Frugal Friday! Week of February 16-22, 2020

Hi Everyone!

How was your week?  Mine was great! I am feeling like Spring is on it's way, in spite of chilly weather returning and even having a day with snow!  When I walked in my garden looking for signs of Spring, I found quite a few so it cannot be too long now!

I feel like I had a very good week as far as frugality goes.  There were many things that did not make it onto my list, but these are the things that did!

*I bought a new winter coat on clearance.  I didn't NEED a new coat--as far as I did have one, that I can use, and truth be told I was actually shopping for a new blouse for myself which I actually DO really need quite badly.  But I didn't find a blouse, I found a coat instead.  And you know how the expression goes, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"  Or in this case, if you don't find a blouse but you do find a coat, buy the coat instead and trust that another day you will find a blouse!

The coat is a part wool blend, and is quite warm and a bit more tailored than my other coat.  So I feel like I have one that will go better with dresses when I am going to church than I did before.  And the gray color is pretty neutral as far as matching things.  Not a "pretty" color per say, but it is nice to have some neutral things sometimes as they mix well.  

I found the coat when shopping at Kohl's.  It was normally $190, and by the time it was on clearance plus a discount coupon that I had, I walked out the door with it for under $30 which I was thankful for.

*I bought myself freezer containers.  This in itself is not necessarily frugal, I suppose, but with my busy life I really want to be able to do some cooking ahead of time and freeze part of it for us to eat on the days I don't have time to cook.  Having these freezer containers all the same size really helps with them stacking in the freezer, so I can get the most into the least amount of space.  I have already put several containers of fried rice tucked away in the freezer, and have plans to put more food in the freezer as soon as I can. 

Some of the containers that I bought are just open, and then some that I got have a built in divider kinda offset, so you have one larger space and then one smaller space.  These will be helpful for freezing your own "T.V. dinner" kind of thing I think, with a main meal item in the larger space, and then some veggies in the smaller side area.

They were only a couple of dollars marked down, at T.J.Max, and after I bought them I later saw some for almost the same price at our Walmart.  So they weren't a huge discount or anything, but when I told my teen daughter she said that it didn't matter because they were MUCH prettier than the black ones at Walmart! ;) I tend to agree with her!  In the photos they look bluish, but they are actually a very nice aqua, which is one of my favorite colors.  So the pretty color will help inspire me to use them more, and using them more will help me save money by meal planning and using up foods that we already have but cannot eat right then.

*Speaking of my daughter, I taught her how to make jam.  I had shown her a couple of times before, but this time she made it entirely by herself.  We used some of the freezer pectin that we received for free when Walmart shipped us the wrong item--twice! I talked about this happening a few weeks ago.  So since I already had the freezer pectin in my house, I decided we might as well use it, even though it was not the type I had originally wanted.  ANYWAY, the advantage of it is you are not cooking the jam on the stovetop.  Therefore the fruit does not get cooked, and retains a fresher "fresh fruit" flavor.  The disadvantage, of course, is that it is not shelf stable and therefore you need to keep it in the freezer to preserve it until you are going to eat it, and then move it to the fridge.

Not having to stand over a hot stove and stir while the hot fruit spirts and spits up and you while you are stirring was a huge plus in my daughter's opinion!

She made blueberry jam, and one batch made two large jars of it plus half of the smaller container.  You can see in the picture the jar of freezer pectin, in case you are interested in trying it yourself.

My daughter made an adorable label for her jam, and we took one of the large jars to a friend's house to share at a meal.  Let's just say the jar came back almost scraped clean!  It was delicious, especially on the special bread that we were eating at our friend's!

Several people complimented my daughter and told her that she could easily sell her jam! Hummmm, future college savings? Too bad we don't really have time to pursue that!  When my son was younger, I helped him bake oatmeal bread and he used to sell it on the campus of a local college.  

*Speaking of my son--I helped assist him as he figured his taxes.  Work for me, frugal for him, but I am happy to help teach him skills so he will not have to pay someone to do this for him.  A friend of mine who is an accountant taught me how to do my own taxes years ago, and I have been grateful ever since!

*I bought three orchids on clearance for $3.00 each! 

Our kitten has been enjoying one of the orchids very much!  I did look up ahead of time to make sure that orchids are not poisonous to cats, and they are not supposed to be.  That being said, I do not necessarily want him to eat these plants as his salad!  but honestly, except for some initial sniffing and maybe a nibble or two, he does seem to be leaving them pretty much alone, for which I am thankful! 

I found these at our Walmart.  They were leftover from the Valentine's Day flowers, and had normally been $15.  A few years ago I had found two orchids at Walmart after Valentine's Day, marked down to $3.00, so I was watching for them.  They were marked down this year, but only to $11.88.  I saw a worker and inquired as to when they might be marked down again.  It turned out that the person I spoke to was the manager, and she went ahead and told me to pick out however many I wanted to and that she would over ride the price for me and I could have them for $3.00 each!  I was delighted, and thanked her profusely!  I was grateful that I had stopped to chat with her, and to inquire!  We are enjoying them so much!

Well, that was our week!  From snow to flowers!  What was your week like?  Please do share-- I love learning from everyone else!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of February 9-15, 2020!

Hi Everyone!

How was your week?  In my neck of the woods, we had rain, rain, and rain!  And after that, we had some more rain!  I was afraid we would need to build a boat!






*I did a hot food bath hydrotherapy treatment on our daughter.  She started feeling just the tinest bit of a sore throat, and had a musical performance with the local community orchestra this week, so I wanted to head this cold off at the pass, so to speak, and not give it a chance to get ahold of her strongly.  She is already very good about eating healthy and avoiding sugar, and trying to get good sleep, so this time I pulled out the "big guns" and decided it was time for some hydrotherapy.

Now, I am NOT a medically trained person, so please do not take this as medical advice.  But from what I have read, hydrotherapy treatments can really help your body fight off colds and flu, by helping your white blood cells work better.  We do NOT do this instead of going to the doctor!  We always use our wonderful doctor, any time that we think there is something she can help us with.  But the common cold, sadly, there is nothing our sweet doctor can do!  So a hydrotherapy treatment in this case can't hurt.  What you cannot see in this picture is the tub of hot water that my daughter has her feet in, and the cloth on her head is a cold cloth.  If you are interested in hydrotherapy treatments, please do your own research and make sure that you are preforming the treatments correctly, as doing them incorrectly can actually leave your patient chilled and worse off.

After her treatment, my daughter was put to rest for a minimum of 30 minutes, with wool socks on her feet.  She was wrapped up better than this for those first 30 minutes, but after that time she was allowed to get up if she wanted to.  I was hoping she would rest longer, just to give her body more rest to fight off the cold germs, and I carried our kitten over to her on the couch.  To my surprise, this kitten that NEVER settles down and stays anywhere, actually settled down and took a nap on her!  Which made my daughter not want to disturb him, therefore she rested longer than the minimum time.  Yay for help from the kitten!  He will probably send me a bill in the mail for his services! ;)

I figure helping to head off a cold before it takes strong hold to definitely be a frugal activity!  Helps avoid future doctor visits due to complications, avoids the need for over the counter cold medications, Kleenex, etc.!

*My hubby and I attended a free Valentine's Day concert, put on by our local community Symphony Orchestra!   The music was SO beautiful, and the price of free could not be beat!

In addition to the beautiful music, my very favorite violist was a part of the orchestra!  Yes!  The very same daughter who earlier in the week was coming down with a cold!  Yay for hydrotherapy!

I thought she looked just lovely in her long black dress that I bought around a year ago at a thrift shop for .75 cents!  At that time, she was not playing with an orchestra--but I knew that if she continued in her musical pursuits she soon would be, so figured it would be helpful for her to have something in "concert black" in her closet! It was a blessing from God that I found it!

Also at the concert, a local bakery was giving away free desserts, coffee, hot chocolate, etc.  I have rather severe food sensitivities, so for ME it was more frugal to avoid eating these things and therefore also avoid a trip to the ER, but I thought it was a very nice thing to do!



I do not, however, have any allergies to flowers, so my daughter and I happily accepted the long stem red rose that was also being gifted to each lady who attended! :)

I had to trim shorter the VERY long stems, so they did not tip over my small vase, but our two roses are now gracing my desk where they make me happy and our kitten has not discovered them--yet!

*I figured our own taxes, and got them filed already.  I am relieved to have this job done for another year.  We will use the small amount we receive back towards music lessons for our daughter.

*I made all our meals at home, and baked home made bread.  I do this all the time, so do not often mention it, but it is a way that we save so I probably should list it every now and then!

That's all that I can think of or that I wrote down for this past week--so your turn next!  What did you do to save money, stretch finances, and bless your family this past week?  Please do share--I learn so much from others!

Have a wonderful next week!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of February 2-8, 2020

Hi Everyone!

How was your week?  Mine was busy!  But I still managed to get a few things done around here!  I am sure I did more than this--at least, I was super busy the whole week--but the following is what I got written down:

*I picked collards from our garden. While my garden is basically long past producing, the one exception is my collards!  During the summer, the cabbage moths devoured my collards (this is probably why those moths grow healthy and strong--they are eating MY collards and kale!).  They also ate my kale all up leaving basically nothing left for me. But once the cool weather came, the moths left and the collards started growing new leaves. :) The kale also started growing back new leaves, but I have had far fewer kale come back than I have the collards, so from now on I am going to definitely concentrate more of my garden space to collards, as they just seemed to recover from the moth plague better!  I had planned on picking collards and using them in a recipe this past week, but life got in the way and that recipe never got made, so I simply washed and chopped and put several quart size freezer bags of collards in my upright freezer.  I can use them later in soups, and I still have a lot in the garden growing fresh, so will try and do the recipe I had planned on making some time soon.

*I picked daffodils from my yard.  I love to see the daffodils from my kitchen window, so do not pick very many of them, but these were all at the far side of the flower clumps, so were pretty hidden from my kitchen window view.  I decided that made them fair game for picking, and I brought them in to beautify my desk while I worked on bills.  It was a good move, in my opinion, and made bill paying much more enjoyable!

*I baked and froze sweet potatoes that I had bought previously on clearance. A few weeks ago, our Aldi's had  3 pound bags of sweet potatoes on sale for just .49 cents a bag! Now, my family is not huge fans of sweet potatoes, but they DO like them in certain ways.  I bought probably six bags of the sweet potatoes--maybe more, I cannot remember.  At that time, I first made a huge batch of baked sweet potato French fries--yummy!  We ALL like sweet potatoes prepared as French fries!  Then this week, I baked some and used them in a recipe I have for Sweet Potato Sweet Rolls.  You cannot taste the sweet potatoes in the recipe at all, but they do help make the sweet rolls much more nutritious, and I think a bit on the moist side.  They also give a hue of orange to the rolls!

After making the sweet rolls, I baked almost all of the remaining sweet potatoes, mashed them up, and froze them in 2 cup portions so they will be ready to use for future sweet roll making. :)

*I attended a meeting at my husband’s university, and my ticket was drawn for a $25 gift card to a local vegetarian grocery store. Yay!  Free food!  Since I am covered under my hubby's health insurance, whenever his university has a health-related event, I am welcome to attend.  The healthier I stay, the less money they end up paying out on the health insurance. I try to attend whatever events I can, that I am interested in.

*I tried out a new recipe for black bean “Meat balls.” They held together very well, and smelled delicious!  I cannot report yet on how they tasted, because I took them with us when we visited our college son, and gave them to him for his freezer.  That way he will have something quick to grab and roll into a tortilla, add with pasta, or just plain eat!  He is single, so is on his own for making food.  He also has a disability (cerebral palsy), so food making is not the easiest for him.  He does well, and I am very proud of him, but I do try and either take him some food to leave with him when we visit, or send him back with food when he comes home to visit us.

*I made a double batch of home made granola--one batch stayed here, and the second batch went with us for the weekend and I left it with our son.

*I brought all our food for the weekend when we visited our son.  He doesn't have time to be cooking for us, as a busy graduate student, and lives on a stipend so finances are tight.  We like to go visit him, but do not want our visit to be a burden on him.  So when we go, we take our own sheets, towels, and blankets, so we are not leaving him with extra laundry that he has to pay to wash in the apartment machines.  I bring food for all of us to enjoy over the weekend, and then extra to leave with him to help him out a bit.

*We visited the state botanical garden when we were with our son.

 It is always free to visit this botanical gardens--yay!  And even more special, during the month of February they were having a special showing of orchids!

 They had TONS of beautiful, blooming orchids!  I took many, many pictures, but will just leave you with a few of them. . .

 Aren't they all lovely?  Or Creator is so VERY creative!!!

Well, that was our week!  What did YOU do to save money and bless your family or others this week?  Please share, as I love to learn from others and gain new ideas!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! January 26-February 1, 2020

Hi Everyone!

How has your week been???  I hope well!  I am trying to get back into the habit of writing down the frugal things that I do, and at the start of the week I was feeling like I wasn't doing ANYTHING to save money!  I wasn't purchasing clothing on sale prices, or any of the same types of things that I did last week.  But then as I really spent a bit of time thinking about things, truly you are saving MORE when you are NOT spending, if you know what I mean!  Anyway, then ideas started coming to me and I realized that I was doing more to save than I was giving myself credit for!  Yes, some of it ended up being purchases that I made, but more times there were simply things that I did at home.  Here are a few of the things from this week:

*I made home made soy milk from soy beans. I have been making my own soy milk for years, and have gone through different methods to do so.  At one point I even had a soy milk maker--an appliance that heated the soy beans up, ground them, and strained the pulp for me and all I had to do was wait for it to be finished!  I used that for a long time, but it didn't make a whole lot at one time and I finally started following a recipe I found in a cookbook where you just cooked your beans on the stove top and then blended them and strained them through a thin cloth.  So I did that for a long time--that recipe had you add in a bit of salt, some vanilla, and a little honey.  It tasted good, but I still hated throwing out the pulp from the soy beans.  I know some people would cook and make something with the soy bean pulp, but I never knew how to use it up.  FINALLY, I am now on the "lazy way" method! ;) And I LOVE making my soy milk this way!!!  Now, I have a Vita Mix blender which is pretty high powered.  I didn't have a blender this good previously when I was blending and then straining the pulp out.  But I have one now, so one day I wondered if I didn't strain the milk, but it was blended up really good, would I be able to tell the difference?  Nope!  So now, I cook my soy beans in my Instant Pot for 45 minutes, then blend them with water in my Vita Mix.  That's it!  I do not add in anything, and I do not take out anything either.  Now--I WILL say that I am only using my soy milk on my breakfast cereal.  I do not drink it as a glass of "milk," nor does anything in my family do this.  If that is what you are doing with your soy milk, I would advise that you stay with the more commercially made soy milks, because they have the sugar and such added to it to really make it taste good as a beverage.  But for us, this method works just fine.  I purchase my soy beans in a large package at an Indian grocery store.  The above package in the picture cost me around $4.00 I believe, and it lasts me quite a while.  I only use approximately 1/3rd cup of dry beans to make milk that fills the pitcher you can see next to the beans.

*I zested the orange peels of oranges we were eating. This zest I left on the counter to dry for a day or two, and will save it to use in our home made soaps along with some orange essential oil. I just love citrus scents, so this soap is one of my favorite scents that I have made. I can also use some of the dried orange zest in my baking, as I love to put some in my home made sweet rolls along with walnuts!

*I picked up two bags of 50 pound oats that I ordered through a local co-op last week.  I LOVE these thick rolled oats!  They give an extra chewy texture to my home made granola, and are slightly less processed than smaller oats.  The less processed the oats (or any other foods) are, the better they are for good blood sugar control, so I try and use as large of an oat flake that I can for whatever I am making with it.  Ordering these through the co-op, I can actually get it cheaper per pound of oats than I can at Aldi's.  And since I have a basement, I do have the storage space to store oats purchased in bulk. I also ordered a 25 pound bag of steel cut oats, which is what my daughter and I eat most breakfasts.

*I ordered three pairs of wool socks using coupons. At full price, these were $10 each pair. But by the time the coupons were all applied, I paid around $4.00 for $30.00 worth of socks!

Well, that is what I wrote down this past week. :)  What did YOU do to save money and bless your family?  Please share, as I love to learn new ideas!

~Susan