Frugal Friday! Week of August 19-25, 2018

Good Morning Everyone!

How has your week been?  In my neck of the woods, the weather this week has been glorious, finally dipping down into the mid to high 70’s during the day!  I love being able to turn off the air conditioning and get fresh air into the house! I am especially trying to enjoy it since the weather prediction is for it to get back up hot and humid again this weekend.


What frugal things have you been able to do this week to bless your family?  My favorite frugal find this week has been a free online class that I found available for the month of August on the subject of Prayer.  I have been going through this Prayer class this past week, and have been blessed by the thoughts and advice shared.  If you are interested in checking out this free online class, you can read more about it here:

Secrets of Prayer

With the nice weather, we have also been enjoying smoothies for several different days this week.  And since I make smoothies with only healthy ingredients, we even eat them for breakfast! This morning I was wanting to use up some of the things in my freezer, so I went in search of what could be made into a smoothie.  I had my base of frozen bananas—which I found this week at a 25% discount at our local grocery store, discounted because they were spotted and soft, but that is the perfect type for things such as smoothies and banana bread! I then found a freezer bag of frozen mango pieces.  I had found mangos on sale a while ago, and bought several boxes of them.  We ate many fresh, but finally they all started to ripen at once and I had more than I could eat without them spoiling first, so into the freezer they went.  Today, those mangos came out and went into my smoothie along with the frozen bananas.  They were yummy, and made for a wonderful and refreshing breakfast!

So there you have it—a couple of the things that I have been up to this week.  What ways have you found to bless your family?

~Susan

Free Prayer Secrets Class!

Hi Everyone!

Just popping in here for a minute to share with you a great FREE resource that I have just learned about--a free class on how to have a better, more Biblical Prayer Life.  This class is free for the month of August only, so if it is something that interests you do not wait too long to sign up for it.

It is a self paced class--you will be required to create a free account at Fast Missions, the ministry that created and is offering this class.  After your free account is created, you will be able to sign up for the "Prayer Secrets" class.  At that point, you will receive one e-mail a day, for seven days.  That is the entire length of the class--seven lessons long.  I signed up a few days ago, and this morning just completed day three and I can tell you that it has already been a blessing in my life!

I have already been using a Prayer Journal during my Quiet Time, and I have loved the organization that my Prayer Journal gives me--but this "Prayer Secrets" class is a nice compliment to what I have already been doing, helping me to be more specific in my prayer time.

SO--thinking that there may be others who may like this free class and be blessed as I am being, I thought I would share the link for the class here.  I do not benefit in ANY way from your using this link and signing up for the class.  Fast Missions does offer paid classes from time to time, and a paid membership on their site---but their basic membership is free and you will find a LOT of wonderful, Biblical resources there!  So here is the link to check out the "Prayer Secrets" class:

Prayer Secrets

And if you are interested in a blog series I wrote previously on my own Prayer Journal, and how I set it up and organize it, here is a link to the first post in that series:

How to Organize your Prayer Life Part 1

And if you are curious about Fast Missions, the ministry offering the "Prayer Secrets" class, you can read more about them here:

Fast Missions

Hope these links are a blessing to you!  Have a wonderful Wednesday!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of August 12-18, 2018

Good Morning Everyone!

Are you surprised that I am here?  After dropping off the face of the earth back in April?  Sorry about that--I have been very blessed to have a dear friend from long ago and far away move to our town in April.  It has been eighteen years since we lived in the same town, which was literally across the country from where I live now.  Sadly, my friend has since experienced a medical injury and is subsequently disabled, so when I disappeared from my little blog here it was because I was super busy helping her out a couple times a week.  But things have settled a bit more for her, so I thought I would pop on here real quick and share with you a Frugal Friday. :)

What I wanted to share with you today is a topic VERY popular this time of year, and that is the topic of school supplies!  The back to school sales on school supplies actually start the first week of July--crazy, I know!  By the time you get to the end of the summer, they are really winding down.  But there are still a few sales going on here and there, which was a good thing for me because I have been busy enough during the summer and really hadn't picked up any supplies yet. Being homeschoolers, it is true that we can skip purchasing many things such as lunch boxes, etc., but we DO still need some basic supplies.  I do try and keep a running stash of supplies stocked up at back to school time, so I don't have to pay full price for supplies when we run out of something during the middle of the school year.  Trust me--you will NOT find low prices on school supplies when you need more pencils or paper or such a couple months into the school year!

So--knowing we were running low on a few things, and armed with a $10 off of a $10 coupon for Staples that my mom gave me (THANKS MOM!!!!) I headed to Staples this week.  Most people do not think of an office supply store as a place to pick up inexpensive school supplies, but they really can be the best places, even if you do not have an awesome coupon from your mom!

I didn't get to Staples until Wednesday this week, and I wasn't surprised to find quite a few of their inexpensive school supplies were out of stock.  Things such as pencil cap erasers for .50 cents, etc.  If you are going after things that are the super cheap prices, I really do recommend you go shopping on Sunday or Monday, or the store will be out.  I knew this, but Wednesday is what worked with my schedule this week.  So I simply started going down my list of things that I would like, and when the store was out of something (as happened with the first three or four things I looked for) I just went on to the next thing.  Especially since my mom had given me her coupon--don't know why Staples didn't mail one to me, but my mom lives in a different state so maybe it was a regional coupon--I knew I WAS going to find $10 worth of school supplies in that store to buy!

The above picture shows what I ended up purchasing.  

5 packages of filler paper .50 cents each

5 notebooks .25 cents each 

4 packages index cards .50 cents each

1 package correction tape $4.49--this was my splurge, not on sale at all but I LOVE LOVE LOVE correction tape, this package will last me our entire school year, and besides that I did have mom's coupon. . . 

My goal had been to make my purchases add up to as close to $10 as possible, yet pay as little out of pocket as I could.  Using a coupon, I knew I would have to reach the $10 price and couldn't be even one penny under.  I think I did pretty good, as my total amount due came to .26 cents--2 cents of that was for tax. 

SO--this was my Frugal Find for this week--school supplies for our homeschool.  If I had not had a coupon from my mom, I would have skipped the correction tape since I still have a little bit left, and simply gotten the paper, notebooks, and index cards for around $5.50, which is still a very good price!

What deals did you find to bless your family with this week?  I would love for you to share! 

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Susan