Frugal Friday! Week of April 19-26, 2020

Hello Friends!

How are you all hanging in there?  I hope well!  Our hearts are being cheered by the flowers that Springtime brings, though like everyone else we are very anxious for life to get back to whatever it is going to get back to!  We hope and pray it will soon be safe to be around each other.  We miss our family and friends.  I even miss chatting with people at the grocery store!

But that being said, we have SO much to be thankful for.  Our family is alive and well, even if not all together in the same place.  Our house was spared the recent tornadoes I mentioned in my previous post.  My husband still has a job, even though working from home now.  We have food and clothing, and at the moment even have electricity, though we DID lose our electricity again this week for most of a day.  We were thankful when it came back on late afternoon--yay for all the hardworking power company people!!!  And best of all, in spite of all this Social Distancing, as I have already posted about, our God is NOT a Social Distancing God--and that is the best gift of all!  No matter where we find ourselves, be it at home or in a hospital, alone or with others, we still have prayer.  And that puts us in immediate contact with the One who loves us the most!

So on to our frugal week!  My frugal accomplishment I am most proud of is I (with the help of my hubby) made a strawberry tower out of 100% recycled materials!  Yay for us!  Remember those clearance strawberry plants I told you about last week?  Well, after doing a bit of searching on-line on growing strawberries, I decided on a plan.  We have SUCH a large squirrel and chipmunk population in our yard--they ARE cute, and we DO enjoy watching them--but THEY enjoy eating berries, and while I applaud them on their healthy and wholesome food choice, I did decide I wanted to make it just a tiny bit harder for them to eat any strawberries that may come ripe.  I know, I know, they will get them anyway, I admit.  But rather than trail the berries on the ground for them, I thought perhaps I would make them work just a tad bit for those luscious berries, by raising them up just a little.  Therefore enter the strawberry tower!

First, I scouted around for something to use.  I found two old 5 gallon buckets that we were no longer using for anything, and cleared with my hubby that he wouldn't mind me repurposing them.  Then I asked if he would drill some holes in them for me.  We did some drainage holes in the bottom, then some larger ones in the sides.  

Next, we found an almost empty peanut container.  My hubby volunteered to finish emptying it--isn't that helpful?  ;)  Then he cut the bottom of the container off and drilled some tiny drainage holes all around the container.  This is to give me a water reservoir for getting water further down in the bucket to reach the lower plants.

I purposely did not put any plants in the bottom bucket, because I am trying to raise the strawberry plants higher than ground level.  So a few drainage holes went into the bottom of the bottom bucket, and then I just filled it with dirt from around in various pots that were not currently being used.  Then the strawberries were planted, one plant in each hole.  I smooshed those leaves very carefully through each of the drilled holes!

I am delighted in how it turned out! If you look closely, you can see in the middle of the bucket the edge of the old peanut container sticking up.  When I water, I also fill that peanut container and the water slowly weeps out the small holes to water then plants at a deeper level than just surface watering would reach.

And here it is in my garden!  It may not be elegant, but I like it!  And with the recycled containers, it only cost me the sum total of the clearance strawberry plants, which was $3.24!  Even if the chipmunks and squirrels eat all the berries, I am still going to get $3.24 cents worth out of pleasure in watching these berries grow!

On to other endeavors!  I also transplanted a blackberry baby this week!  It had come up in the pathway near the blackberry bed, and I waited until it was large enough I thought it would survive the move, then gently dug it up and moved it inside the bed where it can be cared for and not trampled on!

So far, it seems to have survived the transplant just fine, and has not wilted or anything!

The day that we again lost our electricity, my wonderful hubby tried AGAIN to get our broken generator working.  He had already spent many hours working on it the week before, when the tornadoes took out our power.  My brother in law had generously driven up to our house and helped him work on it for several hours, but no luck.  But my hubby tried ONE MORE TIME, and got it going!!!  So now we have a working generator once more, AND we were able to use it the day we had no electricity to keep our fridge and freezer going.  We of course had no idea how long it would be off, if it would be a day or several days or several weeks!  I was also able to heat our dinner up using our crock pot.

I was thankful that we had some leftovers in the fridge from the day before, but we did not have enough power with our generator to operate our microwave.  But the crock pot does not take that much, so I put our brown rice into two canning jars to heat up, and I had some Red Lentil Dal with sautéed onions that we put on top.  That went into another small oven proof bowl.  I was very happy I was able to get both foods into the crock pot at the same time to heat, yet was able to keep them separate.  I wasn't sure if they would heat in time, because they were cold from the fridge--but after about an hour or two in the crock pot, they were perfectly hot and bubbly!  As the house was a bit cold that day with no power, the hot food tasted EXTRA good!

Some activities did not need electricity!  My daughter was able to continue with her harp practice using a batter operated stand light that we had given her for her birthday.  At last, the stand light came in handy!

Another frugal activity was simply enjoying our yard.  It is rose time in my neck of the woods, and my roses are coming into bloom!

This large rose bush came from a tiny stick cutting that my now deceased mother in law gave me around fourteen years ago.  I was living in another state at the time, but knew my hubby was interviewing soon for his current job, so I kept my "stick" in a pot of dirt for several months just in case we ended up moving.  When we did move, we were first in a rental house, so it stayed in its pot. Finally, almost a year later, it was planted in a corner in our yard.  I gave it a trellis to climb on.  It ended up eating that trellis.  Yes, the trellis is still there, but it is buried for sure!!!  The rose will bloom a few blooms throughout the summer months, but now is the most beautiful time!

The blooms on it are tiny and delicate!

I love it, not only for its beauty, but also for the memories of my beautiful mother in law that it brings me.

I also am enjoying other roses that are blooming in my yard.  These are all from roses that I found last fall on clearance. The bushes are still small at this point--maybe around a foot and a half high, but they will grow!

I love pink roses!

And this red rose is also a real beauty!



I also made home made bread.  I make home made bread all the time, but this time I took the extra bit of time to make a batch in my cast iron Dutch oven, which gives it an extra crunchy crust.  I did a cranberry almond flavor with fresh orange zest.  It was delicious!

Last but not least, I received a start of some fresh oregano as well as some rosemary from a friend.  I have these in a cup of water, and they are not wilted yet so I have hopes they will be growing nice roots and I will be able to plant them and have them as an addition to my herbs this summer. :)

Well, that was it for me this past week!  How was YOUR week?  What did you find to do to bless your family?  I love to read ideas of what you are doing, because it inspires me and helps me remember things that I can also do, so please share!

Hope your new week is a wonderful one!

~Susan

Frugal Friday--Week of April 12-18, 2020

Hi Friends!

How are you all doing?  It has been a while since I did a Frugal Friday post.  Not because I haven't been doing everything that I can to save and bless my family with that savings, but just because I have been super busy--in spite of stay at home orders!  When you are a homeschooling parent, having the world close down doesn't really take anything off of my "to do" list.  I mean, our school goes on just the same, but there ARE other things that change and can add to being extra busy.  For one thing, my hubby is working from home currently, so that is that means another person in the house, more activity going on, a few more interruptions to my day, etc.  Now, I am not complaining, because I am thankful beyond measure that he still HAS a job, and that he CAN do a few weeks work at home during this time.  But I am still looking forward to things getting back to normal, whatever normal is and IF it ever gets back there.  But we will see.  One step at a time, and whatever each new day brings, I know my God will be there with me.

Another thing that has affected us is our community had a tornado rip through here just five days ago.  Our street was spared--we lost our electricity for several days, but did not lose a single tree.  Within walking distance of our house, I am afraid I cannot say the same.  Huge trees down, power lines were criss crossing the road everywhere, telephone poles snapped and leaning across driveways, roofs with huge holes in them from trees that had landed on them.  Just a few miles away, there are houses that were basically flattened, and a neighborhood where a four year old boy was hurt badly enough that he later died from his injuries.  My heart is so, so sad about all of this.

The above pictures are of our little public library.  It lost half its roof in the storms.  It could have been worse, but my heart is still sad.  It was bad enough that it was closed from the virus and not available to the children in our town, but now this.  I have not heard yet how much damage happened to the books inside. Trees are down everywhere.  HUGE trees, small trees, many torn right out of the ground.  

But we are still here. And we are trying to help those in need, while at the same time keep people safe and maintain what social distance one can when helping others in situations such as we are currently experiencing. I keep feeling this Bible verse in my heart: 

Anyway, all that to say there has been a lot going on around here!  A bit TOO much excitement!  So this post will include savings from the past couple of weeks.

*I found strawberry plants on clearance at Walmart for just .36 cents!  These are normally $3.47 each plant, so I was pretty thrilled!  At the time, I wasn't really sure where I could plant them, so I only bought nine plants and left probably ten more there. Later I wished I had purchased more, when I realized a few places I could fit them in our garden, but of course they were gone when I went back to the store the next day.  But I decided other people were blessed by finding some of them on clearance as well, so I am choosing to simply be happy at the nine plants I was blessed with! 

*I transplanted baby raspberry plants that had sprouted in our pathways back into their 4 x 8 raspberry bed.  One of the transplants looked like it may not make it, but all the rest seem to have survived the move just fine, so I am thrilled about that!

*I am carefully watching a blackberry baby that is also coming up in our pathway.  I am letting it grow a little larger, and then I will dig and try to transplant that back into it's 4 x 8 bed.  Our blackberries are looking very happy, and are covered with blossoms.  I am thrilled about this!  We do not have enough to grow a serious amount of berries, this is just for a hobby and to give our homeschooled daughter a chance to see how these plants grow, but any berries that we happen to beat the birds to will be much appreciated!  Our blackberries were my huge garden splurge last year.  I found them at our Walmart, and they were a thornless variety and were supposed to be appropriate to keep in a patio pot.  But they WERE more expensive than other blackberry plants--at $25 a plant!  I thought about it for a good long while, as it seemed just too much money for my budget to spend, but finally my hubby told me to just go buy one, and I did.  Once it was planted, I realized that our garden bed would easily fit two of them, and my husband is always looking for things that I really want as a birthday gift, as my birthday is in the summer and he never knows what to get me.  So he said he would get me a second plant for my birthday present.  I went to choose a second blackberry, and actually found one that looked like it had a baby coming up in the same pot.  So I bought that one, and before I planted it I cut the baby separate and planted it in-between the two large plants.  I am so glad I did, as over the winter it has grown and grown and grown, and is now almost the full size of the other two original plants!  And I feel like getting three plants for the price of two brought the overall price of them down a bit.  And now the baby in then pathway is coming along, and there is a second baby that is coming up still in the blackberry bed, so I won't have to move that one.  Overall, while it was expensive for sure to purchase the original two plants, I am VERY happy to have thornless blackberries, and so far they do appear to be a hardy variety so time will tell! 

*I started some lettuce, tomatoes, and collards using seeds that I already had.  Some of these seeds were between five and ten years old!  There were a couple varieties that did not germinate, but most did, so I was glad that I had tried to use what I already had.  I start my seeds in our basement on an old shelf unit, with just regular shop lights hanging from the shelves.  Nothing fancy, and nothing that is official grow lights.  

*When our plants were up and we were having some beautiful weather in the 80's, I took a chance and moved some of them out to our garden.  Then--just as Murphey's law would have it, we were going to have several nights with almost freezing temps.  I thought the plants would PROBABLY be alright, but worried since they were so small still.  So I thought about what I already had that I could cover them with, and realized I have a LOT of empty canning jars right now.  I used to can quite a bit of fruit each summer--sometimes over one hundred jars of each thing--but lately I cannot purchase the fruit in bulk cheaper than I can simply purchase the item already commercially canned.  No, it may not taste quite as good, but I really needed it to be helping out significantly with my grocery budget for me to go to all the work and effort to do serious canning.  So for right now, I am not doing a lot of home canning but I may sometime, depending on what I can get access to.  ANYWAY, so I decided my empty canning jars could be put to use as tiny greenhouses to protect my little plants! They worked great!  So now I know what I can grab if necessary.  About one more week and we will be past our average frost date, so we will see how things go after that!

*I have been staying completely out of the stores the past several weeks, but ended up needing to go to the Walmart pharmacy to pick up a prescription, so as long as I am in the store of COURSE I am going to walk through the Garden section of the store just to see what they have in!  There IS a reason that I typically park my car down by the Garden entrance! ;) Well, walking through the Garden area, I was looking for veggie plants.  They had hardly any of those, but they DID have some beautiful yellow roses that were all marked down on clearance!  I wouldn't have paid the full price for them, but a marked down price of $4.22 fit my budget pretty well!  And I have a place in the garden along the back fence that already has several roses from last Fall when I found some on clearance at our local nursery, so this little beauty can just fall in line right next to the others.

*My daughter is exchanging music lessons with a friend of mine.  My friend K inherited her grandfather's violin.  She doesn't remember him ever playing it, and didn't realize that he even HAD a violin!  But when her father asked her if she wanted it, she said "YES!" as she is quite the music lover!  So she would be receiving a free violin--but she had no idea how to play the violin!  K thought of my daughter, and offered to exchange harp lessons for my daughter, if my daughter would give HER violin lessons!  My daughter was pretty excited, but we had no harp.  Well, we had no harp until God sent her a harp to borrow from another friend, that is!  So my daughter is borrowing a small folk harp, and once a week has a Zoom lesson where K gives her a little harp lesson, and my daughter then gives K a violin lesson!  They are both thrilled with this arrangement, and they are both doing VERY well with their new music instruments! This has given my daughter a huge blessing, especially during this time when so many things closed or had to be cancelled.  It is extra special that God opened up this opportunity for my daughter to learn a new instrument, and one that she has been interested in for a long time now! 

Well, that is about it for our activities for the past several weeks!   What have YOU been up to?  And how are you blessing your family?  Remember to hang in there in the midst of all this craziness!  I have been studying Psalm 91 this month.  God is our refuge, He is our strong fortress!  Go read this Psalm for yourself--it is beautiful, and I pray that you will draw strength from it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of February 23-29, 2020

Hi Everyone!

How was you past week? Mine was busy like always, but good! I managed to write down some of my savings things, so I have some to share. I am sure there are more that I did, but many things are simply lifestyle actions that I do all the time.

But here are some of the things specifically to this past week:

*I was able to receive two free washcloths from Kohl’s. 😁 Free is always the right price in my opinion, and I didn’t even owe anything for tax! It happened because Kohl’s sent me a free $5.00 coupon. I thought for sure that I would need to make a purchase of over $5.00 in order to be able to use it, but I found wash clothes on sale for $2.49 each so decided to try the coupon on two of them—and it worked! I can always use a few more washcloths! I need to replace the washcloths in the main bathroom as well, so I am hoping I end up with more coupons like this from Kohl’s! I did choose in store pickup, to avoid a shipping charge, so I guess Kohl’s did get me physically inside their store, but I resisted purchasing anything else.

*I continued adding freezer meals using the new containers that I bought the previous week.  This time, I had some various things left from a meal we had eaten several times.  I am all for leftovers--or planned overs, as I like to call them--but after eating the same meal for two or three days in a row one can get a bit tired of it.  So I packaged up some leftover brown rice, black beans, and topped them all with a home made corn tortilla.  Into the freezer they went!  Later, when I am especially busy some day, I can pull these freezer meals out and heat them in the microwave, and they will be a huge blessing!

*I started some garden seeds inside, under lights. I always have Valentine’s Day as my target date to start my tomato seeds early inside. I didn’t quite make it on Valentine’s Day itself, but this wasn’t too far afterwards. Like last year, I am concentrating on using up some of my older seeds left from other years in the garden. When I went through the seeds that I had, I discovered that I had used all of my cherry tomato seeds last year. I had plenty of larger tomato seeds, but I do enjoy having some cherry tomatoes my family can just eat right in the garden—yummy! So I knew that would be one seed packet that I would go ahead and purchase this year. There is also one particular flower—a Calendula—that I want to grow for using the flower petals in my soap making, so there is a second seed packet that I needed to purchase. I found cherry tomato seeds easily enough at Walmart, but could not find the variety of Calendula that I wanted. Calendula is a type of Marigold, so I had hoped to find seeds at Walmart, but no luck. BUT, I did find a place to order from online, and they even had free shipping—even if ordering only one seed packet! So I ordered my flower seeds, plus one packet of soybeans that I thought it would be fun to try—and when my order arrived, they had included a free seed packet of Yellow Pear cherry tomatoes! If I had known I would receive a cherry tomato variety free, I might not have purchased the cherry tomato seeds at Walmart, but oh well! My hubby likes the red cherry tomatoes better anyway, and I like them all, so I guess the more the better!

So I started—mostly with older seeds—two types of lettuce, spinach, collards, cherry tomatoes, yellow pear cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, Rutger tomatoes, Banana peppers (from seeds saved from the peppers themselves, we will see if they sprout), Butternut squash, Calendulas—and I “think” that is it! My garden is rather small, and a good half if it at least is taken up with perineal flowers, so I really don’t have a lot of room for planting, so many things that I started I only start a little four pack. But the Calendulas I started lots of, since I want some to remain in my garden, plus some that I can pick for my soap making. 🙂

So far, I have coming up already one variety of lettuce, collards, cherry tomatoes, and the Calendulas. I think there is a spinach coming up as well. I love seeing the seeds sprout!

*I picked daffodils from our woods. I have mentioned these flowers before.  I planted them myself, over several years right after we moved to this house.  I choose daffodils because we have quite the deer population, so tulips are definitely out unless I want to grow them specifically as deer food! But I love looking out my kitchen window and seeing the little specks of yellow sunshine scattered throughout the woods!  And whenever I pick some to bring inside, I chose carefully so as to not pick any that I would have been seeing from my kitchen window--I want to still be able to enjoy those as part of my view!  Isn't Jesus good to give us flowers?!

Well, that was my week!  What did you do this past week to save money and to bless your family? I would love to hear and to gain new ideas!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! November 3-9, 2019

Hi Everyone!

How was your week? Ours was good! It seemed like there were a lot of ways to save money this week, which is always a good thing!  And I have been writing down some of my activities anyway, so I can remember them a bit better, which is also good!

So here we go:

*I made home made pizza. It is not hard at all, but I confess that I kinda forget about it so do not make it super often. My husband and daughter would not complain if I made it more often, I am guessing, based on how many compliments I received on this meal this week!

I made it with white whole wheat flour for the crust, and piled on the veggies including zucchini, artichoke hearts, onions, olives, mushrooms, etc. I do not eat dairy, but for me anyway, I no longer miss cheese on pizza when I am loading it up like this! And I feel so much better, so that is what counts!

*My green tomatoes are ripening wonderfully! Yay! Go green tomatoes! 

I have been making sure we are using the tomatoes as they ripen. One meal I made with them this week was Garden Stack Potatoes. Basically, a baked potato baked and cut open, then layered with corn, green onions, shredded carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, red bell peppers, and a homemade “cheese” sauce that is made out of raw cashews or sunflower seeds, pimentos, lemon juice, garlic and onion powder, and salt. It doesn’t taste at all like “real” cheese, but we like it!

*I received a gift certificate for our local thrift store as a Christmas present since I am a volunteer there, and my daughter also received a gift certificate. They do not expire, so we will be able to use them slowly over time, as we find things that we need and are the right size.

*I stocked up on avocados at Aldis for 49 cents each. I have not seen them at this price for a long while now, so I bought extra to freeze. 

This is my first time freezing avocados, so we will see how it goes.  But I bought frozen avocado chunks at Aldi's this summer, and loved the convenience of being able to take just a little bit out of the freezer for my recipe, and not having to try to time the ripening avocado to when I made a meal, so we will see how it goes.  As they say, this is a test! 

*I bought some flowers for just $1.13 each! I wasn't looking or planning on adding more flowers to my garden right now--it IS, after all, November!  And the weather is a bit chilly for planting stuff in the dirt right now. . . but when I was at Walmart and found Stonecrop--which is a perennial flower, at only $1.13 instead of $7.00 each, I figured what did I have to lose?  So I bought six plants, and quickly planted them in the garden on one of the last warm days we had.  We will see how they hold up over the winter! 

*I traded in my daughter's blouse and bought the same exact blouse in a larger size at a consignment shop! This was hilarious to both my daughter and  myself. . . she has had this bright pink blouse.  It is not exactly her favorite color, though does look nice on her.  Well, she was growing out of it and it was beginning to be a bit tight on her.  We went consignment shop shopping to try and find some solid color blouses which she needs to wear for orchestra playing, and we found the EXACT same blouse for her in the next size up!  It is a Banana Republic brand, and I looked up online this blouse was $68.00!!!  At the consignment store they wanted $10.00--but then my daughter suggested that we take her too small blouse with us and see if they would take it in trade, and they did!  They gave us a $5.00 credit for the blouse we brought in, and I already had store credit from trading other clothes previously which paid for the rest of the new blouse cost.  Yay!  I told her it was her destiny to wear bright pink! ;) 

*I accepted some leftover spaghetti and sauce from my sister, so that was a free lunch for us today as well as free lunch for tomorrow, as we still have some left! 

*I also sent some Christmas presents with the same sister--who will be traveling to our older sister's house for Christmas time.  That means no postage costs to mail the gifts, plus I know the gifts will arrive in good condition.

Well, that's it for this week!  What did YOU do to save money and bless your family?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of October 27-November 2, 2019

Happy November Everyone!

Can anyone explain to me exactly where October went off to?  I am sure it was just starting a day or two ago. . . So why does my calendar now say “November” on it??? Ah, well, the days are flying by indeed!

I kept a partial list of my “frugal happenings” last week.  Which means that I started the week writing things down—but then my notepad got buried on my desk and well, yes, nothing much was recorded on it towards the end of the week.  But I should at least get part credit, right? ;)

So on to my list—
Remember our Fall Break trip to the Smokies just a little bit ago?  Well, while we were there, we hiked in some pretty chilly temperatures.  So chilly, in fact, that my toes and my daughter’s toes were both freezing inside of our hiking shoes.  My ears also got pretty cold with the wind blowing at Clingman’s Dome, as I gave my daughter my ear warmers to wear. Anyway, back at our motel I remembered friends who have talked about how wonderful “Smartwool” socks are.  Evidentially, there is a factory in the town next to where I live, and every now and then they open up and sell factory seconds really inexpensive, or something like that.  ANYWAY, so at our motel with my numb toes and ears, I remembered overhearing about Smartwool socks, and all of a sudden the thought occurred to me that I might be able to get some from LLBean.  Now I know what you are thinking—LLBean is fantastic quality, and great customer service, but is NOT necessarily an inexpensive place to purchase things from.  And I would have to agree with you—unless—you happen to have some store credit with LLBean, which I do.  SO.  Right from our motel—since I was thinking about it—I called LLBean and ordered two pairs of their Smartwool socks, so I could have one pair for myself and one for my daughter.  Then I talked with the nice customer service lady about my cold ears, and she recommended some ear warmers so I ordered those as well.  I knew they wouldn’t help me on our Fall Break trip, but there is plenty of cold weather ahead of us this winter, so I figured we would still get lots of use out of them!

Above is the picture of the Smartwool socks that arrived this week.  Their price is around $18 each pair, but with my credit I received them free. Free is ALWAYS my favorite price!!!  

Then here is the picture of the ear warmers I ordered.  If I am remembering correctly, this was around $23, but again I received it free.  Yay for warm ears!

The next thing I did to save money is I picked ALL of our tomatoes—even the green ones, because we were predicted to get our first night of frost.  Sigh.  I am so happy for cooler weather—our summer high temps were way long this year, but I would be happy to have Fall last just a bit longer with nice cool days, before it moves into cold Winter weather!  But oh well!  At least I could try and save the tomatoes that were growing in our garden!  I have never picked green tomatoes before, but I know my parents have done it for years.  I guess I never felt like I had that many tomatoes left in the garden to pick—but this year we sure did! 

My fingers were numb from picking all of these!  I looked up on-line to see what the best way to ripen them would be, and read to lay them out in a single layer.  I cannot afford to have them all over my kitchen counters, as then I have no room to cook—but decided I could somehow use the shelves in the basement where I grow my garden plants from seeds.  So that is what I did!

I picked out all the tomatoes that were red or starting to turn red, and put them together so I could keep my eye on them and make sure to bring them upstairs to the kitchen when they were ready to eat.  I have never ripened green tomatoes before, so we will see what happens!

Another frugal thing that I did was I picked the last rose in my yard. It was just a tiny, delicate thing, but hey, a free rose is a free rose!

Last but not least, Saturday night our family went to our church barn party!  There was no cost to attend, except that I DID bring some vegan brownies to share with everyone.  We all had a WONDERFUL time!  Food, fellowship, laughter, singing, hay rides--very good times!  The only thing is that the weather was predicted to be a tad on the COLD side. . . . So I decided it was a perfect time to test out those Smartwood socks and the ear warmers! 

Both my daughter and I wore our new socks.  Both of us were impressed overall--our toes got a little cool, but not super cold like they were in the Smokies.  And it WAS really REALLY cold outside, especially as the sun went down!  Maybe two pairs of Smartwool socks would be better?  But I did like the one pair I had on.  And my ears were toasty warm!!!  So happy to have both of these items, even if the ear warmers don't exactly make me appear glamorous! At least my ears were WARM!

My daughter helped with the music by playing the violin.  I am so thankful she is at least improved after her terrible tendonitis.  Not over it completely, but improved enough that she can play a bit here and there.  My hubby also helped with the music, by playing the mandolin.  I helped with the music by NOT playing any instrument--trust me--it's better that way! ;) 

The barn was beautiful!  All the food is set up on tables inside the barn.  I am so thankful for the family that opens up their property to our church family to use each year.  What a blessing they are to all of us!

The social committee worked really hard on this party, and it was lovely, just lovely!  Beautiful setting, beautiful decorations, fun prizes for the children--gifts for adults to win as well!  So much fun!

This tractor was all set up, ready for the hayrides later in the evening.  I couldn't resist taking it's picture.  It reminds me so much of my dad, who has an antique tractor that he still uses to cut much of their ten acres of land, even though he is 83 years old!  When I was a girl, I loved to ride on the tractor with him!

So that was my week!  What did YOU do to save money and bless your family?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of October 20-26, 2019

Happy Fall Everyone!

After summer hanging around way past it's time, we are FINALLY enjoying beautiful colors as the trees change colors, as well as cooler temperatures.  So cool, in fact, that the heater has been turned on several times. . . I always love those few weeks in the Spring and the Fall where we need neither air conditioner nor heater!

What have you been doing to save money lately?  I need to get myself back into writing out my list of things that I do as the week goes along, but for now these are some of the things that I can remember:

*We went on vacation, and only had the expense of our gas and our motel nights.  Our destination was the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and the park itself is free to get in. :)  This, by the way, stems from an agreement that was made by the government when the land for the park was being purchased/taken away from the people who lived there.  It was actually written up that no admission would be allowed to be charged for the use of the park.  This--in hind sight--has been difficult for operating funds for the park, but great for families like us who are going to enjoy the park!

Our son who is in college four hours away from where we live also drove up and met us at our motel, and he was able to stay two of the three nights we were there.  We were not charged an "extra person" charge by our motel, so that was nice as well!  Our motel room had a mini fridge, plus a microwave.  I also brought up a little cooler box that we have which plugs in and keeps things cool, so it was like having two mini fridges to work with.  I was thankful to have both!  I had made as much food ahead of time, as I knew we were not going to be hanging out in the motel room but would want to be out hiking as much as possible! I had also received several strong hints that any food from home that was offered to our college son would NOT be refused! ;) So I had made some extra home made oatmeal bread, cornbread muffins, granola, etc. to send back with him to his apartment freezer. He was very thankful for all that I offered him!

We hiked to four or five different waterfalls, hiked several other trails, and spent the partly rainy day driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The rain held off mostly until we were heading back to our motel on the freeway, so we felt very blessed!  We saw great herds of elk, which was our first time seeing elk in the park (our son had seen them before, but we normally go to a different part of the Smokies and the elk are not on that side).  The one splurge I did make was I purchased my husband, daughter, and myself a walking stick at the park store.  My son already had one, and my husband has one knee that sometimes gives him a bit of trouble, so I thought it might be a good thing to try.  Turns out that he--and the rest of us--all LOVE our hiking sticks!!!  They make such a difference, especially when walking back downhill!  I felt good about making the purchase, both because the price was no more expensive than my son had had to pay for his walking stick which he purchased not in the park, as well as the fact that I knew our purchase was helping to support the operating of the park, which is something I would like to see continue to operate for years to come.

*I helped my daughter film a video for a charity fundraiser that she is involved in.  Each year, my daughter's music teacher has a Play-a-Thon with her music studio students.  The children solicit sponsors to sponsor their playing time, and the money is donated to help an area that a disaster struck.  The first year, the children raised money for hurricane Katrina victims.  Last year, they raised money to help a school in Santa Rosa, California that was burned to the ground yet the school was trying to still operate.  Now this year, the children are raising money for another school that is in the Bahamas and was hit by the recent hurricanes there.  While the school itself did sustain some damage, the bigger problem is that several of the teachers lost every single thing that they owned when their homes were destroyed, and many families of the students who attend the school also lost everything.  Of course, with this situation, the families of the students are not able to pay tuition for their children to attend school.  The school administration does not want to tell the students that they cannot come to school.  So this year, my daughter and her fellow music students are trying to raise money simply for operating funds for this school, so the school can stay open and will not have to close.

In years past, I have run my daughter all over town, passing out posters advertising for the Play-a-Thon, talking with people, etc.  I am happy to do this, but have not seen a whole lot of people come and listen to the children play music as a result of our advertising.  So this year, I suggested that she try a different approach, and she planned out a fund raising video that we could post on-line.  So we are trying this method of advertising, and so far, I believe it is reaching more people than our previous years attempts.  This is frugal for me, because it saves me much gas and time and energy--yet it does still seem to be an effective way to advertise what the children are doing.  We have just under two weeks left until the Play-a-Thon, so we will know by then for sure if this was a good way to tell people about the fundraiser.  If you would like to watch the video my daughter made, you can follow this link to go to her fundraiser page.  Once on the page, click the "Read More" link, and it will open up and show the video.  The video is only three minutes long, but I think she did a great job making it and I am so proud of her kind and giving heart!  She has been counting her money to see how much of her own funds she can "sponsor herself" for!

Hope Twinkles Play-a-Thon 3

With all the talk now a days about how teenagers are selfish and only think of themselves, I am very pleased that my daughter and her friends--both teens as well as younger children--are instead trying to see how they can help others!

*I was able to add to my garden flowers with plants that were 75% off!  This was quite unexpected.  I was driving back home from our shopping trip to Aldi's the other week, when as I drove past our local nursery out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a sign out by the road in front of some potted plants.  I was already beyond the nursery driveway when my brain registered just a bit of what that sign said--it was either 25% off, or 75% off--I wasn't quite sure which one.  I started arguing with myself about whether I should turn around or not.  The traffic was pretty heavy that dime of day.  It is not a large road, but can be a pain to wait for the cars to clear so you can go the opposite direction.  I was heading home. . . it was lunch time. . . my husband would be home soon. . . BUT, if it WAS 75% off that the sign said, then I definitely wanted to go have a closer look!  I wasn't sure, but I THOUGHT I had caught a glimpse of some plants shaped kinda like roses out there in the parking lot.  SO.  I finally turned around and headed back.  Much to my delight and shock, not only was it 75% off, not only were there some roses there, but there were even some DAVID AUSTIN roses!!!  If you are a rose person, then you may be familiar with David Austin roses--they are shrub roses.  So these are not the tea roses that you plant if you are wanting to pick a bouquet of roses like you get from the florist.  These are roses that are full with lots of petals.  They grow on bushes.  They LOOK like old fashioned roses, but actually are bred to re-bloom unlike most old fashioned roses. And they smell like heaven!!!  Oh yes, I love David Austin roses!  Around 25 years ago, when we were living in California, I filled our small yard there with David Austin roses.  I hated having to leave them behind when we moved from there to Texas!  I have thought about planting more David Austin roses, but they are NOT cheap.  And I was busy with raising children.  And they are NOT cheap! And no weather is as perfect for growing them as California weather is.  And did I mention that they are NOT cheap??? In fact, this Spring, I and my husband had stopped at this same nursery and looked at the David Austin roses.  We had a spot in our garden that we thought we might splurge and tuck two David Austin roses into. . . but the price was $35 each rose! :0 My sweet husband was still willing to buy me two roses, but it was just SO much money. . . I didn't feel right about spending that much.  I know full well that there is a greater chance they will die on me here, and just do not want to spend $35 on something that I am not sure I can keep alive... . . If I spend less, I feel not so bad when (not if) a plant dies on me--know what I mean?

Well here I was, face to face with David Austin roses.  At 75% off.  Which brought them to a mere $8.75 each. Be still my beating heart! I could feel my pulse start to beat faster.  I started to drag out of the pile the first David Austin rose that I saw, parked it next to my daughter who was standing in the parking lot wondering if her mother had gone completely crazy, and told her to guard it while I went into the rose swarm to get another one.  She looks at me, probably wondering whom she was to guard this rose from, since there was exactly no one else except she and I pawing through these clearance plants.  But I ignored her wondering eyes and took off for the nursery to grab a cart so we could bring some of these beauties into the building and pay for them.

As I continued to pile roses into my cart, she looks at me and asks "Are these the colors that you want?"  I looked back at her and replied, "75% off IS my favorite color!!!" I found a total of three David Austin roses and carted them inside to pay.  I was floating on air, I am sure, as the cashier looked at me a bit sideways.  Maybe she cannot see the beauty in these straggly, thorny plants, but in MY mind's eye they are already full grown and blooming quite profusely all over my garden fence thank-you-very-much! :D I asked as I was purchasing them if their other roses closer to the building were also on clearance, but was told they were "only" 50% off at that point, but that if they didn't sell they would indeed also be placed at 75% off.  I will leave you with one guess as to who just might have visited the nursery several more times, whenever I had another errand that took me that direction. . . In the end, I was able to bring home a total of six roses--five of them David Austin roses, and on that is a different breeder but also a shrub rose.  I am hopeful that at least SOME will live.  I am sure some will not.  But the way I look at it, do you want to kill a $35 rose, or kill a $8.75 rose?

WELL, those are my three big things that I have been doing recently to save money!  What have you done?  I would love to hear how you are blessing your family!

~Susan