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One Hundred Dollars a Month

I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Farmers Market Organic Pumpkin Deal, 40% off Seeds, Zukes Treats, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance $6.99 and More

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Quote of the Day  “A lot of times people look at the negative side of what they feel they can’t do. I always look on the positive side of what I can do.” ~ Chuck Norris

Hello Thursday!

On the agenda for today:

Clean my entire house. Because every single room is a total disaster. 😉 How did that even happen? Hmmm, I’m thinking it might have something to do with basically doing nothing but dyeing wool for two days straight. Ha!

Have a wonder fall day everyone,

♥ Mavis

*This deal post will be updated throughout the morning so be sure and check back for deals. * Amazon prices can change without notice. Please verify price before ordering. Amazon offers Free Shipping with a $49 purchase or Amazon Prime. {Sign up for a free Amazon Prime 30 day trial!}

Amazon Deal of the Day for 10/19/17 – Save up to 30% on Halloween Chocolate & Candy

Subscribe and Save Deals

Subscribe and Save prices reflect a 15% discount for ordering 5 or more items in 1 month.

Discount Mags is offering a 1 year subscription to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine for only $6.99 a year when you use code MAVIS at checkout. This deal will expire 10/20/17 at midnight EST so be sure and grab your subscription before then.

Home and Kitchen Deals

Through October 19th {that’s tonight!}you can score 40% off your Botanical Interests online seed order with code ENEWS40 at checkout. Now is the time to grab next years seeds baby!

Add on Items

*These are all Amazon Add-on Items and they will ship with qualifying orders over $25 and are eligible for free shipping on $25 orders with Amazon Prime {or will ship FREE on $35 orders without Prime}. 

Super Awesome Etsy Shop of the Day – Frenchtutu where you’ll find whimsical animal necklaces and other charming items . Want to have YOUR Etsy shop featured? Leave a comment HERE with the name of your shop.

Kid’s Stuff

Getting married soon?

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This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Not Your Grandma’s Money Problems

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Great Granny and The Girl rockin’ out circa 2003

We live in such a different world than our grandparents grew up in, and I’m not just talking from a technology standpoint. Sure there was no iAnything and no self-driving cars, but today I’m focused on the financial differences of the times. What are some money woes or worries we have to deal with today that our grandparents could never dream of? Back when life seemed just a little simpler, although arguably less advanced, grandma wasn’t toting around a cell phone or paying for it.

She was whipping up a home-cooked meal, from scratch and most likely from her garden, and probably could not fathom eating out monthly, much less daily! She wasn’t paying for cable or internet service, didn’t have Dish Network or a TV in every room to play it on, didn’t cough up $10 to Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime to drop a package on her doorstep next day.  But those are all little bills {that certainly add up, of course!}. What are some major differences between what finances looked like 50 years ago?

There was very little debt: They worked, got paid and then spent all or part of that money, no more. They might have bartered or done some trading of services, and occasionally the bank did give out loans, but they weren’t in debt up tot heir eyeballs. Debt was seen as a last resort. You lived within your means, you helped your neighbors if they were struggling, you avoided extravagant spending that could get you into trouble. Massive car loans and boat loans and house loans and second house loans and equity loans and RV loans and vacation loans and loans for everything under the sun just didn’t exist. 50 years ago, the average debt hovered right around $5,000. That’s it. Today, the average debt is around $130,000.* Wowza!

There were no credit cards: Same thing goes for credit cards. They didn’t exist as a crutch to fund overspending. Do I think credit cards are awesome when used properly for their rewards and not abused? Sure! Would my grandparents agree? Absolutely not. When credit cards became the norm and people began to rack up credit card debt, initially the elderly were not among them.

Student loans didn’t exist: This one is two-fold. Our grandparents didn’t have heaps of student loan debt not only because student loans weren’t readily available to them, but because a much larger percentage didn’t go to college. So with the increase in educational opportunities comes a massive increase in student loan debt. According to Student Loan Hero, almost 45 million Americans have student loans, averaging over $50,000 a piece. {That might also have to do with the cost of college fees and tuition rising by nearly 500 percent, but that’s another post for another day!}.

Health care wasn’t crazy expensive: Sixty years ago, the yearly cost, on average, for healthcare was around $130 per person. That’s it. It’s now over $10,000 per person. That’s kind of an insane jump, even taking inflation into account. And yes, that $130 would have stretched quite a bit farther back then, but if I would have asked my grandma if she could ever envision a world in which we’d pay over $10,000 per year for health care, she would have laughed at me.

Great Gramps and Monkey Boy circa 2001

Retirement was guaranteed: In my grandparent’s era, you worked for a company, were loyal to that company, gave them many good years and then they took care of you after retirement. It was really that simple. It’s much more complicated these days, as studies have shown that the pension plan that supported our grandparents was somewhat flawed {which was realized when the money ran dry!}. So these days, it’s pretty much up to the individual to save for their own retirement.

No one stole your identity online: Because the world wide web wasn’t even a term people were familiar with 50 years ago, having someone steal your social, all the money from your accounts and your entire identity by typing a few keys seems like crazy talk. There was no constant monitoring of accounts or credit reports watching and waiting not for the if, but for the when. Sadly, those Mayberry days are over and identity theft is a technology trade-off most people will be affected by sometime in their lives.

And there you have just some of the things our grandparents never had to worry about when it comes to money. Anymore you can think of? Do tell!

~Mavis

* source and source

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Rustic Apple Tart Recipe, Online Deals, The Doritos Shortage, How to Store Apples for Winter

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Quote of the Day  “Success is finding something you love to do, getting paid to do it and finding someone to share it with.” ~ Dick Clark

Well hello there.

Yesterday kind of got away from me. I got up, sat down to blog, posted the deals, got up to make tea, started dyeing a pot of wool, sat down to write up a recipe and then went back to dying wool and that’s where I stayed for the next 10 HOURS!!! Oh, and I squeezed in a trip to Costco too. Monkey Boy’s birthday is in a few days and I wanted to see if there was anything there I thought he might like {and for the giant bag of Doritos but I couldn’t find it!!!}.

It was the first time I had left the neighborhood since October 7th.

Sometimes I think I need to get out more. But then I’m like, why?

Have a great Wednesday everyone, even if it is spent in your own little world. 😉

♥ Mavis

*This deal post will be updated throughout the morning so be sure and check back for deals. * Amazon prices can change without notice. Please verify price before ordering. Amazon offers Free Shipping with a $49 purchase or Amazon Prime. {Sign up for a free Amazon Prime 30 day trial!}

Amazon Deals of the Day for 10/18/17

Available Kindle Books I think look interesting…

The prices on Kindle Books can change quickly, so grab them while you can. Don’t have a Kindle? Download the kindle app on your other devices. It’s easy! 🙂

Subscribe and Save Deals

Subscribe and Save prices reflect a 15% discount for ordering 5 or more items in 1 month.

Rustic Apple Tart – This is the most satisfying breakfast on a crisp fall weekend. {Pin for Later}

Home and Kitchen Deals

Found a great deal on apples and want to stock up? Check out my post on How to Store apples for Winter.

Add on Items

*These are all Amazon Add-on Items and they will ship with qualifying orders over $25 and are eligible for free shipping on $25 orders with Amazon Prime {or will ship FREE on $35 orders without Prime}. 

Super Awesome Etsy Shop of the Day – EvergreenDesignSigns where you’ll find hand lettered wooden signs. Want to have YOUR Etsy shop featured? Leave a comment HERE with the name of your shop.

Kid’s Stuff

Don’t have Amazon Prime? Want to try it out? Right now you can get a 30 Day Free Trial to Amazon Prime. Here are just a few reasons why I LOVE Amazon Prime:

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Thinking about placing a bulk order with Zaycon Fresh but not sure what to do with all that meat? Read my post on How to Process and Prepare Your Bulk Chicken Order for some great tips. Zaycon Fresh is now taking orders for their upcoming events. Below are their offerings and prices in my area.Go HERE to find out what is available in your area.

  • Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon Fillets $8.99/lb X 20.00 lbs | $179.80/case
  • Angus Ribeye Steaks $9.99/lb X 14.00 lbs | $139.86/case
  • Kansas City Strip Steaks $8.49/lb X 14.00 lbs | $118.86/case
  • Prime Rib $13.99/lb X 12.00 lbs | $167.88/case
  • 80/20 Ground Beef – 1lb Packages $2.99/lb X 40.00 lbs | $119.60/case
  • 93/7 Ground Beef – 1lb Packages $3.99/lb X 40.00 lbs | $159.60/case
  • Whole Beef Tenderloins $19.99/lb X 12.00 lbs | $239.88/case
  • Wild Argentine Red Shrimp $7.99/lb X 20.00 lbs | $159.80/case
  • Premium Hickory Smoked Bacon $3.79/lb X 36.00 lbs | $136.44/case
  • Pork Sausage Links $2.49/lb X 20.00 lbs | $49.80/case
  • Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin Fillets $3.99/lb X 10.00 lbs | $39.90/case

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

One Pot Cooking – Chicken and Sausage with White Beans

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So. It’s not often that my ENTIRE family flips our over a recipe. But when I made this one pot chicken and sausage with white beans dish a couple of Saturdays ago, that’s exactly what happened. I heard moaning from two people, and the boys wanted to know if they could have the leftovers in their lunch {sadly, the leftovers didn’t make it to Monday so they missed out}.

To be totally honest, this recipe was a little intimidating at first. It seemed very time consuming and I thought there must have been a typo because the recipe called for 8 cups of chicken broth. I didn’t think it would cook down, but it did. And seriously, this chicken and sausage with white beans dish is the real deal. You HAVE to try it.

And then you’ll have to add it to your monthly meal rotation. 😉

Ingredients adapted from Better Homes and Gardens

1 pound (2 1/4 cups) dried navy beans

6 ounces thick-sliced bacon
5 Andouille sausages
5 chicken thighs {I used boneless}
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 large onions, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped peeled
3 stalks celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced

8 cups reduced-sodium chicken stock
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried parsley

1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

Start by soaking your dried beans overnight.  Place them in a bowl and cover completely with water.  Once your beans have been soaked, drain and rinse them thoroughly.

Cook bacon in large Dutch oven over medium heat until nice and crispy. Set the bacon aside on a plate. Add the sausages to the Dutch oven and cook until browned, turning occasionally. Add the sausage to the plate with the bacon. Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper and add to the Dutch oven. Cook the chicken thighs for 8 minutes over medium heat until well-browned on both sides. Place the chicken on the plate with the bacon and sausage and refrigerate until needed.

Drain all but 1 tablespoon of the ridiculously delicious drippings from the Dutch oven.

Next, saute the onions, carrots, and celery in the Dutch oven until golden.  Add the garlic to the vegetables and saute for 1 minute. Slowly stir in the 8 cups of chicken broth, tomato paste, drained beans, thyme and parsley. Bring to boiling; reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 45 minutes or until beans are nearly tender, stirring occasionally.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut the cooked sausage into 2-inch pieces and stir the sausage and bacon into bean mixture in your Dutch oven. Place the chicken on top of the mixture exposing the skin. Pop it in the oven, uncovered and bake for 1 hour.

Combine bread crumbs and melted butter in a small bowl and sprinkle the bread crumbs on top of bean mixture and bake for another 20-25 minutes until crumbs are golden.

Snap a picture, gather the family around and gawk and the most amazing dinner on the planet. 😉 I’m telling you, this recipe is WORTH YOUR TIME. Your belly with thank you. And if you’re lucky, there will be leftovers the next day. Pin it for Later

~Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

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