Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

This week has been busy, hectic and sad all at the same time. 

Monday we finally realized that we were just postponing the inevitable with Ginger and we had her put down.  Well, to be more accurate, I sobbed like the world was ending and made my husband go to the vet and put her down.  Her death hit me hard and even hit my husband harder than he thought it would.  She was my companion for a lot of years and before the kids were born and my husband was out of town working a lot, she was also my best friend.  She was psychotic as a kitten and thus a lot of fun to play with and was great at killing anything that moved.  I always tried to win her affection, but that was reserved solely for my husband.  He was definitely her human.  She will be missed (a shot of her from a couple of months ago is above as she was presenting me with the only "kill" she could find, which was an empty pill foil thing that she dug out of the garbage in the bathroom.  She was so proud I had to take a picture).

There was a lot of tears on my part this week over that cat.  This hit me harder than I was expecting as I was prepared for it.  I mean she was 14.   Until a few weeks ago a spry 14, but 14 all the same.  Somehow that doesn't make the loss any easier to get over as I'm combing black fur out of the carpets and seeing her favorite toy abandoned in the corner  of the bedroom.  Anyway, I'm going to move on before I start crying again.

We waited a few days to tell my daughter about Ginger, so we could get through her birthday without having to tell her about the loss.  Luckily (in a way) Ginger was pretty much a living shadow the last week, so she didn't notice Ginger was gone until we broke the news to her.  Overall, there have been tears here and there, but she's dealing with it pretty good for a child that has never lost a pet before.

The upside to Ginger being gone was that Prince finally started to come out of hiding to eat, use the cat box and want pets more and more and Belkar (our orange kitty) came downstairs again and started acting normally again.  The final sign for me that it was time to put Ginger down and she wasn't going to get any better was Belkar avoiding her as Belkar considered Ginger her favorite playmate in the universe.  When she started hissing and not letting Ginger within ten feet of her I knew it wasn't going to get any better.  Animals have good instincts that way.  My instincts told me it was a good time to get a new cat, but I think they were off by about a week...poor Prince must have thought he'd been transferred right into the middle of a death trap.  At least Prince is settling in and doing good now.  He's seen above in the picture there with his eyes closed and here he is...kind of, with his eyes open (he wouldn't sit still long enough for me to get a good, clear picture of him).

He's got really pretty blue eyes, so I was hoping to get a good shot, but cats are like kids.  As soon as you aim a camera at them doing something cute they immediately move on you.

Getting to know our vet that is close by was a good thing that came out of this too as we found that their prices are actually really reasonable.  So, yay for having a vet that is less than five minutes away.

On top of everything else, the week was just hectic running around and getting things done.  We had my son's allergy shot this week (which I did for the first time without my husband and we all survived *thumbs up*), my daughter's birthday. an oil change on my car, a run into Anchorage for my husband to apply for a job (I'll get into that in a minute) and then regular errand running on top of everything.  And my daughter has a birthday party she's going to today on top of the son having speech therapy.  My brain officially turned to jello about Wednesday.

So, let's get into the money saving things that happened this week (believe it or not, there were some).

1.  My daughter came home from school the day before her birthday all kinds of excited and asked if we could make cookies.  We'd put the cat down earlier that day, so I kind of looked at her dumbfounded when she asked and she said, "Mom, the treat for my class for my birthday?"  And I sighed because I just plain forgot about it.  I didn't know what to do as I wasn't really up to making cookies, Heck I wasn't sure if I wanted to eat dinner, but I thought about what I could do and it hit me.

I had a .12 brownie mix in the pantry.

So, I grabbed that, made it, cut it into pieces (don't try to do math when you are distracted.  I was aiming to make 28 EXACT pieces out of the brownies, but ended up with extra because I put in too many rows.  Go me!), wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them into a ziploc for her.  Her class loved the brownie they each got and there were even enough kids absent (or ones that didn't like chocolate) that she was able to give some brownies to the front office staff as a treat.  So, it all worked out well, I think.

Oh and she found that she does, indeed, like brownies *laugh*.

2.  My mom sent my daughter an Amazon gift card for her birthday and also sent me one separate to pay for supplies for the new cat.  My daughter gave me her gift card and told me to spend it on the cat too, but I did use part of hers to get her the live action Cinderella movie as she's been wanting it for a while now. 

I used the gift cards and bought a new cat box as Belkar won't "go" anywhere that Ginger used to use in the cat box and Prince is so big  that he barely fits in the cat box, so I bought a new lidded "jumbo" cat box, which I think will fit Prince a lot better and also give Belkar a fresh start.  I also got five cases of cat food (I settled for Purina One as a brand for cat food after asking some vets about what they recommended) in various flavors, a 40 lb bag of scoopable cat litter, and a big 22 lb bag of dry food for the cats and a couple of cat bowls in different colors so I could keep food straight (Prince gets probiotics in his food but Belkar hates the taste of them, so I am going to split up the can of cat food and feed them separately).  Also on the list was a litter mat to put in front of the cat box and a litter genie (I totally splurged on those as I've wanted them for a while, but I figured if I was going to rearrange the laundry room to fit a new cat box in anyway, that I was going to do it right).  Overall I spent 30.00 out of pocket for everything on top of the gift cards (thanks, mom!).

I bought everything on one day this week where Amazon was celebrating something and was giving a 8.67 (or .62, can't remember) discount if you used a certain coupon code on your purchase of 50 dollars or more.  It was only for one day, but I managed to get the order in under the wire, so got an additional discount on my order.

3.  I ended up watching a lot of Mystery Science Theater 3000 online for free this week to try and keep myself cheered up.  Laughter really is the best medicine.

4.  My husband went out in some really nasty weather this week when his brother texted him a Craig's List listing for a welder for 50.00 (he paid for it with some cash he had).  My husband has been wanting to get a welder for YEARS, but they are so expensive even used that he just hasn't been able to get one.  But, when this one popped up he knew he needed to get it when he found out the guy still had it, so he ran out and bought it.  Turns out it's one of the best older welders out there that can weld pretty much any metal there is.  He's super excited about it and now we're on the lookout for a good deal on a welding helmet.  Here's hoping we run into one of those.

5.  One day this week I ran into a good deal myself.  The counter top hydroponics garden kits that I have been wanting, I found one of the smaller gardens (a 3 cell one) had gone down to 40.00 one evening.  I ordered it without even thinking about it.  My husband questioned whether I really wanted a three cell versus the bigger gardens and I told him that counter top space being so limited and such that I thought a three cell would do me fine for now.  If I find that it works really well and I love it a lot, I'll just buy another unit for downstairs later on :).  Cheaper than spending 150.00 on a bigger unit for sure and this way, if I'm sneaky, I bet I could figure out a way to maybe start plants under the light too for the garden.  I'll have to see when the unit comes in :).

6.   I knew, with everything that was going on, that there was no way I was going to get a birthday gift made for my daughter.  But it worked out.  I went through my "gift stash" and realized that I actually had quite a bit of things in it for her.  So she got a big gift bag full of various things, which she loved, and she didn't feel the least bit offended when I told her I'd make her the pillow she asked for this Christmas.

7.  My husband joined a union last week in preparation for a good job that his brother turned him onto that he might very well get (my husband's family knows the people who are doing the hiring for that job).  While he was looking online at the various union job openings, however, he found a job he REALLY wanted, involving areas where my husband is good at and he won't have to travel (the other job he's looking at being able to get has about 3 months out of the year traveling decent distances around the state).  So he sent off his resume for that job late this week.  Please, please, if you have a moment send up a prayer for him.  I would LOVE to see him get a job with steady hours, steady pay, benefits and everything.  It makes less money per hour, but gives him more hours, so I'm hoping that we'll make it okay on the pay he'd get, but darned it I'll make it work for the sake of having a job like that.

Bright side, union dues are only 30.00 a month, so at least I won't be sweating too hard over that bill.

8.  My sister-in-law gave us some late Christmas gifts and I got some really pretty vintage Pyrex from her, including a nesting bowl that actually goes with the set I have been slowly putting together!  Thanks, Jen :).

9.  One thing I managed to get done this week was clean.  I ended up rearranging the laundry room in the hopes of making Belkar use the cat box better (that didn't work, but it was worth a shot) and ended up with a way less cluttered space and much better put together.  I know I'll have to rearrange it again once the new cat box gets here, but overall, I'm pleased so far.  I had found a double cat dish at the used store for 2.00 a few months ago and had put it aside for a rabbit, but now that the rabbit is now, I cleaned it up really good and made it look like new and put it into the laundry room, putting water in one side and dry cat food on the other.  It works FABULOUSLY and I'm not constantly knocking over a cereal bowl full of water that the cats have skidded across the floor.  So, yay!

And there you are folks.  My week, good and bad, in a nutshell.  How did your week go?