Edited -I just don't have the time to blog right now. Maybe I'll be back later but I may not.
I hope to keep visiting you all at your blogs when possible.
If you need to contact me, just email me
stwoliver3@yahoo.com
See you all in CyberSpace. bye for now!
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| Granddaugher Elizabeth |
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| Grandson Gavin |
October is just about over and it was mostly painless - here is how I did on what I planned at the first of the month.
•The windows are open and letting in fresh cool air - I can still hear my neighbors A/Cs cycling on and off when I am out walking
October was mostly mild as far as Oklahoma weather goes. We did run the A/C a few days for very short periods. The heater never had to be fired up. I should get a utility bill in about a week and think it will be very small.
•our dishwasher is not getting the dishes clean so I will be hand washing as I don't want to buy a new DW right now. I know some studies say that dishwashers cost less and use less water than hand washing but I disagree. I even did it and watched my bill for a month and it went down about $11 that month.
I like the idea of washing by hand but most days I was just so busy with grandbabies or other house things that I did not do much handwashing. I bought a different brand of dw det and it seems to do a better job of cleaning too - Cascade with bleach, it is a powder in a big green box
•cooking and eating all meals at home unless there is a really good reason to eat out
we ate "out" a total of 5 times, we had takeout doughnuts for breakfast twice, ate at Chipotle twice and had delivery pizza from Hideaway once. All other meals were cooked and eaten at home.
•continue to shop sales and use coupons wisely
Yes!
•get started on Christmas gifts.
well, sort of but just barely! I do have some ideas in the planning stage
•Stay home! this is no sacrifice at all for me. I like to stay home. Hubby likes to do errands on weekends anyway so I will try to do my shopping and errands with him. That will save gas and wear and tear on my vehicle.
I did this one. I bought a tank of gas at the very first of October and did not buy anymore gas until Oct. 27th. My vehicle was not really empty, just starting to get low and I don't like it to be too low.
•re-read my TightWad Gazette Complete - I've got it out and leafed through a few pages last night -
No, I still have this book out but have not re-read it all the way, maybe 75 pages or so. It has lots of good ideas but many of them just don't seem to apply to me right now.
•my kitchen and household supplies are pretty well stocked. I don't want to totally deplete them because I think it is good idea if possible to keep a reasonable stockpile. But I will I use things on hand for meals and hopefully still continue to keep things bought on sale.
I did use a lot of on hand ingredients and the pantry is a little more empty but still pretty full. My goal was to spend $100 or less per week, I did go over that a little but I did some stocking up that I did not have to do.
•baking bread at home
Yep, baked all our bread except for a few loaves I bought this week at Dollar Tree for $1 a loaf, 3 of them went in the freezer.
•my stepson and his wife got 2 milk cows last week. They brought us a gallon of their fresh milk on Tuesday, fresh farm milk with a thick layer of cream on top. Very good stuff! -
we've had 5 gallons of this "real" milk and I've used it for chocolate pudding, coconut pudding, cream gravy, pancakes, home made ice cream. It is really nice. I have not yet been successful making butter from the cream even though I have tried 5 times.
•and the big "sacrifice" for me will be no or very little soda. I do love diet soda but I am only drinking one a day now and don't plan on increasing that and may even give them up all together. Iced Tea will just have to satisfy.
Really big FAIL on this one, diet dr. pepper has been my almost constant companion. Maybe I will do better next month.
We've been talking about re-doing our floors for quite some time and we're undecided about buying new carpet and trying to get hardwood or a Pergo type floor. All those options would of been at least $2500, probably quite a bit more.
Well, if you have been reading my other posts, you know we are laying ceramic tile all by ourselves! It has been some trial and error, there is still the (big) living room and the a hall way to do. But we finished the dining room and other hall way today.
I think laying tile could be done by most anyone but it is messy, takes lots of figuring and some patience.
Our DIY option of laying the tile should cost less than $1000. We are having to work for it but the significant savings is worth it.
November is a new month but I expect to continue on and hopefully complete some of the undone tasks from October. How about you?
