Frugal In Florida

On Friday I was meeting a g/f for margaritas and thought I would swing in to Albertson's since it was within 3 blocks ... remembered to pack the cooler! :) For $50 I got roughly 14 lbs ground beef (70/30, not the greatest but heck, cheap, $1.68/lb), 8 bags frozen veggies (79 cents each), 3 lbs butter and 12 cans tuna (78 cents for solid albacore) ... I was happy. Spent $20 on margaritas then. Saturday was Publix. Spent $70 ... had over $25 in coupons. The best deals where the Mrs. T's perogies, 2 for $4, bought 3 boxes, had 3 coupons for $1 off. That will be dinner Monday night with fried cabbage & onions. Other good deal was the Gingerale with green tea, b1g1f, then a 50 cent off coupon. Each ended up costing around 45 cents for a 2 ltr. Not a great deal because it's soda and not really a necessity, but a fair deal!

I clean my floors with bleach & water. Tile throughout the house, easier, cheap and, heck, it cleans :) I am very careful about tossing the white towels I use with the cuban mop (see photos on side bar) in the large washtub til ready to do a load of whites, but accidents do some how happen occasionly, and one of them just happened to be a dress shirt of dh's. So I decided to give Fabuloso a try (again - the cleaning fairies I used to have used it). Now there are 4 different scents! Used to be purple only (don't remember the scent). Picked ocean because we are close to the ocean, on the waterway & it's just floridy like! :) Read directions (which I've never do!) and realized only 1/4 cup to one gallon water. Hmmm. Measured (eyeballed, really!) and went to work mopping. Not bad at cleaning. Smells real good. But a little cloying. Might be cuz I have a lot of tile to mop. I still did the bleach in the bathrooms, just because, but I think I'll try to do b...

Loving the crockpot: I just LOVE my new crockpot!! Saturday I made chili in it (was suppose to be real cold Saturday night, not really) and then Monday I made my spaghetti sauce in it. Just cleaned it & put it away again. But wow, I really love it! I am trying to use it once a week to show DH that yeah, I really did need it :)

I am amazed that people are surprised when I tell them this: Take your green onions that you probably spent 40 cents per small bunch and cut off at the top of the white area (leaving the green to be used at that time). Take the root bulb/white part and stick it in some dirt (enough to cover up the bulb part). Water a little & watch that baby grow new green shoots. Just keep snipping the green stuff to be used and these will grow forever and ever. After about a year (yeah, that long), they may become too oniony. When that happens, time to start over! I have several outside in the tomato planter. It's so cool to just go out & snip what you need. They will never be wilted, wimpy or yellowed again!! Yeehaw!

The calendar that I made up for the week of food says today is soup & sandwiches. Dh gets back from TX around 8:30 or so, so I wanted something that I could have for him when he gets home. Ds will be bummed that it's not tomato soup! Added a 1/2 stick of butter to crockpot, turned on high to try & melt some. Sliced up & quartered 5 smaller onions and tossed in with the butter. Opened to packages of granulated beef broth or whatever it's called, sprinkled over the top of onions. Shook some worchestershire sauce over top, and put on lid for 2 hours. Just now poured in 4 cups of hot water. Turned it down to low for 8 hours. Shall see how the onion soup turns out. Being that I have croutons, mozz cheeses, wanted to make french onion soup but my usual recipe takes 4 to 6 hours, and you have to be available throughout ... so not a work day recipe. Will serve with ham and/or turkey and/or veggie subs on mini hoagie rolls. Not sure what walmart calls them, but they ...

I can't believe I forgot to mention what I got at the garage sale for FREE at the end of the day: A Chi Vitalizer. Google it. I had to. I had been looking at it for the 2 days and kept asking the gal what the heck it was. I thought it was one of them neck massagers that you lay down on but no, you put your ankles on it and lay flat and the thing shakes the crap out of you. So. I tried it for 5 minutes yesterday morning. 15 minutes last night. 10 minutes this morning. I feel good. I will NOT claim that it's going to help me lose weight. I will NOT claim that it will make my immune system better or firm my belly, breast, etc. like the website does. However, I will say that my shoulder was not cramped up at the end of the day yesterday like it always is at work. Nor was my neck hurting. My wrist & thumb still hurt, but then again, that's to be expected . I think I will keep trying it daily, 2 times a day. It does feel weird when I'm done. My legs are tingly w...

The church down the street was having their annual rummage sale so my neighbor had asked me a few weeks back if I wanted to join in on a block yard sale. Unfortunately, I had been taking a bunch of stuff to Goodwill in Jnauary as part of my New Year resolution to declutter. But I still had quite a bit of stuff, and stuff I was more willing to get rid of if I could get a little cash for it. Woke up Saturday morning, felt like crap. Walked next door, sat in a chair & looked at all the stuff. Finally around 11am, I went and brought some books, magazines and a few other things over. Made $18 by 2pm. Sunday, woke up, felt much much better. Started hauling stuff over. Of course, being Sunday, it was nowhere near as busy but still, ended up making $70+ by 2pm. Not bad. Didn’t have a whole lot to drag to the trunk to take to Goodwill. I’m actually thinking of taking it to the new thrift store in Wilton Manors called “Out of the Closet” … the proceeds benefit the AIDS Foundation. Anywa...