I have noticed

I have noticed with the gas price going up other things do also.  The cost gets passed on to the "Little People" all of the time.  Now I know that some of us are hurting more than others around here and I try to curb going to the stores more often now for the place without some here totally.  It hurts the pocket book every time you fill up the tank of the car, truck, or van that someone drives now a days.  The price of diesel has gone to sky high prices also so the big trucks are affected while we are at it.  And guess who gets to haul the food in and other things to the grocery stores and other places in the country here people like my Husband and afew others who are the Big Rig drivers.  I grab only part of my Husbands receipts to see in how much the diesel prices have went up over the years.  I am so thankful that we do not have that bill coming into the household at all at the moment.  So there are some of us that really try to keep the cost to a low around the household for things like food and cleaners that we need to run the household totally.  This is why I can not stress enough to cook alot from scratch when you can around the household.  With just a few changes for a household it works to some advantages.  When I started out several years ago on my own it was hard and my Momma kind of held my hand thru it all also.  Just alot of it I had to learn on my own for where I was at and alot of trials on top of it.  I have delt with coupons, sales, and trying to figure ok what does the place need also.  With the coupons and sales you can do well on cutting the costs down on alot of things for the household.  I know this and have done it also.  When I made the switch to buy bags of flour and yeast for the house along with baking powder I noticed that there was a drop in the food bill right then and there.  Between breads, biscuits, waffles, pancakes, and other things for the household it makes me wander in how I ever lived without some things in the fridge over the years.  And that is if I had a fridge at times.  Yes there were times that I have not been as lucky to have a fridge for a place that I have been at while I am at it.  Just like when I got up here to NY State a fridge what was that and could not wait untill winter hit the first year at the trailer.  And it was a  cold one on me to say the least.  I can laugh about it now and my Husband doesn't at all in how I froze.  It worked and I made it around here to say the least off the bargain rack, being colder than snot, no fridge, and not even an oven that worked at the time.  Thanks to my Husbands ex girlfriend (with my husbands brat daughter) at the time for being snooty.  I knew that I made it at the time when I started calling my Husbands daughters mother out on things and it would make her totally mad and arrogant towards me.  Comes to find out his ex and I are cousins way down the line (8th).  So I found a nitch on how to work everything and I worked no doubt about it thru the hard times and got the kick from my Momma that I needed along the way.  Now I think I can live thru anything around here and knowing that I can either way I go.  I have went cheaper over the years and started noticing that I can still be as cheap as when I first got up here and now I know more about it all than what I did at the time.  So between the bags of flour, onions, rice, and the huge container of garlic I can fill in the other things fairly well for the household at this point.  I eat soup and leftovers while my Husband is on the road and do not feel one bit of guilt at all about it.  I have also tossed people out as soon as they all came in also around here to say the least while I was at it all.  It always seems like the food budget is the first to get cut no matter what you do and the other is the fill ins for the household.  As I told someone today this is what ya need for this and have fun with it and do you have receipts for the store other wise take them in also along with what you got the children for things to wear and the hand me downs if you can.  She was shocked in what I remembered over the years of being on and off the system.  So now I know with some folks it is not a hand out it is a hand up and there are some that keep spitting out babies to keep on welfare either way you look at it.  I got smart to that fact and did fairly well the last time I was on it over 11 years ago for the trailer.  With some it is like lets keep the children on welfare and that is what happened to Debbie Hall and the support got cut when the girl hit 18 years of age and prego before the 18th b-day that rolled around.  Sometimes it does not pay to be on the system and other times it does.  When the household had to eat I only got about 170 max in food stamps and learned alot from there that I can deal without the convenience foods that were out there and stretched to the dollars from there in what I was getting and had coming in.  So now I shop smart and streach out the dollars as much as I can for the place.  There are alot of rice, pasta, beans, onions, garlic, flour, and chicken for the place.  All I cna say is shop smart and streach out the dollars that you do have you will go farther than with the system.