Frugal Mary's Personal Finance Blog

It's only a can of beans. The one can that hid in the dark recesses of my pantry. I pulled it out and it had expired last year. My rational brain says that it may still be good but my instincts tell me to toss it.

I tossed it without a second thought. You see, if any of you have ever had food poisoning you know why I didn't try to salvage it. It is not worth the risk of being sick for over a week for a .89 cent can of beans.

I will be more diligent in rotating my food pantry as I put the foods that will expire soon in the front so I will use them first. I may write a list of items to use by month in my pantry to remind me of their expiration dates.

The refrigerator was the next place I looked for expired foods. I usually do a good job at using up food in the refrigerator. The only thing I need to use up is a half box of raisins that will expire in April. I am making raisin quick bread today. I noticed I have a half package of dates in there too that need to be eaten by April so I will make a mental note to eat those as snacks next week or make more quick bread with them next weekend.

This month we have been eating pantry foods. Today I made a chicken spaghetti casserole and a spinach quiche to eat on for the weekend.

I have been updating my coupon savings this month and as of today my total grocery coupon savings is $154.75.

This is only on grocery items! My dh and I do shop for sale items on household and entertainment needs.
We try to curb our spending as much as we can. Dh has a collection that he is constantly adding to and sometimes he does over spend in that category but we are working on it.

How much do you save every month by using coupons?

I just read Jeffrey's article

http://www.savingadvice.com/articles/2011/01/07/106869_reaso... about his Reasons Not to have a Cell Phone and I thought I would put my reasons to have one. Everyone has different needs and live in situations and areas where they may or may not need a cell phone. I have a Tracfone and I buy minutes every 90-days. I do not talk on my cell phone while I am driving nor do I send text messages while driving. If my phone rings while I am driving I pull over to the side of the road and talk. Here are the reasons I have a cell phone:

1. A cell phone saves me time and money. When I am out shopping and I see something that my family may want I can call them and see if they want it and pick it up for them instead of coming home and going back out shopping again.
2. For emergencies. I drive in rural areas and if I have car trouble or if I see someone who needs help I can call someone. Also, DH has health problems and if we are traveling and he needs EMS I can call from the road side for help.
3. For convenience. When my car is in the shop all day my DH or DS will pick me up and we will do some shopping. The repair shop can call me on my cell phone when my car is ready.
4. For long distance calls to family.
5. For job hunting. I put my cell phone number on my resumes so employers can contact me anywhere I am and we can set up a time for a interview.

I also have a landline at home for general chatting with friends. My landline does not have long distance calling on it.

This morning I noticed gas was $2.82/gallon. We went about our errands and on our way back the price had went up to 2.87/gallon. We stopped by Costco to fill up and it was still 2.75/gallon.

A news reporter mentioned that gas would be up to 4.00/gallon by this summer. I am not sure where we are going to find money in our budget for these increases. We have to drive to work, school, etc. and we can only combine so many errands to save on gas. I know that in other parts of the country gas is even higher than this and in other countries it is very expensive and sold by the litre.

I can't seem to clip enough coupons to keep up with inflation. How about you? Do you try to adjust your budget so compensate for higher prices?

Today's food (we ate out because we has several appointments to go to today): A local restaurant is having $1.00 BBQ pulled pork sandwiches every Monday this month. We bought 6 of them for our lunch. The meat was so tender. I cannot buy the ingredients and make sandwiches for that price.

Today I saved $35.30 in coupons. I shopped the sales at CVS, Walgreens, and Hancock Fabrics. My greatest savings were at CVS on grocery items.

My updated coupons savings for this year is:
$12.44 + 35.30 = $47.74

I hope I can keep this up all year. I want to see how much I am saving by using coupons this year.

As for the $1.00 savings challenge I may discontinue it because I primarily use my debit card and do not carry any cash.

One of my goals this year is to not waste food.

Today I did a inventory of my pantry. I have made a list of all the food items in my cupboards and refrigerator. I am going to make up some menus to use up the food that will expire soon.

Happy New Year to everyone!

We are celebrating at home. I had pre-shopped and thought I had everything I needed but had to go out today for one item that we really needed and ended up getting a few other things too. I saved $5.00 by using coupons today and will add that to my savings challenge.

Coupon savings $7.44 + 5.00 = $12.44

I have decided that 2011 is the year that I will be blogging about my savings challenges. This blog will make me accountable to my readers and to myself.

I have decided to try the $1.00 challenge by putting all of my dollar bills into a jar to see how many I save up at the end of the month.

My change jar was half full so I took it to the bank. The bank I use has a free money counter so I didn't have to count it out and roll it up.

I had to pick up a few groceries today so I went through my coupons and made a list before I went shopping. I am glad that I did, my coupon savings were about 10% of my grocery bill.

Today's savings:
Change jar: $51.87
Coupon savings: $7.44
$1.00 Saving Challenge: $2.00