Frugal Friday! Week of February 17-23, 2019

Greetings Frugal Friends!

How was your week?  Mine was good--but ended very, very wet! We started the week with a few glorious days of sunshine, but starting Wednesday we had rain every single day!  And every single night as well!  Lots of area roads and such were flooding, and some school districts not too far away from us even closed school due to the back roads having problems with flooding and the buses could not get through!  Finally--yesterday and today--the sun shine has come out, and I am enjoying every moment of it, as later this week we are supposed to be headed into several days of rain in a row again!  So I will just enjoy the sunshine while I can!

On to frugal accomplishments!  The following is what I managed to write down on my list:

*I made soup with what we had in the fridge. Mondays are super busy days for me, so I have started the habit this school year of simply giving in and starting the week with soup.  That way I can put the ingredients in my Instant Pot (which I LOVE LOVE LOVE, by the way!) and turn it on.  We can then do whatever activities we need, and the IP turns itself on, comes to pressure and cooks, and turns itself off.  All without my having to stand over it, stir, or anything.  That said,  I do try and vary the variety of soup that I make each week.  This was a vegetable soup, and I added in some zucchini that I had in the fridge, some carrots, potatoes, onion, and garden tomatoes that I found in the freezer.  The tomatoes had been frozen chopped quickly with the peels still on them--which is fine, but can sometimes taste a little tough, so I solved that problem by a quick whiz in the blender before adding to the soup.  So you won't see chunks of tomatoes, but the red color is from them all blended up.  It tasted delicious, and I was glad to be able to use up one more thing from my freezer, even if it wasn't a big dent.  Little dents still add up!

*I was able to purchase a twin sheet set for just $3.05!  This was from Kohl's, and I had a $10 in Kohl's cash from last week.   I was determined that I wanted to use that Kohl's cash on something that we could really use--not just something that would be clutter but cheap!  So I looked EVERYWHERE.  I tried a black purse for me, as the straps on mine are breaking, but no luck.  They had black purses, but nothing that would be cheap enough for me to want to invest that much into it--even with the $10 coupon!  I looked next for some clothes for me on the clearance rack--specifically a top that would be long enough for me--no luck.  I looked NOT on the clearance racks, because I really could use more tops--still nothing.  My hubby and daughter were getting tired of following me around in the store, and we really did have more stops to make.  I looked at cloth napkins--nothing that I liked.  All dark or too expensive even with the $10 off.  I had finally decided to simply purchase more bathroom washcloths--not exactly something I NEEDED, but something that does wear out so can always use, when I passed an end cap of sheets on clearance and this little beauty jumped out at me!

My daughter uses a twin bed, and she thought it was lovely and so did I!  And since it was marked down to $13.00, my $10 Kohl's cash brought it down to a lovely $3.05 out the door, with a 15% discount taken off and then tax added on.  I was VERY happy!  And so was my daughter!

*I bought a book by a favorite author--Mark Patterson--at a used book store.  The title is "All In," and the description on the back sounds great!  I have a stack of his books waiting for me to read, so I probably won't get to this one for a while, but since I know I love his writing, I always keep an eye open for more of his writings whenever I visit this store.  And at $1.50 for a new-to-me hard cover book, I can support my reading habit! ;)

*I made some home made freezer jelly.  I normally make jam, as I love the bits of fruit in it and figure it is healthier for you than jelly.  But in this case, I found out at the last minute that I was completely and totally out of my home made jelly, which is kinda hard to then make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without.  My daughter cannot tolerate high fructose corn syrup, which is an ingredient in almost all commercial jams and jellies--and the ones that it is not an ingredient usually come with a pretty high price tag!  So I looked around in my freezer to see what I could find, and discovered this little beauty of apple juice concentrate.  I looked up a low sugar recipe for freezer jam, and later that evening had turned it into eight containers of apple jelly!  We will use these on sandwiches, as well as pancakes and waffles.  My daughter was delighted, and I was happy as well.  I did get the container of apple juice concentrate out of the freezer--but of course then replaced it with the eight containers of apple jelly!  I don't mind, however, because I am mainly trying to use up from the freezer things that are not being eaten or used.  We tend to just drink more water than anything these days, and do not drink as much juice as we used to.  So this apple juice will serve us better as jelly than as juice.

*I ordered my daughter the next math workbook on clearance!  This one I was THRILLED with!  Being homeschoolers, we kinda just keep marching onward with our curriculum usage, and whenever my daughter finishes one math book we start in on the next one.  Math happens to be a strong point for her, and she is already advanced beyond the typical grade level of math for her grade/age.  She LIKES math, so being told that she has finished her math work for the entire school year and now needs to wait until next Fall to receive her next math book would be looked at as a punishment, not as a reward!  SO.  I hadn't realized that she was SO close to finishing her current Geometry book.  But when she told me how close she was, I had a mild panic moment as I realized that I had the next teacher's book and DVD in the house--thanks to homeschooling older brother years ago--but I did NOT have a new student workbook in the house.  I looked them up online, and found that a new student workbook would be $43.  Ouch!  In June, I will have more dollars available for purchasing the next year's school curriculum, but I have already spent all of this year's curriculum dollars.  I normally try and keep at least one math book ahead and purchased and waiting for whenever my daughter is ready for it--but I obviously failed on that for THIS year!  I thought briefly of taking my son's old math workbook and a big eraser and cleaning it up a bit for my daughter to use--but then I discovered that I had already thrown away my son's workbook!  Sad sad!  There is eleven years in-between them, but I usually keep his workbooks until my daughter has gotten to that point.  Obviously I failed to do that in this instance!  I went back to the web page, and saw that on the side of the page there was a link to click for their "Clearance" books.  Just for kicks I clicked on it, never expecting that I would find ONLY ONE MATH WORKBOOK ON CLEARANCE, and I will give you ONE GUESS what level book it was!  YES!  It was an Algebra 2 workbook and test book--exactly the books I was needing!!!  I was delighted!  The company said that their clearance books might have a bent cover, or they might have been purchased and returned, but they guaranteed that all the pages inside the workbook would be clean and usable!  I was so excited that I could barely get it ordered!  But it is on it's way to us and should arrive tomorrow--just in the nick of time!  So now there will be no weeping and gnashing of teeth over my daughter finishing Geometry and not having the books to start her Algebra 2!  God does watch over us--and I thank Him for this blessing He poured out on us!

Well, that was my week!  What was your week like?  Did you have rain or snow?  What did you find to do to save money and bless your family?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of February 10-16, 2019

Hi Frugal Friends!

How was your week? Mine was good! We had a lot of rain, but we also had some days of sunshine which I enjoyed very much! If the weatherman is correct, we are heading into a solid week of more rain this week, so we need to enjoy those sunny days whenever we can!

On to my frugal week:

*We started our week with a trip to Kohl’s, specifically looking for clothes on clearance. With it being February, I knew that this is the time of year that the stores are clearancing out their warm winter clothes, and bringing in bikinis, even though it is still freezing cold outside! So I wanted to go and see if I could find anything either for my daughter—who is growing out of her clothes as she shoots up in height, or myself—who has shrunk out of my clothes as I have lost weight over the past
two years. We were not disappointed! It was a great time to shop, with lots of sweaters and such on the sales racks. I found three nice flannel shirts for my daughter for $7.20 each, normally $38.00, and then was most surprised to find her a pair of jean capris for $4.80, normally $30.00! Not sure why the capris were on the clearance rack, but they might have been left from last summer. Either way, we were sure happy to find them! I also found a pair of lighter color summer jeans for myself for $12.00, normally $30.00, and a short sleeve aqua colored top for me for $14.00, normally $50.00.  My clothes were not as inexpensive as I found for my daughter, but I did need them and both my hubby and my daughter insisted that I needed to get the top, as they both liked the way it looked on me. So it FELT like a splurge, but it is definitely helping to build up my summer clothes once more. I did have a 15% off coupon, which brought the price of the clothes down just a bit more, AND I was able to earn $10 in Kohl’s cash to spend next week, so that felt like an extra discount as well.

*I am continuing to try and use up things from my freezers. I had a large container of brown rice all
cooked up, so decided to attack that package this week. I considered using it in a stir fry, but finally decided I was really feeling more like Breakfast Rice Pudding instead! So that is what I did! 😋 My daughter and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe, which I will link to in just a bit.  First you put the cooked brown rice, chopped dates, and spices in your pan, along with your plant milk.

Then while it is starting to cook, I prepped the ingredients that get added in after the rice cooks. That would be the raisins, the chopped Granny Smith apple, and the chopped almonds for sprinkling on top.

After around 10 minutes or a bit longer, the rice has simmered long enough and has thickened. As you will see from the recipe, you are starting with rice that is already cooked, NOT with dry rice. It will look something like this:

And after you have it all piled in your bowl, with the raisins and chopped apples and almonds added, it looks like a breakfast fit for a King, like this: 

If you are interested in making yourself some Breakfast Rice Pudding, you can find the recipe here:

Brown Rice Breakfast Pudding

One change I make, is since I do not usually have cinnamon sticks in my kitchen, I simply put in 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon instead.

*For Valentine's Day, my sweet hubby gave me an azalea plant. Any plant with roots on it is frugal, because you can plant it outside--or inside, if it is a house plant--and enjoy it for years to come! 

I "had" planned on enjoying my new flower in the house for a bit, and then moving it to the garden.  However, my cat Pumpkin had thoughts of "SALAD!" when he discovered the azalea, so plans to plant it outside needed to happen immediately instead.  I placed cardboard around the base of the plant, which I brought home from the grocery store in the form of a box that I cut up, and then covered the cardboard with mulch. This will both keep the weeds down around the plant, as well as help keep the moisture in the ground so it can bloom and grow.

*Our occasional warm day has spurred me onto thinking about garden. I took some time to sort out all my leftover seed packets from previous years, and collected them all in one basket.  I have quite a few!  But most of them are quite old. . . I decided to test them, and planted some of them under my shop lights in my basement.  Since I expected their germination to be less than if they were fresh, I put quite a big pinch of seeds in each container.  Well, I am having wonderful results!  Now I will need to work on thinning the little seedlings!  I hate to throw them away, so will probably separate many of them and pot them up individually once they are large enough.

*I took my receipt back to Aldi's, when I realized at home that I had been charged for organic raspberries ($3.99!) when I had instead purchased the non-organic raspberries ($1.99).  We had already eaten the raspberries when I looked at my receipt and discovered the error.  I had picked up berries right literally above the signage for the $1.99 price, but I checked the packaging and no where did the package say "Organic" on it.  So I thought it was worth a try!  The clerk who helped me at the store when I took my receipt back was very kind, and immediately said they must have placed the organic raspberries in the wrong place on the shelf, and then the clerk refunded the entire amount of my two raspberry purchases.  I had expected to be charged for the regular raspberries, but instead I ended up being given them for free, so I was so appreciative!

Well, that was my week!  What did YOU do to save money and bless your family?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of February 3-9, 2019

Hello Frugal Friends!

How was your savings last week? I really felt like my frugalness went great last week—though truth is I am not positive if it was really unusual savings or just that I did a better job writing things down so it FEELS like I saved more. But that said, there were some opportunities that don’t come along every day by any means, so I am thinking that it really was simply a great week!

*I found two free books in the “free bin” at our used book store. O.k., so truth is that there are ALWAYS free books in the “free bin,” as some people who bring books to sell simply do not want to haul back home again any books that the store wasn’t interested in, but on THIS day I actually found two books that I was quite interested in, so that was a happy start to my week! One book was on getting to know your Bible better. It is written primarily for teens I believe, and has nice suggestions for games and other Bible activities. I thought I would glance through it and then pass it on to my daughter. The second book was one that I was THRILLED to find! It is kinda hard to explain, but is kind of a book of templates, different ideas and patterns for taking notes or reporting information or creating your own learning notebooks. It is marketed primarily for homeschoolers (that’s ME!), and I have actually been on the authors web site before, drooling over all of her books.  So I was thrilled to find one at the used book store at all, let alone in the free bin!  Anyway, I can put it to good use for sure

*My next frugal thing is more of a frugal attempt--or at least, preparing for a frugal attempt!  I have this scarf that I love, that came with this small fringe on it.  The only problem is that over time, my scarf is starting to lose threads as it literally unweave itself!  If you look close in this photo, you can see some of the bottom threads are loose! Anyway, so I asked on a sewing type of FB page that I follow, what people would suggest, and the overwhelming response was to try sewing a zig zag stitch near the ends of the scarf.  SO.  With that in mind, I bought some thread at JoAnn's with a coupon that is the correct blue to match the scarf.  I have not yet had time to try and actually do the zig zag stitch, but at least now I have all the supplies that I need. . . 

*The next thing I was REALLY excited about--I had a friend offer free raspberry plants from her garden!!!  I LOVE raspberries, and I also LOVE free, and I was thrilled that the day she offered I actually had some time that I could go to her house and dig up some of her plants that are taking over places in her garden where they do not belong!  AND on top of that, it was a warm, beautiful day, around 76 degrees!!!  NOT our typical February day, by any means!  So the warm weather spurred me on!  My daughter and I went over and dug up two boxes of prickery brambles.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I figured the very worst thing would be that they all died, and she would have to clear out these extra plants from her garden anyway, so I might as well try.  I watched a couple Youtube videos, and learned to prune them down just a bit. . .

Here are my two bowls of pruned down raspberries. . . 

My empty garden bed.  We have never had anything growing in this bed--my hubby just built it at the end of last summer, and covered it with plastic to keep weeds from thinking it was their bed. .  and there it has been sitting.

I first cut out the center plastic, and got those raspberry babies in the ground.  It is hard to see in the picture, but I have two rows of them right down the center.

Then this picture shows the end, where I pulled back the rest of the plastic, put down cardboard along the sides, watered the cardboard well and then covered the cardboard with mulch.  This should help keep down some of the weeds from taking over the raspberries.  Yes, the rest of the garden looks like it needs some attention.  That is because it does! But no time for that just now. . . as I can, I will try and help it out a bit.  Right now, however, our weather has turned back to it's cold normal,  so being outside is NOT an attractive activities for me currently. . . but the next warm day, maybe!

*I got so excited about working in the garden, that the next day I planted some kale and collard seeds in my basement, under my shop lights that I use as grow lights.  My seeds are a couple of years old, so I wasn't sure if they would come up or not--but my collards are already poking their happy little heads up!!!!

I have a second tray with some tomato seeds started.  These seeds are even older, so not sure if they will grow or not, but I figured it is free to try!  You can see here the plastic wrap that I put over the seeds, to keep them from drying out so much while I wait for the to sprout.  I even sing to my seeds every now and then, just to let them know that we love them.  I mean, YOU wouldn't grow in a house where you weren't loved, would you?  I insist that people only say nice, happy things around my plants. . . 

*Also last week, I was able to use a coupon at Bath and Body works and get a free bottle of body wash! :). It is a tiny bottle, but I am happy for it and it smells wonderful!  I feel like I am being pampered every time I use it! 

*Freezer challenge--I used some frozen soy beans in my freezer to make soy milk.  Yea!  One bag more used up!

*I made my own bread. It has been awhile since I did the math on how much a loaf of bread costs me, but I am pretty sure it only costs me about the same as purchasing one loaf of bread in the store, only when I make it I am getting four loaves!  Besides that, it tastes better!

*I ordered a free dress from LLBean!!!!  I am still waiting for this to come in the mail, but it should be here this week!  I am excited to have it for summer!  I had received a notice that they had some things on clearance, so I thought I would check their web site out.  I was expecting only winter things on clearance, but was pleasantly surprised when I found a nice knit summer dress!  It is short sleeve, and a nice blue print (I love blue!).  It was not as deeply discounted as some things were, but it was marked down to $37 from I believe $54.  I knew I had some LLBean "Bucks," as we have their credit card, but thought maybe I might have $20 or so on my account.  I called their customer service number to find out, and discovered that I actually had like $45 in Bean Bucks!!! So I had enough store credit from that to pay for the entire dress!  Yea for me!

*I did my own taxes!  I don't LIKE doing taxes, but I would not like even more having to pay someone to do our taxes for us!!!!  So I buckled down and tried to be a big girl and just got them done!  They are e-filed, and after having to fix them twice (am I the only one that ALWAYS has their taxes rejected first because I forgot to check or mark some little thing?) they were FINALLY accepted by the IRS so they are DONE DONE DONE for another year!!!!   Can you see me jumping up and down with joy???

SO--that was my busy week!  How was YOUR week?  What did you do to save money and bless your family?  I would love to hear from you!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of January 27-February 2, 2019

Hi Everyone!

How was your last week in January?  I hope it was a good one!  We have had weather that is crazy--first freezing cold and snow and schools and businesses closing (it doesn't take much here, as the roads are usually icy so it is not so much the snow amount that closes things) and now we are finally having weather in the 60's!  I suspect that we are not done with Winter here in Tennessee just yet--though I do have hope as my daffodils are coming up!  Though I am ignoring the fact that I have had daffodils blooming on Valentine's Day before, with several inches of snow on top of them! If my flowers are coming up, I figure Spring cannot be TOO far behind, right? :D

On with my frugal endeavors!  This week it feels like I didn't do very much--but I think I have done more things than I realize, and just did not get them written down on my list. I am trying to continue to clean out the freezer of foods that have kinda gotten forgotten in there.  I actually have two freezers I am working on--an old upright freezer in our shed, and then the little freezer on top of our fridge.  They both need help, but the upright freezer is the one that I must defrost this summer, so my goal is to get enough food eaten up that I can fit all that MUST remain in the freezer into the freezer on top of our fridge, giving me a chance to defrost the large freezer.  About half of the upright freezer is taken up with flour and nuts and grains, so fortunately those things do not HAVE to be kept cold.  So I will simply take those boxes and set them on my table while I am defrosting the freezer, but it will still be good to organize those items a bit better as well, so that I know what I have and can rotate around the things as I bring more home.  No picture taken, but what I know I used up from the freezer was a package of fresh (frozen) cranberries.  I used those up in what I call "Cranberry Salad."   O.K., o.k., so it REALLY is a cranberry relish recipe, but since we eat it (and LOVE IT) year round, I had to modify the name. It is so healthy and so yummy--especially if you like tart things like I do!  I used to eat sugary things like lemon drop candies--not any more!  Now I get my "sour fix" from foods like cranberries!  And it is made with just cranberries, oranges, and dates!  If you are interested in the recipe, you can find it here: 

Cranberry Relish

One hint on the recipe--if you are using small oranges, such as I get from Aldi's, use three instead of the two that the recipe calls for. 

I am also trying to use up forgotten items in my cupboards, not just in the freezer. So when I was hunting for someone to make for lunch last week, on one of our very cold days, I ran across this dried soup mix that I made at a Women's Ministry event at our church.  It was fun to make, and pretty to look at--but it has been sitting in my cupboard for some time and I decided it was TIME to use it up!  So I washed the beans real well, added some water and the seasoning packet, and into my Instant Pot it went!  

 I had to guess on how much time to cook it, but looked up how long each of the bean types takes to cook in the Instant pot and used the longest time.

 I also added in some chopped onion, potatoes, and when it finished cooking I stirred in a handful of fresh spinach.  It was delicious!  Why did I wait so long to make it???  Now I need to find the sheets we were given with the recipe amounts on it, because I would love to make up a couple jars of it and have them sitting in my cupboard.  And THIS time not wait so long to make them!

I also made up some cornbread to go with it.  Let's just say my family was quite happy with the cornbread!

I have this cast iron pan that we got when we visited the Lodge Cast Iron store here in Tennessee.  It was a "factory second," so was cheaper but it works just fine!  And it does make nice, crispy edge pieces. . . though I confess that I do not love washing all the little dividers!









Another thing that I worked on this week to help save money was taking in the green plaid skirt that we bought for my daughter last week.  We knew it was too big when we bought it, but she loved it so and it was cheap/free with our gift certificate. Well, so just getting it inexpensively was only half the job--I knew I still needed to do the adjustments needed.  This past week I took in the skirt at the waist band--then it took me several days before I pinned my daughter down and got her to actually stop running long enough to try the skirt with the adjusted waistband on.  The waistband fits great now--but I still need to do some tapering at the sides of the skirt, so it will not stick out up at her hips and make her look a shape that she is not.  So this is still a project in progress--but at least I made a start on it!

Finally, I found a pair of black dress pants for myself at a thrift store.  They were a smaller size than what is hanging in my closet--which is good, because the pants I have in my closet are too big for me.  I had a hard time a week ago coming up with something to wear that was not jeans--my go-to outfit when I am at home!  So I have jeans that fit well, but have not gotten any dress pants in my new size--and when I was taking my daughter to her music festival, and wanted to dress a little nicer, I suddenly realized this hole in my wardrobe!  But not currently working outside the home, I also did not want to put a lot of dollars into nice office-type clothing when I am only going to wear them several times a year.  Well, so I decided I really should start keeping my eyes open.  Friday I had some time to browse in a local thrift store, and ran across a brand new pair of pants in my new size.  I peaked at the price tag, and they were marked to $4.50!  Then the sales lady came up to me and said that they would be 30% less than the last marked price--so I HAD to go try them on!  They fit just fine, and are actually long enough for my longer legs, so yea for me!!  And when I was trying them on, I noticed they also still had the original price tag on them--$79.00!!!!  Gulp!  Um, sure!  I am happy to purchase these brand new dress pants for $3.20 out the door, but there is no way I would have been able to get them for the original price!  So a blessing from God, for sure!

Well, that was my week!  Now it's your turn!  Did you make some food at home?  Or find a special item you have been looking for?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan