Frugal Friday - The Beginning of 2016!

We have the most wonderful bulletin boards at church!   Had to take a photo!
We're into the season of Epiphany.  The Christmas decorations re down (I do miss my twinkle lights!).   We are kicking off 2016 with a tightening of our belts and both a pantry challenge and a gift-making challenge.  Fortunately, we're light on birthdays at the beginning of 2016 so we're off to a good start!

I took this week off from work and spent quite a bit of time cleaning and resting and just enjoying a break.  Back to work in force next week with a series of meeting and prep for spring classes, though, so I'm very grateful for the break!
I'm so grateful that my treatments for my chronic shingles (or post-herpetic neuralgia or PHN) have been really helping and I have more energy than I have probably had for three or more years.  I do have to be careful - taking care to eat well, exercise regularly and get enough sleep (the last one is the most important!).   I overdid it a couple of days so I spent the others reading and napping and doing "light" things that I could do without much physical stress on my body.

So, here's the run-down of all the thing we've done this first week of 2016 in the "frugal" realm:

* I baked four loaves of French Bread, granola, and cinnamon roll ring (in place of a King Cake for Epiphany). We also made homemade pizza and breadsticks, homemade chicken noodle soup, homemade corn chowder, and garlic bread.

* I mended three pairs of pants for my son, a pair of pajama pants for my daughter, and a dress for myself. 

* I made two birthday gifts for my husband.

* I started three birthday gifts for a brother-in-law and two sister-in-laws.

* I completely cleaned out and reorganized my sewing/craft area.  It desperately needed it (it was basically an unusable space for quite a while) and now I have a nice work space and have a much better idea of what I have and what I need.  I made a list of partially done projects and things that I have all the materials to make.

* I washed my kitchen cabinets, my dining table and chairs, and our piano with Murphy's Oil Soap. 

* I scrubbed the all the hard-surface non-wood floors in our house. 

* I scrubbed my entire refrigerator.  I really need to do this more often!

* I cleaned out and inventoried both freezers and the pantry and put together a menu for the month of January using what we have in the house.  I do need to buy a few things and will try to stock up but I'm planning to keep within our pantry challenge budget this month for certain!

* My husband and I went through our goals for the year together.  We printed out some things to keep us on track with a couple of goals and we put a few things in place to make this work!

* We spent $12 and change on groceries this last week - apples, shortening, onions and eggs.  We have approximately $67 left for the month for groceries and toiletries to meet our $80 goal or $37 if I'm shooting for the $50 goal.

* I read a couple of books that we already owned. 

* We returned several books to the library and checked out several more.

* We watched several shows online for free. 

* My husband ordered several books online for his Ministry Collection.  He has a budget for books from his current Residency and will be reimbursed for all of them.  These books will a good foundation of his library when he has his first congregation.

What did you do this week? 

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