Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Well, this week has been busy and productive, but exhausting.  The battle against bug infestation continues.  Bright side to the massive train wreck is that I am finally getting the motivation and energy to do things that I would normally, being as exhausted as I am, as sore as I am and as sinus miserable as I am (darned dust), just put off or do not to the extreme extent that I'm doing now.  So, there's that.  By the time I'm done, I'm hoping I'll have a decently organized, brilliantly clean (that's inevitable the way this is going) and in control home, but in the meantime...I'm busy (understatement of the century).

So, let's get to the things I got accomplished this week and ways I saved money!

1.  Grocery shopping hurt this week.  We got paid, which was good, but we were out of a bunch of stuff, so I pretty much spent our disposable income for the next two weeks on groceries (the rest will go toward gas for the vehicles).  After having to buy medications, limited cleaning supplies to get by and some meat...well it wasn't a small amount.

Bright side is that I DID manage to get pork shoulder roasts on clearance for 7.00 a piece about and since we NEVER eat a full one without having to shove a bunch of it into the freezer, I instead bought them with the express purpose of cutting them in half and making four roasts out of the two.  It worked well, actually, which I was happy about since they were bone in roasts.  Not the prettiest roast with a slight amount of bone sticking out of one of them, but hey, I didn't have to de-bone them or get a bone saw, so I'm happy with it!

2.  I got a new mission in the mail from My Magazine Sharing Network, this time with the theme of a BBQ.  I got a coupon for a free bottle of McCormick Grill Mates seasoning (which I did a stand in for the picture so I could get my mission done...I cheated...I admit it ;), some free Kleenex wet wipes and some free chips.  Missing from the picture was a small bag of Keebler Rainbow Chip cookies (peanut warning on them got them sent immediately to the "peanut containing" box in the garage) and various coupons I received (that I put in the "pass it along" pile to pass along to some friends who might use them).  I sent the potato chips to work with my husband so he can have them for one of his snacks over the next two weeks since we don't really want to spend money on gas station snacks at the moment with how tight money is, the wet wipes got put aside for emergency wet wipes by the entrance to the house so we have them for a messy son and I'll get my free bottle of Grill Mates on my next shopping trip (which I was worried would be after the end date of the mission, thus why I put a stand in bottle of Grill Mates I already had in the picture).

And I got more tissue paper :).  The way this is going I'll have a decent stockpile of the stuff come Christmastime.

3.  We stopped off at the used stores to look, once again, for a decent sized strainer while my son was at therapy (there's a used store like two minutes away, so we can hop over without wasting gas and time) and I FINALLY hit pay dirt!  I was able to get a really nice, big strainer with small enough holes for angel hair pasta not to fit through for 3.99.  I was happy with that.

I was also, finally, able to find a fake plant that would work with a small wall basket I had found at my favorite used store a couple of weeks ago.  I bought both a bigger wall basket (for 1.00) and the smaller wall basket (for .60) to use for a couple of different purposes.  The bigger basket went into my daughter's room and got hung up in the middle of her hat space on her wall and I put a bunch of fake flowers she had in a vase in her room into it.  The vase was always getting put aside into different areas where it would balance precariously and fall off of whatever it was, and I REALLY liked the vase and didn't want to see it get broken (it has, thus far, lived a blessed life in that regard).  It worked great, my daughter loved having the flowers in a location where it wasn't getting in her way and I happily put the vase downstairs where it would, hopefully, be safer.

The smaller basket I had a plan for.  See, I can't do houseplants around here.  I have a son who eats dirt, so that complicates things and he'll also chew on random things, so I'm TERRIFIED he'd eat random house plant leaves (and let's face it...a lot of houseplants are poisonous).  And then I have cats that love to dig.  So, yeah, real plants are out (I was always impressed when I'd go into the bathroom and the Aerogarden would still be alive last year).  But, I kept watching these old educational films on YouTube from the 40's to the 60's and I loved the houseplants that were shown in different homes and how...well...homey they looked. 

So, my plan was to find a fake cloth or silk leafy type of plant, put it into a wall basket, or wall planter looking thing, and make my own fake houseplant.  I even had a place on the wall scoped out, figured out what I would hang with it (a picture that my daughter made in preschool that I love, made out of beans and lentils...I hung it up the day she brought it home and it has hung up in my house since :), figured out where I would re-hang pictures of the kids that used to hang with the butterfly picture (in my hallway where not many people saw either the butterfly or the pictures of the kids), or that used to hang on the wall where the plant and picture were going (a picture of my daughter when she was a baby). 

Honestly, I think my husband thought I was nuts for wanting to get a fake plant and redo everything.  He probably still thinks I'm a little nuts.  But, I'm okay with that *laugh*.

And so, I've scoped out the used stores every single time I went looking for both the wall mount ability and a good fake plant.  Originally I had planned on maybe a fake hanging fern or something that would look more spread out, but rethought that idea when I, for one, couldn't find anything like that at the used stores AT ALL, and two the cost of what something like that would cost if I bought it new and, for three, what my son would do to something that hung down with tons of little parts that could be torn off of it.  So, I decided I'd try and find a leafy type of fake plant, but one that wouldn't spread out too far down the wall. 

I finally found what I wanted at Value Village and it only cost me .99.  I wish they had another so I could have made the final effect look "fuller" but overall, after bending things around and messing with it for a while, I think I got it to come out looking pretty nice.  I am thrilled with how it all looks.

So, for less than two dollars, I got a new home decor element added to the house and bonus is that this section of wall is at the top of the stairs right by my living room so you can see that the plant and picture go GREAT with the love seat's cushions.  I notice these things ;).

4.  I ran into a picture my son had done at school in his back pack and told him how much I loved that he signed his name.  He seemed really thrilled that I noticed his accomplishment, so I hung it up on the fridge.  I really want to try and find a frame around here to frame it and hang it so it's protected.  Him showing pride in his work meant a lot :).

Oh and just because I keep forgetting, here's the picture my daughter drew me for Mother's Day...

5.  We cleaned and organized a lot this week.  We spent two days cleaning out the daughter's room and deep cleaning everything (more time than it SHOULD have taken, but the daughter was being obstinate about doing work and making things difficult until I showed her bugs in my tool bag...that got her cleaning real fast!). 

We are still doing a bunch of stuff to the living room (I'll share more on that when it's more toward being done and less toward being a huge looking mess), but I did manage to get the hallway closet gutted, deep cleaned and reorganized today (well, at least as good as it can get for the moment).

I have one shelf for snacks (the bottom one there) and past that I just kind of stacked things where I could fit them.  Cereal gets stuck in here by default as there is no where else to put it, the kid's fans for their windows are put in here for the time being because they aren't needed and putting them up into the closets is out of the question until I know that no buggies are sticking around in said closets and things.  Cleaning things like my mop, broom, dusters and the like get stuck in there because I have no where else to put them, etc.  So, even though it looks like a cluttered mess...it's better than it was.  Trust me *laugh*.

And yeah, I'm going to call it good there as that's what I've basically been up to other than battling bugs left and right around here.  How about you?  How did your week go?