I will start the September Frugals.....

Selah: I love that video! I think it's one of the funniest things ever!

Sept 22
--two more no spend days
--a small container of previously frozen soup for lunch
--chilli made from yesterday's leftover spaghetti sauce just a two cans of beans and there is enough for lunch tomorrow
--cleaned out fridge and now know exactly what is in there, did pantry earlier and now I need to do fridge freezer and full size freezer
it is so much easier not waste when you know what you have
--sorted a few sewing projects to work on and do not need anything to finish them...just to do it....lol

No spend days for me and no drive days for me but DH fixed the hole in the wall left by the hideous old air conditioner that didn't work and fixed a crack in the wall, so he bought those materials, at least it was DIY. And he did a great job. Still has to fix some spots but for never having done it before, he did great!

Did not eat out. Cleaned out the fridge and we are eating the last little nibbles left until tomorrow, grocery shopping!

We had a three day weekend and ate at home for every meal - unusual for us! I think it was due to a bumper crop of homegrown tomatoes - BLTs, salmon burgers, hamburgers, salad - anything to use up tomatoes!

Besides a few garage/estate sales to buy stock for my etsy shop, there was no other shopping.

Removed the 20 plus year old carpet from the screen porch. Thought it was a cement floor that I was planning on painting, instead it is tile and probably asbestos tile, so after scraping off the carpet backing that had separated, we covered it with a thick rug I had found at a garage sale earlier this summer. Now we have to decide what to do about tile removal. Still looks way better than before.

chrissieq, you could do some kind of floating floor and then removal would be a non-issue . . . actually, if the tile is intact/in good shape, you could probably still just stick with your painting plan.

Did well at the grocery store today. I stocked up on vitamins for ds. Regular price of $7.99 a bottle. After coupons and rebates purchase price is $2.99 each.

I received several free samples in the mail this week including cereal, shower gel, and a coupon for free pasta.

Quadreaders sent me my stamps this week too.

Dh cut ds's hair last night saving about $12 which is nice. Ds is finally at a point where he likes a style that dh can do with confidence.

We've received quite a bit of free produce this summer: kale, tomatoes, peppers, green beans and a lovely jar of raspberry jam. Oh, salmon is another item, both smoked and fresh.

A customer gave me an almost new pair of sneakers. She wore them 2-3 times and decided they didn't fit well. I can use them around the house or whatever since the fit me just fine.

I didn't have to work today due to a security threat on our campus. Although it means I won't get paid for today, I consider the fact that I saved some gas since I didn't have to drive the roundtrip to work a frugal thing. :) Also, it meant I had time to go apple picking today and was able to core and slice apples and get them in the dehydrator today as well. Yay for free snacks! The apples came from our orchard and there are plenty more to pick. Saved 11 cents per gallon of gas when I filled up this evening because I used the Gas Buddy app on my phone and found the cheapest gas station that I was going to pass anyway rather than just going to the one nearest my house. My mom is coming to visit next week -- I bought her a plane ticket in exchange for her helping out with some fall garden clean up. The plane ticket cost $7.50 since I was able to use my airline miles for the flights. Good thing, too, since the going rate for the same flights was $575 and I wasn't having much luck finding anything less expensive for the same dates.

Stocked up on groceries over the weekend. My dearly beloved made a huge batch of Spanish rice so we've been eating that up along with black beans. We checked the beehives here at the house and decided to leave the bees all their honey to insure that they can survive the winter. I was a little bummed as I was looking forward to extracting honey this fall, but I would rather the bees survived until next year. It just means I have less honey to sell over the winter. Oh well, not a big deal since this is just a hobby.

Wore an older pair of running shoes today on my run and discovered that they definitely still have some life left in them. Good thing, too, as running shoes are expensive and I'd rather not buy a new pair until I can find them deeply discounted.

Lots of frugal entertainment lately -- the joys of having Netflix!

Hi

Cdt, just love that you are thinking of the bees!!!

We had grocery shopping today which came in at a whopping amount. Living where we are it is hard. Do have to get into making bean and rice dishes maybe that will help out a lot....

No driving no other spending. Did not go anywhere...but just loving this fall weather we are having!

I am back from my trip to California and trying to get back into the swing of things here. I feel a little at loose ends after all of that craziness.

I had my first class at the Catechetical Institute last night. A friend of mine is going too and she offered to pick me up for classes since I'm on her way. I offered her gas money but she refused it. I thought that was nice of her. My dad went through this same program a couple of years ago, so I was able to use his books. That saved me over $100.

I have my first meeting of the Well Read Mom book club I started this Friday. It's a book club where moms read quality literature. This month is a couple of Flannery O'Connor short stories and next month is The Good Earth by Pearl S. buck. I'm pretty excited about this. It should be some good, inexpensive fun. At this point most of my fun outings are just gatherings of friends instead of expensive dinners out movies, etc. My Women Who Cook group, my book club, etc. although we are thinking of doing a ladies prayer/happy hour group. :)

A couple of frugals today. I think.

I had to buy some plumber's putty so I can replace the faucet in my mom's kitchen. So I walked to the hardware store (about a mile), picked up the putty, and came back home. I'm guessing $1.89 is not the rock-bottom price one can pay for plumber's putty, but it didn't require driving and I'm supporting a good local (Ace) hardware store, so be it. A no-drive day.

On the way back home, however, I walked past a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store and decided to walk in. Typically they have almost nothing of interest to me.

Background: our KitchenAid hand mixer has a plastic (natch) part that failed. The beaters stay in to mix but come out as soon as you remove them from the bowl. Usable so far, but a pain and wasteful of thicker mixtures. In callling KA I learned that (natch) this 8-year-old mixer, which has seen no more than light occasional use, cannot be fixed. I even checked out buying a similar non-working mixer for parts. But it looked like I would be in for about $30 to do that with no guarantee it would fix the the problem.

The thrift store had a 70s-vintage Sunbeam Mixmaster stand mixer in excellent condition. I don't think it was used much, either. Plugged it in; ran fine. It comes with one of the two bowls and dough hooks but no beaters. But apparently beaters are still available (after 40 years; take that, KitchenAid). So are bowls if I care. $12.49 plus tax for the mixer. Sold. It will be a much stronger mixer than the KA and much cheaper even after buying beaters. And it's likely we'll be able to find parts for it in another 8 years if we need them.

Dinner was of the pantry category. Meh. Baked Garlic Shrimp. Except that I didn't have enough shrimp, so I threw in some frozen scallops we had. And I didn't have enough fresh garlic, so I used granulated garlic. No fresh cilantro; dried had to do. And panko? No. But I did have cracker crumbs in the freezer, so I used them. It's certainly edible. Didn't cost much overall. But I'm glad it will be gone in another meal. Way less than the sum of its parts but I can't blame the recipe for that.