Making Cents Of It All

Hubby is very happy with the above freebie that I found this week. I am part of a local group online called NEXTDOOR. It is great for finding out about street closings, construction, robberies and free stuff. A family in our neighborhood put their house on the market and it sold 2 days later for the asking price. CASH. They have to be out in 30 days. I don't think they thought it would sell that fast because they haven't started purging. Well, they are giving most of their stuff away. They listed this drum set (valued at about $1000) for free. I saw the post 9 minutes after it was listed and I quickly said I would take it. We picked it up the next night and hubby is ecstatic.  Hubby has played the drums since he was a teen. We have a whole kit in our basement. So why do we want another kit? One of our best friends plays the keyboards. He has a 3 tier setup. His son plays the drums. His son bought a house a year and a half ago and took his drums with him. Hubby and our ...

September is always a busy time at our house. The kids are back in school so we have to get into that routine. OD is in a childhood friend's wedding and will be coming home for a long weekend with her BF. Hubby and I are going to the wedding too. The days will be getting shorter. There will be fall activities to do. YD always helps build her class float for homecoming and the big game.Hopefully there will be lots of canning. Financial - Put 15% into retirement. - Pay for first and second part of driveway - Grocery Budget of $400 average for the year - List 25 new items on eBay and Craigslist.   - Work extra shifts when available.  - Go over our budget with Hubby - Go over the kids budgets with each of them.  - Do FAFSA - YD apply for scholarships - Help YD start to fill out college applications Garden      - Plant peas and kale for fall pickings - Dehydrate/dry herbs as they are ready - Chop and freeze veggies for winter use -...

The garden is doing wonderful this month. Every day I am outside picking veggies or herbs. I just love all of the colors of my garden veggies. We have been eating based on what needs to be used in the garden.  Over the weekend I made a huge pot of sauce and then canned it after we ate some for dinner. I got 6 quarts and 3 pints. It is a good start.   Then I made 10 jars of refrigerator pickles. Some of these are going to be used in a barter. I had tart cherry juice that we did not enjoy. So I put my bread machine to work to make jelly. It came out great so I will use the other half of the juice to make a 2nd batch. I went to visit a friend that just came home from the hospital after surgery. I brought her soup and some veggies from the garden. She insisted that I take some herbs from her pots. I got chives, lavender, sage and cilantro.  My son is keeping us well supplied in bread thanks to his job.  I d...

We have very exciting and scary news all in one. Youngest daughter passed her road test. She is licensed in New York State. She did wonderful and we are super proud of her. She had been practicing often and bugging me and Hubby to take her driving constantly so all of her hard work paid off.  Now the fun part. I get to wait up late until she is home safe. I get to worry about another one of my babies out on the road with a bunch of crazy drivers. I get to pay an extra $1600 a year in car insurance. I get to tell her no friends in the car for a while. I get to not have to pick her up from friends houses. I get not to run her to the store when she forgot she needs something for school in the morning. I get to not pick her up from school when she misses the bus.I get to not be a chauffeur any more.  I don't know where the time has gone. How is it that my little girl is seventeen, starting her senior year of high school and has a drivers licence. It is a very big year for her ...

I made 10 pints of refrigerator dill pickles over the weekend. They will last about 4 months in your refrigerator but we eat them faster then that. With my garden doing so well on cucumbers, this was an easy way to use a bunch up.  First I sliced up the cucumbers. I do them in rounds but you could do whatever shape you like. Then I cut up the onions. Hubby loves the onions so I add a bunch. If you are not big on onions then only put in a few. I then chop up the dill. I use the whole plant, leaves, seeds and stem. I grow it in my garden just for this recipe.  Then I take my pints that are clean and start adding. I put some onions and dill at the bottom.  Then I add cucumbers and then onions and dill at the top. Next is the mixture.  It is 1 cup vinegar to 3/4 cup sugar to 1/2 cup water for those of you that only want to do 1 or 2 jars.  I used 8 cups vinegar, 6 cups sugar and 4 cups of water.  ...

I was a very busy bee this week. I worked 4 days this week. They asked me to work an additional day but I said no. It would have been too much. 2 of the days were full 8 hour days, the other 2 were normal 5 1/2 hour days. I had to spend Wednesday at Jury Duty. I didn't get picked which I am grateful for. Since I worked all of last weekend when we got home from vacation, I haven't had a day off.  The garden is going crazy which is wonderful. I really needed to use up the produce before it went bad. Saturday I got down to business. So first thing in the morning I went through the garden and picked a bunch of veggies. I then started chopping tomatoes. And there were a lot. Next up was to use the tomato mill (Thanks Mom & Dad). Then I made my largest pot of sauce. I had to wait for it to reduce some to add the rest in.  When it was ready we had some for dinner. The rest was canned. I got 6 quarts and 3 pints for my pantry. I like to do some pints for certain m...

Calling all cat and dog owners. Petco is at it again with free items with a coupon. All you need is the coupon and your Petco card which is free to get. If you do not have a Petco card, just go to any Petco and sign up when making the purchase.  Both expire August 31. I found both offers through CouponProBlog .  If you don't have a cat or dog, think about getting them anyway and donating them to an animal shelter or food bank. There are a lot of great organizations out there that would be very happy to get these items.  Youngest daughter and I went. We both have cards so we were able to get 2 of each. We don't have a cat but I will keep the cat litter. It is good for so many other uses besides a cat. We keep some in our cars during the winter in case we get stuck. It is great for oil and gas spills too. We always find a way to use it so I know it won't be wasted.  Oreo loved the bones that she already tried. Lip is coming over in a few day...