Frugal Things We Did This Past Week
I'm realizing I need to start taking photos of some of the frugal things we do each week - these pictureless posts are a bit ho-hum. In my humble opinion anyway!
Here are some of the things we did this week that count as frugal:
* Ate all but three meals at home - two meals were potlucks. I ended up taking a tossed salad to both since we had a TON of greens from our first CSA box - pictures coming with our grocery shopping later today - so my family ate the fruit salad which also included watermelon along with what I listed on my menu plan for this week. The third meal was a planned meal out - my husband with our son and me with our daughter. We all had a terrific time.
* The party for my friend was wonderful and just what I needed on Thursday night. It started with one of the potlucks with a lot of time catching up with old friends! Terrific time! There are a couple recipes I'm going to have to get now too.
* We brought home 9 huge slices of watermelon, a bag of hot dog buns and a bag of hamburger buns from the potluck on Wednesday night at church. We have eaten all the watermelon and used the buns for dinner on Friday night - it was beautiful so we opted for hot dogs from the freezer cooked over the bonfire rather than the ham we had planned on. We used the buns for sandwiches today (Saturday) for lunch.
* My daughter had a friend come with us to the zoo on Wednesday - the weather was terrific during the day - and then we went back to our house for a bit afterward where they watched the video my husband took of the play they put on at school earlier this spring. My daughter and this friend were the two leads in the play and directed the play. They had a great time! Our zoo membership includes one guest so we didn't have to pay for anything at the time! I brought water and snacks with. Our zoo membership is a gift from my husband's family for the children's birthday every year.
* We weeded and weeded and weeded and our yard still looks like a jungle. *Sigh* We've hit the point where we've had too much rain and I'm terribly grateful that we haven't had flooding here since much of the Twin Cities Metro has. More weeding to come and then we're purchasing a pallet of bagged mulch to take care of all these flower beds - we priced it out and have that much in our gardening budget so we can do that without damaging our budget. I've been teaching the children to weed right now and the weeding is going much faster than it has in the past. I had bought them garden gloves for their birthday in May and they have been wearing baseball caps to help with sun shading. We got the whole back corner bed done in about 3 hours - I think that's a record!
* Updated the budget book and divided out our saved income and our summer income to cover the three months we have this summer until our next 'real' paycheck comes in. We're very pleased that we'll be just fine and have the money for everything we need. What a blessing!
* Harvested tarragon and picked peonies for my kitchen table from our garden.
* Took a donation of unused items to the thrift store and received a store credit slip in return rather than a tax credit slip. I also bagged up another set of items to take to the Uniform Swap at school next week. I offered to help organize it this year because there was only one person doing it and it is a HUGE job. I figured it's the least I can do after all the money it's saved me over the last four years!
* Made four loaves of French Bread, pancakes, cornbread, peanut butter cookies and waffles from scratch this week.
* Checked out several books and two videos from the local library.
* Signed the children up the summer reading program at the library. They are super excited about the whole things and I'm excited that the "bingo" that they have to complete includes things like attending community events, using the library catalog, finding information in reference books, and other skills and ideas that are good to do and have. They still have to read 10 books to get a "bingo".
* I recycled about 4 bags of old school papers that I had lurking in a big box downstairs in the furnace room. I have no idea what I was keeping those for!
* I wrote notes of encouragement to three friends using cards I already had. I only needed to spend the stamp to mail them.
* I've spent a fair amount of time this week finishing up an embroidery project that will be an anniversary gift for my sister-in-law and her husband. They eloped last year (that's a very long, good story) so I didn't have it done for a wedding gift but I thought it would make a nice for an anniversary gift. Once it's done, I'll try to remember to post a photo.
Frugal Flops:
* I had to throw out some rhubarb that had been in our freezer due to freezer burn. I was so bummed since I love rhubarb (our whole family does!) but it was not salvageable. I thought I had bagged it well but apparently not. *SIGH*
* We also lost our pea plants due to the rain. This isn't really a "flop" on my part since I can't do much about the over-saturated ground but it's a bummer. And now we have to start new ones.
In other things:
Can I ask a favor of you all? We have an opportunity that we're checking out this afternoon (Saturday). Can you please pray for discernment for us? We are not really sure what we're supposed to do with this opportunity but we're hopeful and wondering what God has in mind. Thank you so much!
How have you done this week? Visit The Prudent Homemaker's Blog to share!
Here are some of the things we did this week that count as frugal:
* Ate all but three meals at home - two meals were potlucks. I ended up taking a tossed salad to both since we had a TON of greens from our first CSA box - pictures coming with our grocery shopping later today - so my family ate the fruit salad which also included watermelon along with what I listed on my menu plan for this week. The third meal was a planned meal out - my husband with our son and me with our daughter. We all had a terrific time.
* The party for my friend was wonderful and just what I needed on Thursday night. It started with one of the potlucks with a lot of time catching up with old friends! Terrific time! There are a couple recipes I'm going to have to get now too.
* We brought home 9 huge slices of watermelon, a bag of hot dog buns and a bag of hamburger buns from the potluck on Wednesday night at church. We have eaten all the watermelon and used the buns for dinner on Friday night - it was beautiful so we opted for hot dogs from the freezer cooked over the bonfire rather than the ham we had planned on. We used the buns for sandwiches today (Saturday) for lunch.
* My daughter had a friend come with us to the zoo on Wednesday - the weather was terrific during the day - and then we went back to our house for a bit afterward where they watched the video my husband took of the play they put on at school earlier this spring. My daughter and this friend were the two leads in the play and directed the play. They had a great time! Our zoo membership includes one guest so we didn't have to pay for anything at the time! I brought water and snacks with. Our zoo membership is a gift from my husband's family for the children's birthday every year.
* We weeded and weeded and weeded and our yard still looks like a jungle. *Sigh* We've hit the point where we've had too much rain and I'm terribly grateful that we haven't had flooding here since much of the Twin Cities Metro has. More weeding to come and then we're purchasing a pallet of bagged mulch to take care of all these flower beds - we priced it out and have that much in our gardening budget so we can do that without damaging our budget. I've been teaching the children to weed right now and the weeding is going much faster than it has in the past. I had bought them garden gloves for their birthday in May and they have been wearing baseball caps to help with sun shading. We got the whole back corner bed done in about 3 hours - I think that's a record!
* Updated the budget book and divided out our saved income and our summer income to cover the three months we have this summer until our next 'real' paycheck comes in. We're very pleased that we'll be just fine and have the money for everything we need. What a blessing!
* Harvested tarragon and picked peonies for my kitchen table from our garden.
* Took a donation of unused items to the thrift store and received a store credit slip in return rather than a tax credit slip. I also bagged up another set of items to take to the Uniform Swap at school next week. I offered to help organize it this year because there was only one person doing it and it is a HUGE job. I figured it's the least I can do after all the money it's saved me over the last four years!
* Made four loaves of French Bread, pancakes, cornbread, peanut butter cookies and waffles from scratch this week.
* Checked out several books and two videos from the local library.
* Signed the children up the summer reading program at the library. They are super excited about the whole things and I'm excited that the "bingo" that they have to complete includes things like attending community events, using the library catalog, finding information in reference books, and other skills and ideas that are good to do and have. They still have to read 10 books to get a "bingo".
* I recycled about 4 bags of old school papers that I had lurking in a big box downstairs in the furnace room. I have no idea what I was keeping those for!
* I wrote notes of encouragement to three friends using cards I already had. I only needed to spend the stamp to mail them.
* I've spent a fair amount of time this week finishing up an embroidery project that will be an anniversary gift for my sister-in-law and her husband. They eloped last year (that's a very long, good story) so I didn't have it done for a wedding gift but I thought it would make a nice for an anniversary gift. Once it's done, I'll try to remember to post a photo.
Frugal Flops:
* I had to throw out some rhubarb that had been in our freezer due to freezer burn. I was so bummed since I love rhubarb (our whole family does!) but it was not salvageable. I thought I had bagged it well but apparently not. *SIGH*
* We also lost our pea plants due to the rain. This isn't really a "flop" on my part since I can't do much about the over-saturated ground but it's a bummer. And now we have to start new ones.
In other things:
Can I ask a favor of you all? We have an opportunity that we're checking out this afternoon (Saturday). Can you please pray for discernment for us? We are not really sure what we're supposed to do with this opportunity but we're hopeful and wondering what God has in mind. Thank you so much!
How have you done this week? Visit The Prudent Homemaker's Blog to share!
