My Frugal List: Week of October 29, 2018
We bought a new to us car for youngest daughter to drive. It is a 2007 Elantra. She loves it. Hubby negotiated the price down $500 so I was very happy with the price. We paid cash for the car since we don't do debt anymore. We registered it and brought it to the mechanic for fluid changes. It seems like a great car for YD. We also got YD AAA. It is free to teenagers for their first year if a parent is a member. That saved us $30.
We sold our old snowblower. Glad to have the money and space in our shed.
Last Sunday I cooked a turkey so we had several turkey based meals this week. We had turkey noodle soup, turkey pot pies and hot open turkey sandwiches. We also had pasta with meat sauce, grilled chicken thighs and potato cheese soup.
Lunches were brought to school and work all week.
There were some great clearance items at the store this week. The best one was iron pills marked down to $1.42. I take iron everyday so I bought all of them. They had 6 packs. I also got party plates marked down to 54¢ each. I bought 3. I can use them on Thanksgiving for appetizers or desserts. I try to limit how many paper products I use but when everyone is here it helps to have them.
I made dog food for Oreo and Lip.
We had a nice Halloween. YD had a friend over after school. They baked and watched movies. It was very low key. She dressed up for school as a Greaser.
Hubby went to the airport when he was near by to get the specialty gasoline for the snowblower. It cost $6 a gallon verses $7 a pint. He uses it in the snowblower because it won't freeze.
I got several freebies last week that we will use.
Got some Christmas presents that were on sale and used coupons too. I started writing out my Christmas cards too.
Went food shopping. I shopped the sales, used coupons and rainchecks, and did Ibotta after.
What did you do this week to stay frugal?
Great car. I bet your daughter loves it. Good going for sticking to your guns about NO debt!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good week.
She loves the idea that she has any car. We will never take on more debt. All I have is my mortgage. We have a nice Emergency Fund to help us if we need it. It is cash or nothing.
DeleteOh man. Sometime this week, I need to get into the garage and drag out the manual for the snowblower. My husband bought a snowblower at the end of last winter, and I'm going to need to figure out how the heck to use it. I *think* it's electric... This will be interesting, especially since I've never used one before! Hopefully it'll be less painful than shoveling.
ReplyDeleteGreat deal on your daughter's car, it looks really nice!
I find the hardest part is starting it but ours is gas so it has a pull start. Good luck. Watch YouTube videos. I'm sure they have them for your model.
DeleteHi Mcoia and that is a good saving on the fuel for the snow blower :). I bet your daughter is really pleased with her new to her car and I would have bought all of the iron tablets at that price too.
ReplyDeleteOur savings last week added up to $4673.94 - $6673.94 :) .
Here is what we accomplished last week -
Earnings - - DH earned $210 doing odd gardening jobs.
- I earned $64.50 from the sale of dried thyme and English lavender picked from the gardens and a handmade 5 layer cotton eye mask.
House purchase savings and finances - - Good news is the current owners of the property we are settling on in December have agreed to spray the fence lines, outdoor structures for termites and the outside house stumps and agreed also to spray the inside and outside of the home for pests, fix a leaking pipe under the home and replace a broken window and hire a surveyor to peg the property boundaries saving us between $4500 - $6500 if we had to do it ourselves. Fortunately the house has no termites and the owners agreed to this as we had it as a condition on our offer to purchase that we had to be happy with the building and pest inspection results for the sale to go through.
- Saved another $20 on our roadside assistance membership by changing our 3rd party over to the same firm and the cost was the same as the previous 3rd party insurer we used to go with.
Purchases - - We changed our third party insurer over to RACQ from our previous 3rd party insurer saving $20 per year on our roadside assist membership. It was the same price but just added extra savings to our budget.
- Using a RACQ gift card we purchased 4 x 4pt surge protector power boards, some electric cord clips, 2 padlocks, 2 DVD's for a treat, USB to mini USB charging cable and 10 x 20 cm pots with saucers from BigW for our new home saving with our 5% off and specials $14 on usual prices. The home we are moving to we were told my our electrician friend has power surges so we got the surge protectors to protect our electical appliance equipment when we move in.
- DH had been keeping an eye out for load stabiliser bars for our trailer for when we tow heavy loads and found them at a really good price saving $135 over buying them locally.
Groceries - - Did a small top up of dried baking goods using an discount e-voucher and taking advantage of specials saved another $44.94 off usual prices.
In the kitchen - - Cooked all meals and bread from scratch.
- Blanched and froze broad beans picked from the gardens making 14 more double meals for the freezer.
Home organisation - - We have now packed half the house into labelled boxes and this week concentrated on packing our medical supplies and food storage leaving out what we will use until we move.
- I damp dusted everything and DH vacuumed the rooms as we finished packing each room.
In the gardens - - Weeded our sweet potato bed and put weeds in the bin.
- Chopped up half of our dried broad bean plants ready which we trench composted today along with the broad bean shells to save on room in the bin. Our lovely neighbour also allowed us to fill the room up in his bin with weeds from the gardens after all the rain made them grow profusely.
Hope everyone has had an equally good week :) .
Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).
You have been very busy. Great job on the savings. I can't wait to hear all about your new home when you move in.
DeleteMy husband loves the load stabilizer bars on our camper that we tow behind our 15-passenger van. He says it makes a world of difference to have that on there--it's pretty long once he gets the 32 foot trailer hooked to the 15-passenger van, so I'm sure your hubby will be glad he got those bars.
DeleteWe ended up going back down to the docks and purchasing 3 more tunas to can. My husband is embarked on a weight-loss journey and has been burning through the tuna we had canned earlier, and we decided we should get more before it was out of season. We got a nice date day out of it, which is still rare.
DeleteI have been focusing on cleaning little areas in my extremely cluttered house. (In the scheme of things, I know it's not that bad, I just want it better!). So, I just take an area, and completely de-clutter it, then move on. The garage is a dumping ground for everything, so I've been focusing on it out there, because it really is cluttered. There are chairs for the kids to play video games, part of my food storage, a table that I will set on Thanksgiving to go with the ones in the main part of the house, and so forth.
We got our mini blinds replaced, finally, after months and months of having a gap where people could look in---we waited until we had saved up for it. It is so nice to be able to run out to the main part of the house and grab something at night without feeling like everyone can look in.
As has become our new normal, we spent quite a bit of time at doctor's appointments for my husband. The good news is that he's lost another 7 pounds since the last time he got weighed a couple of weeks ago. The bad news is that his hip is not improving at all, in fact is getting worse, so he ordered a cane from Amazon, which is is resisting with every bone of his body. Poor guy! The physical therapy seems to be making him worse every time he goes, so thankfully there is only 1 session left. Then that hoop will be jumped through and he will be closer to the day when he can get the hip surgery, which they say is the only way to really fix this.
Our daughter (child number 6) has flown off to Hawaii. She was offered a job, an apartment to share with 2 girls she knew, and decided to go for a while. There is no plan for her to stay there forever, but for now, she is off on her big adventure. She's only been gone since Wednesday, but I've already mailed 2 packages off to her of things she found she had forgotten, or that would be beneficial. One thing I mailed was a lot of spices. I order them in bulk, and put portions in little plastic containers Rob had, and sent them off, saving her probably $40 or $50. I'm really proud of her for doing this. She is my timid one, and this was a bit stretch for her. She can come home at any time, but for now, this is what she wanted to do for a bit. I'm sure she will do fine, but there have been moments that I wished I was there to help her figure a few things out--but think how she is growing as a person, and I'm proud of her for figuring those things out!
That is very brave of her. I'm sure she will have an amazing time. I hope you get to visit her there. I hope to get to Hawaii someday. That is really great that Rob has lost more weight. I know how hard it is. Sorry the PT isn't helping. Glad you got more tuna. I love going for rides with Hubby.
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