This Week's Shopping Trips

I spent 100.00 (103.15 to be exact) on groceries this week.  Yup, I went over by that much.  But, I came to the conclusion that I needed to and my husband agreed.  Basically we needed meat and there were some awesome sales at Carrs this week, including 5.00 value packs of chicken on 5.00 Friday, so we decided that spending an extra 50.00 to get meat and things we were running desperately low on was necessary.

The only thing I picked up at Fred Meyer was my free Quaker oat flats from Freebie Friday a couple of weeks ago (yay!) and a can of cat food to make my life easier about the freebie, since I checked out at U-Scan (I paid pocket change for that).  The photos of that aren't seen because I forgot about them, honestly, until I found the bag in the front seat of my car later that same day (oops).

The Carrs trip is broken up into two photos because I didn't want to haul soda and cat litter upstairs only to haul it back downstairs again.

I then went to Carrs on Friday with both kids in tow and still managed to stick to my list.  I was so proud of myself *laugh*.  I shopped the ad hard to fill in holes that we needed to fill.

So, let's break it down.

5.00 Friday Items

• Bounty Paper Towels
• Value Packs of chicken (no weight limit)
• Tidy Cat cat litter (no limit on those, so I got two)

Other items:

• Coke 2 liter bottles on sale 1.49 each when you bought five, so I stocked up for the next couple of weeks (glad I did too as my son is back on his "I must have fresh soda, take three sips and then you must pour it out and get me more soda" kick *sigh*).
• Pork steaks, three packages, 1.99 lb, personalized price
• Hot dog buns on sale 1.99 (for son.  I need to hit the Franz outlet one of these days to stock up again)
• Tortillas 1.69 personalized price
• Big value box of baby wipes 10.49 personalized price
• Lays chips, free with coupon (the coupon maxed out at 1.49, but the cashier said "uh it says free, so no" and punched in the full price of the item.  I thought that was nice of them).
• Two things of reduced hamburger patties 7.98 for both

So, yeah, after all coupons were applied (and personalized prices and things) I spent a total of 103.15 on groceries.  I'm not going to try to make up the 50.00 difference from my reduced grocery budget as my husband and I decided that we would allocate 100.00 or less to restock the meat as well as we could.  So, really I have 50.00 left to spend on meat if I need to (hoping to make do with what I got, though).

How did you do this week?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap and Garden Update

Well, as week's go it's been productive, in some ways not in the way I had planned.

This week was, I'm liking to call "Me vs. the Bugs" week here at the Make Do Homemaker homestead.

First there were the bugs in the garden.  Ever sat there and flipped every single leaf of lettuce, spinach and cabbage over looking for aphids and other nasties so you could kill them before they did more damage to your plants (and I'm sure other gardeners are looking at the screen and saying, "Yup" right now)?  Yeah, that was me.  The insecticidal soap isn't working as well as I'd hoped, primarily due to us getting JUST enough rain to make the weather bug friendly, so it was down to manual killing of bugs this week.

Then I was in my kitchen and pulled out my mixer to find a meal worm under it.  Now I KNOW that kitchen pests happen, especially in bad bug years (and I keep my food locked away in Tupperware and other containers to make sure I keep these things to a minimum), but you have NO IDEA how deep my bug-a-phobia goes.  I lived in Florida for four months with five slobs for roommates (I must defend my roommate Kim, though, she was neat just like me so we were the two trying to fight incoming bugs constantly).  After seeing walls move when you turn on the lights and having to kill that many roaches in one evening...you are scarred for life.

So, I freaked out when I found the meal worm, cleaned everything down to the deepest level I could (including going at my mixer with a Q-tip and some bleach water...yes...I'm that bug a phobic) and really worked on getting clutter reduced in the kitchen to give bugs less places to hide.  I've then been on a quest to get the rest of the house cleaned down to the deepest levels as well to keep bugs down as with the way the summer is shaping up I'm imagining bugs are definitely going to be a problem this year.

At least deep cleaning doesn't really cost you anything except in elbow grease and time.

Things overall, though, went well this week on the money saving front.  Let's get to that :).

1.  When it comes to the garden I harvested tons this week, so here's a quick update.

Lots of lettuce, spinach and cabbage was harvested and turned into salads this week.  I harvested all of my dwarf bok choy as it was starting to bolt, so I'm looking through my seeds to figure out what to plant in it's place :).

I thinned my Swiss chard, finally, and was able to add that to salad fixings as well.  The bunching onions are finally starting to grow, the potatoes are trying to take over the universe no matter where they are, the chocolate mint is finally starting to come up in the front bed and I noticed we finally have some wave petunias starting to come out in bloom in the front bed, so yay!

I also harvested herbs this week and used them in different dishes, including chives, which was nice not having to rely on my dehydrated onions for onion flavor in dishes for a change (and I'm thrilled the chives have spread to at least three different locations in the front bed and are doing well this year).

I love this time of year.  Being able to harvest salad fixings from the garden and herbs.  Shot of my first "official" harvest from the garden is above :).

2.  While most of the week was too hot to can things, Monday wasn't too bad, so I got golden syrup canned.  You don't really need to "can" golden syrup as once it's made it keeps at room temperature for a long while (at least a year), but I like to actually can it to one, be safe, and two, so if it falls over in the pantry it won't leak everywhere.  I discovered golden syrup when my daughter had her corn allergy.  It's basically just a caramel flavored sugar syrup, but you add lemon to it to stop the sugar from recrystallizing and also to help flavor the syrup.  The taste actually improves with age and you can use it in recipes calling for corn syrup, you can use it to make gypsy tarts (great...now I'm drooling at the thought) and you can use it for a topping for pancakes or ice cream and other things.  It's actually really versatile and pretty easy to make :).  And you can't beat the ingredient list.  Sugar, water and lemon.  That's it.

And it sure looks pretty when done *laugh*.

3.  Got my electric bill in the mail and it's down 60.00 from last month and that's with four more days onto the calculations.  Part of this I attribute to watching electric consumption, but a good portion of it, I'm sure, is because we've only had to run the air conditioner once so far this summer (although I am tracking it to see if the new meter had anything to do with this trend as well).  Definitely a good thing.

4.  I hit sales hard when grocery shopping this week and luckily things I really needed were on sale (more on that in a later post).  I even had both kids shopping with me yesterday and managed to keep my list straight.  I was proud of myself *laugh*.

5.  I made meatloaf this week and used the free crackers that neither my husband and I were fond of in the meatloaf instead of bread crumbs.  It worked really well, actually, and made a really tasty meatloaf.  I'm kind of glad that I have about 1/2 of the box left to make another meatloaf with in the future.

6.  I mended five items this week.  I'm still trying to figure out this phenomena.  No matter how many things you mend, it's like suddenly there are MORE things to mend then when you started the pile.  I swear it grows as you watch.

7.  I spread used coffee grounds on the garden before I fertilized it, so the garden was definitely happy (at least if the sudden jump in growth was any indication anyway).

8.  I accidentally put some paper towels through the washer and dryer and once they came out of the dryer, instead of throwing them away, I stacked them in a pile and have been using them one at a time to do things like dust the shelves downstairs and things.  It's a great way to reuse something that is nice and clean again before throwing it away.

9.  I actually kept to my meal plan this week (booyah!) which helped to eliminate a lot of "what's for dinner" issues.  I even made a double batch of pancakes for pancake night and if we don't eat through them this weekend I'll freeze the left overs for later use.

10.  To save on freezer bags, I used empty bread bags to pack my meat in before putting it into freezer bags.  This eliminated me having to use 7 freezer bags this week.  That's definitely a savings!

I know I'm forgetting some things, but those are the ones I remember.  So, how did you do this week?

Menu Plan for Week of 6/6/16

So, I've found that after hour three of hitting cookbooks and Pinterest looking for recipes to try that your brain will officially turn to Jello and you'll just throw up your hands and say, "We're having noodle bowl night for dinner" and that's that *laugh*.

I'm doing a bit better today after about six hours of near solid sleep last night.  Night before I didn't get nearly that (son was up till nearly five am), so I feel like I can think today.  Which yay for that!

So, onto the menu plan for this week!

Menu Plan for Week of 6/6/16

Monday:  Noodle Bowl Night/Leftover Chicken enchiladas

Tuesday:  Shrimp Garlic Butter Pasta, mango slices

Wednesday:  Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, salad (from garden)

Thursday:  Chicken Souvlaki with cream sauce, rice, salad (or fruit cocktail)

Friday:  Pancakes, bacon, eggs

Saturday:  Chicken Salad Sandwiches, sliced fruit, french fries

Sunday:  Sausage and Biscuits Casserole (still haven't made this yet.  Figuring if this turns out it'll be a good thing to make on Sunday so my husband has breakfasts he can reheat during the week)

Desserts:  Pudding (using up boxed milk that is about a month past it's expiration date.  I know it's still good, but still...use it up time :).

To Bake:  Bread.  Hopefully I'll get to this earlier in the week, but I'm planning on it not happening until this weekend the way schedules go.

Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

Well, as week's go this last week was decently productive.  I got the cabbage canned and canned some peaches.  I also got the baby rhubarb plant put in the ground and it seems, so far, to be doing well.  I've even got new little leaves sprouting up from the middle (I would have taken a picture of it, but it's out and out raining today).  I fertilized the garden, got some more compost spread around to keep it fed well and got insecticidal soap sprayed on the leaves (which I'll have to do again as soon as it stops raining, I'm sure).  I even managed to rip out some dead bushes from the raspberry bank yesterday and started to stack them near by there.  I was hoping to spend another 1/2 an hour or so on that this morning, but luckily it rained as my son was up till 4 am and I REALLY didn't want to try and pull myself out of bed at six this morning to try and get that accomplished (if it had been nice, I probably would have though, so yay for rain).

I did get the pantry reset, kind of, last week too.  I took my commercially canned goods and moved them off the wire shelves and placed them in the slanted part of the pantry (I'll take pictures as soon as I come up with a BIT better organization in there as boxes are just kind of stacked right now) and I was able to start to really organize my home canned goods better. 

The nicest part is that I can still stack upwards on things like where the applesauce is (as we go through a lot of applesauce around here and I just can't see the amount I have lasting us all the way through winter...and now my daughter won't eat store bought applesauce because she realized how good home made is *laugh*).  I've still got cardboard and I have tons of rings, so it won't be too hard to put rings loosely on jars, place some cardboard and put another layer of jars up.  At least I'm happy with how the home canned goods are shaping up on the shelves.  I have left room for things that I still need to can (BBQ sauce, strawberry rhubarb pie filling, etc), but so far, so good!

So, onto the goals for this week!

Canning Goals:

• Can golden syrup 
• Can mustard

Sewing Goals:

• Work on mending pile.
• Start to work on dress or skirt.
• Work on gift for niece (I need to make a sticky of this and just copy and paste it from week to week the way I'm going *laugh*).

Cleaning Goals:

• Shampoo carpets (this is going to wait for another day.  I was planning on doing it today, but with how heavily it is raining the carpets would never dry, so it's out for the day).
• Scrub down son's bedroom.
• Fold laundry and keep on top of housework.

General Goals:

• Work on getting den decluttered a bit.  
• Work on Christmas gift list for family (I'm seriously wondering if I'm going to be dropping extended family on gifts this year just because I haven't had the money to buy materials to make gifts.  Normally due to yard sales and thrift stores I'm in a LOT better shape than I am this year...I've just had to prioritize where money goes and feeding my family over winter and things has definitely taken precedence over gift giving.  I've got to figure this one out soon or I am going to stress myself out come October).
• Take better inventory of meat in freezer and figure out what is in desperate need to be filled.
• Check and see if I have materials available in pantry to make husband some home made truffles (filled chocolates) as part of anniversary gift.
• Figure out menu plan for week (I totally didn't do one last week and it was AWFUL trying to figure out what to have for dinner every night.  I need to be better organized this week.  I'm hoping to do two weeks at once.  HOPING anyway).
• If there's time and weather permits, work on yard. 

And I'm sure there were some other things I had written down, but I can't find my list right now, so this will have to do.  What are your plans for this week? 

This Week's Shopping Trips

This week's shopping trips went kind of wonky right out of the gate.  I'm figuring that I'll be doing my shopping on Thursday over the summer as my son has OT that day and if I plan right I can get my shopping done in the hour when he's at therapy so I have the ability to think when shopping. 

But, like the best laid plans of mice and men, when a mother makes a plan on when to shop the children will get involved and things will immediately go awry.  In this case my son, probably due to all of the medicine he's on, wasn't feeling great Thursday morning so we missed OT.  So, I ended up going shopping on Friday and Saturday.  Friday we went to Fred Meyer and by the time I got done there I was NOT going to hit another store with an uber cranky son in tow.  No way, Jose.  So, when we took our normal weekend drive with my son on Saturday I made my husband drop me off really fast at Carrs where my daughter and I ran in to get one item.  They have RC Cola on sale this week for 1.49 a piece if you load the right E-Coupon, so I went and grabbed that instead of Coke for my son to drink (we found, quite on accident a while ago, that my son almost prefers RC Cola to Coke, so it's an option when I can get it cheaper than Coke).

At Fred Meyer is where I did the majority of my shopping this week.  You'll notice a lack of...well...groceries for being two weeks without shopping and all, but I only grabbed a week's worth of groceries this week.  Mainly because I am hoping to go shopping for the few "son" items we'll need for next week on Thursday and two because I stocked up big time when I got ready for not shopping for two weeks on things like chips for the son and then found out that he was willing to eat things like pasta and rice for meals, thus not blowing through chips like they were air.  Always a nice change of pace.

I'm kind of concerned with my meat situation right now.  We're starting to run low on meat in pretty much every area (I'm even starting to run lower on chicken...surprised me to find that honestly), but there haven't been any killer sales or meat reductions I've run into of late.  So, I'm worried eventually that I'm going to have to do meat as part of my normal weekly shopping, at which point my grocery budget is going to go up again, which we can't really afford to do.  Right now I'm stretching the meat as far as I can by having meatless meals or meals that include things like beans to stretch the meat we have, but I'm not sure how long that's going to work before I have to buy more meat.  I'm hoping for some good sales coming up for summer holidays such as the Fourth of July on things OTHER than hot dogs and things, but more like sales on steak and other true meat items.  Fingers crossed.

But, yeah, the majority of my shopping this week is above.  

I went to Fred Meyer and decided to get my freebies from Freebie Friday and the ones that my friend gave me as well as see what I could find for cheap produce.  I was able to get a BUNCH of peaches and nectarines in the dollar bags, a HUGE bag of fresh ginger (that I'm going to peel and freeze tomorrow), some limes and a lemon and a couple of apples.  I then went and looked for the free oat bars that I had loaded on my card, but while there is a slot for them at the store they haven't had them since the freebie popped up online.  I'm hoping they haven't gotten them in yet and will hopefully get them in before the coupon expires.  Here's hoping.  I did, however, pick up a box of Fred Meyer brand breakfast bars for my husband as he's found that taking a few for the road in the morning helps him not get shaky.  I had a 1.00/1 breakfast bar coupon for the store brand ones (it was a personalized rewards rebate coupon thingie that I got in the mail) and they were on reduced for 1.53, so I only paid .53 for the box. 

I had signed up for free samples of Silk dairy free yogurt and got two coupons in the mail instead of one, so I went and got those.  I have no problem eating soy yogurt for breakfast...heck I could probably use the extra protein, so I was grateful to have them.

The crackers were the Freebie Friday this Friday and so I got the one I had and the one my friend gave me.  We've tried both flavors.  The garlic herb one wasn't too bad, but the veggie one...yuck.  It tastes like dried tomatoes and not much else when you bite into the cracker.  I'm figuring that meat loaf will be a good way to use these up, or use them for breading for chicken or something.

The cat food was on sale for .49 a can and the Doritos were on sale for 3.50 per bag.

After coupons and freebies were applied I paid a total of 24.59 at Fred Meyer. 

I then went to Carrs on Saturday and picked up soda for the son and spent 9.19 there.

So, all totaled I spent a total of 33.68 on groceries this week between the two trips.  However, I also need to send my husband to get milk again tomorrow, so I'm probably going to average about 40.00 and some odd cents this week for groceries.  Not too bad, though, especially since I got some canned peaches and frozen ginger out of the deal.

I'm still hoping to not have to shop for much this week at all, so I'm aiming at spending about 30.00 on groceries for the rest of my two week period just to get my son his snack foods and call it good.

How about you?  Find anything cool at the stores this week?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap and Garden Update

 Well, I'm behind on blogging that's for sure.  This week has been so busy I just haven't had much of a chance to do it, unfortunately.

With my son's skin doing better, he's been a bit more destructive than normal and he's normally pretty active, so it's been a struggle to keep the house from looking like a tornado hit it.  I've been able to do it with limited success (and I mean limited *laugh*).

So, let's get to some things I did this week shall we?

1.  I ended up helping a friend of a friend who was having issues with her website not showing up.  My friend asked me to help her as she knew that I had knowledge in "old school" webpage building (read:  I know how to do html *laugh*) and asked me to take a look at her website for her.  I ended up rebuilding her main page for her (the index page) when I had time over the last month and got it up and running.  She insisted on paying me for my trouble and I told her to just pay me what she thought I was worth.  She ended up paying me way more than I thought I was worth *laugh*, but the supplemental income was definitely welcome right now as we're at razor edge finances at the current time.

2.  I canned the cabbage I had bought this week (seen up top).  Per usual when I follow a recipe for canning it's like sometimes the yields are WAY off base.  This was one of those times.  I weighed out my six pounds of cabbage to the ounce, salted it just like the directions said and I found I had just the right amount of ingredients to spice the brine the way the recipe said too.  Well, of course that didn't work out.  I ended up having to reuse the one spice bag when I had to TRIPLE the brine called for in the recipe (and I packed the cabbage into those jars like you would not believe!) and made up a second one with what spices I still had plenty of (like mustard seed).

The recipe said you'd get about five pints out of the recipe.  I got nine.  But, it's done and the few pieces of cabbage that were left over tasted good, so I figure it will work out alright.

3.  While working on the pantry and getting it better organized I used some of the dissovable labels I won to label the jars.  So, that was a nice, free thing to help me figure out what was in the jars at first glance.

4.  While shopping yesterday (which I'll get to posting up my shopping trip promise) I found peaches on reduced cheap, so I grabbed as many of the 1.00 bags as I could find that were in decent shape.   Some of them were REALLY ripe, though, so I didn't want them sitting around so I came home from shopping and immediately canned them (seen above).

You'll notice the floating peaches.  When you can you'll quickly realize that you have strengths and you have weaknesses.  Some people can make beautiful cans of peaches that don't float, but can't get a jam to set to save their lives.  You can make wonderful crisp pickles but can't get cherries to sit in a jar right.  Well, I can't get peaches to NOT float no matter what I have tried throughout the years.  I've tried extra light syrup, hot pack method and cold pack method, jamming the peaches in there until I worry the syrup won't fit in the cracks...nothing works.  The peaches just float.  So I gave up on having pretty peaches in the jar *laugh*.

5.  My brother-in-law gave us a big bucket of brown rice given to him by some people who were moving and were getting rid of food storage that they didn't have room for.  He was given 100 lbs of it and asked if we wanted some.   Of course I wasn't going to turn down free food.  The rice is a bit old, you can smell it, but once rinsed and things it tastes okay.  I figure I'll use it in casseroles and save the white rice for my son who wouldn't eat brown rice if you paid him right now.

6.  The weather is milder this summer than the last couple of years, which is great for things like my rhubarb and raspberries that were suffering so much during the past couple of years.  The one bad part, though, is that bugs are EVERYWHERE in my garden right now.  I'm battling cabbage fly, millipedes, ants, you name it.  So, I spread some more diatomaceous earth around for the crawling insects and made up a batch of insecticidal soap (1 cup oil.  Add 1 TBS dish soap, not dishwashing detergent, soap, to the jar.  Shake it up before you use it every time.  Add 1 tsp mix to a spray bottle with 1 cup of warm water.  Shake well and spray on plants.  It'll help suffocate any bug with a soft body) that I sprayed on the plants today.  The way the rain has been falling lately, I might have to do this about once every three days or so, but if it'll keep the little buggers from eating my cabbages and other plants, I'll do what it takes!

7.  I used home made shower cleaner to clean the children's bathtub today.

8.  I mended one of my daughter's skirts and a hole in one of my husband's work shirts this week.

9.  I got some free samples in the mail this week including a sample of Green Mountain coffee Keurig cups.  I don't own a Keurig, but I found that if I put the coffee in my drip coffee cone, it works just fine and this way I get two free cups of coffee OR I can save the cups to put in with a Christmas gift later on.

10.  I entertained my daughter by putting on, "Victorian Farm Christmas" on my computer as it combined two of her favorite things.  Farms and Christmas *laugh*.

And now onto the garden update.

Look at my rhubarb plant!!!  I even have a baby that sprouted up by it this year (which I'll transplant come fall :).  I'm so thrilled that while smaller than a lot of rhubarb plants around, it at least looks like a rhubarb plant instead of a spindly weed this year.

I mentioned the bugs that I am killing with extreme prejudice, but luckily I also have some beneficial bugs helping me out too.  I tried to get a picture of the swarm of dragon flies that are hanging out in my garden, but my camera isn't fast enough.  I also have a ton of spiders helping me out with some pest control too.

I was thrilled at the growth in the garden this week, though.  Check out how much things have grown!

The potatoes, lettuce and cabbage "bowl" and the kohlrabi.

 The rat tailed radishes (right) and my various cabbages (you can see some of the bug damage on the row in the middle).

The lettuce and carrots (you can see them off to the left there).  I think I should be able to carefully start harvesting lettuce this week :).

Another shot of the carrot rows, the garlic with cabbages on either side, the potato plants (which I have a garlic plant growing behind one of those as well) and the bunching onions up front (which are still kind of "meh" in growth...I'm hoping they start to take off here or I might not get many this summer).

The spinach I should be able to start harvesting this week too (up front), the chard is still working on growing here, but I'm hoping as the summer progresses it starts doing better (I hoping to thin it some day soon), and the peas in the background that are going up the home made trellis nicely.

And here's my other potato plant up on my deck with my just sprouting basil and spinach hanging planter.

The front planters.  This time I took a shot of the nasturtiums that are just starting to really take off.

The front bed is still not doing too much, so I didn't bother taking it's picture right now.

So there you are folks.  My garden updates and things for the week.  How did you do?

Shopping Goals: June 2016

 This was an area that was kind of tricky for me to figure this month.  We have holes to fill in the pantry and freezer, but no money to really fill them, so what do you do?

Well, my friends, in my case you go through, take a detailed inventory of what you DO have and figure out how to fill those holes without spending money.  And I came up with some plans.

Remember those #10 (big coffee can size) cans of tomato sauce I bought last year?  Well, they'll be coming into play here this month (hopefully depending on how hot it is :) and I'll be using skills and my canner to fullest extent to get some things accomplished here.

I do have a subscribe and save order in with Amazon that I paid for with giftcards, so at least I don't have to worry about that coming back to haunt me with money coming out of the account next week.

The garden should start producing this month to the point I should be harvesting lettuce and other salad fixings as well as herbs.  This is always a welcome addition to our summer table, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

So, anyway, here's my various shopping goals for the month.

From the Pantry/Canning:

#10 Cans of Tomato Sauce, make into:

• BBQ Sauce
• Ketchup

Mustard seed, make into:

• Yellow mustard

Sugar and lemon, make into:

• Golden syrup (this will help supplement pancake toppings come winter to save me money on maple syrup and also to be used in cooking)

Amazon.com:

• Coffee
• Ultra Gel (for canning)
• Chili powder (bulk)
• Au Jus mix (bulk)
• Fish oil containing vitamins, chewable (for son.  Some people swear that it has helped their child to talk better and have less melt downs, so I want to give it a shot)
• Dill Seed (bulk)
• Kraft EZ Mac cups (for son for summer school)

Home Depot:

• Water Softening Salt

Regular Stores:

• Cheap produce (if I run into any)
• Cheap meat (I'm running kind of low, so I'm kind of hoping to run into some)

And there you are folks.  My shopping goals for this month.  How about you?  Have anything planned?