Frugal In Florida

WHAT Grocery Budget?? Since Sonny Boy has been gone (wow, a whopping 10 days!) and probably even BEFORE that since I was doing the pantry challenge in July, I've not made a long grocery list, carried an envelope stuffed with coupons or had to make more than 2 trips to the car to unload. Yeah, we've been to the store. A gallon of milk, 3pk of lettuce, half and half was the list on the receipt last week. This past weekend consisted of a trip to Publix ($30 as Hubby HAD to have his olive bar selection) and the produce store. But last night. Ahhh. Last night, I told Hubby I'd stop and get him something to sleep...he's fighting the battle of sickness now and is just about down for the count. So I had a few things I wanted, carrots, celery, lettuce, and NyQuil. And silly me, I swung in to the parking lot of .... Whole Foods. What was I thinking? $73 later, I walk out with a few carrots, a package of celery, some grapes ($6?? They better be good), some apples, ...

This post has been rambling around for a while. Tweaked, deleted, added to and then tweaked again. Because the LAST thing I want to do is cause issues and a verbal slaughter! But seriously. We've hit our debt ceiling.  Does anyone really know what that means? It means that the credit card will not work at Walmart, Target, wherever you try to use it. It means you have NO liquidity left. I'm sure anyone reading this has had that gut sinking feeling when the cashier shakes her head at you indicating that it's a no go. Well, that's what America is going to be feeling soon. Seriously. I'm concerned. Enough so that I jokingly tell those around me that I feel like I should be stocking up on flour, sugar, water bottles, tuna, batteries, 100 watt light bulbs (I kid!), ammo and whiskey (tequila, vodka, beer) ... because really, what WILL happen to the economy? Am I for the raising of taxes? I prefer not to because I feel I pay quite a bit as it is already. AND...

Yeah, stuff. I've got stuff in the fridges that I need to deal with when I get home. I've got stuff at work that I need to clear out before I go home. I've got stuff in the car to put away. Stuff. Everywhere I look, I have stuff. Friday night, I went to Penn Dutch to get some meat they had on sale. The veggies were no way cheaper at the time. Amazing, they used to be great but now they seem to have crept up more on pricing. Hmmm. Wonder if it's the cold weather issue we had?? The STUFF in the refrigerators is meat. Almost 20 lbs of b/s chicken breast. Hanging flap meat (don't ask, I'm not sure but it looked pretty yummy) and a flank steak. I've got other STUFF too, but you'll have to bear with me a minute. So I need to do something with the meat. You know, cook it and eat it. Or toss it in the freezer. Or cook it and toss in the freezer. Well, you get the picture. However, my freezers are OVERFLOWING. Seriously. I took out a 3 lb bag of chicken w...

I am starting to see little 'pockets' of space in all 3 of the freezers. This of course, is because I took out a 1/4 ham, a turkey roast, bag of diced sweet potatoes, 1.5 lb bag of shrimp, a shrimp ring and a few other odds and ends for the feeding frenzy over the weekend. I would like to try and do a reduced spend (notice, it's not a no spend, I just can't do that!!) for April to try and clean out the freezers a bit. Unfortunately, on the 31st, I had stopped at GFS to buy some eggs (2 1/2 dozen for $1.99!) and ended up picking up 15 lbs of 80/20 burgers for $20. Folks, that is a LOT of burgers. They will not all stay as burgers, some will be transformed into taco meat, sloppy joes, etc. Just let them defrost and cook as regular ground beef. Anyways ... I have soooo much food in these freezers. And with Princess hopefully coming back for awhile longer, that will be 4 mouths to feed instead of 3 which equates to just a bit more food. Granted, she eats like a bird, b...

It's Saturday. Saturday afternoon, matter of fact. 2:15pm at this very moment. I am sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a slight headache (too many beers last night), listening to hubby and sonny boy tear apart the wood deck right outside the window. Hubby went and bought himself a BFH. Ok, I will not elaborate what a BFH is, but it has a long wooden handle, and a 6 lb weighty thing at the end. And it's for big jobs. Such as tearing up the wood deck. Sonny Boy is using the big crow bar along with the crow bar screw driver looking thing (would that be classified as a BFSD?) The sawzaw (??) and the chainsaw have both made appearances. I've got 911 predialed on both the cell and the house phone :) One can never be too prepared. The alternative was for me to go shopping and blow my budget. Sonny Boy has just put on work gloves. After 2 hours of this. But then comes in and ask for a stick of deoderant (?) and a papertowel. After he washes his hands real well and dries t...

That title sort of sounds omnious but it's not meant to be! We are grateful to have Princess in for Christmas, along with her boyfriend. As it is the season of kindness, love and sharing, we agreed to let him stay here for most of the visit. Honestly, had I said no, we probably would not have had that much time with Princess. Breaks my heart, but I suppose this is what happens as the children grow into young adults . Because we spent over $800 on her plane ticket to come home (thanks for the military discount Southwest NOT!) we kept gift giving a little on the low side. I, however, did by myself a Wii along with the balance board and the Wii Active game. Played the Wii balance board stuff on Christmas day. Woke up on Saturday with a very very sore shoulder and back area. Whew. Thinking I slept wrong. Popped to Aleve and moved on throughout my morning. Decided to get out the Active game and see what its all about. Oh cool! It has boxing and heavy bag stuff. Woohoo. This is...

So we have 10 minutes or so before the market closes for the day, and GUESS WHAT?? It's down 600+ points! So. How many people are really concerned? It amazes me when I hear people say, oh it will come back, and so on. But you know what, WE (my husband and I) lost over $30,000 in the month of September on our retirement accounts. That is my annual salary. I basically just lost one year of pay in one month. And September wasn't even THAT bad!!! Ok. Deep breath. Whew. We ARE still going to Islamorada at the end of October. Its our 18th Anniversary. The kids should be thrilled that we will leave them alone again. They just wanted to be sure that we were around for Halloween (how odd is that??!) We are excited as we will drive the Tahoe and trailer the seadoo down for some cruisin. This will be my 2nd time to the Keys by car. We used to always go by boat and then the last time we drove and I was like "wow, that's what it looks like from land?" like a little kid....