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

Thank you!

Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to update everyone on how my daughter's fundraising went for hurricane relief went!  I know I have been talking about it quite a bit, both on this blog as well as on other social media and in real life as well.  Alison had so many wonderful supporters who sponsored her playing in the Play-a-Thon, and even total strangers that supported her!  She was overwhelmed with the response to her video asking for support, and therefore she wanted to also make a follow-up "Thank you" video, both to share details of how the event went as well as to express her gratitude.  So that being said, here it is:

And I want to also express my own "Thank you."  Thank you for demonstrating to these children that they are NOT too young to help.  That they are NOT too young to make a very real difference. That in this world filled with tragedy, there are kind and good people out there who do what they can to make a difference.

~Susan

Hope Twinkles Play-a-Thon #3!

Good Morning Everyone!

I just wanted to take a few minutes to share what my daughter Alison is up to.  For the third year in a row, her violin teacher is hosting a Play-a-Thon to raise money for a needy project.  The first year, the money raised through the Play-a-Thon went to help hurricane Katrina victims.  Last year, the teacher found a school in Santa Rosa, California that was burned in the wildfires that swept through there, and the money went to help rebuild the school's music program.  Now this year, the Play-a-Thon will be raising funds to help a school in the Bahamas that was damaged from the hurricanes that went through there.  In addition to physical damage to the school, several of the school's teachers lost everything they owned because of the hurricanes, and many student's families are no longer able to afford the tuition money to send their children to school.  The school administration does not want to turn away the students, and so they are trying their best to operate even without any tuition payment coming in.  They desperately need funds for keeping the school open, while the island population literally rebuild their homes and livelihoods.

Yesterday, as a school project, Alison filmed and edited a short video telling about the Play-a-Thon and inviting anyone who would like to sponsor her playing in the Play-a-Thon to do so.  Shortly after posting the video, she had a request from someone who wanted to be able to donate funds online, rather than mail in a check.  So a GoFundMe page has been set up for sponsoring Alison, and we are so thankful for the donations that have already started coming in!

The lessons that Alison is learning--along with the other students in the music studio who will be participating in this Play-a-Thon--are life lessons that will stay with them.  Lessons that yes, bad things happen in this world.  But while you may not be able to "fix" all the bad, you CAN be a candle of light--you CAN do SOMETHING to help.  So do what you can.  Help cheer, help ease, help lift someone else's burden.  I think it is especially good for the students who are Alison's age to be doing this.  Too often we think of teen-agers today as self-centered, only concerned about themselves and not out helping others.  Well, it may be true that that is common in today's teens.  But it is equally true that there ARE other teens out there like these music students, who are doing their best to take the talents God has given them and use those talents to cheer and bless others.

I would so much appreciate if you would take the three minutes to watch Alison's video telling about the fundraiser.  And please, consider sharing her video with your own friends and family.  Alison has set herself a personal goal of raising $500 for hurricane relief. Let's support these kids as they do what they can to show love and caring in this dark world.

Alison's GoFundMe page can be found at this link:

Hope Twinkles Play-a-Thon #3


Thank you so much!

~Susan M.