MAY 2013 Budget Results....Food & Toiletries Spending

 

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for MAY 2013.

I have posted May's totals on the right side bar under Total Grocery Savings for 2013 and updated the Yearly Totals.
I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in May.  If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals Summary.

My spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Pet Supplies, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 5(4 at home this month)& 2 dogs. No kids under 17.
******************

 

BREAT OUTLET

OOP  $17.24

Value  $42.09

Savings  59.04%

MAINE SOURCE(restaurant supply)

OOP  $75.86

Value  $137.58

Savings   44.86%

SHURSAVE STORES(small local independent affiliated stores)
OOP  $107.74

Qs/Ads  $45.14

Value  $152.88

Savings  29.53%

WEIS MARKETS

OOP  $299.51

Qs/Ads  $190.82

Value  $490.33

Savings  39%

I am no longer adding my rebates received into my food budget directly. I will use them on food on occasion and will note that when used.  I will keep track of rebates/gift cards/certs received here as before however.

REBATE CHECKS RECEIVED IN May.....$0.00

GIFT CARDS and CERTIFICATES....$0

TOTAL Value of Cash/Store Checks/Gift Card Rebates Received...$0.00

COUPONS and FREEBIES

Zero

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My best 3 Store Savings Totals were the Bread Outlet at 59.04%, Maine Source at 44.86% and Weis Market at 39%.  l only shopped at 4 different stores this past month.

TOTAL Out of Pocket........$500.35

TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$322.53

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased............$822.88

TOTAL Savings of...................................39.20%

This closes out the May food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....

I went into May with my usual $400 budgeted for food/toiletries for the month.  Overshot the budget by $100.35.  Not a great month so I'll try to do better in June.

I did NO Rite-Aid shopping in last month either.

I'm still trying to figure out what my baseline for food costs is since the dietary change in April.  I suspect it will be more like $500 per month now, but I'm going to keep shooting for $400 for the next few months.

Looking ahead to June---We'll stick to our $400 food budget again this month.  I'm hoping for some better sales on fresh produce since it's almost Summer.

 

And here is the run down of my Food & Toiletries Spending for 2013 so far--

2013 Total Saved $1,432.51

2013 Yearly Total Value of Items  $3,350.33

2013 Yearly Total Spent $1,926.82

2013 Yearly Savings Total of 42.50%

 

My total savings percentage for the year has gone down just over 1%.  The month of May was over 30% saved and the yearly total so far is still over 40% so I am good with that.

 

How much did you spend on food in May?
 

Sluggy

The Ice Man Cometh.....Not Soon Enough!

May had been an incredibly expensive month for us here at Chez Sluggy.
Luckily, May was also one of those freak 3 paycheck months.
Good thing, it was!

So how do I start off June financially?
Well, I bought a freezer.

Yup.

Our old workhorse of a freezer has been limping along and this past week things started happening in the old chill chest that indicated that it would be gasping it's last very shortly.
It was defrosted recently and I opened the door to find a LOT of ice built up on the top shelves and on the door and the stuff on the top shelves didn't seem as frozen.
Jacking up the thermostat didn't help the situation either.

So I moved the ice cream and such to lower shelves and after another 24 hours rechecked the temperature and it was definitely heading in the wrong direction.

I went online for 3 HOURS yesterday comparing all the makes, models, brands for all the features important to me, in the size I needed.
My eyes were crossing by the time I came to a decision.

I would have liked to have bought from a local small business but both of them never returned my calls/emails within 6 hours time.
Good job local retailers, Grand Central and Beiter's,  if you are reading this......well done!
You have a willing mark customer and you both blew it....congratulations!
You should be so proud.

A note to every retailer out there who is selling freezers.....
The chances are that your potential customer shopping for a freezer is in a bit of a HURRY, as the likelihood is high that they are REPLACING their current freezer that NO LONGER REALLY KEEPS ANYTHING FROZEN......and when the weather is in the high 80's, this is an unacceptable situation to have for very long.
If you are selling freezers, return your phone calls if you want the business.
That's all I'm saying.......

Oh!....and don't NOT put prices on your website and make me call/email you for a "price quote".
I understand wanting to get me in the door and upsell me a more expensive/larger appliance but in real life, it just drives me into the arms of another retailer.

The frugal me wanted to buy my freezer from Lowe's....as I have a hate/hate relationship with the ir competitor, the Home Despot.
And I have $500 in gift cards to use at Lowe's from my Rite-Aid +Ups binging days last year.
($350 of the gcs are good at either Lowe's or the Despot, $150 are store specific for Lowe's).

For those of you who are thinking, "My, that was mighty brave/foolhardy of you to purchase such an expensive and large appliance, sight unseen on the internet.....aren't you scared?"
Nope.

Most of these freezers are NOT even in the store(the Despot only had 2 in the size/style in the store and Lowe's had 3 I think on the sales floor and 2 were too expensive), so I didn't even need to go in and "kick the tires" on the chill chests in order to decide.

My requirements were thus.....

1.  Be a certain size to fit into the current space for a freezer & approx. same interior size
2.  Be an upright model-we are horizontally surface challenged here
3.  Have a security door lock
4.  Be an Energy Star machine
5.  Have good to excellent reviews
6.  Not cost an arm OR a leg or our firstborn

I got 5 outta 6.  I can live without a door lock if I have to.

2 hours into the research and I realized one thing....Frigidaires are shit.....at least according to the "man on the street" reviews on various sites AND from my own personal knowledge of them.

So I pulled the trigger and here is what the delivery crew from the Despot is delivering to Chez Sluggy this coming Thursday.....

Whirlpool 15.8 cu. ft. Frost Free Upright Freezer in White

Model # EV160NZTQ

Reg. retail at the Despot is $599.00
I got it for $448.20 plus free shipping and haul away.

AND our electric supplier in PA has a $35 rebate if you replace your old freezer with an Energy Star model and THEY will haul it off.
Take it away and give me money?

Yes, please!!

And the deciding factor between this freezer and a nearly identical one at Lowe's?
The Despot would deliver it a full 12 DAYS sooner than Lowe's.

12 Days people......
June 6th vs. June 18th

Do you know what thawing meat smells like in 80 degree weather in 12 days time? lolol

Yeah...I got over my Despot loathing, at least for now, and I've got to organize room and a plan in the garage now for the new machine.
First the old fridge needs to be moved and the old freezer moved over into it's space.
Then the new machine needs to be delivered and put where the fridge was.
Then the goods transferred into it.
Then the old machine gets moved to the front of the garage, awaiting pick-up by the electric co.
Then the new machine needs to be slid over 3 feet and the old fridge needs to be moved back into it's space.

What.
A.
Production.

In the end we are out $413.20 and as a bonus, a little chunk of my sanity.....which is running rather low at the moment.


Sluggy

 

Don't Be A Hater

Thought for the Day.....
What makes us the same is greater than what makes us different.

Enjoy!




Sluggy

Reduced Sodium Honey Garlic Sauce Recipe

Here is the recipe I talked about the other day, since I had some requests to share it.

First, the recipe I "freestyled" off of.....

HONEY GARLIC SAUCE

1/4 cup soy sauce Yikes!
1/4 cup honey
1 TB rice wine vinegar
1 tsp. ginger
1 TB garlic
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. cornstarch

And here is my Version

LOW SODIUM HONEY GARLIC SAUCE
2 TB reduced sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup honey + 1TB
3 TB rice wine vinegar
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger(powdered is ok)
3 TB garlic(minced)
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp cornstarch(or more according to thickness of sauce)

You combine all but the cornstarch in a bowl and mix well.
To marinate your meat/protein, put raw meat into Ziploc bag, pour in marinade and refrigerate at least 30 minutes(an hour is better).
After 30 min.,  remove the meat and grill or pan sauté.  Reserve the liquid.

While meat is cooking, put marinade in small saucepan.  Pour all but 2 TB of marinade into pot.
Take the 2 TB of marinade and add your cornstarch to it, mixing onto no lumps remain.
Heat saucepan of marinade to boiling.  Slowly pour in cornstarch/marinade mixture, whisking or mixing as you add it.
Continue heating marinade mixture until it thickens to a sauce consistency.

Pour over your cooked meat, serve with rice, vegetables and/or other dishes.

Of course, you can monkey around with the proportions of the ingredients.  The sodium in this version is a lot better but still a bit high for me, because, well, reduced sodium soy sauce is an oxymoron.  Soy Sauce should be called Salt Sauce. lol
I cut the soy and added rice wine vinegar.

If you like garlic, add more garlic.....if you like spicy, add more of the red pepper flakes.
Or add more or less honey or vinegar to taste.

Next time I make this I'll sauté eggplant and make Garlic Eggplant.


Sluggy
 

The Banjoes Are Calling Me....

Last week I experienced a flurry of genealogy activity.
The week before while noodling around on the interweb I found a library in Lynchburg, VA that has a wealth of genealogical information.
It's called the Jones Memorial Library.
They specialize in local history and genealogy.
Among their holdings are a large amount of local newspaper obituaries.

So I started poking around and came up with quite a few of my ancestors who had been brick walls for me.
I sent away for 8 obituaries at a cost of $80($10 per)......oh how I wish I knew someone locally who could have copied these documents for me cheaper!
This documenting family can get expensive ya know......

Anyway, they arrived very quickly via 1st class mail last week into my hot little hands.

All of the obits were informative and 1 answered a question my brother and I had talked about when he was here for the graduation, as we reminisced about long dead relatives.

The folks in question here are my maternal grandfather's family(my mother's father's side of the family) and/or folks who married into this family.
They lived in the central part of Virginia.  Yes, my mother's mother's family back during the depression was The Waltons, only a little further south....

My grandfather, Wirt Ross Harper, was the oldest son of Robert William Harper and Jennie Vie Tucker Harper of Campbell County, VA.  Wirt had 5 brothers and 2 sisters(in chronological order they were Ollie, Wirt, Royal, Lillie Vie, Robert, Raymond, Ernest and Tucker).
They were all born between 1907 and 1924.
Unfortunately I don't have a group photograph of all of this family.

The most important information I gained from finding these obit listings online was it narrowed down some folks death dates to within a few days for me, even if I didn't send for the obit itself, which also listed the day of the actual death and not just the day it was published in the newspaper.

One of the brothers I had the least information on was Royal.  He died when I was 4 so I don't remember him at all. His obit pegged his birth year(as it gave his age at his death....he was 49).
It also told me that he had been a veteran(as he died in a veteran's hospital), he had been married(listed his widows name, including maiden name), and where he was buried.
What it didn't mention was also telling too.....no surviving children, meaning he was childless when he passed. 
I went to put his information into my family tree on Ancestry and found a new piece of info. there-the application for a veteran's grave marker filled out by his widow in 1963.  This confirmed the military service too.

Now I have done an exhaustive search on Find A Grave for this family line over the past year, and I have never turned up a memorial/known burial plot for Royal in any of the cemeteries my other Harpers are known to be planted in. 
The obit gave me that he was buried in Smith Cemetery, which I assumed to be near Brookneal, VA, where most of this family group lived.
But a search on F.A.G. came up with no such cemetery.

A few days later I found the Campbell County Historical Societies Website.  They have a Project to find the "Lost Cemeteries" in the county and I found the Smith Family Cemetery listed as one of these MIA burying grounds listed there.
I also went onto F.A.G.(aka Find A Grave) and put up a memorial for Royal there and requested a photo from a local volunteer.  I did explain in a note with the request about the issue with where the cemetery was located.  There are 75 local photo volunteers and I am hoping one of them has a clue where this cemetery is or can ask someone locally they know, where to find it.
Cross your fingers for me!

This week's free time has been spent tracking down whether my mother's side of the family dearly departed are listed on F.A.G. or not, and if so, to request that their memorials be transferred to my care so I can link them all up and post more details or photos of them on the site.  So far I have 14 Baker/Vassar/Tucker/Harper/Foster/ ancestors under my wing now.  
I am having a devil of a time getting my grandparents out from the grasp of one F.A.G. contributor.  He does NOT respond to emails or his public messages or memorial suggestions/edits.  I've been trying to get these grands for months now and I will turn this over to the admin on the site very soon.  I suspect the contributor may be dead or infirmed and no longer active.  Why else would he ignore me?  If it comes down to a pissing contest, they are MY grandparents and not his....my mother was an only child so besides my brother, I am the closest living relative, and F.A.G. gives precedence to the closet relative for ancestors within 4 generations.

I would like to take a trip down to Virginia this summer to do some genealogical research at the Campbell Co. Historical Society/Public Library.  I see that they have TONS of research available on site to comb through.  I am at the stage of the game now that online census reports and such have been exhausted and I need official certificates and wills books and old newspaper microfiche now to continue the search.  Plus I'd love to go visit some graveyards in the area too and pay my respects.

I heard that one of my mother's cousin's wife is the unofficial Baker/Vassar family historian in that area, who has photos and such that I don't have and might have some written down stories.  I'd love to get together with her, as well as the cousin of my mother on her father's side who still lives in the area for additional information on the Harper/Tucker lines.

Maybe I'll take #2 Son on a roadtrip once school is out in just over a week.  He can help with the driving now and be my legs when mine wear out.  Oh, I KNOW the thought of spending time with me, a library and cemeteries will thrill him to no end......but if I keep him full of pizza and crap and let him sleep to 2pm, he might not complain too much.  lol

Anybody out there live in South Central VA((Farmville, Lynchburg, Appomattox areas) and want a house guest sometime next month?? 8-)





Sluggy