Frugal In Florida

Amazing! I had ordered the phones with customer service on Friday at 4pm (day after thanksgiving) and paid the extra $15 or so for 3 business day delivery. The CR informed me that the phones most likely would not go out until Monday being so late in day, etc. At 6pm last night, a knock on the door. Had to turn on outside light since it's getting dark already and it's the UPS guy with 2 (TWO) packages ... yup, both phones showed up. Funny, the CR said that he was only going to charge shipping on one since they would both be going out together ... Needless to say, this is great! I now have MY phone to use for the week, well, really, sons phone since he has mine, but I have my SIMS card in it now. Daughter has hers and she's just tickled pink. She has a free day at school as today is BAT tesing & she doesn't take since she's a junior. So 3 hours of school to play with new sidekick ... what a life!! :) Jan

I have cell service with Tmobile. The plan is $69.99 for 2 phones with 1000 anytime minutes and of course, free tmobile to tmobile. The 3rd phone is $9.99, so that bill runs $79.98. Add on the $19.99 for the unlimited text messaging (believe me, I fought it for 2 years and kids had to cough up anywhere from $20 to $80 a month) and all the crap taxes (what does that stuff mean anyways???) and the bill is around $120 a month. Not as cheap as I’d like it … but then again, a convenience that I am willing to pay for. Being teens, they are hard on phones, but not as hard as most. Just upgraded them to newer ones in August 2006. Cost $29 each. Daughter lost hers by December, got a cheapo loaner phone and paid the $19 for a new sims card. She used the cheapo phone for months. When I upgraded to the razor I have now for mothers day ($25) I gave her my old nokia flip. Nothing fancy, but better than the mini brick she had J Son was at band practice, (I think) bouncing around and busted the ...

Because my house is tile throughout except the bedrooms, I am constantly looking for a better way to clean the floors. I figure over 2000 sq ft of tile ... that's a lot! I've used the wonder mops, the regular squeeze mops, everything. I've used tile cleaners, pinesol, fabuloso, etc. Nothing ever made me 'happy' so to speak. I've even been on my hands & knees which let me tell you is NO FUN whatsoever, although hubby did make a smart remark one day that did not help him get lucky that night :) So a friend of mine who lives on the 21st floor ocean front condo showed me her latest find a few months back. A cuban mop. Swore by it. She has those expensive italian stone tiles on her floors. Loved the mop. Ranted and raved. Said it only cost $9.99 at Target. Hmmm. Just 2 pieces of wood screwed into each other. So I just keep that in the back of my mind ... and continue doing the hands and knees cleaning for a bit longer. I do have to say, nothing gets the flo...

The band is off to Mexico tomorrow. The parents of singer are having all the boys (ok, it's only 4 kids!) spend the night tonight so when the shuttle shows up in the morning, no worries that everyone is there :) Smart idea, huh? There website is: www.myspace.com/ravensdoom - they've got pics, a few songs that they've recorded on there, and of course, the postings from 'fans' :) My son is the bass player. Good for him. I am very very excited for all 4 of them, but also nervous too :) This is the first time that they have performed as a group, and the arena is 4000 seats. Whoa! I don't know if they realize how big that really is? They perform on the 29th but have intereviews & I believe they are doing a music video while there. As he has broken his phone & his sister's phone no longer gets reception, they've been sharing the one loaner phone we have. I've ordered them new ones (daughter gets the sidekick id & he will get a razor whic...

It was just me & hubby, son was at band practice and daughter was at work. Had steaks that I had taken out of freezer on Wednesday that I told hubby we HAD to eat them. 2 tbones that I had bought on sale a few months ago @ $5.99/lb (cheap compared to now!) 1 lb shrooms we had gotten from produce store for 99 cents 1/2 red onion from freezer leftover red wine & white wine 1 can of beef broth (50 cents this week) 4 oz blue cheese that I picked up for $2 (cheaper than normal) I had made a key lime pie earlier. Wanted to do for hubby's birthday but he's been under the weather & I've just been busy. This was so easy, and much cheaper than buying: 1 graham cracker crust (was on sale for 99 cents and I had a 30 cent off coupon, otherwise would have made from scratch) 1/3 cup key lime juice. I buy the bottle which I can find next to lemon & lime juice in stores. It cost $1.39 for 16 oz 4 egg yolks (picked up 2 1/2 dozen for $3.80 ... not cheap but less expensi...

Because we do not have family any where near us down here, we usually share with other friends OR just do something totally untraditional, such as go on the boat! The past few years though, we’ve traded off hosting with another couple that live here part-time. They have started to make it a point to be in Florida for Thanksgiving since it’s turned out to be fun! Last year was to be our turn to host, but we ended up going up to Indiana at the last minute. This year, we were going to host again, but then hubby had his reconstructive surgery and we all knew that it wasn’t going to work. So J & K are hosting again! J We always fry turkeys, and K will always insist on roasting one too. Generally, when you fry, it doesn’t make sense to only do one as the biggest you should do is 12 lbs or so. For the cost of the oil, hassle of bringing out, setting up & cleaning fryer, you better be doing more than one!! We do anywhere from 3 to 4. I had picked up a 10.07 lb last week for 69/lb....

Because hubby has been getting a little stir-crazy from laying around after the surgery, I thought we would have a few friends over ... Got all 3 crockpots out, made potato soup in one, spicy meatballs in another and the last one was the italian beef. All 3 ended up being spicy, which we don't mind, but I'm sure a few of my friends thought we were trying to kill them off :) One of my g/f that came over was returning my lemon drop set. This is just a glass bowl with 6 (now only 5) tall shooter glasses. The purpose is to keep the vodka chilled in the glasses. My sil had gotten it for me a few years ago for christmas and it's been a hit at the parties every since. Anyways, to my surprise, she had a glass blower friend make her another shot to replace the one I had broken. It's so cool!!! Thicker than the others (which is great cuz the others are thin), and has this cool little squiggly design thats suppose to be a lemon on it...it's really neat. So that one is MIN...

Brrrr....we woke up to another brisk morning! Woohoo! Temp. at 5:30 was 57 at my house. Quickly, I turn off the alarm, deactivate the chime mode & run like a mad woman to open all the windows and let that cool fresh air in! We live all summer for these days :) I'm hoping that this will have some effect on my electric bill. I've been running a steady $400 to $500 a month since April :( That is a big chunk of money considering I'm used to $350 being the most every and that's usually for August. In August this year, it went to $575...that was just too much to deal with. So I've been trying to cut back where I can on electric, and trying to encourage the rest of the house to do the same. Here are some of the things I'm doing but couldn't tell you if it's really making a difference or not since FPL now adds a fuel charge on that matches the current price of fuel: Less drying - trying to dry for 30 minutes & hang up to dry the rest of the way. T...

Comes by every morning between 5am and 6am. I am usually up by 5am Monday thru Thursday since the kids have to be getting up & ready for school. He will come to the back sliding glass door and just sit there, front paws on the ledge. Once he sees you coming, he starts rubbing against the door and if you don't open it up quick enough (for him), he will stand on back paws and start scratching at the glass "Hey! Let me in!". He's a bengal cat. Once I figure out how to post pics, will post one of him. He's been in the neighborhood for about 6 years or so. No front claws. Fixed. For years, could not get any where near him, would always dash away from you, skittish. About a year ago, me & hubby came home one night & I swore I must have hit the cat with the car the way he was meowing. We got some chicken (canned) and put some on a plate & he wolfed it down. Told hubby that he was starving and he was soooo skinny then. He started coming by every few ...

It's that time of year where the annual property taxes are due. Oh joy! I look forward to this month all year long NOT! We do not escrow taxes or insurances through our mortgage. I highly recommend that everyone seriously consider this. Being in the business that I'm in, I constantly see where people have a negative balance for escrow for various reasons, primarly, forced place insurance. Whoa! It can cost quite a bundle and is a major hassle to get cleared up, especially when you are selling and time crunched for an accurate payoff. So the taxes are due and payable with a 4% discount by November 30th. That means that if I want my 4% discount, I've got to cough up a whole $5,200 and change. I thought HEY! I'll pay by AE card so I can at least get the points & then pay the AE card in December (I have the cash, just barely and would really like to see it earn a little more interest). But in order to do that, they will charge me $170 and change as a 'convenience...

Frugal doings for Thursday, Nov. 15th. Being that we just got back from our 48 our trip to Kentucky, it’s hard to stay focused on being frugal BUT I must stay on track!! This morning started out with grinding my coffee beans from the B1G1F sale ($4.79 for 2 lb of beans total) … then fed the son cereal and daughter just ate a banana. I know, not a real breakfast but at 5:30am, who can blame her for not being hungry?? I made a bagel and scrambled an egg to make an egg sandwich. Hubby got 2 slices of whole wheat bread with peanut butter. He doesn’t normally eat breakfast, but with all the meds he is on, he needs to. Kids are buying their lunch at school to the tune of $2.50 each. Packed up leftovers for me & hubby which was spanish rice, leftover taco meat, leftover onion & diced tomatoes and then topped that with a little bit of the taco sauce. Also put together a small salad as I ‘seem’ to be gaining weight since I quit smoking 2 weeks ago. Not sure if it’s my imagination, t...