I love this picture of her. It was a summer before she died. She was in her mid-60s. She never, ever, let her age slow her down. When she was young, she weighed about 101 pounds, and had a figure that stopped people in their tracks. She measured 34-21-34. When she was still fairly young, she broke a hip. It was a stress fracture that wouldn’t heal. She had one of the first artificial hips ever – it was still experimental. She never let it stop her from living though. I saw my mom drive a wrecker in a body cast- I kid you not! She was SUCH an inspiration! I learned from her that half the battle of doing ANYTHING is just getting up and doing it.

There’s a great link to Mother’s Day Freebies over at The Thrifty Maven’s List of Mother’s Day Freebies

Chip got me some movie tickets to see Dark Shadows, because I’m an OLD Dark Shadows fan, and because I really like Johnny Depp. I didn’t want to go today though, it’s raining here and I just want to stay in and clean. Ok, that’s weird for me, but that’s all I want to do.

This is ‘pretty much’ my method as well – it explains using sales/coupons/stockpiling together to drastically lower your grocery bills.

Here’s the link: Southern Savers Video Coupon Class and Workbook

We’ve been quite busy with starting a small nursery business, and we have been raising 5 baby chicks and a wee baby cat. It’s also been spring – which means that’s planting season for my own garden. It’s only half planted at this time, but I’m already getting in some fresh basil and lettuce. I can’t wait until the fresh tomatoes are ready – I have little baby cucumbers and tomatoes on my vines now.

I love shopping at my Kroger in Rome, GA. They are SO coupon friendly. That really matters to me, because I use a LOT of coupons. I’m not the extreme couponer with 3 carts, but it is not unusual for my bill to be paid for with at least 100.00 coming off from coupons.

They have this special deal they run every now and then that I really like. You simply sign in every day and you get the high value coupon for the day.

Well, it’s going again, and today it is a $1.50 Oscar Mayer coupon.

So if you shop at Kroger, check every day until 4/28 to see what they offer. The last time they offered this promotion, I was able to get dirt cheap Tide, free sandwich meat, and several other things for substantial savings.

Start at this link: Kroger Cart Buster Coupon Event. The coupons will be digital and will load to your Kroger card.

Now…back to my post – there’s a really fun website where you can either find a bit of inexpensive help, or perhaps make a bit of extra money. Some of it is really silly – like people willing to do ‘Old Spice Man’ type commercials for you, or people willing to dress up as a hotdog and dance to your favorite song – some of this stuff is quite creative – and it’s all about $5.00. Now to me, that’s maybe better in a lot of situations than a greeting card, for about the same price, and maybe it helps the individual out on the other end too.

There’s also some serious bargains to be found if you need help too – like if you need blog content written, homework help, articles proofread, a bit of HTML or photoediting help….There’s been a lot of times I would have gladly paid someone $5 to help me out with a coding problem.

While most of it is great fun, some offerings are a bit concerning to me, like people willing to write paid reviews on products they’ve never used, or people promising 700 likes on your Facebook page. (That probably are not worth having.)

Here’s the link: Fiverr.com

My friend Ken Oporto just happens to have a hosting company and has graciously offered to host Wiresplice! I’ve known Ken for well over a decade. We both started down the web-tech road way back in the 90′s. I was on the phone with Ken, who was in downtown DC, during 9-11. It’s true you never forget what you were doing that day. I’ve followed his career as a professional IT guy with some pretty impressive companies and I know how capable he is, so I was pretty excited that he’d be hosting me.

He’s involved in very personable hosting, so if you have a business that needs affordable hosting with a direct line to your hosting tech, he’s your man. He’s at http://tkoweb.com/aff2011.php I’ve had 100% uptime so far with him and the site is super responsive.

When he and I discussed Wiresplice, it made me want to define it further. Wiresplice is NOT a deal site – sure, I post deals from time to time but the main purpose of Wiresplice is to help people save money and use web-related strategies so that they can live a better life for less. I know a lot of people are struggling trying to live on much less than they had thought they would have to, and I really hope Wiresplice helps. The deals that you will find posted here will usually be FREE or extremely affordable deals that I would consider purchasing myself, on my very limited income. But besides deals, you’ll also find tips on frugal living, recipes, gardening, and other how-to’s.

So BIG SHOUT OUT TO KEN- THANK YOU!!!!

I just want to offer a few random tips for saving that I use. I continue to research and explore this subject. Here are a few very basic sort of things though that I’ve learned:

Never throw meat away. For me, it just seems very disrespectful to the sacrifice of the animal, but also, it’s just wasting money. Small amounts of cooked meat can be frozen for soups, fried rice, pot pies – a number of things.

Bacon

Boy is bacon getting expensive! Sometimes I get great coupons on turkey bacon, but I don’t really really think it tastes like bacon. However, I discovered if I cook a pack of REAL pork bacon first, then fry the turkey bacon in the same oil, problem solved. It’s good that way. So if I need 2 packs, I save a bit by making one of them a pack of turkey bacon.

Often I buy the ends and peices. It’s a lot less expensive and sometimes there are some really nice peices in there. In general I’ve moved to using more bacon bits, so these packs work fine for me. The random pieces are great for baked beans, making bacon bits, and seasoning green beans. I sort the pack, then fry the good pieces for a breakfast. The rest I save for other recipes. We stretch bacon a lot by making bacon, egg, and cheese quiches, and also bacon, egg, and potato skillet meals.

Poultry

When buying whole turkeys and chicken, I buy the biggest I can. Why? Because if you buy the smaller ones, you are paying more for bones. At Thanksgiving, I got a HUGE generic turkey for $8. I roasted it slow and moist, so the turkey came out great. Besides Thanksgiving with company, it’s provided 3 other meals this week, and there’s enough for 2 more meals in the fridge. Besides regular plain turkey, we enjoy turkey fajitas and turkey pot pies a lot. Chicken is even more versatile.

Pork

I see pork neck bones very cheap in the stores, and I’ve tried them, and they are just not for us! It makes a good enough soup, but I just prefer other cuts so it wasn’t a winner for us. I’ll continue to experiement with cuts like that, and if I find a winner, I’ll post it.

I’ve discovered it is even less expensive, pound for pound, to just buy a huge Boston Butt on sale. Again, I look for the largest, meatest cut I can find. A basic slow roast with basic spices like salt and pepper and you have one very versatile cut. We like barbecue sandwiches, Cubans, and pork fried rice. Sometimes I might cut off an end before cooking and make souvlaki. It’s extremely versatile.

Venison

We’re lucky to have a friend that hunts, but he won’t eat deer meat. It’s pretty good if you have a good hunter – and ours is. I’d had deer in the past that was not that good, but my hunter friend told me that was caused by the animal running a long time wounded. The trick to good deer meat is a fast, humane kill, with a quick field dress. When done right – it is awesome. The other thing, I think, is that some people expect it to taste just like beef, and since it doesn’t, it seems a bit funny to them. It’s not beef – it’s deer! To me it is a bit like a cross between beef and lamb.

It’s a very lean, healthy meat. Recently I was anemic. Vitamins and iron supplements didn’t seem to be helping. We ate deer for 3 days straight – and I started feeling better right away. It is very high in iron.

If you can hunt, or know someone that likes to, this can be a very inexpensive option. I hope to learn to process our own soon, but right now we pay to have it done, and it still turns out less than $2.00 a pound. We get an assortment of roasts, steaks from the loins, and ground meat. Venison availability can vary by area. In Georgia where we are the deer is considered safe to eat. There are some areas in distant states where wasting disease has been discovered in the populations. (Cows and deer both can get it.) Our deer is hunted from large wild preserve, so we don’t worry much about pesticides.

In closing, I think the real trick to saving money on meat is to expand your palate a bit. It’s ok to be a bit adventurous with food. If you watch the ‘high dollar’ chefs on tv- half the time they are cooking and eating perfectly good, tasty cuts a lot of ‘everyday normal’ people would turn their noses up at. Learn to cook, buy what’s on sale, have fun, store leftovers, and save money. How much more win-win could it be?

Here’s this year’s batch:

It’s an old candy. I remember we’d sometimes get a tin of it at my dad’s country store, and we’d sell it by the piece. I guess people worried a lot less about germs in those days. Later, it would come in individual blocks, but lately, I never see it at all. It’s very inexpensive to make. Tonight I had everything but peanuts, which were $1.68. I had enough left for Kung Pao chicken next week.

———————————–
Here’s my recipe:

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup Karo ® light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
2 tablespoons salted butter, softened
1 teaspoon baking soda

Grease or butter a cookie sheet. (I use a pizza pan.) Set aside.
In a heavy tall stockpot, over medium heat, bring corn syrup, salt, and water to boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Stir in peanuts. Set candy thermometer in place, and continue cooking. Stir frequently until temperature reaches 300 degrees F (150 degrees C), or until a small amount dropped into very cold water turns hard and makes brittle threads.
Remove from heat; immediately stir in butter and baking soda; pour at once onto cookie sheet. Spread it out on the cookie sheet so that it’s about 1/3-1/2 inch thick. Let cool, then snap candy into pieces.
————————————–

Now, some tips. Use a TALL pan. Remember how I said I got burnt that first year? Well, my pan wasn’t tall enough. Sometimes when you add the baking soda, it will foam up for a minute. I had an old recipe then with more baking soda – this particular recipe shouldn’t foam more than 3 inches – but just in case you get the measurement wrong, use a tall pan. You don’t want to get burnt with this stuff – it is hot and sticks to you and even a little makes a bad burn. It’s safe to make if you just make sure your pan is a TALL one. I use a stockpot.

It makes pretty fast, so be prepared for that – have your butter and baking soda READY once you hit right at your 300 degrees. The color will have started to change from clear to light tan at this stage, and you MIGHT start seeing what looks like fine hairs or threads when you pick your spoon up. Get it OFF the heat and move fast. I have my butter and baking soda in a little cup together so I can dump them both in at once. It will foam a bit and change color when the baking soda hits it, so stir it quickly.

It will have to cool – I sat mine outside tonight, covered. I’ve also let it cool in the fridge in year’s past – the only thing is, it should be LEVEL until it cools. Use a spatula to pry it up – it should come in one piece. I take a paper towel and wipe the back of mine off (less fat that way, from greasing the pan.) Then just pick it up and tap it on the pan to break it up.

Get your pan to some water and let it soak to clean it. Plan to let it soak a bit to keep it easy.

The brittle doesn’t have to be stored in the fridge. It’s fine at room temperature. I can’t tell you how long it lasts. Around here it never makes it past 3 days, or as soon as my dad comes over.

If you have questions, let me know!

Buy 1 Karo® Syrup, Save 40¢ using SavingStar

I’m glad to be able to offer a link so you can get 2 adult tickets for $12.00!

This is an offer you can’t refuse! $12 For 2 Adult Movie Tickets From Fandango.com ($24 Value)

I think that is a great deal on movie tickets – especially if you live in an area where admissions are high and there are few discount theaters – like MINE. Gosh, the last time I went to a movie with my son, it was nearly $20.00, and that was just the tickets! Yes, we can save some by going to matinees, but he really likes to go at night. Still, matinees are about $7.50 each here now. How much is a ticket where you are?

I get so tired of paying over $1.00 each for bell peppers, and who can afford a red bell pepper for $2.59? That’s how high I saw them last winter. The local farmer’s markets recently had a lot of bell peppers 2/$1, and the beautiful colored peppers 3/$2. I grabbed a bunch. Kroger in the Southeast has them for .59 cents each now as well, if you don’t have access to a farmer’s market or need to be able to pay with food stamps.

They are actually very easy to store and freeze, and I find it not only more economical, but also a good time saver. It’s so nice to just be able to reach in and get what I need, pre-cut, and ready! That’s why I cut my peppers in a variety of shapes. Some I dice, some I cut in long strips, and others I cut in bigger square chunks.

Select large, unblemished peppers at the lowest price you can find. Late September, early October is a great time to buy them.

First wash the peppers:

Then pat them dry with a paper towel and cut them in shapes that you cook with.
Lay them in a single layer in a shallow pan or on a cooking sheet. I use wax paper to line mine.

Then simply place in the freezer for an hour or two. Take them out, and place them in a resealable container. I use the Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids.

That’s really all there is to it. Now when you’re ready to cook, just open your container and take what you need. Freezing them this way keeps them all separate so they don’t clump up.

They taste great in cooked food and are a real timesaver. Over the winter, we’ll save a lot by having a good supply of bell peppers in the freezer, so we don’t have to pay twice or more when we need one. The only exception is when fresh peppers are needed, but for us, that’s pretty rare.

Onions can be frozen the same way. There are other ways of storing onions, so for me the main benefit of freezing them is to save time in food prep, or for saving onions that are leftover, for instance, when a recipe calls for half an onion. IF I don’t think I’ll use the other half soon, I go might go ahead and cut the whole thing, then freeze half of it.

When I can find a good movie deal online, it helps us afford to go at night for the same price or less than a matinee. This is for AMC theaters only.

To get your deal, click here:

$5 AMC Theatres® Silver Experience™ Tickets $5 for an AMC Theatres® Silver Experience™ Ticket (Valued Up To $12)