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Showing posts from 2017

Living on Less.....WEIGHT, PART 2

How does your morning start? A cup of coffee at home or grabbed from a coffee shop on your way to work? Are you a cereal eater, bagel with cream cheese, yogurt with fruit? Do you skip breakfast? Have you given it any thought at all, or are you a creature of habit? OK, here's a good one... do you look at the box, cup or bag that you took that cereal, yogurt, bagel out of for nutritional information? Now THAT'S an eye opener.  Suddenly, the pounds start creeping up and you are wondering why. You've always eaten like this and never had to cut back to lose weight. The older you get, the less active you get for the most part, and the more those pounds creep in.  Then there's the hormonal changes, the crazy hectic lifestyle that comes along with kids and teenagers. And before you know it, it's more than just 10 pounds you have to lose. It's more like 20 to 40 pounds! Today I'm going to give you a few more dieting ideas to mull around in your head an

Living on Less.....WEIGHT, Part 1

It's not just about the money. Living on Less can also mean having less "stuff" cluttering up our homes, less stress and drama, and dragging around a whole lot less weight.  The topic of the day... What are YOU "Weighting" for? I think I've always had a weight problem. I was active enough as a teen and young adult to keep the pounds in range. But when I started having kids, I put on weight with each one. In 2001, and 230 lbs., I'd finally had enough and opted for Gastric Bypass Surgery so I would never have to think about being fat ever again and yes, I'm using the word FAT. I like to eat though, and only ended up losing a total of 35 lbs. with gastric bypass. Don't get me wrong, if you do it right, you MIGHT not have the same results I had, but a little dixie cup size meal was just not enough food for me. I would cry and be angry at every gathering of people and food. Let's just say eating was a big part of my life, so m

Hey Retirement! Don't take OUR Date Night Away!!

"Wait! Did we budget for Date Night??" Wednesday night is Date Night at our house. It's been that way for a LONG time! And we didn't want retirement to do away with our weekly fun. So today, I'm going to cover some good ways to keep that fun coming and be able to pay for it with slightly reduced funds. Put some money in the budget. Analyze what you can afford and how many times you will be going out during the month. If you get paid twice a month, budget for two date nights. If you get paid weekly, you only need to budget it in for the week. For us, we are getting paid once a month so we will budget for 4 to 5 nights out. We set aside about $20 to $25 per week for date night Remember, it's about spending time together not how fancy the dining is. You can make a picnic one week and then spend double the following week at a nice place. You can make dinner at home and go to see a play or movie. In our case we could go to the beach with some hot do

How Buying Bulk Saves Us Money

We are great fans of Costco and have been for years. We have 4 children and cooked at home most meals so we got used to buying bulk. But as newly retired people, we had to ask ourselves if buying bulk was still the most money saving way to buy. And simple answer is yes! The thing to know about bulk shopping is to only get those things you are use frequently. Most of the canned and frozen foods have a shelf life of about a year. And if you bulk shop, you really need to get used to finding that date. Our favorite list of canned items include: olives, diced tomatoes, corn, beans, refried beans, tomato sauce, the canned chicken, beef and tuna. I noticed that Costco doesn't break down their food prices so you can see how much per can, but that is NOT difficult to do. You take the total price for the bulk pack, divide it by the number of cans and that is your per can price. Why do you need to know that? So you can compare prices with what the similar item costs in your local groc

The High Cost of Eating Out

Do you guys make a budget every month? We started doing it a couple of years ago knowing that our retirement would be coming soon and we would have to know how to live within a budget.  We use the Quicken for Mac program and is it ever insightful!! You set your budget and tailer it to meet your own personal needs. As you spend money and assign the money into your categories, the program keeps track of how you are doing within that budget. You can select monthly and by the entire year. One of these days I'll have to make a video explaining how it works for us. Anyway, for us, food kept coming up on our budget overages, meaning, we set the budget for a certain amount and each month, we were going over. Now in the "olden days" we had really gotten used to dining out at night, having several lunches out a week and those luscious coffee creations 4 out of 7 mornings!! No wonder it wasn't balancing. But we had the money then and we didn't even LOOK at what we wer

The Leftovers - POTATO CORN CHOWDER

A great way to minimize your grocery budget is to have leftovers. I know, I KNOW... that doesn't sound very appetizing... but it CAN be! Last night we had "Breakfast For Dinner" which was corn on the cob, bacon, hash browns and an omelet made with eggs, roasted asparagus, spring onions and cheddar cheese. It was great last night and too much for two people to eat in one night. I've been working my way through my Friday CSA box and decided to work the asparagus and spring onions into the meal. Even while I was making this meal, I was thinking, "How can I use leftovers for this meal to make something totally yummy, inexpensive and make it seem like it WASN'T leftovers. You guys have that problem too? "We don't want to eat that AGAIN...!" Our Friday CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture) Box From Rutiz Farm .  Now it's Tuesday and I'll let you in on what I came up with from last nights dinner. We ate up the omelet and gave the fe

Thankful Sunday

What are you thankful for this week? Oh my GOSH, there are so many things to be thankful for I hope you at least can find a hand full! We are having the BEST weather here on the beach, lots of sunshine and gentle sea breezes. We made it over to our community garden to take out the old and put in the new. Out came the winter kale, collards, turnips, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and spinach. We replaced it with 2 kinds of baby potatoes, tomatoes, shelling peas, scallions, radishes, carrots, strawberries and leeks. We have a few empty spaces that will be planted over the next couple of weeks. And everything is in bloom! Lilacs, Lavender, Wisteria, our berries, Daylilies, fruit trees and more! One of the most interesting things that happened this week was a "magical" call from my  oral surgeon Dr. Janette in San Luis Obispo that I HIGHLY recommend if you are looking for someone. I had a tooth removed last October and it was going to be

What's For Dinner This Week... March 17-23

Friday  3/17 Winner, Winner Taco Dinner This is a good little meal for two. The quantity of taco meat will actually make several meals for us. I had 1 taco and Wes had 3 tonight so 4 tacos total. We like coming up with meals that we will be able to make in the future with our own garden produce. Grow what you eat!! Tonight, 2 tomatoes and 1 head of lettuce was $1.35. And we have enough left over to do a nice salad in the upcoming week. The chicken came from Costco in 2 breast packages which is perfect for the two of us. The taco shells were a pack of 10! Very economical and tasty!  You will need: 1/2 Cup  Shredded Mild Cheddar cheese 1 Cup      Shredded Lettuce 1             Roma Tomato Cut up 4             Stand & Stuff Taco Shells (Old El Paso) Chicken Taco Filling (recipe follows) Other ideas for toppings: sliced avocado, sour cream, hot sauce or ranch dressing, olives, rice, beans, corn, the sky's the limit! Chicken Taco Filling 2 chicken breasts 1

Something For Nothing

This past weekend, our local Master Gardeners put on a clinic all about propagating plants and how best to grow tomatoes. For us, that's fun! Propagation sounds like a big word, but I bet most of you have done something along the lines without even knowing it. If you've ever taken a fallen leaf off an African violet and put it in dirt and watched it grow into a brand new plant, that's propagation! It can be done in different ways for different plants and with different words; grafting, cuttings, layerings, plant division and others.  We have several fruit trees, some grapes, 4 types of berries and lavender on our property and to be able to make more plants FROM them without any added expense is perfect when you are watching your budget. Yesterday we went over to my daughter's house and took 8 cuttings off her Meyer lemon tree and I'm hoping they take. She is going to be moving soon and the lemons off this tree are DIVINE!! And you know.... it o

Copycat Vanilla Soy Chai

One of my favorite drinks at Starbucks is the Grande size, Vanilla Soy Chai. But, wow, has it ever gotten expensive! I want to say when I started drinking this drink about 10 years ago it was $3.75, which was expensive but now it is $4.75! Probably a lot like you, I don't always think about the cost when I go in. I have a Starbucks card, I faithfully reload my card about twice a month and I spend what's on there and reload again.  Now that we are trying to live on quite a bit less but not give up the "good life", I was determined to make the drink at home and make it taste like my favorite coffeehouse drink. To my surprise, it was very simple and economical!  HERE'S the Video where I show you how simple it is to make! I'll give you a little breakdown of the expense.  Soymilk is $2.98 for a half gallon and I use 1/8 of the gallon for the drink, so .37 in milk Vanilla syrup is 12.2 oz for $3.98 and I use a little under 1 oz. for a drink, .33 in

Preservation Saturday

You'll never guess what we did this week! Went to our local supermarket and bought 50 lbs. of russet potatoes. Yup, the REALLY big bag. I have been getting the canning bug and wanted to make some canned potatoes for my pantry. Canning is a really good way to save money if your already own your equipment. I've been doing this since 2010 and slowly building up my supplies over the years. Now my canning costs are mainly for jars, rings and lids. I keep the rings and use them over and over but the lids need to be replaced after each use. And the jars I can still pick up on Craigslist pretty cheaply. I also shop the "end of season" sales every year.  So, I bet you are wondering just how many quart jars of potatoes you can get from 50 lbs of potatoes and the answer would be.... about 18 to 20 quarts. We're halfway through the bag and have done up 14 quarts leading me to believe it will be more like 28 quarts of potatoes in the end. That works out to .35 per j