Downside was that I left some peas on the vine hoping that they would dry out and I could collect the seeds only to find them completely overtaken by powdery mildew. I cracked them open to find mold inside with bits of things that used to resemble peas. So much for that hope. It's just been too wet this year for that I guess. Bright side, by keeping up on top of the other peas as they grew I didn't lose any peas except for the ones I was trying to get to grow and harvest seeds from.
This week has seen me TRYING to rest my arm as much as I can, but unfortunately that didn't get to happen as much as I would have liked. Mainly because of a sick husband who couldn't do much once he dragged himself home from work and a son who is JUST sick enough still to make the Grinch look like a cheerful guy. At least we were able to go out today and go for a drive in the sun (the blessed live giving sun, of which I was so happy to see!) and that cheered him up for a bit.
So, onto the money saving endeavors for the week!
1. I had to go to the bank yesterday to deposit my husband's paycheck so while I was out I stopped off at Fred Meyer and got some of my freebies from Freebie Friday. My friend gave me the ones she had as well, so I grabbed those too. Fred Meyer was out of the Carmex that was part of the Freebie Friday deal, so I asked if they could possibly substitute out the one type of Carmex they had left that was the same price. The manager agreed and just gave the chap stick to me for free instead. I was happy they were willing to do that as chap stick is something my daughter especially just blows through during the winter months.
I was on Fred Meyer's site last Friday to load the Yoplait coupon and found a coupon on there for a free goodness knows bar. I actually spent more time than I should have looking for them, but finally found them and grabbed one. I'll have to eat it while my son isn't around since it has peanuts in it, but it still sounds like it'll taste good.
I also stopped off at Carrs, now that we had this thing called "money" and got an additional gallon of milk with the in-ad coupon. At the register a coupon printed off for another free Starbucks drink. It doesn't expire until November, so that'll be a nice treat for me when I go shopping one day :).
2. Well, via my previous post I only spent about 1/2 of my reduced grocery budget on groceries this week. I also, through CAREFUL saving, already had the money set aside for my Amazon.com order to go through this month, so I didn't need to cancel any of that due to my financial "whoops" and just transferred the money from one account to the other to cover it. I then waited until today, after the final "you can't mess with your order anymore and anything further will go onto next month" to put together some of my order for next month so I didn't feel like I was parting with the price of a small child all in one month. I like to do it this way when I have things I know I'll need to buy because then I can just pop over to my Subscribe and Save screen to see if anything has gone on super discount during the month so I can re-order and cancel my higher priced items and get everything at rock bottom prices (I'm so so cheap that way. Even if it goes down .50 I'm on it in a heartbeat *laugh*).
3. I finished two Christmas gifts this week using things I already had around the house (more on that later :).
4. We went out today to get some sun and to get my son french fries (he hasn't been eating a lot since he got sick) and while we were out we stopped off at the used store. I found they were having a sale on clothing where a certain tag color was .50 each. I found a bunch of shirts that still had the tags on them, a new dressy trench coat that will also work great as a Spring/fall coat (which is great because my one coat fits tight in the shoulders, thus is hard for me to get in and out of right now and my other coat has holes and things), some jeans for my son in the next size up and a swim suit top for my daughter in the next size up. My husband also bought a couple of tools they had. Total spent: 4.50. I love sales :).
5. My son's recliner broke this week and my husband was just too sick to deal with it. I looked at it and realized that a piece of spring steel had broken and told my husband that I thought we could just re-bend a new piece from it because it was long enough. My husband thought the steel would just break instead of bend, but I decided (when he wasn't around to lecture me *bwahahaha*) to give bending it a shot anyway. It worked, although I did beat up my cheapy needle nose pliers a bit bending that stiff of a piece of steel with them. I don't know how long the fix will last because I really need to remove the entire piece and then re-bend it so the pieces are longer and fit better, but hey for now it's working and that's good enough for me!
6. My daughter got invited to a friend's birthday party today (actually she got invited to two, but we decided to let her go to the one where we knew the parents, it was nearby and we could just drop her off and pick her up later as my husband and I are both still pretty out of it) and I was kind of scrambling on what to give. I ended up pulling out a basic leggo block kit (my daughter's friend loves leggos) that I had gotten on a super sale around Christmastime, shoved it into a recycled gift bag and off she went. I'm just hoping her friend doesn't realize that she is giving him another kit exactly like the one she got him for Christmas, but it was what we could afford right now.
7. I got my electric bill in the mail and due to the lack of need to run the air conditioner the last month I got to see a 50.00 reduction in the bill (yay!). This will be a nice lull in the storm of electric bills as the way the weather is going we're definitely going to be firing up the electric heat sometime soon.
8. I was able to harvest another four cups of peas from my plants before I pulled them. So, processing peas is on the agenda again. I still can't get over how well they did this year! I'm hoping to plant bush beans or runner beans next year if I can find the right growing season beans. See, as soon as your garden is done for the year start planning the next year's. It'll see you through the winter months ;).
9. I repaired some of my daughter's toys this week with the great wonder that is super glue.
10. I started work on next week's menu plan, which definitely needed to happen.
So, there's some of my frugal adventures this week. How about you? How did you do?
I was unfrugal, I hit the 50% off then the 70% off dollar spot stuff at target, and I made myself put stuff back, but still spent too much. And here I plan to go tomorrow or Monday to hit another sale, spending around $35. I don't know what's going on with me. It's like I have the spending bug. The threat of christmas maybe. Ahyway, the stuff I got It will go for my husband's classroom, and some gifts though. I also found these jars, about as tall as a quart mason jar but very fat, I bought them all, possibly for the k7tchen, or to fill for gifts if they won't work for me.
ReplyDeleteMy husband did bring home a ton of hot dogs and buns for free though, so we've eaten them two nights now, and a bunch will get put in the freezer.
Our water and electric were not too bad this month, for which I am grateful. I thought they would be higher.
A little sad the weekend is almost over. Tomorrow we drop our van off to check the transmission on it, Tues back to work for me, and prep for the little guy and the juggling and worry over it all! Hopefully in a few weeks, it's not a big deal anymore to me. I'm hoping the little extra money makes me feel better about it.
I'm pulling for you on the little guy doing well and you enjoying your new job. Let me know how it goes for you :).
DeleteFunny you should write about your daughter being invited to a friend's birthday party. My daughter has been informed that a friend intends to invite her to her birthday party later this month...a sleepover nonetheless. She rarely gets invited to anything, and this was the first week of school, too! So happy for her.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I have time to plan out a gift. Apparently her friend loves Harry Potter, so that's super helpful. I am planning on making her an embroidered pillow, like the ones I made for my daughter and niece last Christmas. I have all the supplies already, just need to plan out my time to make it! One unique gift that no one else will give her and super inexpensive coming up!!!
Have you considered putting away the gum and chap stick for Christmas stocking stuffer items? I'm already starting to gather things like that for Christmas. It makes it much easier on the pocket book later to fill those stocking with little items I've picked up slowly for really great prices. By the way, can't wait to see those gifts you made!
So glad you were able to pick up some clothes and such for only $4.50 OOP. Nice score on the trench coat for $0.50! Where those shirts with the tags on them for you as well? It's so nice to get some new clothes for yourself every once in a while, especially when they are only $0.50 each item. Great shopping, Erika!
Sounds like you had a really good week, despite the sick family members. Hope next week is just as good and everyone feels better too!
I'm so happy to hear about your daughter! I can imagine how excited you are that she's getting social interaction down so well that she's finally making friends. The life of a kid on the spectrum can be so terribly lonely. Glad to see she's getting some uppers to her school year already =D.
DeleteThanks for the advice on the gum and the chap stick for stocking stuffers. That did not occur to me to do at all. My kids don't like gum, probably because by the time they came along my husband and I didn't chew it, so they just developed different tastes in the candy department, but the chap stick will DEFINITELY be going into my daughter's stocking for Christmas. The gum I'm going to put aside in a pile with some other things to donate to the food bank and the other charity drives around Christmas. Just because we can't use it as a stocking stuffer doesn't mean someone else can't :).
Thanks for the well wishes on the coming week. I'm hoping it goes well as I have about three gifts I'm HOPING to work on and make this week and we have the fall festival to go to as well, so I'm praying it all goes well :).
Erika, another idea for the gum is to use it as part of a gift for nieces and nephews. Surely 2 of them like chewing gum, and it's an easy add-on to trow in with any gift you make. After all, if it was free, why not use it for gift giving?
DeleteHmmm...I'll have to think on the giving it to the nieces and nephews. I try to keep giving of junk food like that to a minimum, because I'm honestly not up on what the parents in the family allow their kids to have or not to have in the way of candy. I'm probably going to make my one nephew a tray of brownies or something, though, so maybe I'll gift his brother's some gum to go with their gifts *laugh*.
DeleteI spent the afternoon cutting out coupons then headed to Kroger. The total was $189 before coupons then $106 after all the discounts. The receipt said I saved 47%. I heard the lady behind me gasp when the clerk gave me the final total. Also, I used my Kroger credit card and will earn more points plus I will do the survey to earn 50 points toward a gasoline purchase. It was time consuming but definitely worth it. I also got the lip balm, yogurt and gum but they were out of the candy bars. I bought a year's worth of sugar since it was only $.99 and six months worth of the cheese also at $.99.
ReplyDeleteI arrived home and my husband said the hot water heater is going out. So all the money saved will now be spent toward a new one. It seems you can't win for losing.
Jeannie
Nice work on the coupons! It always feels awesome when things work out that way.
DeleteAnd boo on the water heater. Have you had your husband drain it out completely? Sometimes that'll remove the sediment and crap that gets built up in it and give you more life to the water heater. There's also a rod that you can replace (can't remember the name) that will add loads of life onto your water heater and costs a fraction of what a new water heater would cost you. I'll have to ask my husband what the name of the rod is as I can't think of it right now, but you might want to google it and see what you can find :).
Love this blog! Sounds like you had a good week. Can't believe that your temperatures are almost freezing! I went for a walk on lunch today and came back to work and stuck my head in the freezer, I was so hot.
ReplyDeleteOne of the frugal things I did this week was to make some Peach Pie Moonshine, as I was inspired by you to do so for Christmas gifts. Turned out great, and when I posted about it on fb, there was a clamour for them, so I know they'll be popular as gifts! I used leftover peach schnapps that we have, as well as a gift bottle of vodka that was gifted to us by my sister, so the only OPP expenses that I had was about $2.50 for the peaches and peach juice. Not bad for 3 gifts!
Awesome! Cheap gifts are always good :).
DeleteYeah, freezing temperatures are a bit early this year, unfortunately by about three weeks or so. Not happy about it, but my husband assures me that freezing temps in September have happened a lot through the years (he was born and raised in Alaska, so I suppose he should know). Hopefully it stays somewhat warm for a little while long so snow will be less likely. After the first initial freeze we've been having lows in the 40's at night and highs in the upper 50's to lower 60's, so hopefully snow holds off until I can get some snow tires!
Wow Ericka you had a great week. I hope everyone is well soon. On the fiberglass splinters I read on Pinterest to put Elmers glue on the area let it dry and then just pull off. When my daughter was little she fell
ReplyDeletein cactus the pharmacist recomended bikini wax and it worked like a charm.
You might even be able to use some candle wax and a thin rag. I had not shopped for 2 weeks so the bill was over $100 but I got lots of deals
and it should last awhile. Good for you working on Christmas gifts. I still have more to make. Hope your arm is better soon.
Blessings,
Patti