This week I....
- Saved buttons off of clothes that I was cutting up for rag rugs.
- Used rags (made from worn out clothes and towels) instead of any paper towels.
- Took my kids to the library (we hadn't found time to go for quite a while previously so it was a treat!) and have enjoyed the gift of new books to read!
- Made Lemonade (from lemon juice and honey) and Iced Tea for beverages when I realized we had no "special drinks" when we had company over. We serve water often but I was trying to make this a special meal but we were nearly out of milk and had no juice. The other was a frugal alternative.
- The kids are using Mathbooks for school that my siblings and I used when we were kids (no purchasing necessary for us). For working their problems on we use scratch paper that we save from mail, events and so forth that have one clean side still. For writing their problems in they use notebooks or paper in 3 ring binders - all of that was given to us by a friend last summer when she was cleaning house. We have had to buy pencils. :-)
- We have worn lots of hand-me-downs such as this cute coat and hat that Megan is wearing at the park. Just because we spend extremely little on clothes doesn't mean we have to look frumpy.
- I had fun creating a little resurrection scene for decoration. I used natural items that cost me nothing.
- Mara and I gathered a bunch of pussy willows from the ditches near our place to use for decorations all over the house. They look lovely!
- I am making bread this morning (something we do every week) using whole wheat flour (that I grind myself from wheat we get very cheaply from a grain mill every year), tallow (I rendered it from stuff we got with our beef), honey (from our bees), squash (free from my parents garden) , Yeast (purchased inexpensively in bulk)Oatmeal (purchased in bulk) and Salt (purchased in bulk from Azure Standard). It is nutritious and inexpensive.
- We packed meals 2 times this week when we needed to be in town over a meal time.
- The girl (along with a friend) did some painting projects to make some things for our homeschool co-op using things that we already had on hand.
- I took my wedding/engagement ring into the jewelry store to have it checked and cleaned(a free service) and they discovered that one of my tiny diamonds was about to come out and that a prong on the biggest one was lose too. They fixed it for free as they had just worked on the ring less then a year ago and replaced the big diamond (I had lost it - an expensive experience) and the crown. I am glad I made it in to having it checked before losing something again. This is a reminder to you to get your rings checked regularly.
We did also have a very unfrugal outing....
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| Mara at work |
Mara got a job in February at an ice cream shop in town. She is planning on going on a mission trip to Honduras this summer and so she needed to raise some money. She has been making and selling bread, cleaning her dad's office and running her Etsy shop but she needed more money than that so she got a job. She is working 3 days a week and it has been an adjustment for all of us with her gone so much but it has been good for her. Anyway the kids really wanted to visit her at work so when I had a student reschedule for another day which left Wednesday afternoon with some free time we went in to see Mara and enjoy some icecream. She had recommended coming on Wednesday because the homemade waffle cones are 1/2 price and also we could trade in used books for icecream. They only ended up wanting a couple of our books and gave us $1 in trade in value (they also sell some books there). Even with the $1 off we still spent over $20 for icecream for 5 of us. It was a splurge but it was fun to do once.
What frugal activities have you done lately? Or do you want to share about an area you decided to splurge on?
2 comments:
My husband brought home about 5 pounds of broccoli (cut up) from his work. They had it left over from something and they couldn't use it so he could bring it home. This happens now and then with food they have leftover. I was trying to think how I could use that much broccoli. I decided to use about 3/4 of it making soup. I looked online for broccoli soup since I hadn't made it before. The recipe I chose used broccoli, onion, potato, salt and pepper, and chicken stock. The chicken stock was homemade from the chicken bones (so basically free) and to add to the liquid I used saved (and frozen) water from cooking potatoes (again basically free). So the soup only cost me the onion (cheap in a big bag), the potatoes (cheap as they are part of a big bag) and salt and pepper (again very cheap). It made a large amount of soup!
We went to a used book sale this morning and spent $5 for a big bag of books that we can really use. A lot of them were at the reading level of my daughter learning to read and we find it difficult to find decent books for her to read at her level. Our library mainly has a lot of ones we'd prefer not to use (sort of pop culture/cartoon character type books). So that was great. I also found a few workbooks I can use for homeschooling and some chapter books as well for my oldest that aren't at the library and also two books that are out of print and hard to find! We were excited.
That was nice that you were able to get all that leftover broccoli. Another idea if that happens again is just freezing it. It is easy to blanch (but in boiling water for like 3 minutes) and then drain and freeze and then you have it when you need it later.
That is exciting about your book find! I can relate to not so nice books at the library. There are quite a few good ones for the younger kids at our library (interspersed with a lot of not so nice ones) but once they hit the teen years the selection is pretty bad. It is always nice to find good ones to simply own.
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