended up with three dinners from that casserole.

 

I still had some of the potatoes and carrots left so I diced those up and pan fried them.  I served that with an egg on the side for a quick brunch making the grand total of six meals made, even though the last one really didn't have any roast in it.  I'll call it the bonus meal.  Not too shabby for a little beef roast.  And every bit of it was so delicious.

 

My Thrifty Retirement - Week 15

 

My daughter moved out on July 7th and I've hesitated to say anything because I needed to adjust and I've had some mixed emotions about it.  I love my children dearly, but the truth of the matter is, I am so glad they are all out of the house and I am finally on my own!  Should I feel guilty about that?  Because I don't, but I kept thinking I should.  Oh my gosh, I just feel happy about it.  Although, I did inherit a bunny in the process.  Of course I did, but she is cute and we get along great.  I'm working on creating some new digs for her so she will be very happy hanging out with me, I'm sure.  I hope.  It has taken me a bit to realize and get used to the fact that I can eat what I want, when I want, watch what I want, when I want and do what I want, when I want.  For the past thrifty five years I've spent every day thinking of or considering someone else's wants and needs.  So for that to suddenly stop felt really odd, but fortunately I think I've adapted quite quickly.

 

With the bulk of my landscaping project finished I spent most of the week puttering about working on various little projects around the house.  Over a couple of days I super scrubbed the upstairs bathroom which was primarily used by my daughter and did some much needed decluttering and reorganizing.  In the process I was able to tick off some items from my checklist.

 

I enjoyed this movie very much

On Tuesday I treated myself to a movie and went to see Downton Abbey at the "dollar" theater.  On Tuesdays all movies are $1.50.  I am planning to take in more movies there this year since it is so affordable.  I figured out that I can go to a movie every week for less than what my Netflix or Prime membership used to cost each month.  That's a bargain!

 

My big haul for the week

Wednesday I picked up a few items on sale at Fred Meyer as well as a Home Depot online order I had placed for a few odds and ends I needed for some maintenance around the house.

 

Some items I needed for my "honey-do" list

My daughter came by twice during the week to bring me bunny supplies and the second time we spent some time grooming the bunny and visiting while we did that.  She helped me with the new "bunny-minium" I've been working on and we moved little Miss Daisy in on Thursday.  There are still a few more things I want to do with it, but for the most part she seems pretty happy with it so far.

 

Project time!

Then on Friday I got to do something I have been waiting a good long time to do.  I started a new home improvement project upstairs on my daughter's bedroom.  I am so excited to get to do this and can hardly wait to show you the final outcome.  I think this projects is going to go a long way to helping me make the transition from full time mom to empty nester.  I know I'm going to have a ton of fun with it.  On Saturday I picked up an online order I had placed at Lowes for the trim I needed and some paint supplies.  Sadly, I couldn't get all of the trim I had ordered so I went out to the garage and dug through my stash and came up with some trim pieces that are very similar that I think will work.  I am hoping so anyway.

 

This is what $100 buys you (sigh)

It was a hot week so most of my focus was spent on keeping the house cool, me cool, the animals cool and everything outside well watered.  Anyone else facing some hot summer weather?  I hope you are all doing well.  Are you staying cool and hydrated?  What fun things have you been up to lately?

 

A Small Home Upgrade - $3!

 

I had already done a refresh of the area of our yard where the hose bib is a couple years ago, however I still wasn't satisfied.  With all of the recent landscaping changes I have made the hose bib area was even more unappealing and unsatisfactory so I decided to redo it once again.  Along with making it more appealing I also wanted it to be more functional.  It has a tendency to collect crap and debris and I was totally over it.

 

My supervisor is on site to make sure I do it right

I added a French drain which was easy as I simply filled in the trench I had already created with my brick edging with gravel.  Then I topped up the entire area with gravel until it was level with the rest of the yard.  It was already looking a ton better!

 

I painted and added this extension to move water further away from the foundation

Then I painted a piece of downspout extension ($2.98) I had picked from Home Depot with black spray paint I had in my garage and added that to my existing downspout in order to move rainwater further away from the house.  I think it turned out great.

 

Neat & tidy

I placed two paver stones on top of the abandoned sprinkler control box so I have a nice flat spot for my watering can.  I then filled it all in with gravel I picked up for FREE from Facebook Marketplace.  Along with an ice cream bucket I keep filled with fresh water for my kitties when they are outside and my potted basil plant my daughter rescued from a restaurant in downtown Boise and brought home to me, I think this looks so much better and will finally function the way I need it to.  No more eyesore and no more muddy mess.

 

It looks much better 😄

I am absolutely thrilled with how this little project turned out.  It just flows as part of the rest of my yard and functions as it should.  What do you think?

 

A Week Of Thrifty Meals #2

 

From the freezer I chose a package of bacon, one good sized boneless skinless chicken breast, an eight ounce package of grated cheese and four English muffins.  Each week I like to make a selection like this and challenge myself to work out a week of meals.  In addition to these items I had two servings of Korean beef and a serving of homemade tomato soup along with a little over a cup of cooked rice leftover in the refrigerator that would need to be eaten so they did not go to waste.  Lots of really good options to start off my week.

 

Leftovers from the week before

I have been wanting chicken curry for quite some time so I decided to begin with that by making up a half recipe using only half of the chicken breast I had thawed.  I diced it up along with some leftover canned pineapple chunks, celery and a bit of onion I had in the fridge.  I used a chicken bouillon cube to make the one cup of broth I needed.  I served this over the leftover rice from my refrigerator.  It made three servings of curry and was absolutely delicious.

 

Delicious chicken curry

I diced up the remaining chicken breast half and cooked it with garlic powder and a little soy sauce before adding it to some Asian coleslaw I made using cabbage and a carrot I had in the fridge, radishes and green onion from our garden and sliced almonds along with a handful of chow mein noodles from the pantry.  I made the dressing for the coleslaw with ingredients from my pantry.  This salad was a nice refreshing option to have as our days were quite warm.  We ended up with four hefty servings of this delicious salad.

 

Asian inspired coleslaw topped with diced chicken

The homemade tomato soup was reheated in the microwave and served with a grilled pepper jack cheese sandwich for supper one evening.  Grilled cheese and tomato soup is one of my all time favorite meals since childhood.  A delicious BLT sandwich was also one of our quick summer suppers one night.  Another favorite to be sure.

My personal favorite - grilled cheese with tomato soup

 

And of course!  The BLT

During the week I made bacon and egg sandwiches for a quick brunch.  I cut the bacon strips in half and fried them crisp.  Then I lined up three halves in the pan and cracked an egg over the top with some salt and pepper.  On a toasted English muffin this was a great way to start the day.  Six strips of bacon plus four eggs was the perfect amount to go with the four muffins which easily made me four scrumptious breakfast sandwiches.  I said "four" a lot in that last sentence, LOL.  Sourdough waffles also made the cut.

 

I crack an egg on top of my cooked bacon strips, let it cook a bit,then flip it over
Place this on a toasted english muffin - delish!

 

I made green salads several times as our side dish using romaine hearts and other items I already had on hand.  Leftover black olives went into our salads along with sliced banana peppers from a jar in the fridge and some grated carrot.  We made a point to use up the last bits of salad dressing we had open before we opened up another bottle as we had three of them upside down in the refrigerator at the time.

 

Sourdough waffles using friendship bread starter

This was a good challenge for me because this week fell before my monthly shopping trip so we were a little bit thin on produce, especially for fresh salad, but I made it work.  By keeping our meals super simple and eating up our leftovers I didn't have to cook or prepare much during this week either.  At the end of the week I still had the unopened package of cheese and one strip of bacon left.  Everything was tasty, nutritious, and very satisfying.  We enjoyed our meals and because we efficiently utilized what we already had on hand we didn't break the bank in the process.  Thrifty and delicious!