Frugal Friday! Week of January 12-18, 2020

Hi Everyone!!!

How were your holidays?  We were super busy enjoying family, and I suspect you were as well!  But the new year starting helps inspire me to keep up with my frugal ways to help bless my family by saving where I can.  I love to share what frugal things that I had an opportunity to do, and I learn so much by reading what others have found to do to save.   

Also with the new year starting, I decided to give my little blog here a slight facelift.  I have changed the URL to get here, so if you are not following a link to find my blog, do take note of the change of address to:  www.chickadeecove.blogspot.com.  I like the sound of this URL better, and it has meaning for us as my daughter and I have started up a new hobby for us, and she named our little hobby "company" the name of "Chickadee Cove."  Are you wondering what our new hobby is?  I am glad you asked! ;) Here is a picture to give you a hint:

Have you guessed yet?  No, it is not candy or baked goods.  It is something less tasty, but also with less calories! It is home made soaps, lotions, and lip balms! :)  We are having so much fun doing it!  The picture below shows the above soaps out of the molds.  I was feeling rather "Valentine-like," with the holiday being just a few weeks away, so made this batch of soap in the heart shapes and gave them a nice coconut scent.  This soap recipe consists of coconut oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, and caster oil--which, by the way, comes from caster beans.  All these oils are very nourishing for your skin, and this combination also lathers up VERY nicely!  Home made soap is not a fast hobby, either to make the actual soap, or to wait for it to cure.  This is not a "melt and pour" soap, this is completely from scratch, and after making the soap it now needs to "cure" for four to six weeks.  After that time, I will test one of the soaps with pH paper to make sure the alkaline level is not too high.  If it falls into the correct range, then we know all the chemical processing that was supposed to take place did, and that it is safe to use on our skin.  So the soaps below should be ready to test right around Valentine's Day.

Right now, we are mainly making soaps for our own use and also made quite a few for Christmas presents for friends and family this year.  They were VERY well received, which I was thankful for as they were not easy or quick to make, but rather labor intensive.  We have actually sold some soap, and we do hope to be able to sell more in the future.  Not as a large scale business, but keeping it at the hobby level.  But anything that we might be able to make from this hobby would come in rather useful towards music lessons for my daughter! But in the meantime, our family is very much enjoying the luxury of home made soap.  Here is a picture of one of our soap gifts I gave my sister for Christmas.

Well, on to my frugal endeavors!

*Already mentioned above, I made soap! :)  No, this is not as inexpensive as purchasing soap at the grocery store can be.  Purchasing quality oils does cost, but I do like using skin care products with ingredients that I can pronounce.  In addition, I purchase my oils in larger quantities, and I have hopes that this is a hobby that has the potential to pay for itself.  Given that home made soaps in my area are selling for easily $5.00 a bar, the nine bars of soap my recipe made would have cost me $45 if I had purchased them already made, so frugal to make them myself, plus an investment in doing something with my teen daughter and potentially a future hobby-business.

*I ordered items from Walmart.com.  I know what you are thinking here--what is frugal about that?  Well, I suppose just in ordering, nothing.  But I ordered quite a few items, among them was two bags of a more expensive kitty litter which the vet had recommended for us to use with our new kitten.  The reason for the special type of kitty litter is because this kind is dust free, and the vet recommended it for a couple of weeks.  I wasn't sure how many litter boxes the 15 pound bag would fill, so had ordered two bags, but when I filled the two litter boxes we have with one of the bags, I saw that one bag would be plenty for our needs until our kitten is a little larger and we use the regular clumping kitty litter.  So I went on-line and started the process for returning an item, so that I could get the second bag of kitty litter that I wasn't going to need returned. Well, I went through the process of returning an item, and fully expected to be running this extra bag to my local Walmart store--when on the last screen it said that I did not need to return this item, and that they would issue me a refund for it! I was shocked!  The email confirmation said that I could keep the item, donate it, or dispose of it, and that I would be receiving my refund!  I didn't expect that at all!  I even called customer service to verify that I didn't need to return the bag of kitty litter, and that they would indeed be refunding me anyway, and they said yes, my refund would definitely come and yes, I could keep the item!  I have never had THAT happen before, but a big "Thank you" to Walmart for the free bag of kitty litter!  I do appreciate it! My new kitten appreciates it as well!

Also in my Walmart order, I had ordered two containers of fruit pectin so I could can some more home made jams and jellies.  I had gone first to the store itself to purchase some, but they didn't have it in the larger canister container that I normally purchase--they only had the little packets for a one time batch, and those are more expensive. I actually did purchase one small packet, because I already had some apple juice ready to make some jelly, but I didn't want to always purchase the small packets, so when I couldn't find the larger container in the store I came home and ordered some from Walmart.com.  Well, when my order came, the two containers of fruit pectin that they sent were the wrong variety!  They were a type of pectin that is specifically for freezer jam, and not for cooked jam that you can in jars and are shelf stable. So I went online to my account, and started a return for the two jars of pectin that they sent, and when the form asked for the reason of the return, I truthfully put that they had sent me the wrong item, not the same item that I had ordered.  Then the same thing happened that happened with the cat litter--the email confirmation said that I could keep or dispose of the incorrect items, and that they would send out the correct items right away.  I was happy to have the free freezer pectin, but was also truly looking forward to receiving the correct pectin that I had ordered, so that I could have the option of either freezing my jam OR canning it. Well, two days later I received the replacement pectin, and guess what I found when I opened the package?

Yup!  Two more containers of freezer pectin, but not the "Classic" pectin that I had ordered. :(  So.  I went online again and stated that they had (again) sent the incorrect item.  This time, they only gave me the option of a refund, not a replacement, but they did once again say that I could keep or dispose of the incorrect items.  Well, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right?  I had REALLY wanted the regular pectin, so that I could can it.  But since life has just seen fit to send me FOUR jars of freezer pectin, and for free even since the entire purchase price I paid for two containers is being refunded, I guess that means I will be making freezer jam instead!  I am really not sure why there was so much trouble, as on the Walmart web site it shows the correct "Classic" pectin for sale.  And I checked and double checked that I had indeed ordered the correct item!  I have never used this freezer pectin before, so I have no idea how much I will like it--but I guess I now have a lot of freezer pectin to test out and see if I like it!  I didn't even know there existed a "Freezer Pectin!"

*I used a free $5.00 off of a $5.00 purchase at JoAnn's.  I do not get these types of coupons very often, but when I do I sure try and use them on something!  When I was at the store, I was very much in a hurry as we really needed to get home and on to other things.  Plus a possible thunderstorm was on the way, so it was just not a great time to browse.  So I tried to think of something I could just grab and use the coupon on, but I also do not need more clutter so I wanted to get something that would be truly useful. This is what I settled on:

Three canning jars, that I will use for our jam making!  Now, normally, I do NOT recommend JoAnn's as a great place to get canning jars.  You can find them at thrift stores sometimes, and always cheaper at the grocery stores than at JoAnn's, but with the coupon I had to use I would say it was a good deal! I just got three jars, as that was the right number to have it above the $5.00 amount that it needed to be in order for me to use my coupon, but not very much over the $5.00 amount as I didn't want to pay a huge price!  But I owed just a few cents for these jars, so at that price it was worth it to me to add these into my jar stash.

*I ordered winter clothes on clearance from Kohls.com.  My daughter has been outgrowing her regular winter coat.  She has a lovely one for church that my mom gave her, and another lovely long warm puffy coat also from my mom, but sometimes the weather is not cold enough for a long winter coat, but you still need more of a jacket length coat.  Or the activities you are doing are not good for the longer coat.  Anyway, her previous coat I had found at the thrift store for .75 cents, and she has worn it for several years, so I definitely got my .75 cents worth out of it! But though I have been looking for a replacement coat for her, I just have not been finding one at the thrift stores this time.  I looked at Walmart, and they had some for $25, but even my daughter when she looked at them commented that she could tell they were not nearly as warm as the winter coat we are trying to replace.  Granted, here in Tennessee, you don't need a super warm coat most of the time, but you DO need a warm coat none the less!  And while I didn't mind spending the $25 price of the Walmart coats, I wasn't happy with the product my $25 would be purchasing.  SO.  I did some looking online at Kohl's clearance items.  I found a coat there which had VERY high reviews, and it was on clearance for $33.  It was normally a $100 coat, and everyone who had left a review were commenting about how nice the coat was, and how warm, etc.  So I showed it to my daughter, and she picked out a color that she liked.  The interesting thing was that this coat would not ship to the store, but was one available to ship to your house--and  then you have to pay for shipping!  Of course, if you order above a certain amount then Kohl's will ship it to you for free, so I decided to go ahead and take a look at what they had.  I pulled out my list of specific clothing items that I still needed to replace in my wardrobe, and started looking.  Over the last couple of years I have improved my health and lost a significant amount of weight, and still have had things that have needed replacing, as truly every single clothing item except for my shoes and my socks have needed to be replaced, and that is not something you can afford to do all at one time!  Anyway, I had on my list another set of winter pajamas, plus winter exercise pants, and a winter exercise shirt.  I was able to find every single item that I was looking for, and for very very good prices as well!  So if you are in need of winter types of clothing, right now seems to be an excellent time to find it on clearance!   Here is the winter coat we purchased for my daughter.

So how was your frugal week?  What ways did you find to save and bless your family? Family, by the way, certainly includes just yourself if you are single, or might include loved ones that being frugal yourself enables you to help and bless others!  I love to hear what others are doing, as that always gives me new ideas to try out myself!   I am looking forward to reading your comments!

~Susan