April daily frugal's

[Azure]

We are well into track season now - 5 meets in 15 days. Two meets a week for the next 3 weeks. So far I have been diligent about packing food to take to the meets & fixing food at home after the meet. Yesterday I put a ham in the crockpot. Nuked some potatoes & heated a can of peas for a quick dinner after a 6 hour track meet.

I have been making those easy peanut butter cookies (1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar & 1 egg) to take along. Tyler's teammates are WILD about them. I doubled the recipe this week. Next week I think I am going to triple it. I usually pack an extra sandwich or 2 so if someone needs food it's available. Peel some tangerines. A couple apples. A large bag of pretzels. Wednesday one of the girls asked if I had any food or water & I did. So yesterday I filled a couple of recycled faygo bottles with water just in case. They were both used. I think I will probably be increasing the food I pack. Not really frugal but I kind of like feeding the kids. I have also provided tylenol/advil, tissues & one time chapstick.

The gas prices are killing my budget though. Only 2 home meets this season. And Wednesday Tyler's contact lens popped out when he went over a hurdle. He wears hard lenses and they are kind of expensive. Luckily he had a spare (and it was a home meet so I went home to get it) but we should probably order a replacement.

Ian is home from U/M for the summer. So we won't be driving back & forth for a while which will cut down some on the gas usage. And I won't have to send him spending money. Unfortunately, DH over did it packing up the dorm room & has been very stiff & sore all week. Last night he was in so much pain in his neck/shoulder/back of the head that he was up & down, whimpering, tossing & turning most of the night. He is on his way to the local urgent care right now.

p.s. Tyler's 3200 meter relay team set an meet record at the Invitational meet yesterday! They all got free t-shirts for it!

[Kat]

Went to a wedding yesterday. I didn't want to buy a roll of wedding paper to wrap the gift, so I just used some paper and embellishments I already had. Both DH and someone at the reception remarked on how pretty of a package it was. :-) I was planning on wearing a dress that I borrowed from a friend, but she found out she is pregnant again, so I had to return all her maternity clothes. I made do with a dress that I bought on sale early on. It is a more casual knit dress, but I did my hair and makeup and wore some nicer jewelry and it was fine.

DH and I are going to run to the dollar store today. I was hoping that the last time I bought paper plates and plastic forks would be the last, but the kitchen still isn't done, and we are out. While we are there, I will pick up a few cards for graduation and Mother's Day. The selection is nice and they only cost 50 cents.

Speaking of Mother's Day, we are making a nice brunch for DH's mom (at her house). I was planning to make a batch of sourdough English muffins for my mom, but that is kind of hard to do without a kitchen ;-) So we are going to have to think of something else.

A friend of mine is taking me out for lunch next Saturday for my first Mother's Day. It is her first Mother's Day without her mom (she passed away last year), so I would like to do something nice for her. Any ideas?

[fidgiegirl]

I made bread in the breadmaker and set it up to be fresh and hot when we woke up in the morning. We ate it with some creamed honey. Yum! It was a wonderful treat for very little money.

Today is likely going to be a not-so-productive day. We are watching my friend's two year old son, which means we have five kids here ages seven and under, three of them two and under. There is a whole lot of cute sitting on my couch right now.

Do you like your breadmaker? We have thought of getting one but with space at a premium have never gone for it even when we've seen them for cheap.

I really want to get back to paying down debt, too. Just about every bit of money we have has been going to this home remodel and getting ready for the baby. That isn't a bad thing, but I think it is important that we try to secure our financial future as well. We only have student loans and the house, but still. I'd rather not owe on anything, and that isn't going to happen if we don't take action.

I've been "shopping the house" for stuff for the nursery and was pleased to find that I could repurpose three very nice baskets for the shelves below the changing table. I am hoping to find a good deal on a glider, but if I can't, I have a wooden chair I could use for feedings and a small side table my grandpa made to house a lamp. I also found my old teddy bear, which I plan to wash up and place in there, too. I love using stuff we already have sitting around!

On debt, it is such a good feeling. I remember when I was paying mine off that I would go at it with varying degrees of intensity. My final push involved a HUGE chart where I would mark event the smallest amount put on the loan. I can take a pic if you would like to see it - I couldn't bear to get rid of the chart so I have it, all filled up!

Score on the baby items from your own house. People are really on a roll the last few days. We are getting some power frugals, here. Those are my faves.

We got our 18 year old off our cell plan once it ran out as we agreed would happen, and have gone to a month-to-month cheaper plan with the same provider - and do not need new phones, even though they are 2 years old! Sheesh. Also changed ISP for a much lower monthly fee. Got the smallest garbage can possible for a lower rate, and we've been parsimonious about non-essentials.

And, it's my birthday weekend, so when my husband asked what I wanted, I told him time together in the garden, and to spend a bit of $$ on compost and a few other hardscape items we need to complete the phase of construction we're in. No more things for me! I am quite pleased about spending the weekend with him building a retaining wall & planting the free asparagus starts I got yesterday. I love life.

Happy birthday! Enjoy your yard goodies! And you have inspired me to revisit our phone plans/Internet, too! We have been mulling that one over for a while and all we've managed to do is INCREASE it when we got iPhones with data plans.

Tonight we're having family movie night with popcorn. Good FFF.

I have a photo post on an old blog for how to make popcorn in the microwave in a brown paper bag. It is yummy. Here's the link: http://ecocheapotwincities.wordpress...owave-popcorn/

Tee hee, I guess it really was a while ago. I talk about my boyfriend. Now he's my husband of almost two years

Here, not much in frugality land. We are house shopping and maybe shouldn't be. We found one we like and it is a short sale and we could just baaaaaaarely swing it so we are torn. Do we make a lowball offer? Do we stretch and go for it, or pass? Just this morning we thought we had made a decision to save up a little more money since all the houses we have been "in love with" over the last few years have all been in the same price range and it's the range that is just out of reach for where we are right now. Maybe with a fuzz more money in the savings accounts we'd feel better going for it. Plus that would give us time to finish our refi on this place, lowering the payment (we are debating whether we'd sell our current house or retain as a rental). But then again, we love the house and if there is a chance the bank might take our offer, it is a steal and it would take us years to save up the difference. Anyway! Lots to think about and lots of money!

We broke our electric grill. Dang it. We use that thing a lot. It was the perfect example of a deal that wasn't really a deal, because I was wanting to buy a cast iron grill pan in lieu of a new electric grill but we found this one on clearance and now it's broken, anyway, and now we'll still go buy the thing we wanted in the first place. We used it less than a year. Shoot. Still usable until we replace but we are not keeping it forever to use this way.

[danna]

April 30
Happy Birthday Redfox!
This has turned out to be a fairly frugal month and a generally good one too..
--bought a $40.00 Gift Card for a mall here for $20.00 on Groupon
--Have put us on a $100.00 budget for food for the next month this is the only way I am going to get serious about eating down what we have
--Spaggetti for supper with sauce in the freezer and lots of leftovers for lunch tomorrow
--Income tax done and paid (not has bad as I thought they might be) a few more credits when one is making less money
--Had someone in to repair basement wall in our bedroom (after leak was repaired earlier) so I spurlged and got them to paint the whole room and bathroom, now they match the rest of the house and they both look fresh and clean. The price was not bad and we would never have got it done I was exhausted just from empty the rooms and putting everything back. Spring cleaned and purged both rooms as I did it. Feels great.
--sold a DVD set I had bought for $1.00 for $6.00--every little bit helps..hehe

[Bugeah]

I'm jumping in at the end

-I am reading the old "Tightwad Gazette" and taking down notes
-Kids ate grilled cheese sammies with the free bread my Grandma gave us last week
-Kids are watching a movie on Netflix and eating leftover Easter candy
-Paid 2 bills that are due
-Wrote a thank you note to my Grandma for the free food she gave us the other day

[Maxamillion]

I LOVE the Tightwad Gazette books...probably need to pull them out and read through them again myself.

I picked up a couple of end tables today that someone was throwing out. With a little bit of work, they'll look pretty good and I needed them.

[babr]

great weekend; went to the library; renting some music; videos; one on India that was fantastic; also more books on tape; will be going to the universities baseball game; tickets free as we belong to a credit union that is giving them out free this weekend; guess i better stop as it is now May! happy free and low cost frugals to everyone!

[Stella]

Nice blog post fidgiegirl! That looks like a fun way to make popcorn. To answer your question, I love my breadmaker. I make bread manually when I have time, but lately that's not often. I like that I can set it up at night and wake up to fresh baked bread. I also like the dough cycle. It's great for making breadsticks, rolls and things like that. It contains the mess too, which is invaluable to me right now.