Money Saving Weekly Recap

I would put "Frugal Friday" on the post subject line, but I am honestly thinking this is going to become a post that occurs at some point during the weekend.  With my husband's new schedule, he has Fridays off, so I'm really going to focus on spending more time with him when I can, so I DOUBT this will be getting done on Friday (not that it was really getting done on Friday for like the past however many months anyway with how crazy life has been).

Life has continued to be a bit crazed this week, although my husband switched to his new schedule this week and also took his second furlough day (he has to take two days per year without pay as part of the labor contract with the state, all employees do...it's weird, but it's the way it is) on top of it so he had four days off.  It was wonderful!  I got to see him during the day and we got to spend time together and relax a lot...with the exception of my ever present eye strain headaches making me kind of miserable by the afternoon, it was nice. 

We got a call from the body shop who came in low bid on fixing the car that our car parts were in to fix the car, so we dropped the car off on Tuesday.  Which dropping it off on Tuesday morning worked out well since that was the first of the four days my husband was going to have off (he dropped it off after work and I drove in and picked him up after dropping the kids at school), so being down to one vehicle worked out okay and we just drove the truck around the rest of the week.  He did have to get his pickup running today so he could drive that in to work tonight, but hopefully he'll only have to do that tonight.  Hopefully we'll get the car back tomorrow or Tuesday and then worrying about getting it fixed and the logistics on how to make that work will be out of our hair.  Yay!

The daughter's stomach was in a bad state all week pretty much, probably due to standardized PEAKS testing going on, on top of her allergies and her teeth and everything else.  She had to miss school on Tuesday because of her orthodontist appointment (I refused to pull her out of school for a long appointment in the middle of testing...that would just be a mess), so had to make up tests on Wednesday and by Friday her stomach was a complete cycling mess.  I had to pick her up early from school, like before noon, and she was utterly miserable all day with her stomach.  Luckily, I hope, she's feeling better and hopefully now that testing is out of the way she can start to feel a bit normal again (just in time to go in for multiple orthodontist appointments in the coming weeks, but yeah...we'll get through it).

And so, yeah, I think you are caught up on the rest of the week at this point, so let's get to the money saving things that got done this week.

1.  Well, money due to glasses and licensing on the truck and everything is downright non-existent this week, so last week I made sure to be careful with the money we had left in the bank.  So, I stayed home a lot and went shopping carefully (I did end up having to get a bit more shopping done this week due to needing produce and more eggs).  I planned out the menu to get us through till payday and picked up what I needed.  It went okay.  First I got a bag of lemons which I felt was a better way to get enough for everything I needed them for.  I needed some for sauces I'm planning on making (more on that later as it's actually a kind of fun menu plan I'm working on in the coming weeks :), some for fish dishes I'm going to prepare as well as for doing things like making lemon syllabubs (a dessert recipe I ran into on one of the "18th Century Cooking" live streams). 

I also got a cantaloupe (on sale for 2.88 this week at Carrs each) with a plan in mind.  My husband knows how to make cantaloupe boats from watching Captain Kangaroo when he was a kid which needs cantaloupe, pound cake (which I made myself) and ice cream.  The pound cake kind of crumbled when we made them tonight, but everything tasted good *laugh*.

And I got some lettuce (I found that the three pack of romaine hearts is actually a good way to get lettuce, so I've just been buying a bag of those will see us through salads for a few weeks) and a few other things (like chewable Benadryl for the son for when he needs it).  I spent 34.00 on groceries, but I still felt pretty good about it as the I now have so much produce my produce drawer is literally overflowing into the rest of my fridge.  Happy circumstance, that.

The only freebie I got this week was a free soda that Carrs had on Just 4 U one day.  The husband and daughter both liked the ginger ale.  I didn't like it...I am pretty picky about my ginger ale and like it to have a nice ginger bite to it and I thought the soda was too sweet...but like I said I'm picky (seen up top after the daughter and husband tasted tested a few small glasses).

2.  I was hoping to get some salt free seasoning blends off of Amazon this month as well as a 6 pack of Mrs. Dash salt free teriyaki sauce, but after checking the bank today I decided against buying anything but absolute necessities.  So, I cancelled everything (even things I kind of flinched at as they were really good prices when I ordered them) and used the 10.00 in Amazon gift cards I had from My Coke Rewards to apply toward the husband's Zegerid.  With the salt free teriyaki sauce...I figure I'll go to the store when I have the money and buy some salt reduced soy sauce and make my own.  It won't taste quite as good (I still haven't found a good recipe for teriyaki sauce and I've looked for a lot of years and had ordered the Mrs. Dash marinade off of Amazon because I couldn't find it anywhere locally), but it'll get the job done.  And this way I'm only parting with 8.00 out of the bank for the Zegerid instead of the 30.00+ I had on order before with subscribe and save.  Every little bit helps at this point and really the Zegerid was the only thing we really NEEDED versus wanted to get.

3.  My husband broke the mug I had made him for Christmas from the kids last week and was really depressed about it as he really loved the mug.  I told him to just hang on a bit and I'd wait for a free mug code to come up with Shutterfly and I'd make him a new one (since Shutterfly bought out Tiny Prints and that's who I bought the mug through last time).  And loe and behold, a free mug code popped up that expired today.  We had to make the mug white to get it for free (the other mug I made him was black), but working together my husband and I came up with a design he thought was cool.   It was worth paying the shipping to see him happy knowing a replacement mug was in the works for him (and I had a code that I'd applied to my account to get so much off of shipping and it actually WORKED with the free mug code for a change...I was happy).  I took money out of my anniversary savings to pay for the shipping (which I've been able to save so little I had enough to cover the shipping, but not much else, so hey at least it went to a good cause *laugh*).

4.  I decided it would be fun to make Spring themed sugar cookies with the kids this week (sneaky way of letting the kids have a ball and also at the same time giving me cookies to put in the daughter's and husband's lunches for treats), so I dug around in my cookie cutter box and found an egg shaped cookie cutter and a butterfly cookie cutter and we had fun making and decorating cookies (and in Alvah's case eating his body's weight in sprinkles ;).

5.  I continued to clean this week and managed to get some more organizing and things accomplished.  It felt good to get things done that didn't cost me anything to do, but also made things look better around the house (more on that in the Monthly Goals post...I'm hoping to finally get the shopping goals and the monthly goals up tomorrow by the way :).

6.  I took naps and lied down when I needed to instead of just powering through things with the way my eyes have been giving me headaches.  It seems odd to mention doing that as a way of saving money, but by giving my eyes breaks when they would start making my head swim or start to pound, I've been able to avoid taking TONS of Ibuprofen this week, which definitely has saved me money and stopped me from taking more pain meds than I probably should have.

7.  We are finally seeing the return of the sun in a decent amount, so I've been opening the curtains as much as possible and letting the natural light in and turning off the lights during the day.  I've also made a point to start turning off the electric heat during the day as well now that it's gotten a bit warmer out.  The electric bill is definitely thanking me for doing that.

8.  I moved my "work center" (read: Erika's massive mess of stuff) out of the living room where I tended to do blogging and financial stuff and finally just put it downstairs, at my desk, where it should really be.  I need to get into the habit of doing work downstairs, but it'll be worth it in the end having everything I need in one place.  And hey, another bright side to that is that we officially have a coffee table in our living room again instead of a big pile of books, bills and other stuff with a laptop balanced on top, which is fantastic!

9.  My husband broke down an old VCR that had stopped working and stripped out every part he could use from it.  He also fixed an interactive solar system game (which the daughter has been having a blast with) that was given to us broken years ago (the electronics work he does now has definitely expanded his knowledge base) and he fixed an old DVD player that we'd bought used but didn't want to play anything and got it unjammed and hopefully working and he also fixed my daughter's DVD player when it stopped working all of a sudden.  I fixed a few toys for the kids (the wonder that is super glue!) and replaced batteries in a couple of toys that needed it.  I also fixed a hole that had developed in a sweater (which gave me a headache, but I got it done!) and cut a patch from my old jeans that tore out to fix my husband's denim work shirt he wears in the garage (just waiting on new glasses so I can see to get that done).

10.  I gave an enamel coated pot that I used to use all the time when we lived in our old house, but that just did NOT work with my current kitchen (I know it seems odd that a pot would fall out of favor like that, but it did) to my mother-in-law who could use it.  It felt good to get it out of the kitchen and taking up unnecessary room and also passing it onto someone who could use it at the same time :).

And yeah, I'm going to call it good there as I REALLY need to get to bed.  How about you all?  How did your week go?