Boneless Meat: TOTALLY not worth it

I hesitated writing this back when I tried bone-in chicken breasts because I figured ONE experience wasn't enough to make a judgment on. And does "judgment" look weird to you? Because my spell check SWEARS it isn't "judgement" but I swear it's "judgement" and not "judgment" cause, well, it looks weird.

Anyway. Pork chops. I bought pork chops today for dinner. I decided to get the "assorted" pack because it was cheaper per pound. I brought it home. Had Ben smell it (don't ask, I have horrible luck with pork products and them being spoiled). Started to de-bone it.

CRAP. It's all crap! I got maybe 4-5 "chops" worth out of it. Dude, I could have bought the actual pork "chops" for $1 more. I don't do pork broth or else I'd use the bones, so basically, the bones are useless. The time in actually deboning the "assorted" pack? NOT worth it.

It was the same with the chicken. When I figured out the price per pound AFTER deboning, GUESS WHAT? It was actually more expensive than the price per pound for frozen chicken breasts. Less than fresh chicken, but we're not picky, we eat frozen with no problem. Although we really were eating our OWN chicken until recently and now I shudder at the thought of commercial chicken, but I like our bourbon chicken recipe too much to NOT buy it.

So my verdict is I'm going to buy the boneless cuts I need and swallow the cost increase because it's not worth it.
Amen.

Hey, Julie! I found "Pillow Pets" for $10 at our local grocery store. They had a monkey, penguin, ladybug, and bee. I almost bought the ladybug and penguin for my kids but my hubby convinced me that we could buy a LOT of food for $20 and not waste it on pillows. Stupid husband (who I love to death.).

But when I saw them, I totally thought of you. And giggled like a maniac. Yay bipolar.

That is all.
Kudos.

Budget Musings

Yesterday I was crunching some numbers to see what we could cut in order to pay down our debt. The trick is, the house doesn't get added on to until all the debt is paid off. And I have this obsession with sun rooms. And guess what? We have plenty of space on the front of the house to add a sun room!

Problem is we can't until all the debt is paid off.

So, after crunching numbers, I realized a few things.

1. We pay way way too much on cell phones.
Solution: Keep the contract for Ben, put my phone on pre-paid. (I used a total of 13 minutes last month... seriously.)

2. Our electric heater and A/C sucks down energy like nobody's business.
Solution: Wood heat with free wood picked up throughout the year. Run the A/C only when it gets unbearable.

3. We spend way too much on fast food.
Solution: Uh, stop eating out.

4. We spend way too much on beer.
Solution: Track a month's spending, cut it in half (or more), and stick it in the budget.

5. We spend way too much on gas.
Solution: Try to combine trips. Have Ben stop at grocery stores/libraries/post office/etc on his way home instead of driving the half hour separate trip. Buy gas when cheap and store in the 55 gal 'gas pump' we have in the garage.

6. Impulse buying at the grocery store.
Solution: Make Ben go with a list. He will be clueless in the store, and therefor will only buy what is on the list in fear of his life.

7. The grocery bill.
This is the hardest one, I think. Currently we spend $400/mo on groceries. This does include the very few (toilet paper, ziplocs... can't think of anything else) disposable items we buy.
But that means we're spending about $15 per day for food. I find this outrageous for some reason.
Solution: Spend $10/day, a total of $70/week, on FOOD ONLY. Budget paper products as needed. Shop sales (big time). Plan out all meals, including snacks. Try to stock up on big sales out of that $70, if possible.

A lot of our budget was eaten up by me NOT checking sales. Now I have a price book that shows me what a good deal is, and what a bad deal is. Especially across stores. For example, Kroger had grapes at $1/lb, which I consider a great deal... until I saw that Carnival had them for 88 cents/lb. The difference doesn't add up to much... until you buy 10 pounds, and realize that's a $1 less. Again, not much, until you realize that many items have that same price arrangement. And those cents add up, so I've noticed! Also coupons are wonderful.

So, $10/day. This should be extremely interesting. I'm going to try to do it for one month, and put that $120 aside for money for stock piling.

Wish me luck!