Ring in the Savings - January 2014 Frugal Chatter thread

[jasperandchar]

Ring in the Savings - January 2014 Frugal Chatter thread

This thread is for all who want to reduce their costs if possible, share $ saving tips (recipes - food/cleaners), and anything else that you would love to share with the group.

The chatter thread was started in February 2013 originally by FallenPixels and since many of us on SC loved the idea of a place to go post or ups & downs of living, etc.

Anyone & everyone is welcome to take part in this chatter thread

_____________________________

Name submissions for February chatter

Insane - Frugal February-the sequel



lilo0003 - February...May the Frugal be with you



Cochetlady - Frugal Divas



Natalka
February name -

Frugal Lovers

Loving the Savings


macw1960

Fired Up For February's Finds

LuvToUseCoupons
Frigid Frugal Divas.
Frigid Frugal February.
Frigid Frugal Savings.

[jasperandchar]

Reserved

[SassyAshley]

Happy New Year Everyone.

My goal for the New Year is to re find me after everything from last year and the first step is getting my coupons and stockpiles back in order.

I have a load of laundry going and am cleaning out my coupons. I will be positing any January Expiry I have that I will not be using for whoever can use them either later today or tomorrow.

Hope everyone has a great day.

[jasperandchar]

Happy New Year Everyone.

My goal for the New Year is to re find me after everything from last year and the first step is getting my coupons and stockpiles back in order.

I have a load of laundry going and am cleaning out my coupons. I will be positing any January Expiry I have that I will not be using for whoever can use them either later today or tomorrow.

Hope everyone has a great day.

Happy New Yea to you Ashely, what a ride 2013 was, hoping you & your mom a very wonderful 2014.

PS how are you feeling these days?

[MrsSunshine]

good morning and a VERY Happy New year to everyone.
doing the same thing here, laundry and cleaning up corners.
I really hope I can get our monthly grocery budget under $500 a month here. OMG..
as well as implementing meal planning. I know dh does not eat dinners during the week, so its going to be just the kids and I. easy and cheap meals will work. as for weekends. there is SO much in the freezer to use up.
the only thing i really purchase fresh is milk, eggs, bread. anyone know where I can invest in a cow. LOL. my son goes through at least a 4L bag every day to two days.. i think i may implement a rule for him, if he wants a drink its a $.50.. bowl of cereal is $1. maybe this will prevent him from helping himself to 2-3 LARGE bowls of cereal anytime he wants it.
once dh and I get spare a weekend and get some rhubarb/strawberry jam made.. i'll have 3/4 of my freezer back.
maybe then stock up on bread too.
anyway. have a good day all.

[jasperandchar]

Hi everyone,

Wishing each and everyone a prosperous & healthy New Year.

What a ride & journey 2013 was for most of us on the Frugal Chatter thead, with the ups & downs & unexpected expenses that arised but fortunately it was nice in my opinion to have the friends on here to bounce ideas, offer advice and kindness to put our minds to ease. AND The joyous births of the new babies like another SC member mentioned in Dec. thread.

May you achieve all the things you wish to accomplish or wish to learn in this 1st day of 2014.

___________

Yesterday I caught a ride with dh to a town where there was a NF & well I didn't get to use all the coupons I wanted because of lack of stock or items they just didn't stock I still did extremely well.

I got 8 packs of peal meal bacon (big slabs of meat not sliced) on for $3.00 a pack . I spoke with dh and said you know I should run back in and get a few more packs, he said go ahead, there were none left but they replaced with PC air chilled, grain fed chickens that were marked down from $10-12.00 for $2.00 & $3.00 so grabbed 11 and they also have the utitlity turkeys on for .75lbs which I was glad to see as I was not able to get any around Christmas time so I grabbed 4. So all in all I got a huge meat order (8 pea meal bacon, 11 whole fresh grain fed chickens, 4 turkeys) and stocked up on Lipton dry soups, sidekicks (for my lazy days) and a got free OIKOS, 1 using an FPC and the other 2 using $2.00 as they were marked down to $1.00 each x 2 = FREE.

So the freezer is well stocked coming into 2014 now I only need a good sale on ground beef.

Hope everyone has a great start to the new year, enjoy your day

[Giseledta]

morning all.
I have lots of plans and hopes for this year. I have some serious debt and it needs to be attacked. So every pennies has a use. Frugal is fun.

[Crochetlady]

Wow Nancy! That is a lot of meat for the freezer. I cooked a turkey yesterday so will make some freezer meals and turkey vegetable soup.
This year my ultimate goal is to get as much paid on that darn CC debt as I can. I`m hoping that now that I have extra income the bank will give me a line of credit which will be a much lower interest rate.

[Natalka]

Happy New Year, everyone! Love the name of the thread!

Wowsers, I'm SO jealous of the chickens above; never had peameal bacon, though... oh, now that I've googled it, it's what we call back bacon here, but the edges aren't rolled in cornmeal! Others call it Canadian bacon.

I think I've only bought back bacon once - way too pricey here.

[jasperandchar]

good morning and a VERY Happy New year to everyone.
doing the same thing here, laundry and cleaning up corners.
I really hope I can get our monthly grocery budget under $500 a month here. OMG..
as well as implementing meal planning. I know dh does not eat dinners during the week, so its going to be just the kids and I. easy and cheap meals will work. as for weekends. there is SO much in the freezer to use up.
the only thing i really purchase fresh is milk, eggs, bread. anyone know where I can invest in a cow. LOL. my son goes through at least a 4L bag every day to two days.. i think i may implement a rule for him, if he wants a drink its a $.50.. bowl of cereal is $1. maybe this will prevent him from helping himself to 2-3 LARGE bowls of cereal anytime he wants it.
once dh and I get spare a weekend and get some rhubarb/strawberry jam made.. i'll have 3/4 of my freezer back.
maybe then stock up on bread too.
anyway. have a good day all.

Mrs. S I can certainly relate, however, it's my dh who is a milk lover and thank goodness he uses coffee whitener instead of milk otherwise we would go through more than 2x 4L a week . It seems that we are always buying milk and too be honest I only use milk in my coffee as I don't like milk not even choc. milk .

I think your budget seems feasible especially if you use up what you have in the freezer and in your pantries.

Do you use certo in your jam or is it old school with the natural tannins from the berries & rhubard that you cook longer but gels itself?

I did the same thing as you, froze a bunch of tomatoes one year hoping to use them as needing and it was amazing how much space they took up, hadn`t realized until I went digging for meat and all I had was tomatoes .

Happy New Year to you and your family.

PS how is your dad doing these days?

[jasperandchar]

morning all.
I have lots of plans and hopes for this year. I have some serious debt and it needs to be attacked. So every pennies has a use. Frugal is fun.

Happy New Year Giseledta to you and you family and may all your hopes & plans work out & come true.

Frugal is as fun as you want it to be, with positive intentions, planning & hard work it certainly makes life a little easier & more manageable at times.

I need to pay off my LOC this year so that I can tackle my superannuation repayment so that is our biggest financial goal this year, so fingers & toes crossed 2014 is much better than 2013.

[Insane]

good morning and a VERY Happy New year to everyone.
doing the same thing here, laundry and cleaning up corners.
I really hope I can get our monthly grocery budget under $500 a month here. OMG..
as well as implementing meal planning. I know dh does not eat dinners during the week, so its going to be just the kids and I. easy and cheap meals will work. as for weekends. there is SO much in the freezer to use up.
the only thing i really purchase fresh is milk, eggs, bread. anyone know where I can invest in a cow. LOL. my son goes through at least a 4L bag every day to two days.. i think i may implement a rule for him, if he wants a drink its a $.50.. bowl of cereal is $1. maybe this will prevent him from helping himself to 2-3 LARGE bowls of cereal anytime he wants it.
once dh and I get spare a weekend and get some rhubarb/strawberry jam made.. i'll have 3/4 of my freezer back.
maybe then stock up on bread too.
anyway. have a good day all.

I'm hoping to get our budget back under $450 every 2 weeks! I don't think its realistic though. As for milk, I blantantly refuse to purchase more than 5 jugs (here they aren't in bags, its 4L jugs) of milk a week. Many times come friday they are out. Too bad, no milk for your cereal then. And that doesn't include the toddler's milk because he still drinks homo milk. It drives my husband crazy, but I don't think 5 jugs for 5 people (really 4 cause I don't drink milk but I do cook with it) is unreasonable. Plus, where the heck would I put more milk??

[Insane]

January is the month where I get 3 paychecks. Hoping to put like 1/2 of the extra paycheck away as a start towards our emergency fund. It bothers me a lot that we don't have one. We are one disaster (or broken car!) away from financial meltdown. I don't like living that way.

[jasperandchar]

Wow Nancy! That is a lot of meat for the freezer. I cooked a turkey yesterday so will make some freezer meals and turkey vegetable soup.
This year my ultimate goal is to get as much paid on that darn CC debt as I can. I`m hoping that now that I have extra income the bank will give me a line of credit which will be a much lower interest rate.

Yes and I was super happy as I paid 1/4 of what it should have costed. I joked with dh that maybe I should have gone back in again as perhaps they would have run out of the chickens and replaced with something else .

Please share what types of turkey meals you will be making to freeze as I really need some ideas as I will be cooking a turkey on Saturday and PLAN on making soup x 2 types (turkey rice & turkey veggie and chickpeas or mixed beans, whatever I have on stock) on Sunday this way dh won`t get tired eating the same soup over and over and I got 2 sets of 24 pieces each of the purex containers with lids....so easy to see!!!

I`ve never make turkey pot pie anyone have any suggestions or even recipe for the crust?

Also anyone have recipe for turkey cream sauce like terrazini

[Frugalbigmama]

Happy New Year! Cooking a bacon and eggs breakfast (well it's 1pm so I guess a late lunch!) Didn't crawl out of bed till after noon today! Not planning much today. Boys watching hockey game this afternoon. May take a stroll in Shoppers lol. Big thanks to my neighbour that did my driveway!!!