Saving Money Sunday!

Since my funds lately have been limited, like really limited, and everyone else is going through the same, I thought I'd share some tips on how to pinch the ol' pennies. Keep in mind although I've always liked to save a buck, I'm still in the learning process of really stretching our dollars.

BTW, I did get some shifts for the winter-Thursday afternoon, maybe Friday day, night or afternoon and then again maybe not, and Saturday. Yeah, I could have taken the whole winter off, but a couple of shifts are better than nothing. I just couldn't say no to the work, at least I'll have a little paycheck coming. I think if my pay is that drastically limited, especially if we have a few snow days and no work, I can apply for low wages, I'm not sure how it works, but many of the other workers do that when they cut out of shifts. I'll have to find out.

Back to the money tips:
At the supermarket:

1)The damaged goods section: I've found lots of goodies there, dented cans of tomatoes, veggies, salsa, beans, soup for around 45¢. I'll stock up on those because I can always use them. Sometimes they'll have boxes of cereal for $1. You do have to check the ones in the aisle, sometimes it's really not a big discount.

2)The cold cut ends section: You can get a nice package of sliced turkey or ham for $1 something. Sometimes pieces of cooked chicken, legs, breasts, etc. A lot of the time it's not all sliced, there are thick ends in there which I chop up and throw into salads for lunches. They also sell cheese ends, which you can cut up and put on crackers. I'm thinking of getting a package of ham and making pea soup with it this week.

3)Manager's Specials: things like potato salad, pasta salad and meat go on a manager's special (right before the expiry date) go for cheap. I check out those, too. We've been cutting out a lot of meat, and it's hard enough to find one with a few days left on it so I'll be skipping that this week. You buy a package of hamburger and tomorrow is the last day. Sheesh, I can't let it sit in the fridge while I think about what to do with it for a few days? We have eaten meat, chicken and milk past the date and lived. I smell and visually inspect everything questionable.

Don't forget the day old bakery section!

At home:

4)Eat everything in the house We didn't do our weekly food shopping last week, the $$ went toward the bills and we ate whatever is around here. I feel like I've lost a few pounds :) Good God, I've been starving all week! Ok, not really, but I'm PMSing so that was probably the culprit. Unfortunately I could live off my own fat for a few months, so no starvation worries here.

Here's how it went down:

Monday:broiled chicken (from last week) pasta, can of green beans, a can of beets

Tuesday: I made baked beans from scratch which we had with some rice and beans my MIL gave us

Wednesday: veggie burgers from our freezer with baked beans

Thursday:I made some tortellini, pasta, frozen veggies and pasta sauce, plus a small piece of fish each from our freezer.

Friday night I had to work so I made up 3 cans of tuna for Hubby and me. He snuck a slice of pizza and I got the buffalo chicken fingers @ work for $4. Ok, we messed that one up.

Saturday night I did a double, he ate at his mother's, had some tuna and I ate at work. I didn't have anything to make a lunch with.

Tonight I opened 2 cans of chili and plumped it up with a can of corn and some leftover baked beans, the leftovers are Hubby's lunch for tomorrow. It was good, a little sweet but good and filling.

We got through the week without food shopping, by hook or by crook. Ok, SIL got her monthly jackpot of food stamps, hubby took her shopping (he usually takes her, she doesn't drive) and she paid him with a loaf of bread, 2 peppers, a carton of juice, bananas and tomatoes. You know gas isn't cheap, she lives arond 5 miles from here and is always borrowing money so I don't feel bad about getting a few things from her. I actually got on the phone ad thanked her because we really needed the bread. BTW, she gets $500 something in food stamps for the month, but that's a whole 'nother post.

5)Planning the Menu: I have the most trouble with this, and often Hubby wants something else that I planned. I shouldn't complain, he's been good this week (except friday) and eaten what I put in front of him.

This week I'm planning on some ramen noodles with frozen veggies and fake eggs-I am NOT putting in the spice packet, we can't have the salt. More beans, brown rice, pea soup, a chicken soup, veggie burgers, tuna, shit, I don't know. It's all written down already somewhere. Hubby likes having different things and this stuff is different. And on the cheap. I'm trying to keep it all under $50.

Also, I've noticed we tend to buy more than we need, so I'm trying to change that by not buying as much and eating it all before it goes bad.

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I'm also planning on pulling my bread machine out of the cellar. I used to make a lot of bread with it, it's easy peasy! This time around I want to go for a whole wheat type of flour instead of the white crap.

Enough for now, I'm off until Thursday! I do have 2 doctor appointments this week so I can't whoop it up until tomorrow night, I have to paint up some ornaments and make some soap, weeeeeee! I'm measuring out the soap stuff tonight, makes it easy to have everything ready.

Photo from Pleasant Family Shopping blog.

Last big weekend coming up

This is it, this will be it for the year. Saturday is the Breeder's thingy and then no more big days til May. I hate big days because you have to be there earlier and you get stuck staying later. It's more pay, but I'd rather have a regular day. But right now the extra pay is looking better and better, I may even stay and do a double because I think it may be my last day for a while.

We're starting a new schedual on Monday, and usually the boss takes everybody aside and works out their shifts with them well before this. It's now Thursday and I haven't met up with the boss yet, from what the others are getting for shifts I don't know if there will be anything left for me. They've cut back that much. We're working with like a handful of people right now, for the winter I know it's going to be less.

So it's looking I'll be off until May unless some other people with more senority take some time off. And I'll have to get on unemployment. When my mother was alive and I was taking care of her, I had no problem getting laid off for the winter, I had my hands full with her at the time. Since she passed I haven't stopped working, no lay off last winter, I just kept right on even though I'd only get 4 or so shifts. Now that there might not be any shifts for me it's sort of frightening and exciting at the same time. Exciting as in all my time is my own and I can get some work done around here, but frightening because I worry about money. This time around we have one less income coming in (my mother's check) and I get laid off. Can we run the house with just Hubby's paycheck? I don't know what unemployment pays anymore but I know it's not as much as I'd make working. We'll just tighten up the belt buckle some more around here. I shouldn't worry just yet, I really don't know if I'm getting laid off or not yet. I just have a funny feeling.........

Anyhoo, I'll be back after the weekend. Big weekends make me a little nervous which means I have to get everything ready before hand, clothes, lunches, make sure there's food in the house for Hubby, wash my hair, roll enough cigarettes, laundry, ugh. Got to work tomorrow night, possibly a double Saturday, have to get my blood drawn for a cholesterol test Sunday and Monday I have an appointment with this doctor I know. Yup, I tucked my tail between my legs and walked into his office today trying to get a walk-in appointment. It was too late in the day so they set me up for Monday. We'll see how this goes.

Halloween 2009

Although we stayed at home, we had a great time. It was around 70 degrees, nice enough to sit out and hand out the candy. Normally Hubby hides in the bedroom (he's usually tired from working, but he had this day off) and I'm running back and forth to the door, trying to hold back the dogs, all while trying to make dinner. It was a lot of fun sitting outside with Hubby, playing the radio, people watching, talking to the kids. It was so nice out I told Hubby he should have brought the bbq grill and I could have cooked some chicken while we handed out the candy! By the time I thought of it it was too late to fire it up.


The white skulls I bought at Dollar Tree. I cut the eyes out and stuck a battery operated votive flicker candle inside and they looked great! My photos don't do them justice, they looked so good when it got dark but I took these with the cellphone, I'm lucky they came out the way they did. The single white candles are ones from last Christmas, these also use a battery and flicker a lot. I thought they looked kind of spooky. We had a little wind so I used glue dots to mount everything down.

The devil and queen skulls I painted a couple of years ago. You can tell I like pink. Oops, I just remembered I painted a gold one which is sitting on our mantle, I should have brought him out, too. As you can see in the bowl I pass out little toys along with candy. A couple of pieces of candy with a toy. 99.9% of the kids like them, except for one little girl last night. She pulled a skull out of her bag I just threw in there (with candy, I didn't give her the skull only), held it in her hand, looked at it, asked her father what it was. I jumped in and said it was a a Halloween toy, then she asked if it was made of sugar. Good God, what is this kid going to do, eat it? She was old enough to know better. I told her I gave her candy, too and they finally left. Little brat.

I wore my tiara and a leopard shawl as usual, Hubby wore my pink glittery hat, he looks more like New Years Eve than Halloween. I was not about to go searching for this afro wig we have from a few years ago. It's either in the hall closet or I threw it out.


We had a lot of kids and people come around. Our former neighbors were the first to come. They come every year and every year I forget who they are, this year I figured out who they were fast, I was sort of expecting them. They're Puerto Rician, Hubby is also so we always got along. Actually, we had a lot of Spanish speaking people come around, they must know hubby is so they figure this is the place! My Spanish is not so hot and I'm lazy sometimes. MIL should have stayed with us-she chose to stay at home, and she could have met our former neighbors and spoke Spanish to everyone, she would have loved it. Next year, God willing. She spent the day at SIL's house for a loud and noisy kid's party and was too tired to go back out again.

Around 8:30 we ran out of candy and closed up shop. Not a single scrap left, well....except for a couple of Kit-Kats and Snickers we stashed away. And NO, we did not go to Walgreens today to buy up all the 50% off Halloween chocolates. No money and we don't need to have all that chocolate around. We did our walk today and I brought my good camera, more photos coming this week.

Want it Wednesday!

The truck should be arriving at some point today, it says "in transit, on time"UPS! I'm so itchy to soap, how long has it been, I made 1 batch on 10/21 (plus a batch of M&P that didn't go as planned) and had my usual soap fest of 3 batches back on 10/14, so 2 weeks since I had a good soapin'. Whoo-hoo!

Shopping, I have been shopping. I bought a letter holder because all the bills and mail (mostly bills) end up all over the house:in a couple of areas in the kitchen, the living room, bedroom and my desk. Now they can be all in one place, not driving me crazy.

I also bought another nose stud. I've been having problems again, I can't get anything in except for the fishtail posts and even those are not sitting in there right. The ones with the little ball at the end, I can get them through except for the exit hole, they don't stick out on the inside of my nose. Nothing is going through the exit hole correctly, it feels weird there and I think I've developed some scar tissue, that's the only thing I can think of. Hopefully if I leave in a straight post that will fix things. I think these are adorable, but right now I can't wear them so I'm waiting. Shit, I can't post any ebay photos, they come out too big.

I'm looking for a crock pot. I ruined one by making soap in it, so it's a "soap only" crock pot. I bought another at Savers' but the insert doesn't come out making it nearly impossible to load up & stick in the fridge prior to cooking, and a bitch to clean. Will sell that one once I get a new one, right now I've got a few leads. I may as well buy a whole new one because I don't get to Saver's much and on ebay it costs just as much to buy the insert only as it does a whole set up. I will buy a used, no problem, as long as I can take the pot out.

Monday I was in an actual store and bought a few things, too. I finally found organix coconut conditioner. Walgreens doesn't carry it, they have the shampoo but I've never seen the conditioner there. Christmas Tree Shops has almost everything from the organix line. The Lavender Soy Milk, Vanilla Silk and Mocha Espresso were all very tempting. I just bought the coconut Instant Hair Treatment, this stuff is pricey @$7 a pop. It smells heavenly and it's supposedly good stuff, no sulfates. I need a magnifying glass to read the ingredients. I needed a deep conditioner, running low on some L'oreal crap I had been using. How can I justify spend $7 on a hair product? Well, I don't wash my hair everyday, more like once a week so a bottle of anything lasts forever.

I'm just sticking to buying only what I need not buying up anything that catches my eye. While we were at the Christmas Tree Shop Hubby talked me into putting back some very large, sparkly green, white and red polka dotted and striped Christmas bulbs, and that was good. I didn't need those, we have ornaments and decorations up the ying-Yang here. He said I can paint up a bunch myself, and I think I will. I haven't decided how I'm going to decorate the tree yet, but sparkly and stripes and polka dots seem like a good idea.

Ok, I'm outta here. Got to get some rest, I've got supper planned, errands to run and am going to splurge on a starbucks mocha frappachino and beer tonight. I haven't had my weekly starbucks fix this week yet.

It's on the freaking truck

Everything is on a UPS and a USPS truck somewhere............

Last week I needed oils for soap, ordered them up and got the tracking. Right now it's on the truck, it's suppose to be delivered tomorrow. Last time it came a day early, and since it's on the truck now and has been since 4:40am this morning, I figured it would come today. Nope.

I took today off because I slept horrible last night and figured we'd walk today and I'd be making soap tonight, you know, get a head start. It rained and I slept all day.

Saturday night I ordered tobacco, I'm running low. Normally when I order from Custom Blends it's here in 2 days, they ship priority. I also pay for priority=I think that's the only shipping option. I didn't get a shipping confirmation email so I checked back on my order. It says pending. What in the world is holding this up? Oops, I just figured it out, I ordered 3 bags of #3 which come with 3 boxes of tubes and I picked Zen light tubes and that's where the problem is, the tubes are sold out. My last order (September) they screwed that up, too, they sent me premier tubes instead of the Zen ones. I still want to return those. Ugh, now I'm going to be stuck smoking shitty tobacco (well, not shitty, but not something I care to puff on daily) and may have to wrap them in equally shitty tubes, too. Since I started making my own cigarettes I've become a VERY picky smoker, and there's no way I'm running to the store to spend upwards of $7 for a pack of factory made additives and junk. I do have some of their #1 baccy, may have to smoke that. Eh, I'm not too crazy about it.

I'm rarely bored but I think I am right now. I don't know what to do with myself, do some more housework or kick back with a couple of beers? I can't sit there and drink and do nothing, I have to be doing something and my mind can't handle anymore housework today. I don't even feel like drinking. Soap is out of the question, no coconut oil and I'm not in the mood to dream up a new recipe without coconut oil. I'm not sure if that would work, no coconut soap. And I'm not making castile, no olive oil. I could make some wax tarts and maybe lip balm, but the night isn't complete unless I make soap.

I could dye my hair-I broke down and bought some dye, no more henna for me. I have not hennaed my hair since June or maybe earlier, and I'm hoping it's safe to day it now. Have to do a patch test. I don't want to wind up bald.

OMG, I just don't know what to do with myself tonight. I should just go to bed and sleep for the night, get up early tomorrow and try this again.

0_0 !

Sex. It's really nice. Especially after not doing it for a while, you kind of forget how good it is.

And now I have to pick up our bedroom because the sheets are all the way off the bed, the radio and clock landed on the floor, the phone was knocked off the hook, all the pillows and blankets are strewn all over the floor. We made a mess. I'm also happy that I did not cut my hand on the bed rails (there's a sharp piece that I was unaware of before) and that my nose stud was not completely ripped out, it got caught in the stitching of the mattress but I managed to get loose without damaging anything. It had just healed up from an infection or something, didn't want to mess it up again.

Hubby is fine, a little tired, but fine. Thanks, dear!

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No long post tonight-it's soap night. Unfortunately I only have enough for one batch, so it's gonna be just one batch and then perhaps some candles and some melt and pour soaps. I've got some new colors and 18 pounds of soap base, that'll keep me busy until the new oils come in and when I'm laid off. I'm hearing things at work and working during the winter months does not seem promising or possible. Don't know for sure yet.

Other than that, we've been busy cleaning up and out the house. I cleaned out the silverware drawer-we had a couple of sets of utensils (some I hated) plus extra spoons, flippers, and whatever else, I packed up what we don't need and will give it to MIL or the charity drop off box, along with other stuff. We have a pantry shelf with doors in the kitchen, it's a stand alone thing I bought a couple of years ago. I have my soap stuff and paints in there, plus other junk, I cleaned that out also, but the bottom shelf I still need to work on. I cleaned out the drawers and 1/2 of the shelves in the bathroom. Not done yet. OMG, I do all this cleaning and I'm still not getting anywhere.

Back later sometime. Ugh, have to work Thursday, Friday night, the dreaded double Saturday and Sunday day. There was no work Monday and I wound up taking today off so I have to work ALL weekend otherwise I won't get much of a check. Will be back after working........................