This Month's Grocery Spending - October 2022

 

I didn't do a lot of grocery shopping this month because I didn't really need all that much.  I did, however stop into the Grocery Outlet store next to the theatre at the beginning of the month just to see what they had and found a few items, mainly sauces to make quick and easy meals with.

 

My Grocery Outlet haul

My next trip was to the Albertsons in my neighborhood for a few produce items on sale and an overpriced head of lettuce.  I picked up a quart of cream for my keto coffee while I was at it too and saved myself another trip later.

 

My first trip into Albertson's for fresh produce

My last shopping trip was back to the same Albertson's to pick up a few produce items I had digital coupons for and bone in chicken breasts on sale for 99¢ a pound.  They were completely out of the chicken (surprise, surprise) but I did happen across some fantastic markdown items instead.  I was pretty happy with that.

 

And shopping trip #2 😊

I also picked up a few items for my long term storage which included two jars of dry roasted peanuts on sale for 97¢ each, which I think would also make for nice Christmas gifts as well as four cans of deviled ham I got at Dollar Tree.  I really like this brand as I find it much less greasy than that other brand and I actually prefer the flavor of this one too.  If you like deviled ham you might want to check your Dollar Tree and see if you like it as well.  It is certainly more affordable.

 

I put these in my long term food storage but they would also be good as Christmas gifts

I did not make any nonfood purchases this month and my final tally came in at a whopping $47.55.  Not too shabby and that included quite a bit of meat as well as fresh produce for the month and even a handful of items for my long term food storage.  I have zero complaints about that despite the fact that rising grocery prices are nauseating at best.  Still, I'm able to find bargains and markdown items to keep it well within budget.

 

Not too shabby

I found these at Dollar Tree and I think they are really good

How are you doing with your grocery budget these days?  Are you able to find any good deals at the stores?

 

Chicken Maintenance

 

When it comes to my chickens I keep it pretty simple.  I built them a simple coop and I employ "the deep litter method" for said coop which means I only have to clean it out twice a year - no joke.  Because of how I built my coop and this method it doesn't get gross and it does not stink.  Honest.  The coop has the right amount of air flow so it stays dry inside, which is key, a coop needs airflow.  It is also a small coop so it retains its own heat in the winter time.  The only insulation inside is a 2 inch thick Styrofoam board on the ceiling which is primarily to keep the coop cool in the summer time so it doesn't get too hot for them.

 

When I clean the coop, once in the spring and again in the fall, I remove all of the pine shavings and manure from under the roost and add it to my compost bin.  Then I scoop all of the pine shavings and any remaining manure and scoot it over placing it under the roost leaving a nice thick layer.  Next I replace the pine shavings on the other half of the coop with fresh new shavings.  It is a repetitive cycle that provides an adequate amount of bedding to keep the coop clean and dry as well as enough manure to generate heat and keep my chicken's comfortable.  My chicken coop literally has its own ecosystem.

 

Once a year, usually in October, I will rake up the outside pen area and place that into the compost bin as well.  In the fall as we are raking our leaves a vast majority of those leaves end up in the pen area.  The chickens will scratch through and scatter them all over the ground which provides them with fun activities, nutrients and keeps the pen from becoming a muddy mess.  The leaves decompose and mulch themselves under the chicken's care.  Again, the pen area becomes its own ecosystem as well.

 

Edith & crew

I interact with my chickens daily, feeding them, giving them fresh water, collecting eggs and visiting with them.  I give them kitchen scraps as I have them, scraps from the garden, and I will often collect weeds and dandelions which they love.  All of these things help to supplement the chicken feed I buy at the feed store.  Every afternoon I give them scratch grains or "chicken candy" as I like to call it.  In the winter I make suet cakes out of rendered fat I collect for them from my own cooking and keep in the freezer.  I mix the melted fat with their "chicken candy" place it in an empty plastic sour cream container and once it is solidified I can pop it out and place it in a Ziploc bag.  I keep the suet cakes in the freezer until I'm ready to give them one.  The extra fat in the winter time helps them maintain their body heat and improves their nutrition.

 

They had this pile worked down in no time

I am constantly checking their coop and pen area, maintaining as needed to keep them well sheltered and secure from predators.  Keeping these areas dry is also very important so if we have a lot of rain I make sure to add extra leaves to the pen area for them to scratch around in and scatter.  I keep those extra leaves in a large trash can in my backyard.  The most important part of keeping chickens is to make sure they are happy.  In turn they bring me a lot of joy as well.  And I get eggs!

 

 

 

My Tireless Retirement - Week 29

 

Good Monday morning everyone!  Our Indian summer has officially ended and it is definitely fall weather now.  We finally got some much needed and appreciated rain over this past weekend after a very dry summer and beginning to fall.  Our first frost has hit as well but I'd already put the yard and garden to bed for winter so everything outside was fine.  For the first time in my adult life I will not have to scrape my windshield in the early morning hours and head off to work in the dark.  Whoo hooo!

 

Organized chaos as I worked on next year's dayplanner

This past week I decided to do a staycation and just relax and do whatever I felt like.  I stayed home and didn't go anywhere nor did I spend any money.  I just did a lot of crafting, writing, worked on updating my dayplanner for 2023, watched some TV and a couple movies, tinkered with stuff and even took a nap one day.  Whaaat?!

 

I made a garden journal starter kit, I just love how this turned out

Most of the latter half of the week however was spent caring for a sick kitty.  My boy Jack has an autoimmune issue and he will sometimes come down with a "kitty cold" that will lay him out flat.  He gets very tired and lethargic, has no appetite, his eyes are teary and his nose runs.  He feels terrible.  Often it will develop into an upper respiratory infection so I have to watch him pretty close.  He doesn't respond well to typical pharmaceuticals for his issues, but he does do really well with homeopathic medicines.  I have those on hand so I got him started and in the meantime I spent a lot of time just holding him in my lap and worrying a lot.  By Friday evening he was starting to improve and he even ate a bit.  Saturday morning he woke me up wanting to wrestle.  That is when I know he is on his way to a full recovery.  Even though we've been down this road a few times I still worry about him like crazy.  He's my buddy.

 

The journal with some journaling cards and a notepad

Saturday morning I woke to rain and it was pretty chilly outside and not overly warm inside so I turned on the electric fireplace in the living room for the first time this season.  It was all I needed to take the chill off.  I love my little fireplace, especially the ambiance it provides.

 

He is so darn cute!

After quite a few sleepless nights on kitty watch I feel like I need a do over on my staycation.  The nice thing is I can do that!  Whenever I want!  I'm still not quite used to that fact.  But, I'm sure I'll get better at it.  I'll keep practicing.  Ha, ha, ha.

 

I made a bunch of ephemera bases

These seemed to take forever to make 😁

I hope you are doing well and feeling blessed.  Take care and have a great week ahead!

 

 

I Finally Did It! I Now Own A Jackery

 

I've had an alternative solar power source on my wish list for sooooooo long and now I am the proud owner of a Jackery 240 and a 60 watt portable solar panel.  I live in an older neighborhood and our infrastructure has issues.  We have power outages on a fairly regular basis, usually they don't last too long, but the last two actually did.  They were caused by equipment failure, as are most of the ones we have, and required lengthy repairs so we were in the dark for quite a while, almost seven hours.

 

During the last five years I've researched and shopped for the best possible deal on a small backup power source.  I knew I'd want a solar panel to charge it with too since we are blessed with quite a bit of sun around here.  I settled on this one simply because it is lightweight, will do what I need it to do, won't take long to charge back up and was affordable.  These systems aren't cheap, but I do think they are worth it.

 

Very compact & lightweight

I wanted a smaller unit to begin with.  One, to try it out, and two, because I don't need a lot of power for what I'm mainly planning to do with it.  I want to use it while I'm traveling and as a backup for when the power goes out mainly for charging up my laptop and my phone, or running the router and maybe making a cup or two of coffee.  If it works as well as I'm hoping it will I'll save up and see about getting a larger unit to backup my chest freezer.  Having one for travel is what excites me the most because it will allow me to be out and about longer without the need for civilization.

 

Solar panel briefcase

The Jackery can be recharged by plugging it into a wall outlet as well as with the car adapter so I will have a few options in that respect, but I thought the solar panel would be really nice to have.  In addition I invested in a car inverter so I can also use that while I'm driving down the road to charge my laptop or run a slow cooker.  Or stop on the side of the road and make me a coffee.

 

Charged to 100% in no time

I am super excited that I finally got one.  But!  I have to tell you how it worked out.  I had the unit and solar panels in my Amazon cart under "saved for later" and after learning we were going to be getting a state income tax rebate I moved those two items back into the cart and decided to "sleep on it".  It's what I do.  In the meantime they dropped the price on the Jackery another $30 and offered a $22 OFF coupon to boot.  Then!  Alexa interrupted me later that day with a "lighting deal" on the solar panel which saved me another $50!  When I went into my cart to take a look I also had another 5% OFF coupon attached to the solar panels.  I was able to get the Jackery and the solar panels for only $309.00 saving me over $200.  Ironically, that was about the same amount as my state tax rebate.  I figured it was meant to be so I went ahead and ordered it.  How about that?!  I'm pretty tickled.  Now to put it to work!

 

Home Maintenance

 

Over the past six weeks I've been working on some tasks around the house, mainly in preparation of winter and colder weather.  Lots of little things that will help me keep my home well maintained and hopefully make my life a little bit easier in the process.

 

Fresh caulk always looks so nice and clean

To begin with I placed an online order with Home Depot using a gift card I had earned from doing surveys which got me a few no cost supplies to help me get some of these jobs done.  I needed to re-caulk the backsplash behind my kitchen sink where it had cracked and worn away.  I got the old caulking scraped up and cleaned, then laid a nice bead of caulk along the bottom of the backsplash where it meets the countertop.  I smoothed it out with my finger and allowed it to dry and cure overnight.  This task took less than five minutes to complete this job, but it will keep my kitchen counters and the wall behind it better protected.

 

I got our drafty back door better insulated and airtight

I had replaced the brick molding on our back door last month so I made sure to caulk it well and make it weather tight.  I also went around and caulked the windows as needed too.  Making sure the doors and windows are all caulked will keep them from being drafty and help hold the heat indoors better.

 

With all of the big trees in my yard it is difficult to keep these gutters clear

A big item on my winter preparation list to complete was to clean out the gutters, yet again, but this time I installed gutter guards which was part of my online Home Depot order.  I'm hopeful my days of climbing the ladder twice a year to remove leaves and debris from the gutters is now a thing of the past.  Finger crossed they do the trick.  They were really easy to install too.  You just slip one side under your first row of shingles and the other side snaps into place on the front edge of the gutter.

 

I sure hope these help

This summer I worked hard to purge, clean out and reorganize my garage.  Clutter accumulation has been a long standing issue out there but now I have plenty of space to work on any projects I may wish to do as well as some really good storage.  I have plenty of room to store the extra supplies I like to stock up on for the upcoming winter.  Having a clutter free and organized space makes it so much nicer to access what I need when I need it.  It is so nice to go out to my garage now.

 

I got all of the A/C units and box fans cleaned up and stored away for winter

Some of the siding on the house has come loose at the seams so I grabbed some screws and my drill and got that all secured so next time it rains I won't need to worry about water getting into the walls.  I also did some caulking along those seems to make them even more water tight.

 

The garage is much easier to keep tidy now
The stuff on the floor on the left is gone too!

Fortunately, this year I didn't have too many home repairs to make, I am in pretty good shape around here.  I try to make repairs to my home as soon as the need arises rather than putting things off.  I find that by doing things right away the job at hand is usually quicker and easier than if I put it off and allow it to get worse.  Procrastination isn't good when it comes to maintaining a home.  I know it is always best to get things taken care of right away.  By taking good care of my house it will ensure I am able to keep a sound roof over my head for a good long time to come.

 

My Tireless Retirement - Week 28

 

Hello my friends.  I had an enjoyable week and I hope you all did as well.  I went to dinner with a group of friends last Monday night at an old steakhouse we like to go to.  It was a fantastic meal, as always, as well as a great time visiting and getting caught up.  All of us at the table, with the exception of one, are now retired so we have that in common.  It was fun to find out what everyone has been up to.

 

Most of my week was spent getting things buttoned up around here in preparation for winter.  With the warmer than usual temperatures it is hard to imagine cold weather is on its way.  I'm taking advantage of every sunny day we are blessed with as I know our Indian summer will not last forever.

 

I put the raised garden beds to rest for the season by pulling up everything and giving it all to the chickens along with a full trash bin of leaves I raked up.  That always makes them happy.  The leaves are definitely changing and falling to the ground so I'll be busy with that chore for a while.  Fortunately I have my mulching leaf blower vac to help me keep it under control.  I not only used it to clean up leaves, but I also blew off all of the vehicles and blew out the inside of my garage.  Those pesky leaves get everywhere.

 

I've been working on some journals and thinking about adding them to my eBay store.  I write in a journal every day and I usually give these as gifts to my friends.  I'm thinking others might enjoy these as well.  What do you think?  I've got some ideas formulating for dayplanners too.

 

Although it has been cooler at night I've yet to add my electric blanket to my bed, but I did start wearing my winter pajamas and slippers.  It is still warm enough during the daytime to keep the house plenty comfortable so I haven't turned on the heat or used the fireplace yet.  Sometimes in the morning I'll curl up in my chair with my hot cup of coffee and a throw while I'm writing or answering emails until the sun comes up.  I will also light a candle or two and it feels really cozy.  I love that special time I have in the morning.

 

Wednesday afternoon I did go to Albertsons and do a mini produce run and picked up some cream for my Keto coffees.  They had bags of mandarin oranges and avocados on sale so I got one of each.  I haven't had much in the way of errands to run lately which is fine by me.  I do find I'm having more and more difficulty leaving the house these days.  I could easily become a hermit, I think, except my friends and my next door neighbors probably wouldn't allow it.  I don't know why I say this since this week I had to leave the house four out of the seven days last week and actually converse with people.  But, you know what I mean.

 

Friday I picked up DVDs from the public library so a friend and I could enjoy a no cost dinner and a movie that evening.  I cooked from items I already had on hand and we had a delicious salad and split a sirloin I pulled out of my freezer.  There may have been a bottle of wine provided by my guest.  For dessert I baked some cookies using homemade dough balls I had in the freezer.  Saturday I attended a wake and I took a fruit salad, again made with things I already had on hand.

 

The meals I prepped have been working out really well.  I started the week off by finishing up leftovers and enjoying one of my freezer meals.  I also pan fried a couple burger patties and steamed some cauliflower in the microwave, made a Cobb salad using up some leftover lunchmeat and cheese, and then did the steak and salads on Friday.  Saturday I ate at the wake and didn’t need to prepare myself anything at all that day.

 

It was an oddly busy week as it turned out and it went by awfully fast too.  I got a lot done, but not everything I had planned because I was simply too busy.  I asked a friend the other night, she is also retired, "How did we have time to work?", LOL.  Anyone do anything exciting last week?

 

Putting Some Prepped Foods To The Test - Pot Roast Dinner

 

Sometimes I just want a nice pot roast dinner and on a Sunday a couple weeks ago I got that hankering.  It just sounded so good and, as luck would I have it, I happened to have one sitting in my long term storage pantry.  Earlier this year I had canned some pot roasts with Au Jus and beef broth in pint jars with the idea that I could heat that up and add a little cornstarch slurry to make a gravy from the juices and broth in the jars.  This summer I had canned potatoes and carrots in pint jars with the idea that these would make a great side dish.  But!  Would it taste good?

 

I just emptied the jar into a pan to heat up and added a 
slurry of cornstarch and water to make gravy

This is all part of my experiment with my long term food storage options for quick meals I could make, even if for some reason we had a power outage.  Also, I wanted to have some meals ready to go for travel and camping.  A pot roast dinner was on my list of the meals I wanted put up in the long term pantry.  It is one of my very favorites.

 

After heating up the potatoes and carrots I simply mash them with a fork

It was super easy to put this meal together and it heated up quite quickly so perfect for a camp stove scenario.  I used two saucepans and while I waited for the meat to heat up I mixed up a cornstarch slurry to add to the pint jar of meat and broth.  As it heated up it formed a nice gravy with beef chunks.  I simply used a fork to mash up some of the vegetables I heated up in the second pan.  I placed them in a dish and then put the gravy and beef over top.  I could also have heated it all in one pan and made a nice stew.

 

A pantry pot roast dinner that was just as delicious as I had hoped for

Now for the taste test.  I can tell you, it was amazing.  Every bit as good as if I had made it that day in my slow cooker like I usually do when I prepare a pot roast.  I was actually surprised, especially by how well the potatoes held up to the canning process.  I am very happy to have these types of meal options in my long term food storage.