Making Cents Of It All

I have added lots to my pantry the last few weeks.  I got over 100 pounds of potatoes from the farm.  I went to Aldi. YD is trying to eat gluten free to see if it helps her stomach and it has been.  Lots of gluten free and dairy free items from Whole Foods. This was not a cheap trip but that is what happens when you have several people in the family with food issues. Meat Farms had gluten free pasta on sale and the huge cans of tomatoes. BJ's was also shopped at multiple times.  Reddi Wip started making almond milk whipped cream. Hubby loves it. I ran to Stop & Shop for a few freebies and I had a few coupons that were going to expire several times. I can be a sucker for coupons.  I kept getting catalinas for $2 off 6 boxes.  Then someone handed me a  $5 off purchase so I got taco shells and pasta for pennies. I saw a friend and gave her the last catalina for the pasta. She was happy...

I love my crock pot. It really makes my life easier. I can throw everything in it in the morning before work. When I get home, dinner is ready.  Also I have very little to clean up after a long day. I made a ham last week that I had gotten after Easter very cheap. I am trying to make room in my freezer for all of those turkeys that are hopefully going to be on sale soon. I always keep the bone from the ham and make ham and lentil soup. My kids love it. I hope you enjoy it. Ham bone with meat 1 cup dried lentils 1 cup chopped celery 1 cup chopped carrots 1 cup chopped onion 2 cloves of garlic minced 1/2 teaspoon basil 1/2 teaspoon oregano 1/4 teaspoon thyme 1/4 teaspoon black pepper 32 oz. chicken broth 1 can tomato paste 2 cups of water Cook on low for 8-10 hours. Pull the bones out before serving.  What do you make with a ham bone?

I cannot believe it is going to be November. We always have Thanksgiving at our house. My whole family comes. OD's boyfriend is coming this year too. There will be a lot of cooking but lots of fun too. I am hoping to get lots of turkeys very cheap. I need to get working on homemade Christmas presents and Christmas shopping. It will be a busy month Financial - Put 15% into retirement. - Grocery Budget of $400 average for the year - List 25 new items on eBay and Craigslist.   - Work extra shifts when available.  - Go over our budget with Hubby - Go over the kids budgets with each of them.  - YD apply for scholarships - Pay my life insurance (I pay once a year) - Pay our portion of YD senior trip Garden      - Dehydrate/dry more herbs - Put leaves and cut grass on garden beds - Wrap fruit trees Family -  Go on a date with Hubby   - Celebrate Thanksgiving at our house - OD come for a visit Christmas - Make homema...

The driveway is finally finished and it looks amazing. We have been saving up for this project for a while and it was so worth the wait. We of course paid for it in full since we no longer use credit cards. It got us 5% off our bill. I was happy to put the 5% into the college fund. It was originally a long single driveway that could hold 3 cars. Now it can hold 6-7. We live on a busy road and have 4 cars so it is great that they all fit in the driveway now. We have to wait a week to park on it.  Speaking of cars, the car YD drives has been having constant problems. It was turning into a money pit. It was a 1999 Maxima that we bought from friends 3 years ago. It has been a good car but it is much more work then Hubby has time for right now. We sold it 2 days after putting a for sale sign on it. We did disclose everything that is wrong with it. They guy that bought it said he can work on it. We are currently looking for another car. We were shuffling cars between all of us ...

I drove past a pile of stuff one day. I stopped to look. There were some books so I took a few. I will see if I can sell the 2 science books. If not I will donate them. I did another free library class. This one was making flowers from book pages. It was a non registered class and it was packed. They did not plan for as many people that showed up. Everyone was originally supposed to make several flowers but there was not enough equipment and time. There was only 4 glue guns and about 15 pairs of scissors. There were about 40 people. Thankfully my friend got there early and got us seats and a pair of scissors to share. It has never been this crazy before. I did have a nice time talking with my friend and with other folks. I was able to bring supplies home to make a few more flowers so I will make them sometime soon.  YD had carved a pumpkin up with a friend. I cooked it and froze 3 containers of pumpkin puree to use in the future. The pumpkin was free to me so t...

I succumbed to peer pressure and bought a Lottery ticket. I don't remember the last time I bought one. I am really hoping that like 20 tickets win because no one needs 900+ million dollars which is what the payout comes to. I hope a large group ticket wins from a church of factory so lots of people get to share. I hope it is a very generous people. I heard that in NY the average person spends over seven hundred dollars a year on lotto. I am not your average New Yorker because I have spent $2 this year. I can do a lot with $700. Dave Ramsey has said that lotto is another scam on poor people. I totally agree with him. Everyone at work, employees and customers, have been talking about how big the jackpot is. They were all talking about buying cars, going on vacations, paying off their houses. I had several co-workers and customers tell me that they would give me money if they win. So I sure hope they win. When I was in line to get my ticket (very long line) one guy got $100 and an...

I have been making lots of apple juice so I have had lots of apple pulp leftover. I have made several dozen muffins and a cake. They really taste like fall.  1/2 cup butter softened 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/4 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/4 cup flour 1 cup shredded apples (I use the leftover pulp) 1/2 cup pecans Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix eggs, butter, sugar and vanilla. Add all the dry ingredients. When mixed well add the apples and nuts.  One batch makes 12 muffins that I cook for 30 minutes or a cake that I cook for 40 minutes. We sprinkle with confectionery sugar before serving.  Enjoy!

Our Goodwill has everything 50% off for October. I went with the kids to see what they had. I really needed a new winter coat last year since mine was falling apart. I have had it for over 10 years and mended it so many times.  I did not find one I liked for a good price.   All Goodwill coats are marked $29.99 so I got this purple (my favorite color) for $14.99.  I also got this very heavy full length coat for, you guessed it, $14.99. 2 great coats for winter for less then $30 dollars. I was so happy.  My son found 2 flannel shirts and my daughter found one. They were $3 each and will be Christmas presents. I also found a mini bread loaf pan that was $3 and an ice cream maker $3. Both items have been on my list for a while. I plugged the ice cream maker in to make sure it worked. Hubby and I went out to the farms. It has been a very busy 2 weeks, everyone else was busy so we had a nice day by ourselves. We picked up 100+ pounds o...

Sorry that I am late again. It has been go, go, go at my house. Then Hubby offered to go out East with me so we could go to farms and orchards so that is what we did today. I feel like I have barely seen him the last 2 weeks so it was great getting out just the 2 of us. Now onto the freebies.  We were getting a possible frost one night, so I picked all of the tomatoes and a bunch of peppers. I threw a sheet around the tabasco pepper plant since there are still a bunch of green ones. It made it through the night OK. I will be doing that until they are ready.  I had picked peppers earlier in the week too.  There were 2 breakfast meetings at work. I cleaned them up and happily brought home some of the leftovers. The meetings were 2 days in a row and they do not use anything from the day before. The cream cheese was perfect timing because we were out and I have been waiting for a sale.  I did make sure that other coworkers were offered le...

Sorry this is so late. I worked 6 days last week and I am probably going to work 6 days this week. That is good and bad. Bad because I still have to cook, do laundry and a 100 other things. Good because my checks will be very nice.  Since we are saving as much as we can right now for college I will work as much as I can. Several popular movies are out right now so work is letting us have more hours. Lets get onto what I did beside work and sleep. I signed up with a few friends to attend library classes. This one was a fall decoration. It was 2 hours of painting and chatting with some lovely ladies. I almost didn't go because I figured I could do something better with my time but Hubby said to go and have fun. I also picked up a few books while I was there.  We brought food, reusable water bottles, and snacks to work and school.  I charged my phone at work all week. If I am there I might as well use there electricity. Hubby and I went to see the ...