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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.

Save the Bakeries – Treats – Wiscasset, Maine

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Last week while the HH stood in line for an hour to order a lobster roll from Red’s Eats, in Wiscasset, Maine {population 3,800} I walked up the street to check out Treats bake shop. For those of you who are maybe new around here, I kinda have a sweet tooth and since early 2017 I’ve been on a mission to find 52 hometown bakeries that make their offerings from scratch {no giant 5 gallon tubs of preservative filled goo please!}.

Sure you can buy a pie or a loaf of bread at the grocery store, but it’s just not the same. Not even close. Not in taste, ingredients used, or that whole I’m happy to be spending my dollars here and to support a local business feeling you get when you shop small.

If you ask me, Treats had ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING a small, hometown bakeshop should have:

  • A picture window to display to display baked goods
  • Shelves, not too many, but enough to house a few fancy specialty products, whimsical treats, and handcrafted items from artisans from the area.
  • Candy jars filled with goodness by the pound.
  • A long community table for casual seating .
  • A community bulletin board with local events pin up.
  • Simple packaging for take away containers {as a consumer, unless I’m giving something as a gift, I would have rather my food purchase cost $0.75 less than to toss a printed box with stickers in the trash}.
  • Kind waitstaff.
  • Clean, bright, calm and welcoming atmosphere.
  • Simple, delicious, made from scratch offerings.

Seriously, the personal sized berry pie with crumb topping? It was just what I was looking for. Not only did it taste like a real pie should, but I knew it was crafted by someone who cared.

Happiness, you can feel it, even in baked goods.

Have a great day everyone,

~Mavis

Got a sweet tooth? You can check out all the bakeries we’ve visited so far this year HERE.

 Treat
80 Main St
Wiscasset, ME 04578

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.

Daily Deals – Zip Baggies, THE BEST Strawberry Shortcake Recipe, Online Deals and More

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Quote of the Day  “I’ve learned that waiting is the most difficult bit, and I want to get used to the feeling, knowing that you’re with me, even when you’re not by my side.” ~ Paulo Coelho

Ahhh Tuesday. You’re here. Yesterday was spent clearing the {soon to be} corn and pumpkin patch and I think we’ve got it about 50% cleared now. Cleaning up the areas filled with vines and blackberry bushes is my least activity around here because the bugs can be INTENSE anywhere in the yard it’s not nicely manicured.

Also, I thought I’d take Lucy for a walk yesterday down our road and about a minute and a half into the walk I looked down and she had a bunch of black spots on her. Upon further inspection I discovered they were TICKS and quickly grabbed a stick and brushed 8 of them off of her. It was crazy. We ran back to the house as fast as we could.

The bugs here are no joke. Country life has it’s perks… but all the creepy bugs I could do without.

Here’s hoping your day is itch free,

♥ 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!}

 

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.

 

Strawberry Short Sheet Cake : This sheet cake version of strawberry shortcake is dessert perfection. It’s sweet but not overwhelmingly so. You can of course sweeten it up as much as you want with some whipped cream or ice cream!

Home and Kitchen Deals

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}. 

Amazon has 30 Kids eBooks on sale for $1.00 each. Go HERE to see the titles available.

Kid’s Stuff

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.

Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping Trips – Week 20 of 52

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Pickety bits. I could live off of them. The alehouse cheddar from ALDI? Crazy good! The hot pepper jelly spread… Bueno. Pretzel crackers? Excellent.

Beef stew, without the beef but with beef broth instead.

A simple midweek quiche. Carrots, onions, spinach all sauteed in a little butter with some chopped up slices of ham thrown in at the last minute. Spoon it all into the bottom of a unbaked crust. Mix 7 eggs, 1/2 cup cheese and 2 tablespoons of milk, add a little salt and pepper, pour over sauteed ham and vegetables, bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the center is set. Cool, serve, and freeze the extras. 🙂

King Arthur Flour’s lemon bar mix. Wowie zowie this was a winner and I plan on picking up another box {or two} on my next stock up trip. Yes, I could buy some lemons and make it from scratch but sometimes being able to pull a boxed mix out of the cupboard after working in the garden all day, is just the ticket.

Also, in case you didn’t know, lemon bars freeze like a dream. Really, they do. So make a batch, remove two bars from the pan and layer the rest of the bars in the freezer between sheets of parchment paper. The cool thing? Lemon bars won’t freeze solid, you when you have a craving for one, just pull a bar from the freezer, put it on a plate and it will be ready to eat in 10 minutes. If you can wait that long.

I made a batch of Mrs. HB’s favorite Quinoa salad recipe and then texted her to tell her about it. She got a new job. So much for early retirement and a summer of puttering around the backyard in her jammies watering plants and pulling weeds. 😉

She said she missed me and then went on to tell me that she wanted to buy the chicken pillow I just made and I promptly told her that no, she couldn’t have it and it wouldn’t go with her decor and that she already has too much stuff in her house.

“But I waaaaant it!” Too BAD I told her.

And anyway, when my “big ticket item” for my secret holiday project finally gets here I am going to need her to be my guinea pig and test something out and that TRUST ME, you’ll like it more than the chicken pillow and it will be made with love and you will be reminded of me every time you see it. 

And then she sent me a picture of her chicken Honey {who she thinks has congestive heart failure} all snuggled up on the couch.

She’s a nut. But even though we are 3,000 miles apart and she makes me crazy, she is still my nut and I miss the random and totally wandering conversations/arguments we used to have all the time.

Taco Tuesday.

Our local country store $9.98

Just doing my bit to help the local economy. 😉 I am patiently waiting for the local country store to get in a new shipment of Gelato Fiasco. Granted, I could just drive to the big box grocery store and stock up on some other flavors, but what would be the fun in that? Anticipation is so much more fun.

Also, Mrs. C, if you are reading this, I had the HH drive me to Rococo Ice cream for a scoop {like you suggested} in Kennebunkport but after circling the block about 80 million times and him not being able to find a parking space, we went home. And although I could go on and on about this, I won’t. 😉 Because you know, husbands. And clearly this is a mission for The Girl and I to take on. Because you know, we would just park like 5 blocks away and walk to the ice cream shop.

And last but not least… Saturday night beans {I used this recipe}. It’s a New England tradition. And HELLO, I just found my new favorite Irish brown bread recipe to go with them {anyone want the recipe?} If only I had some strawberry jam to go with the leftovers! Note to self: Make a ridiculous amount of jam this summer.

How about YOU? Did your person make you crazy this week too? Are you anticipating berry season as much as I am? Have you figured out why you show up here everyday and read this nonsense?

Ahhh Monday. Here we go!

~Mavis

Total Spent this week: $9.98

  • Total Spent in May on Groceries $213.31 <- Included a stock up trip to King Arthur Flour
  • Total Spent in April on Groceries $169.98
  • Total Spent in March on Groceries $306.75 <– Apartment life, moving across the country and settling into a new house
  • Total Spent in February on Groceries $259.81 < Living in an apartment and buying a lot of ready-made meals
  • Total Spent in January on Groceries $240.15 <– Packing mode and not cooking from scratch as much

Go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.

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.

Daily Deals – Real Simple Magazine, Chocolate Cake Brownies, Online Deals and More

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Quote of the Day  “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” ~ James Baldwin

Hello Monday! On the agenda for today… GET STUFF DONE! Sheesh. I feel like such a slacker lately. The forecast for this week is lovely and I know if I don’t hunker down and line up my projects for the week I will be walking around in circles with no direction for the next 7 days. 😉 Gaaa… Staying focused is hard sometimes. 😉

Hey, it’s Monday, let’s do this! Have a great one,

♥ Mavis & Lucy the Snuggle Puggle

*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!}

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.

Chocolate Cake Brownies with Chocolate Icing: I’ve never met a brownie I didn’t like, but I have liked a few more than others. This one takes the cake {no pun intended}!

Home and Kitchen Deals

Get a 1 Year Subscription to Real Simple Magazine for just $5.00 per year!

Each month, Amazon Prime members can download and keep one free book from their Kindle First selection of six pre-released picks. Here are this month’s selections:

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}. 

Today Only Cents of Style is offering their Sweet Land of Liberty… Patriotic Tees for Only $16.95 + FREE Shipping w/code: 4STYLE at checkout.

Kid’s Stuff

Zaycon Foods 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.

  • Premium Hickory Smoked Bacon $3.99/lb X 36.00 lbs $143.64/case
  • Wild Alaskan Cod Fillets $6.99/lb X 20.00 lbs $139.80/case
  • Center Cut Pork Loin Chops $2.89/lb X 24.00 lbs $69.36/case
  • Jumbo Split Chicken Wings $3.49/lb X 20.00 lbs $69.80/case
  • Fresh Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts $1.89/lb X 40.00 lb $75.60/case
  • Wild Argentine Red Shrimp $7.99/lb X 20.00 lbs $159.80/case
  • 93/7 Ground Beef – 1lb Packages $3.99/lb X 40.00 lbs $159.60/case
  • 80/20 Ground Beef – 1lb Packages $3.19/lb X 40.00 lbs $127.60/case
  • Premium Cut Meaty Back Pork Ribs $3.69/lb X 36.00 lbs $132.84/case
  • 90/10 Ground Turkey $2.39/lb X 40.00 lbs $95.60/case
  • Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs $2.39/lb X 30.00 lbs $71.70/case
  • Premium Pork Tenderloins $3.19/lb X 32.00 lbs $102.08/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.

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