Frugal Friday Wrap Up 10/22-10/28 2016

Fried rice made with leftover rice, leftover ham, squash from the garden, green onions from the garden, grated carrots and some Bragg's Liquid Aminos.

   Hello again!  This has been a "recovery" week for me from all the hustle and bustle of the last few weeks.  I received an email saying that my work for this week and next week are cancelled and although the money would have been nice, I was grateful to be able to stay home Tuesday and rest a bit more.  My husband has had a very long week with long hours as he is pulling double duty doing not only his deliveries, but another driver's route as well.  Hopefully tonight is the last night for that since he was working on training a new driver for the other route.  I'd like to let you know right up front that the batteries in my camera died and I can't find the battery charger at the moment so all you are going to get picture wise is some of the food I made (or froze) this week.  I usually try to take photos of my thrift finds on Friday night to add them to the post.  Sorry about that.  Onto the savings...


~Jeff, my parents and I went to see the new Jack Reacher movie on Sunday.  We hit the matinee and used gift cards so it did not cost us anything. My parents treated us to popcorn and a drink.
~We celebrated Jaysn's birthday with a potluck at Chris and Heather's house.  We then headed down to Jeremy's for a visit there so that my parents could see his new place.
~I cooked up a ham for the weekend and we had lots of leftovers.  We love ham so it quickly found it's way into many things.
~The ham bone was cooked along with some split peas to make a delicious soup.  Some of that went into the freezer along with some of the ham slices and the leftover potato cheese soup.
~Caesar was the happy recipient of the larger ham bone after I was done making the split pea soup.
~My mom and I took a long walk on Sunday.  Caesar enjoyed getting out and my mom and I had a really nice talk and got some exercise in the process.
~Sunday night was had leftover potato cheese soup.  I had made a huge crockpot full on Friday thinking that my brother Fritz was also coming over for the weekend.  He decided to stay home and take care of the animals so we had a lot to finish.  My cousin Jeremy came over that night to have more time with my parents.  The rest of the family was not feeling well and could not make it.
~I sent home some dvds and prints with my parents and an antique table that has been in my mom's line of the family for generations.  One of my cousins had stripped it down but never refinished it.  I came into possession of it via another cousin.  I gave it to my mother and she is going to refinish it and then give it to my "baby" brother.  I wanted him to have it since it is a family piece and he will have room for it in his new home.

Leftover potato cheese soup, split pea soup and ham all packaged up and ready for the freezer.

~There was some leftover rice in the refrigerator.  I sauteed up some squash, onions from the garden, grated carrot, cabbage from the garden and added thin small slices of leftover ham to that.  I then threw the rice in and seasoned it with some Bragg's Liquid Aminos.  Healthy fried rice!  This was my dinner on Monday night.
~My husband and I continue to enjoy the "Columbo" series of DVDs that I bought at a thrift store over a year ago.
~My husband had me look up a tutorial for him on how to fix something on his car.  Thank you YouTube!
~My husband was recently diagnosed as being in the prediabetic range.  The man loves his sugar and his carbs.  I am having to remind him that he cannot eat 2 bagels, 3 hot dogs on buns, 2 sandwiches and a piece of pie all in one day.  I am looking for more high protein foods that will fill him up and not mess with his blood sugar.  I boiled up some eggs for him to take with him to work or to snack on at home.  He does not like yogurt or cottage cheese, which are my go to foods for low fat high protein for myself.  He also has to eat every 4 hours when he is awake without snacking in between so that his blood sugar levels stay even and had to eat 3 of these meals while driving his truck.  Any suggestions would be very appreciated.  Thank you in advance. :)
~Our windows in the guest bedroom have there cardboard put back up in them now that my parents have returned home.  Jeff and I have found that the cardboard is a great insulator when combined with the curtains and it helps keep the room cooler in the Summer and warmer in the Winter.
~My cousin gave me a beautiful hand tatted tablecloth and some runners that had been passed down on his mother's side of the family.  Neither he nor his brother have any heirs and they are the last of that family line.  He gave it to me because he knows that I love these kinds of treasures and it still stays in the family and can be passed down through his paternal side of the family.
~My mother was having a connectivity problem with her tablet and despite friends trying, no one could fix it.  She handed it over to my son Jaysn and he had it fixed for her within a matter of minutes. :)  He saved her a having to take it in to get it fixed professionally.
~I continue to try and run Swagbucks autorun ncraves in the background while I read blogs or do housework.  The point really do add up and I don't have to be clicking constantly.
~Jeff and I watched the movie "Mother's Day" on Wednesday night before he had to go to work.  We shared a bowl of popcorn because you have to have popcorn with a movie.  We had about 1 quarts worth between us since we are trying hard to cut back on carbs and we did not put butter on it. ;)  Oh, and the movie, we borrowed it from the library.

Cod (reduced to half price at Safeway), brown rice and squash from our garden for my veggie.  My husband had the cod, brown rice and carrot sticks along with a green salad.

~Our son Chris got a deer on Tuesday up on his in law's land.  He is butchering it and giving all of it to us.  We are very blessed as this will take care of us for burger and steaks for the year.
~Wednesday I made a run into town to pick up some groceries and I stopped at one of my favorite thrifts stores.  I was surprised to see that their clearance rack had clothing marked down to .10 each.  I found a Style and Co Sweater that originally retailed for around $50 and a pair of maternity slacks (for someone I know that is expecting) for .10 each.  On the regular priced shirt rack  ($2.49 each), I found a cute little shirt and a Livi Activewear shirt (retails for $49.50).  Some other finds were books, brand new Christmas ornaments (.99 each), 3 smaller Oneida bowls (.49 each), and some new canning supplies.
~I scored big at Safeway too.  I found shrimp and cod marked down to half price, got coffee for $4.99 a can (I bought the limit of 4), apple juice for .49 (limit of 1), 2 huge bags of low far cheese sticks ($4.99 each after my discount), crackers, brown rice, and some other items.
~I divided the packages of shrimp into smaller bags that will be just the right size for salads.
~Dissmore's IGA had their large boxes of their house brand of Cheerios for .99 a box.  I bought 2 and am going to have my husband pick up more tomorrow.
~Thursday was our volunteer work day.  We brought home a large box of groceries that included huge bags of raisins and dried cranberries, cereal, bread, canned goods, frozen salmon steaks, a large rolled  pork roast, rice, instant potatoes, crackers and some other items.  This really helps offset our grocery bill.
~Thursday night I made an Asian inspired cabbage and shrimp salad.  I had half of it for dinner and the other half the next day when I added some lettuce to it to make it stretch even farther.

Asian inspired salad made with a package of coleslaw mix cabbage (sale at .89), a package of dry Ramen noodles, green onions from the garden, pepperoncini, salad shrimp (marked down to half price), sunflower seeds and a homemade dressing.  I had half of it the first night and then added some lettuce to it the second day to stretch it even further.

~I set a bucket out to collect rain water and used that to water the plants that are still surviving in the hot tub area.
~While putting some things in the freezer, I pulled out a previously made  and frozen venison stew and rice casserole so we could have that Jeff had for dinner on Friday.
~I took Caesar for a long walk on Friday.  We needed to pick up another Voter's Guide since I could not find our's (we have mail in ballots here) and get the mail.  The we took the long way home and visited with friends and neighbors on this beautiful day!  Great exercise, fun visits and beautiful sunshine...perfect way to recharge. :)
~With the weather being cooler and damp, I have been enjoying a cup (or two) of green tea in the afternoon or evening.  It helps warm me from the inside out, has no calories or sugar and since I buy big boxes of the tea at the Dollar Tree, it is a very frugal treat for me.
~I spent a good hour reading over our Voters Guide pamphlet and am so glad I did.  There are a number of things on the ballot here in Washington state that are going to directly impact our budget.  I'm all for supporting good things but not for wasteful spending.  Some of those things we are voting on were written in ways that sneak things in that do not need to be there.
~With health insurance premiums and deductibles going up for so many people, I decided to play it safe and get all my medical stuff done now.  I have appointments for a mammogram next week and a physical the week after that.  My husband just did his physical and has other medical appointments set up as well.  I checked online to make sure that the specialist he needs to see in in our healthcare network so that our costs are less.

   So that is our semi frugal week.  We really need to buckle down and be very careful with our spending since we have more medical costs coming in that will need to be paid.  We also need to buy some wood pellets for our pellet stove here soon so that is an additional expense.  Thank goodness most of our Christmas stuff is done.  I only have a few more gifts to get and I am hoping to earn enough points via Swagbucks to get a gift card for one of the families that I have left to buy for.  Be blessed, be frugal and have a great weekend!