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!