Frugal Friday Wrap Up 10/18

~Lauren and Josh are in the final stages of getting everything ready for their wedding but still needed a few items.  Lauren mentioned that she needed something to put cards in and also a cake stand.  Luckily I had exactly what she needed here so I will be taking a gorgeous glass cake stand and basket that goes perfectly with their cabin and outdoor type theme over to Montana for their wedding.
~Bradley needed some dress shoes for the wedding and I was able to find him a nice pair at Goodwill.  They were even half off!
~Bradley and Isaiah needed more snow pants.  I found a pair at Goodwill and since they did not have a price sticker on them, the girl ringing us up gave them to us for $5.99 even though all the other snow pants were marked at $9.99.  I also found a winter coat for Steven, who needed a second one, for $5.99.  The coat was brand new!  I want all my grandkids to have at least 2 pairs of snow pants or snow bibs, 2 jackets, and 2 sets of gloves and hats so that they can use the second ones when the first ones are wet from playing outside.
~Jeff found a draft dodger door thingy to keep the cold out for $1.99.  Rachel and Jaysn needed one of those.
~I found a sweater (I used a 20% off coupon on this item), a lightweight jersey material type jacket, a pair of Sketchers shoes (half price) and lots of Ziplock storage containers that were $2.99 for a 4 pack.  Again...Goodwill!
~Heather invited us over for lunch and Chris grilled venison steaks.  They were so good!
~G-pa (Jeff), Chris, Bradley and Isaiah all worked together to build a cornhole game for their friends for Christmas.  Between Chris and Jeff, they had all the materials they needed to both build and paint it.  We left the rest of the wood we took over for Heather to use for making signs or other crafts.
~Saturday we were able to spend some time with Jaysn, Rachel and Steven.  We had not eaten lunch so we took a huge sub sandwich and some chips over there that we bought at Winco.
~Jeff helped me get all of my Summer clothing packed up and my colder weather clothing unpacked and into my dressers.  While switching things out, I purged lots of items that I no longer fit into or no longer use.  It was great to find things that I had forgotten about in the process also!
~I made a delicious tomato and pepper fettuccini dish for dinner one night using some of the tomatoes from our garden that I am ripening inside the house.
~More homemade bread was made.
~My sweet friend, Shannon, blessed me with a pitcher full of freshly pressed apple cider that they made up at the orchard over the hill from us.  I have been enjoying it hot with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.
~We stocked up on treats for our house sitter. :)
~I found 2 books at the Dollar Tree that I thought were wonderful and very gift worthy.  I also picked up some cold coffee drinks (for our trip), some coloring books, more medicated powder (Jeff uses it every day), and some toaster pastries.
~When I find fully cooked chickens reduced price at the deli at Walmart, I try to pick them up and then freeze them for future meals.  Being in a bad fibro flare, I was able to just pull one out of the freezer, thaw and then add some green beans and baked potatoes to it to make a nice meal without a lot of work.
~Jeff picked up 4 bags of fully cooked meatballs and 4 large cans of green enchilada sauce.  All were half price.
~I used one of the packages of meatballs and simmered them in a brown mushroom gravy.  I served it over rice with a side of carrot sticks.  I had enough of the meatballs an gravy for another meal along with enough leftover rice for several more meals.
~Chris came over for a visit and I sent him home with the snow pants we picked up for the boys, some books for them and some bean bags for a cornhole game that they are working on to give as a gift to their friends.
~I watched several movies on YouTube.

Frugal Friday Wrap Up and Snow! 10/11/19

   Yes, that is snow you see in the picture above.  It is our second snow this year.  I don't remember us ever getting snow this early.  I took that picture right after it started.  We still have some snow in the shaded spaces in our back yard as of today.  We had to start using our heat early because we have gotten down into the lower 20's with highs only reaching the low 40's on some days.  Chris and Heather were really sweet and picked up a ton of wood pellets from the building supply store today (they were able to just put it on our account there since we have them listed on our account to use it also) and brought it out to us and unloaded it with Jeff.  I am so grateful and so is Jeff for all their help.  It was wonderful to see our oldest grandsons too and hear about their trip to the coast with their mommy and grandma. :)  Oh, the pellets were also on sale this month....Bonus!!!

   My days this past week have alternated between trying to get as much done as possible and then going into huge Fibro crashes.  This whole finding balance thing is not happening in big part to the weather changes that throw me into huge flares also.  I'm also trying to readjust my sleep schedule to normal people hours before we head over for Josh and Lauren's wedding in 2 weeks and it is NOT working.  As it is, I get the best sleep if I stick with Jeff's sleep times which means I sleep from about 5 a.m. until 11 a.m. or noon.  I am making the best of those hours though and doing house cleaning and baking in those early morning hours.

   So here are the frugal doings that I can remember from this past week:

~Jeff needed some new black slacks for Josh and Lauren's wedding.  We could not find any in our area so we headed up to Spokane and found some at JC Penney's for $24.
~I found 2 pairs of jeans at Sears.  They were going out of business.  The jeans I bought were identical sizes, brand and style.  I tried on one pair and figured the other would fit also....wrong.  I am going to see if they fit Rachel and if not, I will just take them in where needed.  She and I are close to the same size but are shaped very differently.  I really hope they fit her though.
~I made a huge pot of elk stew in the InstaPot and served it with rice.  It was delicious and made lots of meals for us.

~We needed breakfast and snack foods for when we go over to my parents' home for a few days before Josh and Lauren's wedding since most of our crew, along with Lauren's mom and stepfather will be there.  I wanted to help my mom out with all of that since she is feeding the masses as it seems. ;)  In addition to the two gallon sized bags of zucchini muffins that I made about 2 weeks ago and froze, I also made 2 more gallon size bags full of raspberry/blackberry muffins and froze those.  All the berries and squash came from our garden.  I'm glad I froze so many bags of berries now.
~I made 2 loaves of bread and a squash casserole (again, squash from our garden that I saved before the big freeze took everything out.
~I sorted through the box of tomatoes that I had picked when they were green (again, trying to save them from the frost) and pulled out the ones that have ripened.  I sent some of those with Heather today since she needed some for a salad she was making.
~I consigned a bunch of jackets at a new consignment store near us.  They took almost everything I had in that department.  I love having another outlet where I can make some money and clean out my closet at the same time.
~There is a toy drive going on in our town right now for Christmas presents for kids who are in one of the hospitals in Spokane over Christmas.  Our house sitter organized it to give back to them after she was the recipient of gifts on Christmas morning there about 2 years ago when she had to have emergency surgery.  It meant the world to her to have presents Christmas morning when she was stuck there after that surgery.  I had some brand new children's games and toys set aside in my gift closet and donated a Candy Land game to the drive.  I figured that would be a great gift for a child who was stuck in bed.  They could play with their parents or siblings while at the hospital and then later at home also.  It was my favorite game as a young child too! Fun fact...she and I were talking and I realized I had taught her father years ago when I first started subbing at the high school.  Small world (and town).
~I borrowed the movie "Ugly Dolls" from the library.
~More free magazines came in the mail.
~Our town had a Fall Clean Up day and we took full advantage of it.  They hauled away all kinds of stuff for free for all of us here in town.


   I leave you with the following picture of Caesar and Midgey cuddled up together.  Only the coldest of weather could bring her to cuddle up with him.  I thought it was so precious!

     





   

Leaks in the (Frugality) Boat

   

   Jeff and I have bee trying so hard to be as frugal as we can lately.  However, the SS Frugal has sprung a leak and it was a pretty decent sized one too.  UGH!  

   We have a trip to go over to Montana for our son Josh's wedding to his beloved Lauren in a few weeks.  Since the weather had been strange and we have already had snow, we decided to pick up some chains for our tires because they are required on some of the passes when the weather gets bad.  Well we found some for $160 at Les Swab that will fit our tires...ouch.  If we don't have to use them this season, we can take them back on April 1st and get a full refund.  Nice if we can do that...but still.

   Our old microwave oven decided that it was not going to seal properly anymore, so out it went.  I will not take chances on our health.  Since we use our microwave daily, we went to Walmart and picked up a midrange one for $70.  It has a higher wattage than our old one, so we will have to get used to it.  While there, we also picked up another phone card refill for Jeff's tracfone and I added that to his account along with a bonus 60 minute code tonight.  I also found some marked down bread products and picked those up as well and a reduce priced chicken from the deli.

   We are still on the hunt for some nice dress slacks for Jeff and stopped at one of the thrift stores...no pants to be found but we did find a beautiful print from Hawaii that was signed by the artist, a warm fleece jacket for me and one other item that I can't remember now (Fibro fog has struck).

   In order to patch some of those leaks in the SS Frugal, we continue to try to do things here to save money to offset some of the bigger costs that we have incurred.

~I mended 4 articles of clothing.
~More sandwich bread has been baked along with biscuits.
~We harvested and froze more berries and green onions before the big killing frost hit.
~Jeff finished fixing the garage roof so it should not leak anymore.
~We pulled some butter, elk steaks and creamer out of our 2 big freezers that live in the garage.
~I have no idea why, but natural disaster movies are one of the few things that I can watch that will take my mind off the constant pain I am in.  I found a bunch of them on YouTube and even got Jeff involved in watching them.
~I found a channel on YouTube called relaxdaily that has some of the most beautiful and calming music...I have it on right now.
~I have been gifted lots of plums and pears...yum.
~There is yet another bucket of apples picked from our tree before the frost hit that I need to make into applesauce or dehydrate.
~My Scentsy wax burners were pulled out and we have the most amazing fragrances going in them.  All of the fragrances and burners were either gifted to me or I found at thrift stores.  I have a drawer filled with them.
~We did find a brand new spy voice decoder toy at Goodwill over the weekend and bought it and put it away for a Christmas gift for our spy loving oldest grandson Bradley.  Jeff also found some Yak Trak things that you strap onto your shoes to keep you from slipping on the ice (these are for him, I already have a pair) and some bean bags for a corn whole game that Jeff, Bradley and Isaiah are building together for a Christmas gift for their friends. :)
~A large pot of split pea soup was made with things we had in our pantry and refrigerator.  It was so good!
~Starkist sent me a coupon as part of a settlement that was for up to $5.03 worth of Starkists products.  I was able to get 6 cans of tuna for just a few cents after using the coupon.  These are great stock up items for the pantry.
~Even though we are having to use the pellet stove to heat our home, we are still keeping it turned down as low as we can but are still comfortable if we are dressed warmly and cuddle under blankets when we are watching tv or sleeping.  It got down to 26F here this morning...brrrrrrr.....  We also pulled out the warm houseslippers and fuzzy socks.


   With that all that listed above, I will not be doing a Frugal Friday Wrap Up this week.  We have another storm coming in and it is greatly affecting my health.  I can feel it taking me down so I wanted to get this done before it completely did.  If you need me in the next few days, I will most likely be in bed or in my recliner dozing on and off.  Such is life these days.  Be blessed!