Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

I don't know who might need this today, but please enjoy a picture of a sunning cat.

When it comes to money saving things we’ve done around here this week, pretty much everything done was on my husband’s end.  But, I’ll add a few things for myself to make me feel better.

1.  The Equinox, after sitting for so long, had some hiccups that needed to be fixed.  The mornings here are still cold and the heater was just blowing cold air even though the car had enough coolant.  He was just about ready to replace the thermostat when the guy at the auto parts store backed up his idea to try and flush the heater core first to get rid of clogs and bubbles to see if that was the problem.  My husband flushed the heater core over the weekend and the heater is now working like it should.  Not buying a thermostat definitely saved us money.

2.  The car was also stuttering on and off when driving.  Both he and I figured it was some water in the fuel tank, potentially, from condensation as it sat.  Ran some HEET through the fuel tank and it seems to have cleared up, so at least we were on the right track there.

3.  The old fridge we moved back into the kitchen has had a few problems (because, of course).  First the evaporator fan died and killed the fridge’s ability to move air, so it got hot.  Cue my mother-in-law, once again coming to the rescue with coolers and ice until my husband could come home early and we could go and track down the part we needed (thanks again, Stacey!).   We replaced the fan, which fixed the air movement issues, and then it started being way too cold and freezing food (it is sitting at 24 degrees right now without me opening the door to keep it warmer).  It seems to be that same flap that probably froze shut when the fridge died over a year ago is now sticking open and leaving an open highway to the freezer.  We ordered a replacement part and it should be in today.  I feel really blessed every day the Lord fixed me up with a man who knows how to fix things.  Especially at times like these.

As an aside, just a quick thank you to those who have ordered through my Amazon link.  The associate fees help, especially at times like these, to buy repair parts or other things we need.  Thank you again.  I appreciate it.

4.    My life has been revolving around working on getting Alvah straightened out.  We started him on an OCD med that will work fine with his other two medications and helps with reducing violent behaviors by doing things with dopamine production in the body.  For the first time in years I am optimistic about this.  So far he’s tolerated taking the med great (it is a VERY bitter pill) and while the medication is a slow build type we are noticing a difference in his behaviors on it and when he's really bad, that medicine will calm him down pretty darned fast (like this morning when he was really bad and unstable...it has been a rough few days with him).  If we can get him stable it would be such a tremendous weight off both my husband’s and my shoulders.

5.  We got Alvah’s lab results back and the take aways were that he’s low on iron (not scary low, thank goodness) and he’s REALLY low on Vitamin D (he’s at 7 when the minimum they like to see is 50…not good).  Since he won’t take pills or chew gummies getting vitamins in him is a challenge.  I found a flavorless liquid drop on Amazon that gives you 6000 units of Vitamin D in each drop, so have been putting that in his drink.  Our pediatrician also gave us some “flavorless” iron powder to try (it isn’t flavorless, but the flavor is VERY slight, like almost not there).  Alvah, of course can taste it and is not a fan, but I’m going to work at it until I can get it down him.  It is such a small amount of powder that I know I can do it.

6.   I made dentist appointments for my daughter and I on the same day within an hour of each other.  By accident.  Which is an accidental frugal win since this will save me a trip.  I’ll take happy accidents to save money at this point.

7.  We got some freebies via coupons of late.  The latest one was some free enchiladas.  Never had this brand before.  Hopefully they are good.

8.  I looked up a few tutorials on YouTube to figure out how to do a few things and they really helped to clarify things when we needed it.

9.  My husband was able to pull up repair manuals online to figure out how to troubleshoot our fridge.

10.  I turned a few bananas that were nearly gone into banana bread.

11.  I made meals at home and was able to make bread, which was a blessing.  It has been rough the last bit with how Alvah was to get anything accomplished.

12.  My husband found an 8 1/2 inch cast iron skillet, a pretty hefty one, at a yard sale.  It was rusty but he bought it anyway, figuring we could clean it up and recure it (I've done it before with my cast iron griddle I got for free once...it is not my favorite job, but doable).  He took a grinder to it to get the pitted parts out and got rid of the rust.  I have then put it through the curing process twice now to make sure it has a good cure on it before we use it.  Please excuse the ragamuffin curing job on the pan.  I always try so hard to make the oil as thin as possible when curing a pan and I ALWAYS seem to put it on too thick and it leaves drip type patterns.  Bright side it does feel right and not super sticky, so at least I didn't make it super thick by accident.

13.  My husband took the vacuum apart and cleaned it (boy did it need it).  

14.  I looked up a tutorial on how to oil my sewing machine and got that bit of maintenance done (my manual is around here somewhere but I misplaced it…looking up on YouTube was easier).

15.  I used up canned goods that were getting close to the use by date to just keep food rotating correctly through the pantry.

16.  When the fridge started freezing things, I made sure to use up fresh produce as quickly as possible so we could get them used before they froze.  For the most part it worked.  We lost the head of cabbage I bought as it froze and thawed and was too gross to use, but was able to save some salad and a cantaloupe I got and I just threw some fresh asparagus I had bought for Father's Day straight into the freezer when it froze so it wouldn't get super soggy when thawed.  

17.  I scoped out a project to tackle while my daughter is on vacation from work for a few weeks coming up since we won't have to worry about driving her to work and things.  I am hoping to clean and organize my bedroom closet as you can barely move through it (I'll try to remember to take a before picture, but please don't judge me too harshly...we have no linen closets to really speak of in this house and with Alvah we go through a TON of bedding, so I quickly run out of places to stack blankets and comforters.

I know Frugal Friday is early this week, but I figured it was best.  It's been a rough week with the kid, and while I'm hopeful it will get better, I know too well that you can't depend on hope.

Enjoy!

What's For Dinner: This Week's Menu

When it comes to dinner this week, I'm only going to go through the menu till Wednesday and then redo the menu later in the week, mainly because I have fresh produce we just got with our grocery pick up this time and I want to make sure I use it up as it needs to be used up and then re-evaluate how things are surviving later in the week.

I do need to use my poor sourdough starter for something this week to revive it after it's crazy existence this week, but I'm not sure what I want to make yet, so we might have a random bread item with dinner this week at some point.

Some verdicts on things I tried the last bit.  The slow cooker gumbo was good.  I did add a bit of gumbo file to it, because I had it, but otherwise made it as written and it turned out well.  I let everyone add their own degrees of heat with the cajun seasoning at the table (daughter doesn't like spicy), and it worked out well doing that.

I was actually able to stick with the menu plan last week, more's the miracle with how crazy things got.  So, hopefully this week will work out well, too.

So, let's get to the menu for the next few days!

Menu till Thursday 6/18/26

Sunday:  BBQ ribs, mashed potatoes (freezer), coleslaw (leftovers) cheese biscuits (freezer).

Monday: Mediterranean Chicken (I'm just going to make the chicken and forgo the sheet pan elements),  mashed potatoes (leftover mashed potatoes) with gravy and green beans.

Tuesday:  Baked fish (salmon or halibut...will take vote among family), rice and salad

Wednesday:  pork chops, applesauce, rolls

 And there you go folks.  Our menu for the next bit.  

Enjoy!

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

It has been one heck of a week.  We started out on Sunday.  Since February the lower compartment of the fridge had not acted right.  In February (one month after the one year warranty ran out) it suddenly went too warm and I lost some food.  We thought the coils had froze due to me inadvertently blocking a vent, so my husband defrosted the coils and it seemed to fix it, but we turned it down to the “freezer” setting to keep it at 34 to 38 degrees.  

I am blessed that I really did not trust the fridge compartment after that so tried to keep the items to a minimum in it because Sunday rolled around and I opened the fridge to check it (did that every day after February) to find the fridge at 20 degrees and everything frozen solid.

So I spent the day, when I really wanted to rest and try to get over this cold, processing frozen potatoes and onions.  I turned the onions into frozen diced onions for the freezer.  Got the russets peeled and cut up (sorry knives) while frozen and managed to turn them into mashed potatoes for the freezer.  

The Yukon gold potatoes I diced up, threw them on some baking sheets, coated them in oil and seasoning salt and baked them till crispy to turn into diced hash brown potatoes.  I had some mixed mini potatoes I had bought to make roasted potatoes in the oven.  

Instead I threw some in with the pork roast I had put aside for dinner in the crock pot and the rest I put in with the russet potatoes to boil until tender.  I removed them before mashing the potatoes and put them aside to cool and freeze in big chunks.  These I’m going to try hitting with some oil and putting in the air fryer to crisp up with dinner one night.  Hopefully it works.

Monday rolls around with us thinking we just needed a temp sensor for the bottom compartment of the fridge and we’d hopefully be ok.  Nope.  The fridge went completely belly up and everything just quit.  Thank goodness my mother in law had some spare coolers and bought us some ice to go in them.  Because of her I did not lose all of the food in that fridge.  Luckily the freezer was small in that thing so I was able to get most of everything refrozen before we lost it.

We managed to get the 2400.00 paperweight out onto the deck and we wheeled the old fridge back in to see if my husband could repair it (after I deep cleaned 18 months of gunk out and off of it).  He took off a panel he had researched on the fridge, messed with a flap and put it all back together and it is working fine.  We are keeping an eye on it, though.

Our goal, for now, is to fix the new fridge and sell it for what we can get for it.  I’m kind of done with new fridges at this point.  I cried a lot of tears on Monday with that fridge as 2400.00 is a lot of money to just burn on a lemon like that, especially for us.

The cherry on top of the crap sundae was my husband’s car potentially blew something major, major, on the way home from work on Monday, too and we are trying to figure out if it is worth fixing or not.

It was not a good week.

The frugal stuff I accomplished in a nutshell…

1.  Processed frozen onions and got put back into freezer to stop loss.

2.  Processed 5 lbs russet potatoes into mashed potatoes to avoid loss.

3.  Processed 5 lbs Yukon good potatoes into diced hash browns to avoid loss.

4.  Processed bag of mini potatoes into future roast potatoes and potatoes to cook with a roast to avoid loss.

5.  By checking fridge and freezer was able to keep loss to a minimum.  Total things lost was some salad dressing, my bag of chard that was left from last year’s garden (that was depressing to lose) and some frozen bananas that had defrosted and slimed all over the freezer shelf.  Could have been much worse.

6.  Was able to fix and utilize old fridge without having to throw more money away trying another alternative.

7.  Was able to save the rest of the food by transferring it to another freezer or to some coolers with ice (thanks again, Stacey!).

8.  Husband went online with Whirlpool and at least got some repair manuals for the new fridge out of them.

9.  Am using up perishable food from the fridge that died as quickly as possible because I know what happened will definitely shorten its lifespan.

10. Renewed daughter’s library books over the phone to save us a trip to town in the middle of everything.

11.  A friend of ours had given us a countertop ice maker he didn't need anymore.  My husband insisted on keeping it, even though I didn't see the point at the time to keep it, and it floated around our den for a few years.  When I redid the den, I put it on top of the bar, thinking we might use it downstairs someday if we ever got to a point where we could entertain people again around here.  Well, it sure came in handy when the fridge died as it makes ice a LOT faster than an ice cube tray and when you have an autistic kid that will only drink his preferred beverage with ice...it means a lot to have that handy.  

Glad my husband made me not get rid of it or store it in our storage shed, as trying to find it would have been a nightmare.

12.  Since my husband got his car, the old Equinox has been sitting in our backyard for years.  I refused to let my husband sell it, which now he sees the logic in it now that his car is having major problems.  My daughter and I both loved that car, it was 100% paid for, and I wanted to keep it as it was still a darned good car and could be a good car for our daughter someday (my husband's new car got WAYYYYYY better fuel mileage than the Equinox, which was the entire reason we purchased it).  My husband got a new battery for it this week and fired her up and she's running just fine.  Desperately needs an oil change and a massive detail cleaning on the inside from sitting, but overall...running great.  Glad to see her back in action again, honestly.

And there you go folks.  Our week in a nutshell.   Onto other things.

Enjoy.

What's for Dinner: This Week's Menu

First off, I wanted to post an update about our guardianship hearing for Alvah.  It was yesterday morning and it went great.  We are now, officially (well waiting on the rubber stamp from the higher court, but that is not a big deal from what the judge was telling us), Alvah's guardians.  So, yay!  We are now, again, the guardians of our (nearly) adult son in the state's eyes.  I am SO relieved it is done.  The lawyer representing the state and the rest of the court staff were very nice and tried to put Armina and I at ease (Armina is going to be a co-guardian too, in case of emergencies and all that), which was good because Armina was looking like they were going to throw her in prison for stumbling over her words.

When it came to last week I had one "punt" day where I actually had my husband pick up dinner for me and him because my daughter brought home a bad cold from work and, of course, I caught it because Alvah caught it and he doesn't cover his mouth when he coughs or sneezes.  But, overall, other than groceries and gas giving me a facial tick (oh my GOSH the cost of things right now...yeesh!!!), I did alright on the menu plan front.  I did not make gumbo last week because I made grilled sausages on Thursday (per the optional plan) and then decided we really wanted to try the Creamy Gnocchi and Sausage Soup since the daughter was sick and wanted to try it.  I have to say it was really good, but I did have to add a few things to it.  I added the entire pound of bulk sausage I had browned up because the recipe was a bit bland with just the 1/2 pound and then I also added a bit of chicken bouillon powder to it as well to deepen the flavor of the chicken broth I used.  Overall, though, I thought it was a good recipe.

I did not get a chance, again, to try the salmon piccata, but I did copy the recipe down so I have it for when I'm feeling better and can make it.

Sticking to some type of plan the next two weeks is important.  Between Alvah's recovery from his dental surgery and all of the costs we incurred from that, things running out or breaking and suddenly needing to be replaced (ugh) and eating out yesterday...the amount of money that I borrowed from savings the last two weeks is AWFUL and needs to be replaced before we have no savings left, so we have very little left in my husband's paycheck the next two weeks (it is mortgage week, which is always a tight one anyway, but having to take a bunch of money out of the paycheck to repay savings makes it even rougher).  I'm determined to save what we have left for gas (especially since I plan on getting Armina out driving more), so making everything at home is VERY important the next couple of weeks if I can do it.

So, onto this week's menu!

Our weather went from the 50's to the high 70's yesterday, which was one heck of a jump, and we ended up just trying to stay cool last night.  It is supposed to remain in the 70's and sunny the rest of the week pretty much (not complaining as we haven't seen this much sun in a LONG time), so my plan is to try and get dinner done earlier in the day and just be able to reheat it to save having to use the stove much.  In the case of the Eggs Benedict for tonight, other than poaching the eggs, the rest of the meal is simple, so it shouldn't heat up the house much.

Menu for the Week 6/4/26 - 6/11/26

Thursday:  Eggs Benedict, salad, fruit  

Friday: Slow Cooker Gumbo (I'm going to use this recipe) but add some gumbo file to the dish and make my own roux and cajun seasoning for it and omitting the okra since I don't have any..using what I have). 

Saturday:  Pizza (I'm going to use up the crusts I made and stuck in the freezer earlier), breadsticks (for Alvah) 

Sunday:  Slow Cooker Pork Roast with potatoes and carrots 

Monday:  Balsamic Chicken (I am going to use this recipe), but use chicken instead of pork...this is a great recipe by the way...made it years ago and have kept it in my recipe file ever since :).   Focaccia, canned peaches, on the side. 

Tuesday:  Teriyaki pork (use leftover pork roast, make teriyaki sauce and just reheat the pork in the sauce...I think it will work) rice, miso soup. 

Wednesday:  Burgers, chips or potato salad (depending on how the son is doing)

And there you go, folks.  My tentative menu plan for the week.  The way I'm feeling, I'm going to try and keep it simple and just try and rest and recover from this cold so it doesn't get worse (sure as HECK don't want to afford medical bills right now).

Enjoy!