I wanted to update and blog what we are doing and continue to do in an effort to save money. I am watching lots of news stories talking about inflation and how the country is not going into a recession.  Sorry the more you say it does not make it true.   Anyway, here are a couple ways we have found to save money and I will talk a little more about food saving and waste at the end.

• Running our dishwasher and washer/dryer in the middle of the night. This also helps to keep the heat out of the house so it is easier to cool.
• Turning off the stove just before food is cooked. For example, I usually cook pasta for 8 minutes to use in dishes. I will turn the stove off after 6 minutes to save just a tiny bit.
• Using the rain barrels to water the gardens.  This week we have been watering at least every other day so this is a huge saving.
• Hanging swim suits and towels up to dry only washing one time per week.

Now on to  the food, one of the best ways to save money on groceries is to  eliminate as much food waste as possible. Today, I hope to have gotten at least one step closer to that.  We have a really busy week ahead so I was able to eliminate and use up some different foods this week and prepare ahead.  I have a jar on my cabinet that collects the half containers or less of pasta that does not get used in one meal. It was full of pente, small elbows and medium size elbows.  So today, I cooked it up instead of opening new boxes of pasta.   I used the taco meet from last week, added pasta, the Mexican cheese that had been left open, and couple of other ingredients to make taco pasta. I also cooked a package of Italian sausage I purchased last Sunday to try a new recipe called “Pumpkin Pasta” The recipe made a large batch so I placed half in the pan and froze a bag for later use. I ended up removing the meat from chicken legs that had sat in the fridge to make a Alfredo chicken bake we ate for dinner. This also used up mozzarella cheese that had been sitting in the fridge. We also pulled out watermelon for desert instead of opening a package of cookies.  We froze the remaining grapes in the refrigerator along with the 2 bananas that have been left this week. Unfortunately, I did have to throw out a container of strawberries that were shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten.

Small things do add up!