Money Saving Efforts

Well my friend Precious decided to stop blogging so the Money Saving Challenge is not still going on as a collective group however I will be continuing my own efforts.
A friend from a previous job came over for lunch-and opened my fridge. I wanted to take a pic to go with this post but I can't find the cord that connects to download the photos.....it's on my list of things to find this weekend I have a general idea where it could be.

She saw a drawer with lunch meat/cold cuts/ some hot dogs. Bread/buns.
1 drawer with fruit and veggies-oranges, onions, red pepper, grapes.
A small drawer with yoplait individual yogurts, a shelf of juice/milk/Brita water filter and some wine.
2 full shelves of small tupperware containers......her reaction...."WHOA LEFTOVER CRAZY! Why don't you just throw them away now like everyone else so it makes cleaning out the fridge quicker"
When we have leftovers I put each item in a small space saving tupperware because we don't waste leftovers anymore-I use everything in a different meal or dish. If we have peas and carrots I store them and use in stir fry or stew or soup that same week.

For example this week on Tuesday I put clearanced top roand 2lb beef roast in our crock pot-I paid $3 for this roast. I cooked it on low with some onions in there for about 5.5 hrs while I was at work. Tuesday night we had roast beef, mashed potatoes, and carrots for dinner. Wednesday at lunch we both had roast beef and cheese sandwichs with mustard. Today I lunchtime I decided I needed to use a few more things up in my fridge. So I pulled tupperwares and showed Sue how to make leftovers into something else. DH gets bored with the same meal, but I took the leftover pcs of the beef roast chopped them into small squares, a leftover half sweet onion, small tupperware 1/2c. onion, another partial leftover maybe 1/4 c carrots, a half a red pepper. I made some fried rice and it was instant dinner. :) We got 3 meals for 2 out of that $3 roast. That's $0.50 per person/meal for the protein portion.....I can live with that.

We used to throw away tons of money after one meal, then we used more garbage bags because we took the trash out more often. It was crazy. We've cut back like crazy now we only have 2 bags if we have people over.....1 per week if it's just us. :)

I'm trying to concentrate more on rebates, drugstore chain sales, couponing, and keeping the bills down. So far for the winter I've gotten 3 months of electric bills(our heat is electric) and I budget 150-180 in winter months since we live in such a cold area....I've been please our bill has been $46-$85. We have had some rather nice warm periods each month...they are short and sporadic but I take advatage of the few 50 degree days we get and I air out the house.....I love fresh air. With gas prices going up I'm pleased my bank rewards program added gas station gift cards for reasonable amount of points. I got DH and I each a $50 gas gift card for our local speedway.