Frugal Friday - Frugal Things I did This Week
We had a crazy-busy week here at our house with the children's last week of school, the two of them starting at a new-to-us daycare for the summer (with someone we know very well), rain, rain and more rain, a whole saga with the additional 2 Jazzercise classes I teach each week at another location, and a whole variety of other things. I am soooo glad that it's Friday!!! And I'm looking forward to Bible Study tomorrow morning and then a trip to IKEA with my best friend to gather some ideas for a couple of projects we have coming up later this year.
I'm finally getting my ducks in a row (time at home in the evenings is a wonderful thing!) to put together a post on the homemade gifts I've been giving out this year. I hope to have that post up next week.
In the meantime here are the frugal things we did this week:
* Picnic at the park with friends to celebrate the end of school. After 5 1/2 hours the playing the children were good and TIRED Tuesday night!
* I put together summer "activity" bags for the children using items from the dollar store including: a bag for each, sidewalk chalk for each, bubbles for each, a sketch pad and colored pencils for each. I also used a gift card to buy a journal for each. Under $20 for two summer activity bags!
* My mother-in-law sent a box of goodies for the children, since we'd left Buddy's spring jacket there over Memorial day weekend and it's just too cold to go outside with it. It included toys for both children and a whole load of candy!
* I purchased $40 of perennials, vegetables and fruit at the church plant sale. The money goes to the landscaping at the church and the gardening club (which maintains the landscaping) donates the plants. We purchased the following: 1 rose bush, 5 hostas, 7 daffodil bulbs, 3 grape hyacinth bulbs, 2 spirea, 1 coreopsis, 5 strawberry plants, and 1 horseradish plant. Not bad if I do say so myself! I had hoped for tomatoes but they were all gone by the time we got there.
* John dug in another flower bed and we staked our grape vine so it will grow vertically rather than taking over another bed. John and the children also put in the rest of the edging we bought last summer. Now we need to buy more for the other beds.
* Added several things to the compost bin, organized the wood pile and weeded like mad (drat that creeping charlie anyway!) to try to keep up with the growth from all our rain.
* Accepted 3 new tops from my sister-in-law who was cleaning out her closet. One needs a small repair on a seem that pulled apart so she was just going to throw it out - so I now I have a new shirt! *Smile* They're very nice and things I probably would not have purchased for myself so it's a nice treat.
* Updated the budget book and our savings charts. We are currently 4% of the way to our needed savings for Internship year - we had to increase the total amount we need for Internship year or we'd be closer. It's nice to have a visual representation of progress and I'm looking forward to having more progress made as summer progresses!
* Downloaded several ebooks for my Kindle for PC
* Signed the kids up for the summer reading program at the library
* Signed up to work at the Uniform swap at my children's school - we get first dibs on uniform pieces that way. Added perk - I can mend the pieces that are missing buttons or have torn seams so there are more things in the swap for everyone. I like that! Ordered two uniform skirts for my daughter (who needs a slim-extra-long size 12) on clearance for $10 each plus a jumper (also size slim-extra-long 12) for $15 with free shipping with both. With those and a few pieces leftover from this year, I will only need to pick up pieces for my son at the swap. I think $35 for a year's worth of uniform pieces is a pretty good deal, don't you?
* Inventoried my freezers (small chest freezer and the freezer above the fridge) and made up a menu through the first week in July. Wow, do we have food in the house!
* We ate at home all three meals or brown-bagged every meal but the picnic in the park and pot-luck at church on Wednesday night (we brought fruit or salad or both to those).
We also did a lot of cleaning out and general yard work (sweeping, mowing, weed whipping, weeding, and raking). It's nice to see the yard shaping up and to have things getting cleaned out around here finally. We've had way too much clutter for way too long!
Check out Frugal Friday for more ideas and The Prudent Homemaker's Blog or Web Site for plenty of inspiration!
I'm finally getting my ducks in a row (time at home in the evenings is a wonderful thing!) to put together a post on the homemade gifts I've been giving out this year. I hope to have that post up next week.
In the meantime here are the frugal things we did this week:
* Picnic at the park with friends to celebrate the end of school. After 5 1/2 hours the playing the children were good and TIRED Tuesday night!
* I put together summer "activity" bags for the children using items from the dollar store including: a bag for each, sidewalk chalk for each, bubbles for each, a sketch pad and colored pencils for each. I also used a gift card to buy a journal for each. Under $20 for two summer activity bags!
* My mother-in-law sent a box of goodies for the children, since we'd left Buddy's spring jacket there over Memorial day weekend and it's just too cold to go outside with it. It included toys for both children and a whole load of candy!
* I purchased $40 of perennials, vegetables and fruit at the church plant sale. The money goes to the landscaping at the church and the gardening club (which maintains the landscaping) donates the plants. We purchased the following: 1 rose bush, 5 hostas, 7 daffodil bulbs, 3 grape hyacinth bulbs, 2 spirea, 1 coreopsis, 5 strawberry plants, and 1 horseradish plant. Not bad if I do say so myself! I had hoped for tomatoes but they were all gone by the time we got there.
* John dug in another flower bed and we staked our grape vine so it will grow vertically rather than taking over another bed. John and the children also put in the rest of the edging we bought last summer. Now we need to buy more for the other beds.
* Added several things to the compost bin, organized the wood pile and weeded like mad (drat that creeping charlie anyway!) to try to keep up with the growth from all our rain.
* Accepted 3 new tops from my sister-in-law who was cleaning out her closet. One needs a small repair on a seem that pulled apart so she was just going to throw it out - so I now I have a new shirt! *Smile* They're very nice and things I probably would not have purchased for myself so it's a nice treat.
* Updated the budget book and our savings charts. We are currently 4% of the way to our needed savings for Internship year - we had to increase the total amount we need for Internship year or we'd be closer. It's nice to have a visual representation of progress and I'm looking forward to having more progress made as summer progresses!
* Downloaded several ebooks for my Kindle for PC
* Signed the kids up for the summer reading program at the library
* Signed up to work at the Uniform swap at my children's school - we get first dibs on uniform pieces that way. Added perk - I can mend the pieces that are missing buttons or have torn seams so there are more things in the swap for everyone. I like that! Ordered two uniform skirts for my daughter (who needs a slim-extra-long size 12) on clearance for $10 each plus a jumper (also size slim-extra-long 12) for $15 with free shipping with both. With those and a few pieces leftover from this year, I will only need to pick up pieces for my son at the swap. I think $35 for a year's worth of uniform pieces is a pretty good deal, don't you?
* Inventoried my freezers (small chest freezer and the freezer above the fridge) and made up a menu through the first week in July. Wow, do we have food in the house!
* We ate at home all three meals or brown-bagged every meal but the picnic in the park and pot-luck at church on Wednesday night (we brought fruit or salad or both to those).
We also did a lot of cleaning out and general yard work (sweeping, mowing, weed whipping, weeding, and raking). It's nice to see the yard shaping up and to have things getting cleaned out around here finally. We've had way too much clutter for way too long!
Check out Frugal Friday for more ideas and The Prudent Homemaker's Blog or Web Site for plenty of inspiration!
