Frugal Friday - The Beginning of May 2019

Our daughter made English Toffee one evening.  It turned out delicious!

May is always a busy time with getting the garden in and all the end-of-school-year activities, both for me and for the children.  We are looking forward to camping this summer and a few other "bucket list" items before the children start high school this fall.  I am a bit amazed that they are that old already (how did that happen?!).  I am so enjoying the people they are growing into!

Here are the frugal things we have done the beginning of May:

* Had preventative maintenance done on the air conditioning system before we needs it.  Discovered a major problem caused by rodents (ick!) and had it fixed. We have a maintenance plan so we only had to pay for parts out of pocket.  We pay a flat rate every month for our maintenance plan and it includes all visits, routine maintenance, filters, and a variety of other things.  We received a small discount on the parts because of this plan.  The preventative maintenance saved us hundreds of dollars in repairs that would have been needed if we had tried to run the system with the major problem.  The technician recommended cut up bars of Irish Spring soap to keep them away. We already had a bar in our toiletry closet.  The rodent problems were in the outside components of the system - we did not have rodents in the house. 

* We cleaned out, cleaned up, and donated a number of old toys that had been forgotten in a storage bin in the basement. 

* We used money we had previously set aside to purchase birthday gifts for our children.  Our son and daughter turned 14 years old recently.  They received several gifts related to their hobbies and a few handmade gifts from Grandpa (who loves to do wood working!).  We were able to keep the cost of their birthday quite low and make it very enjoyable, including cupcakes for their classmates at school.

* I realized that I already had purchased Mother's Day gifts for both my mother and mother-in-law back in March using a credit I had through Snapfish.  No need to purchase anything else!  I had completely forgotten I did this and now I can use the money I had budgeted for something else.

* I have been weeding the flower beds and vegetable plots in our yard, filling our curbside compost bin each week for the last two weeks.  I have made really good progress and was very surprised to find several volunteer strawberry plants growing in one of the flower beds.  I will transplant those to a new bed and make a strawberry patch! 

* I also discovered volunteer lettuce growing in one of the vegetable beds.   I will transplant it to a more suitable location in the bed once it is a little bigger!  I had let the lettuce go to seed last year in hopes this would happen! 

* John seeded more dirt patches in our yard.  The rain has been keeping it watered and we have a nice sheen of green on the ground there now - no "real' grass yet, but it's getting there!

* We made soup using the leftover ham bone from Easter.  We made 3 other kinds of soup as well.  We also made bread.

* John brought home frozen blueberries and cookies leftover from an event at church. 

* My parents are visiting and they brought us a couple of things they were not using including canning jars,  BBQ skewers, and outdoor plant hooks. 

* I took our son to Goodwill and purchased him a jacket and tie.  We also purchased a large wall calendar, four candles, and a 6ct Revere Ware kettle.  I paid a total of $9 for all of it. 

What did you do that was frugal?