Our little feast at home

I went to a grocery sale last week and that’s probably the only time I buy lamb chops which are normally pretty pricey and we don’t eat a lot of lamb either. But it makes for a really nice treat now and then especially when I get them at a really good discount.

So we had our little feast last night of salad, lamb chops and pasta. Yum. If we’d had our meal out, it would’ve easily set us back by $100+. Eating out is getting to be so expensive. But last night’s feast cost us less than half of that, so I consider that to be double the treat .

going shopping!

The school break is here again but once again, we haven’t planned anything though the idea of Branson vacations does sound really attractive right now. Anything to get away from the hot weather!

But no, we haven’t booked anything and we’re on a tight budget here. So we’re just going shopping. You know, roam around the local malls and do a bit of window-shopping and eating out, that’s it! The break is only a week long so I doubt we can even plan anything much at such short notice.

a little effort can save you money

Like it or not, a car gets us places and for those of us with families, owning a car has become a necessary expense. Luckily there’s now the convenience of being able to get cheap auto insurance quotes online from the comfort of our own home.

All it takes is a little effort on our part to surf around a little bit and compare rates. In fact, some of the better insurance sites will provide auto insurance comparisons between their own and their competitors’ rates, which makes it even easier for us to compare since everything is on one page.

The problem though is that most times, we tend to stick with the same insurance company and it doesn’t strike us that there may be cheaper options out there that could save us money. Chances are, with a little research, we can always find a better rate and more savings.

need fashionable but affordable eyeglasses?

Have you noticed how much it costs to get a new pair of prescription glasses fitted? I was at my regular optician’s and decided to browse the hundreds of frames while waiting for him to get back from lunch. There were a couple of pairs I liked but when I heard how much they would cost me, I instantly decided I didn’t like them after all !

Why is fitting out a new pair of glasses so expensive these days? Hello and welcome to Zenni Optical where I hear you can get your eyeglasses almost at cost price. Since these guys are the manufacturers, you’re guaranteed of getting your glasses at factory price minus all the overheads that jack the prices up.

I’ve just read the detailed review entitled “Cheap eyeglasses are a reality. Check out Eric’s review of Zenni Optical” at Examiner.com by a happy customer and I’m really tempted to get my glasses from them if they service international orders.

If they do, it’s certainly happy news for families who are constantly in need of quality eyewear and trendy frames but don’t have an entire fortune to splurge on what has now become a fashion item, especially for teens.

gotta beat the heat

I will be honest here. Much as I hate to complain about the warm weather when others are suffering snow-ins and cold weather, I do think these days of 90+ degrees and 90% humidity are pretty hard to bear.

Especially for someone like me who’s in and out of the house 20 times a day, know what I mean? Since I’m not in the habit of turning on the air-conditioning, I’m thinking I definitely need some window blinds to keep out the sun and the heat. Any suggestions on what else I can do?

buying groceries at two stores

I shop at two grocery stores now. That’s one more than I’m used to. I used to buy everything from just this one store until I couldn’t stand how they were always overcharging me because they can’t seem to get the shelf prices to synchronize with the checkout prices.

It’s quite stressful to shop there because I have to keep a hawk’s eye on the prices as they flash across the cash register and then recheck the bill when I’m done paying. If I continue to allow myself to be ripped off there, even holding two jobs in philly area won’t be enough to see me through.

So I now shop at another grocery store where the prices are hardly ever wrong. I only go back to that other store to get what I can’t get here. Well, if they can’t get their act together, they’re just going to lose customers like me who are vigilant about checking before paying.