Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Monday was actually a really productive day for my husband.  He had the day off with it being Memorial Day and Alvah had a good day that day mood-wise, so he spent most of his day out in the garage working on getting it cleaned up (and thus getting projects worked on that had been mounting up on him to get that stuff out of the garage).  So, I have a few of his projects to add to this Frugal Friday :).

Oh and some people e-mailed me and asked me to share pictures of our fixed roof (didn't share last time...oops), so here you go (the new shingles will fade out pretty quickly with how much direct sun our roof gets, so don't let that throw you).

So, let's get to what we did this week!

1.  I received a few freebies the last shopping trip (not the one we picked up today) and have been drinking the coffee creamer that we received.  Slowly.  I'm not really sure what it is with coffee creamers.  They always taste watered down when I add them to my coffee and I'm not a big fan.  It's like they want you to add a ton of creamer to get the effect you are after.  I've gotten to the point over the years where a few teaspoons of sugar in my coffee with some milk or cream tastes WAY better to me than a flavored creamer does.  But, the creamer is free, so I'm trying to go through it, even if it it's not my favorite.

The energy drink we decided to grab on a whim.  I get free energy drink offers quite a bit, but tend to ignore them, but since we were picking up groceries anyway, I decided to get this one.  

Spoiler:  It was DISGUSTING!  My daughter and I both tried a sip of it and just could not do it.  It ended up down the drain.  I can't even say that the drink tasted "healthy" and that is what was throwing the flavor off.  The artificial sugar gave it an awful aftertaste and the drink contained neither strawberry, nor watermelon flavor, that I could detect.  I keep running it over in my mind on what it actually tasted like, but I just can't come up with anything.  Considering the amount of time I've been on this spinning globe...that's saying something.  It did taste 100% bad, though, so there is that (sorry if you like it...I did not, obviously).

2.  I was able to bake bread this week, which was nice and while I was at it, I baked a few pans of rolls so the son would have something that was easy to chew, but as nourishing as I could get it.  We are down to one bag of 6 rolls from the freezer that are defrosting on the counter right now, so I'd say we did alright with that.

3.  I have been wanting a Belgian waffle maker forever and my daughter requested I order myself one for a late Mother's Day gift (I spent Mother's Day in a complete anxious mess since the son was going in for surgery the next day) and she'd pay me back.  I'm really happy as I've been wanting one forever, but honestly was too cheap to invest in another waffle maker *laugh*.  I found one on Amazon with ceramic plates instead of non-stick ones (I know, there is controversy about this out there, but this was my personal choice in the matter) and ordered it.  I got this one (affiliate link!).  I hope it works well as I'm overly excited about it *laugh*.  I used a giftcard I'd been saving to help take 10.00 off of the waffle maker to make it cheaper (couldn't help myself).

4.  In my husband's adventures, while cleaning the garage he found an outside light he's been meaning ot hang for years on the side of the house and he finally decided it was the day to do it.  It came out looking really nice and will be so nice this winter as that side of the house gets REALLY dark during the winter and is kind of worrisome not being able to see things like moose that might be lurking around.

5.  We had one kitchen chair, one of our old ones we inherited from my husband's grandfather, that was coming apart at the legs a bit and we had another chair we'd bought used that the back broke off and was loose pretty much everywhere, so he took some straps, lots of wood glue and a bunch of patience and fixed the chairs up.  The one we bought used, I'm kind of wondering how long it will live as it was pretty thrashed when we bought it, but I was glad to get the kitchen chair fixed up since it has sentimental value attached to it.

6.  I mended a few pairs of jeans for my husband.  I was hoping to get a bunch of mending done Monday night, but the son has taken to hating me working on the sewing machine, so it's definitely slowing me down.  I have an OVERFLOWING pile of mending to do, so I'm hoping he'll let me get some more done tonight...we'll see how it goes.

7.  My daughter was having issues with her phone becoming possessed and just playing weird, random podcasts or music she wasn't even listening to.  I looked up solutions online on how to fix the problems and fixed it last night.  The joys of technology are about 2/3 problems to the 1/3 advantages *laugh*.

8.  I found that our local Franz outlet had hotdog buns on sale for Memorial Day when I stopped in to see if I could pick up some chips to go with our burgers we were having that night (we ended up having popcorn with the burgers instead as they didn't have any, but it worked out) and they were 1.50 cheaper than buying them from the grocery store.  So, I picked up enough to get us through the next shopping trip without me having to pick them up at the store (hot dog and hamburger buns are some of my son's preferred foods, so we buy him a few per week for more calories).  I put them in the freezer and voila!  About 6.00 saved off of our grocery trip this week.

9.  We've been taking advantage of the nice weather to get out and about, mainly practicing driving (we are SO far behind on getting my daughter her driver's license as Alvah has made it really, REALLY, hard the last few years to get driving in for her, but I'm determined to do it this summer).  Sure, gas isn't cheap, but I still feel good about getting her out driving myself instead of having to shell out money for driving lessons (which, honestly, the more time went on, I've been seriously thinking was the only way I was going to get the poor kid her license).  

10.  My husband fixed the loveseat.  Again.  Alvah loves the loveseat and is really hard on it and this time one of the legs snapped off.  My husband redid how the legs were mounted and was able to reattach the legs so they will be harder to break (hopefully).  He used scrap wood to make it all happen.  I have found a completely memory foam loveseat on Amazon that will replace this loveseat when it dies, but the longer we can keep the old one going, the further down the road I have to pay for a new one, so always a good thing.

And there you go folks.  Some of the ways we saved money this week.  Did you do anything to save money this week?  Feel free to share in the comments :).

Enjoy!

What's for Dinner: This Week's Menu

When it comes to dinner...Alvah's recovery has been up and down.  We're having meltdowns about once every other day (which is an improvement over the every day huge meltdowns we were having pre-surgery), some of them long and not fun, so my motivation to come up with a menu has been stuck in "I have no freaking clue...I'll feed them something" category.  I put in our grocery order early for next week, tomorrow in fact, because Alvah has been blowing through a pound of pasta a day and my stockpile in the pantry is quickly running out.  Bright side to that is that he's eaten next to none of his usual junk food fare, so at least he's eating real food at the moment.  Grocery prices went up, again, which I knew was coming with gas prices the way they are (our prices quickly reflect changes in shipping being where we are), but dude...grocery shopping hurts, especially when you have to take advantage of frozen foods and things more than in the past because you have a huge draw on your time that needs attention pretty constantly.

Some of the meals I made this week were grilling some chicken thighs marinated in Italian dressing and serving it with rice and salad and then the next day I grilled a few more chicken thighs and we had Chicken Caesar salad for dinner one night.  And then last night I had to punt and we had frozen pizza for dinner.  Thus, my stage of life at the moment.

I have yet to be able to try the salmon piccata recipe (hopefully this weekend) and I still need to make creamy sausage and gnocchi soup (a recipe I found that I've been trying to fit in this week) as I have a bunch of gnocchi I got cheap on Amazon a while back in my freezer that I want to use up.  So, I'm going to put those on the menu plan and we'll see how we do this week.

I am scheduling a day to get take out next week as we have the guardianship hearing and my husband will be working closer to home as he has supervisor training, so we are hoping to be able to go out for a celebratory meal (praying everything goes well) to mark the end of all of this work the last few months.  Taking a bit of money out of savings to do it, but we feel like it is a big enough deal to warrant it.

Menu Plan for Week 5/28 - 6/4

Thursday:  Either Italian Sausage and Gnocchi Soup or grilled sausage sandwiches.  I'm using an Italian chicken sausage instead of bulk sausage for the recipe tonight, so it gives me a bit of leeway if the weather is too hot to eat soup tonight.  We are in that weird season of the sun might heat up the house if it is out, but if it isn't out, it's still kinda cold out.

In other news, we are having a late, and cold, spring, so it took forever for my rhubarb to come up.  Normally I'd be looking forward to freezing some for use later in the winter, but right now, I'm just hoping I can get enough for a strawberry rhubarb pie before it suddenly gets hot and the rhubarb goes tasteless and woody. 

Friday:  Asian food night (egg rolls and shrimp tempura from the freezer) with tropical fruit on the side.  This tends to be one of our "junky and easy" food nights around here and we're going to be busy tomorrow (as we tend to be every Friday), so the daughter requested it.

Saturday:  7 Minute Salmon Piccata, rice, salad.

Sunday:  Chicken street tacos, Mexican rice (use leftover rice from Saturday to make it).

Monday:  Grilled Pork steaks with roast potatoes and salad on the side.

Tuesday:  Chicken gumbo and rice (going to try gumbo in the crock pot so we have time to get some driving practice in for my daughter...wish me luck).

Wednesday:  Eating out day.

And there you go folks.  My tentative menu plan for the week.  

Enjoy!

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

This is kind of a combo post on frugal accomplishments over the last several weeks with Alvah being in recovery and all, so it will be a BIT longer than normal on the frugal accomplishments front.  I somehow managed to get things accomplished despite a kid that has VERY sudden mood shifts right now...gums start bothering him and he goes from happy to "holy cow" very very quickly.  So, it's been a bit rough the last few days especially.

But, without further ado, let's get to the frugal stuff (enjoy the pictures I managed to get of a really cool sky the other night dispersed throughout :).

Frugal Accomplishments for the last few weeks:

1.  We got our garage roof fixed *happy dance inserted here*!  Shopped around and found a roofer that had our color 3-tab shingles in stock (which was a miracle in itself).  By going with the roofer we did, our new shingles match on our roof still and we saved well over 100.00 off what other outfits were quoting us, which was a double bonus for sure.  They even fixed a few rough shingles we had around our upper chimney where my husband had repaired it after the earthquake that were coming loose, before they became a problem later.

2.  I turned off electric baseboard heaters.  Finally.  We still have to turn them on during the nights on and off, but it's way better on the electric bill to not have the bedroom heaters on 24/7 for sure.  Hoping summer gets here soon *sigh*.

3.  I bought a “used like new” case for one of Alvah's I-Pads WAY cheaper than buying it new.   It came in like new condition, which was good (wish Otter Boxes still came with screen protectors built in, though...had to order one of those *grumble*).

4.  Found a book I wanted to read in the internet archive instead of buying a copy.

5.  Repurposed/moved an old bookcase that wasn't needed in its space anymore to use somewhere else.  

6.  Bought groceries early this week to take advantage of sales on items we normally buy and then just bought loss leader meat on Memorial Day sales.  Worked out great and we're now stocked up on ribs and hamburger patties as well...for about the same price as our regular grocery shopping trip would have cost.   Yay for good sales!

7.  Took the patio furniture out of storage in a spiritual state of optimism that we will see nice weather sometime soon.  Treated the furniture with linseed oil we already had to help protect it from all the moisture we are getting (it was getting rough from the last few summers of constant rain we had).  Working well so far.  I'm folding up the furniture when it rains and putting it under the eaves of the roof to protect it from just constant water bombardment, which will also help to protect it from damage, I hope.

8.  Found out our garbage service was getting bought out by a bigger (and more expensive) company, so paid bill early so we are paid through the summer.  Will give me time on the cheaper rates to shop around for new service before steeper pricing kicks in.

9.  I was able to split up the purchase of some equipment I needed to get over several pay periods to alleviate the hit to the checking account and stopped me from having to put it onto a credit card or something.

10.  I fixed the zipper on my son’s jacket.

11.  Fixed a sneaker with shoe goo.

12.  Lightbulb burned out over our table and was worried I’d have to buy a replacement bulb, but was able to look up my order history and realized the last time I had bought bulbs I had gotten a 4 pack of bulbs.  I was able to find where I had stored said bulbs and replace the bulb without having to pay for a new one.

13.  Received some overripe bananas and put into the freezer to make banana items with later.  This was actually a really nice windfall, as I've been not purchasing bananas of late (they are always either way too green and don't ripen or they are gone over in two days time, it seems...I'd rather buy apples or something that has a better chance of being edible for longer right now) and had just used the rest of my frozen bananas to make banana bread last month.

14.  We've been trying to get out and about and enjoy what little sun we get.  Thus, the picture taken above.

And there you go folks.  Some of the ways we've been trying to save money the last bit.  Hope your money saving endeavors are going well, too.

Enjoy!

Thrifty Thursday: Thrift Store and Yard Sale Finds

As I stated in my last post, last week we ended up driving all over the place to help distract Alvah from his tooth recovery.  One of the things we ended up doing while driving all over creation was we started to hit yard sales.  I've noticed a DEFINITE uptick in yard sales this year.  I equate this to the state of the economy and people deciding to not donate their used goods, but instead hold onto them to do a yard sale in the hopes they can make some money, any money, to help alleviate the financial strains we are all dealing with.  Honestly, if Alvah does better this summer (so far, tentatively, I can say he's doing better than he was for sure) and is okay mood-wise, I might very well start hauling stuff out of storage to do a yard sale as well to see if I can make some money to help us.  I know I have baby items still in storage (and those days have definitely passed) and we have old furniture and things that could get hauled out and sold.  We'll see how it goes, though, as with the guardianship hearing coming up and everything...our plate is pretty darned full so far this summer.

I did manage to find a few things at yard sales, which were actually on my list of things I wanted to get, which was cool, so I thought I'd share a few of those here.

First are some DVD's I found that are not shown here as they are in my son's room in his stack of DVD's that he pulls from to watch during the day in his room.  I was able to find "Mater's Tall Tales" and Disney's "Cars" for 1.00 a piece in near new condition for 1.00 a piece.  These are on the list of DVD's my son regularly watches and is very hard on (translation:  Tends to destroy), so this saved me a bunch of money from having to order them online.

Next up, I found a blu-ray player at a yard sale, with remote, for 10.00 (the top Panasonic machine in the picture).  I never really had a desire to get a blu-ray player, but I've found now that I'm going back to physical media more and more (tired of getting things I purchased pulled because of "expired rights" but not getting any type of a refund when it happens...I'm looking at you Amazon), that some things are just plain cheaper on blu-ray or are ONLY available on blu-ray, so I decided to add one to our household.  I just kept putting it off because blu-ray players still aren't cheap (about 100.00 for a cheap one) and I didn't see the margin in the budget to pay for one. The VCR/DVD combo burner under the blu-ray player needs work in the picture above (VCR part just eats tapes now...need my husband to rip it apart and figure out what is going on with that), so that worked out doubly so, because now I have a working DVD player/Blu-Ray player to use while my husband tries to figure out how to fix the other machine.  

Next up was actually an oversight on my part.  The clear plastic Tupperware on top there is what I bought at a yard sale (the bottom cake carrier, by the way, I use as a cake dome and it comes in really handy).  I THOUGHT it was a small cake keeper and would work perfect to store cheesecake, when I make one, in the fridge, instead of trying to make plastic wrap not wreck the surface of the cheesecake.  It's actually a pie keeper, so the bottom plate is tapered, so it might not work for the cheesecake so well, but it will still come in handy for cold custard pies (like pumpkin pie) to keep them safe in the fridge, so I know I will still use it (just not as much as I'd hoped when I found it).  I paid 2.00 for that one.

And that's about it for finds so far this summer.  Not a bad haul by any stretch.  I'm hoping to find a few more things I've been looking for, but this is a decent start to the summer.

Hope your treasure hunting is going well out there :).

Enjoy!

What's For Dinner: This Week's Menu (and an Alvah Update)

Man, what a week it has been.  I think all of us around here are just bone weary exhausted at this point, but I think we are finally over the worst of it *knock on wood*.

Alvah ended up going into the hospital on Monday of last week to get his teeth worked on.  They ended up giving him a ketamine shot to make him loopy enough to get the IV in him.  On the way back to the OR, probably due to a reaction to the amount of drug they had given him (everyone who has laid professional eyes on its theory), Alvah had a small seizure.  Scared the holy crap out of my husband and I, which made Alvah's recovery all that more nerve wracking for us.  

Final tally on teeth.  His dentist had to take out two of his bottom molars (one on either side), his two top wisdom teeth and he fixed a bunch of cavities as well.  He also sealed everything he could while he was in there, so hopefully that will help protect his teeth in the future.  I feel awful, serious serious guilt, that Alvah was in that bad of shape when it came to his teeth.  I am the one who brushes his teeth everyday, so I just feel 100% responsible for the sheer amount of pain he had to have been in.  The dentist kept telling me I was doing fine, that his tooth health looked good, but I still feel like I should have been doing more all of this time to help stop all of that from happening.  My poor kid.

With the two extractions on the bottom and the top of his mouth, last week was not a lot of fun for anyone around here.  We spent a LOT of time driving Alvah all over the place to distract him from being in pain as much as we could (he won't take Ibuprofen, so we were trying to help the Tylenol work for him) and just went into survival mode all week.  It was definitely a "frugal fail" week with the sheer amount of french fries we bought for Alvah to try and get him to eat (he dropped like 5 lbs over the last three weeks with how he was feeling) and other treats, not to mention the gas to drive him all over the place.  Starting yesterday, though, Alvah finally started to show like he was feeling better and today he's doing even better than yesterday, so I'm hopeful (tentatively so) that maybe getting these teeth removed will help his mood and behaviors.  Sure isn't going to make them worse, so I'm going to be optimistic.

When it came to what we had for dinner, it actually worked out in a way, I guess, that we ended up eating at home, because we 100% did not have the money for all of us to eat out.  My husband worked from home last week to help with Alvah as much as he could, as well, so that helped to keep residual meal costs down.  Meals were uninspired to say the least, but we got through the week alright.  I'm hoping to get back into eating healthier this week and hopefully doing less sandwiches around here.  

Before I work on this week's menu, I wanted to share what I thought of Asian Glazed Salmon.  It was good!  I did punt on the sweet chili sauce as I did have some down in my pantry, but plain didn't feel like going and getting it that night, so I made up my own.  It worked and the fish was tasty.

So, now, onto this week's menu.  The fridge is really empty right now as this is grocery week this week.  I'm seriously thinking of taking some money out of savings to float us through till payday and getting groceries tomorrow (good sales on items we normally buy), but I'm waiting to see what the ad for next week at the store brings before I commit.  

So, let's get to the menu for this week.

Menu Plan for Week of 4/17-4/23

Monday:  Greek Chicken (I use this recipe for Chicken Gyros but instead of putting it in the Instapot, I use my crock pot and just add more liquid to compensate...tonight I'm also making it with chicken legs instead of what the recipe calls for and serving without pita bread as I don't have any) with Cucumber Free Tzatziki Sauce, canned peaches, home made bread (or rice...still torn).

Tuesday:  Creamy Baked Potato Soup (I use ham instead of bacon...just using up some left over ham from Easter this time around from the freezer), bread.

Wednesday:  Sweet and Sour Pork Chops, rice.

Thursday:  Breakfast for Dinner.  I'm thinking French Toast, but might do pancakes instead.  Probably will do sausage and fresh fruit (have some on the grocery list, so I'll make that if the store has it).

Friday:  7-minute salmon piccata (I actually have a jar of capers in my cabinet to use up that I bought for some recipe that I never made, so this will be a good use for some of them), rice pilaf, salad.

Saturday:  Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans.

Sunday:  Shrimp Scampi, salad.

And there you go folks.  Our menu for this week (so far anyway). 

Enjoy.

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

This week went down in history as one of the worst we've had with my son.  His moods have deteriorated the last few weeks, BAD, but this week took the cake.  We finally broke down and made an appointment to put him under at the hospital so his dentist can do any dental work that needs to be done (X-rays, teeth filling, etc) and potentially taking out wisdom teeth that might be impacted that might be causing his problems.  My husband and I are so torn about everything.  Half of us wants there to be wisdom teeth to take out and that would explain a lot of his moods and maybe he'll be BETTER after they are out, but the other half of us is dreading recovery from surgery so badly that we are hoping he doesn't have any wisdom teeth at all.   Either way, neither one of us are eating much and we are just sick with anxiety and stress right now.  Any prayers you guys could send our way that everything goes WELL with him getting knocked out and everything...man I'd appreciate it so much.  I'm a big ball of not good right now.  I am praying that they can zonk him good pre-IV and that Alvah is just not freaking out during the experience.  Praying HARD.  I want this to go well.  Please God, watch over us during this entire mess.  Amen.

After that is done we are going to switch the son's meds to put him on a medicine that he doesn't sleep on, but makes him really happy, in the hopes we can get his system detoxed off of the HORRIFIC amounts of meds I've been forced to give him and get him back to baseline.  Then we can figure out if we need to try switching his meds completely (I had an emergency pow wow with his mental health doctor a few days ago) or just being able to use his old meds once he's been off of them for a little bit.  Everything is an unknown commodity right now, and man I hate it so much.  I am one of those people that tries to make myself useful and being completely helpless like this is really hard on me.

My husband and I somehow managed to get some frugal stuff done this week, despite just living in a not great situation, so let's get to that and off of anxiety inducing, depressing matters.

1.  Alvah normally takes Zyrtec everyday for his allergies, but the store didn't have a coupon for the Zyrtec this week, while Amazon had a good coupon and a good deal overall for the pills.  So, I ordered Zyrtec from Amazon, saving 12.00 off the normal store price by doing so.

2.  I fixed a clogged bathroom sink.  The upstairs sink has driven me nuts for years because it gets clogged really easily and I could not figure out how to really clean out the drain with the drain we had in it.  I finally, quite accidentally, while trying to clear a hair clog from it, pulled part of the drain out with a paperclip and realized that you could remove that part of the drain to clean it.  It also made it MUCH easier to scour the drain pipe to clear soap scum if you did that as well.  So, next time I have to clean the drain it will be MUCH easier to do, which is nice.

3.  I fixed cracks in drywall.  Luckily we had picked up light joint compound a few weeks ago, because, unfortunately, it's come in handy.  I still have more patching to do, but at the moment, I just found it better to barricade the walls with stuff so they aren't so easily bounced off of and I'll worry about fixing everything when the son is in a better headspace.

4.  Husband fixed his MP3 player by soldering in a new battery (the old one bulged).

5.  Husband fixed a broken push broom with a electrical conduit strap and some ingenuity.  The handle had broken on said broom, but he got it up and working again, which is good as now that Spring is finally coming here, it'll come in handy to sweep the crud off of the driveway.

6.  Used up leftovers to make sure there was no food waste.  My daughter was out of the house this week to avoid the craziness here, so it was just my husband and I.  Neither of us has eaten much, so a big bunch of leftovers I had from earlier in the week just saw us through the week.

7.  Fixed a hole in a comforter.  Our washing machine isn't spinning things right and comforters get caught in it and end up getting holes torn in them by accident when I'm trying to switch between the washer and the dryer.  I managed to find one that had happened before it next went into the washer and I fixed it and then quilted through the inside when I did so to help hold the stuffing in place where I had accidentally ripped it.

8.  Daughter’s sneakers started to die and the top of her shoes was starting to disintegrate.  I, luckily, didn't have to order new shoes (man sneakers are spendy anymore) and was able to pul out a pair of sneakers I had in reserve that I had gotten for 25.00 on a pre-Christmas sale earlier.  I had actually stored them under my bed for myself, but my daughter is in between and 7 and a 7 and a half, so she finds she can wear either size, so she just took my 7 1/2 sneakers I bought and is very happy with them.  

9.  I par-baked some pizza crusts and put them in the freezer.  I was planning a pizza day a few weeks ago, but it didn't work out, so I had a bunch of sourdough starter to use.   So, I made up three pizza crusts with it and put them in the freezer.  This way all I have to do is defrost the pizza crust for a few hours, put on toppings and bake pizza normally in oven.  We are actually trying one out tonight so we'll see how they bake up.  I'm hoping they bake up better than freezing the entire pizza with the toppings and everything, because I find the crust gets too crispy while you are waiting for the cheese to melt in the middle of the pizza.

10.  The menu plan went flying out the window this week because my son’s behaviors went REALLY bad, but I still managed to make food at home, which is an accomplishment as take out was such a temptation this week to just not have to worry about one more thing.

And there you go folks.  Our frugal accomplishments for this week.  Sure hope your week went better than ours.

Enjoy.

What's for Dinner: This Week's Menu

The son is in a terrible state right now, so this week is a really "tentative" menu plan until grocery pick up at the end of the week (I broke down and am buying a few items to make some new dishes with the fish we got).  But, at this point in my budget, I need some type of plan or we are going to be getting take out near constantly, which we can't afford.

So, let's get to the menu for this week (after Friday, the menu will probably change, so I might update it later).

Menu for the Week 5/3 - 5/9

Monday:  Leftovers 

Tuesday:  Smothered Pork Chops (crock pot), rice, green beans 

Wednesday:  Baked chicken (balsamic honey, from freezer), rice, corn 

Thursday:  Oven fried breaded chicken (home made “Shake and Bake”), mashed potatoes, hot honey carrots 

Friday:  Pizza Night (already have par baked pizza crusts in the freezer for an easy dinner) 

Saturday:  Asian Glazed Salmon, leftover rice (we always have some), salad.

Sunday:  Crock pot pork roast with potatoes and carrots.  Home made bread.

 And there you go folks.  My menu plan for this week (even more tentative than normal).

Enjoy!

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

The son is doing better the last few days, thank goodness, so let's get to the few money saving things I was able to do this week!  I'm not going to be very wordy today, sorry to say, as I'm battling a nasty migraine the last few days...love hormonal shifts *blech*.

1.  Carrs has been hitting the "hey, order through delivery or pick-up and get good deals or sometimes free stuff" and one of last week's coupons (the ad shifts over on Wednesday) was 1.99 per (near) pint of frozen yogurt and there was a coupon for 1.00 off two on the yogurt as well.  So, I was able to get them for about 1.49 per "pint" ("pints" are now about 12 oz from what I have been seeing...the 1.00/2 coupon could be used like up to four times too, which was nice).  One pint is a good size for the husband, me and the daughter to all have a serving of something and the yogurt didn't have the peanut cross contamination of tons of other stuff, so it was safe to keep around the son.  So, I ordered 2 of each flavor that sounded good to us.  This is enough to give us a decent amount of desserts this summer and didn't cost me a ton (a container of ice cream that is safe from peanut cross contamination is like 6.00 for a not half a gallon of ice cream, so this was a good deal to me).

2.  The daughter ordered herself a paint by number with one of her favorite anime characters from "Full Metal Alchemist".  She finished the painting, which was on a canvas, but wasn't sure what to do about a frame.  With life the way it is right now and all of us watching our money (daughter is saving hers as much as she can), I looked at the Monet print I had hanging above the towel cabinet in the hallway and told her I had a plan.  I took apart the frame and flipped the Monet poster print over so it was solid white to surround her painting.  We then cleaned up the edges of her painting, stuck a few pieces of tape to the back of the canvas to help hold it in place as we put the frame together (I've found poster frames are actually pretty good at holding things still in them because they pinch together pretty tight, but we added it for extra security) and got it all back together.  For nothing out of pocket, I felt pretty good that my daughter could now hang up her painting without issue.

3.  I helped my daughter hang up her painting and while I was in her room she pointed at the painting of an English cottage that she'd had hanging up in her room for years and asked me to take it down as she wanted more room on her walls for things she was currently interested in.  There was no way I was getting rid of the painting as I really fell in love with it when I bought it years ago (it really has a Beatrix Potter cottage feel to it, which I love...it was a steal at like 5.00 when I bought it and it is numbered and everything on the back.  

So, I looked at the wall where the Monet print had once hung and thought, "Hey, I bet it will look good there" and hung it up.  And voila!  I have a really cute spot in my hallway now :).

4.  We redeemed our rewards with Red Robin to get 10.00 off my son's french fry obsession when we took him to the doctor, which was a welcome savings as it was money I had not planned on spending this week.

5.  We were gifted some fish!!!  

I am so thrilled with this that I can't really express here how happy I am about this!  Fish has been HARD to put in the budget since, geez around Covid, as it went up in price and just didn't go back down.  So, I took out the occasional meal of fish and chips or other fish dish and just added in more chicken to the menu and we have just dealt with it.

One of my husband's friends at work gave us a bunch of fish that was in his freezer to free up room for other stuff (probably hunting seasons opening up soon enough).  We were blessed with a gift of salmon and halibut!  The only place we have halibut is on the rare occasion we get fish and chips on a take out order (which we'll get french fries for the son but we eat out VERY seldom...usually when we have a gift card for a birthday or something, as eating out is horribly expensive).  Halibut up here is like 24.99 a lb, so I was shocked and thrilled to receive some of it and my husband has been told to work salmon into his diet as he's supposed to eat more fatty fish, so that was a nice windfall as well :).  

I don't have much experience with salmon and how to make it not taste fishy, but I will definitely use it.  Anyone got any recommends on recipes that makes good salmon?

6.  I finished up a container of yogurt in the fridge by adding it to a container of, nearly empty, sour cream that I then made into beef stroganoff one night this week (menu plan went flying off a cliff this week).  

7.  I used an online shopping discount code combined with a gift card I had to get a Rifftrax movie for free.  My husband and I really enjoy watching things together when we can, and I LOVE comedies while my husband loves bad movies and comedies, so Rifftrax is the perfect thing for us to watch together *laugh*.

8.  I've been enjoying listening to new vintage music playlists on Jake Westbrook's Chanel on YouTube.  I like to put them on my laptop, so I don't have to worry about ads (I use the Brave browser) and then I bluetooth the music to a little radio bluetooth speaker in my kitchen so I can listen while I cook or do dishes :).

I've also been listening to The Legend of Uh audiobooks that the author was nice enough to post up when I can.  So far I'm enjoying them (I'm still early into the first book :).

And there you go folks.  I'm calling it good there as my ability to think is greatly reduced at the moment.

Enjoy!

When Money is Tight: Meal Prep Time!

 With how tight our budget is right now (and getting worse), I thought I'd share what I'm doing to help mitigate against meals getting too boring or too unhealthy.  For a short while there, I was buying a lot of frozen (and as minimally processed as I could find) food, but those items quickly went up in price and it got to the point that Alvah in a horrible mood or not, I had to come up with other alternatives around here to make sure we had snacks (or the husband develops a nasty vending machine habit at work), easy breakfasts and the like.  So, I thought I'd go through the meal prep I managed to do for this week (before Alvah went into meltdown mode).

1.  Recently, I was offered a really good personalized price on a new product that has cottage cheese on the bottom compartment and fruit on the top and you add the fruit to the bottom and then you have a high protein snack.  Traditionally, I'm not really a fan of cottage cheese...remember eating it a lot as a teen as my mom liked it and it would be in the house, but I've never been like, "Yay!!!  Let's go and eat some cottage cheese!" type of person.  But, I did find I was the only one who was eating the cottage cheese snacks because I didn't want to waste them, whether I was thrilled with cottage cheese or not.  Oddly, I found that while the texture wasn't something I would actively seek out, the protein in the snack did help to keep me satisfied in the afternoons and was making it so I wasn't falling asleep on my feet by 3 pm.  When I looked at the normal price on the cottage cheese snacks, however, there was NO WAY I was going to pay like 2.50 each for teeny little snack packs.  

So, instead this week, I bought a container of cottage cheese, separated it out into containers and then added a can of diced mangoes I had in the pantry to the top of the cottage cheese so I could just pull them out and have a high protein snack.  It works well, although I doubt I'm going to purchase diced mango again anytime soon as there was a LOT of pulpy mango in the can I had.  I'm going to try canned peaches next time as that is a favorite around here.

And yes, I'm doing my grandma's habit of recycling plastic containers from the store to store food in.  I'm using a dry erase marker to keep what is in them straight.  I find the small sour cream containers I buy are the perfect size for snacks.  The glass bowl was actually the last portion that I ended up eating for a light lunch.

2.  I bought fresh strawberries on sale on our last shopping trip, but the strawberries this season haven't been very good and these were really sour tasting.  So, I ended up cutting them up, added in a bag of nearly empty frozen strawberries, macerated them in sugar and turned them into a jug of smoothy mix to drink over the coming week.  I like to add greek yogurt for the probiotics (for the sake of the daughter's gut health), a bit of milk and the fruit with the syrup included and blend it all together.  I also added some collagen peptides I bought on a good deal a while back to help with my husband's and my health (and heck, the daughter will benefit too).

We have all been drinking a small glass of smoothy with our breakfasts all week and it's been a nice change of pace.

3.  I took some of the various things of sausage I had found in the freezer and made a big pot of sausage gravy (if you look at the menu for the week photo from a few posts down you'll see a half gallon of milk in the photo...I bought that on sale for cheap with the express purpose of using it in baking and meal prep and it worked FABULOUSLY!).

I then separated out the sausage gravy into four, individual servings for my husband for breakfast for the week.  It worked great and kept him from grabbing things from the vending machines at work.

4.  With the gravy, of course, I had to make biscuits.  I made plain ones for the husband for his breakfasts and the daughter as well (she loves biscuits).  I used the food processor to mix the dough to make life easier and made the plain ones first and then the cheese ones, so I didn't have to clean it between recipes.  I decided to make them square this time to just make my life easier as that way there was no wasted dough and no re-rolling the dough.  Worked great.   I did make them super huge by accident as it had been a while since I had made biscuits, but ah well.  I also made a big batch of cheese biscuits and we had some with dinner that night and I put the rest in the freezer to turn into cheddar bay biscuits with future meals.

5.  I make all my own bread now a days for the most part (I do buy the son hamburger buns to destroy as he's less likely to choke on the all air store bread), and I love making the dutch oven style sourdough bread that I've made for a long time now, but the daughter asked me to make some loaf bread so the bread would fit in the toaster better and sandwiches would turn out more uniform.  I found that Farmhouse On Boone's Sourdough Sandwich Bread was a great recipe to use.  I make it exactly as written, but I end up adding about 1/2 cup extra flour to make the dough into a soft, workable bread dough and also add 1 TBS of SAF instant yeast.  The dough only takes about 1 hour to rise in the first rise, and then I found you need to separate the dough into 3 loaf pans, not two, or you end up with super huge loaves that might nor might not get jammed into the top of your oven (ask me how I know).  I then let the dough rise for about 1/2 an hour longer, split the top to let the steam escape in a controlled way, add the egg wash the recipe calls for and bake at 375 degrees F for 35 minutes.  The loaves turn out perfect every time, the sourdough adds the best flexibility to the bread so you can cut it into really slim slices without any crumbling and it is wonderful stuff.  I end up freezing the third loaf most weeks to pull out when bread is getting short, which works great when you end up with a few loaves in the freezer that way from different weeks and don't have the time to bake bread for a few days one week.

On weeks where I don't want to look up a recipe or have time to soften butter and stuff, I do just make my go-to dutch oven sourdough recipe, but it is nice to have a good sourdough sandwich loaf as well.

I had other plans for meal prep, but life got in the way this week.  So, that's all I got done.  

Enjoy!

Weekly Goals Update

Man guys and gals, it has been a week.  Not a great one, but a week.

First off, the court interview/visitation went well on Saturday.  Luckily she had experience with kids like Alvah so knew what to watch for before things would escalate with him.  After some rearranging of the seating, he was fine through the interview and I got some helpful information on stuff, which was good.  Next step is our court date in June and the court will do all the document collecting and stuff on their end, so hopefully we won't have anything else to worry about.  My husband can even call into the court instead of us having to show up in person with Alvah in tow, which will definitely make things a lot less stressful.

The rest of the weekend, Alvah started acting weird and by Monday he was not doing well and not stable.  After a few days of more medication than I wanted to give him, a lot of outbursts and more walls to fix, yesterday he woke up and started trying to shove entire blankets and clothing down his throat.  I was scared to death he was going to inhale that crap into his airway and we were concerned that maybe he had strep again (since the last time he tried shoving things down his throat was when he had it), so we took him to the doctor's yesterday.  The test came back negative, but my husband thought maybe Alvah had a sore throat either way (I mean your tonsils can be swollen without strep, of course), so we decided to ride it out as much as we could.  He didn't sleep last night and started doing the same thing at 3:00 in the morning, but after a lot of struggling to stop him from hurting himself and a bunch of medication, he finally settled down.  He woke up this morning in a much more stable condition and has been eating and drinking like normal so far, so hopefully whatever the heck was going on is past.  

During one his outbursts, I threw my hand up between his head and the wall to stop him from hurting himself on a wall that had no hollow spot behind the drywall, but all 2x4 structural stuff and I ended up bruising the crap out of my hand as a result.  Typing hasn't really been in the cards this week (thank goodness I didn't have any new paperwork to fill out).  My fingers are turning wonderful shades of technicolor purple now, but I'm way more mobile, so I'm glad I can finally get some stuff done in the way of typing and such.  

So yeah, carpeting Alvah's closets was DEFINITELY out this week with everything going on, but I did manage to get the desk cleaned off (still need to dust it, though...yeah it ain't perfect, but TRUST me it is a vast improvement over where it was...it had become a catch all for everything and you could barely fit a laptop on it...sure the shingle sample is still on there, but we'll need that) and I got a bunch of old paperwork cleaned out of our file cabinets that we didn't need anymore and put those into the "to be burned" pile of paperwork.  I got a bunch of stuff printed out and organized for Alvah's new stage in life so I can better keep track of records and such and know where to go to take guardianship classes and things online (husband has to take them too, so doubly nice to have it in an easy to find location).  

As for the locating of the panelling, that certainly didn't even get started.  I'll have to see if we can find it this weekend or something.

It's definitely been a mixed bag of a week.  But, hopefully, looking up.  Be prepared for more than one post today as I'm going to be doing a bunch of catch up today since the son is in an okay mood.

Enjoy!

What's for Dinner: This Week's Menu

I was hoping to share some frugal things I did this week, but my week got derailed by the court scheduling to do a guardianship interview this weekend with us,  So, instead of doing mending and things, I've been working on deep cleaning the whole house from top to bottom so that we can, hopefully, put a good foot forward.  Alvah's kind of unstable the last few days, so it won't be our best foot...but hopefully we'll do alright.  My anxiety is eating my stomach lining, so I hope it goes well.  

So, instead of sharing frugal things that happened (I'll, once again, save that for Monday), I figured I'd instead share our menu for this week.  

It was grocery shopping week this week.  We went and got groceries yesterday, so I have a good idea of what I have in the house now (I tend to wait on grocery week until I know if I'm going to get what I ordered or not before I think on things too hard) and that makes it easier.

So, let's get to it, shall we?

Menu Plan for Week of 4/23/26 -- 4/29/26

Thursday:  Home made chicken strips with honey mustard dressing (I just do equal parts honey and mustard and do it that way), salad.

Friday:  Teriyaki chicken burgers (from freezer that I have made up) on home made bread, chips (bought a bag of plain potato chips on sale).

Saturday:  Ham, cheese and spinach quiche (from freezer).  Salad.

Sunday:  Chicken fried steak (using cube steaks from the freezer), mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans.

Monday:  Pizza night (daughter works that day, so it's always nice to give her something she really enjoys for dinner)

Tuesday:  Chimichurri Chicken (I just mixed up the sauce, poured it over chicken thighs and froze the chicken to bake later.  It comes out really good...great way to use up cilantro that I have left over from like Pad Thai night or something without anything going to waste), corn (from freezer), bread/rolls/something starchy.

Wednesday:  Creamy sausage, gnocchi and spinach soup.  This is using up a big bag of frozen spinach that the store subbed for frozen onions one day...no idea...and some of the sausage I found in the freezer that needs to be used up. 

And there you go folks.  Our basic dinner menu for this week.  I am hoping to get some stuff done on Sunday that I can share (I am cutting my grocery budget by 1/3, basically, this pay period and next to make a 500.00+ radiology bill that came in the mail, so meal planning and meal prep is a must right now), but this is the start for my weekly plan.

You all planning on anything good for dinner this week?  I'm always looking for inspiration, so feel free to share!

Enjoy!