April daily frugal's

Eeek! Non-frugal! I just put more $$ worth of gas than ever before in my vehicle. $45! For my little car, that's a lot. $4/gallon. I'm not one to be shocked at gas prices, usually. That's a whole policy thing but I think it would generally be better for the planet if we all had to pay more. At any rate, it must have been quite a while since I filled up because I was really surprised. And so what do I do now? Making an extra trip to the town where I work to meet up with my coworker to plan something - that we could plan after school! Oh well, we'll be doing it at a Starbucks - where I will spend money on a treat drink! I embrace the non-frugalness of this day. :laff:

Well this may not seem "Frugal" - but I have for a long time coveted the Tommy Bahama "Tropical" shirts, they are very nice, silk and classic looking - AND $ 110.00 each - like I would ever spend that much on one shirt.

Yesterday, Macy's had them on sale, for $ 77.00 each, ah still no way in heck would spend $ 77.00 on a shirt. Then my dw called and said they had a 50% off the sale price! I asked her if they were all the barfy colors no one wanted and could I take them back? She decided I could look for my self! Long story short I bought 2! This may not seem like much - but I pride myself in not have many clothes - I have 7 button down casual shirts and it really is time I update my closet space! And yes two shirts will be leaving the space.

Rosa and Early morning, I love your stories of thwarting squirrels. I think squirrels are fascinating to watch. We used to have one of those squirrel bungees. Hours of free entertainment!

Fidgiegirl, I totally agree. The gas prices are getting painful! I am so glad Zach only has a month left of school!

My uncle passed away last night. My dad came home late and I knew he'd sleep in a bit this morning. This is hard for him. To cheer him up I made brunch. Spinach and cheddar fritatta and blueberry turnovers. It seemed to help some.

I used up the rest of a jar of spaghetti sauce we opened on Friday for a spaghetti lunch today. I was really hungry after church.

@Greg, score!!

@Stella, sorry to hear about your uncle.

I am going to make a meatloaf ahead to bake after work tomorrow. It will be an Italian style one to use up some canned tomatoes and sauce we have around. Here's the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Italian...-I/Detail.aspx

We went out for lunch today so we'll be having those leftovers for dinner.

Earlymorning: We've actually gotten great entertainment value watching the squirrels try & try. Who needs TV? There's been an occasional success, but the food is only down about an inch as opposed to the feeder being 3/4 empty a day later, so it's definitely much better. And DH felt BAD for the squirrels, so he put a bowl of food on the ground for them :) Your dinner gathering sounds like fun and it's nice that it didn't have to bust the budget.
Gregg, I love those shirts, definitely a nice score. I got DH some cool TH socks some years ago at Filenes Basement (local discount retail chain). It is so interesting to compare the differences in clothes shopping habits between men & women. DH worked at Brooks Brothers for 10 years, so he knows clothes and can appreciate quality. But he still only thinks he needs to buy clothes if what he is wearing crumbles to dust and leaves him standing there naked! We joke about how he can look like a homeless ragamuffin dressed in "vintage" BB from head to toe.
Stella, So sorry about your uncle. Is that your Dad's brother? I cannot even begin to imagine how much it would hurt to lose my sister.
Fidgie, Gas is getting scary! I hope my little Saturn runs forever. She is good on gas. Sixteen years old, but only 80K miles, so I'm hoping we still have some happy years together.
Washed 8 of the 28 windows in our little house today using vinegar instead of glass cleaner. Seems to work just as well for about 1/4 of the cost. I might try adding some rubbing alcohol as a drying agent.
Did some stock up type errands today. I am always suspect of spending money in the name of frugality, but we did get some good buys, and we don't do this very often. Used $10. Kohl's card and Cardsmart coupon to get 8 cards at list price of $23.38 for $7.51, net savings of $15.87. I drew up a list of b'days, etc. for the coming year (yes, list freak) before we went. K-Mart had specials on detergent, kitty litter and Aveeno hand cream, so stopped there and I figure we saved about $16.00 off our usual cost for these items. We've been making laundry detergent, but it isn't really good for whites or towels, so we still need some commercial detergent. But the $8.00 worth we bought today should last over a year at current rate of consumption. "Impulse purchases" were peat pots for starting seeds and concrete patch for leaking birdbath, so can't feel too guility about either of those.

@Rosa, sounds like you had a productive day.

Here I made a list of dishes to make with food in the pantry. Better yet, I actually made two of them. One was a Mexican noodle soup that I loooooove with frozen tomatoes from last summer's bounty as well as noodles that had been sitting in the pantry and some canned, crushed tomatoes. The other is a meatloaf, with all the ingredients on hand, ready to go for tomorrow night. We will just come home and pop it in the oven. Then tomorrow, perhaps as the meatloaf is cooking, I will prepare a crockpot dish for Tuesday. Feels good to use up some of our stuff. We were able to skip grocery shopping this week except for milk and bananas.

Thanks for the condolences! Uncle Steve was my Dad's little sister's husband, but he's known him since he was a kid. Dad is also really worried about his little sister, who is getting all kinds of grief from Steve's union about death benefits. I'll admit that hits a raw nerve. I can't believe it's a coincidence that Steve died at age 50 of seven kinds of cancer after working 30 years in a chemical filled papermill.

Greg, that is a great score! I'm glad you got what you wanted!

Dad gave Zach and me $200 for easter clothes. Dad knows when he gives me money that I see it as a challenge to spend as little as possible. :) Anyway, Zach got some dress shirts, a belt and some ties for about $75-$80. That left me with about $120, but I knew I didn't want to spend all of that. The problem is that to be church-ready most dresses I could buy would need a shrug and I don't have a large selection of dress shoes, so that can add up fast. I really want to feel cute for Easter. It's been months of feeling like a big frumpy, pregnant mess. Anyway, I went to JC Penney yesterday and they had a 50% off sale on dresses. I got the perfect dress for $35. Best of all, it is white, blue and black, so I have a few white and black sweaters and shrugs that already go with it and I have a cute pair of black dress shoes that will be perfect with it, so there's no extra expense. I even have a pair of earrings I think will be super cute with it. So out of my $120, the $35 is the only expense.

Dad bought a cord that hooks the iPad up to the plasma TV. It's very cool to see the frig dissection, for example, on the bigger screen. We also downloaded the free National Park apps Kelli posted about.

This week is National Screen Free Week and we are participating. Well, for the most part. I'm still going to check in here and on facebook, but not as frequently throughout the day. We're not going to do TV at all and we probably won't use the iPad. I have a million fun ideas for screen free week. We're going to make hot cross buns, decorate Easter eggs, finally do our silly photo shoot, make a paper mache Easter egg diorama, visit the Cathedral. It will be fun.

@ Stella. So sorry to hear about your uncle. :-( Your new dress sounds lovely. Don't you love it when you find something great that goes with stuff you already have?

@ greg--Awesome score on the shirts! If you own less, you can get away with buying nice quality things that you really do like. I'm sure they'll last forever. :-)

We stayed within our grocery budget this week, which is kind of hard to do when you have no kitchen. You can't prepare or cook food, so you can really only buy convenience type stuff. My dad gave me a $10 off $10 card for Kohls, and I am thinking I might use that and a gift card I have sitting around to get DH a new travle mug (his leaks) and maybe a small coffee pot. He works a lot of overtime starting at 5 am and needs coffee to get going. It would be a nice little gift I know he'd appreciate.

ETA: Oh, and my MIL sent me home with two kinds of salad today. Super nice of her, and they are delicious!

This month has been tough. Had a tire go flat, digital camera died, had to buy an Epipen ($116!!), $35 bank fee for stopping a check that got lost in the mail, car tags due, etc. It's really started adding up. The digital camera and car tags are going to have to wait; I'll go on the first to get the tags. I hope they won't charge a fee for being one day late. I've got about $30 to make it to the end of the month. I hope nothing else goes wrong.

I'll be eating lots of beans, rice, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches this month. I'm trying to get a garden started but not much luck. When the first gets here, I'm going to just go buy some plants instead of trying to start them from seed. It's more expensive and more labor intensive, but I'm determined I'm going to have at least some squash and tomatoes this year.

Have been on a cook-a-thon, though the meatloaf is ticking me off. I'm hungry, dagnabbit! It always takes longer than the recipe says.

Also made brownies using an old dark chocolate bar we didn't want to eat, and made mashed potatoes. On a cookathon lately!!