November Frugals!!!

Flowers everywhere, that is the best baby gift ever!

Congratulations, Stella!

Wow Stella, you are a bundle of energy! Congratulations.
In our consumer society I think long and hard before giving presents. Gifts of food, experiences and time are so much more meaningful to me and I know to the people who receive them.

I made out a Meals for a Month chart for November. This helps decrease those "No idea what's for dinner, let's go out" incidences. It also minimizes trips to the grocery.
I am making a quilt out of scraps. I did have to buy batting but all the fabric and thread is from leftover pieces.
Made a big pot of veggie soup and froze six portions for future lunches.
It has been not too hot and not too cold so we have not had to use the a/c or heat.

My beautiful leather Israeli briefcase, which some kind soul left out next to the dumpster, got a nice facelift. It had handles but no shoulder strap, so I took a matching belt I had but wasn't wearing anymore, and took them both to the great local cobbler. He made a great shoulder strap out of the belt! No waste, and I got to spend my money supporting a true Old World artisan, instead of just throwing things away and buying something new.

I also researched online how to "block" a woolen sweater. I'd bought a gorgeous blue merino wool men's jumper at the charity shop for about $3, but it was too small overall. I washed it, stretched it, and dried it so it became a size larger with some "give" in the right places, and now I have a fabulous sweater myself!

Good quality aprons are expensive here, for some reason...most Israeli women don't wear them, as far as I can see, and so most aprons for sale are imports from Germany. Instead of forking out on that, I bought two good quality tea-towels (dish cloths) and will be sewing them together to make my own great apron, for about 1/10 of the price.

I found a gorgeous men's Versace navy blue woolen blazer by a dumpster, and snatched it up. A trip to the dry-cleaners, and a switch of the shoulder pads and some extra tailoring done by the wonderful Russian seamstress in town, and I'll have a kickass, elegant, and classic garment for about $30 USD!

Now if I can only find someone to dump an L-shaped desktop, which will be my next project. I need a real desk!

Selah, super resourceful of you!

Stella, congrats! You were good at keeping it under wraps. :) I am due in early April, so the little people will be just about the same age. Awwww . . .

Nice to know about the baby food pouches.

We went out to eat, so count that against our frugal points. :) The rest of the day? Laundry, laundry, and more laundry, possibly cleaning crap out of the basement in order for more demolition to take place.

Congratulations, Stella. You and Zach are building quite the dynasty there!
Selah, I believe you are the most inspired scavenger ever! It is amazing how people throw away so many good things, but I guess it's a plus for those wise enough to make use of them! I enjoy hearing about your rescues.
Tomatoes! I have bags and baskets of late season tomatoes that we're eating and sharing. Does anyone do fried green tomatoes? I'm thinking that is something we should try.
A quirky frugal that won't be useful to most folks, but is still going to save us a bundle - I've scaled down my Nicorette to a quarter of the lowest dose piece, and I'm "rolling my own" gumballs with a bit of Nicorette and some non-nicotine gum. I'm probably in placebo territory here, but I don't care as long as it keeps me happy and keeps me away from the cigarettes! And I'm honestly not even tempted at this point. This latest step-down in dosage is saving me $65.00 a month.

Thanks everyone! We are excited.

Mondays are my big cooking day. I'm making Italian meatballs, potato leek soup, a chicken casserole, filling for chicken pot pie, filling for bacon and Swiss chard quiche (using the last of the garden chard) and both a wheat bread and cornbread stuffing to go with pork chops.

We are using up some homemade pitas for lunch today for pita pizzas. We had the rest with hummus and cucumbers yesterday for lunch.

I bought some rotisserie chickens at Costco for $5 each and today I will take the meat off the bones and make stock from the bones and my bag of frozen veggie scraps.

I found a Twin Cities roller rink that participates in the Kids Skate Free program, where at various times passes can be used for kids 10 and under to skate free. That will probably be our next big kid outing. Now I need to research other cheap big kid activities for the winter. Little kid stuff is easy. Big kid stuff is often more expensive, but with Groupons, Happenings book discounts, and free days, combined with always-free stuff like the art museum and Raptor center we can have a lot of fun on a budget.

stella, congrats! and it's nice to know that female power will dominaate at your house, girls rule! haha.

It's nice for the boys to have both older sisters and younger sisters. They will know a lot about women. They'll have older sisters form whom to take orders, and younger sisters to protect so getting the female/male dynamic both ways. Well, that is ME projecting a lot onto your tiny kids, haha.

Congratulations, Kelli and Stella on your awesome news!