My Frugal List: Week of February 4, 2019


It was Hubby's birthday last week and we celebrated it several days. He loves carrot cake so I made him a dairy free one. YD does not like carrot cake so I didn't have to try and make a dairy free, gluten free one. Can you figure out how old he is? I made Hubby french toast with lots of bacon for breakfast and burgers with homemade waffle fries for dinner. The birthday person gets to pick what is on the menu on their birthday in our house. My son was treating Hubby to lunch on his birthday, so YD and I were having leftovers. Unfortunately, the restaurant they wanted was closed that day. So they had leftovers too. My son gave him an IOU for lunch another day. Hubby got lots of wonderful gifts. My sister took us out to eat during the week since she wouldn't be around on his actual birthday. Hubby really got spoiled this year.


I pulled a turkey out of the freezer. It was one of the 39¢ ones I got around Thanksgiving. It was 20+ pounds.


We did the full Thanksgiving style dinner with cornbread stuffing. We did make the corn bread GF this time and it came out great. No one noticed that is was GF so I call that a win.


I made stock with the bones. I see lots of soup in our future. 


I finally cleaned out my closet. It is kind of a dumping ground. When someone outgrows something, it gets tossed into my closet until I have a bag full for the church. When I buy gifts, into my closet until they get wrapped. It needs to stop. Now it is clean and organized. I can see the floor again.


Hubby fixed the lights that were messed up in there so I also have working lights. 


I have a bag of stuff that I am going to list for sale. The rest went to the church. Hubby dropped it off for me when he was going over there one day. 


We had 3 days of beautiful weather. I went for several walks. My son and I went on a trail one day exploring. I wouldn't go by myself but with my soon to be 20 year old son, OK. We were the only ones around. It was very peaceful. 


I also went out with a friend for lunch. We went to Panera where I used a gift card. We then took her 2 new puppies for a walk. They are so cute. Playing with puppies should be on my monthly goal list. 


I had some OJ that no one was drinking. I made it into cubes that I put in the freezer. 


My last pumpkin from the fall finally got cooked. It divided it up and put it in the freezer. I had room because I took the turkey out of the freezer. 


I made more apple juice. I used the cores to make apple cinnamon syrup. I used the pulp to make 3 apple cakes. 2 of the cakes went to work with Hubby. He always gets so many compliments. 


 I mended a hole in the armpit of Hubby's favorite sweeter. 

I made another batch of mouthwash with my essential oils. I used lemon grass and orange this time. 

We have been trying to drink more water. YD loves it with lemon so I have been keeping a container in the fridge with it. Quick, easy and refreshing. 


I thought I was getting a UTI. I started taking 2 cranberry pills twice a day and a hot bath with tea tree oil in it 2 days in a row.  4 days later I am fine. I love being able to use my essential oils and vitamins to knock something out so that I don't have to run to the doctor and get antibiotics. 


I got lots of wonderful freebies this week. The chocolates were my favorite. Can you guess what everyone is getting for Valentine's day?I did really well this week with coupons, sales and rebates. I am trying to stretch my grocery dollars are far as possible. 

I have been trying to get Hubby to agree to cutting or reducing our cable bill. He finally agreed. I dropped a DVR from the bedroom and went to just basic channels. We will save $51 a month or $612 a year. We have also decided to do a defensive driving class to lower our car insurance bill. We can do it online for $25 each through our AAA membership. It is good for 3 years. I have been going through all of our bills to see if any cuts can be made. I have the time to do this now that I am not working outside of the home. 


My sister gave us curtains that she had in a box in her basement with the poles. We used some of them in our bedroom. We have one small window with a big double window. I took one curtain and cut it in half for the small window. Hubby and I hemmed it ourselves. We are not very good at sewing so I was very proud of us. Hubby also fixed the sewing machine. It wasn't working right so he opened it up and fixed a connector. He also oiled everything. I am trying to get better at sewing and do more myself. 


YD got her prom dress. I'm calling it the Cinderella dress. It is a light blue and big and puffy at the bottom. We bought it at Macy's. It was the last one in her size so I wanted to make sure we got it. My sister came the next day and we returned it and rebought it with her 25% off coupon and put it on her Macy's card. I paid her right away for it. I don't have a Macy's credit card nor do I want it. She always offers me her coupons though.We ended up paying $79.13 after coupon and gift card that I had. It needs alterations still. YD is going to wear her silver shoes from her Sweet 16. She wants to wear a silver bracelet and choker so I put out an SOS for them. It helps that I have several sisters. I'm sure we will find what she wants. I know lots of people that spend $1000 (yes thousand) on a prom dress. Even if I had that kind of money, I wouldn't allow it. We gave YD a budget for everything we are willing to spend on prom and the Senior banquet. She has to figure it out. If she goes over it comes from her bank account(she has a job). She likes to bargain hunt as much as me and doesn't intend to spend her own money. We have been looking at dresses for over a month and she kept coming back to this one. She is going to look beautiful. 

My sister and I went and had lunch at my cousin's house after. We got to chat and play with her 3 year old. I brought strawberries that I got at Aldi for $1.49 and a bouquet of tulips for $4.99. We are all watching our weight so I didn't want to bring cake. My sister drove us. 

Did the usual stuff: ran full loads in the dishwasher and washing machine, hung laundry to dry, washed baggies, lowered heat when I was the only one home, wore multiple layers, water from cups went into plants at the end of the day. 

What did you do last week to be frugal? 













Comments

  1. I desperately need to clean my closet. Not the clothes. I'm on top of that. But, I also use the closet to store random stuff. Gifts, things I need to sell, library books, etc. It's a mess. You've inspired me. :-)

    For frugal stuff, I wasn't home for most of the week, but I bought Uber gift cards at our local grocery store, and earned $30 in a store gift card. I use Uber to get to & from the airport for work trips (& personal trips - way cheaper than parking) & will get reimbursed for any work travel. I also picked up a Friday freebie at the store - hummus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What store had the Uber promo? I had gotten some for OD at Christmas from CVS when they had a promo. She doesn't have a car and uses public transportation but sometimes uses Uber.

      The eve access is in my closet. I want to pull everything out of there and go through it all. I haven't done it in 10+ years. Who knows what is back there. I had to do my closet first. I am hoping to keep it neat and not the dumping ground it usually becomes.

      Delete
  2. Hi Mcoia and everyone :) .

    Your daughters prom dress is beautiful and such a good price too. Good to see you are making the most of every available pieces of food in your home to make so many things from as it cuts down on costs so much.

    We also regularly go though our bills to see where we can cut down and just doing the quotes for insurances for our new home in December were an eye opener with variances of around $1100 on house and contents insurance. You can guess we went with the lowest quote we got.

    We are continuing to be good on our low/spend February and have almost caught up with our arrears from buying needed new clothing and a new fan to replace the one that died. We have used mostly additional earned funds from both gardening work DH did and funds from money I earned from selling my homemade goods on the internet as well as allocated budgeted fortnightly funds. Any purchases also came out of money earned too instead of our budget :). We are super happy with our progress so far.

    Our savings last week added up to $161.15 :).

    Blessings -

    - Our lovely neighbour gave us 350g of whiting fillets and around 500g of calamari as her family and boyfriend are avid fishermen.

    Earnings -

    - Made $44.39 from the sale of 2 5 layer luxury cotton eye masks in my eBay shop which I used to purchase a 30 m x 1 mt roll of flyscreen for the home and some fibre washers and o'rings for the inside house taps. We found we had run out of both tap washers and o'rings :o .
    - DH earned $60 from a mowing job and he used his earnings to purchase another 20 mt grey water/sullage hose for the home and put the rest away for our fortnightly splurge budget so we didn't have to take that out of our normal pays.

    Finances -

    - We used money we were in advance on in our splurge budget to top up our home emergency kitty and buy a tin of tyre leak repair foam for the ride on lawnmower tyre. More money that didn't come out of our usual pays that we can save.
    - I listed 10 items on eBay using a free listing and final auction value fee promotion saving $16.50 on usual listing fees.

    Purchases -

    - Bought a 30 x 1 m roll of fibreglass flyscreen, 20 tap o'rings and 20 fibre tap washers on eBay saving $45.12 over buying these in the local hardware store. I paid for this out of money earned from sales in my eBay store.
    - DH purchased another 20 m roll of sullage/grey water hose from the irrigation store saving $27 over buying it in the local hardware stores from money he earned from a gardening job.

    Sewing -

    - I made 3 x plain coloured and 3 x patterned bread bags and another 3 dark coloured 5 layer cotton eye masks for my eBay store as I had sold out of them.

    In the kitchen -

    - Made a 1.02 kg batch of chocolate brownies from our homemade premix saving $55.67 over purchasing them in the local cafe's.
    - Made a single batch of coconut chocolate chip biscuits saving $7.01 over buying them in the local supermarket.
    - Made a loaf of fruit bread in the bread making machine saving $2.87 over purchasing it in the shops. We had a few pieces and froze the rest in bags of 2 in the freezer for future meals.
    - Made 2 loaves of bread in the breadmaker saving $6.98 over buying it in the local shops here.

    Water preservation -

    - Used grey water from our washing machine and grey water from our sullage tank to water ornamental potted plants, star jasmine, mulberry and our mandarin ? tree in the yard.
    - Used saved shower warm up water and dish rinsing water to water potted fruit and herb plants with.

    Hope everyone had a wonderful week :) .

    sewingcreations15 (Lorna).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope it has cooled off by you. The news here was saying how hot part of Australia was last week. That neighbor of your is a great fisherman. That is wonderful that you got more fish. That will really help with the grocery bull. You are baking lots. Homemade is so much better. You had a great week savings wise. Have a frugal week.

      Delete
    2. Hi Mcoia unfortunately we are still getting high temperatures here and yesterday was 37.5 oc and today is going to be a maximum of 40 oc :( . Any work that needs doing we do early in the mornings or later in the evenings as it is too hot to be outside. We are expecting far lesser temperatures of high 20's oc for the coming days so we will do a lot of the needed jobs then.

      Have a great week :).

      sewingcreations15 (Lorna)

      Delete
    3. Good luck. That is very hot. We rarely see those temps in NY.

      Delete
  3. I was always so lucky to be able to make my daughters dresses. It shocks me how much money people spend and then pay me to alter them. I guess I win but I think those poor kids when they have to go out on their own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are very talented. I am trying to learn how to sew on our sewing machine. We got it from craigslist a few years ago. You are saving a fortune by making their dresses.

      Delete
  4. The prom dress is lovely. How lucky you were to be able to use the discount too!
    I realize how cost effective boys can be. We bought one tux and 2 tux shirts , 2 cummerbunds and a vest when the oldest was in high school before his first prom. All 3 sons wore it for all proms and any other social occasion during their college years that required black tie dress. Finally Son3 took it to college to wear when any performance called for a tux. No one knew that same tux made a ton of repeated appearances.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is very cost effective. When my son and nephew where younger we would give my nephew all of my son's clothes that he out grew. My nephew is a year younger then my son. Now they are different builds so it doesn't happen.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Garden Harvest 2020

Dirt

Welcome to my new blog