Last Week's Thrifty Moves

Sunday morning I made a triple batch of cinnamon granola with dried fruit.  I used raisins, cranberries and chopped up some dried apricots I had in my baking box.

I received coupons in the mail for FREE groceries at Winco.  Our neighbor doesn't shop there so we got hers as well.  I like free groceries!  I mean, who doesn't, right?  The coupons were good for two dozen eggs, two packages of English muffins and two 12 oz. packages of bacon.

Plenty of breakfast foods!  The eggs couldn't have come at
a better time with our hens currently molting.

My youngest is such a bookworm these days and she recently joined the book club at her school.  We went to the library to return the books we had read and pick up more.  Then we headed to Winco to use some of the coupons we got.  In addition to the freebies I grabbed a gallon of milk.  Our total for this shopping trip was $1.84!  Can you believe that?!

On the way home we stopped at the feed store for a compressed bale of pine shavings for bedding and an extra bag of feed for the chickens.  I used money from their egg sales to cover this expense.  They only have a couple dollars left but I think they have enough stuff stored away to keep them until spring.

I treated myself to four Corelle red and pink flowered plates.  They are the luncheon size, which is the plate size I use most, and they will be set aside to keep for the future retirement house.  I currently have a lot of white Corelle in my cupboard and undoubtedly quite a bit of that will makes its way over to the new place.  My thought is to be able to mix and match those pieces with these new plates.  I think they are fun and cheerful.

I pulled these lunch plates out of my cupboard to go to the future house too.

I washed out several Ziploc bags including a two gallon size bag to reuse.  It had a small hole in it that I patched with a piece of clear packing tape.  I use this bag to store and organized wrapped items in the freezer so it doesn't have to be perfect.

I found some nice coupons online at Coupons.com that I think I can use.  I printed them out on scrap paper.

I baked a batch of these wonderful old fashioned buttermilk cookies!  My youngest couldn't stay away from them, never can, so they went rather quickly.

I made two nice loaves of honey oat bread.  I used hot water to shake in the honey jar to get out every last bit.  The bread was wonderful.

My youngest made a pint of homemade salad dressing.  I made a batch of homemade pancake syrup. 

The girls spring cleaned the chicken coop and got it winter ready.  After filling it with lots of fresh pine bedding in the nests and under the roost Penelope went right in and laid us a pretty green egg.  After a  good raking they added fresh dirt and a bag of sand to the pen area for them to dust and scratch around in.  They also scrubbed their water and food feeders clean.  We did a couple quick repairs to keep the coop snug and secure.

Her new feathers coming in kind of look like porcupine quills

Poor Edith is looking pretty ratty these days as she is off her lay and going through a hard molt.  I don't think she appreciated me taking her picture while she is having a bad hair day.  Her feathers are beginning to come back in though so she'll be back to normal soon enough.

I worked a couple hours of overtime.

More free breakfast foods, 20# of flour, non stick pan spray and some fresh produce

After dropping my oldest daughter off at school to go and march halftime at the football game Friday evening the youngest and I made a quick trip back to the library for more books and then to Winco to use the coupons we got from our neighbor.  While there I went ahead and picked up a few other items we needed that were on my shopping list, mainly produce and a few items for baking.  Total for this shopping excursion was a whopping $12.74!

Oh my gosh!  How cute is this fabric?!

One of my wonderful readers was kind enough to send me this lovely fabric.  Those little campers look just like our old trailer.  Isn't it just the sweetest fabric!  I'm in love and I can hardly wait to dig in and make something with it.  Thank you, thank you my friend!

Saturday I popped into Goodwill and found five tops for my oldest for school and a vintage quart size canning jar.  My youngest found three more hardbound books for the James Patterson series she it collecting.  She was thrilled.

How was your thrifty week?