Last Week's Thrifty Moves

On this final week of 2015 leading into 2016 I tried to make it as thrifty as possible.

Sunday morning I printed off 12 coupons online from Coupons.com using scrap paper I brought home from work that was destined for the trash.  After reading the Sunday ads online I went back and printed 2 more coupons so I could pair them with the Walgreens ad.  Then I checked out another site, Smartsource.com where I found 2 others to add to my stash.  Before my coupon organizer was pretty much empty.  Now it has coupons for meat, cheese, cereal, pasta, gum, candy, mints, dish soap and cat food.  Not a bad start.

After Christmas when I see coupons for gum, mints or candy I think Easter basket filler.  I can usually plan on Walgreen's ads and sales for super low prices on these items.  Monday I used four of the coupons I printed to purchase two packs of Orbit chewing gum for 19¢ each and two bottles of Dawn dish soap for 69¢ each.  I put the gum aside for Easter and added the dish soap to my household supplies.

I ordered the infrared heater (it had been out of stock for quite awhile) for the chicken coop since the temps are supposed to head down close to 0° on New Year's day.  It arrived on Wednesday.  The weather combined with a ton of moisture so far this year has made the coop and pen area a damp and mucky mess.  With the freezing temperatures now the mud is hard and the other day I noticed frost inside the coop.  We added the red heat lamp just before Christmas to keep them warm and dry, but I'm afraid it is keeping them awake at night.  The new heater has no light and I think they'll do much better with it.

I checked online and discovered I still had $8.80 left on an old gift card so I used it and a $1 OFF coupon to purchase 3 bags of kitty litter.  I had to pay 28¢ out of pocket for the remaining balance.  Not a bad deal

Fred Meyer had pork roasts on sale for $1.99 a pound.  I picked out a really nice, good sized one and had the butcher cut it in half for me.  At my daughter's suggestion I am going to turn one of them into pulled pork for sandwiches and the other into pork verde.

About a month ago I cut the bottom off my tube of facial moisturizer so I could get to a large amount that was trapped inside and I couldn’t get to squeeze out.  I used it up last week along with a tube of Chapstick (I dug the remnants out with a toothpick), a laundry detergent bottle I rinsed out to get a final load of laundry and a bottle of body lotion I had sitting upside down now for a couple of weeks.  I love it when I can use up all of something and have no waste.

I used up the leftover New York Strip and au jus we had on Christmas to make a delicious steak and potato soup.  We enjoyed it for supper with biscuits and finished it up on Saturday for lunch.

I started a purge box using a box some things I ordered from Amazon.  So far I stuck 3 glasses left from a set of 10, 3 jars someone gave us candy in one Christmas (I thought I'd reuse them, but after 3 Christmases I haven’t) and a shirt I don't like.  My oldest put a few things in it too.

I've decided to try to grocery shop more at the dollar store this year since I have had a lot of luck with the items I've bought in the last year.  I wanted to try out their frozen fruits and veggies as I've heard a lot of positive remarks about them.  I also bought 8 more pounds of rice to add to my stockpile in my pantry, another jar of banana pepper slices (I love them on salads), two large cans of Libby's pineapple, two packages of Hormel pepperoni slices for our homemade pizzas and two boxes of lasagna noodles.

On Friday, New Years Day, I worked.  It is one of those things people in my department do.  We prepare the operating systems for the entire corporation to begin a new business year.  It wasn't so bad to miss out on a holiday day off, we got lunch and the extra income will be very much appreciated.

When I got home we decided to enjoy a Pizza Nite with homemade pizzas and Netflix.  I sliced up a HUGE apple and served it with a little bit of caramel ice cream topping I had leftover in the refrigerator for our dessert.  Pretty darn good dinner if you ask me.

Saturday we ate up leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner which made for a simple day of meal prep.  All I had to do was make a fresh tossed green salad.  I also made a batch of Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies.

How was your thrifty week?