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Dinner the past 2 nights, and HBO was taken back off our cable…

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I made steak fajitas with homemade salsa and fried sweet plantains on Monday night, very tasty! Ever since I went to Puerto Rico and Miami, I’ve been addicted to fried sweet plantains.  I’ve never had them before this summer, and they are so good!  The last night I made salsa with cucumbers, red onions, cheese, green peppers and lettuce (of course). Our main dish last night was breaded chicken with spaghetti.

We’ve been doing really good with eating dinner every night.  I’m very happy with this.  We used to eat out every night and our food budget was way over budget.  It was getting out of control.

As always, I have to say, if you have any good recipe ideas, please share!

The BF realized last night that HBO was taken back off, I was really hoping that the cable company wouldn’t notice that they gave it to us for almost a week! We were so happy.  We might just have to justify paying for it, but then it would bump our cable bill to around $90 a month.

Any thoughts on this?

2 Comments
Filed Under: Food Tagged With: Dinner, Frugal, Home

The tricky ways that stores make us buy MORE

Last Updated: July 14, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 3 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Learnvest recently had an article titled 9 Secret Ways Stores Seduce Us into Buying.

“When you go to your favorite grocery store, do you choose a cart instead of a basket? Hum along to the tune that’s playing? Or accept a sample of the new gouda cheese or pine nut hummus on offer?  If you answered yes to any of the above, you were likely seduced into spending more than you intended. And insidious ploys to get you to open your wallet are also going on at malls, in dressing rooms and on shopping websites across America.”

It’s hard not to be tempted by things at the store, but stores usually create this temptations also.  Stores have huge marketing and research teams to create these temptations, and they usually work.

  1. Supersized Carts
    • Bigger carts make shoppers spend 37% more when they shop. Try grabbing a basket instead if you can.  Whenever I shop, if I grab a basket, I ALWAYS spend less.  Because the basket gets heavy quickly, so then I really start to think about what I’m buying, because I don’t feel like carrying it.  This has also helped me watch what I eat.
  2. Nostalgic Music
    • With holiday music playing, shoppers tend to spend 17% more then when normal music is playing.  The solution to this is to bring your iPod if the store music tempts you to buy more.
  3. Denomination Effect
    •   “A study showed that breaking a $100 bill to make a purchase is 48% harder than spending exactly the same amount using smaller notes.That’s why we don’t mind spending spare change on gum or magazines at the cash register, but won’t necessarily break a $20 to do so: We tell ourselves that we’re spending less when only forking over singles.”
    • I’m exactly like this.  I will not break a $100 bill to save my life.
  4. Mirror Manipulation
    • Have you ever bought something at the store and brought it home, only to realize that it looks horrible on you? Chance is that this has happened numerous times.  Many stores use lighting and slimming mirrors to tempt you to buy items.
    • A study showed we spend 19% more if we think we look better in the mirror. Solution – be aware of which stores do this, and try to look at the clothes on you in the open if you can.
  5.  Speed Bumps while Shopping
    • I didn’t know this until I read this article, but some retailers have shopping speed bumps.  This causes us to slow down and look around. These speed bumps create around a 15 second delay, which leads to as much as 17% in extra spending.
  6. Samples
    • “40% of people who accept an in-store sample will begin buying food.” You might not have been hungry before you went shopping, but now you probably are.  Try to resist the temptation of sampling food, if this will then lead you to buying unnecessary items that you did not go shopping for.
  7. Interruptions
    • Many retailers put displays in your way, so that you will notice the item.
  8.  Credit Card Discounts
    • We’ve all experienced this before.  Whether at Macy’s, Target or other places, usually the cashier will end the sale with “Would you like to receive 15% of your purchase today?”
    •  Many people love the fact that they will get a discount, but this is a bad idea. Remember that this sales person gets a bonus for signing you up, and when you have the credit card, you will end up spending 30% more at that retailer.

What tricks do you fall into when you shop?

3 Comments
Filed Under: Budget Tagged With: Dinner, Frugal

Dinner that I made last night

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

 

This is what I made last night.  I swear it looked a lot better in real life, I feel like it looks funny on the plate.  I made manicotti, breaded chicken and salad with strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, and cheese of course.  It tasted really good! I’m very happy with it.

Our eating in plan has been working so far.  We’ve ate in everyday this week (I think). I plan on making chilli tonight so I’ll take a picture of that also.  As always, leave any recipe ideas that you have!

Also, I just had to buy $200 worth of textbooks because my teacher decided he wanted more books for our class.  UGHHHH. This will turn out to be an expensive week, but it’s mainly my fault.  I’ll go into more detail on that, this weekend.

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Food Tagged With: Dinner

My Plan to eat In Everyday

Last Updated: December 19, 2015 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 13 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I’ve noticed that other bloggers have made a goal to eat in everyday, and I’m going to try the same, except I’m going to modify it a bit.  I can’t control my BF’s Lion’s Choice daily habit, so that little bit will be excluded.  My goal is to make dinner every day.  As some of you know, this is kind of a hard task, as I don’t get out of class some nights until 10pm, and don’t make it home until around an hour after that.  The BF gets off work around the same time though, so it’ll be like it’s dinner time for the both of us.

But at around 10pm, I’m usually very drained from my 16 hour days.  I’ll try and share with everyone what I make everyday, including pictures and recipes.  Last night I made salad, steak, stuffed green peppers and pineapple upside down cake for dessert. The stuffed green peppers were Stephanie’s idea and they turned out great! I wish I would have taken pictures as I am very proud of myself.

The pictures that I take may not be the greatest though.  I am not a great cook and have little patience for cooking! If you have any ideas for dinner for us, let me know!

Also, as I said earlier, I’m changing up the background and the layout of the blog today, sorry about that.  Let me know what you like and don’t like please!

13 Comments
Filed Under: Budget Tagged With: Dinner, Frugal

How do you save money on food?

Last Updated: July 14, 2017 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

In connection with my last post, I figured I’d make a post on how you save money on food.

My grocery budget is somewhere around $300 a month.  We try to make everything that we can at home, but of course there are the days where I need a snack after work or I’m going out with friends.

We go to Aldi’s for fruits and vegetables.  The fruits and vegetables are MUCH cheaper and last a lot longer than grocery stores.  Strawberries are usually $0.99, blueberries at $0.99, and so on.  With meat, we try to stock up whenever our local grocery store has a coupon day for $10 off your total purchase, this makes meat very inexpensive.  I have a freezer full of ground beef, steak, pork chops, ham and so on.

We buy nearly all of our household items with coupons, such as cleaning solutions, and all of this stuff is very cheap or free.

Thanks to Stephanie at Mischievous Kitty, I’m also going to try and mix things up a bit and buy healthier food at the farmers market and other local farmers from where I live.

How do you save money on groceries?

2 Comments
Filed Under: Budget Tagged With: Dinner, Savings

Saved 51% on Groceries!

Last Updated: December 8, 2014 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 10 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I didn’t do super great last night, but I did good!  I spent $48.03 and saved 51% altogether! I had $38.00 in coupons (only 6 coupons, I had a $10 off total purchase and free coupons) and saved $9.64 in store savings.  I would have saved more, but I bought dog food and that was $16.77 and I also spent around $15 on meat.

I bought:

  1. Purina Chicken Stew Food
  2. Beneful Dog food
  3. Chesters Hot Fries
  4. Cottonelle Bath Tissue
  5. Libby’s Corn
  6. Dole Pineapple
  7. Cream Corn
  8. Taco Shells
  9. Prego Pasta Sauce
  10. Sara Lee Bread
  11. 3 Tuna pouches
  12. Salsa Chips
  13. Boneless Chicken
  14. 3 pounds of ground beef
  15. Steak
  16. Tomatoes
  17. Sweet Onions
  18. Plantain
  19. Cilantro
  20. Fresh and Express Lettuce
  21. Ice Cream
  22. 3 Microwave Dinners
  23. Kraft Cheese
  24. Cheddar Cheese
  25. American Cheese
  26. Ricotta Cheese
  27. Sour Cream

How has your grocery shopping been?

10 Comments
Filed Under: Budget Tagged With: Dinner, Frugal, Savings

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My name is Michelle and I'm the author/owner of Making Sense of Cents. Learning how to save money and make more money changed my life. It allowed me to pay off $40,000 in student loans, start my own business, and I now travel full-time.

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