April daily frugal's

Cooked a whole chicken last night - AND, cooked the "remains" with some carrots/celery/onions for chicken stock. My wife said Martha Stewart would be so proud! :-)

bke- what a relief for your family! Stella, how's Travis doing?? Semi-frugal today- took one of the barn cats to the vet- not the one we usually visit. Shots for upper respiratory infection and office visit was about a third less than our reg vet, plus we weren't hassled to get all shots, blood tests, etc like we would have been there. We'll have him neutered at a feral/stray clinic this spring (half the price of the vet). We want him to be healthy and happy but platinum care isn't possible at this time.

Good job, Greg! I always boil my chicken bones after I make chicken on the weekend for stock, and use that in other dishes during the week. One of my favorite frugal tricks.

I sold a large unopened package of Eucerin yesterday that I had lugged over from Costco -- got about $15 for it, which is probably about what I paid for it. We weren't going to use it so at least it wasn't wasted.

lhamo

DH is going in for a six month scan to see if the tumor in his neck has grown. We'll bring our own lunch and water and spring for a coffee at the hospital....

bke, so glad to hear your good news. hang in there, mom!

merksi, best of luck to you and your DH. fingers crossed that his treatment is having the desired effect.

so i went to fill out an application at the restaurant yesterday and they hired me on the spot! i start tomorrow and will be working wednesday, friday, and saturday nights. i am working though the transportation issues with my fella (since we share a car). at some point, i will probably buy a car of my own (a beater, nothing fancy), but i'm trying to delay that as long as possible. if we are each willing to ride the bus one day a week (and we are), we should be able to manage with one car at least through the summer.

looks like i will make enough from this job to just about cover my share of the monthly expenses in the household. my insurance and a few other small bills will continue to come out of my savings. this slows down my burn rate to just a few hundred bucks a month instead of a few thousand, and lets me be a little less desperate about making sales! it takes time to connect with your market, and now i can take the time to do our marketing right without getting freaked out. yay!

bke that is great!

merski, I'm keeping your DH in my prayers!

Thanks for the concern about Travis. He's home now and doing well. He's such a sweet baby!

My uncle is dying. He's not expected to make it to the weekend. If possible I want to go to the funeral, but there's no way we can afford a hotel. They live about 4 hours away, so we may try going early in the morning and coming home once the kids are asleep. I am kind of down about this today. My uncle is only about 50 years old. It's too soon.

The girls are going to help me make soup tonight. A friend of Dad's and mine is coming to watch the kiddos so Zach and I can go to a church event. We want to make her a nice dinner as a thank-you. We're making a Greek chicken, lemon and rice soup.

We made our cardboard box airplane today and last night we completed our Easter window display. The kids have been having a lot of fun with that. We'll probably do the photo shoot tomorrow.

I just ran across a recipe for a homemade version of the samoa girl scout cookies. I am attempting to fight off the urge to make them. Those are my all time favourites.

aw, i'm sorry to hear about your uncle, stella. 50 is *way* too young.

i say make the samoas if you want them! they are my favorites too. :)

Hi all!

Back from DC and catching up. It wasn't a particularly frugal trip but not extravagant, either. I am satisfied with what I spent and valued the entire experience. I had some little savings like passing on a t-shirt since I wasn't so jazzed about any of them, but I still got myself a little tote bag.

So much going on in just a few short days. Glad to hear bke's mom and baby Travis are ok, but too bad to hear about your uncle, Stella.

Here for a frugal I'd like to get into making cookies instead of buying them. The good thing is, we don't go through a lot of them, but still, we are paying like $4 a dozen for nice bakery cookies and I could make equally nice ones.

I keep being tempted to buy new running clothes, but there is really no reason. I have some shirts and some shorts. Who cares if they are just getting all stinky and sweaty? I don't have to look hot while working out. :laff:

Well in keeping with my pre-vacation goal to actually get some things done in the evening (no offense, dearies) I should get off SLN and onto some other things :) See you tomorrow!

Stella- so sorry to hear about your uncle. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Merski-I hope the scan results in good news.

Thanks everyone for your supportive words about my mom. It really sucks watching your parents age and their health deteriorate.

Well, dh spent about $1200 yesterday and I consider that our big frugal-lol. He ordered the fencing I've been talking about here. With the help of a new friend and the guys at Lowe's dh decided what was really necessary to do the job and purchased a bit less than originally expected. He used my 10% off coupon and is getting delivery for free! We'll save an additional 5% on our credit card and of course, I will pay that off in full when it arrives.

We spent the evening working in the yard. Dh fininshed the patio-YEAH! It looks good too without any "professional" help at all. I trimmed the lilac bush and ds and I hauled a bunch of excess dirt to low level areas of the yard and smoothed it out in an attempt to fix things up a bit. My son is going through this stage where he doesn't want to do anything but sit and watch the tube which makes me nuts. We really had to push him to get him to help but I refuse to raise a kid that expects everything in life to be done for him. So, mean mother that I am I made him shovel and rake and learn how to handle a wheelborrow full of heavy dirt!

These days, I'm so thankful that my parents were equally abusive when I was a kid-can't imagine having to hire someone to do every project that comes along.

I had received 3 quotes from contractors for a job at our house. The one that I wanted to hire was the highest... so I called them, explained the situation, and they came back to reassess - and dropped their price!

Taking DD to the ophthalmologist today. In the event that she needs glasses, I've already called around to compare costs and turnaround time. (In future, we'll order online.. but it is helpful to have a frame that you know fits, for comparing dimensions, and also the turn time is about 3 weeks for glasses online - too long when she's in school every day, needing to read all kinds of things.) For the record, JC Penney Optical currently has 2 pairs/$88.