Last Week's Thrifty Moves

I used the Chocolate Walnut Cookie recipe, substituting a cup of M&Ms for the walnuts, and baked up a batch to take to a BBQ we went to on Sunday.  The kids loved them.  So did the adults.

Sunday afternoon I finally got my Mother's Day flowers and the hostas planted.  Our final flowerbed in the lawn area has been cleaned out and replanted.  I hand watered everything in real well when I was done.

I took advantage of a great sale (Buy 3 Get 3 Free), clearance items, an additional 20% OFF on orders over $50 and free shipping and placed an online order with Bath & Body Works.  I was able to get two gifts for my girls, one for myself (ha, ha) and several hand soaps to give to friends for Christmas gifts.  By the time all the discounts were applied the total was less than $42!

I cleared out the crisper drawer and made a huge salad.  I also cleared out some leftover items in the refrigerator and ended up making two Hawaiian pizzas for our supper one night.  We ended up eating the leftovers the next night.

We got a lot of rain at the first of the week which saved me having to water much until the end of the week.  Our garden is growing nicely.

After work on Friday I went to Fred Meyer to stock up on produce and buy some lean ground beef on sale for $2.97 a pound.  While there I found six pounds of ground turkey marked down so I bought them as well.  I also found these super cute pint jars in the markdown bin.  I've wanted a set of these for quite some time but they have always been rather expensive.  The price on these was set at $3.29 so I splurged and treated myself.

On Saturday the youngest and I used one of the packages of ground turkey to make a big pot of beanless chili in our largest slow cooker.  That girl doesn't like beans at all.  Too bad for her.  I love them.  The oldest divided the other package into four equal amounts and put it in sandwich bags for the freezer.  She labeled them and put them in a larger gallon Ziploc bag to store and reduce the chance of freezer burn.

We all went to the dollar store so my youngest could get some things to make her friend a birthday present and also pick out a card.  She used her allowance money to buy several cute things she thought she would enjoy.  While there I took the opportunity to stock up on large bars of Zest bath soap.  I ended up with 8 bars for $4.  That should last us over a year.

Clearance jars.

I also found a hardback book to give my elderly neighbor for Christmas.  She really likes mysteries.  Normally I give her used books because she never wants us to spend any money on her, because she can't reciprocate and it bothers her, but I didn't want to pass up this one.  She won't mind if I tell her it came from the dollar store.  I came across a four pack of mini spiral notepads to use as stocking stuffers and bought those too.

I priced canning lids at the store and online.  So far the store wins at $1.99 for a box of 12.

I watched several episodes of Joy Of Baking on Youtube for free.  We also watched two movies (The Transporter 1 & 2) from our own DVD collection.

I wrapped up my first two official Christmas gifts using items I already had on hand.  I'm going to try and finish a couple gifts each month throughout the summer, complete with wrapping and tags.

I washed out several Ziploc bags to reuse.

I composted wood ashes, chicken manure, coffee grounds, tea bags, onion skins and egg shells last week.  We fed our kitchen vegetable scraps and some stale bread to the chickens.

I finished the baby afghan I have been working on for my Etsy store.

How thrifty were you last week?