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