Frugal Friday - The Beginning of July 2019

White Cosmos in our garden.

Summer is half over already - wow!  I have finished my summer term class and am enjoying some well-deserved time at home.  I have a few meetings and things that I need to be in at work for over the rest of summer but for the most part, I am off until the end of August!  It has been a year with a lot of mentally and physically taxing things going on and I am grateful for the break.

My garden is going well this year!  I have had continuous flowers and have been able to have a bouquet of flowers from my garden on my kitchen table every day since the middle of May!  This has long been a goal of mine and I am ecstatic to have reached it!  My garden is mostly perennials and a few flowers that reseed themselves each year, so very inexpensive and only requires time, mulch and maybe some water (depending on the weather) to maintain.  I typically buy a few annual starts but I can grow those from seed if needed in the future or do without if necessary. I am very happy to be at this point!

The vegetables are doing well too.  We have harvested radishes, rhubarb, lettuce and a few string beans.  The tomatoes are almost ripe and the cucumbers and squash are flowering.  My carrots are doing well for the first time in ages - I'm hoping for a good crop of those this year too!

Here are some of the other things that we did the last two weeks that may count as frugal:

* We made cookies, bars, stir fry, bar-b-qued chicken, two types of soup and many salads at home.

* I shortened the straps on a dress for our daughter so that it fits nicely now.

* My husband brought several whole plums and a large amount of sliced apples after a church event.

* I used the sliced apples to make my husband an apple pie - his favorite!

* We did a lot of yard work - mostly weeding - over the last two weeks.  The large amount of rain and temperatures reaching approximately 90F (32C) mean that the garden has grown like crazy and so have the weeds!  We had purchased mulch on sale and laid that as well.  Our next project is finishing the outdoor fire pit we started last summer.  We have also purchased the materials but need the weather to cooperate to finish the project.

* A local store is moving locations and had placed many of their items on clearance so they do not have to move them.  I purchased 3 Christmas presents on sale for very reasonable prices. 

* Our daughter and I went to see a movie together at the discount theater.  Our daughter loves movies but we rarely attend, so this was a treat.

* The children and I made homemade slime using materials leftover from an outreach project at work from several years ago.  My department was going to throw out the materials but I took them home just to see if they still worked.  It worked great and we shared the slime we made with friends on Independence Day.  It was a hit with the children!

* We decorated for Independence Day using items we already owned including several hand-held flags, table linens in red, white and blue, some decorations that the children made in school in past years, and red, white and blue flowers from the garden.

* We checked out several books, three video games and a video to watch from the Library.

* I dried several herbs for use later in the year and I dried chamomile and mint for herbal "tea".

* My Mother surprised me by sending me a new dress that she had made with fabric given to me by my sister-in-law.  We had originally intended it for our daughter but she did not care for the print.  My new dress is lovely and I wore it to church on Sunday with shoes and accessories I already owned.

* I made a bracelet for a friend's birthday gift using items I already had on hand. 

* We attended an Independence Day party at a friends house which included a cook-out and playing in their pool.  It was very relaxed and everyone enjoyed their time.  We took a salad made with items we already had on hand to contribute to the cook-out.  We did not attend a fire-works show, even though there were several local shows we could attend for free.  We both had to be at work early the next morning. 

* We received CSA boxes that contained asparagus, strawberries, kale, lettuce, garlic scapes, green onions, several herbs, turnips, beets, cabbage and broccoli.

What did you do this past week that was frugal?