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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.


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Daily Deals – Birthday Candles, Pinatas, Online Grocery Deals and More

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Quote of the Day “I wouldn’t call myself a shut-in. I have the ability to leave my home; I just choose not to. But because I’m such a homebody, it’s important to be surrounded by things I love.” ~ Amy Sedaris

Yep. That pretty much sums it up. 😉 Have an AWESOME Wednesday!

♥ 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.

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}. 

Home and Kitchen Deals

Today Only Cents of Style is offering their Charm Necklaces for ONLY $11.99 + FREE Shipping w/code: BOLDCHARMS at checkout.

Kid’s Stuff

Get a Free 30-Day Free Trial to Amazon Music Unlimited

Amazon Music Unlimited gives you access to on-demand, ad-free streaming from a catalog of tens of millions of songs!

After your 30 Free Trial, you will be billed $7.99 a month BUT if you try it for 30 days and decide you don’t like it you can simply cancel the subscription. Sounds like a win/win to me. Here are the benefits of Amazon Music Unlimited:

    • Stream over tens of millions of songs ad-free with unlimited skips
    • Thousands of expert-programmed playlists and stations
    • Hottest new releases from today’s most popular artists
    • Download their favorite songs, albums, and playlists for offline playback

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.

Cogswell’s Grant Estate and American Folk Art Collection in Essex, Massachusetts

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Just when I think I have found my dream home, in quite little country town with respectful neighbors and a chorus of birds and frogs and snakes that creep in and out of the yard all day as Lucy and I garden, I find another home to swoon after. Only it’s not for sale but it is STUFFED to the gills with American folk art and if only it were for sale I could have the instant colonial lifestyle I’ve always dreamed of {with indoor plumbing of course. Let’s not go crazy here}.

If you are a lover of folk art, then you need to run, not walk to Cogswell’s Grant Estate in Essex, Massachusetts. Because this estate has hands down, the best collection of American Folk Art I have ever seen in any one location. By far. And I’ve been to a lot of museums and am a sincere admirer of American folk art.

I could have spent an entire week in the place, and can only imagine what it would have been like to have been on the team that had the privilege to catalog everything in the home {which took them over 5 years to do!}. I could totally be a docent there. You know, one of those crazy passionate ones that gets excited talking about butter molds and pin cushions for an hour to tourists.

Cogswell’s Grant was the summer home of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little, preeminent collectors of American decorative arts who purchased the circa 1732 home, farmhouse and 165 acres of land in 1937. The property was named Cogswell’s Grant, after John Cogswell, who was the original 1636 land receipt.

Over the next 50 years the couple carefully restored the home trying to preserve it’s original finishes as well as collecting antiques from the New England area to furnish and decorate the home.

Nina authored several books on the country arts of early American homes and her husband Bertram, was president of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, {which is now called Historic New England} for more than 23 years. Mrs. Little transferred property ownership over to Society for the Preservation Of New England Antiquities in 1984, reserving life tenancy rights for herself and her family. 

I simply cannot recommend this estate enough! In fact the HH and I loved visiting Cogswell’s Grant much, we’ve decided to sign up for a household membership to Historic New England so we can tour more homes this summer {most homes are open June 1st – October 15th for tours}. Lobster shacks and historic homes…. talk about the ultimate theme for this years date days!

Life it’s one big adventure. Get out there and enjoy it!

Have a wonderful Tuesday everyone,

~ Mavis

Cogswell’s Grant
60 Spring Street
Essex, MA 01929

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 – The HH Goes Under the Knife, $1 Summer Movies, Online Deals and More

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Quote of the Day “As time goes by, you seem to weed out the things that were making your life hard.” ~Tom Petty

Hello Tuesday! Last night before Lucy and I locked up the chickens for the night, we sat on the bench and watched as the ladies weeded the flower garden. In just a mere 24 hours they were able to clear a nice 4′ x 6′ patch. Hot diggety! I think we’re on to something here folks. I moved their coop halfway over the brick patch this morning and we’re excited to watch the magic unfold.

In other news, the HH had his second skin cancer removal procedure yesterday. 2 summers ago a surgeon nipped part of his right ear off. This time they snipped away part of his right cheek. That poor guy. I told him not to worry about it because really, what can you do? Scars are kind of cool anyway and we’re in this together, so really who cares if he’s missing a few inches of skin, right?

PSA for the day: WEAR YOUR SUNSCREEN!

Keep on Truckin’ …and stay positive. 🙂

♥ 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.

Remember 2 summers ago when I lived off of a 30 day emergency food supply?  Well, I learned some really valuable Food Storage Lessons that are worth revisiting.

Home and Kitchen Deals

Looking for something fun {and inexpensive} to do with the kiddos this summer? Regal Cinemas is hosting the Summer Movie Express on Tuesdays & Wednesdays at 10 am for nine weeks. Admission is $1 and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Will Rogers Institute. Go HERE to see movies listings in your area.

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}. 

Botanical Interests is having a 50% off end of season sale. Order your seeds now before they sell out of all the good stuff. – I’m stocking up on seeds for next year!

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 23 of 52

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Costco $8.53  {$56.33 less $47.81 rebate}

I had absolutely no intentions of buying anything other than milk and eggs this month but then a Costco card renewal form and rebate check came in the mail for $47.81. Because Costco is so far away now, and I LOVE shopping at ADLI {there are only like 6 aisles and 8 customers in the store at any given time} I see no reason to shell out $120 for an Executive Costco membership anytime in the near future. Heck, I don’t even see the point in paying $60 just for the privilege to shop there.

And then I remembered about how I had major sticker shock last summer when I went to buy a new pair of glasses and was reminded of the fact the the glasses I am currently wearing, do in fact need to be replaced because there are two giant scratches in the right lens {thanks to Lucy}. So I decided to make a trip to Costco and order a new pair of glasses before our membership runs out at the end of the month and of course, cash in the Costco check.

But then I took a look around. 😉 Luckily though, the damage wasn’t too bad and I got out of there for less than $10 {I’ll get reimbursed from the insurance company for the glasses}. I don’t think I’m going to miss Costco, and their ridiculously large portions anytime soon. But the free samples? I’ll miss those.

Leftover corn, jello salad and mashed potatoes plus a weenie.

Possibly the worst picture of a pot of beef stew and Irish brown bread ever taken because the HH and I moved the kitchen table into the family room so we could watch the movie Dr. Strange while we ate a really late dinner {and it was nearly dark!}. Have you seen Dr. Strange? Totally not my kind of movie, but the HH and The Girl liked it so what do I know. I like real people, in real situations, documentaries and shows where I learn things. Superheros, shoot ’em up movies and sci-fi or make believe are not my thing.

Big salads make me happy. Although in hindsight I shouldn’t have added the avocado.

No knead crusty bread with 1 heaping teaspoon of crush garlic and 4 chopped green olives that were stuffed with blue cheese added in. Verdict? DELICIOUS! If you haven’t tried this recipe yet, you need to. Even if you’re not a baker, you’ll feel like one afterwards.

Banana muffins with Nutella. They are good for the soul.

Summer soup with leftover weenies, turnips, Swiss chard and a few other ingredients. Anyone want the recipe?

Someone left a comment last week about not being able to do the whole once a month shopping thing because they thought they wouldn’t be able to buy enough fresh produce to last themselves or their family an entire month.

The way I like to do it is to use up the perishable items first {avocados, broccoli, peppers, salad mixes, bananas and other soft fruits}.  And then things like carrots, beets, onions, apples, pears, potatoes, squash etc. towards the end of the month. In fact, I still have a squash sitting on my kitchen counter that was harvested locally last fall, that I purchased back in April and it’s still fine. To me to concept {even without a garden to pull from} seems pretty basic.

But then again, maybe it’s kind of a mindset thing too. If I was living in suburbia and the store was only a mile away, and my kids were younger and I was always on the go, popping in to the store wouldn’t seem like such a big deal. But nowadays for me, it takes much longer to get to a grocery store and I don’t have kids to shuttle around anymore so going “to town” is much more of an event.

The General Tso’s sauce from ALDI? It’s a winner. 😉 I’ll have to stock up next time!

So what’s new in your grocery shopping world? Are you an avid Costco shopper? Are you like my Mother In Law and order all your groceries online? Do you shop weekly or monthly? Curious minds want to know.

Have a great Monday everyone,

~Mavis

Total Spent this week: $8.53

  • Total Spent in June $161.49  <- Attempting once a month grocery shopping
  • Total Spent in May on Groceries $216.50 <- 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.

Mavis Butterfield Etsy