Frugal Friday Wrap Up 7/22-7/28 2017

   It has been another pretty frugal week and I have been planning ahead for the Fall already.  I'm trying to restock our HBA products that are starting to run low while the prices are down on those items.  I only ventured out of town twice this week.  Once was to go shopping and out to lunch and the other to go to our Isaiah's birthday party.  I had hoped to get more done around the house, but again, my health did not cooperate so well.  I am beginning to think that the heat really makes things worse for me.  Anyway, onto the savings!  *Be forewarned...picture intensive post.

~Saturday Jaysn and Rachel came over with baby Steven to pick raspberries.  They were so sweet and brought out lunch for us too.  Jeff helped Jaysn change the lights on his car and Rachel even did some weeding for us.  Steven is now smiling and cooing so of course he melted my Grammie heart yet again and had Jeff making funny faces at him to get him to smile.  I also spent lots of time cuddling him which made me so happy!
~Jeff decided that he was too tired to go to his class reunion so I made a huge bowl of popcorn and we watched a movie on Netflix.
~Sunday Jeff went golfing using a gift certificate that Jaysn and Rachel had gotten him last year.  He so needed to relieve some stress and when he called me when he was done I could hear the excitement and happiness in his voice. :)

~One of our local grocery stores had the bar soap that Jeff likes at half off.  He bought 9 3 packs for under $8.  He would have bought more, but that was all they had.  He will check back in at the store again in a few days to see if they have restocked it before the sale is over.  If not, we will get a raincheck for another 10 packs of it.  This should last us until around Christmas!
~While Jeff was gone I got our sheets washed and hung out on the line to dry and cleaned out a cabinet in the kitchen.  I am rearranging a few things to make all my baking things closer to my mixer.  This will streamline things and it made more room in another cupboard so that things are not stacked up so high.  I filled up 2 garbage bags with things to toss out and am filling a box with other things to donate.
~I trimmed my bangs.
~I've been harvesting blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, green onions, peas and tomatoes from the garden.

~Sunday Jeff and I happened upon a clearance sale at Winco on their food storage Hot Cocoa in the big cans.  We bought 2 of them.  I would have bought more if I had more cash on me at the time.  I was keeping my shopping there all in cash that day and had other items that we needed in the cart already.
~At Goodwill I found some beautiful silver and abalone shell earring in a jewelry gift box for $2.99.  Those are going into my gift closet for my Heather.  She has a birthday coming up in September.
~We also found gift bags for .29 each, a brand new beautiful caftan for $5.99 (I looked it up and it is in the current Winlar catalog for $35.00), 3 shirts for me, some nice athletic type pants for Jeff, a much needed magnifying glass (this has been on my needs list for 2 years), a garden hose for $5.99 (another item on our needs list) and some cute pig shaped note paper.

~Monday I froze 3 quarts of raspberries and dehydrated some dill from our garden.
~Our post office is finally reopened again and we had a big stack of mail waiting including 3 free magazines.
~Monday night I made us a nice dinner of broiled lamb chops, rice pilaf, green beans and broccoli.  We figured that a meal like that in a restaurant would run us about $40 not including tip or drinks.  The lamb chops were given to us so my cost was about $2 to make it.  Savings of $38 right there!

~On the first of August, our health insurance provider changes.  Some of the changes are great but our premium is going up as well as our co-pays on office visits as well and pharmacy costs.  I have a prescription that I use on an as needed basis and am ok on it right now but I am going to go ahead and get it refilled now so that it saves me money down the line.
~Wednesday I made a raspberry jello salad with raspberries from our garden to take to Isaiah's birthday party out at Grandma Tammy's house.
~I'm watering the gardens early in the mornings now and have found that has really cut down on the slug damage to my plants.
~I printed off a coupon for a B1G1F 6 inch sandwich at Subway.  We will use it when we go to Spokane for our short 2 night getaway.

~I was craving Antipasti so I made a 3 cheese tortellini salad with peppers, fresh basil, tomatoes and peas from the garden along with broccoli and carrots from the refrigerator and just mixed it all together with some Italian salad dressing, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
~I borrowed another dvd from the library.
~We have our car and home insurance bundled and have been with the same company for years now.  The last bill they sent us was lower than it has been previously so hubby looked at it more closely and we got 2 discounts.  One was  for being a long time customer and another for being safe drivers. :)
~Rachel had a job interview Thursday so baby Steven came to spend the afternoon with me.  So many hugs, kisses, smiles and cuddles were shared.

~Thursday we celebrate Isaiah's 4th birthday with a party at his Grandma Tammy's house.  We had a BBQ and potluck complete with water fights and obstacle  courses and Heather made him the most amazing cake!  So much fun!
~We came home to yet another branch down out of our big cherry tree (will this ever end) and invited our friends to come pick the very ripe but still yummy ones off it.
~We got some free groceries while doing our volunteer work.
~Dinner Friday night was baked chicken thighs (we got them free) with baked sweet potato wedges all done on the same foil lined baking sheet, leftover green beans for Jeff and coleslaw with some raspberries mixed in for me.  Throwing the raspberries in the coleslaw was one of those last minute "well that sounds like it might be good" ideas and it really was!

   Tomorrow is our town wide yard sales.  I will most likely go and see what all is out there but don't plan on buying much unless I see something that would make for a great gift or is something that we need.  I will be keeping my eyes out for kids costumes for my oldest two grandsons who are obsessed with being superheros at the moment.  It is really more about visiting with everyone for me.  I love the social aspect of it all. :)  Here's to hoping to run into old friends while yard sale shopping tomorrow.