Frugal, er, Saturday - Two weeks worth of "frugal"

Another beautiful sunrise!  We've been getting spoiled with these the last few weeks.  Sunsets too!  They've been such an encouragement to me!

The last two weeks have been busy and difficult here.  John ended up in the ER twice and my shingles are back in full force. I discovered that driving is a major stressor for the muscle knots that I develop (compounded by the shingles) and my right leg has been basically numb for the last week.  Since I have an 18-mile one-way by the shortest way commute to work, that's definitely not a good thing.  Stress levels go up, shingles come back. Anyone, want to invent a way to teleport?  I'd be all over that!

After more than a month of feeling back to normal this is really discouraging for me.  I'm trying to stay optimistic, but in the middle of terrible pain and the inability to do simple things like walk across the room without holding onto things, it's really difficult sometimes. 
I feel like we haven't been terribly frugal the last two weeks.  We spent the entire amount of "extra" money we had the last month on Power Ade -type drinks, medications, and the like.  I had planned on buying Buddy new school pants, since he's grown quite a bit, but that has to wait now.  Uff da.  We did do a few things.  Here's what we did:

* Ate almost all meals at home or took meals with us.  I ate one meal out with friends that I hadn't seen in almost 2 years and John ate one free meal at work.

* Cooked a turkey in the crockpot (it turned out delicious!) and froze the leftovers.

* Continued to eat down the freezers in anticipation of a big meat purchase later this spring.

* Made and froze waffles and scones for breakfasts later.

* Downloaded several free coloring pages from the internet.

* Checked out several books and audiobooks and a couple of movies from the library.

* Watched a few free shows on PBS.org and YouTube.

* Caught up the ironing.  YAY!

* Started making homemade Valentine's for the children to take to school for Valentine's Day.  We're making rock candy for my son to take and my daughter is making decorated sugar cookies.  No child in their class has allergies so we can make and bring our own candy/goodies.

* Mended two pairs of pants for my husband and shortened my daughter's dance costume.  The legs were way too long - something that's never happened for her before!

* We earned a collective $165 to pay toward our debt repayment these last two weeks.

I think that's it for us.  What did you do these last two weeks?

Popular posts from this blog

Frugal Friday - The End of 2016

Image
Another spectacular sunrise - we were so very spoiled by these this year!  I enjoyed every one of them! Nothing like completely forgetting I had a blog for month, right?  I didn't forget about everyone - I promise.   December ended up being ridiculously busy and very spare moment was spent with family and friends and on grading, as the term ended not that long ago.    My parents were visiting for 3 weeks (they returned home to sunny and slightly warmer Texas yesterday) and the children had their Sunday school program, their school Christmas program, and a school fun-day to end the term and John had 3 funerals and two graveside burials.  Then there's always the rush of Christmas and all the services that comes with being a Pastor's family.  I am very, very ready for a quiet start to the new year! I have some New Year's posts already planned and partially written, so look for those next week.  In the meantime, here are som...
Read more

Menu Plan Monday - Week of January 17, 2021

Image
Peas from my garden last summer.  We are cold and snowy with a lot of ice right now!  Not my favorite weather.  So, to cheer myself up I am starting to plan my garden for next summer!  I am hoping that I will be able to grow at least enough tomatoes and cutting flowers for both my parents (who are moving 1 1/2 blocks away from us in about 2 months - hurray!) and our house as well.   I am so grateful that we have 1/5 acre lot for our home that we can grow vegetables flowers and (currently) a single tree.  It makes me so happy and provides some very fresh produce for our family.  I love the physical act of gardening, both flowers and vegetables, and I love the taste of vegetables fresh from the garden.  A win-win in my book for sure! The name of the game this week is to eat up as much of the fresh stuff as we can so it's easy to move the refrigerator downstairs for our remodel.  They start knocking out walls and cutting holes in the outsid...
Read more

Menu Plan Monday and a Little Shopping

Image
Our CSA boxes have looked pretty much like this the last two weeks - though in varying amounts and this last week we got green onions too.  Here we have in the front row: Broccoli, raspberries, green & purple beans, and peas.  Back Row: Lettuce, cucumbers, cauliflower, a mutant cross between a zucchini and a patty pan squash, green and purple kohlrabi and a clove of garlic.  We'll see what we get this week!  I blanched and froze the peas since we have a ton of those and we can't seem to eat through them fast enough.  I have a whole head of cabbage leftover from a few weeks ago in the crisper drawer too.  Two weeks ago we got 5lbs of cherries - they're all gone now (I was hoping to freeze some) having been eaten by my parents and my children!  I can't eat cherries so I was okay with that! I went to the store this weekend with a gift card and spend $22 on milk, peaches, apples, carrots (those aren't ready yet in the garden) and some fr...
Read more