Frugal Friday - On a Monday
Well, welcome to the last few days of 2015!
Is anyone else just complete befuddled as me as to where this last year went? I feel like I blinked and the year was over!
It's been a year of change at our house and a year of medical issues and several other things as well. The children are growing up, our parents and John's siblings are getting older, and I guess that means we're getting older too.
John and I have all sorts of plans for 2016 that I'll be sharing with you in a few days but for now, we're going to work on frugal things from the last couple of weeks:
* Ate most of the meals at home. My parents have treated us to a couple of meals out and we each had a free meal at work - me for a co-worker's retirement party and John for the annual holiday meal.
* We made all of the following things at home food-wise: French Bread, Lesfe, Swedish Meatballs and Mashed potatoes, cream of chicken wild rice soup, seafood chowder (this is my Dad's specialty!), and cookies.
* I sewed my daughter a "dance bag" - a fabric bag with straps and specialized holders inside for her tap and jazz shoes. I gave this to her for a Christmas present.
* My Mom used a $50 rebate card to buy us a set of medium mixing/serving bowls and some glass food storage containers. She had it leftover from something else and didn't need it so she offered to get us some things on our "To Purchase" list.
* My children made figures for a new board game they received for Christmas with clay they also received for Christmas.
* We drove around our neighborhood after Christmas Eve worship and looked at Christmas lights. Minimal cost for a little bit of entertainment.
* I finished another present for my son - I had hoped to finish it for Christmas but now it will be either an Easter gift or a Birthday gift.
* My parents bought us groceries to replace some things they'd eaten while visiting - fruit, milk and a little meat and coffee. We were so blessed!
* Our children took the sleds that we already owned to a neighborhood sledding hill with some friends for an afternoon of fun after the little bit of snow we finally received. They had a blast and came home wanting hot chocolate!
* I spent $8 on after-Christmas sales to get two strands of 100-LED lights to replace to strands of broken non-LED lights that we were using inside the house for decorating. We should be set for a good long while now!
* I made a list of gifts we'd like to give in 2016 - almost all of them homemade. I will start working on these in January and continue working through the year so that we have all of them. We have almost everything we need to make all of these gifts so it means we will be able to bless many others while spending very little out of pocket.
* We received several seed and plan catalogs in the mail this week and I started dreaming about my garden this coming summer! It's been fun and in January we'll have to get serious about what we want if we want to take advantage of early bird deals.
I *think* that's about it. What have you been doing on the frugal font the last few weeks?
Is anyone else just complete befuddled as me as to where this last year went? I feel like I blinked and the year was over!
It's been a year of change at our house and a year of medical issues and several other things as well. The children are growing up, our parents and John's siblings are getting older, and I guess that means we're getting older too.
John and I have all sorts of plans for 2016 that I'll be sharing with you in a few days but for now, we're going to work on frugal things from the last couple of weeks:
* Ate most of the meals at home. My parents have treated us to a couple of meals out and we each had a free meal at work - me for a co-worker's retirement party and John for the annual holiday meal.
* We made all of the following things at home food-wise: French Bread, Lesfe, Swedish Meatballs and Mashed potatoes, cream of chicken wild rice soup, seafood chowder (this is my Dad's specialty!), and cookies.
* I sewed my daughter a "dance bag" - a fabric bag with straps and specialized holders inside for her tap and jazz shoes. I gave this to her for a Christmas present.
* My Mom used a $50 rebate card to buy us a set of medium mixing/serving bowls and some glass food storage containers. She had it leftover from something else and didn't need it so she offered to get us some things on our "To Purchase" list.
* My children made figures for a new board game they received for Christmas with clay they also received for Christmas.
* We drove around our neighborhood after Christmas Eve worship and looked at Christmas lights. Minimal cost for a little bit of entertainment.
* I finished another present for my son - I had hoped to finish it for Christmas but now it will be either an Easter gift or a Birthday gift.
* My parents bought us groceries to replace some things they'd eaten while visiting - fruit, milk and a little meat and coffee. We were so blessed!
* Our children took the sleds that we already owned to a neighborhood sledding hill with some friends for an afternoon of fun after the little bit of snow we finally received. They had a blast and came home wanting hot chocolate!
* I spent $8 on after-Christmas sales to get two strands of 100-LED lights to replace to strands of broken non-LED lights that we were using inside the house for decorating. We should be set for a good long while now!
* I made a list of gifts we'd like to give in 2016 - almost all of them homemade. I will start working on these in January and continue working through the year so that we have all of them. We have almost everything we need to make all of these gifts so it means we will be able to bless many others while spending very little out of pocket.
* We received several seed and plan catalogs in the mail this week and I started dreaming about my garden this coming summer! It's been fun and in January we'll have to get serious about what we want if we want to take advantage of early bird deals.
I *think* that's about it. What have you been doing on the frugal font the last few weeks?
