My Thrifty Retirement - Week 13

 

Happy Birthday my fellow Americans.  I hope you are having a wonderful holiday! It is hard to believe it is the 4th of July holiday already.  To me that means our summer is half over.  Holy cow!  I hate to say this but we'll be talking Christmas before we know it.

 

I began my latest thrifty week in retirement by spending Sunday as a maintenance day.  Basically, I watered the garden and my flowers and did some housekeeping tasks inside.  Mostly I just enjoyed my home and all my many blessings.  I even laid out on the grass with my kitty Jack and he loved that.  Both kitties love the new grass to stretch out on and roll around.  I'm amazed at how soft it feels.  I honestly could not tell you the last time I laid out on my lawn and soaked up the sun under a clear blue sky.

 

Edith & company

Monday was our hottest day so far with a high of 102° and it got hot fast.  I did some work in the backyard in the morning until it got too warm thinking I'd come back out later in the evening.  But at 8:00 at night it was still in the mid 90s so that never happened.  Instead I puttered around indoors and watched some television.

 

My first shopping haul for July
I happened across some great marked down meat offers

Later that morning, once the heat started to set in, I made a produce run to Fred Meyer to see what they had for a good price and hoping for something good for salads.  I was able to get a small bag of red potatoes and five large mandarin oranges from the markdown bin for $1 each.  I picked up tomatoes on sale, a head of lettuce and an extra yellow onion.  The big thing I was hoping to get however, was a pot roast.  They were on sale for $2.99 a pound and the last time I found them on sale I picked two large ones and canned them.  This time I wanted one to eat right now and as luck would have it I found a gorgeous one for now and two more for the freezer.  Yay!

 

I also lucked out on the marked down meats and scored four packages of Italian style meatballs ($1.99 each) and two packages of angus beef patties with cheese and jalapenos ($3.49 each) with four patties per package.  I repackaged the patties into four sandwich bags holding two patties each and then put everything away into the freezer.  I intentionally purchased smaller roasts this time too so they were the perfect size for just me or me and one other person.  I'm a thinkin'!

 

I renewed my Tracfone service for another year, plus ninety days, plus I used a promo code I found online for some extra talk minutes.  Because I really don't use my phone a lot I didn't need extra texts, talk time or data this time around, I just needed the actual service.  I began by purchasing the least expensive plan for my phone which was ninety days of service with 180 minutes of talk, 180 text messages and 180 MG of data.  A very basic plan for $19.99.  Then I added on one year of service with nothing else, no minutes, texts or data, for $49.99.  Next, I entered in the promo code for an additional 30 minutes of talk for FREE.  After taxes my total bill was $73.70 for fifteen months of uninterrupted cell phone service.  Just exactly what I needed and nothing more for a very affordable price I can definitely live with.  I love pay-as-you-go plans that you can customize to fit your needs.  I've been with Tracfone for ages and I have zero complaints about this company and its service.  My youngest still uses it and my oldest went with Mint Mobile this year, but I think that is because she likes Ryan Reynolds (wink, wink).  Who doesn't?

 

Thursday the young one and I headed off to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things on our list.  On the way we stopped in at a nearby thrift store and we were disappointed with the low inventory as well as the higher prices.  We are finding this with a lot of the thrift stores in our area.  I have been on the lookout for a summer dress with no success.  However, at Wal-Mart we found tons of clothing on clearance so for $15 I was able to treat myself to a new dress and top to add to my wardrobe. Sadly, the clearance prices we saw were far less than the used clothing being offered at the thrift stores making it difficult to for us to buy secondhand right now.

 

I hope you all enjoyed a spectacular thrifty week and if you are here in the U.S. I hope your holiday weekend has been quite fantastic.  Stay safe, take care and let me know how you are doing.