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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 – Barilla Pasta, Blue Cheese Spinach Burgers, a Cool Gardening Apron, Online Deals and More

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Quote of the Day “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” ~ Walt Disney

This dog! She played in the garden ALL DAY yesterday and pretty much zonked out as soon as she came inside for the night. I don’t know where she gets her energy, but it’s great to see her rolling around in the grass, checking in on her babies and paroling the grounds everyday. I think she’s settling in to country life just fine. 😉

Thursday, it is Thursday, right? Let’s make it a good one!

♥ 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.

Gourmet Spinach Blue Cheese Burgers: Nothing against the usual BBQ cuisine, but if you’re looking for a good recipe to take your BBQ to the next level, this burger recipe is it.

Home and Kitchen Deals

Amazon is offering a 30 Free trail for Audible. I LOVE audio-books!

Audible Free Trial benefits:

• Get two free audiobooks to start — after 30 days, get 1 book each month for $14.95/month

• Get 30% off the price of additional audiobook purchases

• Cancel anytime. Your books are yours to keep, even if you cancel.

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}. 

dig-for-your-dinner-1

If you’d like to map out your next few months of garden chores, grab a few Dig For Your Dinner eBooks. That way, you can read about gardening, even when the weather is not nice enough to be outside gardening.

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.

Gardening in New England – Cleaning Up the Potting Shed, Pulling Up Holly, and Mystery Plants of the Week

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The weather has been downright tropical around here lately in New England, and working in the garden has been an absolute joy this past week. Yesterday I finished weeding the area in front of the potting shed and planted a few packets of cottage garden type seeds. Hollyhocks and white sunflowers for height, pink, red and orange poppies for color, and 2 short rows of strawberry corn along the fence to harvest in the fall.

So far the only blooms I’ve seen in this area are peach colored dwarf bearded irises and daffodils.  I have identified 2 peony plants and possibly some day lilies, but it will be fun to see what pops up in the garden over the next few months.

Okay, garden sleuths, are you ready for this week’s round of name that mystery plant? As I’ve mentioned before, I have not been much of a flower gardener in the past {I’ve always been more of a team vegetable kind of person} but I seem to have inherited a floral oasis, and I need help identifying the plants so I can draw up a proper garden map of our property. Any suggestions you have would be helpful.

Mystery Plant #1 – Dicentra ‘King of Hearts’

I can’t help but want to shake this flower every time I walk by. I keep hoping the blossoms will ring like a bell or something.Mystery Plant #2 –

Mini hydrangea? The flowers or so tiny though and the branches are really thin.

Mystery Plant #3

This was found in the overgrown {future} corn patch area. I’d hate to pull it out…. Maybe I can transplant it?

I’m going to miss cherry blossom season.

We have Lily of the Valley!

And about a zillion and two hosta plants.

The only problem is, I’m afraid to clean up around the hosta plants because I don’t want to mistake a perennial plant for a weed. It’s painful to see the 3 large flower garden beds in such a state…. But I don’t know what else to do besides play the wait and see game.

Is this a weed? Because the beds are filled with this plant!!

Darrrrling. The peonies are almost ready to bloom. I am planning to serve afternoon tea to celebrate {with the proper assortment of pastries and finger sandwiches of course} just as soon as I can pick a bouquet for the kitchen table. It’s going to be lovely. And I’m totally looking forward to it. I might even put on a dress. And now that I think about it, maybe I should find a proper hat to wear to my peony party as well.

Meanwhile…. back at the Money Pit, as soon as the weather warmed up the wood contracted on the aging plant holders attached to the side of the potting shed and left my little pots of lettuce in peril.

Mr. Handyman said the wood {which had been held together by glue} had to go and suggested we move one of our giant galvanized tubs in it’s place. Which of course I think is a fantastic idea and just as soon as I can get the wood cleaned up and painted, we’ll do.

If you’ve ever had to pull weeds out of pea gravel or along brick paths than you know what an incredible pain/time sucker it can be. We had been using a product called Caseron back in Washington for years until it became hard to find, and then we switched to a product called Noxall and it seems to work just as well. I like it because once you spread it around the problem areas, nothing and I do mean NOTHING will grow there for at least a year.

We aren’t big on chemicals, and don’t use anything but compost in our vegetable garden, but I have no problem using Noxell to keep the weeds at bay in pea gravel or walkways. So if you are looking for a similar type product, you might want to give it a try.

I think you all know about my disdain for rhododendrons, and maybe you even know that I can’t stand juniper bushes as well. But in addition to giant rhodies and junipers, we had a giant {4’x20′?} holly bush growing alongside the house. Which, I’m sure was lovely when it was a mere 2′ high and manicured. But we aren’t holly people. Not one bit. We are the snooty boxwood type. So we pulled the giant holly hedge out and are planning to install a new hedge of dwarf boxwoods in it’s place.

Buying a new {to you} home can be tricky. Especially when there are established shrubs and trees on the property the homeowners before you planted but you have zero interest in. Some people think you HAVE to keep them, or move the plants to another spot on your property. But sometimes they’re just too big to move, and chopping them down and turning them into wood chips is the best {and easiest} solution.

Gardens, they’re kind of a personal thing don’t you think? I say, GROW WHAT YOU LOVE, because after all, you are the one who has to maintain your property, cut the flowers, pick the vegetables and cook the dinners. And in my book, time spent doing something you love, is time well spent.

Wishing you the happiest of Wednesdays…

~Mavis

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 – My Favorite Apple Pie Recipe, Ice Cream Toppings, Online Deals and More

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Quote of the Day  “Life is a blank canvas, and you need to throw all the paint on it you can.” ~ Danny Kaye

Hellooooooooo Wednesday! You’re not going to believe this, but we ordered the wood stove yesterday. SHOCKING… I know. I thought for sure Mr. Quick Decision would have needed a few more months to think about it. 😉 Bahhhhahaha. Life, it does surprise you sometimes.

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone,

♥ Mavis & Miss Lucy 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.

Apple Crumb Pie: Since the saying goes, “it’s American as apple pie,”  it makes sense that you’d serve this scrumptious pie while BBQ’ing—another very American past time!

Home and Kitchen Deals

Today Only Cents of Style is offering Summer Beach Wraps 40% OFF + FREE Shipping! w/code: WRAP40 at checkout making these just $11.97 shipped. I don’t even own a swimsuit, but I must admit, these are cute!!

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}. 

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

Kid’s Stuff

Thinking about placing a bulk order with Zaycon Fresh but not sure what to do with all that meat? Read my post on How to Process and Prepare Your Bulk Chicken Order for some great tips. Zaycon Fresh is now taking orders for their upcoming events.

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.

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.

Mavis Butterfield Etsy