Tap Water – A cool refreshing frugal drink

Posted by Debt Destroyer on August 27, 2009

Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

That’s how my wife and I felt when we first moved back to my hometown. Our rental house was right across the street from a creek which runs through town.

A stinky, smelly, slimy creek.

I don’t know if it was in our heads or if it was actually the case, but we could’ve swore the tap water tasted funny. We also thought it was stinky, smelly, and slimy.

Which was too bad because we had recently became big time water drinkers. The tap water in Minneapolis was pretty good, but we used a Brita Filter to make it even better. But this time when we broke out our trusty Brita filter the water was still gross.

So we asked around and it turns out that most people in this town bought their water. My wife gave me grief for not knowing this, but I told her I never drank water as a kid (I was a chocolate milk junkie) and had no idea it was such a problem.

So five years ago we started buying our drinking water.

When we became members of the local natural food co-op, we noticed that they had an ozone water filtration system in the store. So we decided to give it a try.

The water was and still is delicious! The only problem was that I had to lug around these big jugs to get it. We decided to keep a 3 gallon in the fridge, and have two other 5 gallon ones for convenience(unless you’re the one carrying them).

It costs $0.40/ gallon, but we figured that it was worth it for the many health benefits drinking water provides. Such as:

Helps Regulates body temperature
Aids with digestion
Lubricates joints
Helps kidneys flush out toxins
Been known to help with weight loss
And it can give you an energy boost

We’ve been doing this for 5 years. We thought our drinking water problem was solved.

But then my sister posted this video on her facebook page:

Even though we don’t buy much bottled water, the trailer for Tapped scared us because it mentioned 5 gallon jugs might have BPA in them. I remembered hearing about the fuss about BPA in baby bottles about a year or so ago. We ended up switching our son’s sippy cup as a result of all the brewhaha.

But we didn’t think of our water jugs at all.

And of course I watched this clip right after I just refilled 13 gallons. So I guess I’ll check out the store for some non-BPA jugs. If I can’t find any we’ll go back to Tap Water. Heck we might make the switch even if I can find the BPA free jugs.

Tap water is much cheaper(At least that’s what Zach Braf was been telling me).

And since I’m always looking for ways to trim our grocery expense I might have to break out our old brita filter again. Now if I can only remember where I put it.

How about you?

Do you embrace the fact that you are about 2/3 water and drink up, (tap or untapped) or do you hydrate yourself by other means? Do you think “Tapped” is onto something, or should I tell my sister to stop scaring me?

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Frugality, Health

The Library Still Rocks! Yes, I Like The Free Movies And More

Posted by Debt Destroyer on August 13, 2009

I love my library! I know, I know…I already wrote this post a few months ago. But indulge me.

The reason for my outburst is that my town is looking at replacing our library. A few days ago they held a meeting to gather input in what we citizens would like in a new library.

Me and a bunch of old ladies showed up.

I was relieved that they all had a wonderful ideas (meaning they wanted the same things that I did). Part of me was worried that the general public would think that the library’s time has passed. That we no longer need an actual “library” anymore now that we’re in a digital age.

Of course informational meetings are hardly attended by the general public. The only people who usually show up at these meetings are supporters. The critics come later.

But with that said, I was deeply impressed by how much these people cared about their library.

My own appreciation has grown since my last Library post. Back in March when I came out of the closet as an avid library user, I mentioned how we loved all the programs they had for our children. And we still do, but since then we have started to use it more for ourselves.

Mainly the movie section.

I wish I could say that I was checking out a bunch of intellectual books, but with me in school there’s little time for recreational reading. I did have a summer reading list but now that I’m down to a couple of weeks before classes begin again, I’ve decided that I’ll tackle that challenge next summer.

If only I read during the time Mrs DD & I would watch movies, I’d have had made quite a dent in that reading list. But instead we caught up on a bunch of flicks (off the top of my head):

Pan’s Labyrinth – Very imaginative visuals…not for kiddies.
Inside Man – A very cool Spike Lee joint. I love a good heist film.
Munich – I missed out on this Spielberg film when it was in the theaters. Turns out I didn’t miss much.
The Queen – My wife really liked this one. I thought it was OK.
Rachel Getting Married – This was on the depressing side of things, but we still liked it.
Wendy & Lucy – As a dog lover, I could relate.
Australia – Another one my wife really liked. I’m pretty sure it was because of Hugh Jackman (again I thought it was OK)
Happy Go Lucky – Should have been called Happy Go Boring
The Bucket List – Clever idea, but we thought it swung and missed (we felt the same about the current release Funny People).
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid - A classic that I felt like watching again. If you have the time, I recommend the special features.

But in addition to a pretty decent, but very picked over movie section, my local Library also has a wide variety of TV shows on DVD available for checkout. One show in particular intrigued us because we’ve heard so much about it. But because of our limited rabbit ear reception we were never able to watch it ourselves.

Lost

We now refer back to June as “the Lost month”. We watched season 1-4 in about 3 1/2 weeks. Obviously we were totally hooked. We had all the signs of addicts.

Our sleeping pattern changed - Much like our Spring Break Adventure, we wouldn’t start watching them until the kids were in bed. With the sun staying out later, that meant we were hardly starting before 10PM. Next thing we knew it would be 1:00 AM, and we’d be zombies the next day…until we got our next fix.
It consumed our thoughts – Just because we’d go to bed at 1:00 doesn’t mean we’d go to sleep. We’d have to digest and discuss what we just watched. Looking back most of our conversations we had were about Lost. My wife even had dreams starring the Lost characters (she promises me that weren’t all about Jack).
We were willing to pay! – It wasn’t until we got to Season Three that we discovered something horrible. Other people were also checking out the DVDs. How dare they! Thanks to this development I figured out how to put items on reserve. But there were times that we didn’t have the patience to wait for our fellow fans to return the next disc. So we had to go elsewhere…BLOCKBUSTER. June’s expense report shows the damage, all $9.51 of it.

But we ran into a bigger problem. Season 5 is not on video yet. And won’t be until this December.

Nooooooo!

We were really hoping to catch up before Season 6 starts in early 2010. They have full episodes on ABC.com, but it looks like they only have the last 6, so we’ll have to go elsewhere. Like to my wife’s sisters house. Her and her husband happen to have season 5 on DVR. So a Lost Party is in our future.

I hope they are ready for a marathon!

Just today I was perusing the video section when a gentleman called his wife and asked her what show they wanted to get started watching. He brought up a few, including Lost. When he was off the phone I warned him that if he chose Lost, it would take over his life.

I think I creeped him out, so I grabbed a few movies( The Lucky Ones, Frost/Nixon, & Body of Lies) and got out of there before they asked me to not come back.

But that’s one of the great things about a library. Getting to mingle with the public.

Earlier this summer, Flexo @ Consumerism Commentary had a great post talking about how much money a person could save by using their library. There was even a calculator which showed how much you saved. According to it I save $186.50 a month. I think that is a little high(the books we get are usually kid books), but I don’t question the fact that I do save a considerable amount.

As I sat there in that meeting with the old ladies, I had the thought of saving money and all the other advantages of using the library in my head. I was ready to throw them out there if needed. But like I mentioned earlier, everyone there loved the Library just as much, if not even more than I did.

In fact they had some unique ideas to add to the new one(if we get one).

Indoor playground – It gets awfully cold here in the winter, so they thought it would be nice to give the kids a place to hang out. The hope is that they’d read just as much as they play.
Music Practice Rooms / Private Study Rooms - As a former band nerd (trombone) I would’ve never even thought about this as an option. I just figured everyone tortured their family like I did when they learned an instrument.
Coffee Shop – They thought this would help raise money. Currently they have a free will donation for coffee, I guess that must not be bringing in too much.

I have to admit being blown away by the blue haired crowd. I would’ve never thought of any of that stuff. Now I’ll also admit that the fuddy-duddy in me thinks that only the Study Rooms are a good idea. I don’t like the idea of a playground, or a coffee shop. As much fun as I think the library is now, I don’t want it too be too much fun.

Does that make any sense?

What I mean to say is, that I’d be tickled pink if they just kept what they have and expanded it a little. But clearly that’s not thinking outside the box. I guess I need to call up my grandma to get her opinion.

While I do that, how about I ask you,the trusty Happy Rock readers, what would be some features of the perfect library if you could design one? Do you think that a modern library with a bunch of bells & whistles would be utilized more than a traditional one? Do you utilize your local library? Do you even know where the nearest library is?

Until next time,

-DD

P.S. Remember that I haven’t seen Season 5 yet, so please no spoilers in the comments!

» Filed Under Frugality, Money Savers

Cheap Eats – Meal Ideas Under $10

Posted by Debt Destroyer on July 2, 2009

A while ago I wrote about how I blew my grocery budget on a $11 hunk of cheese, I ended that post by asking for some budget friendly recipes. Only Kristy from Master Your Card took me up, and I’m ever glad she did.

Her chicken dish was fantastic!

Here it is again for those of you who missed out the first time:

4 boneless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken (reg size is fine)
1 tablespoon of Season-All
Spaghetti noodles
butter
garlic salt

First, you boil the chicken with salt and pepper until they’re just about done. This reduces overall cooking time and keeps the meat tender.

Transfer the chicken to a crock pot and cover with cream of chicken and about half a can of water. Add the Season-All and stir. Let simmer for about 25 minutes (less if you’re cooking on high…just make sure the chicken is completely done).

While the chicken is cooking, boil water for the spaghetti noodles. I’ve found that if you add a cap full of olive oil, it enhances the flavor of the noodles, so I recommend it, but it’s not necessary. Once the noodles are cooked, strain them and put them back in the pan. Add butter and garlic salt to taste.

Put noodles on a plate. Cut up chicken over the noodles. Ladle the cream of chicken sauce over the chicken and noodles.

Enjoy!

I changed it a little (like using a lot more Cream of Chicken soup) and didn’t use a crock-pot, but it still turned out rather tasty.

About the same time I was savoring “MasterYourCard Chicken”, my favorite radio station was doing a s eries of stories of meals for under $10.

Chef Jose Andres started with a Moorish-Style Chickpea And Spinach Stew.
Chef Ming Tsai then whipped up some Chicken-And-Corn Fried Rice With Lemon Spinach.
Navy chef Michael Edwards made Sauteed Skate Meuniere with Potato Gnocchi.
Pat and Gina Neely ended the series with Cheesy Corkscrews With Crunchy Bacon Topping.

The best part of the series were all the recipes that people left in the comment section, but they are gone now

Obviously there are a lot of great meals out there that are cheaper than $10 (here’s a whole site of them for half that price).

And if $5 is too much for you, there are plenty of simple meals that get the job done. My personal favorites are:

Spaghetti & Garlic Toast
Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
Mac & Cheese with Hot dogs

Or my all time favorite meal(no joke)…Hamburger & Rice.

Mix some rice with hamburger, top it with butter, and your good to go.

As you can see whether you spend $800 a year on food or $800 a month, there are many, many, ways to get the best bang for your food buck.

So how about we try this sharing thing again?

What’s your favorite $10 meal, $5 meal, or super simple meal?

I’m getting hungry just thinking about this.

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Food, Frugality

Frugal Fixes Around the House – Duct Tape, Foam and a Rubberband

Posted by Debt Destroyer on May 22, 2009

Back in September I wrote about how it took me two days to fix a screendoor.

Guess what? It’s broken again.

I bring this up to show that I’m no handy man. With all the Bob the Builder that my kids watch you’d think that something would rub off on me. But nothing does. In fact when the kids break something they always run to “Mommy” to get it fixed. But I don’t blame them.

I married a female Red Green.

Ok, that might be a bit of an overstatement. But sometimes I wonder. Take our refrigerator for example.

Our bottom rack broke on the inside of the door. I messed around for days trying to superglue the original rack back in. It would be fine for a bit, then fall apart and the jug of apple juice was always falling on our feet.

I repeated this a few times until one day I came home from lunch to find out my wife fixed it.

She fixed it with Duct Tape!

That same strip of tape has been protecting our toes for over a year.

Actually the most impressive aspect of the tape job, was that Mrs DD was actively lobbying for a new fridge even before the rack broke. It is on our Wish List after all. So I was glad that she was able to put aside her desire for a new one and realize that as long as it keeps things cold, we’ll be keeping our old fridge.

Speaking of things we’ll be keeping…

Remember when Christmas came early for us and we received a hand-me-down couch? Well after we got used to it, our “new” 20-year old couch started to feel like…a 20-year old couch. So My wife took it upon herself to fix it.

Can she fix it? Yes she can!

A couple of weeks ago she went to the local hardware store and got a couple of pieces of foam cut to fit under the couch cushions. The foam was spendy ($70+), but it made huge difference. We are once again very pleased with our “new” couch and are confident that it will last until we get a leather one…someday.

While I’m busy exhorting my wife’s handiness, I do have one success story that I should share.

We were having a plumbing problem in our upstairs bathroom. Our tub spout is rather old and corroded, so water would somehow flow backwards along the bottom of the spout, get in the wall, and leak on the floor. This made giving the kids a bath more messy than it normally would be.

It took me a while to figure out exactly what was causing the water to get on the floor. But when I did, I used a rubber band to redirect the leak. Now instead of getting all the way to the wall, the water leaks down into the tub when it hits the rubber band.

I also could just put some caulk around the tub surround, but that seemed too conventional of a fix. Plus I don’t have much luck with those type of projects.

The screen door is testament to that.

So what have been some of your proudest moments fixing things yourself? Or better yet, how about some stories of home projects going awry. I don’t know about you, but I can relate to those kind of stories much better.

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Frugality, Money Savers

Cheaper Than Cheap Tip Of The Week #8 : Don’t Flush The Tiolet

Posted by The Happy Rock on May 1, 2009

“Cheaper Than Cheap” is a recurring tip series about frugality. The idea is to provide potentially helpful frugality tips that border on fanatical or fictitious to the point of becoming humorous. Love them or hate them, let’s hear what you think. Tip #7 was Sleep When It is Dark.

If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down

That old adage isn’t just funny and gross, it can really save you money. The point it is wait to flush your urine but always flush the poop. I know it sounds kind of gross, but let’s take a look at the numbers to see if it is really worth it. Let’s estimate that a family of 4 flushes 20 times a day, 16 of which are just liquid waste. They own a somewhat dated toilet that uses 3.5 gallons a flush which is a good average because some older toilets can use up to 5 gallons or more while newer tanks can use as low as 0.8 gallons for pee flushes and 1.6 gallons for solid waste flushes.

If they follow the saying to the literal letter that would save 16 flushes a day or 56 gallons of water. In a year they will save 20,440 gallons of water a year, which at a cost of 0.005 cents a galloon taken from my current bill would save $102 a year.

To put it in a broader perspective, the US as a whole uses 5.8 billion gallons of fresh water a day for flushing and could reduce that amount by over 4.3 billion gallons just by following “if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down”.

If you aren’t hardcore enough for the mellow yellow route, you could consider using an empty half gallon or gallon milk jug to convert you toilet into a lower flow toilet.

Cheaper Than Cheap Tip Of The Week Poll:

Online Surveys & Market Research

*Sources:
Low cost ways to conserve water at home @Yahoo

» Filed Under Frugality

Necessity vs Luxury: Research Shows That The Economy Shapes Our Perspective

Posted by Debt Destroyer on April 28, 2009

Quick question: Do you think a microwave is a necessity or a luxury?

I ask because the other day NPR ran a story about a Pew Research Center study that asked these types of questions.

According to the findings Americans are paring down on what they consider necessities. For example, in 2006 68% of people called the microwave a “necessity”. In 2009 only 47% now feel that way.

Here is a chart showing how some other items fared as well.

It’s interesting to see that a shaky economy has people viewing less items as necessities. But it totally makes sense. When money is a little tight, it’s amazing what you can make do with.

I was curious how the DD household would compare with the survey’s findings, so I quizzed my wife tonight at dinner and here are our results:

Necessity Survey (Item, nationwide Yes%, DD, Mrs. DD)

Is this item a necessity?

Car - 88% – Yes – Yes
Landline phone - 68% – Yes – Yes
Clothes Dryer – 66% – Yes – Yes
Home air conditioning - 54% - Yes – No
TV set - 52% – No – No
Home Computer 50% – No – Yes
Cell Phone - 49% – No – No
Microwave - 47% – Yes – No
High Speed Internet - 31% – No – Yes
Cable/Satellite TV – 23% – No – No
Dishwasher – 21% – No – No
Flat Screen TV - 8% – No – No
iPod – 4% – No – No

The only ones my wife & I really disagreed on were Home AC and the Microwave. I said yes to both. I get miserably hot really easy, so I feel I “need” AC. Upon reflection, I guess I could go without a microwave, but when I first thought about it I instantly said yes.

**My wife said “yes” to Computer & High Speed Internet because she works from home and uses these for her job. She said if it wasn’t for that, she’d had said “no”**

So what about you? Do you think any of those items are necessities?

Looking forward to your answers.

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Frugality, Materialism

Little Things Part 3 – Budget Practice And Correcting Mistakes

Posted by Debt Destroyer on February 24, 2009

This is the 3rd chapter is a series of posts showing how the little things can add up.

Here is part one & part two.

You might have missed it, but I dropped some subtle hints in my recent snowblower post that I can from time to time, be a pretty big baby.

Well one night after a frigid shoveling adventure, my wife took pity on me (FINALLY!).

I told her that I’d like nothing more than to have that night’s hot chocolate to be accompanied with some nachos. But you need chips for nachos and we had none. Luckily for me, my beautiful loving bride volunteered to venture out in the freezing cold to get some (which was nice because I already had my pajamas on).

She returned (quite a while later) with not only chips but with a few other items as well. She told me that she was shocked at the total of $20 for 5 things and that was with her taking advantage of a 2 bags of chips for $5 offer.

So we checked the receipt.

She ended up paying $5 each for the chips instead of getting both bags for $5. The deal was for two small bags, and she got two big bags (a mistake I might add, that she’s made before). I suggested that before she takes her coat off, she should take them back.

She gave me a rather perplexing look, but then agreed that we didn’t have $5 to waste on chips.

To make it up for her, I was the one who made the hot chocolate that night (a little groveling might have also took place, hard to say for sure).

While we were savoring our beverage watching Letterman, I rubbed some salt in her wounds by reminding her to take money out of the “grocery” envelope before going shopping. Otherwise it defeated the purpose of the envelope system (This too might have been followed by some groveling, again it’s hard to say for sure).

Now I know some out there would scoff at a going through such an ordeal for only a $5 savings, but if you add up a few of them together, you can start to see some significant savings.

And who out there couldn’t use an extra $15?

You can buy your wife some nice flowers with $15

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Food, Frugality, Marriage(Communication)

Deep Freeze – Freezing Sale Items To Help Stretch Your Grocery Dollars

Posted by Debt Destroyer on February 18, 2009

Now that I’m trying to limit my family’s Grocery spending to $450 a month, I’m looking for ways to get the most for my money. I’ve already mentioned a few ways I’m doing this in a couple of previous posts (here & here).

But earlier today I realized that I had another tool at my disposal that I probably haven’t been using effectively enough.

Our Deep Freeze!

At lunch time today my daughter informed us that she wanted burritos. My wife looked in the fridge and said we were out. But that triggered my memory of buying a bunch of burrito packs when they were on sale a month ago. Sure enough we had a couple of more packages ready to go. In no time at all my kids were eating burritos (well one was the other one was feeding it to the dog).

This got me wondering, what else is in there? I knew it was full of Hot Pockets (whenever my store puts them on sale for less than $2, I stock up.) And just last week, my in-laws gave some some free mystery meat (I’m never sure what they are handing out).

But when I took a deeper look I found many forgotten treasures.

Tator Tots – These must have been on sale a while ago, because I have 3 bags of them. This is good because they are one of our favorite side dishes.
Broccoli – There was a time when my daughter ate broccoli like it was going out of style. I must have stocked, because now she won’t touch it. It’s still a popular side.
Roasts (mostly pork) – I’m just guessing but I think these came from my Mother-in-law. As mentioned above she frequently gives us random frozen meat.
Random stuff – There’s a boxed lasagna, ice cream, desserts, corn, apple sauce, chicken breasts, and breast milk.

After surveying our new found booty, the Mrs & I have decided that we’re going to try to mine at least two meals a week out of the freezer. So before sitting down to type this I cut up some potatoes, carrots, and onions, and combined them all together in our crock-pot.

Hopefully it will taste as good as it smells.

After a few weeks we should be ready to fill ‘er up once again. Hopefully this time we’ll remember to keep better track of what’s in there and plan our meals accordingly.

For example this upcoming week we’ll have:

Monday – Tator Tot Hot Dish
Tuesday – Chicken & broccoli
Wednesday - Lasagna with some sort of Breast Milk dessert

On second thought maybe we’ll just have a nice side salad.

Now that you know how I use my freezer, how about you share some of your favorite itms to stock up on?

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Food, Frugality

Runaway Electric Bill – Looking For Electricity Savings Tips

Posted by Debt Destroyer on February 10, 2009

I thought I was prepared for winter.

I took some steps to winterize my house, we’ve added insulated curtains, and have been wearing our smart wool socks we got for Christmas. But now I hear that according to Punxsutawney Phil, we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter.

Thank goodness!

I can’t wait for Spring to get here. I’ve already mentioned how my back is tired from all the shoveling, now my wallet is ailing from the high electric bills.

I don’t know what the first thing you would do if you got a $485 electric bill, but the first thing I did was turn down the furnace. It was set at 68 degrees, so I lowered it to 67 (Kept it at 63 overnights). The next thing I did was turn off all the lights.

My precious daughter is on kick about turning on lights. I think she likes this so much because she is finally tall enough to flip the switch herself. But her new found hobby leaves us with a bunch of lights on. It’s cute, but not that cute.

So for the past month I’ve been pretty adamant about “when not in use turn off the juice.” Lights have been off, heat slightly lower. I was actually looking forward to getting our next bill to see how much all our hard work has paid off.

$468…Ugh.

While January was just as cold as December, I still hoped there would be a bigger drop off in our bill. I guess I could lower the thermoset some more, but it’s already pretty chilly and it didn’t really do all that much last month(but I probably will go down to 66).

In addition to being able to see our breath in our house and reading by candle light, I think it may be time to make an action plan for reducing electric costs. Luckily I didn’t have to go very far to find some great resources.

In fact I didn’t have to leave The Happy Rock:

Spartan Saving – I found this site listed under “Top Commentators.” This site has lots of great tips for saving money around the house.
Vampire Power – Frugal Dad (listed under “Personal Finance”) wrote about how our household electric devises are sucking energy even when they are turned off.
Switch our light bulbs – The Simple Dollar (also listed under ”Personal Finance”) broke down the cost benefits of using different types of bulbs (A side note, a local lighting store talked me out of buying 5 CFLs last year telling me that I’d be crazy to spend $45 on CFLs when I could get old fashion lights for $2).

I think these are all great ideas/tips that I will adding to the mix to help lower my monthly electric bills. I’ll probably also sign up for the “budget plan” so I can spread the pain of the winter bills to the other months.

That way there won’t be any huge surprises next winter.

Now it’s time for me to turn to you. Did I miss anything? What are some of your favorite energy saving tricks? As always, thanks for sharing.

Until next time,

-DD

» Filed Under Energy, Frugality, Money Savers

Sacrifice and Save Money with Store Brands

Posted by Debt Destroyer on January 22, 2009

I used to think “generic” was a derogatory term. It probably stems from a childhood visit from my snobbish cousin who called everything I had or liked “generic” and everything he had or liked “special.”

Kids can be cruel.

But that was a long time ago. I’d like to think I moved on as soon as I hit adulthood, but I didn’t. All during college I held on to my trusty name brands. Perhaps buying them was like having a little piece of home in my dorm/apartment. Or maybe I was just a sucker for the clever marketing.

Who knows?

I think I finally let my guard down after I started to acquire some bills. Like a lot of graduates, I lived with roommates for the first couple of years after graduating. This really helped cut down on expenses. In fact I don’t think I had any real “bills” until I bought a new car. No, No, that is incorrect. I started to accumulate real bills a little before then…when I met my future wife.

Girlfriends are expensive.

So I think it was around this time that I started to shy away from the name brands that I was loyal to until that point to these new mysterious brands that I never heard of. They were familiar yet different. Some didn’t measure up to the original, and some were better. But one thing was for sure.

They were cheaper!

I remember an early episode after I found out a buddy of mine was taking a daily multi-vitamin, I figured it was time that I too start taking one. So there I was at the store trying to figure out which one to take, so I asked the pharmacist what the difference was between a couple of choices?

“About $2.00.”

That was the tipping point. Right after that I started buying practically every store brand that was offered. Some things didn’t take, like toilet paper. Others did, like mac’n’cheese.

Now generic mac’n’cheese is a sore subject in our house. That’s because it didn’t take for my wife, but I do the shopping, so when I pass by the 5 for a $1 rack, I can’t help but load up. I am sympathetic to her cause because I too had a holdout.

Orange juice.

For years I couldn’t get used to the taste of the “cheaper” juice. I grew up on Minute Maid, but switched to Simply Orange a couple of years ago (let me tell you…Good stuff). But I’m proud to announce that since we’ve started using the envelope system, which limits our grocery budget, I’ve finally acquired the taste for “Land-O-Lakes” O.J.

Hey I figure if my wife can suffer through Flavorite mac’n’cheese, then I can sacrifice something too.

So how about you? Do you utilize store brands? What were the hardest things to let go of? What is off limits?

Remember, we’re all in this together.

Until next time,

-DD