#i found out i've been poisoning myself for months with the breakfast bars i eat every day

[sonicchaoscontrol]

[No update today, but I wanted to know you're all deeply appreciated here!]

[The TLDR: This week was absolutely full of pain & health issues that are slowly getting sorted out, but it left me no juice to sit here & work on pages. For now I'll try to fill the time with the askbox, & things should be back on track next Saturday! 🧡]

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

Teaching starts back in a week and this is what I learned and did during my summer of being absolutely positively broke.

♦️Snacking is for rich ppl. If you have to do it, eat saltiness.

♦️(this is going to have to change once I get back into the classroom because of my blood sugar issues. When I'm going non-stop I have to have something to eat or else I will crash and for that I have found coated peanuts at Dollar Tree)

♦️Speaking of Dollar Tree that is now where I buy at least 80% of my groceries: Cleaning products, cooking utensils, shampoo/personal care, cat treats, granola bars, canned vegetables, mac and cheese, and condiments.

♦️No more Starbucks coffee, it is Folgers and no more K-Cups I have the reusable plastic ones that you put the coffee in yourself and then wash clean. Doing this it cost me 15 cents/ cup.

♦️ cat food and hamburger meat I buy in bulk.

♦️ cheaper than Hamburger Helper is frying the hamburger meat with your own seasonings and adding it to boxed mac and cheese.

♦️No more paper plates or bowls. I am biting the bullet and doing dishes.

♦️I've had to break myself of the habit of thinking I deserve treats when I get paid. A $20 purchase at Amazon or a couple of trips to the coffee shop for $4 iced coffees = what I could have spent for gas or for groceries.

♦️I deleted my Sonic and McDonald's apps because it was too tempting, along with my Amazon app.

♦️Thanks to a friend of mine in Australia who is on public assistance but still went to the trouble of ordering me food, I am stocked up on six cans of refried beans and several packages of tortillas and that is what I will be using for lunch the first month back at school.

♦️In order for us to go to the Poison/ Motley Crue/Def Lep/Joan Jett show in San Antonio I am attempting to cash in my Choice Rewards points to get a breakfast gift card a dinner gift card and a gas gift card plus I am renewing my loan.

♦️I'm probably going to skip two payments to PayPal credit and see what happens. When I paid them off the first time I owed about $400 and they were charging me $40 a month which was fine. But once I paid them off I don't know what happened. I charged it up again & now I owe $400 again and yet they are charging me $88 a month.

♦️Despite it being 102 outside I try to only run the air conditioner when my husband is home because he works in a place that does not have air conditioning at all and he comes home extremely overheated. I figure I can tough it out with all the doors and windows open and in a week I will be back to working under the air conditioning anyway.

♦️ I use my debit card to do the laundry because if I take money out of my account I usually get more than I need and use the extra to get food or drinks while I'm doing laundry or keep the extra change for tips when I go to Sonic.

♦️ speaking of Sonic breaking myself of the habit of getting something to drink while I am out because of the heat is really really hard. I'm stalked on water because I use a water filter and just continuously refill the bottles I have. But there are times when I get so sick of water I just cannot drink anymore. I've bought the drink powders and most of them are really too sweet. I tried making my own tea a gallon at a time with tea bags and that turned out terribly.

Right now I'm getting the cheapest tea I can by the gallon and keeping it in the refrigerator and then taking it with me.

♦️ unless I'm going out of town I don't fill up on gas. I only put $9 in at a time. This town is so small and I make sure I don't go out unless I absolutely need to so $9 will usually last 2 to 3 weeks.

I am really hoping that these measures will keep me from being overdrawn $500 a month like I have been the last 2 months.