Frugal Friday Wrap Up 9/25-9/30 2016

   

   It's been a pretty good week frugality wise.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time with our son Josh being home and spending time with him and the rest of the family on Saturday night. Most of our meals were eaten here at home and I found some really good deals at the thrift store.  :)  Onto the savings for the last week of September 2016.


~Saturday we celebrated Heather, Chris and Josh's birthdays with a family bowling night at the local bowling alley.  Jeff and I bought pizzas and appetizers there for the our crew, my cousin Jeremy paid for the soda and Josh covered my hard cider as well as his drinks.  I had signed up to be on the email list so I got a $10 off $20 coupon for bowling, Jeff had $24 credit on his bowling rewards card and Heather had a $10 gift card that she won so after combining those, we only paid $3.06 for the actual bowling part for all of us. :)  It was so much fun and everyone had a great time!
~I had loaded some coupons onto my Safeway card so we stopped by the store on the way home from bowling.  We got butter for $1.99 a pound, 2 packages of imitation crab at $1.09 for 8 oz, 2 packages of breakfast sausage marked down to half price, milk and bananas.  The the coupon machine spit out a coupon for a free Starbucks drink upon checkout so I will use that at a future date. :)

~Sunday found me in "crash mode" and I could barely move.  My sciatic nerve decided to act up too so I was unable to go with my husband to drop out Josh off at the airport which is an hour's drive from our home.  My sweet hubby set me up on our couch later in the morning and made me a grilled pastrami and provolone cheese sandwich.  He also gave me orders to rest for the day and he took care of laundry and other things that needed to be done.  I am blessed!
~I watched quite a few videos on YouTube.  It is one of my favorite forms of entertainment.
~Josh bought some beer while he was here and only drank 1 bottle of it, leaving me the rest.  It is a beer that I had not tried before and it's really good!

~Sunday night Jeff and I watch one of the old Pink Panther movies, A Shot in the Dark, starring Peter Sellers and had a snack dinner of Canadian Bacon, Swiss and Cheddar Cheese, crackers and sliced fresh pears.  We hot tubbed after the movie.  Date night at home! ;)
~Monday we dropped Chris' truck back off at his house and then joined Heather, Chris and the grandboys at Pizza Hut for lunch to celebrate Heather's birthday!  We ordered 2 of the box meals that have a pizza, breadsticks and cinnasticks for $10 per box.  We paid for 1 and they paid for 1.  There was plenty of food for everyone, including the growing grandboys that out eat Grammie! ;)
~While in town, we hit up Goodwill and found 2 like new pairs of pants and a nice shirt for Jeff, a pair of Not Your Daughter's Jeans, a sweater and brand new nightgown for me.  It was senior day so we saved $6 with Jeff's discount.
~We did not need much in the way of groceries so we kept that trip to about $18.
~I made turkey wraps for dinner with some of that sale priced turkey lunchmeat I got last week and tomatoes from our garden.

~More shows were watched online.
~I planned our menus around what we have in the freezers, refrigerator, pantry and garden to use up.
~The library got in 3 dvds and a cookbook for me that I had previously requested. :)
~Tuesday my husband was having trouble sleeping so he decided to come into town with me while I ran my errands.  I love spending all the time I can with him, so it was a nice treat to have him with me.  Our first stop was the thrift store that benefits the disabled in our community.  Tuesdays they have a .25 discount rack of clothing.  I was able to find 2 pairs of shorts for my hubby and I and a bunch of clothing for someone else in our family. :)  I also managed to find  pair of pants for my youngest grandson and some winter boots (Land's End) for my oldest grandson.  My husband and I got 2 books for our Rachel and another for my father..  While I was downstairs finding more clothing and a really neat purse, my hubby was upstairs in the cd section.  He found 2 amazing slack key guitar cds by some of Hawaii's leading artists...one of whom I was blessed to see in concert as a teen. He knows how much that music means to me and was very thrilled to show me his finds.  I did pick up a nice fall wreath for our breezy to our front door at the huge cost of $1.99.  It still had the original price tag on it of $39.95.  Our purchases got us 3 punches on our customer loyalty card.  I am now very close to a free shopping day there. ;)

~Jeff and I stopped at Walmart to get a few things and found some marked down Italian sausages with cheese, a crab salad from the deli, and garlic bread.  We got those things and picked up some Goo Gone so I can get some gummy thing off a quilt that my mother gave us.  She had no idea when she gave us the lovely quilt that she had made that something had gotten on it.  We did pick up a few things from the hot and ready case for lunch to eat on the way home.  Oh, I almost forgot.  Walmart takes competitors coupons so I was able to use my coupon for a free Starbucks Refresher drink  from Safeway there.
~I picked another 2 quarts of blackberries off our bush on Monday.
~More tomatoes and beans were also picked from our front garden area.
~I cut a box of dryer sheets in half.  Half a sheet does what I need it to do and stretches my budget.  I get my dryer sheets at the Dollar Tree to begin with.
~My oldest grandson's Lego magazine came in the mail.  I have a subscription for him and he loves it!

~I pulled out some of my Fall silk flowers and filled 2 vases up with them.  I love the homey feeling and color they add to the living room and in the dining room.
~Wednesday I could tell that I was heading into another big "crash" healthwise so I did my best to try and get as much done as possible.  One of the areas that suffers most when I crash is meals so that was my focus.  I cooked up a squash casserole (my comfort food), 2 loaves of bread and a Teriyaki meatloaf.  I also made a batch of Scrapple.  The bread should get us through the remainder of the week and weekend, the Teriyaki meatloaf will be served with rice and green beans from the garden tonight, the Scrapple can be for dinner tomorrow or the next night and the squash casserole was already dug into for my lunch.

~While I was watering the garden, I noticed that one of our soaker hoses somehow got a large hole in it.  I am guessing the dog got it.  Anyway, I stuck a bucket near where that water was coming out and collected that to use in other areas of the garden.
~I have been trying to use up the water in our rain barrel for watering the fruit trees in the backyard.  We have more rain coming next week that will refill them once more before I have to unhook it and put it away for the colder months.
~Pinecone Research sent me a survey to do.  That reminded me to check my payments balance there.  I cashed out for $13.  Every little bit counts!
~Thursday I picked more blackberries.  I only got about a quart this time.
~Thursday was also our volunteer day at the food commodities program.  We were given beautiful frozen salmon steaks, cereals, snack foods, crackers, juices, canned goods, bread and many other things.  My large apple box was completely filled!  We feel so blessed!

~Mercury magazines sent me a email saying I qualified for a free subscription to Family Fun magazine.  I went ahead and got it for Heather.  That magazine always had fun crafts and things to do in it and Heather is so good about doing crafts with our grandboys.
~Our zucchini plant surprised me with 2 small squashes. Our tomatoes and beans are still coming on, albeit a bit slower now.
~I  put in a lot of time on my points programs this week and really racked up the points.  I will cash some of them in for gift cards here soon.

~Does anyone else do deep Fall cleaning?  After the dirt of harvest (remember I love in farm country) everything in my house needs a really good washing.  I got the dining room and living rooms curtains down, washed and dried.  While they were drying, I cleaned all the curtain rods and walls around them.
~Leftovers were the main lunch items this week.  I am trying to be better about not wasting food.

   I'm hoping to do even better in the month of October on our savings.  I am trying to keep our eating out to just a few times this next month since that is where the biggest leak in our budget is.  Wish me luck. :)