Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

I don't know who might need this today, but please enjoy a picture of a sunning cat.

When it comes to money saving things we’ve done around here this week, pretty much everything done was on my husband’s end.  But, I’ll add a few things for myself to make me feel better.

1.  The Equinox, after sitting for so long, had some hiccups that needed to be fixed.  The mornings here are still cold and the heater was just blowing cold air even though the car had enough coolant.  He was just about ready to replace the thermostat when the guy at the auto parts store backed up his idea to try and flush the heater core first to get rid of clogs and bubbles to see if that was the problem.  My husband flushed the heater core over the weekend and the heater is now working like it should.  Not buying a thermostat definitely saved us money.

2.  The car was also stuttering on and off when driving.  Both he and I figured it was some water in the fuel tank, potentially, from condensation as it sat.  Ran some HEET through the fuel tank and it seems to have cleared up, so at least we were on the right track there.

3.  The old fridge we moved back into the kitchen has had a few problems (because, of course).  First the evaporator fan died and killed the fridge’s ability to move air, so it got hot.  Cue my mother-in-law, once again coming to the rescue with coolers and ice until my husband could come home early and we could go and track down the part we needed (thanks again, Stacey!).   We replaced the fan, which fixed the air movement issues, and then it started being way too cold and freezing food (it is sitting at 24 degrees right now without me opening the door to keep it warmer).  It seems to be that same flap that probably froze shut when the fridge died over a year ago is now sticking open and leaving an open highway to the freezer.  We ordered a replacement part and it should be in today.  I feel really blessed every day the Lord fixed me up with a man who knows how to fix things.  Especially at times like these.

As an aside, just a quick thank you to those who have ordered through my Amazon link.  The associate fees help, especially at times like these, to buy repair parts or other things we need.  Thank you again.  I appreciate it.

4.    My life has been revolving around working on getting Alvah straightened out.  We started him on an OCD med that will work fine with his other two medications and helps with reducing violent behaviors by doing things with dopamine production in the body.  For the first time in years I am optimistic about this.  So far he’s tolerated taking the med great (it is a VERY bitter pill) and while the medication is a slow build type we are noticing a difference in his behaviors on it and when he's really bad, that medicine will calm him down pretty darned fast (like this morning when he was really bad and unstable...it has been a rough few days with him).  If we can get him stable it would be such a tremendous weight off both my husband’s and my shoulders.

5.  We got Alvah’s lab results back and the take aways were that he’s low on iron (not scary low, thank goodness) and he’s REALLY low on Vitamin D (he’s at 7 when the minimum they like to see is 50…not good).  Since he won’t take pills or chew gummies getting vitamins in him is a challenge.  I found a flavorless liquid drop on Amazon that gives you 6000 units of Vitamin D in each drop, so have been putting that in his drink.  Our pediatrician also gave us some “flavorless” iron powder to try (it isn’t flavorless, but the flavor is VERY slight, like almost not there).  Alvah, of course can taste it and is not a fan, but I’m going to work at it until I can get it down him.  It is such a small amount of powder that I know I can do it.

6.   I made dentist appointments for my daughter and I on the same day within an hour of each other.  By accident.  Which is an accidental frugal win since this will save me a trip.  I’ll take happy accidents to save money at this point.

7.  We got some freebies via coupons of late.  The latest one was some free enchiladas.  Never had this brand before.  Hopefully they are good.

8.  I looked up a few tutorials on YouTube to figure out how to do a few things and they really helped to clarify things when we needed it.

9.  My husband was able to pull up repair manuals online to figure out how to troubleshoot our fridge.

10.  I turned a few bananas that were nearly gone into banana bread.

11.  I made meals at home and was able to make bread, which was a blessing.  It has been rough the last bit with how Alvah was to get anything accomplished.

12.  My husband found an 8 1/2 inch cast iron skillet, a pretty hefty one, at a yard sale.  It was rusty but he bought it anyway, figuring we could clean it up and recure it (I've done it before with my cast iron griddle I got for free once...it is not my favorite job, but doable).  He took a grinder to it to get the pitted parts out and got rid of the rust.  I have then put it through the curing process twice now to make sure it has a good cure on it before we use it.  Please excuse the ragamuffin curing job on the pan.  I always try so hard to make the oil as thin as possible when curing a pan and I ALWAYS seem to put it on too thick and it leaves drip type patterns.  Bright side it does feel right and not super sticky, so at least I didn't make it super thick by accident.

13.  My husband took the vacuum apart and cleaned it (boy did it need it).  

14.  I looked up a tutorial on how to oil my sewing machine and got that bit of maintenance done (my manual is around here somewhere but I misplaced it…looking up on YouTube was easier).

15.  I used up canned goods that were getting close to the use by date to just keep food rotating correctly through the pantry.

16.  When the fridge started freezing things, I made sure to use up fresh produce as quickly as possible so we could get them used before they froze.  For the most part it worked.  We lost the head of cabbage I bought as it froze and thawed and was too gross to use, but was able to save some salad and a cantaloupe I got and I just threw some fresh asparagus I had bought for Father's Day straight into the freezer when it froze so it wouldn't get super soggy when thawed.  

17.  I scoped out a project to tackle while my daughter is on vacation from work for a few weeks coming up since we won't have to worry about driving her to work and things.  I am hoping to clean and organize my bedroom closet as you can barely move through it (I'll try to remember to take a before picture, but please don't judge me too harshly...we have no linen closets to really speak of in this house and with Alvah we go through a TON of bedding, so I quickly run out of places to stack blankets and comforters.

I know Frugal Friday is early this week, but I figured it was best.  It's been a rough week with the kid, and while I'm hopeful it will get better, I know too well that you can't depend on hope.

Enjoy!

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

It has been one heck of a week.  We started out on Sunday.  Since February the lower compartment of the fridge had not acted right.  In February (one month after the one year warranty ran out) it suddenly went too warm and I lost some food.  We thought the coils had froze due to me inadvertently blocking a vent, so my husband defrosted the coils and it seemed to fix it, but we turned it down to the “freezer” setting to keep it at 34 to 38 degrees.  

I am blessed that I really did not trust the fridge compartment after that so tried to keep the items to a minimum in it because Sunday rolled around and I opened the fridge to check it (did that every day after February) to find the fridge at 20 degrees and everything frozen solid.

So I spent the day, when I really wanted to rest and try to get over this cold, processing frozen potatoes and onions.  I turned the onions into frozen diced onions for the freezer.  Got the russets peeled and cut up (sorry knives) while frozen and managed to turn them into mashed potatoes for the freezer.  

The Yukon gold potatoes I diced up, threw them on some baking sheets, coated them in oil and seasoning salt and baked them till crispy to turn into diced hash brown potatoes.  I had some mixed mini potatoes I had bought to make roasted potatoes in the oven.  

Instead I threw some in with the pork roast I had put aside for dinner in the crock pot and the rest I put in with the russet potatoes to boil until tender.  I removed them before mashing the potatoes and put them aside to cool and freeze in big chunks.  These I’m going to try hitting with some oil and putting in the air fryer to crisp up with dinner one night.  Hopefully it works.

Monday rolls around with us thinking we just needed a temp sensor for the bottom compartment of the fridge and we’d hopefully be ok.  Nope.  The fridge went completely belly up and everything just quit.  Thank goodness my mother in law had some spare coolers and bought us some ice to go in them.  Because of her I did not lose all of the food in that fridge.  Luckily the freezer was small in that thing so I was able to get most of everything refrozen before we lost it.

We managed to get the 2400.00 paperweight out onto the deck and we wheeled the old fridge back in to see if my husband could repair it (after I deep cleaned 18 months of gunk out and off of it).  He took off a panel he had researched on the fridge, messed with a flap and put it all back together and it is working fine.  We are keeping an eye on it, though.

Our goal, for now, is to fix the new fridge and sell it for what we can get for it.  I’m kind of done with new fridges at this point.  I cried a lot of tears on Monday with that fridge as 2400.00 is a lot of money to just burn on a lemon like that, especially for us.

The cherry on top of the crap sundae was my husband’s car potentially blew something major, major, on the way home from work on Monday, too and we are trying to figure out if it is worth fixing or not.

It was not a good week.

The frugal stuff I accomplished in a nutshell…

1.  Processed frozen onions and got put back into freezer to stop loss.

2.  Processed 5 lbs russet potatoes into mashed potatoes to avoid loss.

3.  Processed 5 lbs Yukon good potatoes into diced hash browns to avoid loss.

4.  Processed bag of mini potatoes into future roast potatoes and potatoes to cook with a roast to avoid loss.

5.  By checking fridge and freezer was able to keep loss to a minimum.  Total things lost was some salad dressing, my bag of chard that was left from last year’s garden (that was depressing to lose) and some frozen bananas that had defrosted and slimed all over the freezer shelf.  Could have been much worse.

6.  Was able to fix and utilize old fridge without having to throw more money away trying another alternative.

7.  Was able to save the rest of the food by transferring it to another freezer or to some coolers with ice (thanks again, Stacey!).

8.  Husband went online with Whirlpool and at least got some repair manuals for the new fridge out of them.

9.  Am using up perishable food from the fridge that died as quickly as possible because I know what happened will definitely shorten its lifespan.

10. Renewed daughter’s library books over the phone to save us a trip to town in the middle of everything.

11.  A friend of ours had given us a countertop ice maker he didn't need anymore.  My husband insisted on keeping it, even though I didn't see the point at the time to keep it, and it floated around our den for a few years.  When I redid the den, I put it on top of the bar, thinking we might use it downstairs someday if we ever got to a point where we could entertain people again around here.  Well, it sure came in handy when the fridge died as it makes ice a LOT faster than an ice cube tray and when you have an autistic kid that will only drink his preferred beverage with ice...it means a lot to have that handy.  

Glad my husband made me not get rid of it or store it in our storage shed, as trying to find it would have been a nightmare.

12.  Since my husband got his car, the old Equinox has been sitting in our backyard for years.  I refused to let my husband sell it, which now he sees the logic in it now that his car is having major problems.  My daughter and I both loved that car, it was 100% paid for, and I wanted to keep it as it was still a darned good car and could be a good car for our daughter someday (my husband's new car got WAYYYYYY better fuel mileage than the Equinox, which was the entire reason we purchased it).  My husband got a new battery for it this week and fired her up and she's running just fine.  Desperately needs an oil change and a massive detail cleaning on the inside from sitting, but overall...running great.  Glad to see her back in action again, honestly.

And there you go folks.  Our week in a nutshell.   Onto other things.

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!

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.