Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Get up.  Survive.  Go to bed.  Yeah, some weeks are just like that.

That was, unfortunately, us this week.

The son's cold didn't really get that much better over the weekend.  He had a ski trip through the school on Monday, which was a trip that he and his dad had a blast on last year, so my husband was really really determined that through the power of positive thinking my son was going to go on the ski trip and have fun.  Well, my husband made the mistake of taking the bus, versus taking his truck, so he ended up feeling car sick all the way to the resort (a about two hour trip) and my son was feeling the effects of his cold and melting down by the time they got there.  My husband at one point wanted me to go and get them, but I just plain wasn't physically up to driving that far with my arm so he was kind of stuck.  Luckily my son had fun skiing, but started to melt down on the drive back and the rest of the day after he got home was not fun at all because he was overly tired and cranky from his cold in spades.

Tuesday was a trip to the doctor to get his cough checked out and make sure his ears were clear, which bright side was good on both counts. 

He finally went back to school on Wednesday and it was a blessedly wonderful day for mom as I was able to get some rest and then clean the house.

Topping off the son being sick, our old cat showing signs that her health is on the decline, stressed out texts from my husband on Monday and such, I was stressed in spades about money this week.  I knew we were going to have to be late on utilities with money being so tight and we were down to about 30.00 in the bank by the end of the week.  I got the bills paid today, but it just threw my stress levels to about even with a satellite and I spent way too much time visiting the "Where's my Refund" spot on the IRS site hoping against hope that they'd just approve the refund and push it through super quick for the sake of my stress level.  With money and everything else that was going on, for the first time since about the time I was in college my stomach condition didn't just flare...it attacked with extreme prejudice.  As a result I have been eating as little as possible most of the week and everything I eat hates me.  I lost ten pounds this week and have been on an emotional roller coaster (another wonderful side effect of a stomach condition).  This is NOT an ideal way to lose weight by any stretch of the imagination.

So, yeah, survival is what I got done the last bit.  Thus the lack of a goals update this week as I didn't get anything done to report, unfortunately.  

Believe it or not, though, some good did come out of the week on the money saving front.

1.  Grocery shopping was nonexistent with the exception of getting some milk this week.  I actually ran out of some of my daughter's usual school lunch staples that she insists on, but was just able to make do with what we had around the house to help pad out her lunches.  She actually agreed to beef broth in a thermos (she doesn't like "soup" but will do home made broth, so I sneak nutrition in that way), bread and butter and some peach slices for lunch one day with her usual yogurt, which worked for me.  I went shopping today and picked up the majority of shopping for the next two weeks that was on sale.  I got pork roasts for 1.08 a pound today at Carrs and a value pack of chicken thighs for 5.00.  That was probably the biggest "woohoo" items from shopping this week, although I did win a coupon for a free loaf of french bread from the Carrs bakery courtesy of their yearly Monopoly game today.  So, that'll be a cool thing to get a little later on :).

2.  We were running really low on the shampoo I normally buy for my son.  I get him a tea tree oil sulfate free shampoo, "Nature's Gate" I believe the name is, and while a bottle of the stuff lasts a LONG time around here, I was dreading buying another bottle as a medium sized bottle was over 10.00 at the store.  I went on Amazon just to see what they had and found that they had a bottle TWICE the size of the one I got at the store for right about the same price as the smaller bottle at the store.  I got the bigger bottle coming from Amazon and it should be here tomorrow.  Glad I looked before I bought.

3.  My husband convinced me to go to the used store today (he's was working tonight and I think trying to find me something for Valentine's Day).  I didn't find anything that I could be convinced to buy for myself (sorry, sweetie), but I did find that a certain color tag was on sale for .50 per item.  I looked through the clothes and found two wool coats for .50 each.  They were awkward cut coats for someone of my size and build, but had a really good amount of material to them, so I confess a bit sheepishly that I bought them with the express purpose to cut them apart for the material.  Wool material is NOT cheap, so this was a great way to get some wool.  I have several ideas of things to do with the material, including making a few smaller throw pillows to embroider and sell, among other ideas (I even thought of maybe embroidering the entire coat and then selling it), so I couldn't pass up the coats.  I paid for them with pocket change.

4.  I did manage, despite not feeling well at all, to keep the family fed this week and did a decent job with meals.  I reused the menu for last week when my husband was working nights and used those dinners for most of this week and then just filled in the gaps for the remainder (which was three days) and then I'll use the menu I had planned for this week for dinners next week.  The only dessert I managed this week was making chocolate pudding one night, which the husband and daughter enjoyed, so I'm just rolling over the desserts I wanted to make last week and this week onto future menu plans (nice thing about baking things like cake is that the ingredients don't go bad *laugh*).

5.  I spent a lot of time this last week in between cleaning and being sick looking at some of my free magazine subscriptions.  I've really enjoyed "Taste of Home" as I barely ever get the chance to get that one for free and I find a lot of inspiration in the magazine.  I started writing down ideas on how to change up different meals by adding different ingredient/spices to them as I looked through the magazines.  Free entertainment and mealtime inspiration?  I'll take it.

6.  Our old cat is starting to get to the point where she can only hold certain foods down without issues and desperate to settle her stomach one day (cleaning up after a sick cat when you are feeling awful yourself...soooo not fun) I fed her a can of tuna I'd gotten reduced for .29 a while ago.  I found that she kept that down without any issues at all that I could see, so I've been using up a few cans of tuna that I had gotten dented and were past their expiration date (so needed to be used up) here and there to help keep her at a decent weight in between feeding her the senior diet wet cat food.  It seems to be helping her stomach problems, poor cat.  No matter the species, getting old comes with it's issues.

7.  I managed to fix my son's backpack where it had split it's zipper by CAREFULLY zipping it and unzipping it past the split until it bent back into shape.  I'm not sure if it's my son or the aides and my son doing damage to his backpack by not being careful when zipping it, but it's going to be a miracle if it survives the rest of the year the way it's going.  I can't really complain since the backpack is like three years old now and is stuffed to the gills with winter gear during the winter, but it is a nice backpack and I will cry when it is gone.

8.  I did a quick mending job on a shirt that had a seam coming apart at the armpit.  Luckily, I caught it before it got very big, so it didn't take me very long.

And yeah, that's about all I can think of for this week.  How did you do?