I hopw today is a frugal day for all of you! Let us know how you save today.

Dear Brandy & All, Today, my new aide starts.  She'll be with me 3 days a week, and I'll have a different aide one day on the weekend.  (I am unsure whether the different aide will be with me on Sat or on Sun.)  The utility company's serviceman came yesterday & adjusted the range's & oven's pilot lights.

I'll have to pay my co-pays for two types of medications today, but I only pay $3.10 for each.  This is because my Medi-Cal (Medicaid) sits on top of my Medicare (it's called "Extra Help" -- although folks can get "Extra Help" of a lesser sort if they have little income but are not on Medi-Cal.).

Other than that, I don't think that I'll have to spend any money at all today ....

Yours in Hiim, Deb 

Well, today we will spend some money (budgeted for entertainment) for a babysitter and dinner out. DH and I have a date night. I'm making pizza for the babysitter and the boys for dinner. Lunch is leftovers. We seem to have a variety right now, lol. DH gave me (early) a beautiful hanging basket of beguonias (sp?) for Mother's Day. My oldest told me that he was making me a necklace at school for Mother's Day. I think it was supposed to be a surprise, lol.

The grandmas will be getting pictures of the boys and a hanging basket of flowers, too. I have several 4x6 frames from the dollar store and prints at Walgreen's were 14 cents with a coupon so I printed off quite a few I had stored in my camera. DH got the hanging baskets on sale at Ace Hardware and had a $5 off coupon. When I saw 4 on the porch (and there are only 3 grandmas), I figured I was getting one, too, lol.

Other than tonight, no money out. Cloudy today with chance of showers. I'm drying a load inside (hanging and the dryer). I need to clean the house, especially our floors, sweep, mop and vacuum today. Need to make a salad for a family meal this weekend. I have canned beans on hand so I am thinking of a 3 bean-type salad.

Happy early Mother's Day to all the mothers and caregivers out there!

Some money spent today.  We packed breakfasts, lunches, snacks & drinks. Dear bf gets paid every Friday, so he'll deposit his check on the way home, and pay the cable bill.  I need to run to Family Dollar for a few cleaning items after work. I'm hoping there new sale flyer is up soon so I can take a look at it.  We have kielbasa in the freezer, I'll pull and defrost in the microwave and throw it on the grill for dinner, we have hot dog buns, chips, pickles, etc. in the pantr to go along.  Working on my meal plan & grocery list now. Trying to shop for two weeks recently, but may only be one week this time around due to the $$ in the budget.  Dear bf is also working the early shift on Saturday (7am-3pm) instead of his normal 12-8, so I'll pull some steak out of the freezer to put in the crock tomorrow morning for dinner. Normally I just graze on Saturday's since the only meal we have together is breakfast.

Next week should be much better, expecting a check for a CD we cashed, I'll be paid on the 15th, then dear bf on the 16th, plus our tax rebates should be DD by the 16th. We'll pay bills and do the "major" food shopping thing. Might also get a chest freezer (YAY!!!!) then, too!  If we get a chest freezer then I'll put in a meat order with our local butcher. They do something called the monthly "Freezer Plan."  Its a list of 26 different items, then you pick what you want and pay depending on the amount of items.  May's looks really good, had to pick and choose but for $55.99  (9 selections price) we'll get:

• 2 lbs. sweet italian sausage
• 2 lbs. bacon
• 2 lbs. ground chuck
• 4 lb. whole chicken
• 3 lbs. southern style pork ribs
• 2 lbs. lean top round steak
• 3 lbs. center-cut pork chops
• 7 lbs. chicken leg quarters
• 2 lbs. all beef patties

That's a month's worth of meat for us for $55.99!  It goes up to 18 selections for $109.99.  Unfortunately they don't allow duplicate selections, but honestly I think that's a pretty good deal even without being able to duplicate.  I'm sure if you put in two separate orders you could.

Today will be an easy day... tummy acting up so not eating much. Getting meds delivered vs. driving out for it myself (hey, the delivery is free). Still puppy-sitting but found out that the "dog" smell got to me so he's at neighbors and I just walk down to let him out for duty-breaks.  Still will be paid good though. Will be a play-by-ear day on what goes on.

 I sent a lunch to work with Dh today, so there will be no money out there.  We both get paid today, so bills will be paid and I might pick up a few vegetable seeds for the garden, other than that its just cleaning and being lazy.  I also need to call and get quotes for replacing DH's windshield, it has reached the critical point!

Good morning to everyone!

This past week we bought our house, and last night we got the keys!! So not quite a frugal week in the common sense of the word (that was a big check!!) but in the long term, we won't be paying rent anymore! Hurray!

My mom is flying in this afternoon for Mother's Day weekend. I still have to run and pick up our corsages for Sunday, but other than that, no money out. I've been collecting frozen lasagnas and what-not as they've been on sale, so I won't really have to cook this weekend.. just pre-heat, pop in the oven and grab veggies. Tomorrow we're doing a 5k, The Race for the Cure. It's kinda a Mother's Day tradition for us. This will be my first official Mother's Day (I was pregnant for last Mother's Day but I still got cards and gifts!!) so I am pretty excited about this weekend!

I need to try to vacuum and pick up a bit before Mom's flight arrives; we'll see if baby cooperates and lets me. Ha! If not, I'm sure mom won't mind too much. Baby always comes first in this house!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

*aloha*

The ds's had a 1/2 day @ school &dd#1 moved home from college so things are slightly chaotic today. I'm trying to get past my fear of biting food with the bridge that was just put in when I was waiting for the bridge to get made I had temp crowns in and they kept poping out whenever I bit down on the caps. I've booked our vacation we're not going very far but one of the cities has an amusement park that the dks like to go to and a toy mesuem I got a room for a week for $325 which included breakfast & a fridge/mico combo. We'll eat the free breakfast, eat supper in the room and lunch either at the amusment park or in the city. I've only got 1K set aside for vacation used to be enough to take the six of us from NY to TX and back with change to spare.I haven't come up with any ideas for supper tonigh and pizza is sounding good so I might get it or make something. 

I HAVE to MAKE myself get out of the house today.  I need to go to the bank, the post office, and get a few groceries.  We have been out of milk all week and DH has been craving cereal (although not enough to go to the store himself!).  I also need to pick up a couple of gift certificates for Mother's Day presents.  I think we're just going to give g/c's from the local meat market.  Both mothers are on fixed incomes and will use those.  Useless to try and get them clothes and I refuse to give plants.  I do wish our stimulus checks had come this week so I could do more but I'll just have to do what we can.

re-tired 

whew! it was pay day for two jobs today, woo hoo. And my college freshman daughter is home for mother's day. And my son and his team won the NY state history trivia competition or something like that - hahaha. it's high school competition at its most non-athletic. Today was frugal at the extreme. I spent each of three meals at each of the three homes I care for children in. I ate a bagel for breakfast, then hotdogs and fruit salad at the next and finally dinner was a gourmet salad to die for...so I guess I ended up actually paying just for the two cups of coffee I had this morning. I am very lucky (and very tired!) . Our sick kitty is getting better with his thyroid pills and we hope it will last for a while. The pills are inexpensive and we are spending a bit more for soft food for him, it's not been a difficult amount to fit into the weekly budget. Hoping for a peaceful weekend. pam