The Sweet Life On A Budget

  With inflation on the rise and salaries not increasing, our ability to make ends meet is decreasing. Therefore, we must be more careful with our money. The Frugal Five is a series in which we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     I am exploring ways to reduce costs during busy weeks. One strategy is to watch the pennies because they add up. Here are some of my tips and tricks.    1- Garden Set Up Continues There is compost available, so I topped my garden bed.   In addition, I planted my onion and garlic sets.  I also started previously saved seeds for my small backyard bed.  Another job done!    2- Free-Bee Alert Meijer’s Perks had Ice Cream available from their coupon selection, so I spent 1500 points for an Ice Cream coupon.    My son will be happy with this decision.           3- Staying Away from Takeout Our family tends to bec...

  With inflation on the rise and salaries not increasing, our ability to make ends meet is decreasing. Therefore, we must be more careful with our money. The Frugal Five is a series in which we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     I am exploring ways to reduce costs during busy weeks. One strategy is to watch the pennies because they add up. Here are some of my tips and tricks.    1- Gas Prices  Gas prices in my area fluctuate between stations by $0.30 per gallon.   I usually get my gas at Costco because they are usually the cheapest.     However, I can sometimes find the same price at a local station that I pass daily.     In addition,  once a month I cash in my Kroger gas points for $1.00 off per gallon.         2- Loss Leaders  Each week, the more expensive grocery stores place specific items on sale at low prices to get customers into the store...

  The Frugal Five: #83 With inflation on the rise and salaries not increasing, our ability to make ends meet keeps going down.    Therefore, we must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     This week I am exploring how to keep costs down during busy weeks.    Keeping dinner on the table instead of eating out is one of my strategies to get the job done.    Here are some of my tips and trips.    1- Treat Yourself for Free or Cheap Keeping to a budget is hard!  This becomes harder when there are children in the house.      I pick up cake, brownie, or muffin mixes when they go on sale.   Then I can use them throughout the month to treat our family.   If you are not finding mixes on sale, no worries→ Google a recipe and make something from scratch.      In a...

  The Frugal Five: #81 With inflation on the rise and salaries not increasing, our ability to make ends meet keeps going down.    Therefore, we must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     This week I am exploring how to keep costs down during busy weeks.    Keeping dinner on the table instead of eating out is one of my strategies to get the job done.    Here are some of my tips and trips.    1- Gas Discount  We are fortunate to have a Costco membership, so we receive a great discount regularly on gas.     However, before getting our Costco membership, we would use GasBuddy and watch for the lowest prices along our daily route to get the best price. Costco saved me $0.25 per gallon this week.   Before Costco, I was able to save between $0.03 and $0.05 per gallon.   2- Grilling...

  The Humble Egg Historically eggs are the cheapest type of protein.  However, due to bird flu, the price of eggs can get rather expensive and that is not when we eat a lot of them.     This has happened in the last year in my area, but now eggs have returned to a reasonable price and we can start consuming them on a regular basis again.    ** All egg recipes are linked to the pictures.  Replacing meat with eggs or stretching a meal with eggs, will decrease the overall cost of your meal.  Breakfast Sandwich Our family is always pressed to leave the house in the morning, so having a portable breakfast sandwich available to us is essential to getting a good start to the morning.   That is along with our to-go cup of coffee.   Omelet Making an egg omelet with whatever cheese and vegetables are available for fillings makes a great breakfast or lunch.   We typically will make a three-egg omelet with vegetables (mushrooms, peppe...

  This year we were able to pick up 213 free items.  High inflation and the economy is making finding freebies more challenging.   However, I have set a goal to beat last year’s number (247). My goal for 2023 is to find 252 FREE Items, which works out to 21 freebies per month.    As always, I can secure these items through Kroger incentives, Drug Store (Walgreens/CVS)  Rewards programs, sales, Pinch Me, Smart Source, Meijer’s sales/store coupons, sample requests, and Rebates Programs (IBOTTA/SavingStar).    January (33 items)  February (43 items) March (22 items)  April 2023 (15 Items) May 2023 (24 Items) June 2023 (3 Items)  July 2023 ( 27 Items)  August 2023 (11 Items) Here is my September 2023 list of Free-Bees!   September (35 Items) 2 Crest Pro-Health Toothpaste (4.3 oz)- Walgreens Sale, Coupon,  Booster, ECB Crest Pro-Health Advance Toothpaste (3.5oz)- Walgreens Sale, Coupon, Booster, ECB 3 Old S...

  The Frugal Five: #65 With inflation on the rise and salaries not increasing, our ability to make ends meet keeps going down.    Therefore, we must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     1- Free-Bee Haul  I have been super busy with work lately, so I haven’t had time to focus on picking up free-bees.   This weekend I decided to take a little time to do some research and it paid off in a large way.     This weekend I was able to score 17 items and counting.   I am feeling blessed and happy.         2- Lunches from the Refrigerator   We have yogurt and eggs in the refrigerator that need to be used up, so this week I am having egg salad and yogurt for lunch.    I will round it out with a little fruit for a healthy lunch.     3- Beverages from ...