Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap (Times...uhh...some)

I have to say as time lapses have been on the blog, this one was actually one of the busiest.  It has been truly crazy around here.  So, let's get down to what has been going on around the homestead!

Well, first there was sickness that hit.  I got the kids their flu vaccine and immediately we all came down with colds (not flu, thank goodness, but a cold my husband probably brought home from work).  We came out better than my poor mother and father-in-law who both got taken out at the knees with Covid.  My mother-in-law is feeling better, thank goodness, but like a lot of older people I think full recovery is a ways off for both of them.

Then there was physical therapy, which I've been working hard at.  The stretches and exercises they have been giving me to do at home have been really helping my back and strengthening muscles I've not been able to strengthen in years (two C-Sections make it hard for me to get abdominal muscles to do much).  Despite medical bills giving me hives, the physical therapy really has been worth the money and I am glad that I gave it a shot (thank you to all the folks who encouraged me to go.  I appreciate it!).

I then spent a HUGE amount of time working on rearranging the pantry (still buttoning that up, but I'll share pictures when I'm finished), using up old items that needed to get used up and taking an inventory of things I needed to fill in what remained of the holes in our household supplies.  The way inflation is going it really is wise to stock up now if you can.  I've gotten somewhat addicted to researching the logistics sector of the economy (global and local) and everything going on in the world and I'm just not seeing much relief from our current economic woes anytime soon.

While going through my long term food storage, I did find a bunch of items that need to be used up within the next five years.  Since these are big cans I'm going to have to use up, I'm going to start trying to tackle these items gradually and probably trying to seal and store the left overs to gradually use them up over time.  

PFDs came in and pretty much immediately went out again.  I used some of the money to buy some groceries to add to what we had (which met with limited success as the stores were out of a bunch of stuff I'd put into my order and I ended up having to order some stuff through Amazon anyway...frugal fail) and the rest just immediately went to paying down bills.  Since 2500 dollars (at least) is going right back on the credit cards as soon as medical bills come in...I'm glad I was able to pay down bills and save myself some additional interest doing it that way, at any rate.

I also had to get the paperwork done for Alvah's TEFRA renewal, which is always a bunch of work.  Got that done (I hope) and submitted and hopefully we are good to go until the other 1/2 of the paperwork needs to be completed later on.  

I also at right about the same time as having to do that, I had to get the kids work samples into the home school for the first quarter of the school year.  That's another bunch of work to get done, so I am glad to have that submitted and off of my "to do" list.

So, let's get onto other things I've been up to!

1.  One night my Armina came running out of her room and told me I HAD to look at the sky as the Northern Lights were out and were truly spectacular!  I went and looked out the window and was absolutely blown away by the light show.  I even got my nearly asleep husband out of bed to check the lights out.  I was even able to stand out on my deck and watch the lights in a t-shirt as it was actually rather warm that night, which in itself was miraculous as normally the Northern Lights come out when it is clear in the winter, which usually translates to super cold temps.  I have never seen the lights that bright and dancing before.  It was amazing!  

I then learned that the reason for the lights was because the Earth got hit with a solar storm and it effected the magnetosphere.  If you weren't able to see the lights you can see some pictures and read more about it online in articles like this one.

2.  When I got my "Pick Up and Go" order from the store after dividends came in, I ended up getting a free sample of "Coke with Coffee" in with the order.  I decided to try it and I have to say that I really like Coke and do enjoy drinking it from time to time and I drink coffee every day, but this stuff I did NOT like.  I thought Coke with coffee added was going to be basically Coke hyped up with extra caffeine from green coffee bean extract or something, but no.  It was fizzy, which threw me first as I was expecting more of a flat beverage.  I also could not taste coffee in the drink and I sure could not taste Coke in the drink.  What I DID taste was fake caramel flavor.  Fizzy fake caramel flavor.  I took a few sips to give it a fair shake and ended up throwing it away.  It just was not my thing.

3.  I have found a few new YouTube channels that I thought you guys might want to check out.  First, I have become a bit obsessed by a YouTube channel based in Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the world.  I find it so funny that the town is much like an Alaskan town in the way it is set up and the way they do things up there.  Now mind you we obviously have trees down here where they are above the tree line (like Barrow and some other Northern Alaskan towns), but yeah it is a neat place.   The vlogger I follow is Cecilia Blomdahl and her vlog can be found here.  

Another vlog that is a great one to check out if you guys want to see a bit more of a more Northern town from here (they are near Fairbanks) is Somers in Alaska.  They are located in North Pole and try and run a very happy vlog, which in the current conditions of everything, I've really grown to appreciate.  If you are curious about Alaska pricing on things, as well, as they do Costco runs and things and show you what things are going for in their area, so if you are curious what Alaska pricing is like they are a good one to follow :).

4.  A while ago I bought some Red Robin seasoning salt on Amazon to go on French fries for the son to try and cut down on the amounts of times we'd have to eat out (he's going through puberty and as a result has some really bad mood days and things of late, probably because he's aching or hurting, but with him it is hard to say as he can't tell me what is wrong yet).  It worked out well, but I was running out of seasoning salt and the prices online shot through the roof and our local restaurant was out.  So, I decided to try my had at some copycat recipes and see if I could come close.  I ended up using this one and honestly?  It didn't turn out at ALL.  I was worried when I got done shaking it up as it was white from the onion and garlic powder in it and sure enough it TASTED like garlic powder and that was it.  I ended up adding a ton of McCormick seasoning salt to it and some more sugar until I got something that was at least palatable.  So far the son isn't impressed with the mixture, so I'm going to see if I can work with it to the point he'll tolerate it until the restaurant gets more salt in.  

Oh as a side note, thank you to the people who bought and sent me spices and things after the earthquake.  I have been using the containers as I empty them and I just refill them with herbs and spices I get in bulk or I'll buy them in envelope types of packages and refill the bottles that way (if you like good quality spices that ship up to Alaska with free shipping might I suggest The Spice House as they have "Flat Packs" that ship free, even up here, and it is a nice way to get fresh spices and herbs (the amounts are pretty decent too for a good spice outfit as well...not an affiliate or anything...I just like the product) that you can just dump into a container (or you could keep them in their flatpack envelopes I suppose).

5.  It took an old, holey sock of my husband's and repurposed it to use as a dusting mitt.  It worked out really well and I was able to clean out some hard to reach spaces with it.

6.  We took a small portion of dividends to buy the rum, brandy (we don't do the cognac, but just use very special brandy instead as it is a lot cheaper...sorry Alton Brown) and bourbon to make aged eggnog so it would be ready around the holidays (you are supposed to age it for a while to get the flavors to mellow and blend together and make it really good :).  Christmastime is the only time of the year my husband and I drink and this is what we drink, so we make a point to make it so we can enjoy our little 1/4 cup portions of eggnog through the holidays *laugh*.   

We ended up with a HUGE bottle of rum as my husband found it to be the best deal (he bought it from our local bulk store).  I looked at the bottle and knew that it would last us probably for the rest of our natural lives (I mean it is huge) and thought for a moment on what I could use rum to make.  I quickly came to the decision that I would have to use a portion of it to make rum raisin ice cream as I haven't even SEEN that flavor of ice cream since moving to Alaska and I used to like it.  I'm not sure if it is a East Coast flavor that just doesn't make it to the West Coast or it is something that just doesn't really sell well up here or what, but it just doesn't seem to be a thing up here.  I've never made it from scratch before, so it might be a fun thing to try out this winter.

7.  I made an appointment for later this week to get a yearly physical done.  Since it is covered by my insurance and such I knew I didn't have a good excuse to skip it.  And I found a good OB-GYN that is local and covered by my network, so hopefully it goes well.

8.  Instead of going out to eat, I told the family I would make fish and chips at home.  This has become a bit of a treat for the family and I really don't mind doing it as instead of 60.00 for us all to eat out, I can make fish and chips for less than 20.00 for the entire family by just buying some cod and making it myself.  

By the way, I was asked by a blog reader if I had a good recommendation for a deep fryer.  I bought this one  (no affiliate link or anything, just sharing) a while back (it is, of course, more expensive than when I bought it.  I got mine for about 50.00) and I absolutely LOVE it.  It is different from other fryers I've had in that it has a hidden cleaning tube that you can pull out to drain the oil from the fryer to strain or throw away.  After draining the oil and scraping out any big chunky things with some paper towels, I just put the plug back in the tube, fill the fryer with hot soapy water on the side of the sink and then wash it with some paper towels while it sits there and then drain out the soapy water through the drain tube, take my sink hose and rinse out the fryer one more time to get the soap out, plug the tube and put it away and then dry the sucker with some dry paper towels (I always use paper towels to avoid getting any residual oil onto my good towels and things).  Put the fryer basket into the dish washer and done.  Now, I always fry with the lid open, which some people complain of the oil leaking down the back of the device if you leave the lid shut.  I can't testify if that happens because I don't close the lid, but yeah I really like it.  I love that I can actually clean it without trying to rewrite the laws of physics to get the old oil out of it and things *laugh*.

9.  The weather here has been all over the place.  We went from pretty cold temps, to warmer temps, to snow and then back to like summer transitioning to fall weather.  It is just one of those falls.  I, at first, didn't get to cleaning the old plants off the deck in time for them to avoid freezing the old soil in the pots, but I waited until warmer weather strikes and then I'll take a few planters at a time and go and empty them down in the old garden bed.  

I'm down to just the big planter that is too heavy for me to do on my own (I might just empty the soil into a bucket a bit at a time to make my life easier and do it that way).  I stuffed the old planters into some of the old cinder blocks from the chimney (we use them to store the air conditioner on top of when it is not summertime) so they are protected from the wind and weather, put the remaining planters I have to clean out under the eave of the house and got the grill all nice and clean (and then I end up using the grill again as the weather it too nice not to grill, but I try *laugh*) and moved back over.  And voila!  Clean deck!

10.  I mended an old Carhart jacket of my husband's that had ripped out from the pockets upward (pretty typical as Carhart is a heavy canvas material).  I mended the rips as well as I could and knotted and sewed a bunch of points above where the material had torn.  I'm hoping it will act as a "rip stop" kind of like when you replace a zipper and have to sew a zipper stop into the zipper when you put it in the right spot.  Hopefully it works and the jacket can have some additional life put into it.

And yeah, I'm going to call it good there as I'm working on about 3 hours of sleep a night at the moment (the son isn't sleeping well) and I'm barely awake today.  Hope you all are well and I WILL try to get back to blogging regularly again here as things start to settle down a bit.

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

 Yeah, I know, this is really late.  It's been really busy around here.  Not in a good way, but busy.

First up there was all the medical stuff.  I've been doing stretches that my chiropractor recommended and taking my medications as needed, but one day my back had just like had enough or something a few weeks back.  I had a spasm in my lower back while I was standing up and cooking dinner and suddenly my right leg just went dead.  Not numb, not tingly,  just dead.  It was a rough weekend as I had to think about where I was going to move before I moved so that I could put my right leg forcefully where it needed to go.  Walking like that is kind of difficult, I have to say.  I started getting intermittent feeling back in my leg and then it would randomly go dead after that.  Monday rolled around and I ended up going to the doctor where I acquired a few new prescriptions for a muscle relaxant and a course of steroids to relieve any internal swelling in my back.  I also ended up with some referrals.  And so it was off for a MRI on my back the next day, which was a fun experience.  Got the results of the MRI back the day after that and found out that it was completely normal and the doctor had no idea what was causing my back problems.  

So, it was then a referral to physical therapy and this time?  This time I went.  Mainly out of desperation to see if someone could help me get my back to cooperate again or even tell me what in the Heck was wrong with it.  Despite the estimated 225.00 per visit price tag attached to it, I wanted to give it a shot.

So, my physical therapy eval was Friday and I'm going to go once a week for a month to see if I can get my back working right again.  The physical therapist thinks that at some pint in the past I probably injured my back, worked through it and ended up getting an uneven musculature and stuff from it, which has progressively led to the problems I'm having now.  It makes sense, really.  I have exercises to do every day and I'm religiously doing them, so hopefully this will work.  I'm praying as I can't afford an appointment once a month, let alone once a week, so I'm determined this is going to work one way or the other.

The cost of the MRI and the physical therapy is definitely going to max out my deductible for this year, so meeting that deductible is going to put me in some nasty debt.  I just pray it is worth it in the end.  Between that and the worldwide economy...finances are pretty freaking terrifying right now and I know I'm far from alone in that area right now.

By the way folks, side note here, I just wanted to let you know that if you stop by and wonder why you aren't getting e-mail updates on the blog, it is because feedburner (the guys who used to do my e-mail updates) aren't doing that anymore.  If you would like an e-mail letting you know when I update, please e-mail me at makedohomemaker (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll try and get an e-mail list up and get that e-mail off to you folks in a timely manner.  Sorry about not letting you know about this sooner.  Honestly, I spaced it with everything life has thrown at me the last few months.

With the state of everything in the world, I got an e-mail from one of my readers asking if maybe I could share some extreme hard times recipes and skills that people might need.  I am totally willing to do that.  I'm going to try and see if I can dig out my great depression, WWII rationing and other recipes and I'll try and share those on here as well as maybe some more tutorials on how to darn different items and things.  At this point I'm figuring this is something people can probably use, or if nothing else find inspiration from, so I'm going to make a point to do that.  If I can help at least a few people, I'll feel it was completely worth it.

Right, so let's get to money saving things that have happened the last bit.

1.  We went to the Fall Festival Special Needs Edition again this year.  Unfortunately, winter decided it wanted to come early that day so it was sleeting, snowing, raining and COLD.  The kids still had a blast, but man, it was cold.  We made it an hour and half and then went home.  My mother-in-law went with us.  It was fun.  Just cold, wet and short *laugh*.  I got no pictures this year because of those factors as all I got was photos of rain drops and blurry things in the background.

2.  I found out that we are getting a PFD this year and how much, and when, it was going to be.  I talked to my husband about shortages and all and we both decided that if we wanted to stock up on food and things we'd best to it now before price increases kicked in or, worse yet, before things weren't available at all.  So, we went an put groceries on the credit card over the weekend and will hopefully pay the credit card back down when PFDs come in.  I'm glad we did it, honestly, as much as I hated to put money on the credit card, because when PFDs come in it is really typical for Alaskans to go and stock up on food for the winter (really it is one of the few times of year that Alaskans tend to have a decent amount of income at their disposal to do it).  Food is already kind of thin at the stores right now, so one good PFD run on the stores and we could be looking at some pretty nasty empty shelves for a while. 

One thing people who aren't from here don't get, but quickly learn when they move here, is that we are pretty much the end of the line when it comes to the supply chain.  Anything that stores can't really sell in other places they throw on a plane to Alaska and figure that Alaskans will buy it.  For instance Fred Meyers in our local area were selling 1 gallon jugs of mayonnaise a bit ago for 1.00 a pop, but you had to buy a minimum of 10 to get that price, as the local stores had ordered quart jars and stuff like normal, but had gotten shipped gallon sized jugs of the stuff that Fred Meyer couldn't ship to other places and we got stuck with it.  We are used to things like that up here.  On top of that our cost of living up here is high just because of where we are, so we are seeing price increases hard up here.  My jaw dropped when I saw that bulk packages of hot dogs had gone up 4.00 since I bought them a few months ago and a lot of items had gone up at least 1.00 per item.  When you ship things as far as Alaska, we get hit hard by shipping costs being added onto items up here and when fuel pries start increasing?  You'll see prices go up exponentially hard and fast.  

I'm not saying Alaskans are panic buying or anything, but I think a lot of Alaskans are just going to go out like normal and buy groceries and when, and if, we are going to see those items come back in stock is debatable.

I was kind of impressed in a way that a lot of staple goods, especially beans and rice, were pretty much gone from Three Bears when we went shopping and PFDs aren't even in yet.  I was able to get more expensive medium grain rice, which was okay since we like to buy that kind anyway, but that was the only rice they even had left on the shelf, so I'm glad we like that type.  Things like cooking oil, vinegar and other staples were getting kind of thin as well, so I was very glad we were able to find what we did and get it while we still could.  It is looking like it is going to be a really rough winter, so I'm doing my best to prepare and fill holes, even ones I didn't think about, to see us through this mess as well as I'm able.  I'll be sharing some of my more odd, thinking outside the box, things I'm doing as well, so you can either maybe get inspired by it or think I'm crazy and laugh hysterically at me.  I'm okay with it either way.

3.  When it came to regular grocery shopping the last few weeks, Carrs gave me a bunch of bonus rewards every shopping trip and also I ended up with a coupon for a free 10 lb bag of potatoes!  So, I definitely took advantage of the free potatoes :).

I also redeemed some gas rewards for...

A free rotisserie chicken (which I then used to make a casserole, which then lasted us many meals during the week.

I then redeemed some more in the next couple of weeks and got...

A thing of frozen raviolli

A box of frozen soft pretzels

Two cans of green beans (I actually redeemed the reward for "two cans of vegetables" and thought I'd be able to get something more interesting, but green beans was all Carrs had that day, so that is what I got.

A free quart of vegetable broth (I bought three more so I'd have enough to brine the turkey at Thanksgiving).

A free bag of tater tots (for tater tot casserole was the original intent...we'll see if that is what I use it for :).

4.  I mended a couple of pair of pants for the son.

5.  I really tried hard to make sure we did have things to eat around here even when my back was really bad.  I was decently successful, which made me feel good that we at least didn't have to spend money on that.

6.  I put potential Christmas gifts for the kids in my cart on Amazon and waited until I could get prices I was happy about before I ordered said items.  It definitely saved money doing it that way.

In other news, Christmas this year isn't going to be terribly exciting when it comes to gifts, but I ordered things that we needed (new sheets for each of the kids, some new shirts for the daughter, new PJ's for the son) and a few things for fun (books and a few art supplies for the daughter, some sensory toys for the son), but yeah, this year is going to definitely be more geared toward "personalized needs so the items feel special, but definitely needs" type of gifts.  The budget stretches that far, but it is going to be tight just with medical bills let alone what else might be coming down the pike.

7.  One of the things that my daughter did at the Fall Festival was they had a booth where you could paint a pumpkin.  She picked a pumpkin and did a fun Halloween design on it and then, after we got home, I checked the sticker on the pumpkin and found we had received a free pie pumpkin.  That was a cool score.  So far the pumpkin is still hanging in there and not showing signs of going bad, so hopefully it might last till Halloween.  We shall see :).  No matter what it is future pumpkin puree for the freezer.

8.  I have gotten really good about making bread once a week so that we have fresh bread all week long to eat with dinner and to eat as toast (the daughter loves that way of eating it).  

9.  We watched some free on Prime videos the last couple of weeks that were more Halloween themed.

And there you go folks.  I'm going to call it good there mainly because I've been writing this post on and of all day and I'm going blurry eyed.  I hope you are all hanging in there and things aren't too hard on your end.

Thrifty Thursday: Thrift Store Finds

First, I sincerely want to apologize for the ginormous banner ad at the top of the blog annoying everyone who sees it.  Google made me make some changes to the blog code (advertising permissions and such) or my ad revenue would be cut off and now, no matter what I do to the code, what gadget I turn off, no matter what invisible entity I swear at, I can not get said banner to disappear (did manage to get rid of the various pop up ads that were taking over the screen when you pulled up the blog, though...I hope).  I will continue to work on it, but if it is still there when you are trying to read the blog...sorry...I'm trying.  I keep thinking of starting up like a Patreon page and doing some video tutorials on things like darning and such to hopefully help some folks, and things like this REALLY motivate me to try and figure out how to make that stuff work.

Anyway, here is a post I haven't done in a long while.  I actually have gotten a bit of a list of things I need to look for at the used stores, so we ended up hitting one of our local ones last week to see if we could find some of the things we need.  And, for the first time in a while, I actually found some stuff that I needed.

A pic of what we bought is up top, but I'll break it down one by one.  One of the main items on my list is trying to find some decent long sleeved shirts and sweaters in women's small to medium as those are definitely my sizes now.  All of my old sweaters and shirts are either really stretched out looking now (shirts) or are really just shot (sweaters).  So, I have some hoodies and one sweater that I am wearing now that winter is kicking off early here (much to my dismay we are set to have our first snowfall in the Valley tomorrow...too soon darned it!  Eagle River had their first snow fall earlier in the week, which was even worse).  When the weather started getting colder, I knew I had to start to look for winter clothing as the stores were going to sell out of stuff quickly.  Glad I did as I found a REALLY nice L.L. Bean, 100% cotton sweater (nice and heavy) for 4.00!  I love it.  Kind of nervous of the off white color (I have a tendency to stain things), but hopefully it'll last me a good long time and hey, at least it'll keep me warm!

The next thing I managed to find was a few tablecloths.  Unfortunately, they didn't have the size of the tablecloths listed on the tag and the original measurement tags were missing from said tablecloths, so I had to eyeball them to see if maybe they would fit the kitchen table.  Out of the three I got, one fit the kitchen table (the other two were a bit too narrow, but I'll use them for other things) which I'm showing here.  I really need some new table cloths as mine are getting really stained to the point I can't get the grease stains and things out of them (the son is hard on things), so it was good to add a new one into the tablecloth stock.  It is thin, but it gets the job done and will bead up liquids when spilled if you move quickly to clean it up.  Better than nothing for sure.

I also found a "king size" reversible comforter that isn't microfiber.  (the sweater and stuff is sitting on it in the above pic.  One side is grey stipes and the other side is blue stripes) I really don't like microfiber as it seems to just make you sweat, so I was happy to find a comforter that would fit my bed for 10.00 that wasn't microfiber.  It really is more queen sized than king sized, but that's okay because it does still fit my bed, so I'm definitely okay with it.  You can tell it is cotton with how well it wrinkles, though *laugh*.

Also, you'll look at the picture and think that my bed is exceptionally short due to the thing cutting off the picture on the left side, maybe?  That's actually another comforter I have folded up across the bottom half of the bed as I'm really trying to avoid turning on the electric heat in my bedroom until we have no choice in the matter (the kids have already had to turn their heaters on with how cold their rooms are getting at night).

So, there you go folks.  Not the most exciting "oooooo! Neat stuff!" type of haul I've ever had, but definitely some welcome finds to help make living a little bit cheaper.

How about you?  Found anything good at the used stores/thrift stores/charity shops of late?

August/September Amazon Haul

 Note:  The Frugal Friday post will hopefully be on Saturday this week (we have plans on Friday so hopefully will be busy in a good way) and I'll give you a recap of the last two weeks and what has been going on around here.

When I asked if people would like to see what I'm purchasing on Amazon, I got a surprising number of people e-mailing me and asking me to share, so I wanted to post up what I got from Amazon for my August/September Subscribe and Save order.  My current Subscribe and Save delivery date is set at the last day of the month, for some reason as it used to be set in the middle, so while I ordered this stuff back in August, I was still getting some of this order in last week due to shipping delays and things, so that's why I put August/September.  I have another Subscribe and Save order for the end of this month set up, and I'm hoping this one goes better as last month a bunch of stuff got back ordered till November and things and I ended up cancelling a bunch of orders so I could go and get what I could at my local stores instead as I needed said items.

The following break down won't match the picture above completely as I did grab a few things to act as "Stand ins" for other things I bought in the photo.  For instance I grabbed a can of mango slices to stand in for pineapple as the pineapple got buried at the bottom of a pile and I plain didn't want to mess around with juggling flats of cans to get it out.

Also, please note:  The following post does NOT contain affiliate links.  I'm just going to share links if available to what I purchased and how much I paid for said items.  If you would like to support the blog by purchasing through my Amazon affiliate link, you'll find it on the right hand side of the blog and you can click through to Amazon from there and do your shopping as normal and I'll get a small commission from Amazon (no extra cost to you to do this) for pointing sales their way.  If you do this, thank you so much for supporting the blog and I really appreciate it!

Ok, so here is a breakdown of what I got this time around...

Happy Homes Lemon Extract.  You will notice that on the table it is NOT lemon extract but imitation butter extract.  Yeah, the inventory sticker someone stuck onto the bottle said lemon extract, but they obviously sent me the total wrong thing.  The item was not returnable, but after a call to Amazon customer service I got a refund for the order and they told me to keep the butter flavoring.  So, yeah, that happened.  I didn't want butter flavoring, but that is what I got, so now I'll have to find different ways to use up butter flavoring.

Pillsbury Buttercream Flavored Frosting Pack of 8.  I had a hard time finding this locally and like to keep it in the pantry for a quick frosting base that I can just add like cocoa powder, or lemon extract and things to, to make different flavors of icing.  I got my 8 pack for like 8.94 after the Subscribe and Save discount, so it is more expensive now.

Ivory Soap, Pack of 30 (10 packs x 3).  This was a result of me being UNABLE to find Ivory locally, like at all.  Carrs didn't even have a SPOT on the shelf for it.  Crazy.  My husband uses Ivory exclusively, so I was definitely hunting around for it.  So, I ended up ordering soap through Amazon.  This should last us for quite a while, I hope.  I paid 20.40 for the 30 bars.

Crest Toothpaste, 8.2 oz containers, pack of 6.  These are up to over 4.00 for a tube here, so it was cheaper buying it in bulk through Amazon.  I paid 16.97 for 6 large tubes of toothpaste.

3 lbs Wild Soil Almonds.  These are peanut free almonds that I ran into and ordered.  I got mine for 16.89, though, so I definitely got mine cheaper than they are right now.  It'll be great having this many almonds come Christmas baking time.

Dole Tropical Fruit, 12 pack.  If you watch the price on these, you can get them decently cheap.  I got mine for 14.22.  I have one can standing in for the 12 pack in the photo (I got lazy).  These go for nearly 3.00 per can if I buy them locally, so it is so worth buying them on Amazon.  We actually eat this decently regular around here and I'll had a few maraschino cherries and (now that I have them in the pantry after getting them cheap) some mango slices and we have a really nice tropical fruit salad for a side dish :).

12 pack, Pillsbury White Cake Mix.  I honestly thought this was a misprint when I ordered it.  It was almost a "well I'll get my money back when I don't get the order in" as I thought for sure the listing was for one box of cake mix, not twelve and I was going to end up paying way too much for one box of cake mix and have to get my money back.  I actually did end up getting 12 boxes of cake mix for 5.44.  And yes, I actually GOT 12 boxes in and the expiration date is for December of next year.  I was jaw dropping shocked when I got the order in.  I have no idea why it was so cheap when I ran into it that day, but I'm well stocked up on cake mix now.  One box is representing the 12 in the picture above as I had already put them away in the pantry and didn't feel like pulling out all 12 for the photo.

Au Jus Mix, 6 lbs.  Yup, 6 LBS of Au Jus Mix.  Normally I get the McCormick bulk spices size containers (usually I get a pack of 2 and it'll last me a year) of Au Jus, but everywhere local stopped carrying it except in over priced small envelopes and Amazon wanted a fortune for the McCormick size I normally get.  So, I got a huge container of Au Jus for 19.60 after Subscribe and Save discount.  I officially won't have to buy Au Jus mix for probably forever and I'll even doubly use it in soups and things to add depth of flavor to dishes, but yeah...6 lbs.  That's a lot.  It cost me 19.60 after Subscribe and Save discount, which is where it is sitting today as well, so I'm thinking I got it pretty much regular price.

Jello, Coconut Cream Pudding Mix, pack of 24.  No where local carries this flavor of pudding at all anymore and we eat it quite a bit, especially when I make Mexican food.  Buying smaller sizes was not half as economical as buying it in bulk, so I bought it in bulk and got enough to last us two years or so.  I spent 20.60 after subscribe and save discount, which breaks down to less than 1.00 per box, which is a really good price for pudding mix.  I put one box in the pic above to substitute out for the full order as I had already put all 24 away in the pantry and didn't feel like trying to stack them all on the table :).  We've been eating a lot more pudding for dessert as it is such a quick and cheap dessert that doesn't result in a ton of left overs to eat, so this will get used for sure.

Curad Adhesive Bandages, pack of 300.  We needed these as we were like out of Band-Aids and we use Band aids a lot around here with the son's eczema.  I like this pack off of Amazon because the quality is pretty good and the price is right.  A pack of 300 bandages cost me 8.49 after Subscribe and Save discount.

Dole Crushed Pineapple, 12 pack, 8 oz cans.  I got these primarily for using in baking and when I want to make certain Chinese food dishes and things.  I paid 11.27 for the 12 pack, so got it cheaper than it is now.  The mango slices are standing in for the pineapple in the above picture as they were kind of buried in the pantry *laugh*.

So, yeah, there you go folks.  My Amazon order for August/September.  I got the money for the order by saving it from my regular grocery budget (the one area of my budget I really have any wiggle room) and putting it aside for the order at the end of the month.  If you can find the room in your budget I definitely recommend buying a bit extra to add to your food storage right now.  With how crazy prices are, goodness knows how bad inflation is going to get, so it just seems wise to put up some extra now at lower prices than buying later at goodness knows what price.

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap and Harvest Time!

So, you might be asking yourself where I've been the last...however long it has been...nearly a month really (I know I blogged my grocery trip, but that was still a bit ago).  Honestly, it's been kind of rough around here and I didn't have much to blog about in the way of saving money.  Like many in the world right now, I'm treading water financially as well as we can and just taking it one day at a time.  So, I started to compile a list of money saving things and when it got up to a decent amount, I decided I finally had a blog post *laugh*.    I DO have a list of things I want to do this month, finally have my Amazon order in (well most of it...some I had to cancel as it got back ordered until the end of time it seemed), got a new list of things I want to buy at the end of the month and such, so hopefully in the next couple of days I DO finally have things to blog about that aren't just me ranting and raving about prices, not being able to save money and just letting out a long depressed sigh at the end.  Heck, I didn't want to type it.  I sincerely doubted people wanted to read it.

So, let's get to the list of stuff shall we?

1.  Well, this last Tuesday was the last day of our CSA for the summer and I have to say I was really impressed with the variety of things we got this summer.  I wasn't able to put up as much for winter with the CSA this year, but like just within the last few weeks I got corn, plums, pears, red currants, garlic, onions (I definitely have enough green onions to hopefully last till next year in the freezer now...woohoo!!!), broccoli, zucchini, carrots...it was an impressive variety of items.  We really enjoyed the corn (it is HARD to grow corn up here unless you have a greenhouse) and the fruit and I'm really looking forward to using the currants in some baking later on (I froze them for use later). 

2.  Speaking of the CSA and by process of association the U-Pick farm (since the CSA is put on by Pyrah's Pioneer Peak Farm, which is our local U-Pick farm as well :), they announced the date of their annual fall festival and as such their Special Edition day (special needs get in free as do their families).  I have already booked the day in my calendar as the kids LOVE this event every year and it is just so wonderful that the farm puts it on like they do :).

3.  Carrs started their own app independent of the Safeway app and part of the Carrs app is actually more freebies.  It seems they come out with a freebie for one day (Wednesday as that is when their ad rolls over) .  I've only gotten in on one freebie so far, but we did take advantage of the Pick Up and Go for Carrs that week, so we were able to get a free frozen pizza that day with the app.  My daughter and I ended up having it for dinner one night when my husband was working late, so it worked out perfectly :).

4.  I had ordered a toner through the homeschool for our laser printer and proceeded to wait, and wait, and wait.  I ended up calling the homeschool office after I got a "closed ticket" notification from the technology department as I was worried that my toner order would fall through the cracks even though they had assured me they'd contact me as soon as the toners were in.  I am glad I called as the head of the technology department called me back.  He was super apologetic and couldn't figure out why the ticket for my order had gotten closed (he was supposed to approve things before they got closed) and it turned out they had toners for at least a month.  To make up for the whole fiasco he gave me a toner for free!  That was a 100.00 savings for me, so I was beyond thrilled and touched that they would eat the cost of something like that to make it up to us.

5.  My son and I are currently studying waves and life under the seas and oceans this quarter in school.  We have taken advantage of a bunch of resources including free with Prime documentaries on Amazon, free worksheet sites and things.  It has really helped to add some more interest to his science lessons.

Speaking of school, we have managed to stay on time with our lessons (that can be a real challenge with Alvah's eczema and horrible sleep schedule) and it turned out that he really actively enjoyed reading the Jungle Book.  Since Kipling is one of my favorite authors (and has been since I was a kid), I was really thrilled that he enjoyed it so much :).

6.  We decorated the house for Halloween this week as the weather has definitely gotten colder and leaves are starting to turn and fall from the trees.  All the decorations we used were from previous years that we pulled out of storage, so not only does it change up the house a bit, but it didn't cost us anything to do :).

7.  When the weather started getting colder, I pulled the tomato plant inside to give it as much time as I could to ripen the many tomatoes it had before the plant died off.  It worked great and it finally started to actively die this week.  I harvested what was left along with the rest of the "outside garden" this week.  

I have to say I am REALLY impressed and thrilled with how many tomatoes I got off of one tiny plant.  I am definitely going saving the "Red Robin Patio Tomato" to my gardening necessities for next year (hopefully I can find them again).

8.  My food dehydrator didn't survive the earthquake well, it turned out.  I wasn't sure how it or my Food Saver would fare (Food Saver won't even power on after getting water in it from the 2" of standing water that was in my laundry room, it turns out *sigh*).  Instead of going out and getting a new dehydrator, I decided to hang up my herbs the old fashioned way and dry them.  It worked well as I put them right above our heating duct from the furnace.  The herbs that didn't do so great was the basil and the rosemary, but the sage and parsley more than made up for it.  I have a ton of parsley preserved in ice cubes in the freezer, have a ton more dehydrating and we ate a ton fresh.  Can't get better than that.  It was the same with the sage.  I am super super happy to have both of the herbs to put up in the cupboards to use over the winter :).

9.  You know, speaking of the garden, with the crazy weird growing season we had this year I am super duper happy how well the garden did.  I finally went and harvested the rest of the garden today as we have been getting pretty significant drops in temps at night and things.  The cabbages are smaller, by a bit, compared to what I would get out of a in-ground garden...if the moose didn't eat them...but they are nice and heavy for their size and I am so happy to have real cabbages come out of the garden this year instead of what was left of them after the moose and slugs got to them.  

I harvested my last head of lettuce, which the other ones I harvested lasted nearly a month (no joke) once I cleaned them and put them loosely in containers with paper towels in between, so I'm hoping the last head will last us at least a couple of weeks.

Now the chard, man the chard I'm BEYOND thrilled on how well it did in containers.  I was expecting it to be dwarfed and not grow well, but instead I got managed to get two harvests in this year by planting a new seedling every time I ripped out an old one, and both times the harvest was really good!!!  I am going to have a decent amount of greens put up for the winter, which, to me, is wonderful, as any extra nutrition, especially yummy tasting nutrition, we can get during the winter is a huge deal to me.

On the other side of things, raspberries and rose hips were a definite no-go this year, unfortunately.  They both succumbed to rot or mold before we could harvest many of them.  My mother-in-law's raspberries shared that fate, it seemed, so any raspberry jam I am getting this year is going to have to be bought in.

10.  I managed to find room in my freezer for my ice cream maker bowl and am going to start making ice cream, hopefully tomorrow.  With my son's peanut allergy, we have to be careful what brands of ice cream we get and unfortunately more and more it is the really expensive brands we have to go with.  With the cost of the ice cream combined with more and more product shrinkage, I decided it was time to just start making ice cream.  It's cheaper.  My ice cream maker is ancient, so I might have to invest in a new one soon as the ice cream bowl seems to not stay frozen solid for long enough to really make the ice cream...well soft serve ice cream consistency if that makes sense.  I always end up with ice crystals anymore as the bowl just doesn't seem to work as well as it used to, but for now it'll work okay I think.

11.  One of my goals of late is to get the den to a point where I can get things out of the way for home gym class in bad weather.  So, I managed to put a folding camp table in the den that I can break down easily and folding chairs and then I'm working on getting things better organized and out of the way of the "main drag" through the center of the den so we'll have it to do yoga and other exercises.  One of the things I wanted to get out of the way was a set of drawers I'd bought for homeschool materials.  I decided to put them upstairs over by the living room window.  I then put a tray I had on it (the top of the drawers has indents so you can stack more than one system on top of the other) and placed a small lamp on the new "table".  This will be wonderful this winter as the living room doesn't have an overhead light in it and it gets really hard to read or do sewing and things in the living room during the winter with the lack of daylight.  It will definitely help to light up the living room better.

And I am going to call it good there as I have a ton of housework and stuff yet to do today.  Hope you've all had some luck keeping above everything going on and are doing well!

This Week's Shopping Haul

 Well, I haven't done one of these posts in a while, so I thought I'd share what I bought for groceries this week.

When it comes to blogging of late, I've been busy.  The first week of August I had a solid week of appointments and then the next week started with getting the septic pumped on Monday, which I then got a report saying that our leech field is saturated, so our leech field may be starting to die.  Since it is probably the original leech field, this isn't super surprising, I guess, but it is still depressing as that's a lot of work and expense to get that replaced, which we'll probably have to do next summer (luckily it is just saturated and not super saturated as that is when you are getting warned you are going to start having major problems and an out and out failure of the field.  So, yeah, I spent a few days just trying to figure out how to cut down on water usage around here and things to try and extend the life of the leech field.  I haven't gotten very far as laundry is my main source of water consumption and I can't stop doing laundry.  We do a lot more laundry than a normal family due to having to do more bedding and clothing on a normal basis.  So, that was a source of stress for sure and probably will be for some time for me.

We were supposed to be getting some advance payments from an earned income tax credit that the government came up with every month from July to December  We are actually pretty far below the income levels they chose for a single person, let alone a family of four, so we should have been fine, but then our account with the IRS is suddenly "pending", which means we are not getting any help from them until they figure out whatever it is they need to figure out.  With how the hands of government move (i.e. slower than molasses) I might not be seeing the extra money they promised until I file for taxes next year.  I guess we'll see what happens as the rest of the year progresses as there is nothing I can do about the current state of things.  I was hoping that we would get the extra money as that would have helped to combat rising costs of everything, but so far that doesn't look good. 

So, I spent this last week redoing our budget, again, so that the extra money we were supposed to be getting from the IRS isn't in the budget any longer.  Add in homeschool starting up in a big way and I've not only been busy, but REALLY busy!

But, yeah, saving money the last three weeks and Frugal Friday posts to show for it?  I had a few things, like using a 10.00 off coupon for when we got our septic pumped and things, but the list is actually really short for the amount of time that has passed, sadly.  I'll try to maybe do a quick post at some point next week to bring up the frugal adventures to date, but for the moment, I thought I'd just share what I got for groceries this week as I haven't done that in a long time. 

Now, technically this is for the next two weeks of groceries.  I have an Amazon order on top of what I bought that will get charged next week and be in by the end of the month, but I made sure we just got a thing of rolls last week and that was it (we wanted nice hard rolls for sandwiches for a few nights, so I just had my husband pick some on his way home from work as I was busy and very tired), so I am taking the money I would have spent on groceries last week and putting it on my Amazon order at the end of the month instead.

I also had my husband pick up a 50lb bag of bread flour on his way home from work one night.  That came out to about 29.96 (there was a snack included in that price somewhere my husband told me, but since I don't have the receipt, only the amount that cleared the bank, I'm going with that).

Right, so let's break it down by the numbers:

1.  Son food (not shown as it was already eaten and/or put away):  60.58 

2.  Semi-Sweet Chocolate chips:  5.29

This is a large bag not cross contaminated with peanuts, so I'm okay buying them for household use.  

3.  5 Dozen eggs:  7.05

I plan to make ice cream, as it is really expensive for safe brands now, and also eggs are a cheap source of additional protein).  I had a personalized price of 1.41 per dozen.  They are normally like 1.89 a dozen (or more now...I forgot to check).

4.  Lucerne American Cheese slices:  9.49

For cheeseburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and other things.  The big container was the best value and lasts us for a long while

5.  Lucerne whole milk, 2 gallons:  7.98

6.  Land O' Lakes spreadable butter:  4.99

I normally get the largest container of this as it will last us a month (normally between like 6.50 to 7.00 as I normally get a personalized price on it).  Getting the spreadable butter really saves on stick butter consumption, so I have been super happy buying it.  I went with a slightly smaller size this time as it was on sale and we still have about 1/2 of a container of spreadable butter left in the fridge.

7.  Tilamook sour cream, 2:  4.98 

I know I'm going to get questions about why I'm not buying the store brand items here.  I have found that the Lucerne brand of sour cream, although cheaper, as well as their plain yogurt, go bad on me super duper fast.  No joke.  I had yogurt go bad on me!  So I'm avoiding that brand of yogurt and sour cream and going with brands I know will last for a good long time before going bad.  What is the point of saving money on an item if it goes bad before you can use it?

8.  Mountain High Plain Yogurt, 32 oz:  3.49

9.  Rockit Apples, 2:  17.98.

At 2.99 lb normal price (about), these are a bit more expensive than buying say red delicious apples or something if I wait for a sale, but my husband really likes this brand of apple and the smaller apples actually means we get more servings from a container of apples than we would if I bought bigger apples out of the by the pound bins.  I've been washing them and then putting them in a bowl on the tables so people can just grab an apple and go and it has been working really well to get the daughter to snack healthier.

Total trip pre-tax:  121.83

Sales Tax:  3.65

Total spent at Carrs:  125.48

Then, of course, we spent 29.96 at Three Bears buying bread flour.  

Total between the two stores:  151.79

I used to have a 50.00 per week grocery budget.  I've had to raise it to 75.00 per week the last bit and I'm expecting it to get higher still, but I guess we shall see.  

Oh and here is a good tip for those on a tight budget that I've been doing.  Since Covid the majority of stores let you order online and then pick up at the store right?  Well, if you are going to go into the store, but want to get an idea of what you are going to spend, use the online app, look up your items one at a time and then write down the price it lists and then you can add it all up (complete with tax) before you go.  I was only 2.00 off this week as the online app listed Cheetos and Doritos by 1.00 cheaper than in store (I think it was probably an online only deal that they were running).

So, there you go folks.  My grocery shopping this week.  If anyone is interested I can share my Amazon haul when I get it in, so you can see what some of the deals I'm buying on Amazon.  Let me know.

How is your budget doing?  Mine is straining and I know I'm not alone.

Just a Quick PSA on the Recent Earthquake!

Map image source:  The Alaska Earthquake Center

I am so sorry that I did not post this sooner.  I'm actually getting quite a few worried e-mails and Facebook messages asking if we were impacted by the recent 8.2 earthquake that hit off of of the Aleutian Chain of Alaska a few days ago.  

Fortunately, no, my family wasn't impacted.  I feel for the poor folks who live closer to where the earthquake occurred as I know how much those aftershocks wear you down, but my family in particular didn't even feel anything.  

I didn't even know we had an earthquake up here that big until my mom called me yesterday to make sure we were okay because the news had misreported Chignik as Chugiak (Chugiak is in the Anchorage area).  

In short, we are fine.  Luckily, there was no tsunami from the earthquake and the aftershocks are following a typical aftershock pattern, so the odds of this being some sort of pre-quake are unlikely.

If you'd like to read more about the earthquake, you can go here and read the article that the Alaska Earthquake Center put out on the event.  

Go here to read about the 8.2 quake.

Thank you so much for your concern and I am VERY sorry to worry a bunch of people.  I need to keep up more on the news.  I've just started avoiding watching it more and more for the sake of my sanity of late.  Sorry about that!