Last Week's Frugal Accomplishments

I am left with a choice - wait and see if I have time to add photos, or post, before this entire post gets stale.  As you can see, I have decided to post now, picture free.  Sorry, visual learners!

Daughter was in two class-written plays this past week.  She needed some costuming, which we were able to create from things we had on hand.  It has been an interesting week with regard to clutter, because there was a vest that I donated to Goodwill in the summer that would have been a good addition to one of the costumes.  In the end, her costumes were just fine, but it made me think!

We had to replace the windshield on our 10 year old car.  A rock hit the edge of the glass and it cracked in a line running across the windshield.  We don't have insurance coverage for windshield replacement, so I called around to check prices.  The price difference surprised me - my final cost was over $100 less than the highest of the 4 quotes I received.  The place we chose was fast and had great ratings as well - I was really happy with their service and speed.

Not far from the windshield 'store', there is a scratch and dent grocery store.  I had been their one time before and gotten some crackers that I really, really liked.  I stopped in to see if they had them, and they did!  The price was 30 cents less than the last time I bought them, plus they are running a 30% off promotion until the end of the year.  I purchased some crackers, a bottle of ketchup, a box of cereal, and a few other items.  I was happy to learn that they are now selling bread, because we had stopped at the bread outlet earlier in the day and they were out of bread at that location (they still had bagels, donuts and specialty items, but no standard sliced bread).

OK, so when we stopped at the bread-less bread outlet, I had my punch card, good for two free items on a particular rack.  I brought home a box of donuts and some sandwich thins.  I'm thinking those sandwich thins would make some cute little pizzas.  :)  The punch card gets filled based on the money spent in the store.  It takes us a long, long time to fill the card, but it's no trouble to get those freebies.

My friend gave me acorn and butternut squash.  I just took one of each, because I already had some at home, but she wanted to give me more....like...10.  I need to find some more ways to cook them before I make that level of commitment, hee hee.

Until late in the week, our weather has not been terribly cold, but cold enough to use the wood stove to heat our home.  It really saves on propane costs.  Toward the end of the week, we have had snow and wind, and the wood heat has made it nice and cozy.

I had to purchase a PC for my work this past week.  Husband helped me find the things I needed - how much memory, how much RAM, etc - and helped me find a good price for a computer that would meet my needs.  He did the purchase through Swagbucks for extra points, and paid with a card that was doing a special offer.  Both of those helped lower the price a little more.

I also needed Office on the computer, and happily, we had a previously purchased disc and key card that had one remaining licensed use on it.  I am SO glad we held onto that!  I also found 'the mouse' that we knew we'd saved, though I haven't tried it out just yet (it has been a BUSY week).  The only thing left is to get a headset for the phone.  The one I want is on Amazon, and we have a special offer there as well, that will cover the cost of the headset.

I worked about 15 hours this week, a combination of training and taking on some of the tasks I will be responsible for.  I also volunteered at Daughter's school about 7 hours this week.

A friend's family was having a really rough day.  I was able to do something nice for them (service) which didn't cost a thing, but was helpful.

We did a good job with leftovers this week.  Meaning, there aren't really any left over!  I didn't get to all the menu items we had planned, but leftovers filled in on those evenings.

I washed our clothes with homemade laundry soap and hung them on drying racks in our basement, since it is so cold now.

I popped popcorn for some snacks and did some scratch cooking.  I took a ham from the freezer, and when it thawed, I cut it into more reasonably sized chunks for our family, wrapped and froze those (except for some that we ate).

Hams were advertised this week for .98/lb.  I bought one, and I'm contemplating buying another.  Truth be told, I need to see if there is enough space in the freezer.  Milk was 1.99/gal this week.  I have a lot of fresh produce (lettuce, cabbage, celery, carrots, onions, an eggplant, red pepper, potatoes, sweet potatoes, a tomato, apples, oranges, pears and cuties) on hand from the really good sales we have had lately, so I only purchased bananas this week.  The crisper drawers are full, so I will plan menus based on the items on hand.

We chose an ornament from the giving tree at Daughter's school.  We got gifts for a 9 year old girl.  The big gift is a crafting set for making beaded jewelry.  It comes with instructions and all the supplies, but I also purchased a divided storage box to store the beads in once the box is open.  I had some soft fluffy slipper socks I purchased on clearance, and I recently purchased some really cute stocking-stuffer items from a kiosk at a supermarket - It was a $1-$2-$3 kiosk that they were clearing out before Christmas, so everything was marked 20 cents.  I also included a package of assorted color ball-point pens that I bought with coupons at back-to-school time and a blank journal.  We hope she likes her gifts!

I made some Christmas gifts this week.  In spite of multiple challenges in the process, (I had a lot of technical difficulties) it all turned out just fine.  That's really as much as I can say without family finding out what I'm up to - sorry!  I have two more make-it projects to complete, both of which really need to happen this next week.

How was your week?  What did you do to spend less, save more, or make do?