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!