Frugal Friday! Week of September 19-25, 2021

 

Hello Frugal Friend!

I hope your past week was filled with loveliness! Mine was!  I was mostly busy living every day life which is a wonderful thing as I am very, very blessed!

I was pretty busy, and not very many things got jotted down on my list of frugalness, so I will just share a couple of the things that I can remember at this point. Most of my frugal things were the "every-day-ness." Making food for my family from scratch. Going grocery shopping and looking for what is on sale.  Keeping up with laundry so there are clean clothes to wear.  To some, this may seem mundane and not worth as much as a job held outside of the home.  But I believe homemaking is a beautiful thing.  It is, after all, home making.  So--on with my week!

*I brought a box of books to a resale book store.  Most were cookbooks that are from before I changed the way I eat.  I have different recipes that I follow now, to improve my health, and these books can be a blessing to someone else.  I choose store credit for the books that the store wanted, which gave me a higher amount.  Since one of my current goals is to declutter some of the excess from my home, I am trying to be very selective about what I choose to bring IN after I have gotten unneeded things OUT.  I did look around the book store (how can I resist?) and chose just one "new" cookbook to invite back into my kitchen.  One box out, one book in, and that book was paid for with store credit so not bad in my opinion!

*I cooked rainbow carrots as part of our lunch.  These carrots were a surprise for my daughter, who has seen them before being sold with a sauce on them in the freezer section, but I cannot eat the things that are in the sauce on them.  Well, a new Trader Joe's store opened up not too far from us, and when my hubby and I went to visit it on a "date," I saw they had the rainbow carrots fresh--no sauce added!  So I brought home a package as a surprise for my daughter.  Not the most frugal as far as purchasing carrots goes, but not bad as far as a gift goes!  I try to make a practice of saying "yes" to any healthy veggie or fruit that my daughter would like to try.  There are a whole lot of foods that I rule out for my own health reasons, so I try and make sure to say "yes" if it is healthy and a food I CAN eat!

*I attended my first ever pet memorial service.  This was for my sweet friend who lost her kitty the other week.  It was a beautiful service, and meant so much to my dear friend!  She also had three friends in California (where she used to live) that joined us by FaceTime.  All of us had known her kitty, so we all shared one memory we had of her kitty cat, sang the song "All Things Bright and Beautiful", and had a prayer thanking God for His creation and the love my friend and her kitty had shared.  It was beautiful and I could see visibly the closure it brought to my friend's heart.  After the service, I stayed with her to talk for an additional hour.  Time well spent investing in healing a hurting friend's heart.

*My sister and hubby drove from four hours away to spend the night.  Both of their children are attending the college where my hubby works, and their daughter, my niece, is celebrating her birthday.  So a special birthday celebration meal was planned, with myself, my sister, and her boyfriend's mother who also lives local to me.  We ate outside, and the meal was put together by all of us so no large burden on any specific person. It was lovely to see the joy brought to my niece's face.  She is truly a wonderful young woman, and I am so proud of her! 

*I accepted some free yarn. When I went to church, the Women's Ministry leader had a special activity planned that involved an illustration that used a skein of yarn on each table.  I arrived early, and when I saw the yarn on my table I commented on how soft it was.  She asked me if I knitted or crocheted, and I told her I crocheted and she immediately told me that after the activity I was welcome to all the skins of yarn if I would like!  I was delighted, and gratefully accepted!  I am not sure if these will end up in baby afghans or not, as they are not the typical baby colors--I might make a scarf or two out of them.  Not sure yet, but I was happy to accept the kind offer!

*I finished one baby quilt.  This was a simply project--another friend had gifted me a bolt of these baby quilt panels, already prequilted.  All they need is binding put around the edges to be finished, but of course even just binding does take time!  Well, I have finished several of these already, but was able to get another one finished this week.  I put it in my stack of completed projects to take to The Samaritan Center.

*And last but not least, my daughter and I have hiked several times this week. Her knee injury is slowly healing, and so we are able to start hiking a bit longer which really makes both of us so very happy!  We also were joined by my sister and her hubby on one hike during the time they were here. The peace and beauty of the woods makes my heart happy!

The weather is finally cool enough to wear my new "Take a Hike" tee from LLBean that I purchased with my "BeanBucks!" I think it is the perfect tee shirt for me!

I love the colors in different fungi!

Trails always beckon me onward!

The flowers in the woods are usually very small, and often easy to miss.  But they are there!  If you keep your eyes open, you will see many!

These little guys will spring up literally overnight!

Shagbark Hickory, I believe.

Open your eyes and look closer!  There is beauty all around us!

Lots of purple in the woods!

My favorite hiking buddy!

On a couple of our hikes we "kidnapped" her daddy to join us!" 

A fat little mushroom, looking all happy!

We do not often find red feathers, but this day we found them twice!

This was a huge fungi, about the size of a foot ball.  The picture does not show it's true beauty, as it looked almost like flower petals.

The orange was a happy color splash!

My sis and her hubby joining us!

Well, that was my week!  How was yours?  I would love to hear about what you did to save money and bless your family!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of September 12-18, 2021

 

Hello Frugal Friends!

I hope you had a great week! I did! I am blessed to never be bored, and to ALWAYS have something to do! It is a huge blessing in life to feel like you have a purpose when you wake up in the morning!

So on to our frugal endeavors! 

*My husband and I attended a recital that our daughter played in. I love listening to her preform, and each one of the other children as well. When you take lessons for several years from the same music teacher, you end up seeing many of the same children play in each recital. Even not being THEIR parents, we are amazed as we recognize their progress and growth musically, and I feel like all of the parents are one big “Fan Club” so to speak, as we encourage each child who plays. And let me tell you, ever since I started receiving violin lessons from my daughter about two and a half years ago, I have a whole new appreciation for the work these kids are doing! Learning the violin or viola is HARD work!

*This next frugal savings credit goes completely to my hubby! We were at Lowe’s, needing to purchase some more mulch for our garden pathways. I was feeling kind of bad that I hadn’t realized we needed more mulch when they recently had their Labor Day sale, when my hubby looks at me and said “Don’t they sell their ripped bags for a discount?” I had completely forgotten about that, but looked at him and said “Yes, but we would need a tarp or they will make a mess in the van” to which he replied “I brought a tarp!” Yay! Let’s hear a cheer for the hubby who remembered both the discount AND to bring a tarp with us! We ended up purchasing all of the ripped bags that they had that were still rather full, leaving the ones that the bark was all spilled out of. We got five bags of bark for only $1 each! I told him I was going to give him credit on my blog!

*I found a book in a Free Little Library that I will put aside for a Christmas present. It is not brand new, but it IS a book that is out of print and is a real treasure. I already have a copy of my own, and know the recipient will appreciate it!

*I bought twenty more notebooks on clearance at Walmart for .10 cents each. I did not “need” more notebooks at this time, but that is a better price than I ever see any more, and I have room on my shelf in the basement where we store our school supplies. So since paper does not spoil, I went ahead and invested $2.00 to add to our supplies.

*I found a new to us book to add to our home library. I have a rather extensive collection of older mission stories, and since I DO have so many it is rare that I run across one that I do not already have! And the price of .35 cents is not a bad price! I love the artwork on these older books, how often the front cover picture wraps around to the back cover as well! My children and I have spent many MANY hours reading from my book collection, and I still read out loud each evening to our daughter even though she IS 17! I am personally convinced that this habit has helped improve her vocabulary and enabled her to score high in the Reading section of the ACT exam last school year when she took it. Sorry for the sideways picture! I didn’t realize it was sideways when I took it, but you can at least get an idea of the artwork that I am talking about. 

*My husband and I worked together and changed our dryer vent. This will help save from house fires, as well as not having someone else to clean it. We were originally going to just clean it ourselves, but it was so thick with lint (even though we clean the lint trap of the dryer every single time) that we decided the best thing to do would be to replace it with new. Our dryer is in the basement, and the vent is long as it goes up the wall and out of the house. There are several turns that it has to make, it is NOT a straight out of the house setup at all! My guess is our house was built originally with no washer or dryer hookups, and they were added in much later so are not exactly a well thought out design. The new pipe cost around $20, and the peace of mind for me is well worth that cost. 

*I took some clothes that did not work for either my daughter or myself to the resale store. What they cannot use they will donate, and what they can use will give us a little store credit which we can use to get items that DO fit us! 

*I hiked with my daughter. This time, she came to me one day and simply said “I think I need a hike.” 

She now recognized how hiking helps her emotions feel better—always! I think it is fantastic to have healthy ways to help ourselves feel better, and exercise definitely does!

And so we wandered to woods together. . . 

Discovering treasures popping up everywhere. . . 

Enjoying the delicate beauty. . . 

I loved the green carpet of moss underneath this little guy! Hiking is a frugal way to help our mental health, and our physical health—all at the same time!

How was your week?  What did you do to save money and bless your family?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of September 5-11, 2021

 

Hello Frugal Friends!

How was your week? I hope it was filled with much happiness and many good things!

Confession time—this was a hard, hard week emotionally.  Which is my first “frugal” thing so let’s start right in. . . 

*I sat with my dear friend as she had to have her precious cat put to sleep.  During this past week, my sweet friend texted me as I ate breakfast, telling me that her kitty Strelka was having great difficulty breathing, and that she was afraid this might be “it.” I immediately texted back and asked if she would like me to meet her at the vet’s office, which is actually in-between her apartment and my house. She texted back “WOULD YOU???, I would LOVE it!”  This lovely friend was born quite a bit after her nearest sibling, if I remember correctly about 12 years later.  Her parents are both passed away.  Her older sister died years ago from pancreatic cancer, and her older brother whom we had the pleasure of knowing has also passed away.  She has no husband, and she has no children.  She DOES have a wonderful nephew, but he lives several states away, so I knew that if this WAS the end for her furry family member that she would be facing it all by herself. My friend was able to get an appointment right away, and we met each other in the parking lot.  As soon as I saw Strelka my heart sank, because even not having any medical training at all it was very obvious to me that her kitty was indeed laboring for each and every breath. We were ushered immediately into an exam room, and the vet joined us in a moment.  His exam discovered that Strelka’s lungs were filled with fluid, and that fluid was very bloody.  The diagnosis was either heart failure or cancer, as those were the two things that could cause this—neither one is something easily curable especially in a cat that was 14 years old.

Sigh.  And so we both sat there crying, as my friend signed the paperwork for her precious loved one to be put to sleep.  Strelka has been with my friend through a very messy divorce, through fleeing the California fires not once but TWICE as fire threatened to completely burn the town where she lived, and through picking up and moving completely across country and starting life all over again here in Tennessee. You can see, they have been through a lot together. My friend decided to have Strelka cremated, and I helped her choose a lovely urn for the ashes. 

I felt completely helpless, as I sat there crying like a baby and rubbing her back.  At one point I apologized for not being better moral support, to which she turned to me and said “You are showing empathy! You are of great support!” 

And so as I reflect back, I have decided that this was going to be included in my list of “frugal” activities for the week.  Truly, it really does not need to cost us anything at all to be kind. . . So let’s be kind, shall we?

On to happier activities!

*I bought a sundress from LLBean, and thanks to the fact that we had “Bean Bucks” it was completely free!  Yay! This style doesn’t look that great on the hanger—you have to put it on to add your own shape. ;) But it is a lovely way to add a bit of dressy and still feel super comfortable. I love free!

*I accepted a plateful of garden tomatoes from a friend.  I was delighted when she showed up at my house with a bag of tomatoes for me.  She said a neighbor had given her mom three bags of tomatoes, her mom passed some of them on to her, and then she brought some of them over to me!  Wasn’t that nice?  Especially since our tomatoes in our garden are long gone, they have been extra special!  

*When I went grocery shopping on Friday, I found a lovely mum that was on clearance, and bought it for my friend who lost her kitty.  I have no idea why this flower was on clearance, because it only had a couple open flowers and all the rest of it was absolutely covered with buds just ready to burst.  It was not half dead or anything, but maybe it was one from a previous lot that just hadn’t sold yet?  I don’t know, but I did think it would be lovely for my friend to be able to watch the flowers open up and become more and more lovely each day.  I hope it brings her cheer and comfort to her hurting heart!

Well, THAT was my week!  How was YOUR week?  I would love to hear about it!

Remember to be kind, whenever possible!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of August 29–September 4, 2021

 Greetings Frugal Friends!

I hope all of you are doing well and that you and your loved ones are staying healthy! 

How was your week?  Is it feeling like Fall where you are?  We have FINALLY started to cool down, just a tiny bit.  Which basically means there was one day last week where I was able to actually turn off our air conditioning and open up the windows for just a bit.  True, later in the day we had to close the house again and turn it back on, but it was at least a taste of cooler weather to come!

Which leads me to my first frugal activity of the week!

*We got back out on our favorite trails again for a little hike!  It has been a long time—TOO long!  This was due both to the intense summer heat, which I do not do well in, as well as to my daughter straining her knees and needing to rest up a bit.  We still have some heat and her knees are still not back to 100%, but both are improving so it was time to at least go for a baby hike.

We found several flowers blooming.  They were tiny ones—you had to look sharp or you would miss them entirely.

I thought this little guy was adorable!  He was SO tiny!

And I love the colors of this fungi.  Such a bright, cheerful splash of color at my feet!

My hiking buddies! Although we had to turn around much before any of us wanted to in our hearts, I look forward to more hikes coming up this Fall and Winter.  This is the ultimate frugal activity, as all we had to do was tie on our shoes and grab our hiking poles! These trails are one mile from our house, so just a short drive to get there.

*I made soap.  Yes, that’s right.  Soap, not soup! This is a hobby that my daughter and I share.  We are partners together, and make home made soap that we both use ourselves as well as give away as gifts.  And at Christmas time, we usually make some extras to sell to others. :) 

I love how they look like cookies, lined up to cure on my cookie sheet! It takes six weeks for them to completely cure, so I need to make my Christmas soaps in early Fall in order for them to have time to cure before people are looking to purchase Christmas gifts.  Last year a friend of mine bought every single person on her Christmas shopping list one of our soaps!  I felt honored!

My favorite soap of all is Peppermint.  For Christmas time I make it in these cute Christmas tree shapes, but I love it so much I make this variety all year round, and just make it into square or rectangular slabs during other times of the year. It has Coconut oil as well as peppermint essential oil and actual peppermint leaves in it.  True confession—every single time I walk past the tray where these soaps are curing, I give them a great big sniff.  I LOVE peppermint!!!

I also made Gingerbread soaps.  These also smell pretty yummy, although I do not recommend tasting them! ;) They have ginger essential oil, as well as cinnamon essential oil and lemongrass essential oil. I “think” this variety is my daughter’s favorite.  At least I know she loves the adorable smiling face! Last year, when we gifted some soaps to my daughter’s piano teacher, the teacher later told us that she used the soap carefully from the back side so as to not wash away the “pretty” side too soon.  I thought THAT was a highest compliment! 

I have hopes to also test out a very gentle scent free soap recipe for this year.  I have had some people ask for something that would be good for those with very sensitive skin, and prone to allergic rashes to things that get added into soaps oftentimes.  I had hoped to test that recipe out already, but have just not had the time yet. 

We primarily sell to local friends, but we have had some requests from long distance friends who were willing to pay the postage cost, so we have shipped our soaps “out West” from our neck of the woods!  It is a fun—and clean—hobby!

*My daughter’s violin teacher fixed my broken violin bow.  This was a HUGE answer to prayer!!! My daughter is teaching me how to play the violin (I am her guinea pig, as she has never taught before and I have never played the violin before so we are both learning!). When she moved up to a better quality violin bow, I “inherited” her older violin bow—well, I actually bought it from her so she would have the $$ to go towards her new bow, but regardless, I have her old violin bow which was $200 when we bought it for her new.  Last week I was getting my violin and bow out and ready to play, and when I turned the bow to tighten the hairs (when storing bows you need to store it with the hair loose) it all of a sudden went completely slack.  And at that point, nothing would work to tighten it.  I was devastated, and thought for SURE I was looking at another bow purchase.  But before I ordered a replacement bow, we took the sad, broken bow to her next lesson and showed the sad remains to her violin teacher.  And praise God, her wonderful teacher looked at it and started rummaging around in a plastic box and pulled out the exact part (the “eyelet”)  that had broken inside of my bow’s frog (a certain part of the bow where it has the screw to tighten the hairs).  In about two minutes, she had the old, broken part off of my bow and replaced it with her new part which she said cost a grand total of about two dollars and some cents! I was both shocked that my tragedy was fixed, as well as delighted that I was not going to have to come up with $200 to purchase a new bow! Such a blessing!  And ALL because of a very kind and gracious violin teacher, who thoughtfully had purchased at some time in history a few spare parts to help out her students when they had some simple parts break.   What a huge blessing this was!

*I stopped by an Indian grocery store and purchased tofu cheaper than I can get it at any other grocery store, as well as some spices in large size packages, also for a very good price.  With my daughter’s previous tendonitis injury, she is MUCH improved but still has some pain and has to divide her music practices and space them out during the day so as to not overload her tendons and have them flare up.  I like to use as many natural things as I can to help her, so I have her taking ginger powder as well as turmeric, as both help with joint health and inflammation.  I purchase both of these spices in large quantities at the Indian grocery store, and then stuff them into empty pill capsules myself, for her to take each day. This 7 oz. bag of turmeric cost me just $1.99, which is MUCH less than in a regular grocery store! I have saved some empty spice containers, and simply keep the pills that I have stuffed for her inside those. 

*I used a $10 off of a $20 purchase coupon that I had received earlier from Staples.  I do not want to spend $ on things we do not need, “just” because I happen to have a coupon.  But since this was the last week of the back to school special prices on school supplies, it was also a good opportunity to purchase some things that we honestly do use in our home and homeschool, and combining the sale prices along with the coupon we ended up with some really good prices on these supplies.

Well, that was my frugal activities from my week!  Before I close, however, I do want to give a “report” on a previous product that I purchased.  Some of you know already that I LOVE being able to have things that are reusable, rather than disposable, whenever possible. This led me to start using cloth napkins years ago, which I have loved being able to wash and use again, but have just hated how so often they start to crinkle up around the edges and then they do not lay flat unless you spend the time to iron them, and I do not know ANYONE who has time in their lives to be ironing cloth napkins!  Not me, that is for sure!  I have also been discouraged when my cloth napkins ended up getting stained and really SHOWING those stains—I mean, it is not so bad when it is just your own family, but you kinda feel different when company is over!  WELL, earlier this year, I spent quite a bit of time reading exactly one zillion reviews on Amazon, trying still to find “the perfect” cloth napkin.  O.K., so maybe it was just a tad shy of one zillion, but I read many many many reviews, of many many many different napkins.  I finally narrowed it down and decided to order some as a “test run.” We used the napkins shown in my picture below, and I very hesitantly washed and dried them, because I knew THAT would be the true test!  Whatever they looked like when they came out of the dryer was going to either make it or break it for me!  I am happy to report back that I have been 100% happy with these napkins!  They truly do wash up very well, and come out of the dryer pretty much wrinkle free.  Whatever small wrinkles are there, completely disappear when you fold the napkins and give them a gentle smooth with your hand. I liked them so much that after using them for a month or two, I went ahead and ordered more, just so I would have “enough” at all times, no matter if we had large numbers of company over, or if I missed laundry day—I wanted to have enough in my kitchen drawer that we would not run out. They are NOT the very softest that I have ever used—the softest napkins I have ever used were 100% cotton, but they wrinkled so much I was embarrassed to lay them out on my table.  These are a cotton blend—they are soft, just not the most soft I have had.  But as my husband commented, “They are soft enough!” And for me, personally, the way they hid any stains (I did choose a darker color for this reason) and the way they come out of the dryer looking great far exceeds any desire to go back to the softer but wrinkly napkins I used to have. I also like how the grey color I chose matches every table cloth I have. 

If you are interested in checking these napkins out, I have them linked below (affiliate link). I also have my meal bowls linked, and will review them for you another time.

I hope you will share how you saved money and blessed your family this past week!  I would love to hear what ideas you have had and what has worked for your family!

~Susan