Skip to main content

$$$ Strategies

Since I've learned it's almost impossible not to spend money (although I'm still trying to avoid that whenever I can), I'm changing my tactics to spend as little as possible. Since food is our biggest expense every month, I'm competitively shopping at three different supermarkets and beefing up my emergency pantry. The latter I need to do anyway in preparation for hurricane season, but it helps.

I cook at home nearly every night now, and make judicious use of leftovers. We eat well, although beef is out of my budget for the most part. My guy and our nephew eat about twice the amount of food I do, so I'm cooking recipes for basically five. By avoiding convenience foods and purchasing whole foods instead I'm spending about $130.00 or less per week at the market, keeping us at about $500.00 per month for food.

I am thrifting or buying at the dollar store everything I can these days: books, cleaners, clothes, certain foods (when they're cheaper at the dollar store) household supplies, storage containers, supplies for my crochet and quilting and toiletries. This reduces the amount I have to spend on these items by 50% to 75%.

Example: I needed some new pajamas for the cold weeks we've been having, but Target wanted $33.99 for the set I liked there. I thrifted instead and bought three sets of pajamas for $20.00.

For items I need that I can't thrift I buy multiples when they're on sale, so I'm constantly watching the prices of everything we regularly use. We go through a ton of foaming handsoap, for example, so when it went on sale for a BOGO I bought four for the price of two. That should last us until spring.

Finally, I'm learning to make myself things I use to buy packaged, like stocks. I save the trimmings from the chicken I buy and then make chicken stock out of it, which I then freeze in the amounts I use for certain recipes. I haven't bought packaged stock in over a year now. Same thing with bagels, and the fellas actually prefer my homemade over the store bought now.

Image credit: supermarket pic by ElasticComputeFarm; clothes pic by El Sun; and sale pic by Sammy-Sander, all from Pixabay

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Love Triangle

The Inheritors (also known as The Heirs ) is an older k-drama that is more like an American soap opera, and yet has one of the best high-school love triangles I've ever seen. As the illegitimate son of a wealthy conglomerate chairman, Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho) was exiled to study in California so that his older half-brother could be groomed to step into their father's shoes. Instead he mostly surfs and goofs off. He meets Cha Eun-sang (Park Shin-hye), who comes to LA in order to escape her dismal life in Korea while bringing wedding money to her older sister, only to find out her sister has lied about her marriage, and is living in squalor. After the sister takes the money and runs off, leaving Eun-sang with no place to stay, Tan ends up alternately taking care of her and making her situation worse. He also falls for her, but she finally connects with a friend and returns to Korea. The money her sister took ends up forcing Eun-sang and her speech-impaired mom to mov...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pretties

While at the antique mall where my donated throws were being sold I saw this pretty portait of a frog made out of beads, brooches, necklaces and other bling, and had to take a photo of it. This artist is so clever with how they recycle vintage jewelry and findings into new art. That day this little guy came home with me. He was cheap, made from a very old crazy quilt, very shabby, and has a serene quality that primitives sometimes possess. He'll be hanging out with me in the sewing room. Was it necessary to buy this? Nope. Do I regret the purchase? Nope. I also bought this apothecary jar filled with buttons, threads and other wonders. If you want to sort through it with me, check out more pics here .
Post a Comment
Read more

Glorious. Kinda

Writing up my thoughts on the Chinese drama You are my Glory is going to be one of those head-scratchers; I liked it, it got annoying, I liked it anyway, it got more annoying. In the end I was left feeling like most of the last third of the series was smacking me on the nose for being a romantic and wishing, not for the first time, I was a screenwriter who could get hired to fix this script. Anyway, okay. The premise for this series is actually pretty good: poor but brilliant aerospace engineer Yu Tu (played by the fabulously handsome Yang Yang) crosses paths with fabulously wealth but not-too-bright actress Qiao Jingjing (portrayed by the genuinely pretty Dilraba Dilmurat) who was his high school classmate. He's looking for a new job that pays better; she's in hot water due to an inappropriate product endorsement snafu, and they end up spending a lot of time together. It's a cross between Notting Hill and Apollo Thirteen, sorta kinda. Yu Tu is in a life crisis ...
Post a Comment
Read more