Saturday, November 4, 2017

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap


Wow!  Has it been busy this week!  The husband had Monday and Tuesday off (he took a furlough day one day and took a paid leave day for the other) and the kids had Monday and Tuesday off because of parent teacher conferences, so the beginning of the week was kind of full, but in a good way.  We went to an open house at the fire station on Halloween (I forgot to take pictures as we were pretty busy) and then I took the daughter trick or treating in a new neighborhood we discovered in the area, which was well lit, nice subdivision and it was basically one long street.  Since it was cold, wet and foggy, my daughter was doubly thrilled that her costume would go over a coat well.  Overall, we had a lot of fun, didn't get too much peanut containing candy (which I'm going to pull out of her sack and send in her lunch at school as small treats...I still need to do that...busy week) and my daughter got to hang out with another little girl about her age who was trick or treating on the same route we were.  And the son got french fries (McDonalds) and a long car ride, so he was happy too.  The kids got McDonalds.  The husband and I waited and ate left overs at home, which we were both okay with. We got home earlier than usual for Halloween (my daughter the last three years, insisted on dragging me through these meandering neighborhoods that required a lot of walking, a lot of wind in your face and not much candy overall), watched some Halloween cartoons and my husband and I got about 1/4 of the way through "The Changeling" (a Halloween tradition around here) before the husband totally crashed on me and had to go to bed.

But, yeah, after the kids were back in school and the husband was back at work, it was time for me to start trying to catch up on work around here. 

So, let's get to the rest of the week shall we?

1.  I made home made "Crunch" bars, cut them up, wrapped them in wax paper, put them in a freezer bag and stuck them into the freezer to eat as treats later (probably for Christmas since we were so busy doing other things Halloween, we didn't actually eat them).  A pic of the final product, before final freezer-bagging is seen up top.  Overall I got a ton of candy bars, so I was happy.  And the best part is that they are completely safe for the son's peanut allergy!
2.  Fred Meyer gave me free Oreo cookies for being one of their "Best Customers".  Since I've been spending about 100.00 per quarter at the store, I sure hope they have customers better than me *laugh*, but was thrilled with the freebie none the less as the son LOVES Oreos.

My husband and I went into town to see if we could fill a new script for him and while in town we stopped by Fred Meyer to get the cookies and just generally look around.  The store opened up it's new location last year and I've always been so busy that I've just kind of rushed through the food section and not really looked at the rest of the store.  It was kind of fun spending time with the husband looking around and I found a cool find!  My son LOVES blankets and throws (he wraps up in them, makes tents over his head with them...he has fun) and we've been trying to find one that was at least close to his favorite baby blankie that he's been attached to since he was born.  We actually found a clearance throw that felt close to the texture we were going for and I thought that it might work as a Christmas gift for him.  But when I looked at the clearance price it said 15.97.  I had just gotten done lamenting to my husband that I really didn't want to spend 16.00 on a blanket for Christmas the son might or might not want, when my eyes fell on the clearance sign and I realized that home clearance items were an additional 50% off!  8.00...that I could do!  So, we got the blanket and the free cookies and made our way (cookies seen, blanket not as that's currently hidden from seeking children *laugh*).

3.  Shopping went well this week.  The biggest find this week was definitely getting a big value pack thing of chicken drumsticks.  They are on sale for .97 lb this week at Carrs and they were 50% off on top of it!  So, I got a big value pack of drumsticks for 2.50.  I also got a whole chicken for 2.83 after 50% off discount and a package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs for 2.72 after discount.  Yay for cheap meat!  I even got eggs for .97 a dozen with a personalized price.

Overall I spent 54.00 on groceries this week, but a portion of that went toward getting some things out of the way for Thanksgiving that I knew would sell out pretty fast in the next week or so (like heavy cream), so I did plan for more in the budget to accommodate the extras.  I'll go more into that on the shopping goals post for the month later on.

4. I have been without a wall calendar all year, and honestly I've felt the pinch more than once as I LIKE having a wall calendar, but I didn't want to spend the money on one or waste the printer ink printing one off.  So, instead, I've been making my own...with some gaps in between when I got too busy and just forgot about it and relied on my phone instead.  This month I asked my daughter to do a quick drawing for Thanksgiving for the top of the calendar.  I thought it was cute, so I thought I'd share a pic of the calendar.  I told her it looked like the turkey god was going to either bless the meal or strike us down at the table.  She said it was because she loved turkey.  That works too *laugh*.

5.  I mended my husband's jacket that he's been using as a rain coat.  It was a real pain to repair as the outer fabric was a thin, lightweight nylon-like material, so it kept slipping as I was repairing it, but I got it done.  So, one raincoat repaired!

6.  I worked some new elastic thread through some of my old socks that are in good shape, but the elastic around the legs is going and so they keep slipping down while I'm wearing them and driving me crazy.  This is the first time I've ever attempted this type of repair, but I had plenty of elastic thread in my stores, so I figured "why not"?  We'll see how the repair does.


7.  I finally got my canning for the year completed (I hope).  Today I canned apple pear sauce (I wanted to try pear sauce, but also was worried it would be too strong tasting for the daughter's milder palette, so I combined it with apple sauce.  It worked great and it's pretty tasty! 
 I took the cores and peelings and some older apples, boiled them all together and made apple pear juice.  For a big pot of scraps, essentially, I got three quarts and one 10 oz jar of juice (or whatever size the smaller jar is).  None too shabby!  It tastes good enough to just drink it, but I am thinking of mulling it when I open it, like I like to do with apple cider and serving it as a hot drink this winter.  Either way, it's good!

8.  I gutted the master bedroom closet (see I told you I would *laugh*) and have been going through everything in the den so I can do it when my husband is sleeping.  I took a huge amount of donations to the used store with my husband (he carried the huge boxes *laugh*), which felt good.  I still have a bunch of stuff to go through (I'm trying to figure out how to adjust a full sized sheet into a twin sheet at the moment as I have some full fitted sheets I'd like to shrink down to fit the kid's beds) and I'll take donations to the used store as needed.  The winter gear I put aside that doesn't fit the kids anymore so I can donate those to the school nurse for needy families in the area.

9.   Got more insurance renewal paperwork done for the son, which I'm praying is enough to get us renewed for the coming year). 

Speaking of insurance, I got a reminder card for the son saying he was late for his dental cleaning.  I was confused as I was pretty sure the kids had been into the dentist later than last January (which is when the card said was his last appointment), so I called and checked.  Turns out that they had been in in June (I knew it!), which led to me talking to the receptionist about the kids upcoming appointment date in December.  I was worried about my daughter as I thought our insurance would only cover one dental cleaning a year, but it turns out that our insurance covers two cleanings a year, but only one set of X-rays (which we only get one of those done a year anyway).  So I was definitely happy to hear that!  I'm going to call the insurance company and confirm, just to be safe, but if it does cover that, yay!

10.  I took down the Halloween decorations and put up the Thanksgiving decorations yesterday.  We normally don't have many Thanksgiving decorations as the kids just haven't brought many home from school, but last year my son actually brought home a bunch, so between that and having my daughter do a few drawings, we're good on Thanksgiving decorations for the year :).

So, there you are folks.  Some of my frugal adventures for the week.  How did you do?

10 comments:

  1. Great job! I need to take down our halloween decor!

    That's interesting that you tried to do new elastic on your socks. If they keep,falling, I assume you prefer the crew style? I wear ankle socks so they can't really slip far,if they try lol.

    We had a good halloween, I really, desperately need to dejunk. It's gotten to the point my husband is mad, but when one person is trying to clean up after everyone, run the house and work outside of it, plus bringing work home of course not everything will be done. There's no time! I admit it's a little annoying, when I'm nonstop working and he's on the Xbox or tv all night!

    Today, we are skipping church to make use of chuckecheese gift cards my kids were given last year by their grandparents. It's about an hour and a half away, but looking forward to going. We used to go more when we lived near one.

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    1. I'd say it's more than a little annoying! I hope he starts contributing more.

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  2. We had a fun Halloween. We all dressed in a Batman theme, Batman, Batgirl, Robin (Batbun made an appearance at our church Trunk or Treat and was a big hit). We got to wear our costumes 3 Times, for our neighborhood trick or treat, church Trunk or Treat, and on Halloween itself in a nearby neighborhood. So even though parts of our costumes were bought we certainly got our money’s worth.
    Working on cleaning out the deep freeze so turned an old bag of frozen chicken wings and drumsticks into chicken corn soup, cut up ham into two boxes of scallops potatoes and called it a casserole, made egg salad for sandwiches with extra eggs, made collard greens with frozen ham hock and served it with three small frozen steaks (made them on the grill, yum!) cooked 3 lbs of frozen ground turkey to use in chili this week.
    My son sold three rabbits and some old equipment he no longer needs, this will pay for his rabbit feed and hay for over 6 months! Went to an all day rabbit show yesterday and didn’t spend money on raffles or any new equipment. We did buy our breakfast and lunch as this has been a tough week for our son who has autism. I was just too tired to pack our food like I usually do. Brute note is the food was tasty and cheap and benefited the local 4-H that hosted the show.
    We also took advantage of a free young people ‘s introduction to the symphony on Friday as a home school Field trip. We got a wonderful study guide for it when we registered so it was something fun and different to work on this eeek
    We took advantage of the nice weather earlier in the week to visit one of our local nature parks and take pictures for their upcoming annual photo contest.

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  3. I was able to get through this super busy week with some savings. We had a simple Halloween with the cousins, and the kids had fun. My sister made a taco bar for everyone to eat before they went out for the candy.

    We made a lot of soup and ate it many times. I was in a hurry and it's handy to warm up a bowl of that. I also made some other meals. We did go to McDonald's with a little friend, and I used a buy one, get one free Happy Meal coupon from the app. If you don't have that app, you should get it. They often offer free french fries on Fridays. You do have to buy something, but they've let me buy the $1 drink and get the medium fries for free when I took my autistic niece there. They also have had coupons for free items when the local sports team scores over 100 points. It might be worth a try for you.

    The rest of my activities, plus pictures are on my blog: https://beckyathome.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/saving-money-and-weekly-update-november-4-2017/

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  4. Sounds like a busy yet frugal week.
    glad you and your hubs had some time together.
    Be blessed in the coming week.

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  5. I especially like the Pilgrim hat on the turkey. Tell A. that she made my day!

    For frugal activities here, I'm most proud of sticking to my budget and getting a few Christmas gifts ahead. I'm running to the store less which makes staying on budget easier. Making do really saves. I washed a few loads of clothes with a bit of Dawn and Borax when I ran out of laundry soap. I used wax paper when I ran out of Saran Wrap and sandwich bags. I'm restocked now, and it's funny how much I appreciate the wrap and bags. I'll bet a side benefit is that I'll use less.

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  6. A trick I used on sheets is to get some "thrifted" adult size elastic adjustable style suspenders . I attached them to 2 opposite corners. Then I pulled in the overage on the opposing corners and clipped them there. I used one suspender per twin beds. I also used this trick on the crib sheets to prevent the kids form pulling them up.

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  7. It was a good week frugal wise. Yesterday we spent the day running "coupon" errands. Bill would drive up to the door so I could run in and get what I needed. It kept me from impulse buying since he was waiting in the car. I was most proud of my 57% savings at Kroger. I stuck to my list. That is hard for me.

    We spent today in the garden digging the sweet potatoes but only got half of them out before we wore out. Bill digs with the shovel while I crawl around in the mud pulling them out of the ground. Now we are so sore we can hardly move. So far it has been a good harvest.

    https://getmetothecountry.blogspot.com/2017/10/octobers-garden-2017.html

    The best news is my garden club party was a success! Anytime I feed a crowd and no one gets food poison is great, in my opinion. I fed them a crazy meal from the garden so it was low cost except for the cheese and crackers. I never buy crackers because I love them and end up eating the whole box. I was SHOCKED at how few crackers they are putting in boxes now! Sheesh! One handful for $3.50! Not again. Lesson learned.

    https://getmetothecountry.blogspot.com/2017/11/local-ladies-garden-club-octobers.html

    Jeannie @ GetMeToTheCountry.Blogspot.com

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  8. Now is the time to pick up free calendars. I get many in the mail asking for a donation. I keep the calendars. I did not ask for them so they must be a gift:). Also my church has calendars available usually donated by a funeral home. My husband works for the 2nd largest cemetery in the US and they have beautiful calendars that are free at the Welcome Center. You might try to find a free calendar at a cemetery in your area. This sounds weird but this cemetery is filled with history and is also an arboretum.

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  9. What awesome chicken deals! High five!

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