BEDA #4 Thrifty Thursday - dishwasher tips

Hello everyone 

With 7 people in our home, our dishwasher normally runs at least 2 full loads daily.  

My favorite and cheapest dishwasher detergent is the Great Value powder one.  It gets all the tea and coffee stains off of white mugs and leaves everything squeaky clean.  I fill the soap cup just half full too.  

My dishwasher requires a rinse agent.  Without it, the dishes are so wet after any cycle.  I’ve tried vinegar but it didn’t help at all and generic rinse agent didn’t help either.  

Name brand rinse agents are in small 8 ounce bottles and are about  $5 at my stores.  Then I found the huge 32 ounce bottle on Amazon for about $10.  I’ll keep buying it from Amazon if this price continues.  

I’ve discovered my dishwasher does an excellent job of cleaning everything on the speed cycle.  It’s about 60 minutes and the other cycles are 2 - 21/2 hours.  It’s kind of tricky to set the speed cycle though.  So to remind me and the others in our home,  I marked the buttons with the order to push them to run the dishwasher on the speed cycle.  

That part of the dishwasher only shows when the door is open.  So there aren’t any sharpie marks causing an eyesore in my kitchen.  

  

Thank you everyone who answered about the mystery gadget.  I’m pretty sure it is a no touch door opener. 

I had no idea.  

❤️ Rhonda 

BEDA #3 meals this week

Hello everyone 

I like seeing real meals other homemakers serve so I took photos of our recent meals to show y’all 

This was Sunday morning breakfast- hash brown made from left over baked potatoes, scrambled eggs and sausage gravy.

I cook lots of things from scratch but not gravy, I use this 

  

It’s not health food but it’s lots lower in calories and quicker to make than scratch gravy 

Lunch that day was make your own salad and/or sandwich 

Supper was a jointly prepared meal 

Meat grilled by son in law,

Sides of  green beans, corn, watermelon and rolls prepared by me. 

Dessert for a few days was compliments of son in law’s mother, who took them all to buy new school clothes and also a bunch of cookies 

 

And extra sodas from their meal at  Pops on Route 66

Another heat wave came through. I planned ahead and cooked some easy to reheat favorites for the 106 degree days 

  

A big batch of homemade Mexican rice, lentil taco filling, beef taco filling and assorted extras like tortillas, chips, fresh salsa, etc.  

and if anyone gets tired of Mexican, they can have a hot dog.  

These are our very favorite hot dogs. 

Ballpark white smoked Turkey. 

They are no longer sold in Oklahoma 🤷🏻‍♀️ So my husband stocks up on them when he visits his parents on the Arkansas-Texas border.  

And a question for you all 

Anyone know what this gadget is?  

❤️Rhonda