Ideas for saving money

As I mentioned in my first post, one of my motivations for starting this blog is to encourage myself to save as much money on my grocery bill as possible, but a blog that just lists my meals is going to get boring really quick, for you and for me, so I decided to break up those posts a bit with a few of the things that I am doing to keep within my budget.

One of the big things that I save money on is my entertainment budget.  I don't pay for cable TV.  I do have a small satellite device for my television which gives me local channels.  One of my main forms of entertainment lately has been audiobooks.  There are some really fabulous ones out there.  I'm fortunate that my local library has a huge selection of high quality library books.  My favorite ones have been the "In Death" series by J. D. Robb, read by Susan Ericksen.  They are well written books with fabulous narration.  They are a romantic suspense series set 50 years in the future, and the main character is New York homicide police officer.  There are around 40 books in the series right now, so they provide hours of entertainment.

If you don't have a library near by, librivox.com is a great free resource for audiobooks.  They have a huge selection of public domain books that are narrated by volunteers.  Because it is a wholly volunteer service the narration can be a bit hit and miss, but there are some definite gems.  Karen Savage is my personal favorite.  She has narrated a couple of Jane Austen books, several of the Anne of Green Gables series and many more.

The way I see it is that every dollar I save from somewhere else in my budget is a dollar that I can put on my debt, which will help me in my attempt to be debt free (with the possible exception of a mortgage) in 5 years.  I'll have more advice posts later.

Days 2 and 3

Well, preparing ahead and cooking leftovers doesn't make for the most exciting meals.  I fear that my diet hasn't changed greatly in the past couple days.

Saturday (Day 2)

Breakfast: Oatmeal with apple, sugar, and cinnamon and 2 cups of coffee: $1.40.

Lunch: The rest of my apple from breakfast and butter chicken over rice: $1.53

Total cost for the day: $2.93

Sunday (Day 3):  I slept until noon (after getting home at 8 am from work) so this was another 2 meal day.

Breakfast: Bagel with cream cheese

Bagel: 6/$2.00 (50 cents for one)
Cream cheese: Going price appears to be $3.50 for 8 ounces for the Philadelphia brand, so I'll go with that.  I'll estimate I used about 50 cents worth.
Coffee with non-dairy creamer-3 cups: 24 cents

Total Breakfast cost:  $1.24

Dinner:  Butter Chicken over rice

Total Dinner cost: $1.53

Day 3 total cost:  $2. 77

Total for 3 days:  $9.63