September Frugals

First time posting on the monthly frugals page. Here's what I'm doing today: Making homemade split pea soup this morning with a ham bone that's been pretty well picked over. Also, now that the weather has cooled off some, I'm also roasting a turkey that I bought deeply discounted last November. Last frugal thing for today: I'm making a quilt sample for the shop I work at part-time. The shop pays for the materials and after it's finished using the quilt as a store sample, it comes back to me. I'm going to use this one as a gift for my Dad if the shop's done with it my Christmas.

Welcome to the thread Nella!

We are doing a homeschool unit on Little House in the Big Woods and it is inspiring me a bit. As a homeschool project we are going to make our own butter. It's not cheaper than store-bought butter but it's a fun project and it's not expensive. I also want to try making johnny-cakes and cheese. I love projects that do double duty, or in this case triple duty, food, fun and education.

Last night Dad and Zach were both out, Zach at work and Dad at a class, and after karate the girls were lobbying for pizza from a pizza place. I suggested as an alternative going to a playground and taking along some whole wheat crackers and summer sausage. Normally I'd have a vegetable or fruit too, but we had eaten big green smoothies and two salads each for lunch, so I knew we were good there. The kids agreed. We had a nice time and everyone was satisfied.

We're in the mood for pizza, too, so today I got some rolls, sauce & cheese & we'll make French bread pizzas in the grill.

Had company for lunch today. Made "stuffed green pepper soup" using leftover rice, homemade tomato sauce (that I just learned how to make), and used peppers before they went bad. Also, a fruit salad with the abundance of fruit in the house, cheese bread, and homemade brownies. It was very good and was happy to use up "stuff" in the house.

I was in the grocery today (cats would not let me come home w/o food for them) and saw some sausage on good sale. There were various flavors, then I spotted one that said 'lower fat' and decided to get that. When I picked up the package, I thought it seemed a bit smaller than the full fat kinds. It was. It was only 12 oz compared to the 16 oz of the others... Same brand, same style of labels. Kinda ticked me off. So I didn't get it. Still have some other in the freezer anyway.

Stella, re: Little House homeschooling - there is a Little House cookbook that I've seen, the library might have it.

It's been a frugal week mostly because I've been too busy to do anything that might involve spending money. I don't really like feeling this busy.
Major score today, though: got a postcard in the mail for 2 free tickets to the local orchestra, and was able to get them for a performance when my mom will be in town and can babysit DD for us. Between the cost of babysitting and the usual cost of those tickets, that's about a $110 date night for free.

I finally retired my Filson wool mackinaw to Goodwill. Maybe I should have sent it in, but honestly, I had gotten several lifetimes worth of use out of it in the fifteen years I owned it. It was patched all over from places the moths got it, and it had faded from red and black to very pale red and black. It just seemed time to let it go.

Discovered a great library book sale - a bag of books for a buck! Bought about 10 books and suspected that I already owned one of them. Lo and behold, I did. (The curse of owning a lot of books.) Turns out that there were 22 people with the book on their wish list at paperbackswap.com, so was able to post it and send it off to someone who is searching for a copy. In the process, realized that I had duplicates of another book and posted that one as well. And all of this must have led to some good book swapping karma because my request for a $65 book about Tae Kwon Do was filled! I love the fact that most of the books I post and trade I acquired free or nearly free and yet the books I'm requesting are often quite expensive. Definite frugal win for a book lover like myself! Of course, this has not kept me from entering a bookstore and buying brand new books this month...but my book buying habit has gone from ~$100 a week on average (no, that's not a typo!) to ~$10 a week on average.

Been eating lots of produce from the garden and need to make a plan for preserving what's still coming in. Should be able to make a few more batches of fruit leather with the pears and apples and some more pizza sauce for the freezer with the tomatoes and peppers. Have a plan for planting a fall crop, but we'll see whether I can actually put the plan into action!

Our dogs eat a prescription dog food for dental reasons and it is expensive! At the vet's suggestion, I tried mixing it half-and-half with another quality dog food, but that didn't work out so well. But I've discovered that I can actually feed them less than I was feeding them and they are doing just fine. In fact, the one dog was getting a bit chubby and now she is slowly dropping those pounds so this is a good thing. And, two out of the three dogs have fantastic looking teeth and gums and no doggy breath. The third...well, she's a tough case. I'm going to have to try brushing her teeth. But only one dog with a need for biannual dental work at the vet is definitely more frugal than three. Yes, an odd instance of frugality, but I'll take it where I can get it!

Have managed to avoid visiting the thrift store, which usually just results in buying things I don't really need. Will be stopping today to make a donation and look for some jewelry that I can re-purpose. Hopefully I will be able to minimize the desire to look at everything else!

Made it through the first 3 weeks of school and have only eaten out once, due to some less-than-fabulous planning. So far I've been pretty good about being prepared and bringing snacks with me. Hopefully I can get settled into a routine and minimize the number of lunches out this semester -- last year it was a 2x a week occurrence.

We're just keeping the spending to a minimum in general.

I'm doing a pretty good job of searching through the cupboards and freezer for dinner items. A little bit of food goes a long ways when you're the only one eating it. I'm also being quite sucessful at not wasting leftovers even though I'm eating solo.

My friend, the grocery store owner, gave me a couple extra sets of coupons this week. I'll probably "trade" him something from the restaurant since he eats here almost daily.

My son did a great job of determining which school supplies he really needed and which were just a waste. IE: we didn't buy scissors-there are always a ton floating around the class room for him to use.

Dh cut his own hair the other day.

I'm starting to see the health benefits of changing my diet which is a big frugal.

I'm doing my usual sweeps, swagbucks, foodservice rewards, and quadreaders today. Every penny counts!

Today should be a no spend day.

Forgot one.

We found a ton of reduced priced peppers at the store last night: jalepenos, serranos, etc. Dh will make and can sauce out of them-this is our favorite condiment to use on everything from eggs and potatoes to steaks.