Frugal Sunday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

This was a long, exhausting and frustrating weekend.  Emphasis on frustrating.  And exhausting.  And...ahhhh never mind!

I ended up with food poisoning the first part of the weekend, which my husband and I tracked down to some sauce that came with some frozen breaded shrimp we ate (luckily I was the only one who ate the sauce so the husband didn't get sick).  Last time I consume a sauce that comes with anything frozen.  That was a very long and painful Friday and I'm still dealing with the residuals of it.  Blah!  And at the same time the son came down with a cold, so he wasn't happy about life or anything in it the day I was feeling like death warmed over.  He's started feeling better today, at least.

Yesterday, despite still feeling like my stomach had been beaten from the inside and feeling utterly exhausted (I'm still tired today), I tried to get some housework done that desperately needed to get caught up on after being down Friday and was hoping to rely on some help from the other female member of the household.  That didn't go well.  I ended up having to do the dishes three times (don't ask), the vacuum got clogged twice on things that should have been easily avoided, I had to waste a can of tuna fish getting the cat inside, after he rushed by me when I was dumping the garbage, because the daughter was determined he would get mauled by the lynx if we didn't get him into the house...and yeah...the day didn't go well.

I did finally manage (third time's the charm) to get the dishes done (which I'm so low on dish soap at the moment I was super thrilled to get that chore done), the cat was happy stuffed with tuna, the daughter finally realized she was in trouble and started doing things when I told her to (and did them the right way) and the day finally drew to a close with me falling into bed, having not been so happy to see a pillow in a long time.

Luckily, today was a bit more productive.  I got lemon sugar cookies made (for dessert, snacks and for the husband's lunch treat) and oddly enough the ones I put sprinkles on the son is actually eating, which surprised me (and thrilled me a bit honestly) as they are a pretty strong flavor.

I went to make animal cookies/crackers for school snacks this week only to find that at some point my son had gotten into the container I kept the little metal cookie cutters in and had gotten soda in the container, so the cookie cutters were one big, rusty, mass.  The entire container went into the garbage, beyond all hope, while I battled a small bout of depression over cookie cutters (I know, it's dumb, but it's just one of those things, you know?) as replacing the cookie cutters isn't going to be in the budget for a while and I was just so tired of things breaking.

Like I said...it was a long weekend.  When wrecked cookie cutters make you to want to cry, you know it was a long weekend.

Anyway,  I'm soldiering on here.  So, let's get to the money saving things that happened this week.

1.  Let's start with shopping.  Shopping was as frugal as I could get it this week, due to the above mentioned money being tight (which hopefully that'll work out here soon once we get a few bills out of the way and once we get paid).  I scored big on freebies this week thanks to the Monopoly game, which was nice!

First, let's start with the main shopping trip.  Highlights are seen above.

• I got half gallons of milk (whole milk, which I prefer 2%, but hey it was cheap) on reduced for 50% off, so I got a couple of gallons of milk for 2.38 per gallon.
• Pork chops, value packs, on reduced 50% off and on sale, so got big value packs of pork chops for 5 to 6.00 a piece.  I was nearly out of pork in the freezer (I had one package of pork chops and a small pork loin and that was about it), so it was definitely a welcome thing to find.
• One 2lb block of medium cheddar cheese on reduced 50% off and I had a personalized price on it this week, so got the block for 2.39!  This will make it so we can save the remainder of the Tilamook cheese for the son and we'll eat the other cheddar until Tilamook goes on sale (or if I can squeeze the regular priced logs of Tilamook, which are pricey, into the grocery budget).
• Gala apples (I really like getting the bags of apples as the apples are smaller and work better with the daughter's appetite, and they fit in her lunch box easier) 2.99 (personalized price).  These are usually 5.49 per bag, so it was DEFINITELY worth getting one at that price!
• Organic spinach salad, a small can of tomato sauce, a 100ct bottle of aspirin and a envelope of gravy mix (not pictured) free with Monopoly coupons.  I have to say the salad was the most exciting one for me to get on that trip :).

I checked out with my favorite cashier, who seems to be my good luck charm as I always seem to win more Monopoly freebies when I go through his line.  And, I hit pay dirt on the freebies with my tickets!

When we went back into town on Thursday to do a couple of errands, I stopped by the store and redeemed the other freebies I got.

• 1 loaf of french bread (this was the most exciting one for me *laugh*)
• 1 envelope of gravy mix (I am seriously stuffing a box full with these free gravy mixes at this point...I hope the food pantry likes them)
• 1 cheese bagel (they didn't have any plain ones when I went in, so I grabbed it instead)
• 1 can of tomato sauce
• 1 can of corn

Out of like seven tickets, getting that many freebies was really nice.  When I wasn't up to making the menu plan item for dinner last night, I ended up pulling out a package of thin cut steaks from the freezer and I cut up the loaf of bread and made french dips for dinner with it.  It worked out great and there was enough left over to get my husband through lunch at work last night.  I was happy with that.

2.  I signed up for a free magazine subscription through one of the free magazine outfits (I THINK it was Mercury Magazines, but I can't remember).

3.  I signed up for a product testing thing through Kroger and am going to, hopefully, receive free pet food to try out and review.

4.  I turned off the supplemental heat in my bedroom for good until next winter.  I just threw another blanket on the bed to keep warm at night.  Between that and the two cats, I've definitely been warm enough at night.

5.  While cleaning out the garage my husband uncovered a tote full of kitchen stuff.  A LOT of it was stuff I've been searching for years to find, so it was nice finally figuring out what happened to it all (and I found my soap making crock so I can get that to Shani to make soap!).

6.  I mended one of my daughter's skirts.

7.  I continued to clean and organize things this week.  I managed to reclaim some space in my kitchen cabinets (the lazy susan cabinet is still broken) by conglomerating a couple of containers of things like corn starch together.  Yay for reclaiming  a bit of space!

8.  I took the son outside to play now that it is light outside when we get home from school in the afternoon.  He's been really enjoying it (not so much this weekend as I kept him inside to recuperate from his cold) and it doesn't cost me anything to do.

9.  With the sun starting to come back in a big way (it's finally getting dark at the moment and it's 9:44 pm) the sun is starting to super heat the upstairs of the house in the afternoon.  I've actually been able to open the deck door and let fresh air into the house (and the son likes to play around the screen door, so double bonus), which is always welcome after a long winter.

And, yeah, I'm going to call it good there as the son is refusing to go to sleep at the moment and is throwing a fit in his room because I didn't put on what he wanted to watch (I put on Thomas the Tank Engine at bedtime, so he's not happy that it's bedtime tonight from the sounds of it).

So, how did your week go?  Well, I hope?