This sleepy head slept until 9:30 AM. I must have needed it. After checking my e-mail, I took my Navy shower using Free after Coupon body wash, shampoo and conditioner. I also shaved my legs using a free razor (I keep my razor in a cup of rubbing alcohol which keeps the blades sharper longer) and shampoo from washing my hair. The water was on full force for less than 3 minutes. After brushing and flossing my teeth(I do this faithfully twice a day because I hate pain and paying the dentist), using free moisturizer with sunscreen and putting cheap after coupon sunscreen on the rest of my body, I put on a touch of Free lipstick. I have such a dark tan this year, that lipstick is the only makeup I need to use. I let my hair air dry.
DH and I had cantaloupe for breakfast that I snagged at the produce market over the weekend for $ .25 each. Since we only ate 1/2, that came to $ .125! We also had cheap after coupon Cheerios with on sale milk and our free Archer Farms coffee. While we were eating breakfast, I put the Free after coupon Pillbury Cookies to bake in the oven( dessert for the next couple of days) and a cookie sheet of stale crackers to crisp up since it was off peak hours here. After taking care of the dishes from breakfast, I needed to run the dishwasher while it was still off peak hours. I filled each cup on the dishwasher with 1 Tbsp. of almost free dishwasher detergent. I cooled the cookies and put them in a container and the crackers were put in an airtight container to keep them from going stale again.
Next, I stripped two beds and put the sheets in the washing machine with free laundry detergent. Since they are sheets, I always use warm water instead of cold. I then hang them to dry in both bathrooms. I made up the beds with fresh linens before I started my grocery list.
After making the list and pulling my coupons, I got prepared to go out. I grabbed a Free cold bottle of water from the fridge and put the cooler in the van. I also made sure that my cloth bags were in the van so that I could get my bag credits at the stores. When you live in such a hot climate, you do this every time you venture out. The water saves me from having to buy anything liquid while I am shopping. The cooler enables me to shop at many stores without having my cold and frozen foods go bad. Eggs go in there too because you wouldn't believe what a hot car does to eggs out here! I did all my shopping at 2 stores this week(post is below) and I took the mail to the Post Office since it was on my efficient route for saving on gasoline.
When I returned from shopping, I took my picture for my previous post and then put the groceries away.
While I was out, DH had to clean the inside of the refrigerator and steam clean the tile floor in the kitchen. Someone never tightened the pickle jar after they used it and when he reached for something, it went all over the fridge and the floor in front of it. Needless to say, he was not a happy camper when I got home. But at least, he was able to use the steam cleaner in off peak hours.
For lunch the past couple of days, DH and I have been trying to use up leftovers from the refrigerator. We ate most of them yesterday but there was still a small amount of chicken in wine sauce leftover which I heated up in the microwave to save on electricity. I ate that since DH preferred to have Tostitos with Mexican 4 Cheese and sliced jalapenos.
When, off peak hours start at 1 PM, I try to do things where I don't have to exert a lot of energy since the A/C is set at 81 during those periods. So next I spent an hour or so trying to catch up on filing coupons from the past two weeks and pulling the coupons from my binder that are expiring on July 31st. I need to be organized to save the most amount of money. Disorganization, over a period of time costs a lot of money!
Next I made a batch of sun tea using free after coupon tea bags, Alterna from SWM and cheap lemon juice from the $ .99 store. It only took about 30 minutes outside today to cook in my sun tea jar. We are making a very concerted effort to cut out soda in this household.
I transferred the meat that we will be using this week into the meat drawer in the refrigerator. I made up a couple of pans of lasagna, one for tomorrow and one for the freezer and this freed up some space. I put the lasagna together using free pepperoni ( instead of ground meat or sausage) that I purchased a while ago, cheap cottage cheese, noodles, and spaghetti sauce and $ .39 a bag mozzarella cheese from the sale at Fry's!
The only mail was our Visa bill which I immediately made a check out for paying it in full.
I did my points programs and used SwagBucks to search all day to build up points for an Amazon.com gift certificate. I did two surveys.
We went for our late afternoon swim for exercise and entertainment.
For dinner, DH cooked a Prime Sirloin Steak on the grill along with two ears of corn and I put some artisan bread to warm on the warming shelf. I served that with olive oil dipping sauce. We will have cookies for dessert later this evening. I also quickly sauteed some fresh mushrooms for the steak. It was all delicious served with a glass of chilled White Zinfandel.
Everything we ate today was in my pantry, freezer or refrigerator except for the corn which we like fresh. I will be trying my best to eat what we have here in the house so that I can put most of our grocery money towards our house buying goal.
Tonight, I will be making a loaf of whole wheat bread in the breadmaker after 8 PM(when off peak hours start up again). When I add the dry ingredients, I will be doing them 3 more times and putting them in Ziplocs so that all the dry ingredients will be ready the next 3 times that I make bread. Then I will only have to add the liquid ones. I, also will be doing some reading. I am still tired so will be going to bed early!
Please feel free to leave a comment and share with us what you did today to save money!
Since my Scotch coupons arrived yesterday(Thanks Leanne!), I decided to make a run to Walgreens this morning. This is what I purchased:
