This Week: The Thrill of Doing

I have to tell you all that initially the title to this post was "The Thrill of Saving"...but it's not about that at all, for all my work to save.  It's the thrill of Doing and knowing you are generating a savings that is really the thing that leads to satisfaction, contentment and ultimately living better than I did the day before.



Saturday:    John went off to work today.  It was not planned.  He worked 10 hours, all over time hours to fill a vacant slot at the job.  I'm sure I will appreciate it on the paycheck, but in the meantime, I was left at loose ends.  It's far easier to do nothing when he's home to do nothing with.

I spent the morning and afternoon dismantling Christmas...and then cleaning and redecorating the living room.  Thus far my expense for redecorating has been $5, the cost of a lovely little porcelain figurine of a girl with a dog.  I have nothing at all to base my opinion upon but I keep referring to her as my Shepherdess.  I used just what I had which was a basket of stuff hauled in from the shed.   I have more work to do before I'm done and a purchase to arrive and one or two to make but even just partially assembled the living room has already taken on the air of an English country cottage.  

My dinner today was a leftover makeover and John's supper when he came in was also leftovers of a different variety.  Nice to clear the fridge of things we might otherwise have ignored until too late.  Nicer still to not have to do any real cooking when I was so busy otherwise.

Sunday:  I started a pot of Cheeseburger soup in the crockpot before we left for church.  It was rainy outdoors and while not cold, it was still the nicest thing to walk in the back door and smell the aroma of food cooking.  It's a gift I mean to give myself as often as I can this winter!   I had a quart of soup leftover.  We'll have it for a meal later in the week.  Normally I might freeze soup but this had potatoes in it and they don't hold up well in the freezer if you've used fresh potatoes.

John and I had already determined we'd not stop at the grocery store today.  He went by the gas station instead to pick up his Sunday paper.

I don't read news anymore.  I do find it terribly dismal or totally misleading and just prefer to not read it at all.  I do however, look forward to the sales sheets and this weeks were just full of great money saving offers.  I even culled a few coupons from the paper this week which prompted me to go sort out my coupons and be sure they were all up to date.   As I worked I plotted my strategy to save.

Monday:  I flitted about getting a few initial tasks done and planning lunch.  I'd thought I'd laid out a plan and discovered that I was out of the key ingredient.  Then I spied the taco dinner in a box on my pantry shelf.  That is one meal I know Master Josh will eat.    When I told him what was for dinner he suggested I needed to drive to Taco Bell.  There, a bag of 1 dozen tacos will cost you about $14.  It's not outrageous and it's enough to feed four easily and feed them well, but I was reasonably sure I could do better.  I had a pound of ground beef at $2.99 and the taco dinner kit which was a buy one get one deal at Publix at the end of December.  I think it worked out to about $2 and that included taco seasoning and sauce.  I shredded lettuce, used two not quite prime tomatoes, grated a bit of cheese and we had a taco dinner for 4 for about $7.  The boys don't eat an adult portion of food so there were enough leftovers for me to have a meal tomorrow.  Not a super frugal meal but much better than take out price and we do have leftovers enough for two.  Savings: $7

The day was spent watching the boys play, insisting they take naps and dropping exhaustedly into our chairs until nap time was over.  Then up and at 'em one more time.  It was meant to be a play date but Bess had an opportunity to work extra hours and Sam was apparently not feeling well, so the boys stayed here for the day.  After they left, I sort of fell into my chair all over again and when I stood up later I was stiff all over.  I commented on it to John and he asked, "Well when did you have time to stiffen up today?!  You had to keep up with the boys."  This is truth, lol.

Tuesday:  It's been a long day and productive in many ways.  First I saw John off to work and then I started a full load of dishes in the dishwasher.  After I showered and dressed, I  stripped our bed.  Put on my makeup and while I was waiting for the gloom outdoors to lift enough to remember it was day time, I made our bed with fresh linen.   Finally I fed the dogs and cat and then locked up the house and headed out.

I drove to Target first this rainy morning and arrived there about 8:30.  It was lovely to shop at that hour.  There were 3 other customers, 1 cashier, and 1 customer service desk clerk.  Only registers open were the self check out kiosks.  Lots of clerks on hand but lots of empty shelves, too at that hour.  It was kind of neat to see the early morning workings of the store.  The dollar spot hadn't been set up at all for January, Christmas stuff had completely disappeared and those were the main savings for me, lol, as I hadn't the urge to indulge myself in any great markdowns.

I had my eye on several deals.  One was for cereal.  I have had a problem of late with my blood sugar going pretty  high after eating cereal or granola.  I've always had a piece of toast with  peanut butter as my protein to balance the carbs, but it's not enough now.  And dropping the piece of toast does seem reasonable but who wants eggs and cereal for breakfast?  In our Atkins diet days we often ate Special K Protein cereal.  This cereal was on sale this week at $2.50 a box, with a special buy 5 boxes and you could get a $5 gift card.  That made the cereal about $1.50 a box.  I could live with that and so I got the five boxes.

Proctor and Gamble toiletries were on sale too but the Pantene shampoo I'd meant to buy came in Curly, Color Treated Hair, and Volumizing formulas.  John is the one who uses the shampoo and he keeps his hair extremely short.  I thought any of those seemed a foolish choice for him.  They were priced $3.99, buy 4 and get $5giftcard.  I had coupons for the shampoo but decided to hold off due to the poor selection.

The store had a special coupon for household and cleaning items.  Spend $50 and get a $15 gift card.  The catch: you can't use any other savings coupons with this coupon.  So all my prep work in gathering those coupons was in vain.  However, I'm not one to sneer at $50 of product for $35 either, so I chose items that were on sale, that  I knew we were low or out of at home and bought enough of several items to last us about 9-12 months.

Organizational bins were on sale for $5 each and there was a 10% off coupon on organizational items.  I picked up six bins.  This deal ended being a problem.  The bins didn't ring up as on sale, as I discovered in examining my receipt once I'd gone to my car.  I went back in to the customer service desk and the clerk eventually figured out how to fix the problem.  She had me 'return' all six and issued me a refund, then rang them up at the correct price.  This allowed me to use the 10% off coupon which I'd forgotten to use earlier and netted me an additional $3 off.  I had her add my refund to my gift card balance

 I spent just under $100 total today and got $29 on the gift card.

Next I stopped at CVS where I stocked up on sales items with ECB rewards including the Pantene shampoo I'd skipped at Target.  My first total here was $99, but coupons dropped that to $55.  I earned $13 in ECBs, too.  I have until the end of the month to spend these and will look for further deals that I can use to stock up on toiletries and perhaps earn a few more ECBs

I made two more stops.  One was a return/exchange, so no money changed hands.  The last stop was at the discount grocer I visit about once every 6 weeks or so. I  stocked up on our favorite turkey sausage, hot dogs, and crackers and canned meats that John likes to keep at work for quick meals on the go.

Home once more, I put laundry in the machine to wash while I unpacked and put away my purchases.  I organized the laundry room shelf with the bins.  It looks so much nicer than the messy assortment of stuff on the shelf before and I have sorted them by category.

I organized the broom closet where I store my cleaning supplies as well.  As I finished that task, it was time to leave home again.  I'd been invited to dinner for New Year's by John's partner and his wife.  I ended being a tiny bit late.  It poured rain just as I was ready to walk out the door and then a train had stopped on the tracks at the crossing, so I had to go the long way round to get to their home.  It was a lovely meal, nice company and much enjoyed.  I couldn't help but think on my way home that if this is setting the pace of the New Year, I'll certainly be busy but it shall be pleasantly balanced between work and leisure.   Back home I didn't quite finish my chores.  I put half the load of laundry to dry and drank a cup of coffee.  Then I put the second load to dry and partially folded one load.  I partially unloaded the dishwasher.  I'll finish all tasks tomorrow but for tonight, I am off to bed.

Wednesday:  I woke in a very leisurely way this morning.  Stretched and then looked at the clock.  It was 5am.  I decided going back to sleep would be nice, so I did and woke about 7am.  I'm glad I took the extra couple of hours to sleep.  The morning soon became a little tense.

Bess asked me to keep the boys.  John worked yesterday and was working late this morning.   I didn't feel it was the best idea to have the children here, since I had no idea of his plans.  John was quite late coming in this morning.  I made a lighter than usual breakfast.  Then he wanted to go on and do the grocery shopping today.  I had not planned to do the shopping today but I had a fair idea of what we needed.  Off we went.   We shopped only at Aldi.  I found everything I felt sure we needed.  Glad I had not said yes to the impromptu request to keep the boys.  There was no emergency and the asking was completely spontaneous.

John brought in his pay check and I needed to finish working up the checkbook register, though I was 99% done.  I was able to set aside a very nice sum towards the new tires he will need.

We shared a sandwich from a favorite shop on our way home.  John asked for just a sandwich and a lemonade.  Trouble with this place is that they serve all sandwiches with one soup and one side dish.  If you ask for 'just the sandwich' you pay the same price even though you are getting less food.  I think in the future we'll get the sides and bring them home.  I do not see giving away money to a business.

I mentioned our electric bill was quite high last month, higher than it's ever been.  Sam told me his too was high.  A conversation with my electrician son Jd prompted me to mention to John that he'd said perhaps our heat tape was still running on the heat pump.  It had been turned on last month when we made that repair to the motor and had freezing temperatures to deal with.   John asked me to call the repair people and just ask them if that was a possibility.  My conversation with the gentleman made me feel it was, as everyone keeps saying, just that it was quite cold the past month.  He told me that since we'd gotten a new thermostat it would say if the emergency heat were on and added "And your bill would have been in the $600-$700 range."  It was what he said next though that really ended the matter. "Our electric bill was about $100 more, too.."   He lives in our area so it sounds like just a increase that we all must have experienced.  We agreed that if our bill is very high this next month he will come out and check the heat pump but in the meantime we'll assume we all got hit by increases in the last cold snap of 2018.

Thursday:  Rain.  We've had loads of rain since December and the yard is a soggy thing, but the poor driveway is a rutted mess.  Ugh.  John and I cringe each time we must leave the house.  It is meant to rain heavily this evening and to rain tomorrow.  We had a brief respite midday.  John chose to leave home then.  We both were in need of a haircut and I had an especial want today.

After our haircuts we walked into the Kroger next door.  John picked up a sandwich in the deli and insisted on getting me a 'weird cheese' something we haven't done in a long time.  I gathered an armful of the most lovely flowers which were reduced in price but looked much more alive and vibrant than the ones I'd bought two weeks ago at the same cost and far less abundant than this lot.  I now have a lovely bouquet in both the living room and on the dining table. This was my especial want.  I treated myself to a coffee at Starbucks.  I am blessed to have a brother in law who gifts us a gift card each year.  I am still spending from last year's gift card.

We bought crackers and Haagen Daaz ice cream, the only carrageenan free choice I can find.  Even Ben and Jerry's has slipped over to the dark side and added the stuff to their ice cream.  Traitors!   I reviewed sales papers online yesterday and these were the only two items I felt worthwhile to purchase this week from Kroger.  I did not find anything worthwhile in Publix sales ad.

We combined errands while out.  We stopped by the mail box, took off trash, went by the post office to drop off outgoing mail, picked up a prescription at Publix and filled my car with gasoline.

We came home and just in time.  I had a call from Bess saying she'd been delayed out of town and that Sam was at a work meeting.  I picked Josh up at the bus stop.  He greeted me with a big grin and said "Well hello, Terri Cheney!" lol  He was only here a few minutes but what a pleasure it was to see his smiling face.

This morning before we left home, I worked on a problem area in our bathroom.  We have a cabinet that is divided into three sections, one atop the other and each is tall, narrow and deep.  It is very dissatisfactory as a cabinet and very difficult to organize.  It has been a jumble for quite some time and this morning I had enough.  I emptied it out and threw away everything that was unused which I'd held onto for years because I hated to waste it.  Phooey!  It's a waste already...of much needed space!  I filled a small wastebasket and reduced the clutter by one organizing basket.  It is much neater and I can find what I need when I need it.

I was inspired to neaten the cabinet under the sink and while there was nothing to throw away, I did find two items I  could donate.

It made me determine to let go of some appliances in my kitchen.  I have kept three of them for years because they were given to me but I have seldom used one item, never used two others and a fourth item has proven to be more trouble than help in the kitchen.  All four take up valuable space in my cupboard and none of them are as useful to me as the space they require.

I set up John's lunch so that I might easily pack it in the morning.  Then I set up oatmeal for in the morning to ease breakfast prep.

The evening ended on a very pleasant note.  Although we didn't have subtitles, we watched "A Man Called Ove".  We understood enough to appreciate the film and I feel safe recommending it. No nudity.  Can't vouch for the language.  I understood one curse word quite plainly but no others.

Friday:  It rained so hard last night it woke me.  Temperatures dropped slightly, too.  I was chilly when we woke extra early for John's work day and turned the heat up by one degree.  The heat nor the AC has run much in the past few days so I felt we could afford that small indulgence.

I packed John's lunch, made him breakfast of oatmeal.  I made sure he left with a filled Yeti cup of coffee.

After John left, I headed back to bed.  It was pitch dark, rain was pounding and it was cold.  I snuggled into bed under a blanket and was soon fast asleep.  I must have needed that deep sleep, though I did have a dream towards the end that spoke to me.  I was cleaning up various messes in a family member's home and discovered as I went along that the mess only got worse and worse.  Finally, I'd hit the ultimate mess and was frantically trying to clear it when a man came up to me and said "Why are you clearing this up.  It's not your mess."  Hhmmmm...subconscious sending me a personal message?  Yes, I do believe so.

Up about 8:30, I immediately went to work on the little messes that had accumulated over this past week.  I had objects meant for the shed on my dresser, a messy desk with an accumulation of things that didn't belong in that space, clothing scattered here and there.  It took just minutes to clean it all up.  I'm not done yet.  I need to swish the guest bath and run the vacuum over the floors but I am nearly done with all my 'must do' tasks.  I've cut a backing to go on the needlepoint seat cover I mean to use as a pillow here in the living room.  I have a pair of pants to mend.  I have the kitchen cabinet emptied of excess appliances and things are set down next to the back door so I can take them outdoors.   I have planned meals for the weekend ahead and packaged up smoothie packets for the freezer.  I've had a very good lunch and know what I shall eat come suppertime.  I look about me at the neat and pretty living room, well pleased with it's evolving new look.  It's been a productive week despite the time out for visits and errands and there's been a good balance of work and leisure.  Not a bad first week of the year at all.

Share your week of doing with, won't you?