I left home at 9:00 AM and just got back about 2:15 PM. I had to go to the bank to get our cash for the month of March and deposit a check. I also paid our Visa bill that came on Saturday. That saved me a stamp since I didn't have to mail it. Of course, I always pay it in full so that we never pay interest. Then on to Best Buy where I returned the stylus for my tablet that DH bought with my rewards. He bought the wrong one. They helped me get the right one which I have verified does work. It was an even exchange.
Next was a trip to B.J.'s to pick up some discounted gift cards that I needed for a gift in March. I love that B.J.'s discounts gift cards and Forever stamps. I also picked up some candy to make Easter baskets for my grandchildren. These are gifts so the candy comes out of my gift budget not my grocery budget.
This is a great time of year to stock on eggs because of Easter egg coloring. Top's has medium eggs for a $1.00 a dozen this week. I picked up 4 dozen. DH and I have eggs and bacon almost every morning for breakfast. So by deducting the $ 4.00 for the eggs from my grocery budget, I now have $ 79.07 left to spend for the month of February.
Then I went to Fast Cash to return my deposit bottles. I had 3 bags which totaled $ 2.40. That $2.40 will go in my gift envelope to help start replacing some of the money I spent on gifts today. Remember, I am only using free money from rebates, bottle deposits, etc. for gifts this year.
Last stop was Home Depot. I have to tell you the full story on why. Early Saturday morning, our CO2 detector went off at 4 AM and woke us up. We have 4 combination fire and CO2 in the living area of the house and 4 CO2 detectors only near the furnace in the basement. When one goes off they all go off. The noise is deafening! Scares you to death when they go off. DH found the one that started the chain reaction and removed it from the ceiling. Meanwhile I turned our alarm system off that they are connected to so that the alarm company wouldn't call us or the fire dept. When DH took the one from the ceiling, the other 7 became silent. So DH was pretty sure that the one he removed was defective. He is calling First Alert to replace it because they are still under warranty. In the meantime, I went to Home Depot and purchased a plug in one just to make sure there was no CO2 in the house. The minute we got it in the house, it went off and would not shut off. DH even took it out to the garage to try to get it to shut off. It wouldn't. The only way you could shut it off was by taking the battery out. That sent up a warning to us that there might be CO2 in the house. So I called 911 and they sent the fire department. They have good accurate meters to check for CO2. They checked everywhere and there was no CO2, not even near the gas furnace or gas stove. Thank God! So today I returned the defective meter to Home Depot and got my money back. Meanwhile, my son who is a volunteer fireman is helping us buy one of those CO2 meters so that if it happens again, we can check for CO2 ourselves. This is the second time we have had to call the fire department because of defective detectors.
Now I am sitting and writing you and just relaxing. It has been a busy day and I am tired. Fortunately I put WW Turkey Sausage Gumbo in the crockpot to cook all day so dinner will be easy. I just have to add some shrimp to the gumbo last minute and make some brown rice. It has plenty of veggies in it.
Please feel free to share with us what you did to save some money today.
12 comments:
That's nuts that your detectors and the one you bought were defective! I'm glad all is well though.
Hi Jillian,
It is crazy but these First Alerts seem to be a problem. They were builder contractor installed.
Great deal on the eggs! I'll have to see if I can find any great deals.
Gas up another .05 today
Hi Frugalista Mama,
Gas is ridiculous!
Greetings!I'm so happy your alarms were defective! I was leaving my three children in bed, on my way to work, the car was warming up, when ours went off. It was not defective! We had to evacuate. My stomach goes into knots every time i think about the possibilities of that day! This was about 12 years ago.
On a calmer note, it was a spend free day. I have a load of whites washing, on cold. Although, i'm not perfect; it's a small load, not full. And, we're eating leftovers all this week, or whatever we can find in the fridge. Tonight was scrambled eggs with mushrooms that needed to be used, bacon for The MR. and sourdough. Easy peasy, just how i like it.
Love reading these peeks into your day!
Yesterday and today I made my husband's lunch for him to take to work with him instead of getting lunch out.
Yesterday I finished all but two loads of our laundry. I finished those this morning. I normally have to do about 9-11 loads of laundry per week including towels and linens. By doing them back to back I'm not as tempted to let the dryer stop, therefore I don't have to restart the dryer needlessly to fluff clothing back up. We don't pay for water or heat in our apartment (which is great considering we live in Montana!) but we do pay electricity. I'm trying to think of every way possible to save on our electric bill so we can put the savings towards paying off our credit card.
My children have been sick for the past few days with horrible headcolds. First, I'm not taking them to the doctor unless I really start to feel that they need a doctor's attention. My mother has been an RN for over 30 years so I take her advice for most of our illnesses. I've used Tylenol to help with their fevers the first day, and now we're just gargling warm salt water for sore throats. We just started yesterday and the difference is amazing.
Secondly, instead of letting the kids watch tv while being sick, which uses up a lot of electricity, I've been reading Little House on the Prarie aloud to them, listening to Pandora for free on my phone and letting them play on the iPad my husband received for free from his workplace.
I balanced our budget and realized we had a little bit extra than we needed leftover in our checking account. I transferred it over into our savings account so we wouldn't be tempted to spend it.
That's all I can think of for now!
Danielle B
Hi momsav,
Yikes! That is so scary. I am so glad that you were there when it happened.
What a great idea, a leftover week.
I love easy calm days too. Nice money saving day for you.
Hi Danielle,
So sorry to hear that your children are ill. I hope they get better soon.
Your Mom's advice is how my grandmother treatedour colds as kids.
I love the Little House books. You have had a good money saving day.
I am cutting the electric bill right along with you.
Isn't it a nice feeling to put money in savings?
Hi Precious, this is Chris. I am SO glad you didn't have a real problem with your CO2 detector. Almost 17 years ago, when we first moved into our house, our detector went off. This was when CO2 detectors were starting to be more publicized, so we had gotten one when we moved in. My dh was out of town, so I called the fire dept. and they came out. They told me if we hadn't had the detector, the kids and I wouldn't have woken up the next morning. :(
I also wanted to tell Danielle B. congratulations on the savings, and keep up the good work. :)
Hi Chris,
Thanks. So glad that you caught that CO2 problem. Yikes.
Danielle is doing great.
Thank you Chris! Thank you Precious!
It's certainly not much, but even the Bible teaches that money gathered little by little adds up. I try to keep telling myself that. :-)
I remember sitting in Cracker Barrel seven years ago with my husband and our brand new son. An older couple was sitting at a diagonal from us. They were talking about money. The wife was talking to her husband about a savings account she had started forty some years ago and how it had grown. The only thing I can specifically remember word for word that she said was, "I just squirreled away $5 and $10 at a time when everyone else was spending theirs. Now look at that account!" I wish I would have had the wisdom to really take what she said and apply it to our life earlier. But, better late than never.
Danielle B
Hi Danielle,
That older couple were very, very smart.
Post a Comment