I ended up having a good weekend of not doing a whole heck of a lot. It's has been almost a year since I have had three full days off at home. I got my desk cleaned off, organized some files, picked out a couple books to sell on half.com, got my laundry done, did my food shop for the first part of the month. I will say that the grocery shop was more money than I thought it would be, I spent $57 on groceries and almost spit when I forked over the money. That was just over one third of my monthly food budget on the second day of the month. I looked at the receipt when I got home and almost everything I bought was store brand, which is fine and I got a number of staples that I was out of at the house. I did buy four 'expensive' items, a package of two steaks (but with a $2 off coupon), couple pounds of ground beef, a bunch of pencil thin asparagus, chopped walnuts and fresh grated cheese.
I used the walnuts and grated cheese to make pesto this weekend. My basil plants are perfect for pesto and I made two batches to freeze. I sort of choked when I realized the grated cheese was $7 (and not even a full pound) but fresh cheese is key in pesto. I love making things like pesto and even thought the basic ingredients were a bit pricey, come the middle of the winter, the taste of summer will be worth it. The steaks were a steal. Two nice steaks that I can grill and make two meals out of each one (dinner and then leftovers for a sandwich or on my salads). I also got enough burger to make 7 burgers, that are pre-formed and neatly wrapped in my freezer waiting to be grilled for suppers. I will admit, I love a good burger. The asparagus was a pure impulse buy and treat to me.
I did splurge yesterday and make a grand picnic supper, steaks, local tomatoes with fresh basil and onions, asparagus, local corn, steamed broccoli and some hollandaise sauce. The corn, onions and tomatoes I got at the local farm. I picked up some decent looking broccoli from the reduced produce isle at the store and I had a grand time cooking the meal. If I tried to make this meal, I probably would have had made a mess out of it. I had enough food to feed at least two people and the good part is I get to have the leftovers I want to eat.
The trip to the Laundromat ended up being a money saver. The dog decided that it would be FUN to pee on my bedding, ugh, gross, not just on the corner of the blanket, but he hopped on the bed and peed in the middle of it. Why, I'm not 100% sure, but it meant that I had drag all the bedding (and I did a load of dog laundry as well) to the Laundromat. I have a small portable machine at home; it hooks up to the sink, but can not handle things like blankets or all the dog laundry. The weather was great, so my only consolation was that I could hang everything on the line to dry. I spent $5.50 on three loads of laundry. I ended up saving myself around $40. As I was waiting for the last load to finish I picked up an old home improvement magazine. There was an article on how to give your vacuum cleaner an overhaul. Since my vacuum is not working as well as I'd like, I thought I give it a try. I spent part of my afternoon doing a mini tune up on my vacuum, and lo and behold, the vacuum works a lot better! It would have cost me $45 to have the vacuum repair shop do what took me 15 minutes with a little help. The laundry dried courtesy of the sun and the wind and I now have clean, fresh bedding for my bed.
All in all, a good weekend.!
No comments:
Post a Comment