The Sweet Life On A Budget

  Meal planning is essential to eating healthy, keeping the grocery bill down, and maintaining your sanity throughout a workweek.   In addition to meal planning, I try to prepare meals as much as possible over the weekend.   This helps to lower my stress during the week.    However, if we have a busy weekend, I try to plan simple or crockpot meals.       With swim competition season starting, I will need to plan my menu plan out a little more.     There will be a lot of freezer meals, casseroles, or refrigerator-based meals.    We will see how this goes.    Meal Preparation Plan NOTE-  1- Click on the picture and get a link to a post sharing the recipe.  2- Although all prices were correct at the time of the blog postings, the current cost of preparation of these dishes may be higher due to inflation and/or location.      Breakfast Options:  Yogurt Bagels Cereal M...

  The Frugal Five: #28 With inflation on the rise and our salaries not being able to keep up, it seems like we have taken a pay cut and must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate our daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     1- Haircut Savings Since haircuts are $30 per cut plus tip, each time my husband asks me to cut his hair, I am happy to.    This is a huge savings!   He gets his hair cut every other week, so on average we save $60 per month on just his hair cuts.   In addition, my salon is offering a special on gift cards this month.   Purchase $100 in gift cards and get $20 free.    Since my hair color/cut runs about $120 per month with tip, this is a 17% savings.    I am planning on picking up several gift cards this month.    In addition, for every X visits, I get a $50 gift card, so I am tracking this too.   Finally, I’m stre...

Meal planning is essential to eating healthy, keeping the grocery bill down, and maintaining your sanity throughout a workweek.   In addition to meal planning, I try to prepare meals as much as possible over the weekend.   This helps to lower my stress during the week.    However, if we have a busy weekend, I try to plan simple or crockpot meals.       With swim competition season starting, I will need to plan my menu plan out a little more.     There will be a lot of freezer meals, casseroles, or refrigerator- based meals.    We will see how this goes.    Meal Preparation Plan NOTE-  1- Click on the picture and get a link to a post sharing the recipe.  2- Although all prices were correct at the time of the blog postings, the current cost of preparation of these dishes may be higher due to inflation and/or location.      Breakfast Options:  Yogurt Bagels Cereal Monday...

     The Frugal Five: #27 With inflation on the rise and our salaries not being able to keep up, it seems like we have taken a pay cut and must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate our daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     1- Gas Deals   Gas prices are starting to go up and up, so it is even more important to pay attention to the fluctuations on a regular basis.  Previously I used Gasbuddy to track the prices in my local area, but on my way to work, I pass many gas stations.    Therefore, I pay attention to the prices and note who has the best deals.   This week I was able to use a reward program to get $0.05 off per gallon resulting in a $0.50 savings. Although it is not a lot, every little bit helps.  2- Taking Advantage of Grocery Sales This week Kroger had a great deal on Scott toilet paper.    There was a limit of 5 and since this pri...

  The weather has started to turn cool and it is now time to embrace the fall season.    Warm sweaters, hot chocolate, fire pits, pumpkin spice, and huge pots of soup remind me of fall.       This week I spent some time decorating for the fall season.    The warm colors are out along with pumpkins, and leaves are put out for us to enjoy.   The front porch was In addition to the pumpkins, I added a few mums to upgrade the front porch.      Finally, the scent of warm apple spices or warm pumpkin spice permeates our home and warms our souls.     It is amazing what a few candles and melts can do to create a warm and inviting space.     What are you doing to enjoy Fall?

  So far this year we were able to pick up 172 free items.   With inflation rising, the deals are minimal and hard to come.   We are grateful for everything we are able to pick up, mainly because we are only going to the store when we need a list of items.       As always, I am able to secure these items through Kroger incentives, Drug Store (Walgreens/CVS)  Rewards programs, sales, Pinch Me, Smart Source, Meijer’s Buy 10 get the 11th free sale, and Rebates Programs (IBOTTA/SavingStar).    January (13 items)  February (5 items)  March (5 items) April (29 items)  May (11 Items)  June (13 Items)  July (34 Items)  August (44 Items)  Here is my September  2022 list of Free-Bees!   September 2022 ( 18 Items)  Energizer Flashlight- Kroger Sale, IBOTTA, Shop Kick 2 tickets to Harriet Beecher Museum - Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day  8  individual at-home tests- USA...

  Meal planning is essential to eating healthy, keeping the grocery bill down, and maintaining your sanity throughout a workweek.   In addition to meal planning, I try to prepare meals as much as possible over the weekend.   This helps to lower my stress during the week.    However, if we have a busy weekend, I try to plan simple or crockpot meals.       With swim competition season starting, I will need to plan my menu plan out a little more.     There will be a lot of freezer meals, casseroles, or refrigerator-based meals.    We will see how this goes.    Meal Preparation Plan NOTE-  1- Click on the picture and get a link to a post sharing the recipe.  2- Although all prices were correct at the time of the blog postings, the current cost of preparation of these dishes may be higher due to inflation and/or location.      Breakfast Options:  Yogurt Bagels Eggs w/ ...