Last Week's Thrifty Moves

Froggy is doing his job and just a spitting away.

Sunday I baked a loaf of bread and brewed up a new batch of beer.  As soon as the beer is ready I seem to have more company.  Funny how that happens.

As you already know I took down our kitchen lights and used leftover spray paint to give them a free makeover.  Doesn't get much thriftier than that!

I used old bricks that I have as filler so I don't need as much soil.

I filled the flower pots I painted last Saturday with my "homemade" potting soil.  My daughter found two more pots in the garage and she used leftover black spray paint to give them a face lift which inspired me to take the pot I bought at the dollar store last month and hit it with leftover silver spray paint.  I then planted the spider plant I rooted from the cutting a co-worker gave me.  It looks wonderful!

I found two nuts and bolts in my can of miscellaneous screws and fasteners to replace two that were missing from the handle of our lawn mower.  Now it is all snug and tight.  A quick fix at no cost.

I recycled two milk jugs by turning them into chicken feeders.  My daughters were impressed.  I think they turned out kind of cute.

Monday I picked my youngest up from track practice and we stopped at Albertson's on the way home to pick up another ten pounds of boneless skinless chicken on sale for $1.69 a pound and a few produce items to help keep us going this week.  I also picked up two gallons of milk there for $1.88 each.

When I got home a friend of mine had left me her copy of the Sunday paper complete with coupons and a few more Monopoly game tickets from the grocery store.  She is awesome!

On the way home from my daughter's track meet I stopped to buy six packages of  tortillas on sale at Albertson's for 75¢ each and they gave me a free reusable shopping bag because it was Earth Day.  Nice!

I shopped around for the best price for the best quality on plants for our yard and garden as well as the blue berry and raspberry bushes I wanted.  On Thursday evening I picked up the girls and we went to three stores, fortunately located right next to each other, and were able to get everything we needed for the weekend including a few groceries.

At the feed store I picked up a 50# bag of hen scratch so our girls could have a treat.  They love it.  While there I picked up two packs of pepper plants, one bell pepper and one jalapeno pepper, for $2.50 each.  Nice healthy plants.

At Home Depot we picked up six packs of annuals for $2.00 each.  At Fred Meyer I was able to get the annuals I wanted that Home Depot didn't have and I was thrilled when I found black petunias.  I just love them.  The blooms look like black velvet.  I also found beautiful blue berry bushes for $7.99 each and I bought two since they need a companion.  Their raspberry bushes were also on sale for $7.99 and I found one with four distinct canes growing in it so I should be able to divide and plant them.  Since we are planting in cooler weather they should do well and get a good start.

We got a good rain all day Friday which saved us from watering the lawn and softened the ground in the front of our house.  The girls and I spent a solid hour aggressively weeding the strip of land that runs along our driveway in the front of our house.  It looks so much better and on the first good hot day we plan to get out there and spray it with weed spray so we can get it under control.  It was pretty bad along there, almost embarrassing.  We've also come up with some garden plans for out there.

This is what greets us and our guests at our front door.
I love it!

We used our homemade composted potting soil to plant some of our flowers.  We also tilled a bunch of it into one of our flower beds and the girls have commandeered it as their garden spot.  They had a great time preparing it and planting the pansies and zinnias they picked out at the store.

I worked on the baby afghan I'm making to sell in my Etsy store.  It is coming right along.

We watched a couple TV shows on Hulu for free.

Saturday morning I made four pints of homemade yogurt.  I then made a batch of chocolate chip walnut cookies to give to a friend for her birthday as they are her favorite.  After that the girls decided to make a batch of peanut butter cookies.  They did a fantastic job working together and the cookies turned out fantastic.

I planted cucumber seeds indoors to get an early start.

The youngest and I started up the fire pot and cleaned up a bunch of yard debris and burned up a big bag of what I refer to as "shreddables".  Mostly credit card applications, private papers, bank statements and bill stubs.  It feels so good to have these papers destroyed and to know the resulting ash and wood ash will become compost and eventually tilled into our garden and flowerbeds.

Here is one of the windows I have listed for sale.  I have three total.

Lastly, I listed some old windows I had for sale on Craigslist.  Hopefully they will sell and I can get them out of here.

How thrifty were you last week?