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Same old stuff around here. Been eating down the freezer/pantry. Made some yummy scalloped potatoes yesterday with leftover Christmas ham from the freezer, some cheese from the freezer (bought on sale), and threw in some leftover steamed veggies, too. We wanted to eat out the night before last, but I made homemade waffles instead!
Been spending time at the library. Got some great books and DVDs for the littles.
I am getting ready to do a big grocery shop. I have been putting it off until the sales are good, and this week, they're good! I will try to plan it out and budget well to make the most of our money.
Other than that, we've been trying to repurpose things around the house. I found a basket to use to contain DD's stuffed animals. DH also cut down some foam he had to cover the wheels on DD's bed. We were worried DS would crawl into them and get hurt. The protectors DH found online were made of foam and cost $20! He made his own for free! Makes me chuckle to see him turn frugal as he used to think I was ridiculous! LOL
Accepted some hand-me-down clothes for DS and picked up a few things on clearance, too. When I can kind nice, new items for $2-$3, I buy them. The Goodwill in our area is $2.38 per item unless it is quarter day. And while I have found some great things on quarter day, it's not a sure thing. So when I find new cheaper than used...I jump on it!
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Several freebie meals lately! We provided lunch at work for our student volunteers yesterday: pizza and tossed salad. The pizza got scarfed up, but there was a huge bowl of mixed greens leftover along with a platter of sliced bell peppers, cucumbers, mushrooms, and other veggies. The students weren't interested in it so I took it home along with a half dozen dinner rolls and we had a free dinner last night and there was still enough leftover for a meal today. We had our annual professional development day for the spring semester at work today so I had both breakfast and lunch provided as part of that. Tomorrow I'm attending a non-mandatory workshop for faculty and will get an extra $70 for being there. One of my friends is teaching the workshop so I would have gone anyway, but the extra cash is awesome!
Normally I would drive to the gym for yoga on Wednesday night, but I have a conference call tonight so I stopped at the gym and used the treadmill on my way home. Will save a little in gas as a result.
Managed to plan for a single full load of laundry tonight, which means I should be able to get my laundry load down to 3 this week! We were at 6-7 per week for quite a while so this is a major improvement!
Got a call from the speciality vet clinic from when our cat was there back in October. We're getting a $100+ refund for a test that was delayed due to a screw up by the lab.
I think that's it for today!
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I had been mulling over getting some kind of jewelry box, but every one I saw was overpriced, poorly designed, and woefully inadequate. I had decided on getting a specialist toolbox for about USD$75, which would be very functional as it had lots of different sized compartments. Not so beautiful, of course, but I was planning on decorating it. (For the past two years, I'd been getting by with a pile of Ziplock baggies--one for bracelets, one for dangle earrings, one for silver necklaces, etc.)
Anyway, I didn't want to spend the money on this toolbox just yet. Lo and behold, I find three old, wooden, letter-paper sized desk drawers next to a dumpster! There was a fourth wooden one, which was larger but magically fit over the top of the three upside down, like a box top. I cleaned them up, lined each one with some padded shelf lining, and arranged my jewelry in them. The larger "cover" tray makes a lovely spot for our cats to perch on and gaze out our bedroom window. Now I can see all my stuff, and keep it safe and organized. It's like I can go shopping in my jewelry box(es) every day now, because I'm seeing stuff that I haven't seen in years, as it was all lost in the pile.
Funnily enough, one of the trays had been lined with a Hebrew gas company calendar page from the 70's!
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What a great find, Selah :)
I made it to payday with $3.79 left in grocery money. Yep, here I am back trying to once again reign in the food budget.
We also have $60 left in gas money. That is one tank of gas for DH's jeep. Not sure how that happened but I'll take it lol
We only had a few slices of turkey lunch meat left but instead of buying more to last til pay day I got some pulled pork out of the freezer to use up the remaining hamburger buns for lunches.
We had some shampoo that I wanted to try on clearance at work. There were 4 bottles. It was only 15% off so I was going to wait. But I discovered that Target had 2 different coupons that could be applied to the shampoo. Then I also found a coupon for $5 off a $20 purchase. Well, the shampoo was $5.08 each. So if I bought all 4 bottles I could use the $5 coupon. All in all with the coupons and my discounts I got them for $2.51 each. Not free... but I'm happy.
No buying for the last 2 days. But I did get a massage today. It was long over due and felt sooo good. Hopefully that will be a frugal in helping to keep me healthy.
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Selah: You are the trash to treasure queen - well done!
Aure: You are so disciplined about reigning in foods costs. I think we're doing a little bit better than last month, but will see at the end of the month when I total up our expenditures. Good score on the shampoo, but only if you like it. Have you tried it yet?
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Great job, Kat, Selah, and Azure!
My dearly beloved was supposed to be in NYC the second half of this week, but the snowstorm changed his plans and then, ultimately, other things changed and so I arrived home from work last night to find that he was still home! I was happy he was still here, but I have been putting off grocery shopping because I want to eat up what we have on hand to a greater extent than we usually do. My plan was to buy groceries before he came back from NYC -- he's a bit less excited about the "let's eat interesting meals and not grocery shop" challenge than I am. :D By last night, he had had enough. He asked me to go to the neighborhood store and buy bread ($6 a loaf) and ice cream. I told him that we have plenty to eat and that I was grocery shopping today so there was no need. Oh boy...he was not excited about having to scrounge up something to eat, but ultimately we made a vegetable paella from a dried mix that my mom had given me (I don't normally buy that type of stuff). Dearly beloved got in the spirit and chopped up some peppers we had lingering in the fridge to add to the mix and pan fried a package of tofu, too. It ended up being way too spicy for me to eat -- turns out the peppers he added were HOT peppers, but he enjoyed it. We also ate up a plate of sliced bell peppers that were leftover from salad fixings earlier in the week. Total frugal win. Woo-hoo!!!
I realized mid-week that I forgot to order the prescription dog food from the vet, which means I'll have to figure out a stop gap measure. Fortunately, it's prescription dog food for dental purposes and not for major health issues so if they eat something else for a few days it won't cause problems. (Yes, yes, I know, prescription dog food is not frugal, but it truly seems to make a difference for our three dogs, two of whom seem to be "blessed" with genetically bad doggy teeth.) Hill's makes a dental dog food that you can buy in the regular pet store and this morning I discovered a $5 off coupon for any Hill's pet food attached to the small bag of kitten food we had received from the shelter when we adopted our cat. Score! Of course, the cat doesn't want to eat that food so I've been feeding small amounts of it to the dogs as a treat. Waste not, want not, right?!? :~)
After grocery shopping today, I plan to make a double batch of chocolate tapioca pudding. It went over so well this week that it was gone by Wednesday! Definitely cheaper than the premium ice cream we usually buy (what can I say, we have a weakness for good ice cream!), and probably a bit less unhealthy, too. I'll also make another batch of yogurt, since that has all but disappeared as well. So happy that my plans for reducing the grocery budget seem to be working!!!
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Busy, frugal morning in the kitchen here! Baked two loaves of bread, made enough brown rice in the rice cooker for the entire week, started a batch of yogurt in the crock pot (will be finished before I go to bed tonight), and made a double batch of chocolate tapioca pudding, which should be a week's worth of after-dinner treats for the two of us. Woo-hoo!
We have 5+ pounds of quinoa in the pantry so I looked up some recipes for making it into a hot breakfast cereal. Once I finish off the stockpile of brown rice (which I've been eating for breakfast in place of my usual oatmeal), I'll start in on the quinoa. It's going to take several weeks (or months!), but I'm determined to clear out some space in our pantry and stop stockpiling things we don't eat on a regular basis.
Yesterday, I resisted the urge to run errands and then go out a second time to go to the gym. Instead, went to the gym and then went grocery shopping afterwards and made one trip.
What frugal successes have the rest of you had this weekend?
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I have some dried beans in the crock pot right now in preparation for a chili later this week. I suppose I wouldn't have needed to cook them twice but I prefer to have my beans overdone than underdone - still mastering the art of the dried bean, I think. I will also pull out a big package of discount chicken from the freezer for this chili as well. It is my fave white chicken chili.
Bought some cloth diapering supplies from CL this morning, but I didn't realize they are all for bigger babies. The bummer about that is that we could have waited to see if we're having a boy or a girl. Oh well, I had committed and didn't want to back out on her. We will be set for later months - now let's cross fingers that we like cloth diapering. ;) I guess worst case scenario is that we resell.
Oh, one more, in doing better meal planning (not at peak efficiency yet, but still . . . ) I remembered that I had a box of throat coat tea tucked away in the back of the cabinet. DH has had an icky throat and likes the tea when he feels this way. So I saved about $5 or $6 on having to buy a new box since we already had plenty. Good thing I took the time to look.
That's about all! Keepin' on keepin' on . . .
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I completed DH's 401K rollover to a Vanguard IRA. The fees at Vanguard are supposed to be some of the lowest, and since we were rolling over enough to be eligible to buy Admiral shares, the fees were lower still. DH also seems to prefer having the money in a personal IRA rather than leaving it with the former employer. It was safe enough there, but I think he just feels more like it really belongs to him now. :)
He's been working longer hours the past couple of weekends, so Sat night dinners have been simpler since he is the cook. Last night we had pesto walnut raviolis ($1.00 a bag on sale and fed the two of us) and I made a nice salad (which felt free because I always have all the supplies on hand for my lunches). So it was a nice dinner for a lot less money than the cod or haddock or marlin or scallops I might have selected if my chef had more time availability!
We can really use (I can't quite say need) a new set of percale sheets for the warmer weather. I found the set I MUST HAVE from Cuddledown of Maine, but they cost $200. So I'm going to save to buy them with my allowance, and maybe they'll have some kind of sale in the next couple of months. I can take my time since the weather won't be warm anytime soon. I really like nice bedding and I'm willing to pay the price. I've seen some cheaper sets that I like, but these are perfect. I'm not a serial upgrader or into trends, so we'll hopefully enjoy them for a good long time. The lowest price tag isn't always the deciding factor. If I buy the sheets I sort of like, I could end up buying a few sets because I won't be satisfied (I've learned this about myself the expensive way). It will actually be cheaper in the long one to go ahead and buy the set I want.
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From a friend who knows a lot about healthy cooking I picked up the practice to soak the beans for 24 hours at least before cooking. It brings out all the nutrients that soaking them overnight does not. They also cook faster so you can plug in the crockpot, cook in the morning and then add the rest of the ingredients for chili etc. in the afternoon and they will be done for dinner.
