Saving Money on Bottled Water

When we first started reducing our budget drastically, I realized the astronomical amount we were paying for water. We were paying 35.00/ month for a deer park home delivery water cooler, and buying 2 cases of 35 bottles of water (for about 3.99 each) every week or two. Insane, right? It comes free (or almost free) out of the faucet. I just couldn't stomach actually drinking faucet water. It tastes so weird to me. Obviously, if you can learn to love tap water, you can save even more. Most likely, if your reading this is the first place, your already spending a fortune in bottled water though.

I got serious. I cancelled Deer Park and invested the money I saved from that months Deer Park bill in 2 "Intak by Thermos" water bottles (in picture below), on sale at Wegman's for 7.99 each. (Total - 16.00) The key here is to ONLY buy 1 per person in your household. When you have a bunch of these lying around, you don't feel the need or responsibility to keep track of it, or clean it routinely because there is 10 more in a cupboard somewhere. Don't buy cheap bottles. This is important because if your drinking bottled water to start with, your probably squeamish about taste, smells etc. I had collected a huge cabinet full of cheap bottles, none of which I would use because they made the water taste or smell funny, or they would look like they were 30 years old after a few months of dish washing. I chose the "Intak" bottle for a few reasons: The price wasn't insane; it was made of really thick material that was more like an unbreakable glass than plastic; It had a wide mouth that was easy to clean well, It has a locking system so I can throw it in a bag and now worry about it leaking. It also has a dial that you can turn to keep track of how many bottles you've drank, but even I'm not that anal retentive.

Every morning, I'd rinse it out in hot water and refill  from the fridge filter for work (if you don't have a built in fridge filter, you can also buy a separate Brita fridge filter. The only problem was that my job consists of being in a building with mold in the water fountain or in my car all day with no access to a water fountain. So, I started buying 2 gallon bottles of Poland Spring water for 99 cents per gallon and storing them in my trunk. My water bottle holds 24 oz. and I go through about a gallon of water a week to refill that bottle. Every few days or so, I'll put the water bottle through the dishwasher to sanitize it even better than my hot water rinses do.

I've done this consistently for five weeks now, and haven't touched the leftover water bottles in my living room. I also drink WAY more water and don't have a dozen disposable water bottles strewn over my office, car, bedroom, living room, etc.  In total, I've saved 26.97 the first month (35.00 [deer park + [3.99 x 3] Disposable water bottles - 16.00 [2 Intak Water Bottles] - 4.00 [4 gallon bottles of poland spring]), and then 42.97 every month after that (35.00 Deer Park  = 3.99 x 3 Disposable Water bottles - 4.00 Poland Spring Water Bottles).

In the next 12 months, I'll have saved 499.64!

3 Weeks of Cheap Dinners, ready in under 15 minutes

Thanks to an insanely busy schedule, my husband and I had some really poor eating habits. We know that fast food barely qualifies as food, but ended up in the drive thru more often then is humanly acceptable. When we started making better life decisions, this became a glaringly obvious problem that needed to be corrected.

 We get up at 6:30am, and don't get home at night until 6pm. When we get home, we head straight to the gym and by the time we get back we're FAMISHED, and even 30 minutes is too long to wait for a meal. Once your that hungry and tired, you start making decisions with your stomach and not your head. A quick trip to Mcdonalds, Chickfila, Burker King, Taco Bell, Checkers or Chipotle, and you've ruined the workout you just did, spent money, and wasted the food that you had planned for dinner.

After a few phases of trial and error, trying to eat healthier and save time, we made it simple. There is a $100.00/week food budget and I pick my meals off of the following list. Of course, we could eat healthier, but this is a huge jump from where we were and it works with our schedule. We can get even healthier in the next phase. For now, we need food we want to eat, on the table in 15 minutes or less.

THE QUICK FOODS DATABASE:

We also buy a huge pack of mixed greens and a bottle of dressing from Wegmans each week and serve salad every night. ($5.99 for the club pack of mixed greens, and $1.29 for Wegmans salad dressing).

The totals are what it will cost you to buy all of the ingredients... Not per serving:)

1.    ITALIAN CHICKEN AND PASTA SALAD, WITH GREEN PEPPER, ONION, OLIVES, AND TOMATO

Take 2 breasts of Tyson's frozen grilled chicken and microwave them, boil a box of rotini, chop up onions, peppers, and a fleshy tomato, add sliced olives and a bottle of Wegmans Italian dressing. Chop up chicken and toss in.  Total Cost at Wegmans (enough for 2 plus leftovers): $9.98

2.   LASAGNA (FROM FREEZER):

I make pans of lasagna on the weekend or for parties, then cut it up and wrap each piece in wax paper and tin foil. The recipe that I use takes an hour, it's printed on the back of Sangiorgio Oven Ready Lasagna Package. One pan makes enough for 5 servings of 2 people. I normally grab a giant bag of salad each week and dish out a little each night. Total Cost at Wegmans: $10.86

3.   BOBOLI PIZZA:

I actually use Wegmans pizza crust since it's cheaper and tastes better, just slop on some pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, green pepper, onions, and pepperoni. Put your oven on 425, and stick pizza in right away, 15 minutes later... you're done! Serve with a side salad. Wrap leftovers in wax paper and foil, you can microwave later for a quick lunch or snack.  Total Cost at Wegmans: $9.56

4.   BREAKFAST BURRITOS- good for dinner too!

Stick cheap Banquet fully cooked sausage patties on stove top, scramble eggs on another burner, chop up sausage, green pepper, and onion. Microwave burrito tortillas for 30 seconds, fill with eggs, sausage, pepper, and onions, sprinkle with cheese. You can add salsa or hot sauce if you would like. Serve with a can of mandarin oranges. This will make about 6 servings, wrap leftover burritos in wax paper and tin foil, then freeze. When you want to reheat, remove foil, and microwave. Total Cost at Wegmans: $7.26

5.   HOT DOGS, HAMBURGERS, KIELBASA:

If you have a grill- this is a great option! See my previous post for cheap BBQ's. We buy 6.5 pounds of ground beef at $1.99 pound and form our own patties, we buy 16 hamburger rolls for $1.99, wrap each bun in foil and freeze, we stick the buns right on the upper shelf of the grill still wrapped up, they end up delicious! Your entire meal is frozen ready, so it's an easy fill in meal. Total Cost at Wegman's per hamburger: $0.62

6.   GRILLED CHICKEN FILLET AND MACARONI AND CHEESE

Buy a bag of Tysons frozen grilled chicken fillet, and heat on stove top, meanwhile make macaroni and cheese on stove top. Serve with salad and topping of choice for chicken. Total Cost at Wegmans: $5.05 (assuming you have milk and butter in the house to make macaroni and cheese).

7.   ALFREDO PASTA, CHICKEN, AND BACON BITS

Boil a box of rotini, microwave 2 fillet's of Tyson's frozen chicken breast, drain pasta, stir in a bottle of Classico Alfredo Sauce, and diced up chicken. Sprinkle with bacon bits. Serve with salad. Total Cost at Wegmans: $3.51

8.   CHICKEN, CORN, TOMATO, AND CHEDDAR CHEESE WRAPS WITH RANCH DIP.

Microwave 2 breasts of Tyson's grilled chicken fillet's and dice up, chop up a beefsteak tomato, fill burrito tortillas with diced chicken, canned corn, diced tomato, and cheddar cheese. Serve with ranch dressing and a salad. Makes about 4 wraps. If you have leftovers, wrap in wax paper and foil and take to lunch the next day. Total Cost at Wegmans: $8.01 (but you'll have extra ranch dressing and burrito tortillas to use another day).

9.   CHICKEN WALDORF SALAD USING FROZEN GRILLED CHICKEN:

Microwave 2 breasts of Tyson's grilled chicken fillet's and dice up, chop up an apple, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, 1 cup of halved seedless grapes, 2 stalks of diced celery. 1/2 cup of mayo (or more- to taste), and add salt and pepper. Mix up and serve.

Total Cost at Wegmans: $7.83

10.  HOT ROAST BEEF SANDWICHES:

Take 2 slices of bread and spray with cooking spray, place in pan on stove top, layer on roast beef luncheon meat, cheese, mayo, salt and pepper. top with more bread, cook and flip on stove top until melted, serve with salad.

Total Cost at Wegmans: (with leftover ingredients to make twice): $6.47 ($3.23 if you can make it twice in a week.)

11.   CHICKEN QUESADILLAS:

Microwave 2 fillets of Tyson's Frozen Grilled Chicken Breast and dice up, cook tortilla on pan on stove, fill with chicken, shredded cheese, salsa, green pepper, and onion, top with a second tortilla and apply weight (another frying pan?) flip and serve. Serve with salad. Cost at Wegmans: $8.01

12.  BLT SANDWICHES:

Start up the old George Foreman Grill to make quick work of that bacon, put bread in the toaster and slice up a beefsteak tomato and iceberg lettuce. Assemble, top with mayo, salt and pepper and serve with salad... viola! It's like your 12 again! :) Total Cost at Wegmans: (with plenty of leftover's to make this twice in a week) $7.98  (or $3.99 if you can serve twice in a week).

13.  CHICKEN PARMESAN USING FROZEN GRILLED CHICKEN:

Cook 2 fillets of Tyson's Frozen Grilled Chicken Breast on the stove top, top with a generous spoonful of spaghetti sauce, sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Boil thin Spaghetti, drain and mix with remaining pasta sauce, serve with salad.

Total Cost at Wegmans: $6.51

14.  CHICKEN PATTY SANDWICHES:

Microwave 2 chicken patties, add to hamburger rolls and top with mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and lettuce. Serve with Salad and Baked Beans. Total Cost at Wegmans: $4.92

15.  SPAGHETTI AND MEAT SAUCE

Boil a box of spaghetti, mix in a jar of meat sauce, serve with salad and toast with butter) Total Cost at Wegmans: $3.38

16.  PIZZA BAGELS:

Or french bread pizza- grab a bagel, slice it open, and toast. Spoon on pizza sauce, sprinkle with shredded cheese and top with your favorite toppings, serve with salad) Total Cost at Wegmans: $4.99

18.  PANCAKES, FRENCH TOAST, OR WAFFLES:
Wegmans Buttermilk Pancake mix, just add water, or extra white bread soaked in milk, eggs, and vanilla, or toaster Waffles if your desperate, scramble up some eggs, heat up some fully cooked sausage and add a banana.) Total Cost at Wegmans: $3.97 with TONS of extra pancake mix, and extra sausage for leftovers.

19.  FRENCH BREAD PIZZA or PIZZA BAGELS:
Grab a loaf of french bread (remember you either want to use this the same day, the next day, or you'll want to freeze and thaw before use), or if you have extra bagels in the house, you can use them. Split, top with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese. You can add whatever you topping you like - Leftover ham lunch meat and canned pineapple, pepperoni, or my favorite onions and green peppers.), Bake at 350 for about 10-15 minutes) Total Cost at Wegmans: $5.93 for a large loaf (freeze the extras in wax paper and aluminum foil).

20. BROCCOLI CHEDDAR SOUP WITH GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES:
This stuff is genius! Throw two cups of condensed cheddar cheese soup, three cups frozen chopped broccoli, three cups of milk, and one cup of frozen potatoes O'Brien in a pot, bring to a boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Done! Its delicious! Add toast and warm with butter and cheese to serve.)
Total Cost at Wegmans: $7.76, provided you have toast and lunch cheese in the house already, if not... add an extra two dollars. This also leaves half a bag of broccoli and half a bag of potatoes O'Brien to supplement another meal.

21.  TACO SALAD (MIXED ROMAINE, GROUND BEEF, TACO SEASONING, ICEBERG, CORN, CHEDDAR CHEESE, CHOPPED TOMATO, RANCH DRESSING, SOUTHWEST TOPPING), PLAIN CHEESE QUESADILLA ON THE SIDE. (Brown the ground beef, throw the lettuce in a bowl and chop up the tomato, add the tomato to the lettuce, add the can of corn on top, add the ground beef and mix up, sprinkle with cheddar cheese, serve in bowls and add ranch dressing and southwest salad topping to your preference.) Total Cost at Wegmans: $12.22, with extra ingredients that can be used to make the grilled chicken quesadilla for the next nights meal. **If you keep the beef and salad separate and serve together in bowls, you can wrap up leftovers and mix together when you're ready to eat again.

Want more? Check out Another 3 weeks of 15 minute meals by clicking HERE.

Stress Free, Relaxing Commute with Self Help Audio Books

I used to have this fantasy... That I'll be able to take a month (or two) off from work and chores to learn how to live life better. I've even mentally designed my program. I'll be taught Yoga, Pilates, Budgeting, Investing, Child Care, Organization, DIY Projects, Stress Reduction, Working Out, and Time Management. I still think it's a genius idea, but since no one has actually planned it, it's not happening anytime soon. However, thanks to a horrendous 1 hour commute each way in DC/Northern Virginia traffic, I'm one step closer to my goal.

My old system: run out of the house a few minutes late every day, feeling my blood pressure climb as DC drivers cut me off, drive on the shoulder, text on their phones through green lights, run red lights and in general make me want to call in sick at the thought of doing this for an hour, working 8.5 hours, then doing this for an hour again at the end of the shift.

My new system: wake up 10 minutes early, pack my breakfast to go (whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter and honey wrapped in foil) or sit down to eat pancakes, and pick one of the Audio books on CD to listen to from the library. I take out about 6 at a time (good for about 12 days), and cycle through the areas that I feel my life needs the most work in: Finances and Budgeting, Stress Reduction, Organization, Working Out, Time Management, Child Care, Health Info (since I'm 6 months pregnant - I've been doing pregnancy guides and labor guides), and Nutrition Info. I search Amazon's self help books for the most recommended titles, reserve them on the library website, and then go pick them up.

Results: I've done this for two months straight now and I actually look forward to my commute. (Especially when it's a finance book day- I love the changes the info has brought into my life and it empowers me to make confident decisions.) I honestly think I've learned more in the last two months of commuting then I learned in four years of college. My commute is completely stress free, I take my time and just relax. As a bonus, I've committed to spending 2 hours a day to bettering my life, which is something that few people can say.

My Post with recommended audio books can be found here.

The secret to free books for life: saving money with the Library

First off, this started last year when I started quicken accounting software linked to our accounts. Quicken informed me that I had spent over $500.00 on books in 30 days. Ridiculous right? Stupid quicken..... obviously has a million errors. I only bought like..... Ummmmm. Oh. Like $500.00 worth :( Quicken also informed me that this was a reoccurring habit I had and that over the last year, my books came in third in our household expenses (in my defense- my husband's flying club beat my books by a lot!).
So, in an effort to save money, I went back to the library hoping that my new "Fly Lady" organization would help me return books on time. (I've had several past experiences with the library where I would forget to return them and have insane late fee's. In one case, over $200.00!)
This is where I discovered the modern library service.... I lived in Fairfax County,Virginia at the time, which had a world class library including an iPhone app where you can reserve books, but now that I'm in Prince William, Virginia, I'm still impressed (though I miss my iPhone app!)

Here's How I use the Library and save a small fortune:

- Search through Amazon.com and make a wish list of anything and everything you want to read from cookbooks to non fiction to "Idiot's Guide to Building My Wife a Green Breakfast Nook"
(complete with wood plans and diagrams). Love young adult post apocalyptic books but don't know where to start? Check out listmania by Amazon. You search other readers book lists based on what you like to read. For instance- you can search "books taking place on a desert island"... And you'll get a list. Don't forget to include brand new releases or books that haven't come out yet, but have a release date. Print that wish list out.

-Go on to your library website and start typing your list into the search engine (you'll need a library card first- stop by your local branch to get one, almost all are free).  Every book should be there (Even small libraries hook up with larger libraries to get books they don't normally have). Click request on the books (limit yourself to what you can read in 21 days- I do 11 books and normally have to re-reserve one). When you do that, the library will gather up the books from different places and bring them to your library branch. If there's a hold, they put you on the list and when it's ready, it goes to your branch for you. The Library will email you when your books are ready then you go pick them up. You have 21 days to return them and they have a drop box. They even have brand new books that just got released last month .

Here comes the real genius... The library will also give you free ebooks and audio books! Here's how it works... I've been reading ebooks on my kindle for iPhone for a while- It's amazing! And convenient! Download Overdrive Media app for Droid or iPhone (free), click "get books", when it asks to choose library- type in your zip and pick your library. Enter your library card number and browse or search for books! Same rules apply with E/Audio books.... You get them for 21 days and if too many people have them out, you can put yourself on a wait list. They will email you when it's ready. You read the books (or listen to them) right through the app.  You can magnify the words so it's easy to read. The selection for Ebooks seems to be more popular books (versus print books which they have virtually all). For instance, I can get Twilight and Vampire Academy books  but I can't get Madeline L'engle's "An endless ring of light"... Because it's old and outdated (No offense Madeline... I still think you're awesome.)

Also of note is that the Library has pretty much every Magazine known to man, is almost never busy and has an array of comfy chairs. If your bored, or broke and want to get lost in celebrity gossip or flip through glossy pages of stuff you can't afford, you should plan to spend a few hours there.

I should also mention that the key to this working is a routine or a schedule. Either plan to hit the library every Sunday to drop off and pick up books, or on the 10th and 20th of every month, or customize it but write it in your schedule. The system works so well for me, that I have no problem keeping the schedule and it's by far my favorite errand.

So... That's my story. My Quicken is informing me that I have spent 0.00 on books since August 2011. Now, If we can get a shoe library.... We'll be rich!!!

A special thank you to Fairfax County Library and Prince William County Library for being so awesome and inspiring this happy girl to start to get her financial life in order.

CHEAP Summer BBQ's

My typical BBQ food was Bubba Burgers ($9.49) for 6 frozen patties, BBQ Beans, Tossed Salad and Macaroni Salad. I'm expecting to host a BBQ for 6 people this weekend and needed to fit the costs of the Barbecue into my $100.00 weekly food costs.

I went to the local Wegmans and picked up a "club pack" of 80/20 ground beef. It was just over 6 pounds of ground beef for $12.23. We then bought a hamburger press for $3.29. We considered just hand forming them ourselves, but I really like uniform patties and thought that $3.29 was worth the convenience since we have burgers often.

We went home and made 24 quarter pound burgers, layered them in wax paper and put them in a freezer bag. The original plan for Bubba Burgers was buying 2 boxes for $18.98 and having only 2 hamburgers per person. By buying bulk and forming my own, I spent $15.52 and have double the burgers to use for next week!
 I added the following to my shopping cart: 16 Wegmans white hamburger buns for $1.99 (I freeze the extras in foil and a freezer bag then stick them on the grill for later use.), Combined Wegmans "food you feel good about" creamed corn ($.49) and a can of Wegman's Corn to make a large batch of "chunky" creamed corn,  two bags of Wegmans "Food you feel good about" Salad $1.29, and Wegmans Ranch dressing for $1.69. I add cheddar cheese that I bought for other weeknight meals, and bacon bits and salad topping that I keep in stock to the salad to dress it up a bit.

Total Cost for my Barbecue?  $22.76 and I have hamburgers and rolls left over to combine with a pantry item next week for a free dinner. We're serving ice cold water, kool aid (from the pantry), and hot tea or coffee (all from pantry) and we don't have any drinkers coming, but when we do we just make the party BYOB.

I made the weekly food budget of $100.00 with $8.00 to spare. If you're under and want to add to your BBQ with the extra money, head over to Aldi Foods- Tomatoes, Onions, and Iceberg Lettuce are all well under $1.00, You can easily pick up chips for less than $2.00 and a box of brownie mix for about $1.50