Frugal Accomplishments

I apologize for the lack of relevant photography....it's been a very busy week and I just haven't had the spare time to take pictures of the free hand towels, the homemade brownies, etc..  Thanks for understanding!

Also, if your name is Sally, go check and see if you won the Choffy drawing - I haven't heard from you yet, and I want to get your name to Terra so she can mail you your prize!

You might remember me mentioning that Husband got a $25 Kmart gift card for transferring a prescription.  I used a little over half of it to get a couple of hand towels for Daughter's bathroom, 3 boxes of cereal, some pet odor eliminator, a water bottle for Husband and a chocolate-pretzel bunny.  The cereal, towels and bunny were all on clearance, plus I had coupons for the cereal.  Purchasing the hand towels and using points from my rewards card got me a $5 discount as well, making them free.

At Target I used the $10 gift card he'd gotten with reward points from a credit card.  I got two packages of muscle rub and four bottles of liquid coffee creamer, along with two light-up candy star wars light sabres that were on clearance.  I recived a $5 gift card for purchasing the muscle rub, and I still have a little bit of the original gift card left.

We don't use shortening, and have switched to lard or coconut oil for the few things where we can't substitute a liquid oil like olive oil.  King Sooper had 4lb. tubs of lard on the overstock shelf for 2.69, a fantastic price.  I picked up two, which I am going to store in the freezer.  I should probably pre-measure it into 1/3 and 1/2 cup portions first.  It would save a lot of time in the future, for certain.


Tallulah Mae and her homemade catnip toys.

I used $18.85 in coupons.  I also got back $1 for a coupon that the cashier refused to take last week, because he was mistaken in regard to store policy.  I contacted the company to verify the policy, printed out their answer, and took the coupon and my receipt the next time I was in the store.  Freebies included some Loreal 'Healthy Look' Hair color and a couple of Beech Nut fruit purees that will go into the snack basket for road trip days.

We used items we had on hand - lumber, nails, wire, hardware cloth, etc. to reinforce the pens where we keep our ducks and chickens.  Sadly...and I have to say, completely unexpectedly, a raccoon was able to get one of our ducks this past week.  It did not get into the pen, and now, it cannot even get a paw into the pen.

We also had to move our Silkie hens to a different place for safety's sake.  The shed they are in now has a concrete floor, which I had just cleaned out.  I was out of straw (because they had found the half bale and spread it everywhere in the bunny barn), but I remembered that I had a near full bag of pine shavings that had been given to me.  I used those instead, which saved a trip to the feed store.  I can wait and go next week now.

We made modifications to items and equipment we had on hand to keep the ducks and chickens separated, yet safe. I took the legs off the homemade nests and put them at floor level since Silkies are not strong flyers.  That will give them three nests to lay eggs in.

I took Daughter to a fun program at the library, which she really enjoyed.  I needed to pick up hold items and return some things, so we made sure to do all that in the same trip.  We got books, music, movies and a Wii game to use for the next week or two.

We stayed home most of this week, which saves fuel and reduces the opportunity and temptation to spend. 


Enchilada Sauce - Easy and tasty!

 For various meals I cooked the following from scratch:  waffles, enchilada sauce(actually, planned, but not yet made, because that meal hasn't come up yet) and brownies.  I also made some egg salad.  Our meals were planned from items we hand on hand plus some fresh items we got on sale.   Leftover chicken from one supper was combined with leftover bacon (I know, there is no such thing as leftover bacon...I should have said 'bacon that I hid from all of us') for the barbecue chicken pizzas on a third night. 

We are still using, and still loving, the snack basket. 

I was gifted some super fantastic coconut peanut butter.  Best. stuff. ever.  I think I have had some on toast for breakfast every day since it arrived. 

Fresh pineapples were .98 each this week.  I got one at the beginning of the sale, and another at the end of the sale.  They are a family favorite and we are really enjoying them.

I earned $6 taking surveys.  I'm also currently scoring standardized test essays in my spare time, plus I did some subbing at the library.  Also, two duck programs.  Busy much!

We used firewood to supplement heat (we are still getting snow!) and dried our clothes on hangers and drying racks.  I used homemade laundry soap and the free Gain scent beads sample this week.

Room for Improvement:

Sonic - Happy Hour - just one item, one time, but still.  I spent my own money for it - not grocery money or anything like that.

I should have baked bread and made pizza dough this week.  I had spent more than the fair share of grocery $$ early in the month, but I'm challenging myself to stay within the $80 a month budget right now.  We were out of bread, and I got a loaf of whole wheat French bread for $1.11, but I could have made bread at home.  I picked up flour tortillas to use for pizza crusts - $1.28, and we will only use 4 or 5 and there are 10.  My reasons/excuses for not doing it were that I'd need to mill flour and Husband is on nights...so I'd have to remember to do it at night, and by the time I realized that, we were out of bread, and I was, frankly, not feeling like dealing with all of it.  Part of my poor attitude about baking is that I've been spending my spare time, as much as possible, scoring those standardized test essays.  It pays well and it's temporary, so I try to cram in as much scoring as I can do accurately and reponsibly (still keeping up with all my other stuff, kinda sorta).  So, I should have, but I didn't.  Then again, $80 a month (and freezer and pantry, which are still kinda full) is a pretty daring grocery budget, yes?  That said, I suspect that this month is going to be more like $85, which is still not bad.

How are you doing?  What have you done this past week to save and make do?