The month of March always brings many celebrations for our family and therefore it is one that is the most difficult for us to save money. But, we are always up for a challenge and we tried our best.
Here are some of the ways we saved money last month:
1. We discontinued our fruit and veggie delivery again for this month. I am still missing those weekly deliveries but we are trying to remain gazelle intense on paying off the mortgage so this had to go.
We have now completed our Fabulously Frugal February (FFF) and the 2nd month where we are sharing some of the ways we saved money that month, so here we go!
1. We still have no dryer. Yes, we could have used the money Mr. SF earned by selling stuff he didn’t want any more to buy one, but we decided to continue to tough it out and put that money toward our emergency fund.
Every month this year I will be sharing some of the ways we saved money that month. This will not be an exhaustive list as it would take me too long to compose but it will be some highlights! 🙂
So, without any further ado, here is a list of how we kept a few more pennies in our pockets last month:
I cut up clothing that could not be donated into various size rags to be used in place of paper towels
I mended family clothing that had small tears and holes
Continue reading “Ways We Saved Money in January”Our family has been on the road to debt freedom for a very long time. In fact, it has been so long that I can no longer remember when it all started. But looking back over the years, I thought it could be helpful to share a list of the things that helped our family save the most money. These are ways that we continue to use to save money on a daily basis and are listed in no particular order.
1 – Berkey Water Filtration System
Purchasing this system required us to save a little each month until we could afford the model that we believed would work the best for our family. Although it cost us approximately $550, it has more than paid for itself over the years.
Continue reading “The 10 Things That Saved Us The Most Money”
Throughout our years together, Mr. SF and I have lived a rather frugal life. But once we were blessed with children we had to learn how to make our money stretch even further.
We had all the regular bills, housing, utilities, food, transportation and on top of all of that lots of medical bills, so when it came to Christmas, I had to be creative. I wanted to make sure we focused on the true meaning of the season in a very budget friendly way.
Now that my kids are older, Christmas looks a bit different, but we still enjoy many of the ways that I wrote about in my book, Frugal Seeds Christmas Edition, 101 Ways to Celebrate the Holiday Season on a Budget.
You can buy it on Amazon or read it FREE with Kindle Unlimited.
This month I headed over to Meijer to see what I could find to stock up on for our family.
I would like to first mention that I have randomly chosen stores and did not seek out items on sale to purchase. Instead, I looked for foods that my family eats on a regular basis and, if it happened to be on sale, it was a bonus. I also did not use coupons on any items that I purchased. The reason I have chosen to do these monthly stock-ups this way is because I wanted to see what people could purchase without doing any planning. Life is busy, people are stressed, and having to worry about stocking up on food does not need to be another stressor. So, when I was out running errands and I (1) happened to have $20.00 in my purse and (2) I was near a grocery store and had time to run in, then I did a monthly stock-up. If you haven’t already, please check out our August and September stock up posts.
I was happy to see that Meijer was having a 10 for $10 sale, with the 11th item free on a lot of canned goods.
October’s score included the following:
2 disinfecting wipes $3.99 each – total $7.98
2 garbanzo beans $1.00 each – total $2.00
1 northern beans $1.00 each – total $1.00
6 black beans $1.00 each – total $10.00
3 peach slices $1.00 each – total $3.00
All canned goods that I purchased were part of the 10 for 10 sale, 11th one free, so I also received one of the canned goods free.
Tax was $0.56
Total for all 14 items was $19.54
Two more months left to in the $20 pantry stock-up challenge and we would love to have you join us.
Have you been able to fortify your pantry? Please take a moment to let us know what you’ve found in the comment section.
For September I decided not to wait until the end of the month to head to another store as I learned my lesson last month. You just never know what life might throw at you and since I had the money and I happened to be near an Aldi, I took the extra time to stop in and spend my $20.
As you may remember, last month’s $20 stock up challenge was at Dollar Tree.
As mentioned above, this month, I visited Aldi and here is what I bought:
1 6 pack of Ramen Noodle Soup, 13.5 oz, $1.88
1 Cafe Bustelo, 10 oz., $2.82
1 Pure Aqua Belle Vie berry sparkling water, 33.8 fl. oz., $ 0.55
2 Frontera salsa, one mild and the other medium, 16 oz., $3.47 each
5 Simply Nature sun-ripened diced tomatoes, 14.1 oz., $0.99 each
2 Happy Harvest sliced carrots, 15 oz., $0.45 each
2 3 packs of Baker’s Corner active dry yeast, .25 oz/pack, $0.89 each
Total $19.82
This is a wrap for September and I am already trying to decide where to go for October! 🙂
We would love to hear about any stock-ups you have been able to do for you and your family. Please share in the comments section.
A re-cap on what we are doing……each month we will be visiting a different store and spending approximately $20 to help restock our deep pantry. These are items that are not kept with our regular pantry foods and are used in case we run out of something and are unable to get to the store.
Continue reading “August’s $20.00 Stock-Up at Dollar Tree”
In the last blog post, we discussed the reasons you should have a pantry. I think we made a rather compelling argument for the importance of having a “deep pantry” (food that is set back in case of an emergency), so in this post we will discuss the 11 ways to go about setting up a deep pantry for your household.
Continue reading “How to set up a pantry”I started writing this blog post way before covid19 became a household word. Why did I start writing it? Because this is a subject near and dear to my heart. I truly believe that having what we call a “deep pantry” is one of the things that helped us win with money. Just like having an emergency fund set aside in case of a true need, a pantry helps provide stability and peace of mind in case of an emergency.
First, let me start out by listing the top 10 reasons we believe that having a pantry is so darn important.
Continue reading “10 Reasons You Need to Set-up a Pantry”