April daily frugal's

[fidgiegirl]

Sounds like a lovely Easter all around. We have not had anything particularly frugal to report but just wanted to check in!

@Rosemary, please keep us updated on the diet. Is it that you take everything out and then start adding things back in? And I'm a teacher and would love to get herb plants. I thought about starting a thread about frugal, meaningful teacher gifts but haven't yet. It feels to weird being the teacher and not the giver!

@Stella, a toothbrush along with the candy?! Made me giggle. Sounds like you have a great setup with the Godmother. That makes me giggle, too: The Godmother.

[Kat]

@ stella--I giggled at the toothbrush, too. I think Easter is the perfect time to get new toothbrushes since we all eat so much junk! LOL

I did find the tulip dress at Kohl's, and it was on sale for $10. So with the coupon it cost me nothing. I showed my Dad yesterday and he remarked on how cute it was. Then we had a delicious ham dinner with all the fixings and strawberry shortcake for dessert. We were so stuffed we only ate Cheerios and yogurt for dinner.

Last time I did the laundry, I used the dryer with a dry towel in each load. Someone on here mentioned that you could cut drying time that way. I was able to dry for 40 minutes instead of 60 for several loads. So thanks to whoever posted that tip! :-) I will remember it when I am not able to hang clothes to dry.

Today I have to run some errands, so I am going to plan my route to save on gas. One of the things I have to do is go to the grocery store, so I think I will check out ads online before heading out so I can go to the store with the best deals.

[Merski]

We had a very nice Easter get together at SIL's house Yay! We didn't have to clean!! My frugal goals for the next two or three weeks is to eat up the stuff in small chest sized freezer, organize fridge freezer (again!) and get more stuff out in the garden. A friend's husband has a small excavator which he will bring so that we can dig a ditch and then put a retaining wall at the bottom of our garden so we can backfill and not have such a slope in our veggie patch. I really should be taking some vacation days from work to do projects around the house and yard. We haven't been able to travel because of finances so my vacation time just accumulates.

DMIL needs to put her house back on the market so she will sell and move into the beautiful space she paid to have made in our house. We tell her to underprice the house to sell quickly as she's gotten her use out of it and it's not worth anymore of her time and worry. Think she's dragging her feet a little, which I can't blame her for, as it was the house she bought for and paid off in just a few years (mortgage officer said to her-Hope we don't get too many people like you! ) and raised her kids in.

[redfox]

I've gotten the home made yogurt proportions right and my yogurt is so good. The right balance of sweetness & tartness for us. Organic whole milk, maple syrup, and Nancy's organic plain whole milk for starter. SO good! And so much cheaper than the store bought we've been buying, in its plastic container. Mine comes in little glass jars. I love making food. Next, I want to try fermented foods like kraut. Working up to beer.

[Stella]

Redfox I feel the same way. I love making things myself. It makes me feel so useful.

Merski, take the vacation days! I love having days I can devote entirely to getting personal goals accomplished. Sometimes that is just as refreshing as a trip somewhere would be.

Kat and Kelli, I giggled at the toothbrush too. Such a good idea! I might borrow that for future Easters and Christmases.

Kat, I hadn't heard that dryer tip. I'm going to give that a try. I've been on a mission to get the laundry to be less of a hassle around here. My confirmation name/patron saint is Veronica, among other things, the patron saint of Laundry Workers. I think that's kind of appropriate for a mother of four.

Zach is off today too and we may let Bella take the day off of school. This weekend was so huge that she is kind of tired and cranky. I think it would be a favour to her very excellent Kindergarten teacher to keep her home today. We are going to have a resting and puttering kind of day.

I made a big batch of Mexican Chocolate Oatmeal for breakfast. The kids LOVE that and it's cheap and easy.

I'm planning to make a big pot of chili and some cornbread for lunch, enough to have for at least one more meal, probably dinner tomorrow. Sometimes I even get three meals out of a pot of chili. I'm also going to make a couple of batches of pizza dough for freezing and grate the large blocks of cheddar and mozzarella I have.

We went on a walk with our next-door neighbor last night in the park. Any day that begins with half a sheet of peeps before breakfast is bound to end in mayhem if you don't get enough fresh air and exercise. The park has finally put in the fishing piers and canoe rentals. That will make for some good summer fun. We actually have our own canoe. We offered to lend it to the next-door neighbor when she and her husband or DD want to go canoeing. She works for a non-profit teaching teens and college kids about frugality, budgeting and credit, so between us we're always coming up with ideas to save money. I just love her. I think we're going to take the kiddos on another walk in the park today. It's finally sunny outside! I love living where I do. It's like living at a camp, but in the city. I think it may be time to get a walking group together.

I've been thinking about the Great American Backyard Campout this summer. I might try to get together a team this year instead of just doing it ourselves. I'm either going to join forces with my friend (the one with the backyard playground and fire pit) or see about doing something in my neighborhood. I may even talk to my friend J at the park who is in charge of programming and see if she could pitch the idea to the park supervisor of having some daytime activities for it. Sometimes I think I should have majored in Park and Rec in college. I would have rocked that. That was J's major. I'm thinking at the very least we'll have to have a campfire and do pudgie pies, s'mores and campfire songs.

[madgeylou]

so glad to hear that everyone had a nice holiday weekend. we ended up hosting easter for my bro and sis-in-law and their new baby and it was really great. excellent local ham, potato salad, green beans, pierogies, corn on the cob, and a rhubarb cream pastry that my fella whipped together upon cleaning out the freezer and finding puff pastry and the last of last year's rhubarb. now we can start harvesting it fresh.

in the course of getting ready for easter dinner, we ended up rearranging the dining room and it's so much nicer now! i also convinced my fella to let me try painting the floor instead of getting a carpet. it's an old linoleum floor and pretty uneven, so putting a new hard floor on top won't reall work. but i don't really like carpeting ... and painting will be a lot cheaper anyhow. and if we end up hating it, we can always get a carpet to put on top of it!

this week i'm working 5 shifts at the restaurant in addition to sewing dresses and doing marketing work to get wear the shift out in front of more people. so, busy busy week. but it will be good to get the coffers built back up a little. weekend after next, we are going away for 3 nights to the mountains and i figure i can rest then. i'm really looking forward to it!

[fidgiegirl]

So lovely. This thread helps keep me grounded. We have started house shopping and I keep coming back to WHY do we feel we need more room? We do have some reasons, and this isn't really our dream house (bought by DH when he was a bachelor and never dreamed of being married), but my DH asked how much I would be willing to spend if we found it, and I said I'm not really sure it exists. I think there is no perfect house. If it's not the size, it's the location, or the price point, or the yard - there is always something you trade for something else. And so the quest continues. But it is good to analyze and not blindly go rushing in just because a loan officer says we can spend $x.00.

Here our frugals have been small but steady. Last week we only bought bananas and milk and we used up a LOT of food in the freezer and pantry. Feels good. Now tonight we got a grocery order. Really, we could probably do better on dollar amount if we went to the store, but the stress isn't worth it to me. I don't like the huge stores where the deals are to be had. The parking stresses me out. The checkouts stress me out. The choices facing me down from the shelf stress me out. I love to log in, find our few purchases and we are done. The extra $5 is worth it. The prices are competitive with the stores we generally go to in our neighborhood.

I am drinking an iced tea brewed from some we have in the cupboard. We use our Bee House Iced Tea Pitcher and love it. We got this pitcher for a wedding gift. It is super convenient, though. I'm sure if one buys a lot of beverages, pop or tea or lemonade or whatever, and replaces those with iced tea, you'd easily make your money back in beverage savings.

That's about it! Keep on keepin' on, ladies & germs! Loving hearing about all your projects!

ETA: redfox, I should learn to make yogurt. I have been eating plain for a while and am getting tired of it, so I bought Chobani this week, but dang, it was pricey!

[reader99]

I've gotten the home made yogurt proportions right and my yogurt is so good. The right balance of sweetness & tartness for us. Organic whole milk, maple syrup, and Nancy's organic plain whole milk for starter. SO good! And so much cheaper than the store bought we've been buying, in its plastic container. Mine comes in little glass jars. I love making food. Next, I want to try fermented foods like kraut. Working up to beer.

I want to start making yogurt. What equipment do you recommend?

[Stella]

Madge the rhubarb pastry sounds delicious. Your fiancee seems to always be posting on facebook about some lovely confection he has whipped up. You're a lucky girl! And of course, he's a lucky guy.

Kelli, I have that same iced tea pitcher. Love it! I hear you about the perfect house, too. I sometimes daydream about The Perfect House, but I've never yet seen it.

This morning's oatmeal was chocolate hazelnut. It's rainy and chilly today, so it's another good oatmeal day. I am intentionally trying to make it to May before going to the grocery store. It's a good challenge. Things are running lower than I like them to, but there are options. Oatmeal itself is a little under $.07 a serving, so even dressed up with fun stuff like mangoes and coconut or chocolate and hazelnut it's still a very inexpensive breakfast and everyone likes it.

I have some bananas that need using up, so I'm hoping to make banana bread today. Lunch will be tomato soup and popcorn. It's another perennial favourite rainy day meal. I think breakfast and lunch together are probably under $2 total for the four of us.

For Homeschool Art Month we're learning about illustration this week. We read some children's books with fun illustrations and then the kids wrote their own stories and illustrated them. I think we're going to make creative writing and illustrating a daily exercise.

My friend S is bringing us a lasagne later this week as a baby gift. I am LOVING all of the meals we've gotten. People are very practical about baby gifts for fourth kids. We've gotten mostly meals, diapers, lotion, diaper rash cream and other useful consumables.

This maybe belongs a little in the spirituality forum, but Zach and I have started an exercise to be more aware of the gifts and blessings given to us on a regular basis and be properly grateful for them. The lasagne from my friend, for example, or the formula my other friend is giving us that her daughter doesn't need now that she's a year old (Travis gets one bottle a day to make things easier on me), the free Faith Formation Fair at church tomorrow with free pizza dinner or the free, fun and educational Water Festival they are having at our park next month. Slowing down and being mindful of the blessings we recieve and the opportunities that present themselves to us without our striving helps a lot with frugality. I think a lot of people, and I was definitely raised this way, spend money out of a fear of lack. Realizing the abundance in my life takes away most of my desire to buy stuff I don't need.

[Kat]

@madge--yum! You are making my stomach growl! (well, to be fair, I am ravenous about every minute, so..) ;-)
@fidgie--that is a nice tea pitcher!
@stella--I love children's books! Some of my favorites are the Carl books by Alexandra Day. Very few words--beautiful illustrations, though! They really tell the story.

I really felt like shopping today. I went to the library instead and found some books I'd been wanting to read. Among them was the "Color Me Beautiful" book someone recommended on here awhile back.