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congrats stella! what a sweet name! cheyenne and bella are gonna go nuts dressing her up. :)
and azure, congrats to your son! it's so exciting to get in where you want to go!
still holding frugally strong ... i think i have spent about $5 in the last week beyond groceries. work + wear the shift have been keeping me too busy to spend money!
Congrats, Stella! Beautiful name.
The usual frugals here, cooking at home, not spending, minimal driving. DD has a couple of days off from school soon and I was able to snag the coveted zoo pass at the library. Also swapping childcare with a friend.
Does this qualify as a frugal? ..... I got the job! Even though I had to do math in my head :0! The hours will normally be in the 6 am to 2:30 pm range which is just perfect for me. Only part time but the money will sure come in handy. Thanks everyone for the prayers & good wishes for Tyler & me both.
Tyler has now gone from HOORAY I got into Alma! to OMG WHAT have I gotten myself into. ROTFL!
Wonderful news Stella. I love the name Charlotte!
Congratulations Stella and Azure!
Azure: Perhaps you will get an employee discount that could be a frugal if you use it wisely!
Thanks everyone!
Congratulations Azure! That is fantastic!
Today wasn't the most frugal day. We ended up getting a rotisserie chicken for dinner because the chicken I took out didn't thaw in time and I was a bit overtired. I got up at 5AM today and went to the grocery store. I made my own sides though, squash and green beans, so it was only $6 or so for everyone. I'll use the carcass for stock and the leftovers for soup.
Stella: I think those rotisserie chickens are pretty frugal, and you have a big crew to feed, so $6.00 sounds like a bargain to me. I got one for $4.00 on Sunday and it fed us Sun PM, then chicken salad Mon PM, and left over chicken salad for DH's lunch yesterday. DH is recovering from surgery, so Rosa the inept is in charge of food :( I think those chickens are about ther best deal you can get in terms of prepared food. My challenge right now is not to succumb to the allure of takeout, especially since my work and commute consumes almost 12 hours each day.
Nice school Azure! I love small class sizes.
Stella, that is wonderful and I to like the name. Charlotte was one of the names on our "list" if we would have adopted again. And those chickens can come in handy. If your going to buy something "out", the chicken is a good deal. Your getting more than one meal from it.
Had a panic moment yesterday that our fridge died. It's normally fairly quiet, but when I went to get something no light and I couldn't really hear much (thought I heard something, but then wondered if I was wrong). So I tried different plugs, nothing. Took the light out and checked it in a lamp, didn't work so after I did drop off I ran and got a bulb from Meijer (used an mperk so it was free!) and installed the light. YEAH!!! Just a burnt out bulb. We just replaced our hot water tank after Christmas, add in my text books, sick kid, etc...and the money set aside for "life" was starting to run low.
Stopped at Kroger for some cheese, saw a catalina in the trash for $1.50 off your next trans. Cheese for $.50!
Had to stop and pick up some scan trons for my exams. Apparently it's one thing that has not gone up in price since I last bought one (almost 20 years ago), they were 10 for $1.
Not so frugal, my son's tuition will be going up. About $300 more for next year. I'd rather pay that though than send them to the public schools in the area (I would homeschool, but my DH won't go for it). So we will just make it work.
Congrats to Stella and Azure!
I've fallen way behind here, but I'm still plugging along. We haven't had any more vet visits (yay!), but we did get the driveway patched this week, so I can park in the garage finally. Hopefully that will be our last big expense for a while and I can start putting money back into savings instead of always withdrawing.
It is dark and stormy today, so I will be staying in and starting my spring garden seedlings. It's only about 7 weeks until tomato planting time here! :)
I save all my coupons for my neighbor with four kids and today she took me shopping with her. As I have posted before I only have a car one day a week which does wonders for your planning and spending.
Well going with her was like going with someone who is an extreme couponer.
She was so organized I couldn't believe it. She had a binder with all the normal prices for all the local stores and more coupons and rebates all organized. The first stop were some baskets in front of the store I never noticed. The mark down things that are nearing expiration dates. She was putting boxes of cereal, granola bars and some baking mixes, after checking her book and coupons. Then in produce she weighed the bag of potatoes and got one over 6 lbs, some of them were barely 5 lbs. She continued that way through the store, but the best was the meat counter. She knew the meat man and he told her they were marking down meats they had overcut that were expiring today. We both got meat that was about 75% off. Now my crockpots are going making beef stew and chicken veggie soup in the other.
She knew everyone in every department and talked to them all, some of them pointed out specials to her.
On to store #2 where again she knew where the markdowns were and had a coupon for almost everything. She gave me some coupons as well she had so many.
Bottom line was I saved 40% by following her lead, she did much better, saving 72%. And she had some rebates to send in. All of her personal products, like toothpaste and shampoo were just about free. She got free yogurts, cheese... it was amazing. It would do me no good to get two dozen boxes of cereal unless I got them for the food pantry, we go through less than a box of cheerios a week! She also had more prepared foods than I did, but with four boys who play sports they go through a lot of higher calorie food than I would prepare. It was very enlightening. It was a lot of work for her but she is a stay at home mom and estimates that she saves at least $100 per week, and does not have to pay for babysitting like she would if she worked.
She also shows up at church each week with several bags of food for the food pantry, she is trying to set an example for her kids. She is also my garage sale buddy, she knows how to find the good sales. I don't need anything from garage sales but I was able to get some great stuff for my grandkids when they were born.
all in all a fun experience but I am not sure I could have the perseverance to do it long term. It's a lot of work but she has a great attitude.
flowerseverywhere your friend sounds like an interesting person to spend time with! I love having other frugal people around. It helps me stay on track.
Thanks for the congratulations everyone! And you are right about those rotisserie chickens. When I think about it they aren't really any more expensive than an uncooked whole chicken.
I was thinking of running a million errands today and decided not to. I think I just want to get out of the house at some point today. Instead of running errands, which will inevitably cost me more money, we are taking the boys to the indoor play place at the community center tonight while the girls are at faith formation. It's $3 a kid for kids over 2, so with just the boys it's $3. James needs an outlet for his energy and some Daddy time. I can hang with T in the toddler area.
I talked myself out of half of the things I "needed" to get today. Sigh. I sometimes compensate for lack of energy with money and with the dark of winter and the fact that I am reaching that less comfortable stage of pregnancy I think I'm getting vulnerable to that. I'm trying to remind my brain that this crazy nesting thing I've got going on isn't as necessary as it used to be. With four other kids here, the nest is pretty well feathered. I need to shift my brain out of high gear and just relax a little. I think what I need to do is
Step 1: Turn off the urgency switch. I'm stressing out over stupid stuff because I have a false sense of urgency. I have all winter to get the pantry organizing done and finish cleaning out that closet. The things I am stressing over are things it would be nice to get done, not things that need to get done.
Step 2: Refocus on gratitude and contentment.
Step 3: Recognize that if I'm getting crabby, I'm pushing too hard. Keep my balance.
I do think this is related to frugality. Most of my biggest money slip-ups are from playing catch-up when I've run myself down too far.