End of The Month Top's Shopping

I am still not feeling my best but I needed to go shopping this morning and I know better than to let DH loose in a supermarket. So I made a quick trip to Top's. This is what I purchased: 


4 - 2 ltr. Top's Diet Cola - $ .89 each = $ 3.56

2 Al Fresco Chicken Sausage -  $ 3.50 each - Used $ 2./1 IP Cpns = $ 1.50 each

1 Value Pack Asst. Peppers - $ 2.44

.97 lb. Fresh Asparagus on sale at $ 1.99 lb = $ 1.93

Total OOP including bottle deposits and tax = $ 11.27

My rollover grocery budget for the month was $ 13.72 minus the $ 11.27 I spent today leaves me $ 2.45 under budget for the month. This was a very good month and I will start fresh in October with  a budget of $ 200.00.  
 

Menu Plan Monday

As part of  Organizing Junkie's Menu Plan Monday , here is my plan for the week:

Monday:  Shanghai Beef with String Beans, Peppers and Onions, Brown Rice

Tuesday:  Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage sauteed with fresh apples and onions, broccoli

Wednesday:  Broiled Whitefish, Sweet Corn

Thursday:  Veal Parmesan with Spaghetti and Tossed Salad, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - This is DH's delayed birthday dinner due to my illness. If I am up to it, it will be tonight or it will be swapped with tomorrow nights dinner.

Friday:  Ground Turkey Tacos with all the fixings, fruit

Saturday:  Leftovers from the week

Sunday:  Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Hoisin Sauce, Roasted Potatoes, Spinach  
  

A New Book Deal From America's Cheapest Family!

The authors of this book that  I received about 10 days ago, now have another great  deal for you on their website which is here:

America's Cheapest Family

If you purchase their new book through a special link on their website and follow their directions, you will get a Free One Years Subscription to their website. Hurry, because this purchase must be completed from September 26 and October 9, 2010. Follow the instructions to the letter or you may miss  out. 

Disclaimer:  I am not profiting in any way by posting this information.  

For those of you who asked......I will review this book here when I am feeling up to finishing it. 

Just Checking In!

I am still not feeling well but there is only so much time one can spend in bed. I told DH that all I wanted to eat tonight was some kind of comfort food. I really haven't had much of an appetite and I thought maybe some comfort food would taste good. We settled on this recipe:

Spanish Chicken and Rice

It is not "our diet" friendly but I have been feeling so lousy that we didn't care. It was DH making this or homemade chicken soup which I have been craving. I forgot to take the picture before we ate. But here is the leftover chicken and rice. I had no pimentos so substituted sliced black olives instead. I could have used green olives but they are too salty for me. It was absolutely delicious! 

I am also trying to catch you up on my grocery budget for the month. I made a purchase of these pictured apples last week when I took DH to the dentist. As you can see, DH has been into them already:

  This was an 8 LB. bag of Gala Apples that was $ 5.99. I had a $ 5.00 Free Produce Letter from Wegmans so I paid $ .99. I had a bad celery purchase there and let Wegmans know. They sent me this letter with the credit. Their customer service is top notch! So after deducting the $ .99 I have $ 13.72 left for the rest of the month!

The Journey Continues With Even More Belt Tightening........

Once we were done paying the boys secondary and college educations and I was again home fulltime, we tightened our belts even more. Every little detail of our budget was looked at and I saw where we could tighten up even more. If it wasn't a necessity or a want that we felt was needed for our lifestyle, we cut it.

We had saved our hard earned extra money in investment accounts and savings accounts our entire lives. We would save in a savings account until we had enough money to put into CD's. Then as they expired, we decided whether to roll the CD's into another one depending on the interest rate or invest them into stocks or mutual funds. When we looked at how much money we had accumulated, we realized how much time and interest compounded over those years. We were finally reaching our goal of being able to retire early and be very comfortable for the rest of our lives, no matter how long we lived.    

However, now that the boys were pretty much on their own or my last son's tuition and expenses were in the bank, we decided we wanted to put away even more than we had been able  to when we had the expense of children. We upped the amount we saved to sometimes 70%- 80% of our net pay. It didn't cost us a lot to live because we  owed no one. Our mortgage had been paid in full years before. We had no car loans or credit card loans. We had never lived beyond our means so we owed no  one. Our only expenses were the normal recurring monthly utilities, transportation and property and school taxes. As we watched our net worth grow, we knew that we would reach our goal of DH being able to retire before the age of 55.

A couple of years before our goal retirement date, our oldest son married and they moved to Arizona. DH and I knew that we wanted to move somewhere warm for retirement. My mom had wintered in Florida and since I had taken her down and back a few times, I had spent time down there. I did not like Florida's humidity so that state was out. When our son and DIL moved to Arizona, we went to visit them. The first time we went, I hated the brownness of Arizona. However each successive time, I grew to love it there and to love the weather. So one day, while our kids were at their jobs, we went looking at new homes that were being built. We found a model that we absolutely loved and contracted to have it built.  We didn't have to think twice about whether we could afford to pay for it and still have the expense of our home in New York. We knew we could! So for two years until we retired, we kept two residences and used the Arizona home for a vacation home during that period.  The Arizona home cost us $ 134,000. When we finally moved to AZ, we sold our home in N.Y. ourselves for $ 165,000. 

We loved AZ! We set out to make our home the retirement home of our dreams. We had no intention of ever moving again. We put in all the outside infrastructure.....landscaping all yards, sidewalks, covered patio, pool and decking, and a firepit and bench. We enjoyed every minute of our 9 years there.

During this time, as you all know, the stock market plummeted due to the bad economy and we lost some of our money as a lot of people in this country did. However, we got out when we felt it was not going to recover and ate our losses. We knew that we still had plenty of money to enjoy retirement and not have to worry. However, with prices going up over the past 9 years on almost everything, healthcare costs skyrocketing and the fact that the government is purposely keeping interest rates low, we are not as naive as to think that we don't have to be frugal with our money. When those interest rates go up, we are going to see inflation rates worse than the 1970's and 1980's. So we have to be careful with all of our money and expenditures so as to make it last.

Over three years ago, our beautiful grandaughter was born in Arizona. As you all know, we loved her very much and spent a lot of time with her. When our son told us that he had found a job in New York and that they were moving back in about 6-8 weeks, we were devastated. We said goodbye to them and stayed in Arizona. Four to five months later, our son who lived here called us and told us they were expecting a child. That is when DH and  I decided we were moving back. I missed my grandaughter immensely and the thought of not being in her life as she grew up or our new grandchild's life was depressing for us.  

So we sat down and thought it over and said can we do this without debt? The answer was a resounding YES! Guess what? All of those years of being frugal had paid off in such a big way. We weren't stuck in AZ as so many retirees would have been. We could once again follow our dream. So in September of last year, we contracted to have this house in N.Y. built at a cost of $291,000. The housing market in Arizona had collapsed and we knew that we might end up owning two houses for a while. We contracted with a realtor when we returned to Arizona. She told us it would probably take up to 9 months to sell our home. So we put it on the market immediately.  It sold the day after it hit the multiple listing service for $ 181,500. We lost money on that house because we had put more into it than it was worth. However, since we had no mortgage and owned  it lock, stock and barrel, we could make the choice to sell it at a loss.                                  

So in early December we left Arizona and moved to a temporary short term apartment. We had only planned on living there about 2 and 1/2 months. However, you know what they say about the best laid plans. Our house was delayed by the builder. Because of that, the builder shared the cost of the extra months of rent of and the extra months of storage with Atlas for all of our furniture. They took those costs off the price of our contract plus another incentive we were promised, so we paid less at closing for the house but we also had closing costs. We have also since put in improvements like central air conditioning and the  final grade for our lawn, the lawn and all of our landscaping. We hired painters and an interior designer.  We have had to purchase a lot of new furniture and items for this home,  But these were all things that we have paid cash for and not gone into debt for.

Someone said to us that we were lucky that we could move back to New York having been retired for  9 years. I just looked at them and thought....lucky that our house in Arizona sold as fast as it did....YES! But lucky that we could move back....NO!  All of those years that we saved let us make the hard choices!   We could do this move and still live out our retirement dreams. 

We have a small pension that DH earned and of course we knew that we eventually would qualify for  early Social Security if we chose to take it early. But those sources of income could go away in a minute in this economy. Many pensions are not fully funded and we all know that the government has raided the Social Security coffers for years and that there is $100 Billion Dollars in fraud a year to people who don't deserve SS. All of these promises to people are not sustainable in the future. We are watching our country go bankrupt quickly and government printing money daily which makes our dollar almost worthless.  So if you haven't saved a large pot of money for retirement, you could easily end up destitute as the years go on. DH and I do not spend money frivolously but we do like nice things. So we choose what we want to spend our money on and mostly that is long term things not disposable items that only last a short time. However, we have saved out money over the  years so that we can make those choices.  

But we will continue to be as frugal as possible and cut every cost that we can because inflation is coming and it will not be pretty! Remember, no one will take care of you but you! 

Have you noticed the theme of this series? Nothing that DH and I have done is remarkable. Anyone can do what we have done. It takes patience and time. It takes the belief that you can live a wonderful life in the early years and still save for your golden years. But you have to want those things more than anything. You can't spend your income before you earn it, always be in debt to someone, and expect that your retirement years will be rosy. 

I hope all of you have enjoyed this series! I also wish all of you as wonderful a retirement as DH and I are enjoying. We are happy, stress free and enjoying every minute of it! 

I have been fighting my first New York head and chest cold this week. That is the real reason you have not seen me post much!  I miss the Arizona weather because I never really got sick there. But the change of season, my allergies and the weather being 92 one day and 60 the next has not helped. I hope to get better each day and be back to posting normally soon. So many of you have asked me if I am still going to do the Money Saving Challenge. You can bet I will be continuing it as soon as I can. I will be tightnening my belt again!

Please feel free to leave a comment and share with us how you are doing to save money for retirement.          

Rite Aid Coupon Books

DH and I have been running around the last couple of days to Doctors and Labs. Tomorrow is a long dental appointment. So that is why  you have not seen me posting as frequently. 

Since we were busy anyhow and close to Rite Aid, we decided to get our annual flu shots. Since we are changing  our primary care doctor, we had to pay for those. $ 24.99 each was not a bad price  to pay. But they also surprised us with Coupon Booklets that have $128. worth of Rite Aid coupons. I will be happy to double them up with manufacturers coupons.

I should be back with a post on The Journey continued on Saturday. Till then.....     

Couponlove Asked Me To Write About My Blog

Amanda at Couponlove asked me  to write a guest post about my blog and my purpose for  writing it.


You can find this post here:

Guest Post for Couponlove

Dinner Tonight!

We missed seeing our cute grandson while we were away. So since I planned on cooking a roast beef dinner tonight, I invited my son, DIL and West to come for dinner after work. I am so glad we did.
West now has his upper two teeth so 4 in total. It was so good to see him even though it was for such a short time since he goes to bed early. But we will get to see him for longer later this week or on the weekend. His Mommy and I are going out to lunch and shopping on Sunday.

His Daddy fed him while we all started dinner. He is so cute eating his zucchini and oatmeal. But he wasn't too sure about his applesauce. He made strange faces. Since he doesn't get any sweetener, I think he found it a bit tart.

But we all enjoyed roast beef, sauteed mushrooms, roasted potatoes, carrots, celery and onions. Plus I made a side of fresh broccoli. Add to that a bottle of red wine and we were set!

I did slice the bananas for the freezer today. I got two very full bags. I also vacuum sealed the two boneless porkloins and the porkchops. All of the other mushrooms that we didn't need for dinner were sauteed and put in 4 little containers and frozen for other meals.

It's been a long day for me, so good night!        

Top's Deals This Morning!

Since we had just returned from Albany yesterday, I didn't get a Sunday paper. So many thanks to Amanda at CouponLove and Ann at CouponsDealsandMore for posting the Top's deals they saw. Those and looking at the ad online helped me out immensely. I have just returned with my bargains and here they are:

1 Whole Boneless Smithfield Pork Loin on sale for $ 1.99 a lb. = $ 15.06

2 pkgs. of Reduced Price Bananas - 1 pkg. was $ .60 and one was $ .80 = $ 1.40 for 5.61 lbs. of bananas or $ .25 a lb.

3 pkgs. of Reduced Price Mushrooms - $ 1.39 each = $ 4.17

2 Dozen Egglands Best Large Eggs - $ 2.00 each - Used $ .50/1 Mfrs. Cpns Dbled = $ 1.00 each

1 Olivio Margarine - $ 1.67  - Used $ 1./1 IP Cpn = $ .67

10 Friendship Cottage Cheese - $ 2.00 each - Used $ 1./1 Mfrs. Cpns = $ 1.00 each

2 OxiClean Power Paks - 10 ct. - $ 2.00 each - Used $ 2./1 IP Cpns = Free

2 OxiClean  Max Force Gel Sticks - $ 1.99 each - Used $ .75/1 IP Cpns Dbled = $ .49 each

2 Pkgs. of Jenni-O Seasoned Ground Turkey - $ 2.99 each - Used $ .55/1 Peelies Dbled = $ 1.89 each

1.96 lbs. of Green Grapes on sale at $ .99 a lb = $  1.94

Used $ 5./ $ 40. Top's Cpn

Total OOP including tax was  $ 35.96!

My rollover grocery budget was $ 70.05  minus the $ 19.38 I spent on cheese yesterday minus the $ 35.96 I spent today leaves $ 14.71 left for the rest of the month!

ANALYSIS:

The pork loin was a rock bottom price for me. So I had the butcher cut it into two roasts and 12 porkchops. I will use my foodsaver to shrinkwrap the roasts separately and separate the porkchops into packages of 2 each. This whole pork loin will end up making about 18-20 meals for DH and I or about $ .75 a meal. We don't eat a lot of pork so this should last us for the winter.   

The bananas will be sliced up, put on a jelly roll pan to freeze and then transferred into freezer bags for smoothies and pancakes. I haven't been able to get bananas at this price in a very long time.

The mushrooms I will cook up with a little butter and white wine this afternoon. Two packages will go into small meal size containers. The other will get cooked up to go with our roast beef dinner tonight. 

The eggs were a steal after coupons. DH and I will easily use these up before they expire. The margarine is healthy and a great price after coupon.

The cottage cheese was such a great deal after coupon that I bought all that I had coupons for. I eat this for lunch a lot. Plus the 4% ones freeze okay to use in cooking things like lasagna.

I  don't have to say much about free power paks and cheap gel sticks except that they store well.

DH and I love ground turkey and these were seasoned as Italian and taco. I am loving the peelies!

We love grapes for snacks and salads. Grapes will be cheap for a few weeks.

Feel free to comment or leave your link in a comment if you got great Top's deals this week!

We Just Returned from a Wonderful Visit With Our Son, DIL, and Grandaughter!

We decided to go and visit our son. DIL and grandaughter on the other side of the state for about 5 days. We left very early last Thursday morning and returned a little while ago.

My grandaughter just started private preschool 10-12 days ago and we wanted to go and visit once she got settled in. She is loving it and is so cute going in the morning with her backpack and her lunch box. It's hard for me to believe that she is old enough to go. It seems like just yesterday that I was at  the hospital when she was born.

DH and I had a blast while we were there. We had some great quality time to spend with her. We had just seen her a few weeks ago when she visited us. Since that time, I am amazed at her vocabulary. She is stringing long sentences together and using some huge words in the right context while doing it. She has turned into a "Chatty Kathy" and DH and I loved every minute of it. She has DH wrapped around her little finger. Especially when she calls DH.......her best friend!  I loved it when her mom and I came home from shopping and lunch yesterday and my grandaughter got all excited yelling out the door.............Grandma and Mommy are home and doing a dance while we were coming in. She was so excited to see us!

We spent some wonderful time together...all of us, grilling out, eating take out, and just spending time enjoying each other's company. MY DIL was nice enough to take me shopping to the neatest used book store on Saturday where I was able to pick up some books for gifts. We had many more places to go that day. However, when we were walking into the nail salon, I got a sharp shooting pain in my knee and could barely put weight on it. Since I have knee replacements, I was more than concerned. So we went to Chili's to lunch where I could sit and decided we had better go directly home after that. I was feeling a little better on Sunday so we went to lunch and to the Christmas Tree Shoppes where we spent a bundle on gifts and other things. One of my favorite purchases was the apple and pumpkin trivets pictured above. They were only $2.99 each and I am always looking for new trivets to use on my dining room table so that I don't damage the finish when I have hot dishes to put on it.  

My DIL also took me to get my ears pierced.  They were pierced over 45 years ago but one of the holes had closed up a few years back. I kept procrastinating getting them done again. So I was so happy to get them done with her by my side. I am such a chicken!  They did the holes in the same place and I never felt a thing which made me very happy! I have over 100 pair of 14K gold and sterling earrings and now I will be able to use them!   Thanks Michelle! 

After we got home yesterday, something in my knee snapped back into place and I could walk without pain again. DH thinks it was a tendon but I will be making an appointment with the orthopedist to check everything out.   

 A GREAT BIG Thanks to my DIL, son and grandaughter for your terrific hospitality! We had such a wonderful time! Also thanks so much for all the toys you gave me for my toy basket here at the house. West will love them next time he is over!

On the trip home today, we stopped at Kutter's Cheese Factory Store  to pick up our favorite cheeses so that we have a supply for the next couple of months.  I spent about $ 19.38. I will be reducing my rolling grocery budget for the month by that amount when I buy groceries next time.


Anyhow, I have unpacked and put everything away. I have paid the teenager who I hired to get my packages while we were gone.  However I need to thaw some boneless chicken so that I can make stir fry for a late dinner. Plus I have a bit of laundry to catch up.

I did a few posts ahead of our trip so that you would have them. Sorry if I was delayed in responding to your comments but my grandaughter took precedence. I know you will understand. Tomorrow, I hope to get back into  the swing of things!         

The Journey Continues..............

One of my readers asked how I dealt with toys and the boys wanting everything their friends had. When they were little they used to take the Sears Christmas catalog when it came and I would tell them  to  look at it and mark the items they wanted Santa to bring. I would pick from that list according to what DH and I wanted to spend. We were very generous at Christmas time. They also got toys for birthday gifts. But pretty much the rest of the year, they got hardly anything unless it was  a surprise from us because of an accomplishment on their part. They got an allowance but it wasn't much. They were allowed to spend that allowance on something they wanted by saving for it. When they got older, they could do the  same by saving their allowance for a want. But they also had paper routes - 2 routes each that  they did before school in the morning.  When they were teenagers and during college, they had jobs...mainly to buy their own cars and to put gas in them. DH and  I did pay their car insurance. My oldest son saved  most of his paper route money and tips to buy his first car. This taught them responsiblity and that money didn't grow on trees. So I guess the simple answer to the reader is, they didn't get everything they wanted but they lacked for nothing either because we were very generous on holidays and birthdays. They also had alot of friends in the neighborhood so between all of the toys and things they all wanted, they shared with each other.  

Now, back to how and why we did cost cutting when we bought our second home. I think I pretty much covered what we cut. But the reason we did was mainly the mortgage. We hated having that
$ 299.+ mortgage payment every month. So we decided we would pay the mortgage off as quickly as possible. So every month we paid extra on the principle. Some months it was a lot, some just a little. Less than 16 years after we took that mortgage out, our home was paid for. We saved a  fortune by not taking the original 30 years to pay for it.

Meanwhile we watched all of our other savings grow every month. DH and I always had our eye on early retirement. Both of DH's parents died in their mid sixties and DH wanted to make sure he could enjoy a retirement. His Dad died 2 weeks before his retirement date. His Mom died even younger. Both families have a huge history of heart disease that goes back 100's of years. So you can  understand why retiring so early was so important to  us and why we always  had a goal to get there.  

As my oldest reached middle school age, I realized that he was not happy at school. He was on a huge campus with thousands of kids. His study hall was last period of the day and he used to fall asleep after doing all of his homework. He  was tired because of getting up so early for the paper route. His study hall teacher used to pick on him because of this. He told us that lots of other kids in the study hall fell asleep but that he was the only one she picked on. He felt he was being treated unfairly. My husband spoke to the teacher about this and her response and I quote was  " I do it because he's so cute with his freckles!"  That was enough for DH and I to tell him he did not have to go back to that school the following year. We spoke to the principal who told us that they had  lots of problem children and he didn't have time for such a complaint.  I told him fine. I will sign my son out of school every day just before study hall. He told me that I couldn't do that. I said "Watch me!" I went every day for 2 months, signed him out and picked him up.   We got the literature for 4 private schools in the area and asked him to look it over. He was truly interested in a private college prep JROTC school run by the De Lasalle Christian Brothers. We arranged  for him to spend a day at the school to see if he  liked it. He did so we signed him up to take the entrance exam. He passed with flying colors and received an accpetance letter. Then DH and I had  to figure out how to pay for it.  It was as expensive as most state colleges in New York State. We knew that we did not want to touch  our retirement savings or other savings. So I decided to go back to working. However, since I felt my youngest needed me after school, I found  a part time job a mile away. They hired me for 4 hours a day. I did that for a couple of years until my youngest was old enough to enter the junior high in 7th grade at the same private school. Both boys are in the picture marching with their classmates at the school. Then I needed a full time job to pay for both of them. My youngest won a small scholarship as a result of the entrance exam and kept it all through the 6 years. He had to maintain a certain average to do that. I also volunteered to work at the school one evening a week in exchange for some tuition aid for both of them. Pretty much anyone could get aid if you applied for it. I found a job that I worked for 6 and 1/4 years to pay for this and to help pay for all of the college expenses. My one son went to state school. His choice! The other one went to  an expensive private  college. His choice. There was no way that we had saved enough money for their educations. The tuition was expensive enough but there are so many other expenses involved with college...books, fees, transportation, room and board, and the list goes on and on. All of my pay went for the tuitions etc. and I bought my own brand new car. I hated that job. It was another customer service type job on the telephones all day but it paid well and  I always had my eye on getting  out of there as fast as possible. A few years before my youngest graduated college I had all of the tuition in the bank and I gave my two weeks notice and left. I never took another job. But the private school and colleges were wonderful for them and they were worth every penny and every hour that I worked.

Continued soon......................

As The Journey Continues With More Belt Tightening!

I started hanging all of the wash. I would hang it outside on the umbrella clothesline in the spring, summer and  fall. In the winter, I  would hang it on clothesline that DH had put up in the basement. I would iron our clothes instead of having the dryer do it. DH wore dress shirts and suits to work. I would starch and iron his shirts and the suits would get taken to the dry cleaner with a coupon when they needed it. I would press them in between dry cleanings with a damp cloth.

 Most of our books were all borrowed from the library. The boys had lots of books given to them for birthdays and Christmas so they had their own little  library too. We made sure to always bring books back to the library on time so as to not pay any fines. 

For R & R, we would take the boys to parks and many historical sites. I would take them and their 5 friends fishing early mornings down by the river as they got a little older. I spent my time there, putting worms on their hooks and making sure no one fell in the river. DH and I rented a camp on a lake for a week at a time in the summer until they were 4 & 6. That year we had enough money purposely saved to have an inground pool put in and pay cash for it. They were both pretty good swimmers having taken swimming lessons the two years prior and then being in the water everyday. Most of their friends would go away for a week  in the summer so they could swim. The pool made more sense to us because they could swim every summer all  summer long. It got a lot of use by my sons and all of their friends. I  spent my afternoons all summer in the pool with them keeping a watchful eye on 6-7 of them. DH, myself and  the boys spent many weekends and evenings of fun in it. We would swim for about an hour on the nights that DH didn't have classes and then grill our dinner outside and eat on the patio.  

They were involved in community T-ball and soccer from a young age. They had basketball and tennis courts right in our neighborhood and a very large park with playground equipment. They built  a fort in the woods behind our home which brought out not only their creativity but kept them quite busy. They had a tire swing that they loved!

In the winter, I would take them for rides in their tobbagan and in the summer, their wagon. Their Dad would play catch with them a lot. They had trikes and bikes from a young age. As they got older they would snowtube down a big hill in the neighborhood. They were busy and never really had time to be bored.

We would take them to a great kids movie in the theaters or to the drive in where they would sleep while DH and I watched the movie. They loved special outings to the local amusement park. They saw the Harlem Globetrotters when they came to town, baseball  games, and many other events. We were very involved in our church. I helped run the club that put on movies for the kids on Saturdays there. So the boys saw many movies for free.  

DH and I and our friends would take turns doing dinner or appetizers and cocktails at each  others homes. We would all just bring our kids along and bed them down wherever we were. We still continued  to play cards alot. When we did want a night out, we would pay a babysitter and make a night of partying, dinner out, or  to a  college ice hockey game, etc. DH and I belonged to a wonderful bowling league with lots of our friends. The problem was that it was Sunday nights and it was very  difficult to get a babysitter on a school night. So every bowling night, my mom would come and sit the kids who were always in bed at that point. She wouldn't take any money but we would give her gifts or I would make her cookies or something else that  she could enjoy with her lunch at work. DH and I were in that league for 2 years.

We had a wonderful women's club in this neighborhood that put on a Halloween parade that the kids could wear their costumes in and then have cider and donuts at our large park afterwards. They arranged for Santa Claus to come in at Christmas on the local fire truck and hand out candy canes. They would have Easter Egg hunts in the park and pcinics with races and games every year.

What do all of these things that entertained my kids and us have in common? They were frugal activities and my boys weren't sitting in front of a TV or video game all the time. They had plenty of  fun and lots of exercise on the cheap. 

I started conserving our use of electricity with other things besides hanging laundry. We had electric heat and it was quite expensive. That is when I started turning down the heat a degree or two and seeing if it made a difference in our bills. Did it ever!!! So I would drop it another degree and see if we were all comfortable. We all dressed warm and were able to tolerate 70 degrees when the boys were little and 68 when they got a little older.

Finally, the power company put natural gas down our street and we paid to connect  it up to the house and put in not only a gas furnace but a gas hot water tank. We recouped our costs in about 3 years of reduced bills.  Our heating bills were cut by 40%.

We always watched how much gasoline we used. We would never just run out for one thing. We would wait until we had lots of errands to run. DH decided to go back to college nights and work on  his Masters Degree. Fortunately, college was in the same city where he worked this time, so it didn't cost that much extra in gasoline.  

This is getting long so it will continue soon...........................   

Now You Know What I Will Be Doing For a Few Days!

I preordered this book months ago from Amazon.com using my gift certificates earned from searching through SwagBucks.  I got  a discount because I preordered. When this arrived today, I was pleasantly surprised  to see the $ 3.50 rebate that I will send for. According to Steve and Annette,the publisher put this rebate sticker on all of the first print run books.  I believe that you can see the title and author in the picture.   I loved their First book called:  America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money: Your Guide to Living Better, Spending Less, and Cashing in on Your Dreams.

Since they eat pretty healthy, I am hoping that I can pick up a few tidbits from this book that will help me.  So now you know what  I will be reading the next few days!

The Journey Continues..............

When the boys were 2 & 4, we were bulging at the seams in our raised ranch. The big house that we moved into when there was just two of us, was becoming too small. So DH and I went on the house hunt again. We had a new 4 bedroom colonial built a few miles from our first home. It had 2325 sq.  ft. and besides the 4 bedrooms, it had 2 and 1/2 baths, a first floor laundry room, a living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, basement and a 2 car garage. Our final cost for the home with some upgrades we put in was $78,000.+. Mortgage interest rates were now 8 and 1/2%.  We contracted to buy that home without even having sold the home we were in. We had checked and double checked our finances and knew that even if the first house didn't sell right away, we would be okay with both places for  a while. That was because we had saved so much money over the past 8 years. We had very few people in to look by the end of November. Most people seemed to buy for the prior September to get their kids in in time for school. We had the fastest growing and best school district in the area. So we were hopeful that someone would want to move in in the winter. The realtor who was trying to sell our home came to see us the beginning of December and told us not to get frustrated but that most people did not look for a home at Christmas time. Our new home was going to be ready in February, so we were getting a bit nervous but had resigned ourselves to do what we had to. A week later, we had a signed contract for $ 44,500. on the raised ranch.

So we moved into our new home in February. This picture was taken that winter. We hired 2 Men and a Truck to move all of  our furniture for about $100. Everything else was moved by us and 12 of our friends. I remember the huge caravan of trucks and station wagons. We fed everyone that night and thanked them for all of their help. My best friend, Darla,and her oldest daughter helped me wash every dish, pot and pan and utensil for the kitchen and we got it all settled and functional the next day. Within a week,  we had unpacked every box and  were ready to get life back to normal. 

Our mortgage payment had gone up to more than double what we had been paying on the other home. It was now $ 299.+ a month. We would again be paying out school and property taxes out of pocket. Being a stay at home mom, we still just had DH's salary. It had gone up over the years but things were still going to be tight. And we did not want to touch the money we had in savings accounts, CD's,  stocks, or mutual funds for monthly payments, whether it be for retirement, college or emergencies. So that started a whole new round of frugality.

I  used every leftover and made every food purchase stretch. I read every cookbook that I could borrow from the library that had frugal recipes. This is when I learned to stretch a whole chicken to make 4 meals. Or I made a roast beef last for 4 meals. We still did not have many coupons out there to use. However, we did have something new. Generic canned goods and cleaning products were introduced. You could spot them easily in the markets. They were a while label with black print. I started trying these products because they were so much cheaper than even store brands. 97% of the ones I tried  you could not tell the difference between those and store brand which cost more. There were a few that didn't live up to my standards so we never bought them again. By doing everything that I could, I reduced our food budget by 30%. I started keeping a pricebook way back then and  I knew where I could buy everything the cheapest. I convinced DH that we needed a freezer so that I could  stockpile great meat buys and put food up when it was in season in the summer to eat in the winter. So we bought a 27 cubic ft. chest freezer for 50% off at a scratch and dent sale.The self defrost on it didn't work, so that is why it was reduced. I was delighted because I knew that self defrost cost more in electricity than defrosting it myself. I only had to defrost it once a year and  it was so easy.  

I would put up bushels of corn on the cob, green beans, peas, broccoli, etc. that would last the entire winter. I made freezer jam in June with cheap strawberries and raspberries. I would freeze a lot of our blueberry crop for pancakes and muffins. We had enough blueberries to eat all summer and then put up for the  winter from all the plants we had put in along our back fence. I would stockpile any meat bargain that I found including cheap turkeys at Thanksgiving for the rest of the year. We ate well and for cheap!

Continued soon...........................

Our Journey in the 1970's!

Well, now that my house is spotless( yes, I am OCD!), the laundry is washed, dryed, folded, hung and put away, dinner is already made, and we have voted in the primary, I can continue to write about our lifelong journey.

The 1970's were very interesting for us. DH continued with his college education nights. He spent most of his spare time doing the outside work, planting landscaping, building retaining walls, painting and wallpapering our home, and installing our central air conditioning system.  There wasn't anything that DH wasn't willing to learn  and do. When we married, he knew a lot about cars and he always maintained all of ours and kept great records to prove to the dealers  that they were maintained in case we had a warranty issue. We kept most of our cars for 7-10 years because he kept them in good shape. The only two that we didn't keep very long were the Kadett which had an issue that the dealer couldn't figure out how to fix. He would park the car in front of the apartment at night and in the morning it would be two parking spaces  up the street. Fortunately, when  this would happen, it didn't hit anything. When Buick couldn't find the problem, DH decided it was a safety issue  and we traded it for a Plymouth Duster. When I finally got my license, I drove the Duster.  Before the children were born, we bought a  TR6(Triumph) convertible( paying cash) for DH. It was the one and  only sports car he ever had and he loved it. However when our first son was born, it really wasn't very sensible. It only had two bucket seats and we couldn't fit any kind of a baby carrier in it. So DH sold it. So back to one car we went!  DH  was in a car pool so every other day I had the car. It worked well and we were not having to insure two cars.

But anything else DH did to save us money, he learned by reading books. Since he was an electrical engineer, he could put in outlets, new lighting or anything in that area that we wanted. When we decided we had the money to install central air conditioning, he learned and installed the entire system. He did everything we needed and saved us a ton of money over the years.  Today it is much easier because you can  learn how to do anything by just going online.

Six years after we were married, our first son was born. We were so ready to take care of  him. We had had 6 wonderful years of having fun and growing up together( we were very young when we married) and we were really ready for a family. He was such a delight. But along with having children come the responsiblities of raising them and the costs associated with that. 

We bought a second hand crib, basinette, and English Pram from a neighbor for about $50. We bought some necessary clothing when he was born. DH surprised me with a beautiful rocking chair for me to rock our new son.  I purchased a changing table and a baby bathtub with green stamps. I also purchased about 6 dozen cloth diapers on sale. We received many blankets, crib sheets and clothing from family, friends and neighbors when he was born. I bought some little boy outfits on  sale after he was born. He was pretty well set for the first year.  

I washed a load of diapers every morning and hung them on the clothesline outside in the sun to help bleach them. You could see me out there almost every morning at 7AM chatting with my neighbor who was hanging all of her diapers at the same time.  The only time I used disposable Pampers was when we went out for the day and when  both sons got older and they would leak through the  cloth diapers at night. Pampers were $ .99 for a box of overnights at the  discount store. I can't remember how many were in them. It was under 12.  They were expensive.

I also purchased a dozen soft white washcloths to clean his bottom. A wet washcloth did the job just as good as your wipes today.  I just threw the washcloths in with the diaper load every day. When our second son was born two years later, I still had two in diapers and did for a while. But I still hung those diapers and now 24 washcloths. I had  a very full clothesline with those for a while.

The only thing that I felt was a necessity back then was J&J Baby Powder, J& J Baby  shampoo, A&D ointment, Ivory Snow to wash their clothes and Ivory soap to wash them. 

We started putting a small amount of money aside for our son for college along with our other savings.  I was trying new ways to be frugal with not only the necessities for children but continued my frugality with food, utilities and almost anything else we needed.

When  our second son who was just as delightful as the first was born, we had to tighten our belts even further to pay for two children now and all the costs associated with them. When  I was a child I had very few toys. The one I remember the most was 1 doll that I had. Most of my clothes and toys were second hand from a cousin. There were very few clothes available second hand when my sons were born. So we had to pretty much buy everything new but we did have the advantage of passing them down from one son to the other.  But I always found sales to buy them at.

Because I had few toys as a child, I wanted my children to have lots of books and toys. I believe that the right books and toys help a child with his creativity. As you can see in the scanned picture, we did not skimp on Christmas.  So this was the one area that we never skimped on and if you have been reading this blog on a regular basis, you will see that I feel the same way about my grandchildren. I went overboard on buying for my sons and  I do for my grandaughter and grandson too.  But I have always paid cash, so I can afford that extravagance.

When the boys were little, I introduced them to the public library also and we spent a lot of time there. They would borrow books at the same time  I would. I love to read and I would usually take out whatever # they limited me to. 

Shortly before son #1 was born, we had massive inflation and prices rose rapidly. There was a shortage of gasoline all over the US due to the US putting price controls on oil and creating a scarcity by taking what they considered old oil( cheaper prices) off the market and selling the new higher priced oil. It was intended to promote exploration.  Instead it caused a scarcity and rationing. This started in the summer of 1972 and by  the end of February of 1974, 20% of the gas stations  in  the  US had no gas. It's a great example  of how government should stay out of the free marketplace.

I remember taking the car on the days that DH rode in the car pool( if it was our ration day- if the last digit of your license plate was odd, you could get gas on odd days and plates with even digits on even days. The rule  didn't apply on the 31st of the month ) and sitting in long lines to fill it up or at least get 8 gallons if that was all they were allowing. Many hours were spent with my infant in the car waiting to get gasoline. Sometimes you waited up to 1 and 1/2 hours to get gasoline and you prayed that they wouldn't run out before you got it.  Gasoline was expensive and you had a hard time getting it. To lower consumption, our government lowered the speed limit on most highways to 55. They imposed a year round daylight savings  time for 13 months.   I remember a lot of violence especially when the truck drivers decided to strike. Striking truck drivers shot non-striking drivers.  It was a terrible time.

We stayed home as much as possible so that  we would have enough gasoline for DH to get to work and to college. When my sons were 2 and 1/2 and 6 month old, we attended DH's graduation from college with his BSEE. That was a relief because we still had rationing and now we could actually go  to the store without worrying that we would have enough gas to last the week. Errands during the rationing were lumped together and  run once or twice a month.  The prices just  kept on rising. Also heating bills went way up because of the shortage of oil also. We owned a wooded double lot and DH would cut dead wood so that we always had a large woodpile in case there would be days we had no power because of the shortage. I don't remember that happening though but I do remember the escalating costs. The woodpile did come in handy often though because we had a very unreliable power company and we were out of power alot during the winter. I was constantly building fires to keep the boys warm.  

Continued Soon.................. 

I Finally Found The Rugs for the Kitchen!

I will be writing the next segment in  our journey today after I do some very necessary things that need my attention. Alas, life does get in  the way of my writing alot!

However, I wanted to let you know that my kitchen is finally finished the way we wanted it to be.  I was on the hunt for Oriental Rugs since we bought this home. I needed a very large one in front of my sink area and a small one in front of the refrigerator to match. They not only break up the large floor space that I have in the kitchen but they  provide comfort while I am working for my tired old  feet. The small one in front of the fridge does double duty by catching the ice cubes that decide all on  their own sometimes to fall out of the ice dispenser in the door. I have beautfiul hardwood floors and  I  don't want water ruining them. 

I have two beautiful authentic Oriental rugs in our home..... one in the entryway and one in the morning room( dining room).  However I was not  looking for authentic ones in the kitchen because of the drips and  spills that happen. I wanted something that could easily be steam cleaned on a regular basis. I  also needed rugs that were backed with a material weave. Anything rubberbacked would ruin my hardwood floors. 

I can't tell you how many places I looked. It was a lot.  I either hated the designs or the colors or they  would not have matching ones in the sizes that I wanted. I finally found two rugs that I thought would work for a total of $ 225.  I was excited until I got them home and the large one was the wrong size. I returned them.

One day I went to Walmart to pick up an organizing container. As I was on the hunt for that, I ended up in the rug section there. They carry The Better Homes and  Garden line of rugs. There on the shelf was both of the sizes that I needed, in the colors and Oriental pattern that I wanted. I  thought  this is too good to be true. Cautiously I unrolled them to  look at the  backing.  It was cloth. Hallelujah! The bonus was that the large rug was only $ 60. and the small one was only $ 20. I have since gone back and got another smaller matching one to put my cat's food and water dish on. The first two are pictured above. The color difference you are seeing in the picture is both lighting and my camera which I think has seen it's better days. The small one is darker like the large one.  

I am  so happy with these rugs. They are comfortable under my feet and should steam clean very well.  If anything ever happens to them or I get tired of them, they weren't that expensive that I would feel bad throwing them out.   

Tops Shop!

What a beautiful day it was to go shopping.  I needed some winter nightgowns. Living  in Arizona you have no need for such things. Rather than freeze, I went and purchased me two. While I was out I did a Top's shop. This is what I purchased:

3 - 2 ltr. Coke - $ 1.00  each  = $ 3.00

1 Can of Mary Kitchen Corned Beef Hash = $ 2.19

1 Bag of Eatsmart Naturals - $ 3.99 - Used $ 1./1 Mfrs. Cpn = $ 2.99

1  - 1/2 gal. Smart Balance FF Milk - $ 2.99 - Used $ 2./1 IP Cpn = $ .99

2  Jennie- O Turkey Breasts on sale for $ .99 a lb - one was  $ 7.39 and one was $ 7.35 = $ 14.74

2 Florida Naturals Orange Juice - $ 3.29 each- Used $ 1./1 Mfrs. Cpn = $ 5.58

4 Better Oats - $ .75/1 IP Cpns Dbled = Free

1 Pkg. of Jennie O Turkey - $ 2.99 - Used $ .55/1 Peelie Dbled  = $ 1.89

5lb. Bag of Russet Potatoes - $ 1.99

1 Bag of Nestle Morsels - $ 2.00 - Used $ .55/1  Mfrs. Cpn Dbled = $ .90

1 Healthy  Choice Entree - $ 2.00 - Used $ 1./1  Mfrs.  Cpn = $ 1.00

1 Tub of Smart Balance Margarine - $ 2.50

1 Dozen Extra Large Eggs -  $ 1.59

1 Jar Millers Homestyle Fresh Ground Horseradish - $ 2.19

1 Fresh Strawberries - $ 1.99

1 Bag Reduced Price Hass Avocados ( 6 of them) - $ 1.99

1 Bag Reduced Price Cucumbers ( 4 of them) - $ .99

Used Tops $ 5./40. Store Coupon

Total OOP including tax and bottle deposits =  $ 41.91

My grocery budget was $ 111.96 minus the $ 41.91 I spent today leaves $ 70.05 for the rest of the month!

Analysis:

DH requested the Coke, horseradish, fresh strawberries, and corned beef hash. I love the Eatsmart Naturals. I didn't need milk but it was dated way out there and was so cheap after that coupon. Yes, I bought 2 more turkey breasts. I still have lots in the freezer. However I have been reading newspaper articles about how the crop of  turkeys for Thanksgiving this year is going to be very small. In my mind that means the prices could be high. If that comes true, since I am having family for Thanskgiving dinner, I will just cook as many turkey breasts as we need instead of a large one.   

I was out of potatoes and these were a good price. The morsels are for my stash for the next batch  of trail mix. Healthy Choice I stockpile for nights I don't feel like cooking. We needed oj and since my coupon was off two and they were dated a month out, I got 2. 

I have been dieing to try these Better Oats  ever since I read about this deal  on Couponlove's Blog. 

I can always use ground turkey. The margarine and eggs were a necessity. I love avocados and we both love cucumbers. They  were too good a price to pass up!

When We Got Married - First Home

DH and I saved and saved every penny that we could. We knew that we needed at least a 15-20% downpayment to buy a home and then there would be closing costs. It was not easy because we saw friends around us buying trailers  that were much easier to buy with just  payments and very little down. Those friends also had to pay rent for the lot that they were  sitting on. We also were keenly aware of how easily those trailers depreciated and the thought of a fire really scared me. So we continued to save our money for what we really wanted.   

We wanted a brand new home with at least 3 bedrooms that would appreciate over time. So while we were saving we were constantly watching the real estate ads in the newspapers to see what new homes were being built for so that we would know how much money we would need. We also started looking at what area we wanted to live in. We liked a town that they were building like crazy in 1/2 way between Albany and Saratoga. It was close to the Northway and we could easily  get to work.

In February of 1969, we contracted to have a 3 bedroom, 1 and 1/2 bath raised ranch built. I  don't remember exactly what we paid for it( it was about $28,000.- $ 29,000.)  or what the interest rate was, although 5.75% comes to mind. I do remember that the payments were $ 141.+ a month for 30 years. We convinced the bank that we could  pay our own property and school taxes and they allowed us to do that. I  do remember that our combined property and school taxes that first full year were around $ 600.  We ended  up having enough money in savings to put a downpayment on the house, pay the closing costs, our attorney, and buy some furniture. The picture above is just before they put the brick front and siding on. For some reason, we have no digital scanned picture of  our finished home. It had the 3 bedrooms, a full bath, kitchen, dining room and living room upstairs. The basement floor had a huge family room with a wood burning fireplace and a laundry room and 1/2 bath. It had a two car garage. We still  only had one car and I did not yet have my driver's license. 

Just 5 weeks before our second wedding anniversary, we moved into our new home which felt so big to us after being in that little apartment. We had just enough money left after we moved in to buy a refrigerator, bed, and sofa bed. We used a card table for our kitchen table. We had towels for curtains on our bedroom windows for privacy until we could afford to buy curtains.  DH's parents gave us an old dresser that had been in their garage and we antiqued it.  We did the same to an old dining room table they gave us.  We had to save to buy chairs. 

We lived with just those things and over the next year we were able to buy other pieces of furniture, a window a/c for our bedroom, and curtains with cash.  I continued to go to a laundromat because we couldn't afford a washer and dryer.  In the nice weather, I would just wash the clothes at the laundromat and bring them home wet and hang them in  the yard on the umbrella clothes line that DH had put up for me.Two years after we moved in, we were finally able to buy the washer and dryer. Along with the mortage payment and taxes came all the myriad of bills when you have your own home. We now had to pay our own electric, gas  and water bills. DH decided he needed life insurance that would pay the home off for me if anything were to happen to him. 

Two months after we moved into that home,  I left my job. It was a job dealing with the  public on the telephones all day and I burned out. DH decided I needed a break so I stayed home. We didn't realize at that time that I would not go back to work for 20 years.

We started saving as much as we could of DH's salary. Two years later DH was offered a job that paid more money and would be quite challenging for him. So he left the telephone company. A few months after he took the new job, he was hit by a car while walking from the parking lot to his job. He was laid up for a while in  the hospital because he needed knee surgery and then he had complications.  He was in the hospital and out of work a total of 6 weeks.  We got 1/2 pay because he hadn't been at his new job long enough to get full  pay, so it was a good thing that we had money in the bank to pay the bills. I cut out everything but the bare minumum of food while he was out of work. I did everything possible to keep the utility bills low. Our parents were never in a position that they could ever help us so it was up to us to keep our heads above water. As soon as DH went back to work, we upped the amount we were putting in savings to get our emergency fund back up. And we continued to  put away 10% of our salary every month for retirement.  

Continued Soon.......................    

Quick Trip to CVS & Wegmans!

I needed to go to CVS and get replacement toothbrush heads for our Braun  Oral B Electric Toothbrushes. Since it isn't far from Wegmans, I made a trip there also. This is what I purchased today:

CVS 1st Order:

1 Bag  of Brach's Candy Corn - $ .99 and I earned a $ .99 ECB

Total OOP was $ 1.08 with tax.

CVS 2nd Order:

1 Pkg. of 5 CVS Electric Toothbrush Replacement Heads - $ 23.99

Used $ 3.00 in ECB Card(Recd this in the mail)

Used 20% off Coupon = $ 4.80 ( Also Recd  in the mail)

Used $ .99 ECB from first order

Total OOP was $ 16.62 which included $ 1.42 in tax.


Wegmans:

2 Folgers Coffee - $ 1.99 each = $ 3.98

2 - 28 oz. cans of Wegmans Crushed Tomatoes - $ .69 each  = $ 1.38

1 Mariani Island Fruit  - $ 2.29 - Used $ 1./1 Mfrs.  Cpn  from  this morning's inserts = $ 1.29

2 Pkgs  of Wholly Guacamole  - $ 2.50 each - Used $ 1.50 IP cpns  = $1.00 each = $ 2.00

Total OOP was  $ 8.85 including tax.

My grocery budget for the month was $ 138.51 minus the $ 26.55 that I spent today leaves $ 111.96 for the rest of the month.

Analysis:

The candy corn is a gift. The toothbrush heads were desperately needed since I dropped mine on  the tile floor in  the bathroom  yesterday and broke my toothbrush  head into two pieces. Fortunately  it was time to replace it anyhow.  I hate buying them because they are so expensive. A pack of three usually cost me $ $19. So I was happy to see that the CVS ones fit our toothbrushes and that 5 were  $24. Getting them there with all the ECB's and 20 % off card was a great deal!

The coffee was a great price so I got a couple for the stockpile. Same with the tomatoes which I use a lot of. The Mariani Fruit I am putting in my stockpile for the next batch of trail mix.  I love the guacamole as a snack with baked scoops. After coupon it was  a deal that I couldn't pass up!  

In Honor of 9/11

I fly this flag today in honor of 9/11 and all of the thousands of people including fire fighters and police officers that were lost on that sad day in 2001 at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon in Arlington, VA and where the plane crashed in Shanksville, PA.

We had just arrived to live permanently in our home in Arizona from New York, 10 days before. I remember my son who was living in AZ calling me on the phone very early in the morning(MT) and all he said was turn on the TV......a  plane has crashed into the Tower 1 at the World Trade Center.  We no sooner turned  it on when the second plane crashed into Tower 2. As we watched the events of that day unfold on live TV, we were in such shock!  It was so hard to believe that something like this could happen here.  It really took a while to sink in that it actually had.

Let us never forget and hope that our government is always vigilant so that we never ever have another 9/11.   

When We Got Married - Part III

One thing that I forgot to tell you yesterday is that I packed DH's lunch 9 out of 10 days. I wrapped his sandwich in wax paper and put it in a saved bag. You saved bags from any purchase to use for lunches. Once every two weeks, he would splurge and eat lunch in the cafeteria at work. He usually took leftover meatloaf or chicken sandwiches and a piece of fruit. On the days that we did not have leftover meat, he took tuna salad, egg salad or deviled ham sandwiches. When I went to work, I took leftovers or peanut butter and jelly which I loved. We took a drink in thermos bottles whether it be coffee, milk or lemonade.  We did not eat lunch in the cafeteria or eat out everyday because it was very expensive. We had better plans for our money.  DH sometimes would stop at McDonalds for a hamburger on the way to college. But that was not very often. Sometimes, I would pack him an extra sandwich. Most nights, when he came in anywhere from 10-10:30PM, after classes, I would feed him dinner then.

I started job hunting shortly after we were back from our honeymoon. I started working for the telephone company in September.  DH and I worked in two different buildings in two different cities for a long time. My first job paid about $4000. a year. Minimum wage back then was $ 1.25 an hour.  DH and I also had different hours, so most days I took 2 buses to get to work. I  don't remember what the bus fare was but it was cheap. Plus I could transfer to the second bus for free.  I didn't have my drivers license back then so we couldn't even share the car. So most of the gasoline we bought was to get DH to work and to college. Gasoline back then cost about $ .33 a gallon. We had purchased the Opel because it had good gasoline mileage. That was especially important because most of our driving was city driving and DH drove between cities for work and college and them home to another city.

DH and I decided from the first day that I went to work that we would save 100% of my salary after taxes to buy our dream house. We did that faithfully every paycheck. At lunchtime on payday, I would walk to the bank and deposit my check into a savings account. Back then, you didn't have the computers we have today. You couldn't look up your savings balance online. We had paper pass books where they would print your deposit and  show your new balance. We loved watching that balance grow, especially seeing the interest.  Not only did we want a new home badly but we decided that we did not want to be dependent on my paycheck when we had children. 

We lived on no more than 90% of DH's pay after taxes.  That paid our rent, food, car insurance,  telephone bill, DH's college books and tuition, our car payment, DH's student loans from his AAS Degree( which we greatly accelerated the payments to pay it off), gasoline,our dental bills, and anything else we needed. We always put the 10% into savings.  We always put into savings whatever  else was left from his paycheck every month. Some months, it was as much as 30%. Any penny we got our hands on that we didn't need to spend went into our savings account to buy a home and pay the closing costs. When I say didn't need to spend, I mean it. Our needs back then were few because we always had our eye on getting that dream home.  

We entertained in our little apartment a couple of times a month. We would have friends to dinner and then we would play canasta, penuchle, bridge,or hearts for the evening. Sometimes, we would play board games like monopoly into the wee hours of the morning.   Once every couple of months we would go to a movie that we wanted to see. A movie ticket cost $ 1.25!  In the summer we would take or go with friends to the drive-in because it was cheaper to pay for the carload than pay for each of us at the movie theater. 

DH was a golfer and we had  a public golf course only a few blocks from us. He would buy a membership for the season which was really cheap and golf whenever he wanted to. It was good exercise for him and I loved him doing it because he sat at a desk all day at work and then in a classroom at college.  I  had no interest in golf. While he was golfing, I would read or do needlework. We had a terrific city library that I used on a regular basis.

Laundry was a big issue. I had no washer and dryer or hook up for them. DH had to drive me a few blocks to the laundromat. Oh, how I hated spending a Saturday or Sunday afternoon at the laundromat. We had to save our nickels and dimes to put them in the machines to use them. If I remember correctly, I paid $ .20 to wash and $ .10 to dry. But you had to keep feeding the dimes in the  dryers because they didn't run very long.  You had to drag your detergent. Usually you had to wait for machines because there were so many people there. You would go open a machine to use  it and have to clean it because it would  be dirty. UGH! The only place I had to hang clothing in the apartment was a little drying rack that I kept on the landing where the stairs came up  to our apartment. It didn't hold  much but I figured a way to get as much as possible on it.  I would wash our underwear and socks by hand in the kitchen sink and hang them so that we could lengthen the time between laundromat trips. I so hated going! That is the major reason that when we rented a short term apartment here in Williamsville this past winter, a priority for me was a laundry room with a furnished washer and dryer in the apartment.  

To Be Continue Tomorrow - The House Hunt............

When We Got Married - Part II...............

So in between job interviews, I set out to try to learn how to cook and how to grocery  shop within our budget. We only had one car and DH took that to work and to college. We had a Central Market( which eventually became Price Chopper) a little  over one block away  from us, so I could walk to get groceries. Since I had a big hill to climb, I only bought a few days worth of food at a time.

We budgeted $ 10. - $ 15. for groceries each week. There were very few coupons in those days. So I mainly purchased loss leaders and store brand canned goods. Between eating at DH's parents and getting together with friends for meals at least once every two weeks, I could usually get away with buying for 13 meals instead of 14. I tried to use as close to $ 10. a week as I could so that I could use the other $ 5.00  to stock up on a good deal or to occasionally buy beer or a bottle of wine  because we entertained frequently. We used baking soda and vinegar for cleaning and they were cheap.  Stocking up on a good deal in those days meant if ground beef was on sale for $ .39 a lb, you bought two extra lbs. to wrap into 1/2  lb. packages and put in your little freezer in the refrigerator.  

Cereal, which meant cornflakes, could only be bought in 12 oz. packages back then  for about $ .29. So we had cereal most weekday mornings and eggs and toast on the weekends. A dozen eggs cost $ .49. You could buy a quart of milk for about $.29 or $ 1.03 for a gallon.  A loaf of bread cost about $ .25. I made bread the old fashioned way whenever I  could following directions in one of my cookbooks. My first  attempts were not so good. But soon I got pretty good at it!

Vegetables and fruits were cheap.  I always bought whatever was the cheapest that week. When  oranges were cheap in the winter, we made orange juice. The rest of the year, you had milk or water with breakfast.  You ate a small portion of meat along with lots of vegetables.  Potatoes were about $ .39 for  a 5 lb. bag.  We ate a lot of  potatoes. One thing you also have to understand is that portions back in the 1960's were small compared to how much Americans think a portion is today. 

Meatloaf was a staple because you could put stale bread in it and make it stretch for many meals. We ate lots of casseroles because it stretched the meat out. I had to learn how to cook stew. I remember  my first attempt was a disaster. For some reason, the gravy turned purple. It was so gross that we tossed it. I also remember cooking chicken pieces in the oven with DH's mothers BBQ sauce when I could afford chicken. One time we had company for dinner and I accidentally dropped the pan on the floor. Everyone was in the living room and didn't see it. So yup, I used the 10 second rule!  I also made a lot of soups because I wasted nothing.  Dessert was homemade cake or cupcakes once in a while.    

When we entertained, we made casseroles because they were cheaper. The friends would bring  dessert. When we went to their homes, we returned the favor.

Bottom line is that I had to stretch those dollars because that is all I had for food. If a neighbor, friend or family was giving away extra produce in the summer, I grabbed it. DH used to bring some home from co-workers every once in a while. It was like finding gold!

One thing that you got with your food at the market was S&H Green Stamps. I remember hating those melamine dishes so much but I really didn't want to spend the extra money for china. So I saved those stamps religiously for years until I had enough to get china at the Sperry and Hutchinson store.

I didn't waste anything in those first days and it was a good thing because a few years later in the 1970's, inflation was rampant and  prices went up  very quickly.

To Be Continued Tomorrow - The Job Hunt.......

When We Got Married.........

Since a few of you regulars have convinced me that I need to do this, here we go!

It was the summer of love in 1967!  Lyndon Baines Johnson was President and Hubert Humphrey was Vice President. Star Trek was a favorite TV show and the movie The Graduate was in the theatres.
The Camaro had just been introduced along with the microwave oven by Amana. To Sir With Love by Lulu and Ode To Billie Joe by Bobby Gentry were popular single records.

We were married in a church with about 75 people in attendance. My mother paid for everything for  the wedding and reception with the exception of those things that etiquette said the groom had to pay for. Years later I found out that she had gone into debt to pay for it. If DH and I had known that before the wedding, we most definitely would have eloped.

DH had a job with the telephone company and his annual salary was $ 5620. or about $108.08 a week. This was a good salary at that time.  I had just graduated from college a couple of weeks before our wedding so I had not looked for a job yet. DH had put a few dollars away for our honeymoon which was wonderful but frugal. We actually added most of the cash that we had received as wedding gifts( it was just under $500.) to the little bit of money that DH had to help us pay for gasoline, meals, and hotels.  We drove to Niagara Falls, NY and Canada where we stayed a couple of days, then onto Toronto and finally to Ottawa where we stayed the longest. Canada was celebrating their Centennial that year and everything was so beautiful blooming with color from all the flowers and there was so much to do and see. We stayed in reasonably priced hotels and motels along the way. We ate at what was at the time one of the finest restaurants with waiters in tuxedos and the best food. We actually sprang for a bottle of wine.  The rest of the time we ate simply and cheaply. Almost all the cities had walking tours. We did them all. We loved to walk  and it  was also the cheapest way to see everything. We took tons of pictures! The changing of the guard in Ottawa was my favorite thing to see. We loved Ottawa so much that years later we went  back for one of our anniversaries. And of course look where we have ended up living now. Just a few miles from where it all began...........Niagara Falls. I feel like our lives have come full circle. 

Anyhow, we came home to an attic apartment that we had rented for $80. a month furnished. So we only had to buy minimal furniture and a huge window fan to try to cool the place off. It was so hot in the summer in that apartment which was essentially the attic of the house.   Our wedding gifts included pots and pans, melamine dinnerware and silverware so we were set. The $ 80. a month rent included all of our utilities....water, electricity and gas for heat. The only other bills we had were DH's student loans, which we paid off within the next year or so, a car payment that we had for a new Buick Opel Rallye Kadett that we had purchased a few months before. The car was paid off within a year and 1/2. Hating having a car payment is what put us on the road to purchasing cars with cash. When the Opel was paid off, we continued to put the money we had been paying in a special car account to buy our next car. We had a telephone bill which was like $ 9. a month and DH's college books and tuition at a private college where he was going nights because he was working on getting his BS in Engineering having gotten his AAS two years before.  

Our apartment was small. It had a long narrow living room, a small kitchen and eating area, one bedroom and a bathroom. Both the bedroom and bathroom had sloping ceilings. You could not sit up  in bed or you would hit  your head on the ceiling. When you wanted to take a bath, you had to roll into the tub to avoid the ceiling. We had a small landing at the top of the stairs where you came up from outside.  It was no palace but it was in one of the nicest and safest sections of the city. Plus it fit into our plan to pay off DH's student loans and our car payment and stash cash away like crazy so that we could buy our first brand new house.

I had two priorities after we got settled in the apartment....to find a job and to learn how to cook or we were going to starve. I had never cooked and didn't have a clue how. I had been given two  cookbooks at my bridal shower which I still use to this day. One was the Childrens Hospital of Buffalo Cookbook ( talk about coming full circle) and the other was Good Housekeepings 1964 edition Cookbook. The one you see  pictured above I scrimped and  saved to buy at the price of $ 3.95 which was expensive back then.  It was 365 Ways To Cook Hamburger by Doyne Nickerson. The pages are yellow and the book jacket dog earred but it still gets  opened occasionally now. This cookbook became my favorite since ground beef was $ .47 a lb and you could sometimes get it on sale for $ .39 a lb. We ate a lot of ground beef those first few years along with a lots of beef short ribs and stew beef because it was all very inexpensive.

To Be Continued............................................

Some Questions from A Reader!

Yesterday, Nicole left this nice comment along with some questions:

I enjoy your blog and I am thankful for all the tips and money saving ideas you have.I would like to request a post on how you started out in being frugal. What books did you read then and now that helped you become so concious about frugal living? Did you make lunch for DH all the  time? And how did you maintain your surplus? I know I ask for a lot but I just want to do all I can to be in a position like yours one day.Thanks for all your help.

The only way I know how to answer these is to write a series of  posts going back to when we were first married about what we did and how we did it. Fortunately, I still have my long term memory so I think I can do a pretty good job. 

To answer one question right now, books on frugality were pretty much non-existent 43 years ago. I learned by trial and  error. There have been books in recent years that I believe are good ones to borrow from the library or even keep on the shelf for reference. Two that come to mind are the Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn and a really recent one by the Economides called America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money: Your Guide to Living Better, Spending Less, and Cashing in on Your Dreams.  Like any other books, choose what fits your situation and use them as a guide. There is no better way than to do your own research with trial and error.

So as I said, I would be more than happy to answer Nicole's questions by doing a series of posts on what we did and how we did it. However, I don't want to bore you with the nitty gritty of our lifetime unless there is some real interest. If there is enough interest, I will be glad to write about it over the next few weeks.

Leave a comment and let me know if this would be something of interest to you.       

Money Saving Challenge - September 8

UPDATE: Crystal over at Money Saving Mom just posted a $ 15.00 off $30.00 link + Free Shipping for Puritans Pride. I am so glad that I didn't order our multivitamins and Vitamin D even though we were close to be being out. I was hoping for another code. So I just ordered our Vitamin D and multivitamins using that link. I won't need to place another order for  a very long time!
  

These are the things I did today to save money:

- Made a breakfast of Cheerios and fresh blueberries, V-8 Spicy Juice and coffee.( eating at home saves cash)

- I can't tell you how many times since I moved here that I have been tempted to buy address labels. But I just kept writing our address on envelopes hoping that eventually I would get some free ones. Waiting paid off because I got about 100 free ones in the mail today. ( being patient pays off)

- Both DH and I have been really good at keeping lights off in the daytime. ( saving on electricity)

- When we moved here we went with the local provider for natural gas. DH is now researching if there is someone cheaper now that a full heating season will be upon us soon. What prompted us is that we received a $ 25. check in the mail to use if we decide to sign up with the one that sent us info.
( researching a better or cheaper way  usually pays off)

- I am cooking the turkey breast indoors in the Nesco. We need to heat up the house. It's cold today. 

- Stayed home today so I used no gasoline.( saving on gasoline)

- Took a navy shower today( saving on water and energy)

- We were getting low on fish oil. So I placed an order with Puritans Pride for B2G4F -1200mg. using a free shipping code (FREEM10). Total for 6 - 100 ct. bottles was $25.98. I went through Ebates
to get 5% cash back.

- Lunch was a tossed salad.(eating at home) 

- Walked 30 minutes on the treadmill. ( free exercise)

-  Scheduled an appointment to have our sprinkler system lines blown out the end of October. Got a great deal from the company that installed it. (saving our investment since the lines won't freeze and crack)  

- Since DH is under the weather, I cancelled and rescheduled his dentist appointment in time so that we didn't have to pay a cancellation fee ( saving cash)

- Swept the porch, sidewalk and driveway today rather than hose them down. ( saving on water usage)

- Clipped the cat's nails today and brushed her really well since she is shedding like crazy ( saving on grooming bills)

- We have a timer that DH installed on our outside porch light and outside garage door lanterns. Since they turn on and off automatically, we never worry about leaving the lights on all night and wasting energy. ( saving on energy)

- We have been limiting our computer time and turning everything off when not in use. ( saving on utility bills)

- Entertainment tonight will be a little reading and a little TV watching. (saving on entertainment costs)

That's it for today! Please feel free to leave a comment and share with all of us what you have been doing to  save money.