How we save monies on very little monies

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Hubby is unemployed, and so far no unemployment payment. His last employer is fighting him getting unemployment beneifts and saying he quit (which he didn’t).
I am disable but it takes years to get the disable monies, so I just applied for early SS beneifts, and get $777.00 a month.

We have no cable, and only get over the air channels. We did have blockbuster monthly, but cut that out.
Cut out one of our internet people.
Go to Adili, and have been getting most of our grocery there.
Watch the ads that come in the mail and get only the sales items from regular stores. This week k-mart had tyson 100% natural chicken (thighs and legs only) for .79 a pound.

Got many packages of these and repackaged them for the freezer.

When I am in the regular store always check to see if any meats are marked way down, and if so and it is something that I use I got a couple of packages of it, and refreeze the meats for future use.

We use freecycle to get things and also craigslist. We also give away things to both list. Example, my hands are very weak, so it is hard to use a old type can opener. My electric can opener got broken (and couldn’t be fixed), so I posted on freecycle and a lady donated one to me. She even wanted to deliver to me, which see did.

She ask me if it was ok that it was red color, and I said I like the color of red. As it happen, the can opener was new in a box, never used and the brand name was Hamilton Beach. It works wonderful.

Hubbyhas used craiglist to trade things also.

We don’t purchase new clothing except for underwear for either of us. We got to garage sales, and thirft stores and get most of our clothing.

We do a lot of curb side shopping and dumpster diving. I do the curb side shopping and he does the dumpster driving. He has gotten a lot of good wood for project around the house.

We are trying to use the following –

not hoard but use
if not in use then give it away

two months in advance i list all the bills we have to pay for each of the following months, and what dates then bills must be paid for or their will be a late fee on them.
i then know how much monies we have to come up with for these months.i take a need sheet of paper and list the months as the dates they are do, and as each are paid i put a red x next to that items on my months sheet. don’t forget that vehicle insurance comes every six months, and we divide the payment in half. vehicle tages are once a year.

you have to budget for these things also.

i budget $50.00 a week for the two of us, ( that is for food items only).A additional $25.00 a week is budgeted for things like dog food, paper towels, toilet paper, toothpaste, dishwashing stuff, rajors for hubby, cloth washing liquid, ziplock bags, grocery bags, etc. We have a sams membership card, and buy in large sizes that will last a couple of months at a time. If their is a better sale in regular stores, or sometimes in drug stores, like CVS we get the items from their.

When I am drug stores I always check there food area, but they mark down lots of things at least once a month. These aren’t things that are on sale. I have gotten can of pork and beans for .10 a can, crackers in a package for .25 a package.

None of these these I have been have been out of date.

To save on gas for the vehicle we do our shopping in a circle. We list out were we need to go, and what we need to get at each place (that’s to keep from forgetting something), and start the circle. If we need too we take a large cooler with us so things won’t go bad while we are on our other shopping.

We use coupons if we can but only for items we use, not because we have a coupon.

I use most of my medicines from the $4.00 list and get them at wal-mart. We ask our doctors for free medicines which that give us for free is they have any. They know we are having a hard time and try to help us out with these medicines.

We have one or two garage sales a year, which bring in extra cash monies. You will be so surprise what people will buy from us.

We keep the heat down to 62 degrees and put on a extra shirt or sweater around the house, and don’t use the air conditioning extra on very hot days, and then at 75 degrees or higher. We keep lights on only in the room we are in.

We are going to have a garden to grown something this year. We are talking right now about what we are going to grow. We only have from June to end of Sept.

to grow things, and then it get too cool. We will be putting things in the freezer that we don’t eat right away.

We got used but in excellent condition commerical carpet for one of our bed room yestersday, a 14 ft x 14 ft piece for $19.00, from a ad on craigslist.

And I must say we thank GOD for all he have helped us with. We may be poor but he has believe us so. Don’t forget to thank him yourself.

Hope some of this will help someone with their quest to save.

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