Frugal Friday Wrap Up 6/24-6/30 2017

   

   Oh what a week!  I've once again been dealing with Fibro flares/crashes and have been kept busy helping friends and family, doing volunteer work, and trying to keep up on harvesting all the fruit in the garden that is coming on.  In between all the activity, I have been trying to rest and deal with the Fibro pain and exhaustion.  My body reacts badly to stress and this week there has been lots of it.  We have had ongoing car troubles, a loved one had a stroke and almost did not make it, another branch came down out of the problem tree (luckily this one was much smaller), and our son Chris, who is a police officer, has had some really scary situations come up in his line of work lately that keep me praying for his safety.




~Goodwill was good to us this week.  I had to return something that did not fit and found some great things.  The little boys fight over a certain large "digger" metal toy we have and I was able to find a similar one for $1.99.  We also found shirts for Jeff, 3 gorgeous Haviland plates, some new bath salts and Philosophy bubble bath, a cute onsie for Steven (I may save it for Christmas) and a homeschooling mom's devotional book for Heather.
~Safeway had butter for $1.99 a pound (I bought the limit of 2) and eggs for $.79 a carton (I bought 1).
~Jeff and Jaysn took the little boys swimming at a community pool that is free while Heather, Rachel and I were at a baby shower on Saturday.
~I found some marked down ($3.86) thinly sliced round steaks and marinated that in homemade Teriyaki sauce and then grilled it.  We had it with rice (free), corn (.48) and salad.

~Monday Jeff's car needed a new starter, but the one that the parts place gave him was the wrong one and I took my car in to get my rear brakes worked on.  My car needed some additional work also so it had to be left at Les Swab.  Jeff borrowed a car from Uncle Bob so he could return the wrong part (they ended up not having the right one and have to order it in) and then come and get me so I did not have to sit there all day long waiting for my car to be fixed ($771.?? later OUCH).
~The strawberries are coming in like crazy now so I have been trying to harvest them daily.  I have shared with our neighbors and still have a bunch more.
~Jeff and I borrowed the movie Guardians of the Galaxy from Jaysn.  It was way better than I thought it would be,
~I cooked up a package of bacon in the oven and them froze it for future use.
~More loaves of oatmeal bread were made.
~I picked lots of strawberries this week.

~We got a coupon for free cat treats in the mail on Tuesday and Jeff found another one that someone was throwing out.  Doofy will be very happy about that! 😍  He loves his treats!
~More free magazines came in the mail.
~Some of the edge coating was coming off one of my black Coach purses so I used a black permanent marker to fill in the areas where the edge coating had come off.  Unless you look closely, you can't tell where the missing edge coating came off now.
~Turns out the second starter the auto supply place gave my hubby was also wrong!  Yet another 64 mile round trip and fighting road construction all over the place later...
~The raspberries are just starting to ripen on our bushes.  I have been enjoying them fresh and warm out of the patch.
~The overflow water from the swamp cooler has been used to water the pear trees and some of the berry patches.

~I've started taking an hour every day to just sit and read a book.  I have a huge home library's worth of books here that I have not read yet so my goal is to read at least 2 books a week of the ones I currently own.
~Wednesday I spent part of the day with Rachel and Steven.  Rachel was exhausted and asked if I could come over so she could get some sleep.  I remember doing the same thing for Heather with Bradley and again when Isaiah was born.  Time spent with my grandsons and being able to help out my girls...priceless!

~Thursday was our volunteer work.  We got a package of free burgers, 2 packages of bread items, lots of canned and packaged goods, potatoes, juice, raisins, coffee, etc.  We did find out that the program may be shutting down soon for lack of volunteers to run it and because the sponsoring agency, the local American Legion, is disbanding. I will be sad to see it go because it has helped so many families since we first moved here 25 years ago.
~My Walmart Beauty Box came in.  I am not as impressed with this one.  It had shampoo conditioner, dry shampoo, some make up remover wipes, a tiny thing of ROC and some sunscreen and some antiperspirant along with a discount card for a dental company.

~I'm starting to harvest raspberries and cherries from the garden now...YUM!
~Jeff cooked up some of the free burgers on the grill Thursday night while I made a quick sour cream and bacon potato salad with some of the free potatoes we got along with green onions from our garden and some seasonings I have on hand.
~Friday I went over and watered all the potted plants and the garden at our neighbor Bob's house.  Norma, is wife, had a stroke on Wednesday. :( They are like family to us.  After that I came back to our house and worked in the gardens here and doing some weeding and watering.

~I deadheaded the roses and used the petals to start some potpourri with.
~While weeding the garden, I accidently took out some dill.  I went ahead and washed it up and laid it out to dry.  I am never one to waste good dill.  I use our hot tub enclosure area to dry my herbs because there is airflow there and it keeps things out of the weather.  Plus, during the Summer it gets pretty hot in there during the day and things dry quickly.  It only took about 2 hours for the dill to be dried.

~I was craving iced tea again so I brewed up 4 tea bags in 2 cups of water and let that steep to make a good concentrate.  I then added cold water to that to make 2 quarts of iced tea.  Perfect for a hot day.
~I took some leftover teriyaki meat and sauce,added some veggies and whole wheat noodles (free) and made a Lo Mein dish for dinner on Friday night.
~More coupons were printed off via Swagbucks for items I need.  I get 10 Swagbucks per coupon printed and another 10 SB when I use them at the store.  I can usually find the Hefty bags at the Dollar Tree making these a great deal!

~Most of the laundry was hung out to dry on the line
~Our soon to be 4 year old grandson loves foaming hand soap and used up quite a bit the last time he was here so I mixed up some more.
~With my health limitations, I use a "hula hoe" or hoop hoe to weed most of my garden.  I do it in the morning when it is cooler and then let the uprooted plants dry out right where they are.  It makes my life much easier.  Here is one that is very similar to mine:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004OBZFIS/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B004OBZFIS&linkCode=as2&tag=thenextchap01-20&linkId=4046e02dfa288b0059463ab75b49ae2c  (this is my affliate link with Amazon so I will get a small percentage of the sale price if you shop through this link and buy this product and/or other products).

~I've been making compost tea with some of the weeds that I have been pulling (the ones that do not come out as easily with the hula hoe).  I just add them to the bucket I keep in the side garden and when I water the garden, some of the sprinkler water gets into the bucket.  My peppers are loving being fertilized with this and it perks them right up!
~Jeff organized the pantry again and we realize just how much food there is.  We need the kids to come and shop the pantry again.
~I've been working my points programs as much as time allows.
~I'm trying to water the gardens in the early morning or evenings.  Once I water the front garden I have to head out there and go after the darned slugs with the salt shaker.  They are eating all my bean plants!  I tried beer in small lids and that did not seem to work.  Tomorrow I put coffee grounds around all the plants.


   All in all it has had been a high spend week between the car repairs and the extra trips into town along with Jeff having to use my car which used more gas.  I am trying to cut back where I can and to come up with menus using the food that we have on hand.  I think we will be sticking with that plans for a few months, only buying what we need and do not have on hand and if it is something that I cannot make here at home.  Hopefully that will help save money that can be applied to the other bills and get them caught up again.  Here's to a hopefully frugal and fun next week!