Frugal Friday - The First Week of December 2019
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| A recent sunrise - with the day starting later, I am so grateful that we get to see the sunrise on a regular basis! |
We had a very busy week this past week - auditions for the spring musical at school for the Children, another school event, John has several parishioners on Hospice (end of life) care and two upcoming funerals. I am heading into final exams for the term, which always seems crazy busy. My Mother had two outpatient surgeries this past week and is doing well. Add in all the busyness of Advent and the upcoming Christmas holiday, and I feel like we never stop!
Here are some of the frugal things we did this past week in spite of the busyness:
* We cooked most meals at home including two types of soup, stir fry, and pizza. I ate one meal at work and so did John.
* I baked four loaves of bread for the week.
* We put out the Advent wreath and Nativities that we already owned. Nothing new has been purchased to decorate the house this year. We decorate the house slowly over the church season of Advent and then leave our decorations out until Epiphany (January 6).
* Our children draw names and purchase a gift for one each of their many cousins. We stuck with low end of the recommended dollar amount and were able to get some very nice gifts within that budget. Our children are pleased and believe their cousins will be too.
* We have been slowly cleaning and the house in preparation for Christmas guests. John took two more car loads of donations to the thrift store this week - one trip to the thrift store was a large piece of furniture that we do not have a use for any more. It is nice to have the space instead. The manager of the thrift store was thrilled to receive it, as someone had been in asking about something like that the day before - she called and they came to look right away and purchased our donation!
* I used email and the telephone (both land line and cellular) to keep in touch with my parents during my Mother's surgeries this week. They were outpatient - very routine - so she was sent home the same day with a follow-up appointment the next. She is doing well and should be fully recovered by Wednesday this next week. I am so grateful to be able to keep in touch daily, rather than relying on letters as in generations past.
* We took advantage of Cyber Monday sales to purchase a pair of needed boots for me and a new backpack for Buddy. Both were worn past repair and we were able to find an exceptional deal on the new ones that we preferred. This was a planned expense and we had money leftover from what we had budgeted.
* I continued to work on homemade Christmas gifts.
* I planned out our Christmas baking and cooking and I was delighted to realize that I only had a small number of things to buy - we already had everything else in the pantry! I purchased two of items using our grocery budget and will include the others over the next two weeks.
What did you do this week that was frugal?
