Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Well, this week has been kind of depressing.  It's been a disappointment.  One after another.

My husband didn't feel well due to allergies, so we had to reschedule his dental appointment.  While upsetting that we had to do that, I saw the silver lining on that one as it allowed me to conserve gas to hopefully save me money until this week's paycheck came in.

My daughter's stomach condition kept flaring this week (end of school excitement combined with allergies just throwing her system off I'm sure), so I ended up having her home one day and had to pick her up early another day.  Every time I feel like we got her stomach condition controlled it shows me who is boss.  I also had to pick up the kids early another day due to my son's allergies getting to him and knocking him around.

My son's allergist appointment was yesterday.  We found out we can't start him on allergy shots until he is completely hive free because if he has hives on the shots we have to stop them immediately because you have to assume the treatment is causing them.  So he's back on massive antihistamines to get his allergic reactions under control.  The allergist warned it wasn't going to be easy as he has a "perfect storm" of allergies going on.  Lovely.  Poor kiddo.  So we have instructions for doses of Zyrtec and Benadryl types of drugs to give him and we go back in a month.

 I called the cooperative extension service to check on my canner and to hopefully get my other canner in to check as I wanted to can some potatoes maybe and found out that the gal who checks the canners isn't going to be in now until June it looks like.  So, I'm going to be dehydrating potatoes instead as all of the potatoes I bought, despite doing everything I was supposed to do to stop them from sprouting...sprouted.   I am working on cleaning out a fridge drawer to stick as many as I can to stop them from going soft on me, but I have probably 20 pounds of the 30 lbs I bought left still, so I figure I'd better do something with some of them.  I would just can the potatoes and figure it'll be fine, but my canner lid has taken a few good tumbles and I worry about the steam gauge not being accurate anymore.

So, with the kids getting picked up early and my daughter's stomach flaring, I got next to no yard work done this week on top of everything.   At all.

Between that and finding out my family is having their own issues that upset me (a stupid delay in the sale of my step-mom's house that she desperately  needs the money from to survive, my half sister getting evicted from a house that she shouldn't be able to be evicted from and my older sister losing her job)...it's been a week to learn depressing news.

So, anyway, that and money being tight to the point of depressing it's been kind of a hard week.  Luckily I haven't broken down into a puddle of tears as an outlet.  Yet *sigh*.

At any rate, despite the way this week has gone emotionally, I did manage to get some things done on the money saving front.

1.  If you are wondering where the weekly shopping trip was this week...well...I didn't really have any money to get much, so I just bought Coke and chips for the son and milk for the week (spent 36.00).  I also got some Epsom salts as we are working on incorporating those into my son's bathing times to hopefully at least get some magnesium into him and hopefully help his skin some.  It does seem to help with the eczema irritation a bunch when he has a bath with them in it.

2.  I wanted to make root beer floats for dessert tomorrow, but we don't have any root beer around here and I really didn't have the money to just blow on something we don't need like root beer.  But, I remembered that I had some root beer extract that I bought years ago with my daughter's corn allergy to possibly make root beer with.  So, I took some extract, some sugar and my soda stream (also bought years ago...mainly to see if my son would drink any type of carbonated juice) and made some root beer.  I actually kind of like the home made stuff better than the store bought soda, although it doesn't have the level of carbonation as the store bought stuff (seen above).

3.  Despite having a lot going on this week I did manage to can something pretty much every day this week so that no discounted fruit went to waste.  I also made sure to use up some frozen fruit that I really needed to use to make something as it was getting near it's expiration date.

So, in recap I made...

Monday I made apple pie filling with some of my discounted apples.  I used the recipe in the Ball Book of Home Preserving and for once I got the EXACT yield they said you'd get (7 pints).  I was impressed.

Tuesday I made pie filling with what turned out to be odds and ends of berries I had in the freezer.  I thought I'd make raspberry pie filling, but found that I didn't have enough.  So digging in the freezer I found some blackberries, some strawberries (from last year that I had left over) and some blueberries to add in with the raspberries.  I call it "triple berry pie filling" as a send up to the "triple berry pie" from "Bear in the Big Blue House" as my daughter loved that show (and will still watch it with my son) so I thought it might inspire her to actually try a pie when I make it even though technically I guess it's "quadruple berry pie filling" instead *laugh*.

I'm hoping to make some cherry pie filling and some strawberry rhubarb pie filling later in the season to fill out the pie options for over the winter, but so far I'm happy with how it's all turning out.

Wednesday I made orange marmalade.  I kind of combined recipes for this one.  I followed a traditional recipe but just boiled the orange zest for about 1/2 an hour until soft instead of letting it sit for days in soaking water to soften.  And then I took a bit of advice from Pickyourown.org and when I made the final recipe I used orange juice (one of the bottles I got for free from Freebie Friday) in the marmalade instead to take the place of some of the water.  It gave the marmalade a really beautiful orange color and also gave it a wonderful depth of flavor once it boiled down the right consistency.  The set on this was so good I can stand the jars upside down and the marmalade doesn't move.  I felt proud of that one!

And I'm also loving that I now have marmalade in the pantry as I LOVE orange marmalade and never buy it because it's expensive (if you get the good stuff and I like the good stuff).  My favorite way to eat it is I take a page from Graham Kerr and strain some yogurt into yogurt "cheese" and then I spread that on some English muffins with the orange marmalade on top.  Beats the pants off of butter on an English muffin any day!

So for 2.00 worth of reduced oranges and lemons, some sugar and a free thing of orange juice I now have enough marmalade to last me quite a while.  I'm happy!

Thursday/yesterday I made another batch of applesauce.  I did have to add 1 cup of sugar to this batch as I had a lot of granny smith apples and other more sourish apple types in the bunch, so it was a BIT puckery for me when I tasted it, but overall it turned out well.

I still have a bunch of apples to can believe it or not, so I was hoping to can apples in syrup tonight (so I can use them in cooking or for crisps and things later), but my TMJ is flaring tonight and I have a headache as a result, so I just said "no" until tomorrow on that one.

4.  I was running low on sugar after making the marmalade (disadvantage to making marmalade with no pectin is you use a LOT of sugar to make it), so instead of spending some of my severely limited grocery budget to buy sugar this week I just opened the couple cans I had of sugar in my food storage and added them into my bulk sugar container.  It'll see me through until later in the month when I can hopefully get a big bag of sugar.  So, really, between canning and the sugar I shopped a lot from my own home this week compared to going grocery shopping.

5.  I used up some hamburger that was really freezer burned in the freezer (some of the odds and ends I dug from the depth of the fridge freezer) and mixed it with some ground turkey and decent hamburger and used up the rest of my taco seasoning to make a big batch of taco meat.  I'll freeze any we don't use in the next couple of days so all I'll have to do is quickly reheat some hamburger for tacos on nights when I'm strapped for time or not feeling well.  By mixing the meats and then mixing in the strong flavoring of the taco seasoning it worked to cover the taste of the freezer burn really well.

6.  I received a sample of cat food this week which was fortuitous in that it allowed me to feed the cats with the free can of wet food and will allow me to not have to buy more wet food until tomorrow (it padded out my cans a bit).

7.  I mended my son's stuffed back hoe this week, a big hole in one of my husband's t-shirts and a seam that was giving on my sneaker.

8.  I have started saving my morning coffee grounds again to spread on the garden as soon as the seedlings start getting decently big so I don't bury them (some of the seeds are just starting to show starting to show life in the garden.  JUST).

9.  I took advantage of a free resource this week when my kids were in school.  Naps.  I have been running on emotional and physical empty this week so taking a nap here or there really helped to give me a recharge.

10.  I read some free books that were available on Amazon.com this week and I also took advantage of the internet to watch some shows for free as well.

And there you are folks.  Some of the things I did to save money this week.  How did you do?

Shopping Goals: May 2016

Well, shopping goals for this month are going to be minimal with good reasons all of them green (or greenish now that they keep changing the currency). 

Usually May is a good time to start stocking up on condiments like BBQ sauce, mayonnaise and the like due to the summer holidays starting to kick in.  It's also a good time to stock up on hot dogs and other grilling fare.  Since my husband is so burned out on hot dogs they actually make him sick to eat them now, hot dogs aren't going to be an issue this year.  And when it comes to condiments I'm still doing okay on some of them.  I do, however, have a couple that I'd like to get if they go on sale cheap enough, but I'm thinking that is going to have to wait until the fourth of July holiday sales.

So, here are my minimal goals for this month.

Regular Stores:

• Wide Mouthed mason jar lids
• Sugar (or the bulk store for the sugar if the regular stores are too expensive)
• Reduced produce (if it becomes available)
• Water softening salt (Home Depot for that one hopefully)

And that, my friends, is it.  I'm hoping I can get the goals accomplished.  I'm pretty sure I can in with my normal grocery budget.

Menu Plan for the Week

There are some weeks where you are with it and have your menu plan done early Sunday, or even already have it done the week before.  You feel a sense of confidence and purpose and you just feel proud of yourself for being so organized.

This is not one of those weeks.

I kept meaning to get to the menu plan.  Really I did.  Things just kept getting in my way.  

We are so tight on money this week and next there isn't even the safety net of picking something up at the store or eating out as a "emergency reserve" measure.  Basically this was a week where a menu plan was most definitely necessary and I never got to it.

So, yeah, I've been punting on dinner the last couple of days and it has been awful trying to figure out what to make!  So, today is the day to get it done.  Better late than never.

So, here's the menu plan for this week.

Menu for Week of 5/2/16

Monday:  Baked chicken, garlic toast, peaches (daughter's dinner request)

Tuesday:  Steak, potatoes au gratin (I was too tired to worry about another veggie, but we had pear slices for dessert, so there's that).

Wednesday:  Tacos (if I have sour cream...which is iffy)

Thursday:  BBQ ribs, mashed potatoes, green beans.

Friday:  Noodle Bowl Night

Saturday:  Meatloaf, leftover mashed potatoes, leftover green beans.

Sunday:  Ham, spinach (from freezer), easy potatoes gratin (determined to make this and see if it works!)

Desserts:  Leftover lemon cake (we have exactly one piece left that I'm probably going to eat for breakfast today, but we've been enjoying it), root beer freezes (we went to a memorial get together for a friend of my husband's family Sunday and my husband snagged me an IBC root beer that I just ended up taking home.  We used it to make the freezes Monday night with what little ice cream we had left in the freezer).  Cookie bars (need to make still)

So, there you are folks.  My menu plan for the week (well what is left of it *laugh*).  How about you?  What's on your menu for this week?

New Winner of the Invisible Glass Giveaway

 Well, darn, I hate when this happens.  The first winner I picked didn't contact me in time (I didn't get any e-mails or blog replies or Facebook IM or anything so I'm assuming a no-show on this one...if somehow the universe screwed this up for the original winner I apologize ahead of time, but trust me when I say I didn't receive anything), so I have to pick a new winner here.

So, thanks to the great services of Random.org the new winner of the Invisible Glass giveaway is...

heatherruark

Heatherruark states, "Thanks for the giveaway! We started spring cleaning here, but we haven't seen the heavy green/ yellow pollen yet which kicks all of our cleaning into high gear. This kit would sure make it easier to clean the car windows every day."

So, heatherruark please e-mail me at makedohomemaker (at) gmail (dot) com with your full name and address so I can pass it along to the nice folks at Invisible Glass! 

Once again, thanks to all who participated and congrats to the new winner!

Monthly Goals: May 2016

Yay!  April is over!  It was a long and depressing month in a lot of ways, but I'm happy that it's out of the way and May is here!

This month is going to be busy.  School ends for the summer this month, so I'm going to be jamming as much in to the first 20 days of this month as possible on the work front before I end up having to worry about summer intensive speech therapy and occupational therapy as well as summer school...oh and keeping two kids entertained and occupied.  It's going to be fun (and I mean that both sardonically and sincerely *laugh*).

A good portion of my goals this month are going to revolve around this...

This, my friends, is my yard.  And my land.

When we moved here it was like this, although a bit less overgrow around the edges of the yard (the undergrowth reclaims a bit more of the yard every year it seems). 

We actually own over 2 acres of land, but it's mainly overgrown with trees and wild rose bushes and devil's club (a really nasty spiked weed that grows up here). 

We kept hoping to rent a piece of equipment so we could clear the land and use more of it, but we've been dead broke since we moved here by the summertime (the one year we actually made money since we moved here was the year my daughter was battling her stomach condition, so medical bills ate every bit of money we had saved), so it just hasn't happened.

I have finally decided that I'm tired of it.  I'm tired of waiting for things to happen that probably never will.  So, I'm going to hit the yard with things I do have.  Mainly me, some heavy clothes to protect me from thorns and thick gloves along with some pruners and a tree saw.  I might not get far, but if I can even reclaim some of the land from the super freaky fast growing varieties of trees we have up here, I'll feel good that I at least was able to accomplish something.

I actually regularly talk to the man who built our house.  Every school day pretty much, in fact (how many people can say that?  *Laugh*).  I found out from him that the land used to be horse property, which explains a lot.  You can see patches where the land used to be nice and clear with some trees planted for shade throughout, so at least I have that going for me.  Even if the land was cleared back in the 80's for that purpose the bones are there as it were.  So, yeah, "land clearing" is my big goal this month.  Hopefully I'll see some improvement to the land from it.

I am hoping to clear out a spot to the right in the first photo above.  That's where my raspberry bushes normally would be.  If the moose hadn't decimated them over the past two winters as well as a blight a couple of years ago.  Out of ten raspberry bushes in the back yard I now have two left and they are producing nothing at this point and I got a LOAD of dead underbrush there that needs to be removed.  I'm calling them a loss and am just going to work on mowing them down and clearing them.  I'm then going to move my rhubarb plant that is not doing well in the damp compact soil it's currently in to that area and hopefully I can find someone who is willing to part with some more rhubarb plants to plant there as well (I had a friend who offered me some plants last year and I need to contact them again and see if the offer is still open). 

I'll worry about replanting raspberry bushes at some later date (I have one in the front yard at least that I can hopefully salvage along with a kind of scraggly one in the back yard.  I'm hoping that is enough to at least keep them producing SOME fruit, right along with gooseberry bushes, fruit trees and kiwi vines.  But, that's for when we have money to spend and when we have land cleared to put them *dreamy look*.

Anyhow, that's where the majority of my time will HOPEFULLY be spent this month.  We do have other commitments, though, such as eye doctor appointments for my son, allergist appointment for allergy shots (for the son again), dental appointments (for my husband), orthodontist appointments (for my daughter) and chocolate appointments (for me...ha!).

Past that, this month is going to be seeing me canning more things as I find them cheap enough to work into my reduced grocery budget (as the 60.00 per week grocery budget is just going to be there until further notice).  I found some raspberries and blackberries from last year in the freezer and it's enough to actually do something nice with, so I'm planning on pulling those out this week to can and also canning more apple products since I have two drawers pretty much full of reduced apples (yay!).  I also am planning on canning some orange products (like marmalade...if I can find a good recipe for JUST orange marmalade...the recipes I have in my Ball book are all fancy ones that I don't want to make) as well to use up some oranges in the fridge.

And I am determined, once school let's out and working on the yard becomes harder (I can't leave my son unattended as he's a flight risk) to get some clothes sewing done.  I really want to start on some clothes, especially for me as a lot of my clothes (like my sleep pants) are just plain dying on me.

So, anyway, here's my goals for this month!

Monthly Goals:  May 2016


Gardening Goals:

• Continue to watch and tend garden.  
• Try to keep on top of weeds to give seedlings room to grow (and make sure they ARE weeds before pulling them ;).
• Plant basil seeds indoors (I finally found my few ceramic indoor planters I had out in the garage).
• Go to nursery.  Buy flowers for daughter to plant (I think she wants petunias now...I'm trying to lean her toward completely edible flowers, but we'll see how that goes *laugh*).  I have been saving change I found on the ground or in the laundry specifically for garden plants (we said "nope" to yard sales this year as we can't really afford any disposable income that doesn't have a specific purpose, so I reallocated my "fun money" for the garden instead), so I'm hoping to buy a couple of rosemary plants and the flowers with that (I have had NO luck since moving here growing rosemary from seeds and I've tried several different brands.  It's sad, but it works so well at repelling insects that I really do want to get some more to help repel the spider mites). 

Land Clearing Goals:

• Clear raspberry bush bank.  
• Look up online how (and when) to move rhubarb plants and move rhubarb to cleared bank.
• Clear as many trees and bush undergrowth as I can before school lets out for the summer.
• Move one still alive and actually doing "okay" raspberry bush (look this up online too on how the best way to do that is) that is in the front part of the yard to a better spot, preferably out of direct sunlight (it grows, but the raspberries bake into little briquettes every year).
• Spray yard with Aza Max to disrupt spider mite breeding cycle (it's an organic product I bought last year and I'm hoping it works).

Cleaning Goals:

• Scrub children's bedroom walls down and clean their ceiling fans before school lets out (and it gets really hard to do with kids underfoot).
• Work on general plan to reorganize master bedroom closet (as it needs to be cleaned out and reset BAD!).
• Finish deep cleaning kitchen.

General Goals:

• Get through various appointments for the month.
• Get TEFRA care coordinator paperwork filled out and e-mailed back to new care coordinator so she can get wheels in motion.
• Redeem Swagbucks and order new edition (or newer as it's last year's edition) of the Ball Book of Home Preserving (it has 500 recipes in it and my old edition really needs some rest as it's been used hard over the years).  This I already got done today, so yay!  

Canning Goals:

• Can apple pie filling
• Can apple sauce
• Can raspberry pie filling
• Look up orange canning recipes online and in Ball book and figure out what neat things I can make with some.

Sewing Goals:

• Work on clothing for myself after the end of school.
• Work on mending.

And there you are folks.  Some of my goals for this month.  You up to anything this month?

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap and Garden Starts

First, this is your last chance to enter the Invisible Glass Giveaway, so be sure to enter if you want to!  I'll be announcing the winner tomorrow!

Well, this week has been depressing on the money front.  The lack of work this month combined with my husband being sick with his teeth and foot and other things and our income was down by about half of what it normally would be if my husband was working.  Which means, we'll be able to make the mortgage and the care credit payment to get my husband's teeth done next week.  Past that money is going to be super tight till next pay period and even then I have to somehow start to make up ground to make the utilities, the insurance and then dig up money for residual bills that need to get paid like licensing fees and car registrations.  I know I'll make it work somehow, but I've been dealing with discouragement and "being broke burnout" this week for sure.

Anyway, due to money being non-existent (if you say that with a tinge of bitter sarcasm it somehow comes across as funnier...trust me I'm laughing in my own head) I quickly realized what few goals I had when it came to the garden were most definitely shot to the moon in a big ol' cannon.  Luckily, one of our awesome blog readers (really is there any other type?  I might be biased but you all are great :) reached out and offered me some seeds (thanks, Jeannie!)  and more important still advice and guidance from an experienced gardener (of which I still have a LOT to learn in that area).

The shot of the garden all worked over and about 3/4 planted is above.  Thanks to some of the really cool varieties of plant seeds that Jeannie sent me I got some neat "shake it up" fun seeds planted that I hope will bear fruit (or veggies in this case).

In the far bed (which you only get to see about 3/4 of here due to the camera angle) I planted peas (in the back so I can stake them later and grow them vertical), swiss chard in the center row and spinach up front.  This area of the garden tends to stay in shadow more than the other areas, so I'm HOPING the peas grow okay, but I'm pretty sure the chard and the spinach will do alright.

In the middle bed the garlic was already growing, so I stuck a couple of sprouting potatoes in the ground and then planted some bunching onions up front (think green onions).  In the third bed I have a couple rat tailed radishes (one of my "ooooo neat!" finds in Jeannie's seeds she sent), some carrots (a couple of small rows of them) and some Chinese varieties of cabbage (small varieties that don't take up much room).  I've still got a few feet of space left to plant some things in the actual garden, which I'm honestly hoping to just go and grab a four pack of lettuce at the green house and call it good for the time being.  I've also got some planters that I dug out of my shed that I'm hoping to plant some more cabbages in.  The front planters will house hopefully some herbs (basil I'll be growing inside this year after my disastrous failure growing it outside last year), some edible flowers and a few pansies (daughter's request as she REALLY wants flowers).

In the front bed (of which I was too tired to go in and get new batteries for the camera when the batteries died, so you'll have to wait for a few pictures of that *laugh*) the chocolate mint I feared to be a goner as it wasn't coming up at all, but I dug around a little bit yesterday and found some signs of life (yay!).  The chives are doing GREAT this year in that bed...they are already about 4 inches high or so.  I was thrilled.  The pineapple sage plant, of which I didn't like fresh for much and dried tasted like grass (grumble) ended up being a waste of money and it created such a tight and HUGE root system that I'm going to have to go down with my gardening tools and really do some work to get the soil ready to plant something there (I'm thinking rosemary as it will help scare away the MULTITUDES of bugs that accumulate in that area).    So, yeah, I'm probably looking at about maybe 8.00 in plants total for the garden and beds this year and the rest are going to be seeds.

And this also links into other ways I saved money this week, so let's get that show on the road!

1.  I went to Lowes last weekend and we picked up planters and dirt for the garden as well as the diatomaceous earth to spread around the house.  Well, we both had sticker shock at the total and when I got home I immediately started digging up ANYTHING that I could possibly use as a planter for the year (warning:  Some things I end up planting in this year you might find interesting *laugh*) and managed to return the planters to Lowes on Monday.  My husband insisted I keep the dirt as he was planning on renting a rototiller but in case he didn't he wanted me to have the dirt (I was thinking I'd dig up the yard with a spade if I had to, but we'll see how that goes).

So, due to money we realized the rototiller wasn't going to happen, so I was figuring I might as well plant the planters.  But, something told me to keep putting off planting and I'm glad I listened as today my husband and I ran to Home Depot to get parts for a job of his and I picked up the ad to find that dirt was on sale there WAY cheaper than what I had paid at Lowes!  We took the dirt back to Lowes and got a refund and ran over to Home Depot and were able to get double the amount of soil PLUS a bag of manure for the same price as I'd paid for that one bag of soil, which was doubly great because I realized that I was probably going to need more dirt and was trying to figure out where to find the money for it!  Glad I checked that ad :).

2.   I went to the Cooperative Extension Service this week and turned in my one All American (I was mistaken in the brand last time I posted) canner to get tested for free.

While there I ran into a cool find.  Well several as, like every time I run into the Cooperative Extension Service, I raided their publication wall *laugh* so I got a ton of cool papers with recipes and advice on different things on them.

I have kept putting off finishing the bag holder for the pantry and I kept going back and forth about just making some reusable shopping bags as I was just getting tired of the store bags falling apart all the time.  But, I didn't want to pay .99 a piece for the reusable ones at the store and while I love the idea of sewing some of my own totes for the store I wasn't really keen on using up my material right now to make some.  So, I just ended up in this weird holding pattern on what to do.

But, while I was at the Cooperative Extension Service (getting back to the story at hand now that you have a major plot point there ;) I saw that they had just BOXES of reusable green shopping bags.  I asked the gal at the desk how much they were, hoping they would be cheaper than the store ones and her reply was wonderful, "Oh they're free.  Take as many as you want!"  Those words made my day!  I grabbed six of them and I think I might grab a few more when I go to pick up my canner after testing (as I tend to lose at least two while grocery shopping just to milk and Coke right now).  It was great being able to fit all of my groceries in a few bags and haul them all in at once without worries of things breaking on me.

Also while having a conversation with a friend of mine I heard about a program through the department of agriculture that you could get a grant to build a hoop house (unheated green house).  My husband and I went and checked out the preliminaries while we were at the cooperative extension service, stopped by the USDA and got the paperwork started on getting one.  It's a reimbursement grant (they will repay you like 90% of the cost of the hoop house though), so I'm thinking it's kind of a hopeless dream for a few years, but at least we have a farm and tract number for future reference now.

3.  My son's new communication app came with a program to share the settings between I-Pad's, but I only had it for a week and it was going to cost me 50.00 to pay for a year of it.  I wanted the school and the new I-Pad to match, but I wasn't sure if the 50.00 would be worth it with how little of the school year was left and all.  I was blessed in that my son's teacher got the assistive technology person to come in and they got the I-Pad's matching today and they said that so long as school was in session I could bring the I-Pad in any time to update the two I-Pads so they matched.  So, that event definitely saved me money and made me feel better as LAMP is based on motor memory, so me messing with keys and things could really confuse my son.  So having the keys match was definitely a good thing.

4.  My daughter went to a free event at the school with my husband last night for a reading camp.  She got to see a great horned owl from the zoo and have the gal tell the kids the story of how the owl came to be homed there and everything.  My daughter, who is currently obsessed with all things animal, LOVED it!

5.   My friend gave me her Freebie Friday things from Fred Meyer, so I grabbed those this week (thanks, Stephanie!).

6.  I have spent a good portion of the week cleaning out things from the freezer that needed to be used up, which made me feel good to get those used up before they went bad.

7.  I decided, due to lack of money and me knowing we aren't going to able to do anything for Mother's Day (again *sigh*) that the best thing I can think of to do is that we're going to work on the yard.  It'll make me feel good getting something accomplished, my son will hopefully have his first dose of allergy shots down him so hopefully won't be breaking out in welts and he can play in the yard with my daughter and maybe we can start to reclaim some of the yard and make it bigger.  It would at least make me feel better knowing something got done for a change and all it will really take is time and effort to get it done...which THAT I can afford!

8.  I used up a lemon and made lemon blueberry cake (this recipe is easy.  Take a boxed cake mix.  First, zest a lemon and put the zest aside.  Whatever water your cake mix calls for, like mine called for 1 cup, juice one lemon into a measuring cup and then fill the rest of the way with water until you reach your liquid measure for your cake mix.  Once you've mixed up the cake mix according to package directions add the zest to the batter and mix again.  Now, if you want blueberries that are really tasty but don't turn your cake blue, take 1/3 to 1/2 cup dehydrated blueberries (depending on how many blueberries you like in your cake) and toss them lightly in flour for a few seconds and then mix into the cake batter (this stops them from sinking to the bottom of the cake).  Bake the rest of the way according to directions.

Then take one block of softened cream cheese and throw it into a mixer with some schnoz to it and add 4 cups powdered sugar.  Mix until combined.  This is the BEST cream cheese frosting (really!) and is really easy to remember how to make it *laugh*).  Put that on top of your cake and enjoy!  My husband and I keep resisting eating more and more cake ;).

9.  Now that the light is coming back big time, it's been really easy to keep the lights turned off during the day and instead of turning on the children's lights in the morning to get them up all I have to do is open their curtains.  This is also stopping my daughter to fight her natural instincts to cloister herself in her room like a vampire, which is a double benefit.

10.  I used a couple of tips on making printer ink last longer to get more ink out of my printer which allowed me to print the necessary ream of paperwork that I need to fill out to get a new case coordinator in the works for my son's insurance.  Now I have a fun thing to do while my husband is in having his root canals done next week.  Half hearted "yay" here.

11.  Instead of paying for at tire change over (of which we can't afford right now) I asked my husband to check my tires and see if there are even enough studs left to bother with getting said tires changed.  We think that there are so few left it's probably going to be best to pull the studs and just have to buy new winter tires this year.  Sucks, but with two winters of not a lot of snow and this winter had good amounts of ice...the studs did their job and just got shot doing it.

So, there you are folks.  Some of my frugal adventures this week (and I'm sure I'm missing some honestly).  How did you do?

This Week's Shopping Trips

Well, when it came to shopping trips this week went well, I have to say.

I hit Carrs and Fred Meyer this week for different things and oddly enough Coke and Doritos weren't on my list this week again.  I managed to eek out the meager amounts of Coke we had around here to last the rest of the week and I found two bags of Doritos that had gotten shoved into the kitchen cabinets instead of into the pantry (I'm thinking I was tired, harried and not thinking straight when I did that...because I know that I DID that), so we were covered for the week with those things.

I hit both stores on Friday, mainly to take advantage of the fact that strawberries were still on sale at Fred Meyer for 3.99 for a two pound container.  So, I grabbed one of the only ones that wasn't really nasty looking (they were definitely getting down to the bottom of the proverbial barrel when it came to strawberries)  and I found that they had a bunch more apples being put out by the produce guy.  So, I grabbed the heaviest ones (you want to get odd looks?  Take clearance bags of apples over the scale and start weighing them one at a time to find the ones that are the heaviest out of all of the bags).  I also grabbed tortillas while I was there as they are about 2.00 cheaper there than buying them normal price at Carrs (and I had a coupon to make them even cheaper yet).

I found a bunch of things on reduced at Fred Meyer while I was there too, other than produce!  Boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for 1.69 per box.  Corn flakes for 1.89 for a big box.  The only type of pop tarts that my son will eat (it was a treat for him as his allergies have been flaring pretty bad lately) for 1.69 for the box.  Tuna fish for .49 per can.  Boxed crushed tomatoes for .49 per box, a thing of crushed pineapple for .59.  Green beans for .39.  A thing of Cream of Mushroom Soup (that I used to top some pork chops for dinner that night) for .69 for the can.  I even managed to find a box of tissues (my son's classroom teacher sent home a list of things they had run out of and tissues was one of the requested items, so I picked those up and brought them in) for .99.  It was cool!

I then ran to Carrs for 5.00 Friday and got shredded mozzarella for 2.50 lb (this was for the manicotti I was scoping out to have for dinner this week) and some string cheese (2.50 personalized price).  Eggs for 2.49 for a dozen jumbo eggs (these things keep fresh WAY longer than the large or medium eggs I can get anywhere else...why I'm not sure, but I'm not complaining!) and two gallons of milk.  I also picked up tuna salad for my son (1.58 per container personalized price, so I stocked up) one more box of pasta being on sale for .75 and two gallons of milk for 2.99 each with the in-ad coupon (I got the last ad too to get the coupon!).  I hit the reduced carts and I managed to dig up another box of corn flakes this one for 1.25 after the discount was taken.  Corn flakes is a cereal that my daughter will eat, my husband and I both like and we're working on getting my son to eat in feeding therapy, so I was thrilled to get boxes of it so cheap.

Total spent between the two stores, once coupons were applied (of which I had a few) was 51.30 (including the 2.00 off 10.00 of produce coupon that Fred Meyer had sent me a couple of months ago before it expired on me and a personalized rewards coupon for 2.00/2 tortillas coupon, which made the packages of tortillas .69 per package).

A friend of mine posted on Facebook that Bushes and Bunches had strawberries cheap as well as cases of bananas for 10.00.  We ran over Saturday and I walked up to check out what they had left for strawberries.  They were priced at 9.00 per case, which I was happy to pay anyway, but the gal who was working up front was picking moldy strawberries out of the cases (which is why they were so cheap) and I offered to help (never been afraid to get my hands dirty).  She gladly accepted my help and I went through and picked out all the of moldy strawberries I could find for her.  We picked out the four cleanest containers and put them into a crate for me to buy.  I decided to forego a case of bananas (although I was tempted) as I knew that I wasn't going to use 40 lbs of bananas before they went bad on me and honestly every SINGLE time I save over ripe bananas in the freezer the only way they get used is if I have like four in the freezer and that's it.  Otherwise I start getting over run by them.  I probably could have bought it and dried them, but I'm the only one around here that will eat dried bananas, so that would be a lot of dried fruit to eat.

Anyway, tangent aside they did have bunches of bananas for .50 per lb (that's cheap up here) so I grabbed one of those and went up to the counter to pay.  The gal who was working the counter was flagged over by the gal I had helped with the moldy strawberries as they'd just sold the last of the strawberries.  Next thing I know the gal is ringing up my strawberries at 6.00 and I pointed out her mistake saying that the case should be 9.00.  She just smiled and said that the other gal had told her about me helping with the moldy strawberries and that had probably helped them to sell the rest of the strawberries before they went bad, so they had given me a discount.  I was thrilled :).

So all totaled this week I spent 57.89 on groceries for the week (I still haven't had to pull the other loaves of bread and things we got from the Franz outlet from the freezer yet, so I'm not counting that on this week's grocery shopping).  None too shabby especially considering I got 28 cups of cleaned and sliced strawberries from those strawberries (2 cups ended up being desserts and snacks while the other 24 cups went into 8 cup portions and put into the freezer for strawberry preserves later and 2 cups I froze in a separate freezer bag for future snack/dessert fodder).

Now I have to make apple pie filling (it's been a rough week and I haven't gotten to that yet) and maybe some more strawberry preserves.  As "putting up for winter" preparations go, I have to say that at least ONE thing is going well so far.  Here's hoping it continues!

How did you all do for grocery shopping this week?  Find any good deals?