Frugal Friday! Week of November 15-21, 2020

 

Hello Frugal Friends!

How has everyone been?  I hope you are all staying well!  Sadly, the virus is booming all around us, and from what I hear this seems to be the same all around the country and indeed even the world.  Remember--especially with the holidays approaching when we often are eating special foods and lots of times those special foods tend to be high in sugar--this may not be the best time to compromise our immune systems with a lot of sugar.  No, I am not a medical professional, so I do encourage you to do your own consultation with your doctor and do your own personal research. But I do believe it is an established fact that sugar does hinder the work of the white blood cells. Anyway, enough on that topic!  I am not trying to make any one food out to be "evil" or "bad."  Just do your own research, an make the best choices for YOU personally. As the expression goes, there is a ditch on both sides of the road, so find the right balance for YOU. 

So on to last week's frugal things! 

*I ordered a gift for my parents from Shutterfly, using a free item coupon.  Yes, I did have to pay for the shipping costs, but for me, the postage cost is a very fair and reasonable cost for the gift.  Especially a gift that I know they will be delighted with. 

*I ordered a gift for my brother from Shutterfly, again, using a free item code and only had to pay shipping.  Since my brother lives across the country from me, I had Shutterfly ship the gift directly to him.  This avoids me having to pay double shipping--once for Shutterfly to ship to me, and a second time for me to mail it to my brother.  I knew around the holiday times Shutterfly would be releasing a lot of "free item" codes.  I have learned that the best thing to do for me is to have the item already made up and in my account there on Shutterfly.  Then, when a free code is given, I can simply put the item into my shopping cart and order it.  This helps a lot, as often the free codes are only released and good for maybe a weekend, or three days or such.  Well, our lives are quite busy, and we do not have time to drop all other responsibilities and sit down for a day or two and create our gift item from scratch.  But if we can have the item all made up and ready to go, that works perfect for us! 

*My daughter and I went to the dentist for our check-ups.  With our insurance, we have a zero co-pay for preventative visits.  Regular check ups are definitely frugal in my thinking, even if we had to pay the entire bill, as it will help prevent problems or can catch small problems before they become larger and more involved to fix. Those larger fixings also come with larger bills for the longer time that it takes to do the work!  So I was thrilled we could both go, thrilled we had no co-pay, and VERY thrilled that neither one of us had any cavities or work that needed done! :)  On top of that, it was nice to each get a little "goodie bag" with a new toothbrush, and a sample toothpaste and floss.

*Speaking of toothpaste and floss samples--this is going to sound crazy, but I have been working specifically on USING all my  samples up lately.  For a long time, whenever I went to the dentist, or any of my family members would go, I would save the small size samples for traveling. Well, that was a great concept, but I realized a bit ago that I never TAKE the small samples with me when I am traveling!  Why?  Because I don't want to run out! I finally realized that I would rather pack a large container of toothpaste, and know that I have enough with me for my trip and I am not going to have to run to the grocery store to buy some when I am on vacation!  Of course, I realize this does not work for air travel, but I am rarely flying anywhere these days, and far more often am making a car trip.  So, I have specifically been working on using up all of my nice stash of samples.  Fringe benefit is it is also decluttering my bathroom drawers!

*I discovered the most hilarious cat channel on YouTube, and shared it with my daughter.  Not only did watching the videos provide us with free entertainment, but it also provided us with some great ideas that we want to build and try with our rescue cat Sir Bentley. So far, we made a cat treat dispenser out of recycled cardboard.  In our test run, Sir Bentley actually figured it out!  The design we built requires Sir Bentley to turn the dispenser with his paw, turning it around until a treat runs across one of three small holes and falls out of the container.  My video was not from the best angle, but I did catch a snippet of him playing with it!  We hope to build many more fun activities for keeping his very active brain engaged! 

*I continued to help my daughter spread awareness of the plight of our area food bank. She has received such wonderful responses, and many people have generously supported her fund raising efforts!  Many people sponsoring are even complete strangers to her, which is extra precious!  She realizes that times are extra hard right now for so many people, and that some people would love to help out but are not in a position to do so--therefore she is really appreciating every single person who shares her fundraising video, or is praying for the success of the children as they do their best to help raise funds for the food bank. If you would like to help her out with her project, even simply sharing her video on social media helps SO very much!  She has had 98 shares of her video, last time I checked! You can watch her explain about her project here:

And share her fundraising page with others here:

Strings Students Fill Needy Food Pantry

So far, many people have sponsored her on her GoFundMe page, and she has reached $900 of her personal goal of $1,000!  This is beyond what I ever thought she would be able to raise, especially with times being as hard as they are for so many people (the exact reason that the food bank IS in need--so many more people than regular are hurting and are coming to them for help!).  But when my daughter was choosing what she wanted to set as her goal, I told her that no one should criticize a teen who tried to raise a lot to help other people, and fell short, so to go ahead and set her goal what she wanted to in her heart.  It had been over a week since she had received any additional donations--and then last night she had two more people donate!  THAT was a wonderful surprise this morning!  She has also had several people donate with cash or checks, so if I have my numbers correct, she believes she is only $29 away from reaching her personal goal!!!  If there is anyone reading this who would like to help a teen raise much needed funds for our area food bank, she would be delighted to have you sponsor her!

*We took a quick day-trip to our son's apartment to pick up a bunk bed set that we are going to store for him.  Our son lives about a four hour drive away (and another four hours back), so normally we don't do a day trip when we go see him.  But he married his sweetheart this past August, and before he was married, he had simply been using the bunk bed set that we had bought him when he was a child. When he was engaged, I told him that if they wanted to buy themselves a queen size bed, we would be willing to store the bunk bed set for them in our basement.  I do not need it at all, but our son is in graduate school right now, so where they are living now will not be a long term place--just kinda long right now as he has several years more of studies.  But some day, they will most likely move to at least a two bedroom place, and it will be nice for them to have the two twin beds as extra beds, either for company or for possible future children.  Since we had just bought him two brand new twin mattresses for the beds last year, we wanted to offer to store the beds for them if they wanted to keep them (they did!) but just didn't have a place to store them right now (they don't!). My hubby and I took all our own food and snacks for the trip with us, saving both dollars as well as time stopping to get something. 

Well, that about sums up my week! We were busy--which is good, as it helps keep mental health well when you feel like you have a reason to get out of bed in the morning!  What was your week like?  What did you do to save money and bless your family?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of November 8-14, 2020

 

Good Morning Everyone!

How was your week?  Mine was actually slower than it usually is, as our daughter came down sick so that caused us to cancel several appointments and plans that we had for the weekend.  So that was sad, of course, but the GOOD news is she only was sick with a cold, and it wasn't even a severe cold either, so in this time of COVID that is a HUGE thing to be happy about!  

So, due to her cold, I stayed home with her more than I normally do, so on the one hand it doesn't feel like I had very much savings or frugal finds this past week--on the other hand, staying home can be a great way to save money!  As long as one isn't shopping on-line the whole time, of course!  

I did manage to do a few things, however, so I am thankful for that.

*I made a clothing purchase at Eddie Bauer for our daughter, for an item which is going to be a part of her Christmas present. I would love to say what it is, but just in case she reads my blog post I better not!  Normally I would not say that shopping at Eddie Bauer is frugal in any way, but I have learned that if one watches for sales, it can really bring the prices down to reasonable, and sometimes you can stack other coupons or savings on top of that!  The item I purchased was normally $99.  The company had put it on part of their 50% off sale for Veterans Day.  Last week I had been inside the retail store, and had seen that they are having a winter coat drive, where they are collecting new or gently used coats for charity, and for each coat that you bring in they will give you $10 off of an outerwear purchase there in the store.  Well, I had had my eye on the item I wanted for our daughter for some time, but was waiting because it was just too expensive for my budget.  But when I saw online about the 50% off sale, I called our store and asked if I brought in and donated a coat, would that work on top of their sale price. I also asked about another deal they are doing, where if I reserve an item online and then pick it up in the actual store, they have been taking an extra $5.00 off of the item.  The manager at my local store said that she would make it work--so those two things would give me an additional $15 off of my 50% off sale price!  So--in the end, I was able to purchase an item that was originally $99, for $35!  I felt that was a great deal, and I already know it is a good quality item and should last my daughter for a long time. 

*We Zoomed our daughter's violin lesson.  The day of her lesson is the day she woke up with a sore throat--but she still felt well enough to HAVE a lesson, just didn't want to spread germs around to her teacher.  And of course, while we "thought" it was only a cold, with all that is going on in the world one never truly knows unless time passes.  And her teacher doesn't need to be passed cold germs either!  So my daughter begged me to text her teacher, and ask if we could switch last minute to a Zoom appointment that day at her regular lesson time, instead of us coming in for our lesson.  Happily, her teacher saw our text in spite of already being in the midst of her busy teaching schedule for the day, and texted back that she would set up a Zoom appointment for us.  So happily, even though she had a sore throat, my daughter didn't miss her lesson time after all. :)

*We had some wonderful feedback from readers on my daughter's fundraising project!  I appreciate everyone who commented so very much! In case you missed reading last week and are wondering what this is all about, my daughter is participating in a fundraiser for our local food bank.  The Samaritan Center, which operates the food bank, is the second largest food bank in our county.  They have recently had a 60% increase in families and individuals coming to the food bank and asking for help—while at the same time, they have had a sharp decrease in donations to the food bank, primarily because many area churches that normally this time of year are having special services and collecting large amounts of food to donate are not able to have their regular services with the virus mess going on.  So the need is up and the supply is way down.  My teen daughter’s violin teacher organizes a play-a-thon every year, with the proceeds raised going to different needs, such as hurricane relief, rebuilding after the California fires, help with tornado relief, etc.  This year, the teacher has chosen The Samaritan Center food bank as the recipient of the children’s play-a-thon.  We homeschool our teen daughter, and as part of her homeschool I gave her the assignment to create a video and a GoFundMe page, both describing the project they were going to be doing.  Last week I asked any readers who would like to help us out to please view her video, and read the description she wrote up on her GoFundMe page, and to give me some feedback, as it is very difficult sometimes to “grade” your own child!  It can be so easy to just feel like your child deserves an “A” on their project!  Anyway, so several readers very graciously helped us out and did watch Alison’s video, which I appreciate so much!  And next year when they have another play-a-thon for whatever project is chosen, she is definitely going to be incorporating your suggestions!  If anyone else would like to help critique, more feedback would be wonderful!  You can view her short four minute video here: 

And you can view her GoFundMe page here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/strings-students-fill-needy-food-pantry

Oh! One very fun thing that happened for Alison this week is a sweet reader from England watched her video and left her a comment!  And she even made a donation to the food bank!  That was SO very sweet, and really made Alison’s work feel well rewarded!  She was just thrilled to know that her video had reached someone so far away from where she lives, AND she felt so supported from someone that was a total stranger to her! 

*I made $27 from selling some clothes that no longer fit me at a local consignment shop.  :)  I was thrilled!  I had marked for the store to simply donate to a local charity any of my clothes that did not sell, and I honestly kinda forgot all about it, because I knew with the virus going on not that many people are out shopping for clothes, so didn’t have all that much confidence that the things I brought in would be purchased.  But the items no longer fit me at all anyway (I have lost 55 pounds), so I needed to move the things out of my closet to make space for the clothes I have found in my new size.  I am sure that many of the clothes I brought in probably did not sell and ended up being donated, but that is fine with me.  Anything that I can get does help greatly since I have had to replace literally every single clothing item that I owned except for socks and shoes—they still fit.  But I am also happy to move the too large sizes on so they can bless someone else who needs them. So I figure it is win-win, whether an item sells, or whether it is donated to charity!

Well, those are the things that I can think of from this past week.  How was your week, and what did you find to do to bless your family or those you cross paths with? I love to read what you share!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of November 1-7, 2020

Hi Frugal Friends!

I hope your Fall is beautiful, where ever you live!  We have really been enjoying our beautiful weather, and trying to get outside more to enjoy it and exercise!  

I am purposefully trying to spend more time with our daughter--she is growing up so fast!  Only a couple more years and she will be on to college, so she has become my hiking buddy!

I jotted down several of the frugal things I did during the week.  I know I missed many--sometimes you just are busy living your life, and not spending all your time writing down what you are doing!  But it does help me to look at my list and realize that I really DID do a lot, so there is a reason I may be feeling tired!  ;)  I also always learn so many new ideas from reading what others are up to, so I try and remember to write down my activities in case something blesses someone!

So with that, here is my list of what I wrote down:

 *I picked a huge handful of green onions from my garden. These were onions that originally came from the grocery store, and I had cut off and stuck in a garden bed, so they felt like free onions to me since I had already eaten the original onion purchase and these regrew from the roots. 

*I made four loaves of homemade Oatmeal bread.

*I made a double batch of granola.

*I ordered some white sandals on clearance from Lands End, using a $20 certificate that I had on top of the clearance price. I also received free shipping. In the end, I will be receiving a $50 pair of sandals for just under $10. 

*I won a blog giveaway. It was for some lovely things, including lavender soap, dried lavender petals, and some lavender essential oil, among some other special things.  

*We hiked trails near our home—free exercise! My daughter and I grabbed some of her school books and took them with us on a trail that is near our house.  We knew there was one picnic table along this trail, and just as I thought, it was completely free and clear and available for us to sit and work on her school work for a while.  Plenty of fresh air, and definitely socially distancing as we didn't see a single other person on our hike!

*I decorated our house for Fall using what we already had.

*We took a weekend trip to the Smokies!  This may not SEEM very frugal, but we stayed in a tiny adorable cabin, and I brought all our own food.  In these cabins, you also bring your own bedding and towels and such.  We have gone to this campground numerous times, and loved it every single time.  It is owned and operated by a sweet mom and pop that just make us feel like we are family when we stay there, and that is hard to put a price on! Besides, a weekend away was definitely frugal from a mental health standpoint--I needed it really badly, and my hubby thanked me several times for spearheading this trip so I know he needed it as well!

This is the inside of the cabin, just standing in the doorway.  The ladder leads to a sleeping loft our daughter used.  There is a mattress on the floor up there, and the ceiling is too low to stand up so you have to crawl around. We had a little two burner stove in the kitchen, and a toaster oven, microwave, and small fridge.  In the right hand back corner is the bathroom.

This is the view from standing just in the kitchen area.  My hubby and I had a double bed, and in the right hand corner of the picture you can see the built in table.

This is the type of views OUTSIDE the cabin--just a few hundred yards away from our campground is "The Great Smoky Mountain National Park." We got in as many hikes during our weekend there as we could!  One on Friday, three on Saturday, and one Sunday morning after we checked out of our cabin and were heading back home--we couldn't resist swinging back into the park one more time!

Since we homeschool, the great outdoors is one of our classrooms!  Here my daughter is drawing in her nature journal, by the side of a stream.  When I was a teacher in a classroom, I would have LOVED to be able to bring my whole class to a place like this to hike and draw!  While I couldn't then, I CAN bring my "whole class" now--since my entire class consists of one teenage girl!

On one of our hikes, we hiked to a one room school house that is still standing in the park!

You are able to enter this school house still, and walk around.  It is still filled with the old benches the children used years ago.

Now that I think about it, it might just be kinda funny that I homeschool our daughter so on some of her field trips I have to take her and show her what a "real" school looks like! ;)  We had a lovely, lovely time!

*I helped our daughter create a fundraising video.  I know, this doesn't sound very frugal like either, but to me it is, since I assigned the project to her as part of her school work and I am trying to have as many "hands on" and "real life" types of projects for her as possible.  Her violin teacher is holding a play-a-thon to benefit our local food bank.  This food bank is the second largest in our county, and they have had an increase by 60% of families asking for help.  At the same time as the need has increased, due to COVID, donations are down.  Both many people are suffering job-wise, as well as many churches that normally are collecting for the food bank are still not able to have their regular services--therefore the collections of food are not happening like normal.  My daughter will be playing in the play-a-thon, but of course just playing does not bring in any help for the food bank.  She needs sponsors for that.  So in an attempt to help her reach more sponsors and at the same time, teach her some more practical skills in communication, I gave her two assignments for school:

 "GoFundMe" page-- Strings Students Fill Needy Food Pantry

1) Create a "GoFundMe" page, so people that might wish to sponsor you can more easily do so, and 

2) Film and publish a YouTube video communicating clearly what your project is about.  I think she did a great job--but of course I am biased!  So if you wouldn't mind, I would REALLY appreciate it if you would take a look at both her projects and tell me what you think--does she clearly present what their mission is?  When you read the description of the project on the "GoFundMe" page, does her written description answer any questions that a person might have?  Is her YouTube video also presenting the information clearly?  Does she look at the camera enough, is she speaking clearly, is there any other information that you think she should have added in?  Her "GoFundMe" page can be tweaked a bit still, if there is something important left out, and her YouTube video could still have things added in the description box.

WELL, that was our week! We were all pretty busy--no laying around and twiddling our thumbs!  But it is a blessing to be busy, and I appreciate it even more after the lockdowns in the Spring!  What was your week like?  What did you do to save money and bless your family this week? I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of September 20-26, 2020

 Hi Everyone!

How was your past week?  I hope it was a good one! We were busy, as always--but it was still filled with many blessings and I actually remembered to jot down at least a few of the frugal things that I found to do!

* I found a missing key!  This was huge for me, as this particular key has been missing for a long time, and I had FINALLY researched and discovered that a new key "could" be ordered--but the price tag for a replacement key was around $40! :O Way more than I had expected, and REALLY way more than I wanted to pay!  I had looked everywhere I could think of for the missing key, and finally gave up.  When I found the missing key, I wasn't even looking for it--I was cleaning out all the drawers in my dresser, as about three years ago I lost a significant amount of weight and I still had pajamas, exercise clothes, etc. in my dresser that I knew were way big on me now.  So I finally got around to decluttering my dresser drawers, and there it was!  Praise God!  And ESPECIALLY praise God that I found it before I had broke down and purchased a replacement key!!!  

*My cleaning out my dresser inspired my hubby to do the same with his.  And he found his missing SS card!  He had been positive that it was permanently lost, and was getting ready to replace it.  So now his "found" card is in a safe place where it should be, and not in his dresser, AND he saved at least several hours of time by NOT having to go to our SS office and wait hours to get a replacement card! 

*Also related to decluttering, I finally got around to finishing the decluttering in my clothes closet.  All summer long I was thinking that I needed to purchase a pair of dark jean shorts, again, because I have lost quite a bit of weight and I thought I hadn't yet purchased a dark pair in my new size.  Well, cleaning out my closet I actually discovered that I already HAVE a dark pair in my new size!  :O Here all summer long I passed that pair by, thinking they were the larger size that no longer fits.  Opps!  Well, I guess all is well, as I didn't go naked this summer (good thing!), and I also did not purchase another pair of dark shorts--so at least I discovered before I "replaced" the shorts that I have already replaced!  And now I KNOW that all the clothes in my closet and dresser all fit me!  Decluttering may not always make money, but it sure can save money! 

*I signed my daughter up for an online science festival.  Normally this science festival is held at a "sister college" to the college my hubby works at, and is around a twelve hour drive away from us. Well, due to the virus, this year the college decided to hold their science festival online instead of inviting high school students to come stay on their campus. Of course in person would be much, much better, but I might as well enjoy the "silver lining" of the virus!  We would not have been able to make the trip to the other college for our daughter to participate, and even if we HAD, it would have cost us a lot of $ in gas.  With it moving online, she is able to participate via Zoom calls with her fellow teammates, and the registration fee charged by the college was only $10!  She is having a blast completing the projects and assignments the college is giving the students, and is also meeting a couple other homeschoolers that also love science and math! This science festival went on all last week, and continues on into next week as well so the fun is not over yet! 

*I made "apple juice" by using the apple peels from making dried apples.  I just covered the peels in a large sauce pan with some water, and let it simmer away until the peels were all cooked down.  Then I strained the peels out and they went on our compost pile.  The "juice" I created, I used to cook our steel cut oats for breakfast.  It was yummy and added some great apple flavor, and I also chopped a fresh apple on top and added a sprinkle of cinnamon.  Yummy!  Normally, I leave the peels on apples as I use them various ways.  But I have learned that for me, anyway, I do not enjoy the peels when they are left on dried apples.  They just seem to be too hard for me.  But in everything else--apple pie, apple crisp, apples cut up on top of cereal or pancakes or waffles or just fresh eating, I leave the peels on.  Anyway, I am happy to get at least one more use out of the peels before they end up in the compost pile! 

*I am attempting to root some fresh mint that I bought from the grocery store.  I had a salad recipe that called for fresh mint, and under normal circumstances I would just leave it out if I didn't have any.  But I have made this salad before, and really love the mint flavor in it.  So I did not want to leave it out.  Well, I looked at my  mint plant which I have in a container outside, and it only had one sprig.  If I had cut it for the recipe, not only would I not have had enough, but I am quite certain I would have killed the plant as well.  So I decided that if I was going to have to purchase fresh mint, I was at least going to try and root some of the cuttings that I purchased!  So when I was choosing the package at the store, I purposely looked for a package that had many stems of mint in it, passing over several that simply had two very large stems of mint in the package.  I didn't know if it would work or not, but figured it couldn't hurt to try.  I placed the mint in some water and placed it on my kitchen window ledge.  It took a day, but the mint has definitely perked up quite a bit over what it was when I took it out of the package from the store.  So I think there is hope!  We will see if I get any roots growing in a few more days!

Well, that is all that I wrote down this week. How was your week?  What did you do to save and bless your family?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of September 13-19, 2020

 Hi Everyone!

How was your week?  We have FINALLY been getting just a tad feeling of FALL weather around my neck of the woods, which I have been loving!  We are trying to get outside hiking as a family more, and I have set a goal of one family hike a week.  Of course more would be better, but I wanted to start with a small goal so I would be able to keep at it!  

So, this past week for our family hike, we met up with my sister and brother in law at Resaca Battlefield.  This is about 45 minutes away from our house, and about 15 minutes from my sister's.  There are two trails there.  We hiked one of them, which took us about 50 minutes or so.  It was an absolutely lovely location, and we were there fairly early in the morning so it was very quiet and peaceful.

So sad to think of a battle happening here.  All the families that were torn apart.  Scattered around every now and then we saw a metal cutout of a soldier out in the field, reminding us of the reason this land was set aside. Anyway, there was no fee to enter the park, so it was a great frugal activity--socializing, exercise, fresh air--and no need for masking! 

My next frugal activity involved an assignment my dog gave me.  Petco had sent me a "Happy Birthday to your dog" coupon for one free pound of dog biscuits from their treat bar, and my dog told me that I really needed to go redeem that coupon. I have never purchased anything before from the Petco treat bar, which basically was kinda like a people salad bar, only many different types of dog biscuits instead.  This was probably the reason Petco sent me the coupon--to GET me to purchase treats from their treat bar!  Their price was $5.99 a pound.  I made sure I put my bag on the scale and filled it with not less but not one biscuit more than my allotted one free pound!  So free biscuits are definitely frugal! 

I have an ongoing book list of books that I want to read.  These are not necessarily books that I want to PURCHASE mind you, but ones that I am interested in reading.  I often check with my library to see if I can borrow books.  And I also check at a used book store to see if I can pick up books I am wanting there.  Well, I was taking some books that I was done with to the used book store to try and sell, so while I was waiting for them to go through and see if they wanted any of them of course I looked around and I was delighted to find one of the books on my list for only $2.00--yay!  And even better was that I was able to purchase it using my store credit so in the end, it felt free.  I get to read a book I was interested in without any money out, plus got a bit decluttered from getting other things I was done with out of my house. 

So that was my week--with a lot of other cooking, cleaning, and homeschooling interspersed!

What did you did to save money and bless your family this past week?  I love to hear what others are up to and I always get new ideas!

Have a wonderful week!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of September 6-12, 2020

Hello Frugal Friends!

Wow!  So much time has passed!  So many things have happened--to all of us!  Virus, lockdowns, shortages, and now fires are out of control in so many many places!  It makes one afraid to wonder what may come next--except for the fact that as the expression goes, we may not know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future.  

Mixed in with all these other things we have had some very very good things happen--our son married his sweetheart last month! We are delighted for both of them, and see clearly how God has brought them together.  We have had some very very sad things happen--my brother in law passed away very unexpectedly from a brief illness (not COVID), about three weeks total length.  He was only 52, and leaves a beautiful wife, and three children ages 14, 17, and 20.  My heart just breaks for them. We do not know why God did not choose to answer our prayers the way that we wanted in that situation.  We do know that God answered our prayers, but the answer for healing was a "Not yet" for right now. The Bible does promise that the dead in Christ WILL live again, and we hold to that promise. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

Mixed in with everything, each day comes and goes. Meals need to be cooked.  Clothes washed.  Daily routines that make up our lives. I pray that you are finding some ways to keep stability going for the children in your life.  Things may change--things DO change--but our love for each other and the love of our Creator for us never changes.

Among the changes in our lives with our son marrying was the realization that he is now "completely" fledged--even though he has been moved out for a couple years, as he has been attending graduate school.  At the same time, while moved out, it wasn't the same level of "moved out" as it is when one is married and starting their own home.  So I took a good look around his childhood bedroom--mostly already empty of his things, and analyzed how this room could function best for all of us that still live full time in this home.  

As I thought about it, I realized that this room has two functions now.  First of all, we use it as our "Music Room."  Our daughter plays the folk harp, and while the harp she is borrowing from a friend is a very small one, her bedroom is an EXTRA very small bedroom, therefore there really is no room for the harp in my daughter's bedroom.  So the harp "lives" in our son's bedroom.  Our daughter is also teaching me violin, as well as my husband, and I keep my violin parked in this room.  My daughter also keeps her violin and her viola in this room, and then there are two mountain dulcimers. . . . This is not ALL the instruments in the house, mind you!  There is my hubby's violin, and the hammer dulcimer, and the electronic piano, all of which are out in the living room.  But still, there are quite a bit of music instruments that live in this room now,  and I use this bedroom for my practice room while my daughter is doing her practice at the same time out in the living room.  Second of all, we do still need this room as our guest room, and we actually have guests for sometimes a week at a time--my parents as they snowbird back and forth from Michigan to Florida, our son and his wife, and sometimes various Aunts, Uncles, cousins, sisters, brother--you get the idea.  This room is still definitely going to need it's bed to stay in it!  HOWEVER, that being said, I realized there are far more days that this room is functioning as our "Music Room" than it is functioning as our "Guest Room." Therefore, I decided to look around and see if I could rearrange things to function a bit better along the lines of the "Music Room" part of the job.  

I was talking with my daughter about this, and showing her some artwork that I found online that I thought was cute and would go well in a "Music Room," when my daughter told me that she would REALLY like to have a chalk board in that room.  She wants this to be able to write down the assignments for my hubby and myself, when she gives us music lessons.  Yes, I DO have a "assignment book."  The only problem is sometimes she forgets to write in that assignment book.  Or I forget to look in it.  Or it gets put somewhere else.  Or--it just hasn't been working.  But she said she would very much like to have a chalk board hanging on the wall that she could write things up on, and that would keep our assignments front and center.  I looked online, but pretty chalkboards cost an arm and a leg!  And while my daughter just wanted a chalk board, if we were going to put it up in that room "I" wanted it to be pretty!  SO off we went on a hunt to the local thrift store, where I found exactly what I was looking for!  This little beauty:

And then a quick stop at Walmart to pick up some chalk board paint.  I had never painted anything with chalk board paint before, so wasn't sure how it was going to go, but a quick search on google made it look like lots of people are using it so I figured it can't hurt to try! 

The picture and frame from the thrift store was only $5.00. The chalk board paint from Walmart was about $4.00.  I had thought I would also need to purchase a board to go in my picture frame, but it turned out that the picture that came in the frame was just a poster that was adhered to a thin board--it wasn't a canvas picture.  So I got my board along with my frame purchase!  We simply turned the picture around and then used some leftover undercoat primer to prime the picture frame and the picture board.  After both were primed, the picture frame got two coats of some leftover white paint that we had from other projects, and the board got three coats of the chalk board paint.  

I was amazed at how heavy the picture and frame were!  One nice thing is there were already two good solid "D" rings on the back of the picture frame, so no extra expense to purchase picture hanging hardware!  Yay!  It came in pretty handy to have a "handy man" in the house to help get the hanging screws level and into studs in the wall.  We moved the "D" rings on the back to be in the right position to line up with the studs.

I choose this frame because I loved loved loved the detail on it.  I had wanted a frame that had some substance to it, and wasn't just flat, and I found the frame of my dreams!  (Can one love a picture frame?  If so--I do!)

The new picture frame---turned chalk board is now hanging on the Music Room wall, all ready to go!  I also added a new mirror on the back of the room door.  This is so I can watch my bowing.  Or to be more precise, so I can watch how terrible and crooked my bowing is and see what other people are seeing when they look at me play!  Though truth be told, I try and not have other people watch me play. This is because in general, I like people and care about them! ;) 

Another view of the Music room.  The book shelf has been gone through and sorted, and is mostly holding music books now, with some other books just hanging out until I can make room for them on other book shelves in the house.  We used to have two book shelves in this room, but I cleared one off so my hubby could use it in the basement area where he is setting up an "at home" office now.  He is a teacher, and while he is back in the classroom now, there are still more and more things that are remaining on-line, or students can choose a Zoom appointment with him to get help if they need a long appointment with him.  Having a office at home is helpful for him to have a mostly quiet place to go, and he has a door to close for when he needs privacy when talking with students.  I was happy to be shuffling book cases around the house and reusing what we already had, instead of purchasing additional bookshelves.

Our daughter is already putting the new chalk board to use!  Here she is writing my assignment list.  It got longer before she was done.  She has also added next to it a practice list for her dad.  Now I have no excuse to say that I forgot to practice something!  

So there you have it--our less than $10 chalk board! So far, I am thrilled with it and so is our daughter!  It was not only a frugal project, but also helps teach our daughter thrifting and recycling--both important skills in my opinion!  

Have you ever painted anything with chalk board paint?  Did it hold up and last very well for you?  I am hoping it does!

What have you been doing to save money and bless your family?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

 

Frugal Friday! Week of April 26-May 2, 2020

Hi Frugal Friends!

How was your week?  I can hardly believe it is May already!!!  I want to say where in the world did the month of April go--but I already know the answer--the virus ate it!!!  It just kind of feels like it never happened. Like life hit the "pause" button back in March, and that March is where we still are!  But the beautiful weather outside is telling me different, and I AM enjoying that!

So on to frugal happenings.  It feels like I did not do much this past week, but I know I was busy the whole week and each day was filled with caring for my family so it's all good.  But a few things that I do remember include the following:

*I made home made pizza!  This is not only yummy, but of course much less expensive than purchasing it.  In addition to that, I have slowly been going through my freezer and trying to use up some older things that were stuffed in there.  One item I had found were some small patties I had made and we had had a few leftover so I threw them in the freezer and promptly forgot them.  Well, I decided I could cut the patties in four parts and scatter them around on top of our pizza, so I did.  It was delicious!  So that both helped clean out the freezer, AND provided lunch for us one day. Win-win in my book!  I eat vegan, so my pizza had on it tomato sauce, sautéed onions, sautéed mushrooms, olives, artichoke hearts, and the patties which had been made mainly out of oatmeal and garbanzo beans. Normally I also like to have some sautéed zucchini or summer squash on my pizza, but I didn't have any so you use what you have available!

*I ordered a maxi dress from Land's End.  Still waiting for this to come in the mail, but I am hoping/expecting that it will fit well and be a nice and very needed addition to my wardrobe this summer.  It was on clearance, and then I had an extra 50% off of the clearance price, which brought it down to a very reasonable price.  I DID have to pay shipping cost, since I was not ordering over $75 worth of stuff from them, but even with paying shipping the final cost was still well worth the price.  And Land's End quality has been good in my experience, so it should last and wear well.

*I ordered several things from a co-op.  Since we have a basement, I have space to store larger quantities of the foods we eat on a regular basis.  So much more affordable than purchasing in small containers from the grocery store.  Besides that, if you can't get to the grocery store for some reason, it is really nice to have a pantry in your home that you can "shop" from!  I ordered Steel Cut oats, Oatmeal, Walnuts, Soybeans (I make my own home made soy milk from these), and Millet.

*I made up a new recipe!  I found a muffin recipe on-line, but needed to change a few things to make it friendly for some food allergies.  So I did a little experimenting, and it turned out pretty good!  I want to tweak a few things next time.  I, personally, thought it had too much salt in it, though my hubby thought it was perfect with the amount of salt.  But next time I will cut that down just a little.  It is a millet Cranberry Orange Muffin recipe.  I needed to leave the sugar out, and to help add a bit of sweetness I replaced half the cranberries with an amount of raisins.  That way there were some cranberries still, but also some raisins to add in some sweetness that was lost by leaving the sugar out.  I think that switch turned out pretty well.  They were still not overly sweet, but since I no longer eat refined sugar my tastes buds have adapted to less sweet things, and I thought they were fine.  I could also add in a few chopped dates next time, perhaps, to add a little more sweetness for those who would like that.  Anyway, for the first time making major changes to a recipe, I thought it was a success!

*I made a yummy "bowl" meal, using ingredients we had on hand.  My teen daughter and I are REALLY enjoying "bowl" meals recently.  Basically, a variety of things all served--of course--in a bowl.  Underneath what you can see in this picture is a mixture of lettuce and fresh spinach.  Then on top the pinto beans, corn, brown rice, baby carrots, and two kinds of salsa. It was delicious!  And I am thinking for those with food allergies, this meal could be served with the rice being replaced with millet, and the beans being replaced with something--not sure what yet, but maybe broccoli or some other vegetable that is on the "acceptable" list. Maybe even some chopped roasted sweet potatoes! Lots of possibilities!

*And last but not least, I received a very special delivery today from a sweet friend.  The last time we had talked on the phone I had mentioned how much I was missing fresh bananas, since I was trying to limit my trips to the store.  My friend's hubby has been doing the shopping for them as well as for her parents, and she had him pick up an extra banana bunch for us!  And they brought them by this morning along with a box of Lara Bars, which she already knew I could eat--yay!  SUCH a sweet thing to do!  We visited just a little outside in our back yard, all spaced a distance away from each other.  SO nice to see them, and extra sweet of them to bring by these gifts!  And the note on the bananas was an extra sweet touch!

Well, that was our week!  We are abundantly blessed!  What have you been up to?  What blessings have come your way?  Please share!  I would love to hear!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of April 19-26, 2020

Hello Friends!

How are you all hanging in there?  I hope well!  Our hearts are being cheered by the flowers that Springtime brings, though like everyone else we are very anxious for life to get back to whatever it is going to get back to!  We hope and pray it will soon be safe to be around each other.  We miss our family and friends.  I even miss chatting with people at the grocery store!

But that being said, we have SO much to be thankful for.  Our family is alive and well, even if not all together in the same place.  Our house was spared the recent tornadoes I mentioned in my previous post.  My husband still has a job, even though working from home now.  We have food and clothing, and at the moment even have electricity, though we DID lose our electricity again this week for most of a day.  We were thankful when it came back on late afternoon--yay for all the hardworking power company people!!!  And best of all, in spite of all this Social Distancing, as I have already posted about, our God is NOT a Social Distancing God--and that is the best gift of all!  No matter where we find ourselves, be it at home or in a hospital, alone or with others, we still have prayer.  And that puts us in immediate contact with the One who loves us the most!

So on to our frugal week!  My frugal accomplishment I am most proud of is I (with the help of my hubby) made a strawberry tower out of 100% recycled materials!  Yay for us!  Remember those clearance strawberry plants I told you about last week?  Well, after doing a bit of searching on-line on growing strawberries, I decided on a plan.  We have SUCH a large squirrel and chipmunk population in our yard--they ARE cute, and we DO enjoy watching them--but THEY enjoy eating berries, and while I applaud them on their healthy and wholesome food choice, I did decide I wanted to make it just a tiny bit harder for them to eat any strawberries that may come ripe.  I know, I know, they will get them anyway, I admit.  But rather than trail the berries on the ground for them, I thought perhaps I would make them work just a tad bit for those luscious berries, by raising them up just a little.  Therefore enter the strawberry tower!

First, I scouted around for something to use.  I found two old 5 gallon buckets that we were no longer using for anything, and cleared with my hubby that he wouldn't mind me repurposing them.  Then I asked if he would drill some holes in them for me.  We did some drainage holes in the bottom, then some larger ones in the sides.  

Next, we found an almost empty peanut container.  My hubby volunteered to finish emptying it--isn't that helpful?  ;)  Then he cut the bottom of the container off and drilled some tiny drainage holes all around the container.  This is to give me a water reservoir for getting water further down in the bucket to reach the lower plants.

I purposely did not put any plants in the bottom bucket, because I am trying to raise the strawberry plants higher than ground level.  So a few drainage holes went into the bottom of the bottom bucket, and then I just filled it with dirt from around in various pots that were not currently being used.  Then the strawberries were planted, one plant in each hole.  I smooshed those leaves very carefully through each of the drilled holes!

I am delighted in how it turned out! If you look closely, you can see in the middle of the bucket the edge of the old peanut container sticking up.  When I water, I also fill that peanut container and the water slowly weeps out the small holes to water then plants at a deeper level than just surface watering would reach.

And here it is in my garden!  It may not be elegant, but I like it!  And with the recycled containers, it only cost me the sum total of the clearance strawberry plants, which was $3.24!  Even if the chipmunks and squirrels eat all the berries, I am still going to get $3.24 cents worth out of pleasure in watching these berries grow!

On to other endeavors!  I also transplanted a blackberry baby this week!  It had come up in the pathway near the blackberry bed, and I waited until it was large enough I thought it would survive the move, then gently dug it up and moved it inside the bed where it can be cared for and not trampled on!

So far, it seems to have survived the transplant just fine, and has not wilted or anything!

The day that we again lost our electricity, my wonderful hubby tried AGAIN to get our broken generator working.  He had already spent many hours working on it the week before, when the tornadoes took out our power.  My brother in law had generously driven up to our house and helped him work on it for several hours, but no luck.  But my hubby tried ONE MORE TIME, and got it going!!!  So now we have a working generator once more, AND we were able to use it the day we had no electricity to keep our fridge and freezer going.  We of course had no idea how long it would be off, if it would be a day or several days or several weeks!  I was also able to heat our dinner up using our crock pot.

I was thankful that we had some leftovers in the fridge from the day before, but we did not have enough power with our generator to operate our microwave.  But the crock pot does not take that much, so I put our brown rice into two canning jars to heat up, and I had some Red Lentil Dal with sautéed onions that we put on top.  That went into another small oven proof bowl.  I was very happy I was able to get both foods into the crock pot at the same time to heat, yet was able to keep them separate.  I wasn't sure if they would heat in time, because they were cold from the fridge--but after about an hour or two in the crock pot, they were perfectly hot and bubbly!  As the house was a bit cold that day with no power, the hot food tasted EXTRA good!

Some activities did not need electricity!  My daughter was able to continue with her harp practice using a batter operated stand light that we had given her for her birthday.  At last, the stand light came in handy!

Another frugal activity was simply enjoying our yard.  It is rose time in my neck of the woods, and my roses are coming into bloom!

This large rose bush came from a tiny stick cutting that my now deceased mother in law gave me around fourteen years ago.  I was living in another state at the time, but knew my hubby was interviewing soon for his current job, so I kept my "stick" in a pot of dirt for several months just in case we ended up moving.  When we did move, we were first in a rental house, so it stayed in its pot. Finally, almost a year later, it was planted in a corner in our yard.  I gave it a trellis to climb on.  It ended up eating that trellis.  Yes, the trellis is still there, but it is buried for sure!!!  The rose will bloom a few blooms throughout the summer months, but now is the most beautiful time!

The blooms on it are tiny and delicate!

I love it, not only for its beauty, but also for the memories of my beautiful mother in law that it brings me.

I also am enjoying other roses that are blooming in my yard.  These are all from roses that I found last fall on clearance. The bushes are still small at this point--maybe around a foot and a half high, but they will grow!

I love pink roses!

And this red rose is also a real beauty!



I also made home made bread.  I make home made bread all the time, but this time I took the extra bit of time to make a batch in my cast iron Dutch oven, which gives it an extra crunchy crust.  I did a cranberry almond flavor with fresh orange zest.  It was delicious!

Last but not least, I received a start of some fresh oregano as well as some rosemary from a friend.  I have these in a cup of water, and they are not wilted yet so I have hopes they will be growing nice roots and I will be able to plant them and have them as an addition to my herbs this summer. :)

Well, that was it for me this past week!  How was YOUR week?  What did you find to do to bless your family?  I love to read ideas of what you are doing, because it inspires me and helps me remember things that I can also do, so please share!

Hope your new week is a wonderful one!

~Susan