Frugal Friday - The First Full Week of 2020

One of the quilt tops for the baby quilts I am making currently.

We are slowly working our way back into a typical routine at our house.  The children are back at school, John is fully back at work, and I had this week off before heading back into things next week.  It was lovely having a week to just relax and work on some things I have been wanting to work and slowly get myself back into a routine.

John and I sat down and reviewed the 2019 budget and put together the 2020 budget.  I knew we were going to need to tighten the budget to get through the plans we have for 2020, but I do not think either of us realized how tight things were going to be.  And it is all right - we have everything we need and much of what we want and only really need to purchase gas for the cars and a few groceries this month.  Going forward, we will not have to add much to that, so we should be good.

So, tightening the frugal belt and here we go in 2020! Here are the things we did this last week that we felt were frugal:

* We made taco soup, chicken pot pie, cornbread, pancakes, biscuits, sausage and potatoes, homemade pizza and a few other things at home for meals.

* I worked on the above baby quilt - a gift for a relative - and just need to finish binding the edges!  I used items we already had and only had to purchase a single skein of white yarn for tying the quilt.  Yarn was on sale this week, so I paid $1.50 for a skein of yarn that will work for many quilts.

* I spent a lot of time working on embroidery, also for gifts.

* We packed a "picnic" dinner to eat between play practice and music concerts using food we already had in the house.

* I mended a pair of pants with a fallen hem and two pair of underpants with loose elastic.  I did a simple darning repair on a single sock.

* Took down most of the Christmas decorations and packed them away for next year.   I left up the inside twinkle lights and kept out the Three Kings from the Nativity sets.  We are now in the church season of Epiphany, so I will leave those up until Ash Wednesday or until I tire of them (whichever is first!).

* John brought home leftovers from the funeral meal at church and he and I ate those for lunch for two days.  John is paid for funerals above his regular salary.  That money went toward refilling our emergency fund after we needed a large car repair in December. 

* Our children wore clothes they already owned for their music concerts on Thursday this past week.

* Our son and I inventoried the freezers and I put together a menu for the next few months using primarily what we have in the house.  We have two things we are quite short on, which I will pick up a couple at a time while doing our regular weekly shopping. 

* We did a $100 stock up at Sam's Club using money saved from our regular grocery budget.  We purchased flour, canned tomatoes, canned corn, canned tomato sauce, canned chicken, dates, toilet paper and flowers.

* I did a bunch of deep cleaning and cleaning out in our Master Bedroom this week. 

* We went to the library and returned several books and checked out a couple more.

* I hung Command Hooks that we already owned on the back wall of the shower to hold the bath "scrubbies" (bath poofs? - I'm not entirely sure what they are called).  They were forever falling off the shelf at the front of the shower and we were having to replace them too often because they never dried out.  Now they hang out of the way in a spot where they are not continually wet.  Hopefully, we will not have to replace them as often.

* I scrubbed the wooden furniture in the living room with Murphy's Oil Soap.

* I took picture hangers we had to hang two paintings and five other items on the wall of our bedroom.  I had used Command Hooks initially but the paint finish in that room is funny and they were not staying up well.  I had not been sure of the arrangement initially, which is why I used the Command Hooks.  The hangers are working much better!

What did you do this week that qualified as frugal?