Money Saving Monday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

I'm proud of myself.  TECHNICALLY I'm only a day late in posting this since I posted so late last week.  Hey, I'm counting it *laugh*.

Life has been insanely busy of late.  We had Alvah's psychology check up last week and his doctor was happy with how he was doing so we don't go back for another three months.  Therapy last week was a huge screwy mess as the owner/boss was on vacation, was the only one with access to the computers and the staff had no idea who was scheduled for what and when.  We went for Alvah's first appointment last week and they had to scramble to find a therapist to take him because he wasn't even on the schedule.  When his second appointment of the week rolled around, I called the office that morning and found out that he was on the schedule...completely at the wrong times (yes, times, they had him in at multiple appointments) and he was double booked with another kiddo on his one therapist's schedule so she asked if we could just cancel Alvah for that day.  I was okay with that as we had a lot going on last week and I could use the reprieve of one more thing to do.  I finally sat down and thought about things as Alvah had to get up early about 85% of the time last week and decided that this week, with no appointments looming over our heads, that I was just going to cancel therapy this week and try and give the guy an actual summer break for this week. 

Next week we start therapy four days a week for two and a half hours at a shot and then the week after we stack that on top of summer school starting so the guy is going to be in therapy and summer school essentially an entire school day for three days a week.  This also means an insane amount of pick ups, drop offs and getting him to eat lunch in between therapy and summer school, so I'm going to be running around like mad trying to get things done around his schedule for the next month.  It will be worth it if  he doesn't lose any skills this summer, or better yet makes some forward progress.  I just feel bad for the guy as it's going to be intense and I doubt he's going to like it.

I made an appointment to get our sewer pumped this week as well, so it'll be good not having to run to therapy as the septic pumping outfit couldn't really give us an exact time they'll show up.  It is on a therapy day so at least we'll be here when they arrive.  I'm praying that they'll be able to pump the septic as we have a camper that is in the way of them getting really far back into the yard on the one side of the house and the other side they can drive down into the yard but the husband is worried they'll stick the truck if they try it.  The gal who scheduled us made a note for them to bring extra hose and was totally confident that they'll be able to get it done, so let us pray.  We're overdue to get it done and I'd like to get it done before it becomes a problem especially with all of the things that went down the drain, literally, with the earthquake.

So, other than that, I was super busy (and super sore as a result) this week, so let's get to that!

1.  Shopping went super awesome this week.  We didn't have a lot to get this week with the exception of boy food and milk, so I ran into the store to get those things and while I was there I couldn't BELIEVE the deal I ran into.  They had 3 lb tubes of hamburger on reduced for 6.99 each on manager special and THEN the tubes were marked down 50% off!!!  They came to 3.49 each!!!  I grabbed four as getting hamburger for about a dollar a pound?  I couldn't beat that if I tried.  Honestly, if I'd had more room in the freezer I would have bought more, so I'm kind of glad we didn't have the room in the freezer as we went 3 weeks in between pay periods this time, so money is going to be tight for about a month to recover from that, unfortunately.  I'm trying to be really careful to keep the loan monies as loan monies and not have to borrow from them to keep the trains running on time as the loan is supposed to be used for only certain things and I think that it's important to stick to that.

2.  The super big project I did this week was getting the pantry rearranged and BOY was it an undertaking that took a lot of thought, a lot of effort and a lot of days where the den, bedroom closet and pantry were completely torn apart.  God bless my husband for just rolling with things as I worked on that because that meant that the son had run of the upstairs and it showed by the end of the day.

3.  The first thing I did was to finally muck out and try to reorganize the bedroom closet.  It hadn't really been done since the earthquake.  My husband and I were kind of in the "out of sight, out of mind" phase with the closet as we had so many other things to do, but I had a plan and I needed the closet to do it.  So, I rearranged the closet, got things put back up and put back away and then I grabbed a big Rubbermaid dresser we had in the closet that I had used for years to store various items and I emptied that out to get space (we put the Rubbermaid dresser into the daughter's closet where her dollhouse used to be to get her more storage space...she loves it :).  I then emptied off one of the wire shelves in the pantry (into the den) and moved the wire shelf into my closet.  Then it was a lot of crouching and crawling back and forth under the stairs as I grabbed all of the long term food storage cans and put them onto the shelf in my closet.  The pantry was just too damp to store the cans long term and I was worried they would rust, so I think they'll be a lot happier in their new home.  I'm hoping to store a bunch more emergency type of supplies on the shelf (crank flash lights, sleeping bags, etc) and maybe even store a few blankets and things on the top shelf on top of the boxes.

4.  Next up, I took the buckets from underneath the shelves in the pantry that were by the door and pulled them out and then started stacking up all of the boxes of canned goods I had (I'll go more into all of that later on with the shopping goals post I'm working on...it gets complicated).  I then took the other wire shelf I had in the pantry and put different things on it (since the big #10 cans of food storage were now in my bedroom closet) and then just generally started rearranging things a bit better.  My goal was to make it so I had to duck down under the stairs less, mainly because I'm getting older and my back is protesting (and my knees a lot more) every time I have to spend any significant amount of time ducking under the low part of the pantry. 

The buckets of flours, rice and sugar I put right by the door so I have easy access to them so I can refill my kitchen containers easier (the cat is sitting on top of the front ones).

5.  I put as many home canned goods into boxes and labeled them so I'll know what I have and what needs to be used up.  Unfortunately, I'm probably going to have to use them up rather quickly.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably going to have to replace the majority of my mason jars as it seems that the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks have caused more damage than I at first thought (I'm checking the jars pretty much daily anymore).  I'm finding more and more jars that the seals suddenly fail and then when I check the lid and the rim of the jar I find that the rim of the jar has tiny small chips in it, hidden by the lid.  In some cases it seems like the adhesive on the lids manages to suck the lid down and hold the chips in place (for a while anyway) and then the jars fail.  So far I've still got some jars that seem to be holding up, but I'm not sure how long I can count on them to do that, so I'm using up anything with a good seal as quickly as possible, checking the jars for damage when empty (I'm even finding small hairline cracks in jars and things, so I wouldn't want to put them back in a canner for sure...it's depressing) and moving on from there.  So, at least by not canning this year I'll have time to start rebuilding the amount of canning jars I have and just start from scratch again next year, hopefully.  I'll have to start small and build up from there, but I've done it before, so I have faith I can do it again.

You'll notice the cats decided to help me with the photo taking this time.  Since they would NOT stay out of the shots, I gave up and just let them photo bomb.  Enjoy that ;).

So, yeah up above there is what you see when you walk into the pantry. 

This is where the first wire shelf used to be on the back wall.  I put some emergency water storage by the pressure tank (which I'll rotate out on a regular basis, and I'd like to get a few more packages of water on top of some actual gallon jugs as well).  The Rubbermaid containers house things like dehydrated potato type of sides, pasta, baking mix...things I don't want mice even THINKING about getting into. 

So, here's the other shelf as it sits now.  I've got a bit more stuff I'm hoping gets here in one piece from Amazon, so I' have a few holes in the shelf and I plan on canning sauerkraut this year no matter what (I'm blowing through it and need to start more soon), so I made sure to keep enough room open for those jars.  The Rubbermaid container by the shelf actually pretty much holds just lightweight pasta (manicotti noodles and such) that takes up a bunch of room so it's out of the way for when I occasionally need them.  I also decided to store my super cheap cooking wine down in the pantry so it stays decent tasting to put into things like beef bourgignon. 

On the wire shelves right now I have a 12 pack of BBQ sauce, applesauce, tomato sauce (I'm trying out Amazon's brand because they had it on sale super cheap when I ordered it...believe it or not those jars are plastic...blew my mind), grape juice (I got huge family sized Welch's grape juice containers for 3.14 on clearance, so I stocked up) and a few home canned goods.  The big box contains canning supplies.  A few flats of jars I picked up a bit ago, some spare rings I had, etc, in the hopes I can try to keep things somewhat organized.

This area got a bit more built up than I would have liked, but the cats still have access to the lowest point under the stairs and I have a nice gap around the one wire shelf I have left so the cats have in and out access to the outside wall, so here's hoping between them and the steel wool I won't have problems with rodents from now on.

6.  The condiment shelf remains where it was, a bunch of Tupperware and things to put in here for storage and I put the one box of chunky Musselman's applesauce I bought last year in here too to later use as supplemental apple pie filling.  We went to eat it and it was literally like eating a finely diced apple...I couldn't really distinguish any "sauce" in the applesauce.  None of us were overly fond of the consistency, but I thought it would make a really nice, finely diced, apple pie filling.  I made pie with it a few weeks ago and everyone liked it, so that's how I'm going to use it up.

7.  I harvested rhubarb this week.  Basically the only thing I'm seeing myself harvesting this year as the moose killed as many raspberry bushes as they could get their big old teeth into last year and I have very short tiny little bushes now.

8.  You'll notice I didn't harvest a bunch of rhubarb.  That is because I had a plan for these stalks.  I had some heavy cream left over from a recipe I made a couple of months ago (yes, months...heavy cream actually lasts for quite a while in the fridge :) and realized I needed to use it up, so I decided to use about 2/3 of it and some rhubarb to make Rhubarb Cream Scones.  I made a double batch (I actually made two batches in different bowls to make sure they'd come out well and just measured everything twice) so I'd have one batch to freeze for use a little later on.  They turned out awesome and so, so yummy!  I'm actually snacking on one as I type this...excuse the crumbs on the keyboard *laugh*.

9.  I realized my old rag mop was on its last legs, but I decided it needed to do one more job for me before it got thrown into the trash.  I used it to mop the pantry floor and made sure I went over it twice to get everything nice and sanitary and get all of the broken glass up out of the knooks and crannies as well as anything nasty and/or sticky (of which there was plenty hidden, believe me). 

And so, with a bit of a salute, I put the rag mop out onto the deck to dry and go off to it's final resting place.  I wish I could have recycled the handle, but it was a one piece mop, so the head of the mop was attached, hardcore, and wasn't going to be separated from the handle.

I'll go more into what we have been up to in another post (trust me it'll make sense when you read it), but yeah, that's a bit of what I was personally up to this last week.  The pantry is pretty much done at this point and I have to say it feels good to be done.  Now I can clean up the den with all of the plastic and cardboard in it from me organizing things (doh!).

How about you?  How did your week go?