In The Refiner's Fire

Living where we do, there aren't very many options for grocery shopping without going out of normal driving patterns or making a special trip somewhere.   This week was low for deals, so we did a little shopping and that was about it. The side effects from my shingles have been really bad this week in some ways and far better than others.  Either way, I spent most of today (Saturday) at home with a foam roller and a heating pad.  So John went to the store for me (love that man!) and spent $40.95 today. Here's what he purchased: 1 lb Bacon $3.99 (store coupon) 12oz Pork Loin $6.99 (store coupon) 3.99lbs Braeburn Apples @ $0.99 = $3.95 2.94lbs Bananas @ $0.67/lb = $1.97 Two bags fresh Spinach B1G1 = $3.29 (store coupon) 1.08lbs Red Delicious Apples @ $0.77/lb = $83 Two frozen Pizzas @ $2.88 ea = $5.76 1 Gallon Skim Milk $3.79 6 containers Greek Yogurt @ $0.88 = $5.28  (store coupon) According to our receipt we saved $11.73 or 22%. The kids went T...

Goodness - it's that time of the week again, isn't it? Heave a big sigh of relief with me that we're threw midterms and on the home stretch for fall semester!  I know, I know; it seems like it's way too soon for all of that.  From here on out though, it will go FAST.  And then it's the holidays - and you all know how busy that is!  We only have about 8 more weeks to go until finals and then Christmas. John and I stopped at one store after a rare dinner out on our second actual date out this month.  We're at an age where the children have events for church or school and parents don't need to attend with them. So we went out for dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall cheap café we like and then stopped to buy groceries at the end of a Saturday afternoon and early evening event that the children had.  We were all home and tucked in for the evening by 815pm too!  Love that. We spent our last $24 that we had for this week and we bought t...

We finally had a hard frost here so we're done with the veggies from outside now.  Whew!  I was starting to think we were getting overrun by tomatoes and crook-neck squash!   I dehydrated all the crook-neck you see here and made another large batch of salsa.  I *think* we're set! Other frugal things this last week have been: * I enjoyed a free meal at work during a faculty meeting. YUM!  Our chef at work has us so spoiled! * A coworker brought in doughnuts one morning to celebrate her birthday. I enjoyed one gourmet doughnut - delicious. * Went to the apple orchard and bought two carving pumpkins and a peck of apples.  I dehydrated the apples for snacks.  We had a great time - we enjoyed their large playground, a magic show and a hayride as well as the joy of the pumpkin hunt and apple picking.  This late in the season the prices for both pumpkins and apples are far cheaper than we could get in the stores. * I cleaned out our...

Over the last year or two as it's become clear that I'm never going to always be healthy and able to do what I want or need to every single day, I realized that many of our household absolutely have to be delegated. While I've always known that this needed to happen, especially as the children get older, it has been very hard to put into practice.  Partly because it's just easier to do it myself.  Partly because John comes from a family where Mother did very literally everything, so having me do things was "normal" for him. One of the things we stated this fall that I am so pleased with is what we call "A Four Song Tidy".  The children have a playlist on my iPod so each evening sometime between dinner and bed we play four songs and everyone tidies up, starting with the main room(s) of the house - kitchen and living room, which are one open, L-shaped area. Our pattern for these four song tidies is like this: Put on the music Everyone gets the...

I was sorting through the photos on my computer the other day, and this one just made me laugh!  It's my children's birthday cupcakes from this last May - complete with pop-up aliens!  Everyone loves the pop ups and they can actually play with them rather than having them lay around.  Our trees here are going from colorful to bare, which is making me just a bit sad. I love the fall colors! It's cool enough that we've had frost a couple of times this week and we finally had to turn on the heat.  We'd hoped to hold off until November but it just gets too cold at night right now.  The heat really doesn't run during the day because it's warm enough but we do need it at night. We're trying a few new-to-us recipes and reviving a few we haven't done in quite a while.  We were starting to feel like we were in a rut and wanted something new without breaking the bank. Here's what we're eating today: Sunday, October 18:      Breakf...

No photo again today - John put everything away before I could take a photo since I was in the middle of cleaning all the odds and ends out of the fridge and inventorying the freezer.    And now I can't find my receipt!   Yep, I guess it's one of those days around here. I went to one store after spending about 1 1/2 hours at the dance supply store trying to find split-soled tap-shoes for my very large-footed tap-dancing 10-year-old boy.  We managed to find a pair but they have the wrong taps on them so we'll have to replace those.  At least we've got them!  I guess men's tap shoes don't have a split sole as a general rule. Who knew?  (And, yes, I had to ask what a split sole was, too! I didn't dance when I was younger and had no idea that there were a variety of types of tap shoes.) Here's what we bought: * 1 Gallon Skim Milk $2.50 * 1 Dozen Eggs $3-something * 1 package Go-Gurt $2 * 1 Loaf White Bread $1.99 * 6 15oz cans ...

I finally have a Frugal Friday post on a Friday!  YAY!   I think I'm finally getting back on track here (or something!). We're still busy here - I think this fall is just going to be a busy one.  That's okay.  We've been getting into a routine and making sure things get done with a few new additions to our evening routine and I'm loving that!   I'm hoping to write about that one these weeks. Anyway, here's what we've done the last week as far as "frugal" things go (I apologize for any overlap with last week - these days all seem to run together for m!). * We had our garage sale and made $96.  *  I used some of that $96 to order Christmas presents.  We now have at least one present for everyone we need  a present for.  Now, I just need to get myself in gear and finish the homemade ones! * I started the Christmas gift I'm making for my mother.  I'll finish it closer to Christmas since part of it can be easily damage...

Kranskaka - I'm dreaming of Christmas baking right now!  I probably shouldn't be thinking about Christmas baking when the weather is so lovely outside - very fall, beautiful color and just cold enough for soup and stew (we'll ignore the 40mph wind we had today - yikes).   Our church is starting the baking for the holiday fair which will happen in about a month - Krumkaka, Lefse and a few other Scandinavian goodies are in the works.  It got me thinking about what to make this year.  I'm thinking Kranskaka is definitely on the menu!  We haven't made one for a few years. Fall foods abound here this week.   Here's what we're eating. Sunday, October 11:    Breakfast: Toast with Peanut Butter    Lunch: PB&J, Potato Chips, and Cut Veggies (we were gifted a bag of chips leftover from a youth event)    Snack: Apples    Dinner: Soup from the Freezer, Bread, Sliced Vegetab...

What a week! Lots of shingles pain, grading coming out my ears, parent-teacher conferences, running all over to find tap shoes for my now man-size-footed son, and then we had our garage sale this weekend too.  I'm really am ready for a nap this afternoon. It seems like I didn't do much frugal this week, but here's what I did: * Bought 1 yard of lace on sale to my make daughter a crown for her Halloween costume.  If it turns out well, I'll make sure I post about it. * Used up leftovers to make dinner and/or lunch a couple of times this week. * Enjoyed a lunch brought in by a co-worker this week.  Another co-worker brought in doughnuts for a treat one afternoon. * Returned an overdue library book before the fine kicked in. YAY! * My children went in for well-child checkups and we discovered that the pain in my daughter's foot that we thought was a pulled tendon is actually a bone spur.  The doctor gave us several ways to deal with it now so it doesn't...

Sorry folks, no photo this week - I wasn't that on top of things! My son and I ran to one store and bought the following with our $40 grocery budget - I definitely had the pennies in my purse so the one cent over wasn't going to break us!   We had a yard sale on Saturday, so the $10 in frozen pizza was for dinner that night since we were all wiped and nobody wanted to cook.   Everything else will last through the week.  We had plenty of apples and pears and a whole package of grapes from last week that will be good through most of this week too and we have sausage, chicken and pork in the freezer as well as a couple of venison and bear steaks (Thanks cousin Bo!) so we're good to go for meat for a while.  Here's what we bought: 42oz Vegetable Oil $2.49 (store coupon) 64oz Apple Juice $0.99 (sale) 6 10oz cans diced tomatoes @ 3/$2 = $4 3 10oz cans black beans @ 3/$2 = $2 5lb Russet Potatoes $2.49 3.37 lbs Yellow Bananas @$0.67/lb = $2.26 10oz Fr...

It's been a really long couple of weeks.  Our freezer is almost cleaned out for defrosting so we've been eating a LOT of soup - so much that we're getting tired of it, in fact (which I never thought would happen).  A good problem to have, I guess. I also have postherpetic neuralgia, a complication of shingles, and I've had it for about 3 years now.  This last week I broke out in full blown shingles again (second time in three years) and this time in new places on my torso.  Needless to say, I've been miserable and had to miss several events because I just couldn't stand to be out and about.  I'm only 40 so this is discouraging to say the least.   Fortunately, I have some new strategies for managing going forward but it means we're going to have to make some big and hard changes around here.  Can you pray for us please?  It's going to be another emotional year here, I'm afraid. On to better things.... The weather has been perfect after w...

I'm not sure what we'd do without Lego at our house - these provide hours of entertainment to all four of us and I'm so grateful that we have so much fun with something so simple! It's been a couple of weeks since I posted a Frugal Friday post - I'm writing more on that tomorrow - but for now for the frugal things in the last couple of weeks. *  Picked three butternut squash and three acorn squash plus a bunch of tomatoes from our yard this week.   I set the green tomatoes out to ripen indoors.  We have had frost a couple of nights and I don't want to loose that many tomatoes! * Received a bonus box from our CSA containing green peppers, a butternut squash and pears.  YAY! * Enjoyed a free lunch at work one day - delicious food!  We're so spoiled - the chef at work is fantastic.    A co-worker brought in a loaf of homemade zucchini bread for snacks a couple of days this week as well. * The children have an hour a week at church ...