June Frugals

[bke]

@Madgeylou--business is the slowest its ever been for us in almost 10 years. Summer is usually our busy time. We live in an area where there are several small lakes. A large precentage of our business is people coming to their cottages for weekend or vacation recreation. Its been slower for the past 2 years but this year is a record setter. We're smart enough to get through it this year but hopefully things improve soon. We're certainly not making any headway on paying off the restaurant like we had hoped to. But on the bright side, the bills are paid, my boss isn't going to lay me off, and not to be nasty but we're much more capable of riding this out than a lot of the other restuarants in the area. Afterall, we have no house or car payment to worry about.

Frugals:

Stopped at Riteaid for a couple of things. They have my preferred brand of feminine products on sale this week. They were out of stock monday so I tried again today. I managed to get 2 boxes for $3 and a rain check for 4 more at the same price. Since they are regularly about $5 each and I think I'm gonna end up spending about $5 for 6 boxes I'd say it was worth the trip. I also bought an inexpensive sympathy card. One of the older gentleman that frequented the restaurant passed away recently and its for his family. The card is nice even thought it was only 99 cents. Snickers peanut butter bars were b1g1 so we bought 4 of those. They are ds's favorite at the moment.

I accept the fact that we eat junk food but I won't accept paying full price for it.

I have had a fierce craving for pizza lately. Dh suggested that I go to the local bar and pick one up tonight. This is the same place I got one before (the guy who eats breakfast at my rest.) Its fairly cheap compared to other places, close to home and it helps out another independent business owner.

Tomorrow should be the start of a very busy weekend for us *fingers crossed* so I am just going to take it easy this afternoon.

[Stella]

bke I just heard on the radio that this was a slower year for travel. It's great that you are in such a good position to weather this financially.

Zach wanted to get out of the house today so we took the boys to IKEA and Sears while the girls were at VBS. We did get breakfast at IKEA, but it added up to $5 for the three of us who eat solid food. Not too bad. Zach and I have big plans for the house, so it was fun to get some ideas.

This summer Zach's dad is thinking of visiting us. He is a carpenter and cabinet maker so Zach is going to ask him to help him make built in shelving in the alcoves on either side of the living room fireplace. We should be able to get my desk, the TV, all our books, all our records and CDs, the record player/CD player/iPod dock and all of our board games into the unit they want to build. I am trying to talk them into putting in a sliding panel that can close off parts of the built in shelving when I don't want them open. Because FIL is a professional we should be able to make this quite easily for less money than buying all of the right shelving would cost us, plus he can make it exactly the way I want it. It's good father/son bonding too. Zach and his dad bond over projects. It's just how they are. If he has time I am going to see if they can also make me a custom built piece for the dining room to hold all of our homeschool stuff. I am good at planning these sorts of things, but not at executing them. I have no woodworking skills at all. This will essentially move most of the miscellaneous storage in the house onto two walls freeing up a TON of space.

I have decided to sell the boys' and girls' dressers and put up simple shelves to hold bins for toys and other kid stuff. The shelves in the boys' room will be in an alcove on the side of their closet that currently holds their dresser. Their closet will hold an adjustable shelf that for now will be the train table (I'm selling the old one) and when they are older can be moved up to be a desk. That way all of their storage will be on one wall of their room. The dresser and train table will likely bring in at least enough money to cover the cost of the shelves and I will have some leftover bins from a reorg of the linen storage so I probably won't have to buy much in the way of bins. The girls shelves will be in their extra closet and, again, the sale of their dresser should pay for the cost of the shelves.

In a frugal-but-not-frugal, we are considering getting a new water heater and a high efficiency washer and dryer. We would switch from an electric water heater to a gas one. The initial cost would be high, but the efficiency difference would be HUGE and we use a fair amount of hot water. I mostly want the washer and dryer for the increased capacity, but the energy savings would be nice too. I frugally talked Zach out of planning to get two washers and two dryers. He was getting a little carried away with the idea of making the laundry quick and easy.

[Merski]

Stella we LOVE our hot water on demand system fueled by propane. Totally frugal in the long run but expensive to start up. Hope you will consider.

Going to a folk festival on Sat. with some frugal friends. $20 for entrance for a full day into evening music. Will bring lunch and water.

I'm taking vacation hours next week and we will go into Boston with Library Pass to the Museum of Fine Art to see the Chihulli Glass exhibit and may splurge on lunch out at some ethnic cheap eats place for lunch.

Friend is paying me to do concierge for her B&B guest, fingers crossed...if I do well I may have more work from her!

[Kat]

@stella--my DH and his dad bond over woodworking, too. I hope you are able to manage the sliding doors over the storage. That would be so nice--no visual clutter and no little hands where you don't want them! :-)

Last night I made a Yankee pot roast from the freezer, using up all kinds of odds and ends. I also made some peach ice cream. We have plenty leftover, plus we still have leftover macaroni and cheese, chicken and dumplings, and chili cheesedog casserole. Should be easy to not eat out! I might make some homemade bread later today, but otherwise, I think it is safe for me to take a break from cooking.

My FIL stopped by with some lettuce from his garden yesterday. I can't wait to make a salad of it! Also, he and my MIL are going to buy us a carseat and stroller for the baby, which is really nice. They also have a swing in their basement that they used when my SIL's kids were babies. They are going to bring it over for use to use. I am so glad--one less thing to buy!

Other than that, just little frugals. Today will be my fourth no drive, no spend day in a row. I've been making lists on junk mail and other scraps of paper, and we're considering canceling our home phone. It was $5 a month, but the promotion ended and now it is $49.95/month. Yikes.

[bke]

@Kat Usually its Stella that I want to impose on but this week I think I should stay with you! Chicken and dumplings, fresh bread and homemade peach ice cream-WOW!

Today is a no driving or spending day. I worked this morning and will work again tonight for several hours.

There is leftover pizza in the fridge. I'm sure one of us will eat it for lunch.

Doing the usual reward sites on line. I won a free bottle of laundry detergent last night. Just a small thing but its nice to me.

[Kat]

Come on over, bke! I take your comment as a huge compliment, because, you know, I want to BE stella (I mean that in a wow-she-inspires me way and not a creepy-break-with-reality-stalker way)

So today I ordered cloth diapers, and I am so pleased with the deal I got. I was able to get 20 diapers for the cost of 12 by buying "seconds" or imperfect diapers (which have gotten really good reviews--some customers claim they can't even find any defects.). Got free shipping and 5% off, too. Glad I scouted around. Previously the only deals I had seen on cloth diapers were used ones, and that kind of skeeved me a little. These are new but with minor defects--much more my style.

[early morning]

You all are quite impressive! Peach ice cream, yum! We were just treated to a lovely fireworks display, and didn't have to leave the house! A farmer a few fields over has a lovely get-together for his relatives/friends every July 4th holiday, and spends hugely on fireworks, so we just stand in our living room and enjoy!! (Saves gas and bug repellent, lol.) Not much different around here - Mom treated us to dinner last night, and I saved part of mine for my lunch today. Got a $50 rebate check from my Amazon visa. DD is getting a few extra hours this week, good for her! Gas went up 40cents a gallon about 10 minutes after I filled up Wednesday, I swear! Ugh.

[Stella]

Kat that is such a nice compliment! Thank you!

I am having a fun but not entirely frugal weekend. On Friday my friend Mary and I were supposed to go to our friend Laura's house, but Laura's sister was injured when the breaks went out on her car so we stayed at my house and ordered pizza. We were going to be naughty and go get cupcakes at a cupcake bakery but on the way there we were hit with the worst storm I have ever been driving in. The roads were flooding and I couldn't see more than a foot in front of the car. We made it home without getting our cupcakes. That was my strangest frugal for the weekend. We ended up looking at cookbooks and daydreaming about cupcakes we could make.

Saturday I took the girls strawberry picking. We got so many strawberries! Zach cleaned and hulled them all for me. He is so sweet! We are making strawberry shortcake today and probably strawberry jam. Most of the strawberries will be eaten or frozen, though. Bella had a big heaping bowl of strawberries sprinkled with vanilla sugar for breakfast today.

Yesterday's unfrugal was going out to dinner with my dad and the kids. Dad usually treats the girls to dinner on Saturday night because the place they go to has a Kids Eat Free night on Saturday. We ended up treating everyone, which is actually a good thing because my dad almost always treats when we go out. He is so generous to us. The frugal part is that with three adults eating all three of the kids who eat solid food were free. I was glad we went because I ran into one of my favourite teachers from high school. We exchanged e-mail addresses. She isn't really that much older than me and her younger kids are about the same age as my older kids. I also found out that she goes to my church. I am so happy to be back in touch with her.

Last night I went to my friend Martha's house and our friend Cherry, who is half Chinese, showed Martha, Molly and me how to make egg rolls. OMG they were good! I may have to make a batch for my family today. Compared to buying egg rolls they were pretty inexpensive and Cherry says you can freeze them. We made a batch of 20+ chicken egg rolls for about $10. I brought one home to Zach and he loved it too. I may make some today. I feel like cooking today.

So that's pretty much today's plan. I'm going to go to mass, putter in the kitchen and probably hang out in the pool. Zach and I are going to have a date tonight after the kids go down, but we'll probably go walking in the park, canoeing on the lake or swimming in the pool. Lots of good, free date options here. This is what I love about where I live. It's like living at a resort.

[Kat]

@stella--Eek! Sounds like you all had a freaky Friday. I am gald you made it home safely and hope your friend's sister wasn't hurt too badly when her breaks went out. Scary!