July Frugals

We got back (I used to say we made money at yard sales, but I am retraining myself to realize that we are only getting back money we already put out, and usually not as much) $200 on our yard sale this weekend.
We bought DS a new comforter with some of the funds. While I am being frugal this summer, I am also getting my house tidy. And so I decided I would use some yard sale money to fund things like that. His comforter had a hole in it and will now become a dog bed. Shopko had them on sale for 50% off, so his new comforter was $30. We almost bought a toilet brush and mop head at full prices, but a quick check of the Dollar Tree saved us about $15.

One thing I have been doing for some time but I have concentrated a little more on it the last few weeks is to measure everything out. Obviously I have been doing that with food, whilst I am losing weight, but I thought I would try to apply it to other household things.

For example the washing powder box states that you can get 13 washes from this box - 13 I thought I'm going to beat that! So each time I measure out the 30g needed for a load I only measure out about 25g and then this is where I get a bit geeky - I mark the box to show that I have taken out enough for one load of wash. There is still lots left in the box and so far I have done 10 loads of wash.

Oooh, the skating sounds like fun too!

I am writing up my curriculum for the coming year to send off to my mom for review. Both of my parents have Masters degrees in education, so it makes me feel better to run my curriculum by them. I save a lot of money doing it myself. This year I am thinking of enrolling Cheyenne (the only one old enough) in an online Socratic Discussion class. Dad is going halves with us on it because he would really like her to take this class.

It was too hot Saturday to set up our flea market booth, so I went to my Dsis's to help with her house overhaul. In return, she gave me a big package of cold fried chicken to bring home. We got three meals for 3 people out of that cold chicken! Sunday it wasn't as hot, thankfully, because Dsis and I volunteered to work at our local air museum booth at a large airshow. So - we got in for free (saving almost $20 each), parked for free ($10 saved), got a nice free lunch (minimum saved, $6) and free water all day ($3 a pop for a bottle!!) Test drove a car (they wouldn't let us test-fly a plane, lol) and got a free T-shirt. We watched most of the show from our simulator tent, and on a break I took my "savings" and bought a Huey ride!! It was AWESOME! (And tax-deductible ;)) Much FFF!

Early morning that sounds like fun!

I am so not in the league of you frugalistas but I did want to post that I have clothes on the line today. Wish I could assess how much money that actually saves per load! AND I have to hit the grocery store but I am going to have a list and drop by my friend's garden first (he is out of town and asked if we would keep things picked...imagine that!).

Great to read the frugals and especially the FFFs. We are not great at this but need to get better. We don't spend on much of anything for months and then it seems like money just flows away for awhile....I loaned my DS a chunk of change from slush and so I am feeling the pinch a bit which is probably a good enough thing for me.

I have been doing quite a bit of cooking this week. The kid I am watching requested egg salad for lunch today so I hard boiled some eggs. That's a cheap and easy meal. I also made granola and granola bars yesterday and strawberry banana breakfast popsicles. Judgung from the taste of the smoothie I made for the breakfast popsicles, those are going to be fantastic.

Last night I made Avgolemono (Greek lemon chicken and rice soup) for dinner from the carcass of a chicken I roasted Sunday. Tonight we'll be having grilled garlic, chicken, fresh tomato and basil pizza to use up the rest of the chicken and the first ripe tomatoes from our garden. That's 3 meals from one chicken. Grilled pizza is one of the kids' new favourite meals and it is very inexpensive. Tomorrow is going to be pasta with bacon, peas and mint. That's a Jamie Oliver recipe we got off of a podcast we watched.

Early morning, what do you sell at the flea market?

Lesilann-please don't feel like this is a competition-we're just all here to support each other on all our sucesses regardless of the size!

Frugals: We're taking posession of the bankruptcy house today. The insurance ended up being about $300 less than originally quoted. I just don't understand the reason why these kids were allowed to file bankruptcy inthe first place. The debts were less than a year's salary. They make 40% more than we do a year and were allowed to file bankruptcy and give us back the house. Based on their income we could have payed all the bankruptcy debt and payed the house off in full in less than 8 years while still living quite comfortably!

We had a very sucessful shopping day yesterday. I used sales, coupons, and register rewards from a previous week to get the following for under $25 total:

7 deoderants, 5 body washes (I was on my last one), 2 jars of dry roasted peanuts (good snacks!) 28 bottles of propel water, and 2 containers of country time half tea-half lemonade.

We drink alot of water but once a day its nice to have someting else.

Today I did two loads of laundry using free laundry detergent.

We're having our worst year ever at work. We rely on people hanging out at their cottages to pay our bills. More and more of them are either staying home or eating in. We're still managing to stay in the black but there's not nearly as much being put away for winter as there normally is. Eating and living cheaply is becoming more and more important for us. A piece of me is a bit angry at finding myself in this position. A year ago I would have told you we were almost to easy street. Ah well! We have a big emergency fund and are actually ok but were just not seeing any forward motion on the financial front.

More laundry on the line! Bke, I do feel a bit out of my league here but I know it is a welcoming group! Anyway, I avoided buying a cup of (bad) coffee out yesterday and came home to make my own (much better) coffee. That's little but it counts! I did let DSD go to the convenience store for milk (and let her buy gum with the change.....little benefits) even though I was doing groceries later but she needed to Get Out And Walk Somewhere. She is suffering from the "I am a bored teenager but don't even think about suggesting something for me to do" syndrome. So we paid more for milk but she got something out of it.

I just need to be thinking frugally. And I need to get back to tracking; those two go together for me. The parts of the house that ARE decluttered are fine but there are those Other Parts (the basement, for example). I agree that it is much easier to stay frugal when I know what I have in the house. Some part of me would love to live in Fawn's house!

Beautiful, beautiful summer day here in the Maritimes. Just perfect temperature, low humidity....and I am at work (of course). But grateful to work at home and to have had my lunch and coffee on the back deck. Oops, that probably belongs in a different thread.

She is suffering from the "I am a bored teenager but don't even think about suggesting something for me to do" syndrome.

OMG! You have one of these too!!!! Mine hides in his room when there's time to do things as a family and then wants attention when dh and I have things that need to be done. I wouldn't be a teen again for anything in the world!