Meals on sale

As I browse through the weekly ads this week, I make a mental list of the dinner items on sale that my family will eat and that stay within the confines of our healthy diet.  At Publix, I note shrimp, rotisserie chicken, chicken breast tenders, ground beef, and tilapia.  Shrimp is so yummy when tossed in a bowl with a tiny bit of olive oil and the grated peel of a lime.  I have a flat top grill that flips into a graded grill that I am just in love with, for healthy, easy cooking with kids it's awesome.  I just toss the shrimp on, no skewering required and cook for a few minutes, tossing with tongs.  Then I top a salad of some sort with these yummy shrimp or serve with a steamed veggie and brown rice (your choice).  If you're in a real hurry, the quick cooking rice goes on sale every few weeks and I tend to stock up, because you only have to microwave it for 90 seconds and coming in from a long day's work, I never feel like cooking for more than 15 mins tops. 

The rotisserie chicken is wonderful too,  you can quickly shred it and use it for so many dishes.  With a little bit of mole sauce, cumin, and oregano, you can make the yummiest chicken tacos.  Serve these with a salad or black beans and rice, Mmmmmm - it makes me hungry just thinking about it.  If you have leftover shredded chicken, throw it in a Ziplock bag or Tupperware and use it during the week for sandwiches.  If you're in the mood for spaghetti this week, Publix has ground beef, Barilla pasta, and bag salad on sale this week.  Spaghetti sauce has been on sale for the last few weeks, so if you stocked up like I did, you can easily make a pot of pasta that serves 6 people with a small salad for approx $7.00.  $1.17 per serving for dinner is exactly what I'm aiming for.

If you shop at Food Lion, your menu should include Shrimp skewers, ground beef, pork loin, and chicken breasts.  At Kroger, the ad changes tomorrow but if you are shopping today, the menu should include pork loin, salmon, chicken breasts, tilapia, and rotisserie chicken.  Happy planning and shopping this week!

Waste more, Spend more

It occurs to me as I begin cleaning out the refrigerator for my weekly shopping routine this week, that I throw away a lot of food.  I am always frustrated by the zucchini that was just purchased that seems a little slimy still in it's prepackaged state, or the yogurt that I seemed to have pushed to the back of the fridge when I put the new groceries away.  Even with my strict shopping and meal planning, I still seem to be losing money and obviously still over-buying a bit.  So as I continued to clean out the fridge, I took out a piece of paper and a pen and started to write it all down:


     1 Cantaloupe
     Lg plain yogurt
     1 bag of mixed greens
     1 opened container of pizza sauce
     approx 1/4 lb deli ham
     1 avocado
     2 lemons
     1 bag of radishes
     3 sm containers of mac & cheese

The saddest part is that I have yet to even get to the pantry or the freezer, let alone opened the refrigerator in the garage.  The food that I pulled out of my kitchen refrigerator is estimated at about $13.00 of wasted food that could have been used to pay down my credit card or help with my electric bill; this is only one week of food waste which means that I could be throwing away over $600 a year. 

After doing a little bit of research, I found some tips on food storage that I will begin to implement:

1. Store vegetables and fruits separately to reduce ethylene gas build up in the refrigerator
2. Store herbs upright in a glass of water covered with at plastic bag for longest shelf life
3. While foods like Apples, Cantaloupes, and berries should be stored in the refrigerator, bananas, tomatoes, watermelon, and mangoes should be stored on the counter out of direct sunlight
4. Store onions, potatoes, and squash in a cool, dry place
5. It is recommended that berries are stored unwashed and in a single layer (this one seems a little tough for space reasons, so I will simply try to eat my berries more quickly)

Celebration Time!

Whether it's a birthday, anniversary, or exciting life event, there will always be a need for Celebration from time to time.  As I am learning more each day, the key to saving money in any of these events is planning.  This coming Saturday night, my husband and I will be going out to celebrate the fact that I just earned myself a column in the local newspaper, The Bluffton Today.  While this may not seem like an enormous achievement, you would have to know that I began my schooling long ago as a Communication major at East Carolina University.  I have never pursued this avenue before but it has always been a life long dream for me.  So as any good husband would, mine is taking me out for a night on the town to tie one on. 

In keeping with my money saving theme, planning is the key to saving money while dining out and enjoying a good time.  This lovely area of Bluffton and Hilton Head is famous for its' Early Bird Specials, while you need to attend dinner at a particular time of the evening, these are specials not to be missed.  One of my favorite restaurants in the area is Wise Guys, located on Hilton Head Island on Main Street next to Frankie Bones, another yummy restaurant.  Wise Guys offers an Early Bird special that is amazing, which consists of a 3 course dinner for $15 between 4:30pm and 5:30pm daily.  It just so happens that I follow the Wise Guys Facebook page regularly and they are offering a coupon for a Buy One Get One free during the early bird time.  So, for $7.50 each, you and a friend, spouse, or stranger (who am I to judge?) . . . enjoy a 3 course meal served by a wonderfully talented chef.  In addition to this great special, they have happy hour from 5pm to 7pm where bottles of wine are $10 off, and drinks are $1 off.  Chateau St. Michelle Pinot Grigio is a favorite of mine which Wise Guys offers at $26.00 per bottle.  At happy hour, this bottle is only $16.00, since a bottle holds approximately 4 glasses of wine, my husband and I can enjoy a 3 course meal and 2 glasses of wine for $31.00 plus tax.  What a wonderful celebration it is!

Below is the link for Wise Guys and the coupon located on their Facebook page, stop by and get a great meal for a great price:

http://www.wiseguyshhi.com/

http://www.wiseguyshhi.com/emails/earlydining.html

Do it Yourself!

Whether you are crafty, good with computers, or handy around the house, we all have talents that we can use to save money. My husband for instance, and thank goodness, is extremely handy around the house. This is helpful for times when things break or just need a little tweaking. When the back door to our house doesn't shut the way that it should, he is able to go and buy the items needed at Lowes or Home Depot to fix it fairly quickly. This month to save money, he is changing the oil on our cars. Advance Auto parts has a sale that includes 5 quarts of oil and an oil filter for $16.99. So for the price of one oil change, he can get both of our cars done. I searched a few places in the area and am listing the prices below, that way if you can't change your own oil, at least you'll be able to use your money wisely:

• Tire Kingdom - $21.99 with online coupon until 08/31
• Walmart - $30.00
• Firestone - $25.99
• Tires Plus - $23.99

As for me, I do our taxes, obviously our financial planning, and I get crafty around the house. I recently was in a store in Bluffton that sold bow holders for little girls. I loved them, but they were $40 plus, so I stood there and took it all in, I hesitate to take a picture when I am in a store, but if I see something when no one else is around, I would definitely take my phone out and snap a shot. I know that Michaels sells all the ribbon and wood needed for a project like this so I went home to think about it. Upon observing my daughter's room, I noticed that she has a pink wooden wall hanging that would be perfect, so I got some pretty polka dot ribbon and with a staple gun added the ribbon to the wall hanging. PERFECT! It looked even better than the ones in the store for a fraction of the price. Don't be afraid to try to replicate something that you see, yours might turn out even better than you expected.

Back to Shopping. . .

My focus today has been coupons, coupons, and more coupons and my new favorite website that I must share with you.  It's called http://www.southernsavers.com/, and I am learning so much more about grocery shopping then I ever could have thought. 

First off, let's talk about Publix.  Upon entering Publix grocery store, make sure that you are looking at the flyer stands in the entrance, because some of those inserts contain great coupons that you can use right then and there.  Secondly, Publix takes a large variety of coupons, and I tested this out last weekend.  Publix will take both a store coupon and a manufacturers' coupon on the same item, they take competitor's coupons (like Target), and you don't have to buy 2 items to get their Buy One Get One special.  I also read that they have a secret penny item on Wednesday, this week it was supposed to be the Publix Iced Tea, but I didn't find the coupon and haven't yet figured this whole thing out, but don't worry, I'm on it and I'll let you know.

Ok, now let's talk a little bit about Kroger, while their customer service is not as great as Publix, the prices are a little cheaper overall from what I have found.  They also allow you to add coupons to your Kroger card from both the Kroger website and the Cellfire website, and you are allowed to have 2 coupons for the same item if they come from different websites.  In addition to the coupons you add to your card, you can also use printed coupons or ones out of the paper as well.  http://www.coupons.com/ is great for printing coupons to use and so often you will have a coupon already added to your Kroger card as well.  Big bonus is when the item is already on sale too, which means you either get the item for free or you get it for a few cents.  I love this!  Both last week and this week you could get a package of Nature's Own Clusters for free if you added the coupon to your Kroger card and then printed a coupon to take with you.  It's work, but who can argue with getting free snacks. 

Visit the website to help you save at many of the groceries stores in our area as well as Walgreens and Target!

Electric bill came today!

Wow, the SCE&G electric bill came by e-mail today and I was floored.  My bill was $269.62, and last month was a whopping $322.25.  In June, we moved into a 3 bedroom home with a bonus room and expected to see a large reduction in our utility costs, but that has not yet happened. On average we could end up spending over $3,500 a year on our electric bill.  So today I began to educate myself a little in order to help us cut costs in this area.  Did you know that approximately 46% of your electric bill is directly related to the heating and cooling of your home?  Right now our thermostat stays on 75 degrees at all times, which happens to be 3 degrees lower than the SCEG recommended temperature.

Upon doing a little research on the SCE&G website, I found out while the majority of your electric bill is related to the HVAC system, 14% is related to the water heater.  They recommend setting your thermostat to 78 degrees or higher in the summertime, and state that for every degree lower that your thermostat is set you will undoubtedly pay at least 5% more in your electric costs.  Which means that having my thermostat set at 75 degrees is increasing my electric bill by at least 15% each month.  The site also recommends keeping interior doors open and utilizing any ceiling fans in your home, but if you leave the room, remember to turn them off.

On my July bill, the energy analyser on the SCE&G website shows that there were 18 days where the temperature reached over 90 degrees, on my August bill this number jumped to 25 days.  If interested the website even teaches you how to read your own meter, so if you wanted to check your billing each month, you definitely could do so by using the dates on your bill to read your own meter.  One thing that we do not yet own in our home is a programmable thermostat, but these are great for working adults because you can program your thermostat to operate at a higher or lower temperature when you are not at home, which could save you money in the long run.  At Lowes, these thermostats range anywhere from $29.00 to $120.00.

If you are in an extremely tight position and you are at risk for not being able to pay your electric bill, SCE&G offers a program where they can refer you to government programs designed to help you heat your home, these are only available for cooling your home in extremely rare cases.    Below is a letter from the President of SCE&G, that I found on the website:

In today’s economy, we’re all looking for ways to tighten our belts. As SCE&G is working to build new generation to continue meeting your energy needs, we’re also taking steps to cut costs in our day to day operations. I can’t think of a better time to share something that we have in common – finding ways to save money and still keep the household running, today and in the future.


"I know it may be hard to see how a big company like SCE&G and your own household budget compare. But controlling our operating costs is not so different from managing your monthly budget. It’s important that we’re cost conscious in everything we do. We owe that to you as a customer.


In 2009, we cut 40 million dollars in our operational and maintenance costs. Here are some of the other things we’ve done:


• eliminated 34 percent of our contract positions


• eliminated pay increases for two years straight for salaried employees


• limited the hiring of new employees


• offset nearly 77 percent of the cost of federally-mandated Lake Murray Backup Dam through tax credits, saving customers like you $254 million that we did not have to collect through rates


As SCE&G continues to serve South Carolina’s energy needs, we do it with you in mind every single day. That’s the bottom line and I wanted you to hear it from me. – Kevin Marsh, President, SCE"
 
Today I am turning my thermostat to 78 degrees, and I will be following the tips from the website in order to lower my electric bill, I will be sharing my rates again next month to see if it made a dent in my bill.

Earn more money!

I know that I am constantly talking about saving money, but the reality of the situation is that if you don't make enough money right now to pay your bills and put more than your minimum payment on those pesky credit cards, saving money is almost impossible.  The sad part of the matter is that income checks are getting smaller and bills are getting higher.  I recently took my own advice and I sat down to revamp our monthly budget.  I inputted all of our forecasted income for the rest of the year along with all of our monthly expenses into an excel spreadsheet.  Now, while my income is completely set, my husband earns bonuses as part of his income that are pretty difficult to predict because they are based on residential home sales.  So I find myself being extremely conservative in order to give myself the "worst case scenario." 

As I enter all of the numbers of the bills that must be paid, our mortgage, our rent, (yes we have both right now, I will share that story later), our utility bills, our daycare costs, insurance, car payments . . . wow it just keeps on going.  And by the way don't forget those bills that only pop up annually or quarterly like your SC property taxes on your vehicles or your HOA dues.  Regardless, I find out the hard way that we are in the negative even before we spend money on things like entertainment and eating out.  So for every dollar I spend in excess of our monthly bills, I am digging us further into a hole. 

My decision:  We need to earn more money, period.  So a few weeks ago, my husband and I both began looking for part time positions, knowing that really only one of us would probably be able to take on another job, because the other would need to take care of the girls.  But I have to tell you that we weren't looking for manual labor, or really anything that didn't jump out at us, we were looking for something that we would enjoy doing while making money at the same time.  BINGO . . . Ben found it, he found a job refereeing Soccer for Beaufort County.  It is in the evenings and on Saturday and fits pretty well into our schedule, and he loves Soccer so much that he would probably volunteer to do it anyhow.  We needed to resign ourselves to the fact that every dollar counts, and even if we are only bringing in a little extra a week, our budget tells us that we only need a little extra to pull us out. 

Some other ideas for earning some extra cash if you can't take on a part time job include holding a garage sale, selling things you don't need on Ebay, or selling your books that you have already read on Half.com.  If you are looking for a part time gig, search listings on craigslist.com, careerbuilder.com, or hotjobs.com.  It may take some time, but it will be rewarding in the end to know that you dug yourself out of debt all on your own.