August 2015 Frugals

[Stacy]

Oh phooey, I just wrote a huge post and the site logged me out and I lost it. Grrrr...

Anyway, to make a long story short, here are the three things I've done lately:
Canned all of the ripe tomatoes we had before they went bad. It only ended up being 5 pints of chopped tomatoes, but every little bit helps.
Had a great grocery shopping day yesterday, saving lots of money, and also got a lot of produce for $10 at the farmer's market.
Made a budget for next month in a simplified and easy-to-read format that my family appreciated. This should make it easier for all of us to see what bills and expenses we're all responsible for. (I tend to complicate things otherwise.)

[larknm]

Now when we go from our Santa Fe home to our mountain cabin for a few days, I flip all the switches in the box that controls the electricity (except the fridge and hot water heater). I did that today.

I started leaving our African Grey Parrot outside in a hanging cage when the weather's okay--mornings and evenings these days. She's stopped plucking her feathers. I got the cage second hand for $30--pricey for me, but a good price for a cage.

I figured out the portable air filter I was going to replace probably wasn't causing our parrot problems like I'd thought and will try using it again this winter.

Ordered book out by friend from interlibrary loan--it only came out in March and our library usually won't ask for ILL until a book's been out a year, so I'm really glad they did this time because I think my friend is hurt I haven't written him about having read it. But I really needed not to spend the money to buy it.