We woke up to snow on Friday! This is the earliest I can remember us having snow in a very long time. It was beautiful but caused lots of problems for people that were out driving. I am thankful that I did not have to go anywhere that day. Onto the savings...
~Saturday was date day for Jeff and I. We went out to lunch at a nice sit down
Mexican restaurant that has really good prices and authentic Mexican food. It saves us about $10-$20 to eat there instead of one of the other Mexican restaurants in the area.
~While in town, we picked up some milk and 2 little treats for .50 each for our dessert.
~We watched the movie "Dr. Strange" on Netflix.
~We stopped at Goodwill and I find tiny paper candy cups for .99 to use at Christmas and Jeff found a CD he wanted.
~I got my Scentsy burner and enjoyed the perfume of spiced pear cider that I got for $2.99 for a huge block at Goodwill previously. You only use a little bit of the wax so this will last me for a long time.
~Sunday we met Chris, Heather and the little boys at Dairy Queen to get caught up with them. We each got ice cream there.
~I found an adorable pair of little warm booties for Steven for .99 at our favorite thrift store.
~Jeff had some money left on a gift card for Home Depot so we used it to get some more long life light bulbs.
~We stopped at 2 other thrift stores while we were down in the valley and found a food processor for $5.99 for Rachel. She has been wanting one and this one has multiple cutting blades to make her life much easier. We also found 3 books (one will be a Christmas gift), 2 wallets (DKNY and Fossil), a denim shirt for me (Coldwater Creek), a nice moisture wicking shirt for Jeff, 2 scarves (one is wool from Scotland and is my family's tartan), a bottle opener to keep in the car (I never have one when we go on a picnic), some Method hand soap, 2 cds and a large bag full of brand new Lancome facial products.
~Jeff and I worked on our menu for the week on our drive home trying to make sure to use things that we had on hand and making sure that we had lots of variety also.
~Sunday night I made us a nice dinner here at home of salmon (a gift from Heather's parents), boiled and buttered red potatoes (free), green beans for Jeff (free), and squash from the garden for me. I put a lemon, dill and caper finishing sauce on my salmon (Jeff did not want any). I think we spent about .20 total for dinner out of pocket.
~We used our hot tub and enjoyed relaxing in that. I did find when I got out though that Caesar has stolen one of my slippers and had it partially chewed up by the time we found it out in the yard. Bad dog! So much for those slippers...they found their way into the trash.
~Monday Jeff chopped up 5 pounds of onions with our Onion Chopper thingy. We dehydrated most of it but did use 3 of the onions for me to make French Onion Soup, 1 onion went into my Slopped Joes along with half a bell pepper and we froze the remaining 3/4 of a cup for future meals. Bless is heart...those onions were strong!
~Monday I also made a pan of cornbread and 2 loaves of French bread.
~Lunch Monday was Sloppy Joes served over cornbread, apple slices and baby carrots.
~Dinner Monday night was the rest of the cornbread and leftover stew.
~I copied down recipes from YouTube videos that I was watching online.
~Tuesday I harvested and cut up a whole cookie sheet full of green onions from our garden. We had bad weather headed our way so I wanted to get it all done. I froze most of them but kept some out to use in our dinner for Wednesday night.
~I've been working my points programs when time allows.
~I'm trying to keep the heat down when it is just me at home or Jeff is sleeping. I can handle cold better than he can now. I am trying to get into the habit of turning the heat up a bit shortly before he usually wakes up in the afternoon though so that he does not have to deal with it being cooler than he is comfortable with here at home. ;)
~Wednesday Jeff cut up another 5 pounds of onions. Most of them were dehydrated but some were also frozen. The frozen ones will be used in dishes like stir frys.
~I made a huge batch of homemade laundry detergent.
~The library was really good to me. I had requested a bunch of books and movies...a lot of them came in. I know what I will be doing over the next week. 😊 Our sweet librarian even put all of my things in a nice reusable library bag for me and told me to keep the bag and enjoy it.
~Wednesday afternoon found me really tired and tempted to just order a meal from the tavern. I stuck to my meal plan though and made chicken chow mein with things that we have on hand and it only took 20 minutes to do it. I also only used half a chicken breast, so I have another half for another meal.
~Thursday I took the leftover Sloppy Joe meat and put it on slices of homemade French Bread and melted some Provolone cheese over it for Jeff's dinner. He had it with baby carrots. For my dinner, I sliced and cooked the other half of the chicken breast up, cooked it and drizzled some of the lemon, caper and dill finishing sauce over it. I had mine with tomatoes and squash from the garden and some of the baby carrots also. Both of us were very happy with our meals and they took very little effort on my part.
~The onions that Jeff got going for me yesterday were done dehydrating today so I got them all put in jars. I now have 2 full jars of dried onions. That makes me happy!
~After doing Jeff's laundry on Thursday night I was really sore so I got the hot tub going to soak in.
~Friday morning I woke up to snow and no power! That meant no heat and no coffee. I was so tempted to get in my car and drive down to the little shop here in town that still had power and get a nice big hot cup of coffee. It would have cost me $4.75 though so I cuddled up under a blanket and waited and waited... Four hours later the power came back on and the first thing I did was get the coffee maker going. I had 2 cups of home brewed coffee to make up for the long and cold wait.
~I found a new person to watch on YouTube that is a pensioner living in Great Britain. She is extremely practical and frugal. I am enjoying her videos.
Overall this was a pretty good week savings wise. I was good about trying to use foods that we had on hand for meals and I feel like we had a lot of variety. I really am trying to make an effort to recreate some of our favorite things that we order when we go out to restaurants. I'm looking forward to seeing how I can save money this coming week. 😊
Sounds like a wonderful week. You did great on all the finds and the meals.
ReplyDeleteOh no on the snow! We have had snow on Halloween before, but I hope not this year. I am not ready for snow at all.
Stay warm and frugal!
Thanks Cheryl. :) I was not ready for it either and it caught most people off guard since no one has their snow tires on yet.
DeleteOh, wow! Snow, already! We are in the 90s, today! Your chicken chow mein looks so good! Sounds like you had a nice, frugal week, overall. Hope the coming week will be equally good. Stay warm!
ReplyDeleteThanks Bless. :) Today is has not gotten above 50 F here outside. I really am enjoying the warmth from the fire in our pellet stove and am also looking forward to hot tubbing again tonight. :)
DeleteGood on you for sticking to your guns and staying on budget. It is always so much harder when you don't feel well. We have massive summer storms, these happen around Christmas and into the New Year, where we can lose power. As a back up we have a small single burner butane gas stove. The butane comes in aerosol type bottles that screw into place. It is quite light and easily set up. Maybe something like this would be a good idea so you can at least boil a kettle for coffee if the power is out.
ReplyDeleteI have a confession to make Jane...I caved in on Friday and had Jeff order a meal for us to share from the tavern.
Delete~hangs head in shame~
I had French Bread Pizzas on the menu and found out too late that Jeff used the large leftover half of one of the French Breads to make his sandwiches to take to work with him on Thursday night. Yes, there was a smaller bit left, but not enough to make the pizzas with. UGH!
I do have a camping stove and a BBQ grill that I could have gone out and used, but it was way too cold outside for me right then. I also cannot be trusted around an open flame BEFORE I have coffee. ;)
Look at all you got done. Your food always looks so yummy, too.
ReplyDeleteSo who is the pensioner you're watching on YouTube? That sounds like something I'd like.
It took me two days to empty (mostly empty) the back of my truck. It's been my gardening shed for a few years -- it's been that long since I had done any kind of cleaning. The 3rd day I went to the self serve car wash and used their vacuum. I spent $2 for one cycle of the vaccuum and stopped. It's good enough but not totally done.
Yes, that snow looks pretty cold! Too bad you lost power. I put my snow tires on Oct2nd. Oct 1st is the first day to legally doit but the tire store isn't open on Sundays. The tire guy thinks it's going to be a long and very cold winter. Others must be thinking the same thing since he said he had 5 appointments that day to put on snow tires! No one wants to get caught by surprise this year.
I'm a bit tired but ok today. Finally got some good sleep last night. Won't do much tomorrow.
Take good care of yourself.
SJ
HI SJ, the youtubers name is Meanqueen Superscrimper. I am really enjoying her. :)
DeleteI'm glad you got your truck cleaned out. I still need to get the garden put to bed and get all my supplies put away. I'm glad you got some good sleep last night. :)
That's hilarious! Meanqueen Superscrimper:) I'll have to check it out some day when I get some time.
ReplyDeleteSnow! Wow! It has been a bit nippy in the mornings here, but we won't see snow for a long time, if at all this winter. Some winters we get it, some winters we don't. Last winter, there was a lot, so, who knows for this year.
You made a lot of really good meals this week. They look delicious.
Have a great week!
Becky, I think you will enjoy her videos. :) Snow last week and windstorm expected tomorrow. This is shaping up to be an "interesting" Fall.
DeleteHi Debbie! It's so good to see you doing your things and feeling better (I hope)! Around here, we're having bush fires. :(
ReplyDeleteIn the last 24h, 31 people lost their lives because of the fires and the person that caused one of them, was already caught by the police.
It's so sad, to see people, animals, houses and nature burned to the ground, because of other people's malice...
Can you post your french bread recipe on your blog? We love french bread, but I don't know how to make it and yours looks so pretty!
Have a great week, my friend!
:)
Paula, I saw on the news about the fires. My heart aches for everyone involved in them. I have been praying that they are not near you.
DeleteAs for the French Bread recipe, the one I made was a bit time consuming so I am going to try another one and see if that one is better. I'll share it if it is. :)
Be blessed and please stay safe.