April daily frugal's

Merski-fantastic news!
Kat-glad everything is ok
Stella-maybe after you send the biscuits and tea to your cousin you can skype with her so you can share a mug of tea and biscuits while kinda/sorta really chatting-next best thing to being there!

On my frugal front....hmmm...stocking up on the loss leaders at the grocery store-this week its 500 gram cheese-we freeze it oh and chicken breast-half price

what else...hmmm..Filled my tank before gas went up even more...tomorrow it will be 1.32/litre..hang on and I will convert.. about $5.28 a gallon-gulp.

Putting our tax savings into savings account or buying windows...both are boring but sensible. Maybe we'll use a bit for nonsensical. Seems only fair

We picked up a large plant from the people I got the kitchen stuff from last night, along with a set of glasses I had already paid for. Gave them about $15 for the plant, which was probably not a lot cheaper than we could have gotten it for at the flower market, but it was easy to pick up and we didnt have to pay taxi/delivery fees. I'm not sure what it is exactly -- really huge leaves, kind of viney type that winds up and around a large central post. I'll have to see if I can find pictures. It is supposed to be good a purifying the air. We've put it in the master bedroom where it fits nicely in a corner near the bed.

We are doing pretty good budget-wise this month. Even with several house-related purchases we are still under budget on those categories, and pretty much everything else except childcare and kids school lunches. But those even out over the year when the kids aren't in school and as our helper's bonus month of pay gets spread across the average of the months. I'm over budget on pets, because we paid for the cat's vaccinations in January/February, but that will also level out over time. Everything else seems pretty much on track, which I'm quite pleased about.

lhamo

I am back on my green smoothie kick. Usually I use at least one kind of berry in my smoothies to mask the green colour for the kids. They don't always finish it if it looks green. Today, though, I wanted a mango pineapple smoothie so I named it The Lucky Leprechaun and they drank it all up. Oh the power of marketing! I find that we eat less when we start the day with a green smoothie. I don't know why.

It has been a crazy morning around here. My best friend's uncle was missing since last night, but has now been found alive. No further details yet, but it sounds like he may be injured. He lives in another state, so my friend is spinning her wheels feeling like there's nothing she can do. I invited her over if she needs someone to talk to. We're having grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch, so it's the kind of thing I can always make more of and it's cheap. It's a cold, windy, bleak kind of day. Perfect for grilled cheese and tomato soup IMO.

Things have quieted down now and we are planning a mostly quiet day. Right now the girls are taking turns reading books to Travis. He's asleep, but they don't care. It's a good way to pass a morning.

We're going to make the cupcakes for Cheyenne's birthday party this afternoon. I might go out and get my Easter dress, but I might not. I might just nap and read. It feels like a napping and reading kind of day. I am going to my friend's house tonight for Girls Night. We're actually going to go to church for a holy hour. I could use that. I'm feeling introspective today.

I'm still on a major decluttering spree. I started going through children's books last night. I'm going to take about half of them out and rotate them every few months. It adds to the novelty of our current collection, which is actually quite vast.

Forgot one yesterday - used a gift bag out of our stash. We have it organized in a big tote by occasion so we are never without a bag. In fact this year I would like to get rid of some Xmas ones. When we use them in the family (the only people we ever exchange with) they all are given back to us.

Today, not so much . . . I finished off some soup I had in the fridge at school. But we went to the vet and also got takeout from dinner. Now I am off to the store to get some more elements for tomorrow's book club lunch.

Salad for lunch at the cafeteria, $1.54, including some of the arugula special with dried cherries, asiago cheese, and mango vinaigrette - I cannot imagine a better spent $1.54! Definitely going to try to reproduce that one at home. On a good salad bar day, I figure I get an amazing ratio of tasty pleasure per dollar. I do so love salads when someone else is doing the chopping and prepping :) A really sexy salad is one where every bite is a world of delight. I guess I'm lucky to love at least one thing that isn't bad for me! I seriously ponder each bite - arugula olive and mango? Cherry and olive and asiago?
Merski, I cannot adequately express my delight :):):)

Relocated an ancient bag of dry coconut in the back of the veggie drawer so we made a batch of oatmeal-coconut cookies. Put a slice of bread in the bag to attempt to rehydrate the coconut. Brought some left-overs home from Mom's last night for my lunch today, and of course took my water and coffee too. DD picked up groceries at Aldi - $62 for the next two weeks. We will have to pick up some additional things next week - milk, DH's current binge item (that changes off and on, currently it's instant pudding, yuck), maybe some fruit, but the bulk of our food comes from Aldi. Stopped at the library for more free entertainment, and some things for a lesson at work. Trying to drive to save gas - I'm not very good at that, but working on it!

Thanks to you all. I am most humbly grateful for your help and our good news. Best birthday gift ever for me!

We finally got around to having T's welcome home breakfast. It was good to fill up this morning because we had Cheyenne's birthday party at the roller rink today. Two hours of rollerblading/rollerskating makes a person hungry.

After the rollerskating we came home and had hot dogs and cupcakes. I made chocolate cupcakes with pink buttercream frosting, hot pink sugar and pink cotton candy clouds. They are so happy looking it's ridiculous. Cheyenne's best friend's dad and brother came over and took turns playing chess with Zach.

We let the girls stay up late camping in the living room and watching Goonies. They loved it and it totally took me back to my childhood. It's kind of fun showing them the movies we watched as kids. I'm planning a few weeks of 80s movie nights. Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Karate Kid and all that. My parents did that with us too. I think we saw every Hailey Mills movie ever made.

Now I'm going to nap. I think we'll have one more of the frozen casseroles for dinner. I'm wiped out. I forget that I am two weeks post-partum until after I've done crazy things like rollerblade for two hours and make (and clean up) a full pancake breakfast and homemade cupcakes. Such a fun weekend already, though and it wasn't very expensive.

Stella, Glad you all had fun - you deserve a nap!
Our latest frugal challenge involves bird food. As I've mentioned before, we are willing to spend fairly substantial money on feeding the birds, and we've recently been buying an even more expensive mix that the nuthatches and woodpeckers love. (Yes, we'll cut back on food expenditures for ourselves so we can make the nuthatches happy, go figure, I never said we were normal :)). The squirrels have been sucking down this $9.00 for 5 lb fruit and nut mix, and we realized that the squirrels are eating more of this stuff than the birds are. Today we took apart a suet feeder we don't use, and figured out a way to use the baffle over the fruit/nut feeder. It looks like we've thwarted the squirrel at least for the moment. He's been checking it out every which way (it's interesting to watch him problem solve, I can see the gears turning in his squirrel brain), and he still hasn't managed to gain access. I think we would only need to fill this feeder once a week instead of once a day if just the birds are feeding from it. So we'll see what happens; I know the squirrels are pretty clever and determined. Not only would we save on the bird food, but we didn't go out and buy a baffle, which was my first thought, and would have cost us at least $30.00. It's actually kind of fun to try to find solutions without just throwing money at a problem.

rosa, great job! My cousins are always experimenting with squirrel baffles - those little buggers are quite good at circumventing barriers! One of their feeders is on a pole, and they managed to put up a baffle so the beasties couldn't climb it. SO - they would get in the tree closest, and try to jump onto the feeder, but it was too far away - might have worked if they'd been flying squirrels! It was funny to watch, as they kept on trying to get to that food.
Unexpected free dinners... yesterday DH's brother and his wife arrived from CA on business/short visit, and they wanted us to gather friends and family for dinner last night at a place that had been a favorite of my FIL's. We were able to get the banquet room (free) at the last minute, the manager agreed to let us order ala carte and have separate checks, and it was a wonderful evening - at the end of which, DBIL picked up the tab for the entire meal!! The visit was on short notice, and while we had some extra funds and told our two children we would pick up their tab, it was going to be a stretch for many others. I thought it was really nice of them to cover the bill! Not really a frugal, but a money-saver, anyway. Other than that, I have laundry hanging, I've called for a refund for an overpayment, I'm setting up another bill to pay online. DH and I bought a new outside light fixture to replace the one broken in the wind last week, and the one we liked was only $6.00! I liked some others too, but they were all over $35 so this was great!