Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

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alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

2dogs+someCats wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:34 pm Janet, I am finding your frugal posts so inspiring, thank you! I have been doing well and have had mostly no-spend days. The spend days have been mostly necessary spending only so good for me. I find that making myself record every penny spent prevents me from spending on things I don't absolutely have to.

I am going to try to stay out of the thrift store all this long weekend - but I don't promise. I have an allowable clothing budget and allowable "for the house" budget for the year and it doesn't hurt to go see what is there that might work.

Anyhoo...hope you are well and the snow doesn't get the better of you!

Your Friend, Sheila
Sheila thank you. You have always been an inspiration to me with your working and going to school even while living out in the trailer in the woods. You had so many critters to take care of out there and you had to work hard to keep them healthy and safe and you did it despite the hardship it caused you. Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
Momof2Still
Posts: 173
Joined: Mon May 14, 2018 10:05 pm

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by Momof2Still »

Today I ran errands including going to the Post Office to mail RM a package, and went grocery shopping. I am just slightly over budget for groceries this month, but not by much. I came home and ordered some tea from Amazon for RM and had it shipped to him.

I picked up a couple of things to go with items I want to use within the next couple of weeks. I do not think I followed my meal plan for the week a single day. I did use components that needed using, so replaced those so that I can make those dishes this week. I thawed a pkg. of boneless/skinless chicken breasts and a pkg. of tofu a couple of days ago and did not use it. I did go ahead and pre-cook both this evening so they would not go bad. I will use them to make the dishes I had on the meal plan from last week. I also cooked the partial pkg. of mushrooms but froze those for future meals.

Other than that I did not do a single thing- well, I did wash dishes and make my bed. I have also taken care of the animals and scrapped litter boxes and took the trash out. I also went out for a walk. I guess I did do a few thing after all.

Tomorrow I will go to church. I teach Sunday school in the morning during first service and then stay for second service. On the way home, I plan on stopping by The Dollar Tree to pick up a couple of things for my classroom. That will come from that budget category.

Tomorrow night for dinner I plan on making Chicken Chow Mein with Crispy Noodles and for the side a Citrus and Red Onion Salad. One of the things I bought was red onions to make the salad so that I can use up some of the oranges a friend gave me. I love orange juice, but am not a big orange eater. I do like this salad though.

I did stop and order a Baked Potato at Wendy’s on the way home from grocery shopping. I also got my free frosty. Well off to see what I can do before I get ready for bed.
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Momof2 My cousin said when she went to visit relatives in California they had an orange and red onion salad almost every day. She did not get a recipe. How do you make yours? I have heard you should eat more raw onions for health reasons so I have been adding some to my salads here at home. Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

Yesterday I was rooting around in my fridge trying to come up with something to eat for dinner. I found the bowl of leftover Yellow Dal. It was half of a packet so $1.00. I was out of cooked rice but remembered I had half of a baked potato left from a restaurant meal so used half of that half and cubed it and added half cup of chickpeas left from when I made a salad a few days ago. It was really good, filling, and low cost. The Dal came to about .50 cents, the chickpeas maybe .25 cents and the potato who knows. I ate a sliced fresh avocado on the side to cool down the spiciness of the Dal. The avocado was .39 cent from Save-a-Lot.I forgot to mention the restaurant lunch the other day. I was so tired from running around and then doing laundry trying to get things done since I had not been able to get out of my driveway for days due to the snow. While out running errands the other day my aide suggested we stop for lunch.. It was 10:30 AM and I had not eaten so I thought why not I rarely do anything like that. So we went to the Village Inn and we both had fried chicken livers. They serve you such huge portions of everything we each brought home enough for another meal. We received a senior discount so it came to around $8.50 each with tip. So around 4.25 each meal. I still have 1/4 of a baked potato to use today with the rest of the Dal and another 1/2 to 1/3 cup of chickpeas for my lunch today. The portion of broccoli was huge and I have frozen it to make something later on.

Breakfast was keto sausage gravy served over gluten free toast with coffee and half and half. Coffee was free from a grocery store purchase last year. Once the half and half is gone I am going back to using whole milk .57 cent half gallon. Cannot see spending that kind of money on my morning coffee when I have other things I need and want. Lunch is the Dal as stated previously. Dinner will be the last of some ground chuck, bought on deep discount, maybe $1.50 and the last of some sour cream maybe .50 cents. Might have to throw in some cream cheese to stretch it. Cream cheese is .79 cents a block from Ruler. I will also saute an onion with the meat. Then a container of mushrooms from the freezer also bought on sale a while back. I have a lot of cabbage to use up and the keto cook books recommend using thinly sliced cabbage as your noodles. I have sugar free Jello gel cups for dessert, .25 cents each. I do have sugar free jello for .39 cents to make from scratch but I like to keeps some of the gel cups for when I am not up to cooking. Also bought bananas .18 cents a pound and Gala apples $2.99 for 3 lbs. for snacks.
I usually buy my produce at Ruler since they are so much cheaper on a lot of things. However I felt like 1.49 for lettuce was too much so looked at the prices at Save-a-Lot and their iceberg lettuce was $1.15 a head and it was much larger than what I get at Ruler. I am lucky that all of my grocery stores are on the same road and I can zig zag my way down the road cherry picking things for the cheapest prices. When we shopped at Ruler I was glad that I had bought the other head of lettuce at Save-a-Lot. Ruler sells a large bag of radishes that are huge for .99 cents. You cannot beat the price or the value so I try to be aware and not brand loyal.

I had an epiphany yesterday that I should buy more of the Indian food packets at Big Lots and use them as my base. I have dried yellow dal beans and chickpeas both canned and dried. I will cook them and add them to the Indian food and it will make a larger quantity of food and much cheaper meal. The Indian food is sometimes a bit too spicy so if I can dilute it with my own ingredients it would still be tasty. Also can add chicken to the packets. I have a dear friend from India and she use to make the best meals for me. She has returned to India but she did spike my interest in cooking Indian foods. However buying all of the ingredients is not cheap and where I live there are no Indian grocery stores. I would have to drive to St. Louis to get what I would need. This way the purchased packets will give me the taste I want but will not cost an arm and a leg. Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
SandiSAHM
Posts: 2263
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:46 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by SandiSAHM »

Dal!! Especially in winter, is awesome.

But then I think DH and I would willingly eat any Indian food dish any day of the year, even if it was sweltering outside :lol:

The kids keep us from doing that. The girl loves it but can eat it about twice before she's bored, and the boy is a super taster who can't handle the spice "over load."

Poor kid, he's missing so much!
alliesmama4
Posts: 8591
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:10 pm
Location: Southern IL

Re: Our 2019 No Spend Challenge

Post by alliesmama4 »

SandiSAHM wrote: Sun Jan 20, 2019 11:33 am Dal!! Especially in winter, is awesome.

But then I think DH and I would willingly eat any Indian food dish any day of the year, even if it was sweltering outside :lol:

The kids keep us from doing that. The girl loves it but can eat it about twice before she's bored, and the boy is a super taster who can't handle the spice "over load."

Poor kid, he's missing so much!
I love Indian food! I invited a friend of mine to accompany me to Mexico since I have difficulty traveling long distances on my own. I helped pay for her airfare and paid for her hotel room for three weeks. After we returned
home she said she wanted to repay me for the trip. Told her it was not necessary since she helped me a lot. She did all of the cooking in our studio apartment. She came to visit me for a few days and she brought all kinds of good things. She lives near an Indian grocery store and she brought ingredients to make Indian food.. She made enough for me to have 18 Indian meals in my freezer. She is American but a fantastic ethnic food cook. Her husband was an international business lawyer and when they came home she would try to learn how to cook the yummy foods they had on their trips. I love ethnic foods more than the standard American food. My Indian friend was from Northern India and their food is not as hot. It is spicy but milder.. I too have a hard time with too much heat.

Do you use Amazon? I bought some of their Indian food packets and some were only $1.80 something. You could maybe enjoy some and not inflict them on you children..lol.

Janet Alliesmama
Janet Alliesmama
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