My Tireless Retirement – Week 108

 

The view outside my kitchen window is glorious right now.  It often is, but with this season now in full swing I’m appreciating it more than ever.  Spring is definitely my most favorite of the four seasons and every time I look outside my heart swells.

 

After a busy week I treated myself to a day out on Saturday.  I hopped on the bus and went to my neighborhood shopping center where I treated myself to some truffles from the candy store and lunch out.  I had received a coupon at work for a FREE hamburger so my lunch only cost me $3 for a side of onion rings to go with my burger.  I brought my own water to drink.  The weather was perfect and I was able to eat outside on their patio.  Afterwards I went for a walk and then hopped back on the bus and made my way back home.

 

Between the candy store and lunch I popped into Dollar Tree and picked up a packet of stickers to use in my daily journal.  I also found a crossword puzzle book I thought I might like.  Once I was home I spent a fair amount of time decorating some journal pages and relaxing before I headed back outside and got busy pulling up all of the weeds that had popped up alongside the driveway and in some of the relief cracks.  I was able, once again, to give the chickens another bucket of leafy greens.

 

Phoebe laid me this giant egg last week
Pretty sure this is a double yoker

Now that the majority of the yard cleanup is pretty much done, I have one more flowerbed to work on and the pond to flush and get up and running, things are looking pretty much ship shape around here.  It feels so good as I walk up to my house each day and see how nice everything looks.  I’m hoping to get some more bark this year to spread in the flowerbeds and hopefully, if the price is right, I can get enough to finish the backyard around the raised garden beds.

 

Ways I Saved $$: 

I used a FREE hamburger coupon I was given at work to treat myself to a nice, inexpensive lunch out.  A rare treat indeed these days. 

I emptied the five gallon gas can into my truck to use it up so it doesn’t go bad.  I plan to refill it next time I go to the station and top up my tank.  For now though I have of fuel in the truck to get by with for a few more weeks.

After feeding the girls all of those weeds, I didn't need to refill their feeder as it still had quite a bit of feed in it.

 

Meals I Prepared: 

The tortellini soup I had made the previous week was rather filling so I didn’t eat as much as I thought I would.  I ended up with one more serving plus an extra meatball so I started off the week finishing that up. 

I made two very delicious salmon dinners with baked potatoes and steamed broccoli.  Oh my goodness, what a fantastic meal that was and on an extreme grocery budget no less.  A digital coupon offer from Albertson’s in March allowed me to purchase four salmon fillets for less than $5!  I figured it up and each serving came to less than $2!  A salmon dinner!  Where can you get two salmon dinners for only $4?  Oh wait, I know, my house.  Ha, ha. 

I used a pint jar of pasta sauce and one of spicy Italian sausage and peppers to make a little pasta dish.  I ended up with three meals for the week.  I also took some leftover rice as well a slice of ham from the freezer and made myself a small batch of fried rice one day.

 

My journaling class went well with only one little squabble between two participants.  Yes, that actually happened.  Will I be teaching another one?  I’m not sure.  We shall see if there is an interest for me to do one, if so, I’m game.  It was definitely not the experience I was thinking it would be, however it was an experience and I am glad I did it.

 

My rhubarb plants are already huge!

How did your week go?  Has spring arrived and is the weather warming up where you live?

 

FYI - My retirement week runs from Friday through Thursday.

 

Stretching My Food $$ - Milk

 

Milk is one of those things I don’t purchase very often.  I don’t drink milk, but I do use it for cooking or baking and on a very rare occasion I may put some on a bowl of cereal, which I don’t eat very much.  When I do buy milk I buy whole milk and then I divide it up and freeze it in various size containers to have on hand when I need to use it.  Freezing milk in various size containers helps me to have milk on hand without waste by having a carton go bad because I didn’t use it up fast enough.  Through trial and error I find that 50/50 milk and water freezes the best and maintains its texture nicely.  I’ve never had any luck with frozen cream as it changes the texture too much for my liking.

 

When my children were young I’d buy whole milk and cut it 50/50 with water.  It tasted better than 2% or 1%, certainly better than skim, and it had the perfect consistency.  Not one of my children just drank a single 8 oz. serving of milk at a time.  They’d grab a big glass and fill it to the brim so I never had to worry they weren’t getting the nutrition from the milk and they were getting extra water in their system which they also needed.  I still cut my whole milk 50/50.

 

One thing I do buy on a consistent basis is a quart of cream each month.  I enjoy fixing myself a large keto coffee every morning to enjoy around 10:00.  I call it my “coffee break” and I really do look forward that big cup of coffee each day.  With my current $50 grocery budget should I be I be devoting so much of my budget, nearly $6, to cream?  Some might argue that is foolish or suggest I buy half and half, which I have thought about, but honestly, I’m good with it.  It’s my luxury item.  I’d rather just go without something else and keep my cream on the shopping list.

 

Another thing I discovered quite some time ago it that an empty cream container is never truly empty.  The inside of the carton is covered with a thick layer of cream so when I get to the end I add about a quarter cup of water and shake the carton to rinse off all of that residue from the sides.  What is left is the consistency of half and half and tastes wonderful on a bowl of cereal or oatmeal.

 

In my LTFS I keep powdered milk, powdered buttermilk and powdered cream.  I don’t particularly care for the flavor of those items as they are but they work very well for cooking and baking.  If I just need a little bit of milk or cream for a recipe I’ll use that rather than using my fresh cream or frozen milk.

 

A gallon of whole milk with last me months and months, a quart of cream about one month, less if I use some of it in a recipe.  Right now I’m able to supplement with dry milk and dry cream options to extend my need for fresh milk so I have yet to put any on my shopping list this year.  I also still have some frozen 50/50 milk in my freezer.  Do you buy much milk and do you do anything to “preserve” or extend its shelf life?  Do you ever buy the shelf stable milk?

 

 

This Month's 2024 Extreme Budget Grocery Spending - April

 

Another month of extreme budget grocery shopping is officially in the books.  I focused a lot on using up what I already had on hand in the refrigerator so I began the month with only a handful of produce items in the crisper drawer – most of a head of lettuce, a few cherry tomatoes, four carrots, some celery and a partial onion.  A big Easter Sunday dinner afforded me the opportunity to use up quite a bit of my fresh produce so it wouldn’t go to waste as I headed into April by making a potato salad, a pan of roasted veggies and an apple pie.  Next I concentrated on using up open containers of condiments and dairy items as well as eating any leftovers from the meals I had prepared.

 

The only items I purchased at the beginning of the month were potatoes on sale (5# red potatoes & 5# russets for $1.99 each), perfect timing as I had just used up what I had in the fridge, a two pound block of cheddar and a quart of cream for my coffee.  I also picked up a couple packages of ground pork for the deep freezer.  With plenty of fresh and frozen produce options still on hand I opted to wait to do any major grocery shopping until later in the month.  However, once “later in the month” arrived I still had a lot of food, including several leftover frozen options to work through.

 

Instead I decided to just pick up an extra quart of cream at Winco after work one day so I’d still get my favorite keto-esque coffee every day and then challenged myself to go without anymore grocery shopping in April.  I had already completed my well planned March/April shopping list so I truly did not need anything.  I also did not need any nonfood items either so that budget is still holding steady with $39.52 remaining for the year.

 

You probably won’t find this month’s grocery tally very interesting, but I find it rather exciting.  With my total grocery spending in April coming in at a mere $25.80 I now have the remaining budget amount to add to the extra from the previous month for a total rollover of $36.59.  Going into May I will add that amount to my $50 grocery budget for a starting total of $86.59.  I can do a lot with that, for sure!

 

 

Value YOU

 

I mentioned on Monday how I feel like I have a new found sense of freedom so I thought I’d expand on that a little bit.  It has actually been a bit of a surprise for me, a bonus if you will.  But in retired life I have definitely found freedom in my everyday life.

 

When I was young I was somebody’s child and under their influence, teachings and rules.  As a young adult I was somebody’s spouse and someone else’s employee.  I was also a parent.  As I got older I became someone’s ex-wife and a few someone else’s ex-girlfriend.  I was also another person’s employee as well as a parent to two additional children.  For many, many years I was a mom in survival mode, just making my way through my days trying to meet my obligations and my children’s expectations and I think I did a pretty darn good job at it too.  Now, after a lifetime of really hard work (literally blood, sweat & tears), so many sleepless nights due to worry and anxiety about everything and anything, trying my best to live up to what was expected of me, it’s done.  It’s all over.  I’m FREE.

 

I’ve shared before that as I’ve aged I find that I care a whole lot less about a whole lot more, but now, as I sit at this moment, I find that to be even truer on a much greater level.  I now live my life on my own terms.  I don’t allow others to persuade me, push me, guilt me or shame me into doing anything I don’t want to do.  I delete negative comments without remorse and I don’t answer off the wall questions on my blog.  I no longer feel compelled to answer prying questions, especially from total strangers.  I don’t take crap off of anyone because I don’t have to.  I won’t be manipulated.  If you treat me poorly I will walk away.  I don’t do anything that makes me feel anxious or uncomfortable.

 

I have stopped caring what other people think about me and I’m no longer a people pleaser.  The silent treatment no longer works with me.  No longer will people have carte blanche to say whatever they want or treat me badly and expect that I’ll keep coming back.  I’ve drawn lines in the sand and created boundaries and if you can’t love or just like me because of it than that is your problem to deal with, not mine.  I’m not a doormat.

 

I am no longer on the back burner in life.  I don’t sit back and allow others to shine because now it is my turn.  Those that I love and cherish have always had my full support, but now it is time for me to turn that same love inward.  I am always kind to others, but I wasn’t always kind to myself.  I was way too hard on myself, demanded too much and tried too hard.  I shouldered fault and blame that wasn’t mine to take on.  I allowed people to treat me in ways I would never have treated anyone because I thought I must’ve deserved it.  But now, I am able to recognize it for what it was, move on and I will not allow it to happen again.

 

Why couldn’t I have figured all of this out years ago?  I simply do not know.  Probably, because I was so focused on surviving each day and making my way through it, I just wasn’t able to.  Pay your bills, don’t lose your job, raise your kids right, give them everything you can, blah, blah, blah.  Now I am retired!  I have the time to think, to breathe and to feel and know that I am truly valuable.  We all are.  We just need to make sure we are valuing ourselves.  Every. Single. Moment. Of. Every. Single. Day. 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 107

Hello my friends!  It has been another amazing, busy and fulfilled week in my retirement journey and I couldn’t be happier.  As each day progresses I find I am growing and becoming my own person, more and more each day and it feels really, really good.  Retired life gives us so many more options and blessings than we could ever imagine possible.  The biggest blessing for me has been FREEDOM.  Freedom like I’ve never before known in my life.

 

I worked every single day, Monday through Friday last week and enjoyed myself immensely.  I worked less than four hours each day except on Tuesday I worked five hours.  Before I went in and after I got home I had plenty of time to leisurely get things done around my house.  Housework, laundry and even some yard work was easily accomplished.  I’m still pulling up big piles of weeds around the yard and this week will begin on area next to my driveway.  My chickens love the bucketful of fresh greens that I give them each day.

 

My yard looks so pretty!  My apple and pear trees were fully blossomed out.  Tulips and daffodils fill the garden beds with color and my rhubarb plants are coming up and filling out nicely.  I also saw that my hostas are starting to pop up as well.  I just love this time of year.  Two of the three blueberry bushes came back after a blistering hot summer so in my book that is progress.  I pulled up the one that didn’t make it and will buy a replacement soon.  I’ll be posting a garden plans update soon as things are ever changing around here. 

 

Things I Did To Save $$: 

I did not do any shopping last week so I saved a bundle of money there.  And!  With gas prices now sitting at $4.05 a gallon, I rode the bus everywhere so no fuel was necessary to get me where I needed to go.  I also did a fair bit of walking so I got my steps in everyday. 

Along with the buckets of milkweeds and dandelions I have been giving the chickens each I day I also gave them any kitchen scraps I had with the exception of onion trimmings which I put in the scrap bag I keep in my freezer.  This has been going a long way to supplement their diet as well as has saved me a lot of feed this past couple of weeks.  They seem to be eating much less feed the past two weeks and they’re keeping me in eggs, quite nicely. 

The main heat in my house has been officially turned off for the season for about three weeks now.  Last week I only used the fireplace one morning for a few hours to lift the chill off the house after the overnight low dipped down toward the freezing mark.  The rest of the time I was comfortable with a sweater during the day and my throw blanket when I was sitting watching TV in the evenings.

 

Meals I Prepared: 

I pulled out a pan of pork verde enchiladas from the freezer to bake in my cute little toaster oven.  There was enough to make three good sized meals with a bit of green salad on the side.  That used up all of the remaining salad produce I had in the refrigerator.

 

Additionally, I made a big pot of tortellini vegetable soup, ate four servings of that and put away two other servings into the freezer to enjoy later.  I loaded the soup with veggies so each bowl was meal all on its own.  To add more protein to the soup meals I opened and heated up a pint jar of meatballs in marinara sauce.  I topped the soup and the meatballs with a nice sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese.

 

My big news that I’ve wanted to share with you for a while now is that beginning tomorrow I’m teaching a journaling class at the senior center.  It is an every other week, hour and a half class and I’m super excited about it.  It is going to be a wonderful opportunity to share my passion for storytelling and journal making with others.  I am super excited about it.

 

I hope you all enjoyed a fabulous week and I wish you a great week ahead.  Let me know in the comments what has been keeping you busy or some of the things you’ve been doing to save money.  Prepared any yummy meals lately? 

 

FYI - My retirement week runs from Friday through Thursday.

 

 

The True Rate Of Inflation

 

In all honesty, it doesn’t matter what government reports tell us or what is reported on the news.  The articles that are written by economists or even Harvard Business School don’t accurately portray the true rate of inflation either.  The true rate of inflation is how the cost of goods and services impacts each individual.  I know exactly how inflation has affected me because I track my expenses in detail.  I have shared my grocery expenses on this blog and my previous blog for years.  I track it all.

 

As I sit here I can tell you my greatest impact from rising prices and the highest rate of inflation I experience is at the grocery store.  It’s food, plain and simple.  Something so basic as a ten pound bag of potatoes.  Well, for one thing, they don’t sell ten pound bags of potatoes at my grocery store, they are now eight pound bags.  A couple years ago at the holidays I used to be able to buy a ten pound bag of potatoes on sale for $1.99.  This year five pound bags of potatoes were on sale for $1.99 making the rate of inflation on potatoes 100%.  And I live in Idaho.

 

A loaf of store brand whole wheat sandwich bread was regular price 89¢ a loaf in 2022.  That same loaf now sells for $1.99, a rate of inflation of 120%.  I used to buy chuck roasts on sale for $1.99 a pound, now they go on sale for $3.99 a pound, a 100% increase.  I used to buy a gallon of milk for $1.99, now it is $2.99 a 50% increase.  A head of iceberg lettuce was 99¢, now it is $1.99, a 100% increase.  That is a lot in just two years and these are just basic food items, nothing fancy.

 

So in the long run, it doesn’t really matter what the reported rate of inflation is, it matters how you are personally affected by the rising costs on the goods and services that you require.  Now we just need to take the steps we need to take and work our way around it.  Stick around and we’ll figure it out together.

 

 

I'm A City Girl

 

For years I’ve dreamed of a little cabin in the woods or a place in the country.  I’ve even planned it on paper and looked at properties.  I’ve dreamed of taking my RV on road trips and staying in the mountains or the desert for weeks on end.  But the truth of the matter is, I’m really a city girl at heart.

 

I love the downtown architecture

I’ve finally come to the realization that for me I love the little city that I live in and now work for.  In fact, since retiring I’ve fallen even deeper in love and since I went to work for the city my feelings have only increased that much more.  Everything I need and want to do is right here, I just didn’t know it.

 

I’m truly a homebody.  I like to be at home and putter around the house, working on projects or doing some sort of crafting or sewing task.  I love that I have a sweet little yard where I can grow flowers and a few tomatoes and zucchinis.  A little coop with some hens who still lay the occasional egg has taken my urban homestead to another level.  I have kitties to love and cuddle with.  What more can a girl ask for?

 

As I am exploring the city I live in I am seeing so many new things and loads of stuff I had forgotten about in the everyday hustle that once was my life before retirement.  I am rediscovering the place I call home.  I love my creature comforts.  I enjoy coming home at the end of a day out or at work and relaxing which a hot or cold beverage and a kitty in my lap.  I like that wherever I go I’m close to a store to buy food or whatever else I happen to need and most recently that I can access those places with public transportation.  Being less dependent on a car to get from here to there has made me feel even more independent than I already did.  It’s very liberating to have options.

 

All of my pipe dreams of country and mountain living have been archived.  Reality has set in and I’m not sad about it at all.  Instead my plans will be to visit those places and enjoy them on a part time basis.  It was fun to plan and dream about it, but the truth is I love where I am at right now and how every day is still a new adventure.

 

 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 106

 

Well, hello everyone!  Winter arrived, rained a bunch, then dumped an inch of snow on the ground overnight, warmed back up and melted off.  After a few days of near freezing temperatures overnight which required me to turn the main heat back on the weather changed yet again and spring returned.  The heat was turned back off as temperatures rose and by the end of the week we were nearing the 80s.  Now it has cooled back down.  Has your weather been as crazy as ours has been?  Every day is different, that’s for sure.

 

Mother Nature has been very liberal with the weeds this year

All the wind and rain littered my yard with lots of sticks, twigs and other yard debris as well as some trash from my neighbors that blew in too.  I’ve also got quite a weed infestation going on right now.  They are mostly milk weeds, which actually ends up being a good thing because my chickens absolutely love them.  I’ve been going outside each day and picking them a big pile.

 

FREE chicken food!

I was further able to finish cutting up the pruned apple tree limbs and get them into the bin for pickup on trash day.  It felt really good to finally have that project 100% complete.  I gave the bunny a couple pieces of wood to gnaw on and that made her very happy.  Now I’m on a mission to get the plethora of weeds pulled from the yard.  I grabbed my yard bucket, gloves and dandelion tool and have been going out each day and filling the bucket.  Then I give the weeds to the chickens, which they absolutely love.

 

My happy girls

Things I Did To Save $$: 

Gas prices right now have jumped up to nearly $4 a gallon so I gave my little truck the week off and rode the bus to work the entire week.  I have also done some additional research on other bus routes so I can run errands and go places that way rather than drive if I choose.

I made a minor repair to one of my shoes.  I tend to be a bit of an ankle kicker when I walk and I'd rubbed a hole onto the top edge of my shoe.  I stitched it back up and added some extra reinforcement stitching.  Good as new!

 

I supplemented the chicken’s daily diet with freshly pulled weeds and they in turn laid some eggs for me.  I gave them some kitchen scraps as well so there was zero food waste at my house last week.

 

Meals I Prepared: 

Knowing I had a full and busy work week ahead I did a little bit of meal prepping so that when I got home all I had to do was pop something into the microwave to reheat.  I had three cubed steaks in the freezer so I made Salisbury steak in brown gravy with rice on the side and used the rest of the pan roasted veggies from Easter as my sides.

 

I had pesto shrimp pasta on the menu plan in February, but due to my schedule and the leftovers in the fridge it didn’t get made.  I went ahead and made up half a box of bow tie pasta and sautéed the shrimp with pesto, a bit of butter and some extra garlic.  After tossing the pasta into the shrimp I sprinkled it with some grated parmesan.  It was delicious and made enough for me and a guest as well as three additional meals to enjoy during the week.  I made simple green salads for my sides with the pasta.

 

Sad news.  The mini fryer quit working so I ended up returning it to Wal-Mart and since I really don’t need that type of an appliance I used that money to purchase a set of mini pans for my toaster oven.  I think I will use those far more often than the fryer.

 

My first daffodil!

I had a rather busy and productive week which makes me very happy.  My home is neat, clean and well cared for as are my animals.  Me too!  How was your week?  Anything exciting going on? 

 

Signs of spring are everywhere

FYI - My retirement week runs from Friday through Thursday.