Last Week's Thrifty Moves

First thing Sunday morning I put some black beans in my smallest slow cooker to cook up and freeze so I'd have some ready for recipes.  I just love black beans.

Later I made a pan of Vegetable Lasagna for Sunday dinner.  It was so delicious.  After we ate we set aside enough for another meal and then wrapped up the remaining half of the pan and put it in the freezer to enjoy later.

Sunday afternoon the youngest and I started some seeds.  We used egg cartons as our peat pots, seed starting soil and seeds from purchased at the dollar store, and made our own markers with paper and toothpicks.  It was a fun project to do together.

When we were finished we opened up the box of bareroot strawberry plants that had arrived the day before and got busy with a bag of potting mix and some little pots, also purchased at the dollar store, and got them all potted up.  I bought 20 strawberry plants with the idea of sharing some with a friend.  We actually ended up with 27 plants!  Guess I'd better find another friend to share with, ha, ha.  😃

I took the sliver of soap left in the shower and got it nice and wet, got a new bar out and got it all wet and then stuck the two together.  Now the soap sliver will get all used up while we use the new bar.

This was our Sunday breakfast - Yum!

We put the $1 showerhead I had picked up at Goodwill on and gave it a try.  We decided it was too much of a water miser so we took it off.  Before I put the old one back on I soaked it all day in a bowl of vinegar and then scrubbed it with a toothbrush.  I also checked all of the holes with a toothpick to make sure all the calcium buildup was gone.  Once I put it back on it worked good as new.  I guess we prefer a good stream of water over conservation I'm sad to say.  But we did all agree to cut back on our shower time so hopefully that will help.

Did I feel like I threw out a dollar to try the other head?  Not really because it also came with a full sized roll of Teflon tape and I know that costs a little more than $1 at Home Depot.  And with an upcoming plumbing project this summer I won't have to buy a new roll now.  I'll probably donate the showerhead back to the thrift store, however.

Wednesday I took the car in for its six month service.  They had sent me a coupon for $10 OFF and a free carwash too.  I was the most excited about the carwash which also included vacuuming.  Now she is all spruced up and ready to go!

Thursday my tax refund was deposited into my checking account.  I used every bit of it to pay on my debt elimination goal.  Can I tell you what a HUGE dent that just made!  I'm getting so excited.  Yipeeeeeee!  Almost there, almost there, almost there...

Bright and early Saturday morning I cleared out, cleaned and reorganized the spice cupboard.  It was a bit messy and starting to drive me nuts.  I managed to combine duplicates, find things I thought I was out of and wasn't and realized we were out of something I thought we had plenty off - salt.  We were almost out of salt!  Crazy!  I added it to the list and picked some up later that morning when I went off to do my weekly shopping.

Before

After

Crap I eliminated

Speaking of....

The young one and I headed off to so the Saturday morning shopping and I loved it!  We left the house about 9:00 am and took our time.  Our first stop was Whole Foods.  We wheeled our way through the entire store, basically to check it all out and see what they had.  I did find a few things I was interested, but for the most part I found this store is just too expensive for me.  I bought three shelf stable containers of almond milk that were on sale and we had a $1.00 OFF store coupon.  I also picked up a couple bottles of wine. 😋 

Our Trader Joes haul
(almond milk from Whole foods)

Next stop was Trader Joes and I found almost everything on my list there which was unexpected and really nice.  It always takes me a little bit to warm up to a new store, but after my second trip I think I'm already in love.  And the prices on most everything I bought was less than at Fred Meyer and I really like their produce.  I bought some little button mushrooms on my first trip and they were the best mushroom I think I've ever eaten.  I bought some more!  I also treated myself to organic raspberry preserves and dark chocolate.

Fred Meyer (plus a gallon of whole milk)
The Chobani yogurt thingy is a Friday Freebie

Lastly, we finished up at Fred Meyer.  I needed cat food and kitty litter and a few more things that Trader Joes didn't have.

On the way to a dinner party with friends I swung into the water company's parking lot and put our water bill payment into their drop box.  Paid early and I saved a stamp to use for sending a card or a letter to someone.

I bartered two dozen eggs for a ginormous bag of multigrain chips from Costco that my friend picked up for me.  I also shared my Trader Joes chocolate with her.

I washed out a couple of ziploc bags to reuse, made another firestarter out of dryer lint, a TP tube and a piece of newspaper, composted tea bags and coffee grounds and fed our kitchen scraps to the hens.  They ate really well too.  Happy girls, happy girls.

How was your thrifty week?