Frugal Friday - November 2019

Our Thanksgiving Dinner this year. It was a quiet day and we were very grateful!
So much for posting regularly this past month!  It has been a rough month and free time was almost non-existent.  Anything that was not essential, was set off on the side to be picked up at a later date.  In that vein, here are the frugal highlights for the bulk of November 2019:

* We made bread, soups, muffins, stir fry, pizza and several other dishes at home.

* My husband brought home the leftover turkey and stuffing from the Thanksgiving meal at church this week - the turkey and stuffing would have been put in the trash if he had not brought it home.  We reheated the stuffing for our own meal and froze the turkey for later use.

* We bought a steeply discounted ham for our Thanksgiving dinner, since we had so much turkey from the meal at church.

* We received a free apple pie from a local business.  I made an apple crisp from apples we already owned.  These two were our desserts for Thanksgiving dinner. 

* We attended a free band concert and a free choir concert at our children's school.  We had a child participating in each. 

* Our children took an extra babysitting job for a family from their old school and earned some extra pocket money.  There are two children in this family with a wide age gap between them and our son plays with the older child while our daughter cares for the baby.  The older child is old enough to watch himself for a short time (Grandma and Grandpa live next door) but not old enough to watch the baby for any length of time.  This works out great for everyone!

* I sewed three Christmas gifts and started on another. 

* My husband was given three butternut squash and we have eaten them for dinner.

* My husband attended three church events and was fed one meal at each one.

* Our daughter and I attended a baby shower and we each brought home a candle as a game prize.

*  Our children made birthday cards for my Mother's birthday. I used a card I had purchased on sale a while back.  I had purchased a gift for her earlier this year and mailed the gift and cards in one small box to save a small amount on postage. 

* We used the library for books, video games, movies and audio books.  We drive by the library twice daily, so no extra gasoline involved in visiting the library often.

* My husband and our daughter hung the outdoor Christmas lights before the snow came.  We have lovely lights on the house to enjoy now!  I hung additional outdoor decorations we already owned.

* We decorated for Thanksgiving using items we already owned.

* I used a free printable to make "thankful leaves" - paper leaves that we wrote things/people/places we are thankful for onto and then placed in our table centerpiece for Thanksgiving dinner. 

I am sure there are other things we did too, but this is what I can remember now.  What did you do this month that was frugal?

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