My Tireless Retirement – Week 139

 

Hello my Friends!  I sure do hope you all enjoyed a lovely holiday, if you live in the United States, and if not I sure do hope your week went well anyway.  For me it was a week of fun spent with those I treasure most in my life.  It was a great week.  And very filling too!  I’m still full!  Ha, ha, ha!

 

As you can imagine the week was all about the food!  We started off by going to a sports bar last Saturday to cheer on our Boise State Broncos and eat more food than I’ve eaten in one sitting for quite some time.  Buffalo wings, spinach dip, steak and fries, oh my goodness!  We have plans to do this again this football season.

 

On Sunday, after reading how a fellow blogger had lopped off the top of her artificial Christmas tree with a pair of bolt cutters, I was inspired to tackle a few things I was fed up with myself.  One was to get all of the clothes out of my closet that I don’t wear or don’t like.  Why I was hanging onto them?  I have no idea, but I now have a full bag to donate to the thrift store and half a bag going in the trash!

 

Everything fits now and it is much easier to make my bed

Next was to tackle my new bedspread and pillow shams.  I had purchased a king size set for my queen size bed this time around so I’d have extra length on the sides.  This one wasn’t much better in that respect and I’m pretty certain it wouldn’t truly fit a king size bed.  It was also way too long and I discovered as I’ve been wrestling with it that it was also out of square.  The pillow shams were also so long that I had stuffed two pillows inside as a king size pillow would have been too short.  Who made these?!  They were floppy and oversized and driving me nuts!  I grabbed the scissors and got busy.  Now the bedspread is over a foot shorter from head to foot and I cut down and re-stitched the pillow shams to fit a standard pillow.  Much, much better!

 

The pillow shams now fit a regular size pillow

The remains of the bedspread and shams went into the bag with all the ratty clothing I had gathered up and then I moved onto the pile of papers I needed to shred.  I added the shredded paper to the bag and made a pass through the entire house gathering stuff up and getting it either into that bag or out to the recycle bin.  It felt so good to clear that crap out of here!  It still boggles my mind how much stuff still manages to creep into my house.

 

After that I gathered up all the straggling plants I had in my house that I was attempting to “save”, repotted the spider plant and let the rest of them go.  It was beyond time for me to accept that I am not a plant whisperer and I don’t really have the time to mess with it.  The spider plant was the best of the lot so he made the cut.

 

Last weekend a friend of mine brought me a bag of pint size canning jars, ten in all, which I was thrilled to receive.  I loaded them straight into the dishwasher to run with my next load.  The timing couldn’t have been better as I was wondering what I’d put all the chicken broth in that I made after the holiday.

 

The aftermath!

I worked short shifts on Monday and Tuesday and the rest of the week was all mine.  Hurray!  Wednesday I did a little baking and Thursday was Thanksgiving.  I kept it pretty easy.  The chickens I bought at Costco a week prior came out of the freezer to thaw and I reheated them in the oven, made mashed potatoes with carrots (it was a huge hit), gravy and a green bean casserole.  I also made a pan of dinner rolls.  Everything else we had was brought by others.  After dinner we wrapped up leftovers, loaded the dishwasher and called it a success!

 

With so much to be grateful for I find that November is now in the books my friends.  Tomorrow is December!  I hope you had a really great week.  Let me know how your Thanksgiving went.  What was your favorite part?

 

This Month's 2024 Extreme Budget Grocery Spending – November

 

This month I began with a completely empty crisper drawer as I had used up every last bit of my fresh produce.  The potato bin on the bottom shelf was still pretty full. In the bread drawer I had four corn tortillas, six flour tortillas and a few bread heals I was saving to use in my Thanksgiving Day stuffing.  I had a little bit of heavy cream, half a gallon of milk, a container of sour cream, a block of cream cheese and a two pound bag of grated Monterey Jack so I was doing pretty well with dairy.  The condiments are thinning down, but I still have plenty.  Based off of what I already had on hand and with the upcoming holiday in mind I made my shopping list.

 

A good sale on butter was on my “wish list” and I lucked out with just that at my neighborhood Fred Meyer store with a digital coupon offer for $2.49 a pound.  I also had another “Best Customer” digital coupon for 70¢ OFF on a pound of butter which I could stack.  But to make it even better I also redeemed some rewards points I had earned riding the bus and logging my trips for a $10 Kroger gift card.  By the time all was said and done I came home with five pounds of butter for only $1.75!

 

I got this last month for $1.99!

Another digital coupon during that same shopping trip netted me a two pound block of sharp cheddar for $4.99.  With that block of cheese plus the bargain on Monterey Jack I got in October I have plenty of cheese on hand to finish out the year and well into January, I imagine.

 

My next trip was to Winco to pick up the bulk of what I had on my shopping list.  Primarily I wanted to restock the crisper drawer and pick up some more tortillas as well as re-supply the cream for my daily coffee treat I like to make each day.  Sadly, I was also out of eggs so I needed to buy some this time around.  The price of eggs right now is horrendous (groan).

 

Mid month I made my way back to Fred Meyer because a sale on eighteen count eggs for $3.29 made it worth it to me.  I also was able to stack a couple digital coupons to pick up another package of cheese for only $1.29.  I also picked up another bottle of salad dressing (FREE digital coupon offer) which I was able to donate the next day.  After using up all of my milk to make yogurt I stopped into Albertson’s on my way home to get another half gallon.  It was on sale for $3.99.  Fred Meyer was out of organic whole milk that day.

 

While still at Fred Meyer I also picked up canned pumpkin and evaporated milk for my LTFS.  I was low on pumpkin and only had one can of evaporated milk so it was on my list to replace.  I waited for the holiday pricing on both of those items and it worked out well.

 

My next shopping trip was to Costco for some pre-Christmas shopping and to pick up two rotisserie chickens which is what I served in lieu of a turkey this year.  I had originally thought I would only need one chicken but because my guest list more than doubled (Yay!) as time went on I grabbed two instead.  Unfortunately, this threw me over budget just a touch, but I’m good with it.  I will roll the deficit amount over to December and begin again, just with a little bit less this time.  No problem!

 

Final totals came in at $0 for nonfood items.  I was in the red $2.97 this time as my total spent on food this month was $56.55.  I had a rollover amount from the previous month of $3.58 but it wasn’t enough to cover the extra chicken I felt I needed to buy for Thanksgiving along with everything else I bought.  That is okay!  I will be starting out December with a budget of $47.03 and that will be plenty to finish out 2024 strong.  I’m determined to make this challenge a roaring success and I’m pretty darn sure I can do it.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

 

May you celebrate this day with love in your heart, prosperous vision in your mind and much gratitude in your being. 

My heartfelt Thanksgiving Day wishes to everyone!

Meal Prepping From The Pantry #7

 

A couple weeks ago I enjoyed another busy day in my kitchen doing all of the things that bring me joy.  Cooking and baking is my way to decompress and really recharge my batteries so I was thrilled to have two days to do just exactly that.

 

Apples cooking to make applesauce

The cores went into the compost bin

I began by processing apples to make applesauce, which I shared that with you in a previous post, but I also had plans to do some meal prepping while the apples were cooking down in the slow cooker.

 

Making yogurt

While the apples cooked away in my large and medium slow cookers I began by making a new batch of vanilla yogurt and getting that into my little picnic cooler to begin setting.  After that I made a double batch of my favorite homemade granola, this time adding ground cinnamon, raisins and dried cranberries, which I absolutely love this time of year.

 

Granola!

With the granola in the oven I mixed up a batch of pumpkin bread batter.  I added chopped raisins and pecans along with some pumpkin pie spice and got that into my mini loaf pans.  I was able to use up half a can of pumpkin puree I had tucked into the freezer as well as the last of a bag of pecans that was hanging around in there too.

 

The granola came out of the oven and the pumpkin loaves went in.  I sprinkled the raisins and dried cranberries on top of the granola and gave it a good stir, then allowed it to cool down.  Next I stirred the apples in the two slow cookers and moved onto my next project.

 

I mixed up some biscuit dough and cut out thirteen biscuits, a baker’s dozen, to go into the oven next.  I had biscuits and gravy on my mind for a meal that week and I was very much looking forward to it.  While the biscuits waited their turn in the oven I pulled a pizza crust from the freezer and a lot of leftover ingredients from the refrigerator.

 

Progress!

Using up a frozen pizza crust, a bit of leftover Italian sausage, pizza sauce and some mushrooms in the refrigerator I also added some sliced pepperoni from the freezer.  The biscuits went into the oven and the mini loaves of pumpkin bread cooled on a rack while the pizza waited its turn.

 

By the time the biscuits and pizza had baked and I had my brunch at nearly noon the apples had finished cooking down and were ready to become sauce.  I used my immersion blender to puree the applesauce to the consistency I wanted and then stirred in just a touch of sugar to until it tasted the way I like my applesauce to taste.  I let that cook while I set up the water bath canner on my stove and started heating the water.  Then I gathered up my jars and lids and got busy filling them up.

 

I put in the first batch of jars into the canner to process and then got busy wrapping up the pumpkin bread and biscuits for the freezer leaving out half a dozen of the biscuits to use for meals that week.  I also put away the granola into Mason jars and into the pantry.  With everything put away the first round of jars came out of the canner to cool on a towel and the next round went into the canner to process.

 

Yogurt all done!

Dishes too!

Next I pulled the jars of yogurt out of the cooler, dried them off and put them away into the refrigerator.  By the next day they were ready to enjoy with some of that homemade granola for brunch.  In the meantime the last round of applesauce came out of the water bath canner and I called it a day.

 

I made cinnamon applesauce

and blueberry applesauce - Yum!

The next day I was back at it filling up both of my slow cookers with apples once again and getting those cooking to make applesauce.  Once they had cooked down I used the immersion blender again to make sauce.  Then I added an open package of blueberries I had in the freezer that needed to be used up to my medium sized slow cooker and added cinnamon to the larger one.

 

Beautiful!

Once the blueberries had cooked a bit and were soft I used the immersion blender again.  Both batches got a bit of sugar added to them and then I was back to processing jars in my water bath canner.  I also made some sausage gravy using a half pint jar of sausage I had on the shelf and scrambled a couple of eggs to make my Sunday supper.  It was delicious!

 

Yogurt & granola

This little squirrel is enjoying an apple core out of the compost bin

With all of the jars processed and cooling I was done with everything I had planned to do that weekend.  Once the jars were cooled I wiped them all down and labeled everything.  It was a bit of a different meal prep this time, but I have loads of wonderful things to look forward to eating this winter and I couldn’t be any happier about it.

 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 138

 

Hello my friends!  I began this week by slowing down a little bit and spending time reflecting on this year and planning ahead for the upcoming new year.  I worked on my 2025 day planner I am making, which I have a lot of fun doing, and updating spreadsheets as well as some of my “to do” lists.  I also put some thought into a few goals I may want to set and accomplish.  Mostly, I enjoyed playing with papers, stickers, washi tapes and colored pens.  I still enjoy arts and crafts!

 

Last of my garden tomatoes cooked down into sauce

Sunday morning I pulled the bag with the last of my garden tomatoes out of the freezer and put them in the slow cooker to cook all day.  I used my immersion blender to make then into a crushed tomato consistency and then once they had cooked down and thickened I allowed them to cool before placing them into freezer containers, labeling them and tucking away in the freezer for future meals and meal prepping.  While I was puttering around the house that day it began to snow!  Winter has definitely arrived.

 

The BFF was here for a visit so I spent a few days last week just hanging out.  We didn’t do much, but we ate well and drank some really good wine.  I worked some short shifts on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 3½ hours each, and on the way home Wednesday I stopped into Trader Joes to pick up a couple bottles, a white and a red, for Thanksgiving dinner.  Can you believe that is this coming Thursday?

 

This will do it!

I had all day this past Thursday off so we ran a few errands.  We stopped in at Costco to pick up a couple rotisserie chickens and I found two good sized ones.  Once we got home I put the chickens into a baking dish and allowed them to cool, then I wrapped them in plastic wrap and set them into the freezer.  This is what I plan to serve for Thanksgiving along with all the trimmings and yes, I saved all the drippings in the bottom of the bags to add to my gravy.  It was so hard not to sneak a taste of those chickens, I will admit.  They smelled so darn good.

 

Tacos!

It was rainy and stormy all day so the rest of the day all we did was sit around, eat leftovers, enjoy a glass of wine and watch TV.  It has been a bit since I just sat around and goofed off so it was a good time.  It was a perfect week.  How was yours?

 

Future Plans For My LTFS

 

Next year I am planning to expand my long term food storage (LTFS).  Last year I bought a large garage shelf unit to store my home canned goods.  This past summer I added another one as my canned goods were overflowing onto the floor.  That shelf filled up super fast.  Now I’m ready to expand once again and here is why.

 

I have committed myself to eating at least ninety percent REAL food in my everyday diet and to significantly minimize the amount of ultra processed foods I take in.  As a result I make A LOT of what I eat from scratch and because of this I want to keep a good stock of the best possible ingredients I can afford.  I’m shifting more toward nutritious whole foods, locally sourced when possible and natural or organic when not.  Processed foods that I can’t make myself, like flours, sugar, certain condiments, etc., I will buy but I want to focus as much as possible on them having good clean ingredients.  Having my LTFS allows me to have better control over the quality of my food and saves me a lot of money in the long run too.  Plus, I can make my own food so much less expensively than purchasing the premade stuff at the store.

 

It is also very important to me to have a long term supply of shelf stable food on hand because one just never knows how things will play out in the future.  I have no control over power outages, illnesses or inclement weather that may keep me home and unable to go shopping.  You can read more about that here.

 

Because I’m a busy girl I like to keep premade soups and foods on hand to prepare quick meals.  That means I do A LOT of home canning to put up shelf staple soups, chilis, pasta sauces, enchilada sauces as well as plenty of meats, vegetables and fruit.  Home canning requires space for proper storage.  Jars of food get pretty heavy so I need to have sturdy shelving in a low light and climate controlled room.  Fortunately I am blessed to have the room to do this.  And once again I find myself blessed to have exceeded my current shelf space and find myself again with jars overflowing onto the floor.

 

My goal is to ultimately create my own in home grocery store filled with plenty of wonderful, delicious REAL food options for me to choose from allowing me to make fewer trips to the supermarket.  The true beauty of doing my own home canning is that I know exactly what is in each jar.  My little grocery store is going to be amazing.   I am excited about this and I can hardly wait to get started!

 

Learn More - Do Things

 

Part of my personal elder care plan is to do everything I can to stave off the onset of dementia as I age.  After doing a fair bit of research and discussing it with medical professionals I know that staying active, both mentally and physically, is the most important thing I can do.  Along with good nutrition, plenty of sleep and daily healthy habits I have a much better chance of aging without dementia than I do if I am not proactive.

 

I know I have to keep learning and doing things.  That is a big reason I choose to work a part time job in retirement.  By working I am constantly stimulated and learning new things.  By expanding my role at my job I am also physically moving and challenging myself to do new things and have new experiences I otherwise might not.

 

Last year I added the challenge of using public transportation to get me to and from my job, especially as free bus rides are a benefit from my employer.  Not only am I getting my daily walks in by going to and from my home to the bus stop as well as the bus station to work and back again, but I’m saving a lot of money I’d otherwise spend on fuel.  I am also stimulated to learn bus routes, speak to people I encounter, help people that may need assistance, etc.  Win-win!

 

Senior centers offer us the opportunity to take classes, including technology classes so we can stay up on how to better use our cell phones and laptops as well as to not to become victims of scams.  Various exercise classes can be found such as gentle yoga, Fit & Fall Proof, Tai Chi and longevity stick, stretch & tone and cardio.  They offer all kinds of classes to keep us productive and creative too.  Activities to go explore and do things like hiking, going to hot springs, day camping, visiting museums and other historical hotspots are quite common.  Most have libraries where you can get books and other reading materials.  Ours also offers puzzles.  Most importantly, senior centers give you the opportunity to socialize which is very important as we age.

 

Many seniors enroll in classes.  Many colleges and universities allow seniors to audit classes for free in order to keep learning.  Libraries offer a lot of classes and ways to socialize as well.  Volunteering is another great way to help your community while you learn new skills, stay active and socialize with others all at the same time.

 

Keeping a daily journal is another way I keep my mind active.  I write down how my day went as well as how I am feeling and what I’ve had on my mind lately.  I feel like it helps me to clear my mind and make room for new thoughts and stimulating activities.  The act of writing is good for our hands and dexterity while it forces us to remember how to write and spell words.  The act of writing is very good for us in more ways than one.

 

I encourage you to stay active in mind, body and spirit and to seek out ways to keep yourself stimulated.  Get outside, regardless of the weather, to move and breathe in fresh air.  Enjoy the seasons.  Go to the library, a concert or a movie. Travel. Spend time with friends.  Spend time with strangers.  Learn new things.  Do stuff.  Our brains depend on it.