This week reminded me, once again, that retailers are ultra-skilled at coaxing us to spend on stuff we hadn’t expected to buy.
Yep, I backslid.
But since it was all in the food/healthcare category, I’m going to give myself a pass rather than regret the dollars that flowed from my wallet – or the chopped, formed and extruded potato scraps that landed in our freezer. (More on that later.)
After all, one of the points of the no-spend month is that each person gets to determine what “essential” and “non-essential” spending means. What’s vital to you might be a pffftttt…are you KIDDING me? to someone else.
For example, some people consider coffee an urgent need (DF calls it “God’s blood” – and he’s religious) while others can take it or leave it. The first group will therefore deem a replacement bag of grounds, or daily cups from their favorite java joints, as essential.
The second group will shrug and say, “Not in the budget right now” and either stick to water or bring coffee from home. Which brings me to the mad frugal skillz of a reader named Kate.
In the past week she had to take her husband in for an outpatient medical procedure. The medical center’s lobby has a Starbucks. Kate sat down, pulled out a book – and a Thermos of coffee that she’d brought from home.
She gets bonus frugal points in my book, because taking a loved one in even for standard care is a little bit nerve-wracking. Rather than give in to a venti soy whatever with no foam, plus maybe a scone or a heart-shaped cookie, our kool customer Kate stuck with the no-spend plan.
So here’s a great big saaa-LUTE! to you, Kate, and to everyone else who’s participating in the no-spend month. I am loving the stories.
Readers rock the no-spend
Kate wasn’t the only reader who kicked frugal patoot in the past week. A few examples:
Jenzer reports that “no candy bars, chips or bottles of pop came home with me this week” – also a particularly big win, since these indulgences tend to follow rough days. Instead, Jenzer went with stuff already in the cupboards, such as Nutella on graham crackers and home-popped popcorn.
Bethany D. achieved the heroic feat of sticking strictly to the monthly Costco shopping list, which included one treat item per person. Her own treat was a big bag of cocoa powder, part of which will be used to make hot chocolate mix for the kids: “Cheaper and way less garbage than the little packets.” She also baked gluten-free bread and muffins to freeze. Wow.
To keep from overdoing it at the supermarket, RoInRocketCityAL ordered her groceries from Walmart online, then picked them up: “That keeps me out of the stores, shopping for essentials only and sticking to my list.” She did spring for a hair appointment and had one lunch out, but again, we get to determine “essentials” on our own.
Ro also found some free entertainment: a cheese-making class, admission one free home-baked cake. Sounds like a good deal to me, because she learned an interesting new skill and knew there’d be at least one thing on the refreshments table that she wanted to eat.
Speaking of treats: Not only did a reader named Ann skip her usual coffee-and-sweets run after church, she saved a big buncha bucks by repairing her vacuum cleaner. The old one (and it was old) stopped working and Ann was about to go buy a new one. Instead, she found a YouTube video on vacuum cleaner repair and took apart the appliance. Now it runs like a charm.
“I figure that saved a chunk, and it was actually fulfilling to fix it,” she reports.
Niiiice.
How my own week went
My previously scheduled haircut and color went well. Although I wasn’t able to find a discounted gift card, I did have a coupon good for 20 percent off. Some people frugal-hack their heads by at least dyeing their own hair, if not cutting it themselves. (DF, for example, has been using a Flowbee for years. Bless his heart.)
Not me. I will cook my own food, clean my own house, bake my own pies from scratch, even make some birthday and holiday gifts. But some things I leave to the professionals.
I bought six more gallons of that distilled water from Walgreens, because it was still priced at two gallons for $2 (or $1.39 each). The stuff normally costs as much as $2.79 per gallon up here, so I bought the last six gallons on the shelf. Since I used using some of my Walgreens Balance Rewards points, it wound up costing me a buck. #frugalwin
The Kroger “Free Friday Download” program (in our case, that’s Fred Meyer) delivered two items: a small envelope of super-healthy peanut butter (which I’d neglected to pick up the previous week) and a package of Sweet ’N’ Chewy Ropes, an embarrassingly good candy that adults should never be seen eating. The nut butter will go to the food pantry at DF’s church and the candy will wind up in a nephew’s Easter basket.
During that visit I wanted to price a new variety of green beans, given that there was a 50-cents-off coupon (limit five). The brand was not in stock, so a store manager cited Fred Meyer’s “Make It Right” policy and offered me 50 cents off any brand of canned vegetable. Naturally I chose the Fred Meyer brand, and wound up with five cans of green beans for 29 cents apiece. Costco couldn’t come close to that price.
Did we need five cans right now? Nope. But for me it was essential because that was a really good price and the coupon expired the next day.
About those Tater Tots
A couple of months back Fred Meyer had a special deal on Tater Tots; if I recall correctly, it was $1.49 per one-pound bag. Given that my great-nephews and I have enjoyed “Smash Tots” at the Smashburger restaurant, I thought I’d treat them to some prefab spud nuggets the next time they came to visit.
However, I made the mistake of baking up a few for myself and tossing them with olive oil and rosemary, a la Smashburger, and…Well, dang, they were just as tasty at home. Also good when cooked in a bacon-greased black iron skillet in a very hot oven, and flipped over halfway through the cooking time so that they’re evenly browned and crunchy.
Figured my tattie-chunks obsession would be over once the bag was empty. And then.
Last week, Fred Meyer offered two-pound bags of Tater Tots for $2.49. I weighed (as it were) the amount of potatoes vs. cost and realized that $1.25 per pound is not at all frugal. And then.
I walked out of the store with five bags of the things. Five! Because I decided that hey, I bought hardly any groceries due to the fact that we usually buy in bulk. And because it was a special treat, for us and for my great-nephews and for DF’s granddaughters.
And because I can. After all, isn’t my frugal mantra “I save where I can so I can spend where I want”?
Yet I still felt a little weird about it, especially since it was a textbook case of FOMO: If I don’t take advantage of this coupon today or tomorrow, the sale will be over and I will have missed my chance!
I should know better, but I caved.
Incidentally, I never ate these things as a kid, because my mom would never buy something like that. Now and then she’d buy bags of frozen French fries, but mostly our spuds came into the house in 20-pound sacks, and we peeled and mashed (or baked, or fried) them ourselves.
Curious to find out when they were invented, I looked for info on the product. Tater Tots, created in 1953, are a great example of American ingenuity. A pair of farming brothers realized that the way of the future was frozen veggies, and started producing frozen fries for home consumption. Dismayed by the bits and pieces left over after the spuds were sliced, they ground up the leftovers, added flour and seasonings, and formed little nuggets.
Tater Tots are now the Ore-Ida company’s most recognized brand. And they really are fun to eat. When I offered some to DF’s older granddaughter, describing them as “nuggets of potato,” her six-year-old brain went berserk
“Like moose nuggets?!?” she crowed, and went into helpless fits of laughter.
Moose nuggets are moose turds. And yes, they’re kinda-sorta shaped like Tater Tots. They can be made into jewelry and sold to tourists. But there’s hardly ever a coupon for them.
So, everybody: How did the week go for you? Hits, misses, break-evens?
I gave in to temptation and bought a Kindle book instead of trying to request it through the library. And was promptly punished because although I like most of the books by this author, this particular book turned out NOT to be worth reading again and I can’t say I’m particularly proud of owning it. $7 down the drain. 🙁 So I’m trying to mentally reframe it as paying for the pleasure I find in their OTHER books (which I usually get for free from the library). After all, authors gotta eat too! And cheesy tater tots won’t buy themselves. 😉
Cheesy tater tots, cheesy fiction…We all have our weaknesses. 😉
Amazon will let you return kindle books within 7 days of purchase if you decide it isn’t your cup of tea.
That is great to know. Thanks for sharing it.
I have been doing really good and only went shopping once each week rather than two or three times for groceries. Things are really tight here so I really don’t have much of a choice right now. About those tater tots… Last month we went to Sam’s Club and I seen them there in the frozen food section. I thought to myself that I surely do not need eight pounds of tater tots considering that my husband does not eat them at all. Lo and behold I still ended up purchasing them. I love to have them as a snack or with a sandwich for dinner but I also found recipes online for tater tot casserole. They have just been a guilty pleasure of mine since I was young.
Since I never ate them when I was young, they have become a guilty pleasure in my old age.
Apparently tater tot casserole (or “hotdish”) is a thing. One of the people who ran my department at the university always brought it to potlucks. She said that the students were disappointed when she didn’t.
The tater tot recipe I have is called “Husband Pleaser.” The title is correct, at least in our household. I don’t care for them at all but the husband is crazy for them so I fix it twice a year—on his birthday and on Halloween.
I was home on my staycation this week and stuck to the budget. Did not go out to eat, didn’t spend any frivolous money. We did do some grocery shopping yesterday, mostly for fresh fruits and veggies since we are doing a major overhaul of DH’s diet. However we did find pork loins for $1.48 a pound – so bought one for about $11 and cut it into chops and put it in the freezer. Also defrosting a turkey we bought after the holidays for 48 cents a pound and will cook it tomorrow. Overall, a good week. 🙂
So far I’ve kept the spending limited to grocery shopping – which included one splurge item, store brand breakfast cereal. My little nephew gets the giggles when reading red radish juice in this flakes and “berries” ingredient list. My store does not usually carry this particular variety so I grabbed it… and giggled to myself just thinking of Nate’s smile. Well worth the $ and calorie indulgence.
Lol, well worth it indeed! Natural products sure do get interesting sometimes. It was only after I had drank half a bottle of Sobe that I realized it had “cochineal extract” on the ingredient list. Meaning that – I was drinking bug juice! 😂
If you’ve ever drunk any juice, or eaten catsup, canned spaghetti sauce or similar products, you’ve probably…eaten bugs. Or, to be specific, bugs pureed into invisibility, i.e., bug juice.
A high-school friend’s sister had a seasonal job in the town’s packing plant. Her task was to look at samples from the catsup batches to count bug parts. I am not making that up.
It must be the weather. I caved too…..on Tater Tots. $1.68 for a bag. Its just me eating them. And there is just something about them that is lacking in making your own fries.
I did resist the urge, however, to stop at McDonalds for a McDouble and a large drink. Saved $2.12 Instead I went home and had a couple of bunless hotdogs with my tater tots. Probably about 50 cents total. A few years ago I would not have thought twice about $1.62.
Rocking the library card by taking out two magazines…Cooks and Cottage Journal. I looked at Good Housekeeping and Country Living on line and neither were really worth purchasing. I probably didn’t spend $20-25 on paper that would eventually clutter my house.
You see, I’m a magazine-a-holic and clip LOTS of articles and recipes. I just reorganized those clippings and was sick thinking of how much money was there.
I also purchased a planner to help with household organization, but had a “hello” moment as I pulled out of the drive. I have a couple of small binders here and there are plenty of free printables online. I’ll return it and save $5.30.
Its all about taming the reflex.
And the best part…I went into the grocery store and bought nothing by a pack of individual cups of applesauce (gasp). Swiped my store card….free with the coupon I downloaded online.
After doing my once a month grocery stock up, I told myself that I would only buy milk and fresh fruit, when I ran out later this month. Then BAM!!!—a notice went out that a grocery store in the next town over was closing. I checked the store several times, but didn’t buy until the next to the last day. I hauled a cartload of 90% off groceries for less than $5!!! Your Abigail had a recipe on her blog a few weeks ago for a chicken/salsa/black bean dish. I had the chicken on hand, and was able to get the canned beans, salsa and corn in my $5 haul. Some times you gotta’ spend to save.
Holy cow! It would have been foolish not to have taken advantage.
Hope the casserole turns out well.
Darn — you should have gone to Sam’s Club for your tater tots. I got an 8-pound bag there for roughly 57 cents a pound!
Plus…they had a slightly open one stuffed in the freezer. I took it to the front counter (along with my other bag) and asked if I could have it for free, mentioning I’d use it for dog treats. (Which is true.) They said yes!
So technically I guess I got 16 pounds of tater tots for 28 cents a pound…
Not bad! There’s no Sam’s Club here any longer, but DF does have a Costco membership. Sigh.
I have A Thing for jewelry pieces made from unusual materials: marbles, bowling balls, glass from recycled lasers, auto-body paint (do an image search for “fordite” to see that last one). But moose turds? Line drawn.
You had your Tater Tots this week, Donna, and I had my ice cream — specifically, individual ice cream treats from Dollar General after picking up my daughter from high school theater rehearsal late Thursday evening. I’d had an anxious, edgy day, and by 8pm my willpower was fully depleted. That single-serve of vanilla Haagen-Dazs hit the spot, though. No regrets.
We’re winding up Day Two of Staycation Holiday Weekend. Here’s what we’ve done so far.
DAY ONE (Friday): When I asked my kids for suggestions of what to do, my son asked if we could eat at his favorite burger place. It’s a small, local chain that closed the location nearest our home a few years ago. The next closest venue is in a busy suburban area almost an hour’s drive away. We turned it into a short day trip and brought my mom along.
After an early burger lunch (I paid for food; Mom left the tip), we went to Barnes & Noble to browse. My kids get monthly deposits into a virtual account (a register I keep in Google Sheets); they can only spend those funds on books. They both drained their book accounts at B&N and got plenty of entertainment for the rest of the weekend. I had a fresh pile of inter-library loans at home, so I didn’t buy anything for myself. Side note: Bethany, I too have spent good money on ebooks that turned out to be duds. I feel your pain!
Our last stop of the day was an Italian market/grocery less than a mile from the bookstore. My mom has been to this market several times and really wanted us to experience it. We wandered the aisles and marveled at foodstuffs like marinated baby octopus salad and smoked olive oil and six (!) different kinds of cannoli. Mom treated us to gelato at the store’s café. With full bellies, it was much easier to resist the urge to load up a grocery cart with treats. We purchased just two boxes of tea to take home.
DAY TWO (Saturday): We met my father-in-law for breakfast in town, a get-together that happens almost every week. He just finished digitizing my late father’s collection of photographic slides, so I brought him a homemade lasagna in gratitude. We got haircuts in the early afternoon. My son went over to a friend’s house to spend the night; my daughter and I have been puttering, reading, doing laundry, and eating leftovers. A low-key day.
Tomorrow I plan to spend the day reading and watching TV. We run a family business, the hubs and I, and it’s WAY too easy to work too long/too often without taking a break. I don’t often let myself slow down to watch TV, unless I’m sick, so sacking out on the couch with the remote will be a real treat.
Want to make sure you saw Yvonne’s reply to Bethany: She said that Amazon will let you return a Kindle within seven days if it turns out to be the wrong choice.
Sounds like you guys are doing great with the staycation. Right now DF and I are hanging around doing little chores: laundry, baking a batch of those soft oat rolls (niece and her boys are coming over for brunch tomorrow), checking e-mail. But I grabbed four new library books on Friday and I’m happily making my way through the first. Once the rolls are done and the laundry is hung up to dry, I plan to spend the rest of the evening reading. Simple pleasures.
I did see that comment re: Kindle returns — thank you! I’m a Nook user, so I will check Barnes & Noble’s policies to see if they offer a similar return policy.
“NOOK digital content and other downloaded purchases are not returnable.” FYI, for other blog readers who might also be Nook users.
Pretty good week down here, weather-wise and financially! 😉 A vendor took me to lunch Tuesday, the leftovers became Wednesday’s dinner! Stopped at Aldi on way home Friday for frozen veggies (at $1.19, can’t beat their price for steam in bag broccoli florets!), ended up getting ground chicken as it was marked 50% off (sell by date was this weekend) !!!! I took 2 pounds, left some for the next shopper 🙂 ….the cashier couldn’t even believe the chicken was only $1.42/lb!
I can’t believe it, either. Wow. No Aldi’s up here.
We had a house guest this weekend but due to being very flexible about our own plans and not being wedded to the need to go out, we turned 3 possible eating out dining periods into 1 small take out order plus leftovers and ate down the pantry. We were close to caving yesterday and going out for the world’s best coffeecake but narrow misses still count as wins!
We picked up some groceries today, under $40 for the week, and I got the clearance enchilada sauce for $0.49 a can!
Woot!
Did good! As planned I bought a pack of heart stickers at The Dollar Tree and made my 3 elementary age Grand children home made cards. Then I did like Donna and got the Kroger download for 1 free pink rope candy. I bought 2 additional rope candies for 50 cents each. So all the young grand kids will have a rope candy. I took advantage of the after Valentine’s Day sale and bought 2 small bags of candy for my 2 young adult grand kids who we are not seeing for another week . The younger grand kids will be spending a few days starting tomorrow (President’s Day) I plan on doing rice cereal and marshmallow treats with them. I couldn’t find my heart shaped cookie cutter so I called my friend from next door. She not only lent me her cookie cutter but she had done the same treats with HER grand kids and brought over all her leftover cereal, frosting and sprinkles!
In addition, we plan on taking the grand kids to the movies. There is a theater that has movies they will like for $3.50 and reasonable concessions
Also, we skipped another week of after church coffee and treats and it was fine.
I SO enjoy reading how others are making smart money choices! I like to learn and celebrate with others when they are successful Thank you! Ann
I’m enjoying reading the comments, too. Wondering whether I should try other challenges, every so often? It’s great fun to read about everyone’s clever workarounds and creativity.
Tater tots are totally justifiable in my book. We like to cook a layer in a skillet on the stove, breaking them up as they get hot, then add chopped ham (optional) and stir in beaten eggs. Melt a little cheese on top and you have a (fairly) quick and frugal dinner. Chopped onions, peppers and/or tomatoes work well too, unless one of your family members dislikes them. (ahem)
We’re not exactly doing the challenge, but February has turned into one of those months anyway. In the first two weeks of February,:
MrH and I went to dinner on a GC he won in a drawing. The only cash outlay was the tip.
I went to lunch with the woman who used to run the support group I’ve taken on. It was the only time she could meet, so I justified it as a working lunch.
I bought snacks for the group’s meeting. It was technically grocery spending, and we brought home and consumed the leftover snacks.
MrH bought gorilla tape to fix a leak that wouldn’t have waited until March.
If we’d had any extra money, I’d have hit our local K-mart’s store closing sale looking for bras, underwear and socks, and maybe some of the canvas shoes that fit me so well. We’d need that stuff eventually, and it won’t go bad sitting on a closet shelf. Ah, well.
I too am really enjoying reading the comments on these posts. I’m forever astonished at your and your readers’ creativity and dedication!
I usually get chinese takeout on the weekends and have it stretch for 3 or 4 meals. But this week I did not. It helped that it snowed and I was in a bad mood and didn’t want to go anywhere. I read a several kindle books what were free. Some were good, some were not. And I love frozen tater tots, but there’s not much room in the freezer right now.
Sometimes bad weather is actually on our side.