My Frugal List: Week of August 6, 2018


We are away for the week at my sister's time share. She rarely uses it and if you don't use the weeks you lose them. So we are happy to use them. It is a very nice 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit with a full kitchen, dining room and 2 living areas as well as 2 balconies. The views are amazing!  I brought some food with us and we cook most meals in the time share. I plan ahead to make it as easy as possible. There is a movie theater, 2 pools, hut tub, ping pong, pool table, horse shoes, bocce ball, basketball, volleyball and a playground. There are several free activities every day as well as some that charge a fee. 


Last week I made a huge pot of chili so I froze some of that and brought it with us. All I have to do is cook some rice and dinner is done. Hubby also made a big pot of sauce during the week with meatballs and I froze half of that to bring too. That is 2 nights that I barely have to cook. We also ate banana chocolate chip pancakes, omelettes, waffles, steel cut oats, chicken quesadillas, grilled chicken salads, BBQ chicken and leftovers before we left.

We packed sandwiches and drinks for the road while we traveled.

Before we left we got lots done. I sold 2 stools on Craigslist. I sold 2 CDs, a book and a Wii game on eBay.

We got the check for the repairs for my car accident. I put it right into the car fund. I was very impressed that the whole thing took less then a week.


YD had her Senior pictures taken for the yearbook. She did her own hair, make up and nails. Several of the girls got everything done at salons.

My son brought home lots of goodies from work. His job lets employees take home the baked goods since they will go in the garbage since they cannot sell them the next day. My son knows that we will eat, freeze or give away the food so that it doesn't end up in the garbage.

YD and her friend did a clothes swap. They each have several new to them outfits for the beginning of school now.

I defrosted my chest freezer with the help of YD. I used up several items to make chili. Several other items were put in the upstairs freezer to use soon.


The garden is doing wonderful. My tomatoes are turning red. I am so happy. We picked tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, string beans, lettuce, basil, thyme, dill and parsley this week. I dried some herbs in the oven after I turned it off. I took lots of veggies away with us. 


I only had to water my garden once this week because we have been having lots of rain at night. 

I did great food shopping this week. I got several items free with coupons sales and Ibotta. 

My son mowed our lawn and a neighbor's that was away.

I only ran full loads of laundry on the cold short cycle. I use half the recommended amount of detergent. I hung the laundry outside or on the clothes racks inside.

My OD is in a wedding this fall. The bride to be is one of her best childhood friends. They are paying for the wedding themselves. They are doing lots of the decorations themselves and asked if anyone could save empty wine bottles. I asked at work for them to save them for me. There is a bar at my job. I received 20 empty wine bottles and let the bride to be know. She was very grateful. 

Hubby checked the oil, air in the tires and topped off fluid on my mini van since that is what we take on vacation. YD and I cleaned it before we went.

We shut the hot water heater off and unplugged everything that doesn't need to be plugged in while we are away. My sister is watching Oreo. My friend is happy to watch the house and garden. I told her to take what she wants from the garden and to put the rest in the fridge. I always watch her house and cats when they go away. 

We are having a wonderful time away. We went food shopping after we checked in. I brought some food with us that was shelf stable. YD and I went to the movie theater the first night and watched Jumanji 2. We also played ping pong. 


Nearby is an aerial adventure park. The kids wanted to try it out. It is not cheap. The ticket is for 2 hours and there are 5 courses. It is $10 cheaper to go in the afternoon so that is when they went. You can also save $5 per person if you order your tickets online so Hubby did that. With just these 2 simple things we saved $30.  They loved it. 

What have you done this week to save money? 






Comments

  1. Hi Mcoia and I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday away from home and very sensible to bring a lot of food from home. How wonderful they do have a few free activities where you are staying :) .

    Our savings added up to $90.75 last week.

    Here is how we organised our home, what we got accomplished and saved last week -

    Home organisation -
    - Deep cleaned 5 rooms in our home as well as the front veranda and decluttered at the same time ready for our rental inspection on Monday. 2 more rooms to go yay !.

    In the kitchen -
    - Cooked all meals and bread from scratch.

    Pantry stock ups-
    - Purchased 10 more tins of smoked chicken and another 12 pk of toilet paper over and above our usual stocks.

    Gifts and blessings -
    - A friend gave us around 2 metres of wire mesh as a thank you for giving him a back brace that was now too large for DH saving us $32.50 over purchasing it.

    Finances and earnings -
    - Banked more money into our home deposit account bringing us to 27.22% of the way there.
    - Made $22.42 from the sale of 50 g of dried English lavender picked and dried from the gardens, 400 capsicum seeds saved from the gardens and 40 sugar baby watermelon seeds also saved from the gardens.
    - Listed 12 more items on eBay using a free listing promotion saving $19.80 on usual listing fee prices.

    In the gardens -
    - Picked another 1.1 kg of cherry tomatoes and harvested our first of season broccoli head weighing 238 g saving $16.02 on usual prices in the supermarket.
    - Mulched and weeded 2 ornamental flower beds and mulched them with a mixture of Lucerne hay and dried grass clippings to save on hay usage.

    Water preservation -
    - Used saved grey water from our showers and washing machine to water the household lawns all week.
    - Used dish rinsing, damp dusting and shower warm up water to water the fruit trees on the back veranda and supplement water vegetable plants in the garden beds.

    Usual frugal things we do -
    - Washed out clip seal freezer bags to reuse, hung washing on the clothes line, washed all clothing in cold water to save power use, unplugged appliances from power points when not in use, only turned on the electric hot water system when our water needed heating and boiled water on top of our slow combustion fireplace for our morning cuppas.

    Hope everyone has a great week ahead :).

    Sewingcreations15.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. We are having a wonderful time away. Good luck on your rental inspection. If you don't mind me asking, how often do you have one? You are doing great with your house deposit. I love seeing your percentage go up. All of your choices everyday really make a difference and add up. Have a wonderful week.

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    2. I'm glad you're having such a nice trip! It's so neat that you're able to use the time that your sister can't.

      We've harvested SO many tomatoes this week. I found a recipe for tomato sauce that's made in the crockpot, so I think I'm going to make that and freeze it. I've also been cleaning out the basement, which held all my husband's boxes from when we moved 3.5 years ago, and I found a ton of usable stuff, like deodorant, eyedrops, enough office supplies to keep us supplied for life, a Walmart gift card... Kind of nice to be rewarded in that way for all my hard work!

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    3. Great finds. Love that they were in your house. Let me know how the sauce comes out in the crockpot.

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  2. Hi Mcoia and most welcome :).

    We are really excited too about our home deposit account going up too and thank you for the encouragement.

    Our rental inspections here in Australia are once every 4 months but for maintenance or emergencies they just have to give you one days notice. The reason we were doing a deep clean is that we have had red dust storms here so there was a fine layer of red dust over everything both inside and outside of the house due to the drought here. The rental 100 year old cottage we live in has substantial gaps but nothing we can't fix with gap seal tape :).

    Unfortunately we also have bush fires burning about 75 km south of us so now the air is thick with both dust and smoke. It is certainly time for us to keep the windows and door closed until this passes.

    Continue to have a wonderful week.

    Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you save where you can bringing food using discounts you can do fun normally expensive things because you have saved everywhere else and in the end the over all spent on vacation is not much since your sister let you use the time share.

    Have a great time!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Exactly. If I just go shopping and buy everything regular priced we will not have the money to do all of the fun things we are doing. I shop sales and get the items at the cheapest price at home so packing a large cooler and a few boxes of food keeps costs low. Even on vacation we have a budget.

    ReplyDelete

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