Frugal Friday, er, Saturday - Use It Up, Wear it Out...You get the drift!

My daughter's favorite bath soak - great for her sore feet after dance class!
Wow - what a week.  And I overdid it physically this week, so I'm hoping to lay low this weekend and do some sewing and a bunch of planning. 

I inventoried our cupboards a while back and decided that I wasn't going to buy more of certain things without using up what we have first.  The bath soak in the picture above is one thing that I will wait to replace.  My daughter was super sad - she loves this stuff - but I have several other kinds to use up.  I did find out where I could get more and I'm quite positive this is what we'll get going forward!  I love it too.

So, the name of the game this week has been using what we have in the house rather than buying more.  I did buy my son one pair of pajama pants - he grew enough that he needed some NOW and I didn't have the time to make any this week.  I found a pair on clearance for under $5 so now he has a pair to last until I can make some.   I'm not sure if that counts as frugal or a frugal flop but he's happy and I didn't have to stay up too late working on things that could wait.

So what else did we do this week?

* Used up the spinach that was starting to look a little worse for wear in egg and potato sautés for lunch three days this week.

* Worked on getting the freezer completely cleaned out so we can do a bulk meat order this spring.  It was pretty good from earlier when we defrosted it but I want to make sure I have the entire thing for meat if we need it.

* Used up a few odds and ends in the cupboards that we've had sitting around for a while - whole wheat pastry flour, some spices we don't use often, and a jar of plum jam (we love plums but not plum jam) was used to make shortbread cookies this week.

* Mended more items than I want to admit.  Mostly buttons, fallen hems and pulled out seams.  The only things I have left are the "stuff" that's more complicated - replacing a zipper, mended a couple of tears and transforming a couple of pairs of pants into shorts.  Those are on the agenda for this week. 

* I cut up a couple of old t-shirts into rags for cleaning.

* I also cut up several old pairs of John's pants into quilt squares.  The knees and cuffs were pretty tatty but the rest of the material was fine. 

* We brown bagged all but one lunch - which I used a gift card to purchase.  I met a friend that I hadn't seen for quite a while and that was a lovely treat!

* I cleaned the house using vinegar and water - I'm making so much progress at deep cleaning our main rooms this month.  Hopefully I can tackle each non-main (is that a phrase?) room as the year continues.

* Used Pintrest to find some inexpensive storage ideas for some things that we have that just plain need to be stored better.  I think I've found a few that will work!

* Used up the tail end of a bottle of laundry detergent we didn't like the smell of to wash some items we're donating.  Clean Items + Used up detergent = win!  I'm sure someone will think they smell "fresh!"

* Used up half-used candles in place of tea lights a couple of night.  Love the ambiance of candles and I had a few too many 80% burned candles so I decided to burn them and use them up!  Candles are something else I'm not buying for a while!

* John enjoyed a fancy dinner courtesy of the Synod Office during a meeting for First Call Candidates.  He enjoyed the dinner and came home with a bunch of information.

* Used credit online to buy a birthday gift for my hard-to-shop-for Dad.  I think he's going to love it!

* Worked on birthday gifts and the memory quilt. I found out that the family member this memory quilt is for is in the hospital so that moved up higher in priority!

* Used note cards we already have to send notes of encouragement to several friends going through rough times.  I can't do much otherwise, but at least I can pray and write something nice.  Real snail-mail usually brightens anyone's day!

* Our children's school is doing a project with our local utility provider.  They sent home a kit to test our energy usage as well a variety of small energy tools and four CFLs with each child.  So we now have 8 free CFLs (YAY!) and a free way to check our energy usage and some tools.  I'm pretty excited about that!  We do quite well with energy usage (we're consistently in the top 10 lowest energy usage in our neighborhood) but I do think we can do better!

*  Baked homemade pizza and breadsticks, shortbread cookies, and bread this week.

What have you done this week that used up what you have in your home?

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