Frugal Friday is postponed till Monday as I don't have too much to report at this point so am hoping to get more done today and tomorrow to pad out the like four item list I have at the moment.
It honestly took me a while to figure out the shopping goals for this month, mainly due to money and trying to make money stretch, but at the same time making sure I could stock up on things we would definitely use or needed. It's kind of a "don't bite off your nose to spite your face" type of situation as it does mean less money in the bank to stock up on things, but if you don't take advantage of sales on things you know you'll use or need you will end up out more money in the long run. So, it was a matter of sitting there with a calculator, a lot of thinking and working on the budget a lot this month to figure out how to get a few things while trying to save every penny I could to put toward earthquake repairs we need to make.
I did want to post up a quick update to how the food storage situation is going. I have managed to weasel money out of the shopping budget the last bit to get at least one number ten can of food storage each month. In January I got the can of chicken gravy and the can of basically redi-whip for the 25.00 per month I allotted myself. Last month I didn't spend the full 25.00, but did manage to get a #10 can of pilot bread (basically hard tack, a really dense cracker type of bread that Alaskans generally love for it's long shelf life...the canned pilot bread is more cracker like from the reviews I read, but it was still worth it in my mind to get it for a kind of bread to add to storage that the bugs and mice couldn't get into). I then took 50.00 out of our tax return (really the ONLY money I used for household stuff...the rest went toward bills) and got some cans of food storage that were going cheap on Amazon. I got a #10 can of beef Stroganoff (made with freeze dried beef no less), a #10 can of Mountain House Chicken and Rice and a #10 can of honey powder. I was hoping to get another can or two of food storage this month, but the money just isn't in the budget, but I'm not too upset as I got three cans of extra food storage last month. Basically, I'm getting a stock pile up. Slowly, very slowly, but surely.
For those curious, here are the links to the food storage I got the last little bit (the chicken and rice isn't as cheap as I got it, as I got it for 12.99, but it's still decently cheap). The following contains affiliate links by the way. This means if you order through the following links I'll get a small commission from Amazon for shooting the sale their way. Just full disclosure here even if you don't order the item you click on with the following links, say you look at it and go "meh" and move on and order other things through Amazon, so long as you order while in the window the associate link opens I'll get a small commission on other items you order (hope that makes sense), so if you don't want to support the site, but still want to shop on Amazon, be sure to close out the window from the associate links, open a brand new window and start your shopping over again. It costs you no extra money for ordering through these links and if you do order through the links, I really do appreciate your support. Thanks!
- Mountain House Rice and Chicken
- Augason Farms Honey Powder
- Augason Farms Beef Stroganoff
- Mountain House Pilot Crackers
Right, so let's get down to the things I want and or need to buy this month. Here's hoping I can get it all done :).
General Stores:
- Cooking Oil (I have a few more jugs left, but I like to have extra in the house as I do go through it when I bake pretty fast)
- Fruit (fruit is finally coming into season and we are all loving it when I can get it decently cheap, so I'm hoping to continue to find money to buy extra produce when I go shopping...we need the added nutrition)
- Corned Beef (I actually got two of these this week as they were on sale for 2.99 lb with an in-ad coupon at Carrs and then I had a coupon loaded to make them even cheaper. I'm hoping to get a couple more before the sales go off for the year as I do like having them in the freezer for later points in the year)
- Cabbage (got that this week to go with the corned beef)
- Red Potatoes (got those this week too as cabbage and potatoes were on sale for .78 lb)
- Shampoo
- All Purpose Flour (I am hoping to get a bulk bag at Three Bears later on, but for now I'll probably just get about 10 lbs of flour at the regular store to see me through)
Amazon.com (the following contains affiliate links):
- Blank Accounting Ledger (I got one of these in this month for general household use, but want to order a few more to keep track of the different disaster relief things we have going on so I'll basically have different accounts for each item we need to get done).
- phone filters We had a phone filter fail in the phone downstairs and then we want to put in a phone line into the den to hook up another corded phone, so I ordered a two pack of phone filters when I went to replace the one.
- Kirby Fan Assembly My vacuum started making a high pitched whistling sound a while back. I replaced the gasket thinking that might be it, but it's still there. I troubleshooted it on the internet and people suggested checking the fan assembly and my fan is giving "worn" a good name. Our local Kirby store in the Valley shut down (I think...at least their storefront is gone and their phone number is disconnected, so I'm going with shut down at this point), so instead of going into Anchorage and paying goodness knows how much for the parts, we ordered them online instead.
Appliance Repair Store:
- Temperature gauge for oven. We already got this done and I am happy to say I now have an oven that works! A 50.00 part was a lot cheaper than a new oven for sure. Hopefully that's the end of the oven issues for a while :).
And there you go folks. My shopping goals for this month. How about you? Need to get anything this month?
Never heard of honey powder before now! How neat! I saw you mention oil...do you feel comfortable just going by the label? I used to, but then on the no nuts groups everyone is all, call, because only wesson is safe, (and like, more than twice the price, ugh) and we use a looot of oil.
ReplyDeleteHope you manage to keep stocking up!!
Technically speaking we should be able to use refined peanut oil in cooking with the peanut allergy since the refining process removes the proteins, but I've always been too paranoid to try it. I have no problem trusting vegetable oil and stuff by the label, however. I've never run into any type of reaction with Alvah from oil and I've fried him a lot of french fries over the years, so I'm just going to keep on keeping on when it comes to oil :).
DeleteI too was told that peanut oil would be okay but ate some chicken that was fried in it and had a reaction. Not as severe as my usual reaction to peanuts but enough to make me say no thanks to that again! I have a friend who's 17 year old son is severely allergic to peanuts and was in New Orleans with his mom and had a severe reaction to something that was fried in peanut oil in a restaurant. So I say better safe than sorry.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
I've never heard of honey powder so had a look on Amazon to learn a bit about it. Amazed at what you can get now. I can't buy on the link though because I'm in the UK. I think your budgeting skills are brilliant. I'm glad you got the oven fixed. Much better than paying out for a new one.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you are getting to stock things up a bit. Do you use the freeze-dried foods in rotation, or are you making a stash for the future? Just wondering. Last summer, when I went on a backpacking trip with my daughter, we had some of the Mountain House freeze-dried meals. They weren't too bad--just needed a lot of water to make them edible. So, if you are doing an emergency storage stock, you might want to put a few gallons of water there with it.
ReplyDelete