Friday Frugal Wrap Up 1/29/2016

    Here we are with another Friday Frugal Wrap Up.  Before I list all the smaller things that I did to save money this week, I would like to share that the most cost saving measure I took was to stay out of the stores for most of the week.  I did make a stop for bananas on Sunday when we were in town and then did a bigger shopping trip today, but I watched my budget very carefully and did not go to a thrift store.  Those places are my weakness! ;)  So here we go with my other frugal doings this week:

~received 2 free magazines
~had homemade popcorn for snacks
~made homemade sausage patties and had them on buns for dinner 
~used the leftover sausage patties to make a potato, veggie and sausage chowder that gave us 6 huge bowls full of yummy and warming soup

~my childhood friend Lena sent us a gift of a beautiful Hawaiian Calendar and Macadamia nut candies
~my cousin Jeremy gifted me a gorgeous signed and limited print of Arctic Wolves that is numbered and signed
~made 2 loaves of sourdough bread

~bought some hard candies at the Dollar Tree to refill my candy jar...every Grammie must have a candy jar right?
~made some homemade banana-mango sorbet, it was an experiment that turned out great!
~won 60 points in the Mypoints Sneaky Snowflake game
~used $25 in gift cards at Walmart to purchase things that we needed including a 60 minute Tracfone refill card, our phones automatically triple the minutes

~bought 6 organizing bins for $1 each at the Dollar Tree to help organize my pantry
~I had small amounts left on a prepaid Visa and Discover card so I added $6.93 in funds to my Amazon.com gift card account
~our neighbor gave us 2 dozen cinnamon rolls that they bought as part of a fundraiser for one of the local schools

~the bottom stair on our front cement stairs started to break so my handy hubby busted it out the rest of the way and replaced it with salvaged bricks and some sand laying down a new step
~got a box full of groceries as part of our volunteer work
~used coupons at the grocery store to help bring down the cost
~reinvented leftovers and made them into new meals
~drinking lots of hot tea to stay warm and hydrated

~borrowed dvds and books from the library
~looking through the Pioneer Woman's cookbooks to get more menu ideas
~bought 5 children's dvds from the Dollar Tree, Bob the Builder is a favorite of our grandsons

~Jeff saved the old toilet paper roll holder when he replaced it with one that I liked better
~found shrimp and 2 pork roasts marked down at the grocery store and froze them for future meals
~used tacks to hang up some lightweight pictures
~putting the leftover coffee in the thermos to keep it hot
~I almost bought cookies at the store but then realized that I have lots of mixes here along with some frozen cookie dough out in the freezer

~placed requests for some newly released dvds from the library
~our car was scratched by another driver on the bumper and will need to be buffed and the paint touched up, Jeff is going to do the work himself, the driver said she would pay to have it fixed but Jeff told her he could do it himself and save her from having to pay for an expensive repair bill...I thought her name sounded familiar when she was giving me her info (Jeff was somewhere else in the store when she initially approached me), she is my in-laws neighbor and one one of my hubby's former teachers and such a sweet lady.  She is paying him for the materials and also blessed us by insisting on giving us quite a bit more for our time and trouble.

   Other than the above, I have just been doing the normal things that I do on a daily basis. I continue to do my points programs so I can cash them in for gift cards.  I also am dressing in layers to keep warm and snuggling under blankets so I can keep the heat at 70 during the day and around 62 at night.  Every little bit counts!