Frugal Things - Week 12 - March 17 to 23, 2018

Spring flowers from May 2017 - I'm really looking forward to our first flowers in a few weeks!
It is hard to believe that next Sunday is April already.  We have been super busy this spring and we were fighting major medical issues (thankfully, not me this time and they are now on the mend) that I am still deciding what I want to say about here. 

Either way, we are on the way upward and spring is just around the corner.  We still have snow on the ground but we have patches of dirt/grass too.  The weather has been warm enough to melt the snow several days and the sun has been shining.  I am enjoying the sun so much!   Garden plans are in full swing and I am very much looking forward to getting back into my garden.

I have not posted my frugal things for the last several weeks.  I decided to just pick up with this last week rather than wracking my brain to pull things out from the last few weeks.  So, without further ado, here are the things that we did this last week that were frugal:

* Made the following at home: Minestrone Soup, French Bread, Oatmeal Cookies, Muffins.

* I altered a dress for our daughter by taking in the back several inches and taking in the neckline.

* I downloaded the app from the library to listen to audiobooks on my phone!  I'm pretty excited about it and so are the children. We like to listen to audiobooks while doing household chores or working on crafts or projects.  Our library has a much larger selection of downloadable audiobooks than those on disk.

* We made plans for the summer garden - inventoried seeds and supplies and wrote a list of things that we need to purchase.  We also wrote a rather loose outline of what order to do the outside work.  This will depend on how much money we have to spend and the weather on the days we are free to do the work..

* We reviewed our budget and renewed our commitment to paying off several things this year and using cash for our daily/weekly purchases.  We do very little shopping other than gasoline (petrol), groceries and a very small amount of household items and clothes (this week we bought size AA batteries and facial tissues - we were completely out of both).  We are hoping to use the excess in our budget to pay off several medical commitments and the balance on our minivan. 

* We checked several books and a movie out of the library.  We also listened to the radio and several audiobooks we checked out of the library.

* I used Easter cards we already owned - mostly individuals that were left from previous years' packages of multiples - to mail Easter cards to family members. 

* We packaged up three bags of items for donation and received a tax receipt in return for that donation. 

What did you do this week that was frugal?

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