So, my son is finally not limping around the house anymore, although he kind of resembles a band aid mummy on his feet (I've gotten very good about sticking band aids to other band aids to get them to stick and things), so we're doing better and just trying to get him through his antibiotics without too many stomach issues (note to self: buy probiotic powder) is on the agenda.
Between him and my arm making me miserable this week and it's been kind of a long week. I overdid it helping to move the chickens into my friend's trucks as we were carrying a big Rubbermaid full of feed and a big bag of oyster shell and then just generally cleaning and things finished me off. But the chickens are off to their new home and are happy and content there. And there was some good that happened this week on the money saving front, so let's focus on that!
1. When it came to grocery shopping this week I spent 43.00. More than I wanted to spend, but we were so tight on money that I had to wait until today to shop for groceries so we were running low on son food by the time I went to the store. I also picked up potatoes and a few other things for Thanksgiving (sorry for lack of pictures, but I have been exhausted all week as between my son and my arm I haven't been getting much sleep at all). The biggest find was an awesome one. Carrs had packages of ground turkey on an overstock sale for .99 a package! Normal price is 6.00 a piece! I got four packages (I would have gotten more but I am kind of maxed on freezer space right now) to mix with hamburger for tacos and things or to make turkey burgers with and things. I was really thrilled to find those.
2. I added water to dish soap and shampoo bottles this week that were empty to get the last little bit of soap out of the bottles. Once I had for sure cleaned out the dish soap container I refilled it. I am always surprised how many people don't do that trick.
3. I started work on another Christmas gift (up top there). I'd gotten a weird cut and slightly stained wool coat for .50 a while back and kept thinking I'd try to make it so it'd fit me well at some point, but I came to realize that the cut was all wrong to make it fit me without a LOT of work, so I instead decided to use the fabric So, I cut the coat up a bit and made mittens for my niece and am embroidering some Swedish embroidery looking designs on them. I think they are coming out pretty cute so far.
4. I went to the thrift store today and found a snow suit that would fit my son, Columbia brand even, for decently cheap so I bought it for him as the school somehow managed to lose his snow pants and he's having to bring in his back up pair of snow pants for recess (I would get really upset by this but it has happened many times before but it seems things always come back to us in the end, so I am just going to have faith on that one).
I also found a nice big crock pot for 5.00. I'm hoping it works well as it's big enough to cook a roast or a big corned beef in as my other crock pot, that I love, is pretty small in comparison. So here's hoping it works well.
5. I found a dollar on the ground earlier this week and I donated it to charity. I could think of nothing better to do with it than to hopefully help someone else.
6. I cleaned out and reused my vacuum bag. I've found I can get about four uses out of a bag this way.
7. I made sure to turn off lights and heaters when I could to save electricity. Sadly, our electric bill still jumped 100.00 this month, so I am going to have to double down on turning things off as soon as the kids are heading downstairs to go to school.
8. I made meals at home, which definitely saved money over eating out.
9. I baked bread this week (yay!).
10. I went to a product party for a friend of mine and she was nice enough to give me her little hostess gift. It was for an all natural product company, so I got a little bar of soap and a special microfiber cloth. The products were WAY too rich for my blood and I also, after all the years I've had having to work around allergies with my son, could make the products much cheaper I found, so I offered to help my friend get the books and materials she needed to make her own products. So, so much cheaper than buying them.
And there you are folks. Some of my adventures this week. How did you do?
The mittens are so cute. A very clever idea One of the things that can be done to save more on electricity is to not only turn things off but unplug what can be unplugged when not in use. I was completely amazed when we started doing this as to how much we ended up cutting off the electric bill.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest bargain here were turkeys for 39 cents a pound. I got a 25 pound one and had the butcher cut it in half. The sale continues until next Thursday so there is a good possibility of getting another one at this price. I also loaded up on eggs at 69 cents a dozen. I made bone broth and froze it. I made my own chocolate cake mixes, and white cake mixes with ingredients already onhand. They're a real time saver and no unwanted chemicals. Christmas gift making continues and it's good to see the number of them grow. Everything to date has come from supplies already onhand. Found some new interesting cooking blogs and incorporated some new recipes into the menu plan. Hope your son is doing much better and that you're able to get some much needed rest. Dorothy
Dorothy, I have only made cakes from mixes and would love to learn how to do it from scratch. What type of flour do you use? Where did you get your recipes? Do the home-made cakes taste different from store bought mixes?
DeleteJeannie
Jeannie, I got the recipes from hillbillyhousewife.com/homemade-yellow-or-white-cake-mix.htm. I make the chocolate one from the same site only type in chocolate. It also gives the instructions as to what to add when you're making them. I think they taste so much better than bought mixes.Sometimes bought mixes have an artificial aftertaste. Not a homemade mix. I've used them for years. If have a kindle (which I don't) she has some free recipe books on Amazon for making your own mixes. They cake mix recipes use all purpose flour and the chocolate recipe uses some whole wheat flour and I think one calls for some cake flour, but I don't have the recipe in front of me right now. I don't think you'll be disappointed once you try this. Dorothy
DeleteDorothy if you go on Amazon website, you can download a kindle app which should work on your computer. Every time I get those free kindle books I see it. Hope it helps you and you can also search for free kindle books on the site. Cheryl
DeleteThanks for the info Cheryl. Dorothy
DeleteTHANK YOU, DOROTHY! I am on my way to that website now. Hillbilly housewife is so ME! Yes, I claim to be a Hillbilly. Anyway, last year Aldi's had their Halloween cake mixes on clearance for $.25 a box so I loaded up. Then after Christmas, the holiday mixes went on sale for $.25 a box also. I bought another case. I know. A bit overboard but that is me. There is still some left but when they are gone I want to go to making them scratch to avoid the chemicals.
DeleteJeannie
It was a long busy week at our house as well, but overall good. My weekly frugals are as follows: a really nice upholstered swivel rocking chair, free from a friend, for my son's "office" at my work (son is homeschooled and comes to work with me two half days a week), temporarily relocated my outdoor clothes line to a more sunny location for the fall, made a cold frame out of free heavy plastic and tomato cages to keep the kale growing longer for son's rabbits, cooked all our meals, scored some free decorative pumpkins a neighbor put out for the trash (enough to decorate our porch and the porch at work!), did a good job of using up leftovers this week, went to a local grocery store's grand opening and got free oatmeal and a big bottle of salad dressing, turned the heat down when no one was looking (I'm sneaky like that...) moved my husbands car so he wouldn't get a ticket on street sweeping day, scored some free fruit and protein bars that were leftover from a fitness event we attended. I did get a few Christmas presents purchased this week with some promo gift cards that came in the mail.
ReplyDeleteOh no, another Dr.'s visit...pour little guy. Hope his feet heal quickly. I also hope the flare up on your arm settles down quickly too. Sleep is just so important to miss.
ReplyDeleteThe mitts are very pretty. Can't wait to see them finished! I love hearing about up-cycled projects. It's such a Victorian thing to do. I went to a 50% off sale at one of the higher end thrift stores this week (spent just under $49 too). I was able to find 3 really nice, barely used shirts for my brother (he takes a very large size, which are extremely expensive new) which will be his Christmas and birthday gifts. I also found a curtain panel and a twin bed sheet that I bought specifically to recycle the fabric from. The curtain panel is a beautiful red taffeta with a gold embroidered pattern that will be used to make 2 throw pillow slip covers for a wedding shower gift (I will making these this week since the shower is next weekend) and a shoe bag for my daughter's EA at school (she apparently loves shoes, so I thought this would be a good gift for her). I bought it for $2...what a deal!
Great job staying under the $50 grocery budget again. That was a great score on the ground turkey, too. My biggest grocery deals this week were 6 packages of English muffins for $0.50/6 pack (very short expiry, so put them directly into the freezer), a big bag of ripe bananas on clearance for $1 (will use some of the more bruised ones for making muffins or banana bread), and a bag of parsley and 2 red onions on clearance for $1 (parsley is for Guinea Pig and onions are for us). Not extremely exciting, but deals nonetheless.
As for the freezer, I was actually able to clear out some things in mine this week. I finally pulled the 2 large freezer bags of raspberries from last summer and make it into jam! I canned 7 pints and 3 half pints of raspberry jam for the pantry, plus a bit for taste testing in the fridge. I still have another large bag of strawberries, a bag of cherries and some rhubarb that I want to make into jam, but at least the freezer is emptying out nicely. We'll need the space for the Christmas baking soon.
Well, that's about it for me. Glad to hear your week was relatively good, with only a few bumps in the road. Wishing you another good week, Erika!
"Higher end thrift store", oxymoron? I did not know there was such a thing.
DeleteJeannie
Our city has 2 "higher end" thrift stores, Value Village and Talize. Both of these thrift stores are know to charge significantly more money for certain name brands clothing items. For instance, I bought a pair of d/C jeans for myself which was originally priced at $14.99, despite them being used. I find this ridiculous pricing. The 50% off made the prices more reasonable for what I expect to pay at a thrift store.
DeleteTotally agree that there are Higher End thrift stores. There are areas in Toronto where stores near affluent neighbourhoods have many high end brands and some great items.
DeleteI learn something new every day!
DeleteJeannie
Sounds like you had quite a nice frugal week. I like the mittens.
ReplyDeleteHope you son is doing better.
Have a great week.
hey, what size is your son these days?? I'm going to be weeding our foster care bins a bit as we've asked to lower our age range and would love to pass along anything we might have that you could use before I take them to the thrift stores.. for that matter, I've got some girl things as well.. msg me and let me know if you'd be interested and what sizes.. and I'll let you know as soon as I've gone through and pulled things out. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a week you had! Whew!
ReplyDeleteThis week was full of challenges here too, but the positives were I took advantage of some $5 off of $5, 10 off of 10 and 10 off of 25 coupons, stackex with an extra 30% off coupon to knock down my Christmas list. Ive got another 10 off 10 at Staples, and $10 kohls cash to use soon too. Hopefully I can get a few more gifts, then black friday finish it off. The dollar tree hqd some shockingly high end looking things I picked up for add ons, or secret santa and etc, in addition to my own use.
I had my husband take in the gifts for the 2 siblings of students whose names we got from their helping thing. While I often have my doubts on the legitimacy of all of the kids and their family members, every child should have a good Christmas so I do it anyway.
We are going to hve my side of the family, well, my dad and whats left if his side, for a party on the 3rd. For the last 3 years, weve lost someone, first my grandfather in nov 2014 of old age, my grandmother march 2015 of a stroke, and my aunt april, 2016 from brain cancer. Theres just me, my dad, his brother, and his daughter and new husband. Its kind of heartbreaking because both my grandparents (divorced) would each do wonderful family holiday parties. I didnt get to go to many if them since my prents were divorced and I lived with my mom, but last year I realized we might not have much longer, my uncle has been fighting a serious heart condition, my dad has serious medical conditions too, and chances are, prosate cancer but he refuses to test for sure. Im grateful we will have a few good holiday memories while we can.
At Goodwill I found three books, a frugal cookbook that actually seems usable, a kids book I had been wanting for my boys and a 4 books in one for me. At another thrift store lucked out and found 3 plaid button up shirts for my oldest for 50 cents each. Just after I had broken down and bought one new! But they will get a lot of use and be passed down so its ok!!
I hope your arm can rest and heal this week.
Would you post a current picture of yourself?Thanks in advance😀
ReplyDelete