MENU MONDAY

I've been busy around the house today, cleaning up from having the whole gang home all weekend and enjoying the peace & quiet. Well, if you can call listening to 3 dogs quiet.lol

I'm going to try to do a Weekly Dinner Menu each Monday. I am a kind of the 'spur of the moment, wing it by the seat of my pants' kind of gal when it comes to putting a dinner together and then actually cooking it, but I am sooo tired of the hubby & kids pestering me as soon as they get home from work & school with, "What's for dinner?", over & over again.

So Sunday, I posted a Menu for the week on the fridge.

Monday-Boston Baked Beans, Cornbread
Tuesday-Chinese Takeout
Wednesday-Homemade Mac & Cheese, Vegetable Melange, Harvard Beets
Thursday-Spareribs, Southern Potato Salad, Leftover BBBs
Friday-Broiled Salmon, Tuscan Vegetables, Leftover Mac/Cheese or Potato Salad
Saturday-Gourmet Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Tomato Soup
Sunday-Vegetable packed Meatloaf, Roasted Potatoes w/Onions, Leftover Veggies from Wed.

So far it has cut down on the nagging. I can just cut them off, mid-sentence, and point to the list on the fridge.lol Now I'm getting the, "Ewww, I don't like that!" comments.
*Sigh* Ya just can't win.....

Instead of navy beans I am using Maine Yellow Eye Beans in the Baked Beans. I carted a couple of bags of these home, I bought at a farm stand on our trip to Maine last summer. These are native Maine beans. They may look small but they bulk up in water quite a bit! A Maine Lumberjack Breakfast often included Baked Beans using this or another Maine variety of bean. I hope they taste as yummy in my recipe as in the one we tasted while on vacation.

The only dishes I am not making from scratch are the Tuscan Veggies, the Tomato Soup and the bread for the Grilled Cheese Sandwiches....and the Chinese Takeout, of course.
I am feeling ambitious this week. We'll see how much ambition I still have left come Saturday!lol

Sluggy

FREE e-RECYCLING....Sort Of!

On Feb. 15th, BEST BUY stores located in the US will be starting a fulltime Electronics Recycling Program. Before now, only select stores held these Recycling Events and only for a day at a time.

There will be a $10 recycling fee per unit, to participate and a limit of 2 Units per Day per household. Participants will instantly receive a $10 Best Buy gift card. So if you buy things at Best Buy anyway, you can consider the e-cycling a freebie!

Not all electronics are eligible for this program however. They will not take any appliance with freon(fridges,freezers, a/c units), microwave ovens and televisions over 32". But it seems like it would be a great way to dispose safely of old computers and peripherals. I know I have an old dead computer stowed away in my garage....how about you?

Be sure to ERASE all that data from your hard drive before you turn in the old laptop or desktop computer to the junk heap. You never know who might gain access to all those family photos, passwords or 'questionable content' sites you may have peeked at, that your old machine still has a record of deep in it's electronic bowels. WIPE IT CLEAN before you ditch the machine!

As a Frugalista with a green side, I think it would be nice to know exactly how they will be disposing of all the electronic components they will be collecting. I can't seem to find the details on that point just yet. I do hope they do the responsible thing and not just dump it all in a generic landfill. I bet there are parts that can be repurposed or melted down to create something useful. Call me skeptical, but I tend to believe that no mass retailer does anything without an ulterior motive.

Check the Best Buy website for more details on this program as we get closer to the Feb. 15th starting date.

Sluggy

CVS Deals Feb. 4th

I have a $10/50 coupon &ECB that were expiring soon, so off to CVS I trotted.

Purchased....
2 Contour Monitors $30 ea.=$60
4 SpeedStick Deodorants $2.50 ea. =$10
3 Lady Speedstick Deodorants $2.50 ea.=$7.50
1 Earinse $7.99
1 CVS Children's Aspirin $1.99

Total $87.48

Used
$10/$50 purchase
2x $30/1 off Monitors
3x $1/1 off Speedstick
2x $1/2 off Speedstick
$12 ECB

$87 in ECB & Coupons

OOP- 48 cents

PLUS-I got back $5 ECB (for buying $15 worth of Mennen Speedstick), $1.99 ECB on the Aspirin & $7.99 ECB on the Earinse. I used $12 ECB and came out with $14.98 ECB.

AND I got another $10/50 coupon!

I know.....not much in the finesse dept. by doing multiple transactions but a good outcome all the same. I could have used the 2nd monitor as the base to do another $50 order but I did not have enough time to do more shopping and wait in the very long lines at this CVS. Oh well...
I hope they have enough good deals before the 10/50 expires so I can use it for a big purchase to roll into some more ECBs.

sluggy

A Smelly Solution

If you have pets, you probably have smelly stains in your home. Even if your dog or cat is housebroken/uses the litter box, your four-footed friends are NOT perfect and can urinate in the house at times. Or maybe you have a puppy/kitten or senior dog/cat who just can't always hold it long enough. Even if you get the stain out of the carpet, the odor remains. This odor keeps your pet returning to that spot to do their business in the house. This is CHERRY, one of my THREE smelly stain makers.

At any rate, here is is a great recipe for a homemade Urine Stain SMELL Remover. It also takes the smell out of old dried on stains in your carpeting, as well as the fresh ones.

You need:
1 Bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide
1 Teaspoon of Liquid Joy Dishwashing Soap
1 Tablespoon of Baking Soda
A Plastic or Glass Bowl to mix it in
A Plastic Spray Bottle

**Before you use this on your carpeting or upholstery, dab some on a hidden area to make sure this won't bleach out the color in your carpet. It does contain Peroxide, which has bleaching properties, so be sure to check the colorfastness of your carpet.


Mix the ingredients in the Bowl, using as much of the Peroxide as will be needed to cover the area on the carpet that you are treating. Then place mixture in the Spray Bottle. Saturate the stains with this Peroxide solution. Do NOT blot it up or dry the area with a cloth. Let the solution sit on the stain until it air dries. If you have "scotch guard" treated carpets it may take longer for the solution to soak in.
After the area has completely dried, vacuum up any white powdered residue(from the baking soda)that remains. The peroxide lifts the urine to the top of the carpet and the oxygen molecules release the odor into the air.

To find old dried in smells without resorting to having to put your nose down in the carpet to smell them out, use a black light. They sell them in pet stores(named something like "Stink Finder") and even on eBay. Or borrow a black light from the hippie down the street. Darken the room and switch on the black light. Any pet urine stains will glow.
Locate, then eradicate!

Another note of caution-only mix up as much solution as you will use. Putting Peroxide and Baking Soda together causes a chemical reaction...remember those lave flowing Volcanoes from Elementary School Science Projects? If you leave this Solution laying around, you might find that it keeps bubbling over and if kept in a closed container, it may explode. Make a new batch each time.

And the BEST thing about this homemade Odor Remover Solution....it's very inexpensive. You can find the ingredients for well under $2 and that would make multiple batches of the Solution. Reuse an old plastic spray bottle(an empty Windex or other Cleaner spray bottle, as long as you WASH it well first!) and you don't even have to buy a container. No nasty toxic chemicals either which also makes it good for the environment.

$2 for Ingredients sure beats paying $10-$30 in the Pet Store for a premade Remover Solution!

Sluggy

It's a DEBT CARD, Not a CREDIT CARD

I found this skit from a Saturday Night Live episode of a few years ago funny. It's also poignant in light of the path our society has chosen to follow in terms of spending, saving and credit.



I am a child of the 60's. My parents applied for their first credit card in 1969. They were 35 & 37 yrs. old. Having grown up in the Depression era, PLUS having the wisdom of 30+ yrs. of life experiences you would think that my parents could have managed their finances responsibly and not succumbed to over-extending themselves with credit.
Nope.
They both struggled with staying out of credit card debt over the rest of their lives.
Some people would point out that maybe since they didn't grow up in a world of credit, they were too naive about handling it well.
Maybe.

I applied for my first credit card when I was 24, years after I graduated college. I was young, but I had a job. I was turned down, for a lack of "credit history". You can't have any credit because you have no credit history.
How do you get credit history?
By using credit.....but you can't have credit because you don't have credit.
That was a common Catch-22 of credit back then but it kind of made sense NOT to take on someone who was a Financial Risk.
I got angry, but I got over it and obtained a credit card eventually.

Then in the late 1980's, the Credit Card Companies realized a new way to make money off of people. They could make lots more money by charging FEES. Besides the Annual fee for the honor of carrying their card, now you had Over the limit fees, late payment fees, pay by phone fees, expediting fees, cash advance fees, currency conversion fees, online payment fees, etc.
The list goes on and on.
They play with grace periods and monkey around with formulas to complicate how your interest rates are calculated. They then lay in wait for you to mess up paying the right amount on time just oncee and....GOTCHA! Your rate shoots up to 28% and you are in payment hell until you die.....or pay them off.

Fast forward to the last decade.
18 yr. olds arrive on college campuses and have to literally run a gauntlet of credit offers. Table after table of smiling recruiters offering these young adults free t-shirts and music cds, just for signing up for this credit card or that credit card. Offering Credit to KIDS, who have no credit history, let alone money or a J-O-B! Whatever happened to not giving credit to people who are a risk? I guess it went the way of that dinosaur, the Ethical Lender.

These kids with credit cards routinely get into financial trouble. They have grown to adulthood surrounded by parents using & abusing easy credit. Are they not paying attention to how easy credit is ruining our society? Can't they see the deep holes of debt their family members have dug using those MasterCard and Visa shovels?
I guess not. That would mean turning off the MTV or putting down the Wii controller(which was probably paid for on a Visa card).

We have a generation or two now of people who have grown up in our Easy Credit American Society. They have never had to save up or wait to buy something. They have no self-control when it comes to money. It's funny but sad that there are probably people out there, who are just like the Steve Martin & the Amy Poehler characters in this skit and don't 'get' not spending money that you don't have.

sluggy

JANUARY $AVING$ Challenge Total

I have to admit, I deserve a pat on the back for what I was able to save in January. We did have an extra pay period this month, so that helped my total immensely.

How I figure my savings is to take what comes into the house for the month & subtract every check we write. Pretty simple, huh?lol

Between all income sources we have a net gain this month of ....... $3374.64!
That includes my $50 of Christmas money, $26 in rolled coins & $465.31 from things I sold on eBay.
It's not $5000, which is my target amount to meet my $60000 goal for the year, but I'll take it!lol

Now I need to physically take that money out of the checking account and put it somewhere....but where?
I'll need to do some online research for the best place to plant this seed money. Feel free to leave suggestions in the Comments.
Thanks!

Sluggy

Just call Me Bonnie!

Yes, I am a Bonnie in search of her Clyde. I know, I know.....a pretty lame, obscure reference to bankrobbers. I didn't exactly rob a bank but I did walk out of my local drugstore(with their blessings) loaded with the stuff in the photo, for which I paid...... $7.38-and most of that was just paying the tax on the taxable items. This is about $125 worth of merchandise! Plus, the store rebate program is sending me a check for $15.99 at the end of February.

Now is this craziness or what?

This is all because of that Extreme Couponing I've been trying out lately. The point is to buy stuff that is on sale/you have coupons for/there are rebates on and to get things for as close to free as possible. Sometimes if you have enough coupons/rebates/sales then the store ends up owing YOU money for buying their items!

And before any of my Compact brethren chastise me for Buying New, it's all been consumables, except for the Glucose Meters-which were FREE and I am donating to a local free medical clinic.

After a week of reflection, here is what I've learned the past couple of weeks about Extreme Couponing.

1. It is a SUCKHOLE of your Time! The hours you spend finding the coupons, browsing the sites to find the best deals, organizing your coupons, actually shopping with coupons, and then organizing all the stuff you BUY when you get it home, takes a load of energy and time and space(for the goodies).

2. EC is VERY addictive! Scoring a deal can release Endorphins that can rival most any other High you can experience. I find myself wanting to check the couponing blogs often to see what deals other people are finding if I can't be finding a deal myself at the moment. I think I might have an addictive personality. 8-)

3. It's hard to just stick to 1 store to do deals in. You want to go to ALL the stores that have deals(see #1 time suckhole). In trying to simplify my life, I am all about NOT shopping.
Spending more time in stores puts me in more contact with STUFF that I shouldn't and don't want to buy. Being around STUFF can wear down my resolve. Therefore, extreme couponing could be dangerous for me.

4. Since you get a high from getting a deal, it's easy to buy items that you don't actually need/use....like those Glucose Meters. It was a High to get them for Free but I don't need them.....well, maybe I need one, but NOT THREE!lol
At least with these I have a plan to send them to where they can be put to good use. But what if the next deal is for free Make-up I don't use or a free Radio, etc.? It's a slippery slope back to buying STUFF I don't need, that will someday get dumped into a landfill.
I think some of the folks doing the Free Item deals don't actually use/need what they are buying. After I carted those Meters home I resolved to just do the Freebie Deals that were consumable or that we need.

Now I would LOVE to be able to get FOOD for free or close to it. But because of where I live I will never be one of those ladies with a cart full of almost or free food due to her couponing savvy. The fact is I live somewhere that doesn't have Grocery Stores that run amazing sales. There is no Kroger or Publix(the 2 stores I have noticed people paying low prices for items)here. The 2 grocery stores in my town(as well as the chain drugstore) won't even take Internet Printed Coupons! Even ones printed from their companies own website!lol Super Kmarts & Super Targets take internet coupons but we don't have any of those stores here either.

I have noticed that alot of what the Extreme Couponing Mommas get Deals on is overly processed foods or junk food. The kids & hubby love them some soda and chips and cookies, etc. but I don't want to spend my precious time getting deals on marginally nutritious food, not to mention all this food with High Fructose Corn Syrup hidden in it.

Nope, I don't think I am cut out to be an Extreme Coupon Queen.

sluggy