January Frugals

Mrs M great making stock tip- I compost all of my peelings but I could make stock first. Also, Merski, the lemon tip is great. Occasionally I go to a warehouse store with a friend and can get a big bag of lemons, but never knew what to do with them to keep them from going bad.

Aqua Blue, I have been working on my stash as well. I get books out of the library for ideas, there are lots of books that have patterns for kitchen accessories, aprons, small quilts to us on end tables a little mats etc.
Mary Englebright has a really cute one with lots of ideas.
I had gotten some insulbrite on sale and I am going to make cast iron pan handle covers- like little potholders to slip over the handle sbecause they get really hot. I give so few gifts I am making a pile of things to sell on etsy or ebay this fall. I love to sew and have lots of projects I can finish without spending a penny.

I did some research on all the couponing buzz, but I just don't get it. Almost all of the coupons I see are for things I really don't use, besides toiletries and with two frugal adults in the house we don't use much of any product. So I guess just really watching the ads and taking advantage of sales is the bet I will be able to do. I have a list ready for later today when the streets are plowed.

Our first days of 2012 have been frugal-rific! We stayed home NY Eve and Day and yesterday went out to return a wet/dry vac that I gave my DH at his request for Christmas - it turned out to be flimsier than he anticipated and when he checked reviews on-line, found lots of dissatisfied comments. We returned it and walked out with a credit - nothing in Christmas clearance was tempting!

Today I am going to go to the grocery store with a gift card that someone at work gave me. It's to a store I rarely shop at although they do have a few items that my typical grocery doesn't stock so I think I will pick up only those items.

Didn't go to the fabric store because even if thread was 50% off, once I reviewed my thread colors, I saw there was no obvious lack of color there! Want to join others here who are sewing up their stash. My sister gave me some great vintage fabrics for Christmas that I need to spend some time with!

I went to Barnes and Nobel last night and I only bought the gift card I went there to buy.

I did almost as well at Target, but I did buy some cute erasers for school rewards, a batter bowl and a set of oven mitts, all of which are actually things I could use. Luckily, because the thing I actually went there to buy was cheaper than I thought it was, I still spent less than I was expecting to.

I found a recipe for lemon bars that I am going to make today for our friend's visit. I am greatly looking forward to that. We always have really great discussions.

Zach has decided to keep donating plasma while he finishes school. He had been doing it to save money towards the trip, but it's a pretty easy thing to do it adds up over time.

Stella, donating plasma really helped us out this past year. I give - not DH. This year I will not be able to donate for 4 months because I am having a colonoscopy next week. But afterwards, if I can fit it into my schedule I will probably try to go a few times a month.

Tyler is back to school today. We'll drive Ian back to school either tonight or tomorrow. Not sure just yet. I enjoy having them home, but it's always nice to get back to routine. The other night Ty had a couple of friends over for the night. It was kind of bittersweet knowing that these days are almost over since he graduates in May.

Today I have a bunch of calls to make. Making eye appt. for Tyler. I think that I now have enough money saved up to get his new lenses. Hard lenses are expensive!

Setting up more tutoring for him as well. We got his ACT results back and after only 5 tutoring appts in which they worked only on the math portion his score did go up by 2 pts. He still only has a 17 which is pretty low, but we are hoping that combined with his transcript and some really nice recommendation letters it will get him where he wants to go. If not he can retest again in 5 weeks. But we will continue the tutoring either way. We consider it an investment in helping him to prepare for college. Though the budget right now will only cover 2 sessions this month.

When we got our 2003 Bonneville in November (did I mention that I LOVE this car lol So much fun to drive. Especially after 15 years of driving a van) we bought a 1 year warranty for $500 which was dealers cost. The service vehicle light has been on for about 2 weeks now & we've noticed that sometimes there is a hesitation when we try to take off so I'm going to call them and see what we need to do.

Taking Ian to get his passport whenever he gets his lazy college student on break behind out of bed. Other than that I don't expect to drive anywhere or spend any other money.

Have a chicken thawing in the fridge. I think I will roast it but I'm undecided what to do next. If I just serve roast chicken the guys will pick the darn bird clean. I can still make soup after but I'd like to stretch it a bit further than that. I am thinking about BBQ chicken pizza. I was thinking chicken enchiladas w/green olives sounded really yummy. But since we don't have corn tortillas or green olives I think I will have to pass on that idea.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by flowerseverywhere

I love reading this thread. I feel like it is having a converstation with some comfortable friends.

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I feel the same way -- this is by far my favorite thread on the forums!!!

A frugal start to the new year here. We were in NYC for NYE to join the BridgeRunners group for their late night run from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back going over the Brooklyn Bridge and then back via the Manhattan Bridge. It was loads of fun and quite frugal as the run itself was free. We did go to a restaurant afterwards but only spent about $27 for an appetizer and entree to split.

Went out to brunch with the whole family on New Year's Day, but my partner's sister and BIL paid for it. I'm sure there was some prior discussion as to who was picking up the tab, but I was not part of the discussion so who knows what else I have missed out on. Hopefully not much!!!

My new job has me working from home and that has definitely helped. I've been good about not making any extra trips out and have been combining errands. I'm hoping this continues to be the case! I do have to go out today for a haircut appointment, but I will use this as an opportunity to stop at the vet clinic to pick up some meds for one of the dogs and one of the cats and the grocery store to get a few perishables (using a gift card my mom gave us for Christmas, no less!).

I am leaving for Austin, TX for work on Thursday morning. I keep feeling an urge to go out and buy new clothes for the trip, but one look in my closet tells me that is entirely unnecessary!!! I just need to spend some time being thoughtful about what I want to take with me for the trip. It's my first time meeting everyone that I work with except my boss, so I know that is what is making me think about shopping. It's so dumb since they in no way hired me for my looks or the way I dress!!!

Frugal suprise today! My 11 and 12 year old neighbor kids stopped by to help watch the boys so we could get unpacked and clean out the car. The girl even helped with the cleaning. Every now and then they'll do that. They stayed for two hours and we got so much more done than we otherwise would have. Since these are also the kids that took care of our cat for several weeks I gave them a few dollars to get themselves a treat. They were really nice and said that they didn't need the money, they just have fun being helpful. I told them that I know that they don't expect anything and I think they are awesome and I just want to express my appreciation for their awesomeness. I really like those kids.

I have a new calendar (50% off during sales, of course). I wanted to hang it on a metal filing cabinet. The supply cabinet didn't have any magnets. Then I realized staff nametags, of which I have several (we order multiples to cover loss) have magnets on the back. I thought, well that will hold me till I scrounge something better (because eventually I will need to wear the nametags). Mentioned to my colleague who did the ordering. She had some that had been ordered as samples that she didn't need and gave them to me to keep. A small victory, but I was proud of it...

Azure, I have been thinking about you. First, I saw a free online test prep site. It is for SAT, not ACT, but maybe some of it would benefit your DS anyway, and if free, well, what the heck. Here is the link: http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/. Click on any of the SAT material under "other subjects." If you give the task to DS to determine whether this will be helpful, even the act of reviewing the materials to determine their usefulness will be an act of studying in and of itself.

Secondly, I was thinking about your earlier employment post. I know you have mentioned this in previous months. I have a suggestion which you can take or leave. In my school district, which is called an Intermediate in Minnesota and serves several school districts, we employ lots of education assistants. These are people who may have training in education but many do not. They work one-on-one with kids or in small groups and are trained on the job. The wage isn't stellar, but it is flexible. The nice part is that you could try out this kind of a job as a sub. We are always crying for subs since a lot of people don't know that Intermediate districts even exist. It might be something to try out to gain some confidence and it is flexible enough to even start trying now while your youngest is still in school. Good luck!!! You are totally employable. Don't tell yourself otherwise.

Here we made up food from the freezer tonight. I had a fleeting craving for Chinese but then your voices all spoke to me and said "no, you can cook it at home." So we had scrummy sweet potato fries and leftover frozen sloppy joes. We will no longer be buying bagged fries now that I finally figured out how to make them from an actual potato. For some of the kitchen divas on here that sounds like no big deal but it was just something I took my sweet time in figuring out. We got a nifty fry slicer at a garage sale and I figured out that only works on white potatoes. Sweet potatoes are too hard and I have to slice with a knife. I just toss in a Tupperware with olive oil and sea salt and the bake for about half an hour. Yum yum yum yum yum.

Kelli I love sweet potato fries. Yum!

I kept my Barnes and Nobel trip to under $5 today and had a fantastic, amazing talk with my friends. So worth $5.

We also went to the library today. Homeschooling would be so much more expensive if it weren't for the library. We got 15 books today and the kids have already read half of them. Bella was reading me the ingredient lists from a kid's cookbook we got for about an hour tonight. That is my kid. LOL. She wanted to see if we have all of the ingredients to make the various dishes in the book. Bella got books on cooking and horses and a bunch of children's books and Cheyenne got two easy reading chapter books, two craft books and a bunch of books on gardening for kids. They got a book on airplanes and an Olivia story bag for James, who loved them both, and the first book in the Redwall series for everyone to read together. I love the library.

Oh, love the library! I agree, it would be hard for me -and not nearly as much fun- to be frugal without the library! DD and I spent the weekend watching Dr. Who and Lark Rise to Candleford DVDs. Ok, sure, I could have been doing something more productive - but it was holiday, lol. Other frugals - made a nice stew from the stock from a roast. Pulled out the bread machine (old, from a yard sale) to make a loaf to go with the stew, and somehow it stopped after raising, so we just turned the dough out, punched it down, let it raise again, and baked it on a cookie sheet. It was lovely. I'll try the machine again, maybe somehow it got set on manual. Regardless, I'm just happy enough to not have to knead dough! I used to love it, but now it really bothers my wrists. Anyway, DD checked the bread machine instructions to see how to restart it, and the book says that if there's a power outage or the machine stops for any reason, to dump the contents out and start over! I was shocked, lol.