Frugal In Florida

Thursday 2-28 Over the weekend, I was a little ambitious before we had the car issue come up (will share later). I scrambled a dozen eggs, cooked one of my tubes of Aldi sausage and crumbled, layed out a dozen tortilla shells, grabbed a bag of cheese from the freezer & a jar of salsa from fridge, and made: Breakfast Burritos. After I rolled them up, I wrapped 3 in wax paper and the rest in plastic wrap. Wanted to do all in wax paper (for microwaving purposes) but the tape wasn’t sticking as well as I hoped. What a no brainer that was! Of course, dh & dd had to have a sample so only 10 got frozen. That’s what I’ve had for breakfast every morning so far this week. I may use the english muffins I have & make breafast sandwiches next. I have sausage patties, eggs, cheese, some ham slices (for dh) that would be easy to throw together. So the car issue: The boat has a ton of gas in the tank. DH wants to empty the gas out of it since he’s never ran it empty before & just wou...

Publix has their Health & Wellness tips & coupons out!! These are usually found in the spinning display that has the weekly sales papers. Hurry before they are all gone! Colgate $1.00 off any total 4 oz or larger (great for the CVS deals) Welch $1.00 off any 2 grape juice Clorox $.55 off any 75 ct wipe AND free clorox bleach with purchase of 4 clorox products There are more in the flyer, but these are the 3 that I would use :)

DH loves chicken thighs. I buy the big packages of boneless/skinless from Costco at about $1.69/lb. Used to be so much cheaper (want to say around $1.29) but apparently, they have caught on. Still say I need to learn how to debone a thigh since I can hit a good deal at $.89, or even $.69 sometimes. 1/4 cup soy sauce 3 tbs brown sugar 4 tbs sherry 4 tbs rice wine vinegar 2 tsp fresh chopped garlic 1 tsp fresh grated ginger (or dry, or the stuff from tube) 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes 2 lbs thighs (I use 2 pkgs that has 5 each for a total of 10) 2 tsp sesame seeds Combine first 7 ingredients, mix til sugar dissolves. Pour into ziploc. Add chicken. Turn to coat. Marinate 1 to 4 hours. Either bake, broil or grill til done. Sprinkle with sesame seeds when done, cook another 1 -2 minutes (to toast seeds, or you can do this separately). Enjoy :)

This is really an easy & fast recipe and gets rave reviews in my house. I've modified the heck out of the original recipe to suit what I had on hand ... 1 lb chinese noodles (I use angel hair pasta, even thin pasta) 2 tbs sesame oil 1/2 cup soy sauce, low sodium 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar 2 tbs sugar 2 tbs cilantro, chopped (this is optional) 1 tbs ginger root, grated (or dry, or the stuff in a tube) 1 tsp hot chili oil (I never have this, use crushed red pepper flakes, or the stuff in tube, never have I used the oil though) 1 cup green onions (have never measured, just take a handful from plant & cut) 1 cup pea pods (I use snow peas) *I also add in a couple of tbs of sesame seeds that I toasted in skillet *Thin sliced red peppers are good too Cook pasta. Drain & rinse in cold water. In large bowl, mix remaining ingredients EXCEPT green onions & pea pods. Put pasta in bowl & toss to coat. Add green onions & pea pods, toss to coat. Sprinkle the sesame seed...

It's 6:15 in the morning and I am patiently waiting for our cold front to come through. Thank god! It's been in the upper 80's for over a week and I just so want a break from my electric bill!! I've been browsing the internet this morning and found a few neat websites. Of course, then I started to feel guilty for not keeping up on my own. How pathetic :) Nah. Just been busy living life :) Tonight for dinner will be teriyaki thighs & my sesame noodles. That's what brought me online actually was to try and find a suitable subsitute for sherry. Need it to marinate thighs. Think I'm going with the madiera wine ... things across the board popped up....but that sounds the most reasonable. Been doing our taxes. Said this year I would use turbotax for $80 purchase price instead of $500-$700 for an accountant. Will give a review of the software shortly, but so far, says we need to pay $3800. :( I knew we would have to pay something, just didn't think that...

Its windy & expecting showers & possible t-storms today. Yahoo, since they just said Lake O is below 10 feet. I'm telling you, they really need to come up with some kind of plan on what do to about the water situation down here. I've been trying to do my share by turning off the faucet when I brush, only doing full loads of laundry (sometimes too full though!), shorter showers, recycling water leftover from glasses to the plants AND saving my rinse water in dishpan to water the garden outside. At times like today, wish I had a rain barrel. Was off on Friday & Monday, so enjoyed a nice long weekend. Relaxing for the most part. Should have spent more time doing some of the things on my list, primarily organizing the mess of recipes I have. Could not for the life of me find the italian bread recipe we like, so bought a loaf for $ 2.29 which is unbelievable!!!! :( Gas has gone down in price to $2.95. A friend of mine once told me that this is how it's suppose t...

Ds finally finally finally went to school today. He sounds much better, so the antibiotics are definately what he needed. Dh had his cat scan this morning. Keeping fingers crossed that the results are good and we won't need to worry about traveling back & forth to KY much more. Dh needs to get to work on his resume as he needs to submit it with the job posting. I have just resigned myself to the fact that yes, we will be back to a single family household. I need to be really cracking and getting all the dr appts out of the way so that won't be as much of an issue in the end. Also need to be calling the bug man & cancel that service (around $67 a month, 10 times a year and $22 the other 2 months). This is really bad, but since I renewed the gym membership for $66 a month, I figured, heck, if I go 3 mornings a week (before work), get all worked out, hot & sweaty, I can take my shower THERE and save money on the water bill at home. We are under Phrase III water re...

Ds is home again from school today. He was out last Monday & Tuesday. Must be a relapse. But now he has the chills...will be calling the dr when I get to work. He has not needed to see a doctor since he was in elementary school (at least 4 years) ... so it will be good for him to go. DH has therapy this morning. Hopefully they will make the new brace that the dr wants to use. Then he can really focus on getting the placement he needs :) He also has a cat scan set up for Thursday at 6:30am ... hoping that shows great progress and we won't need to go back to Louisville anytime soon. Otherwise, mid March. I had to make my list this morning as I keep forgetting to make calls. So the list consist of this: gas, drycleaners (dd's rotc uniform), walgreens (pics that I had ordered online), call ds dr, call gyno, call eye dr (ds & me). Then I also have cvs on there. Don't ask why. I really should also put down Target (return shorts for ds) and sports authority (pick up new...

DH has worked since he was about 13, starting out at his grandfathers gas station. When he graduated from HS, he went to a tech school and then went into the auto industry as a mechanic. Since the late 80's, he's been working with the auto rental industry in management, overseeing fleet maintenance. The first company was out of Florida only and they was picked up and purchased by a major japanese car manufacturer. Which in turn was bought by a larger rental car company and that was taken over by a large waste management company which had diversified businesses. That company merged with another larger rental car company which in turn, made too many employees with the same jobs :). Dh was let go and was unemployed for 18 months. We really learned alot at that time about being conservative even when you have a substantial savings, and such. Also about how great insurance is (he had the motorcycle accident in 2002 and he was highly uninsurable outside of a group plan, so we h...

Not a huge football fan but am so very glad I watched the game last night. It was more of curiosity of the commercials & Tom Petty, but regardless, ended up watching from start to finish. Great game!! Of course, as soon as it was over, lights out for me! So blew the grocery budget already!! Went to Publix on Sunday for eggs, milk, dales, liquid smoke, and a few produce items. Did not get any produce as it was crumby looking and expensive. Did get chips, and all kinds of other stuff that was NOT on my list!! :( $65+ as I need to find my receipt. :( I will be posting another post here on the latest with DH and his job. Just goes to show you how fast things turn and how Corporate America can and will do what they need to do ... Kids were sick most of the week last week, sounds better this morning. Hoping I do not get sick. Need to make appt for eye doctor for me & ds for Friday (off) and gyno for Monday for me. Need to take dd in to gyno too, but will check out this dr that ...