Last Week's Thrifty Moves

I bought this little gizmo at Home Depot ($9) for our hose which is fully adjustable and can act like a pressure washer if you really need to clean something.  It is also a water saver device.  They did some excavation in the field behind our house and then we had a ginormous (yes, that's a word) windstorm come through and it blew dirt everywhere and covered everything.  It was so bad we were indoors and could taste dirt and grit (gross!).  Then it rained just enough to plaster that dirt to the sides of the house and windows, our vehicles, Laverne!  I was not a happy camper and it looked like a lot of work ahead to clean this mess up.  This little nozzle made quick work of all that dirt however and in just a couple hours I had it all cleaned up without a ton of water.  It also wasn't jarring me like a power washer would have so no residual effects afterward.  I'm really happy with this thing!  Money well spent!

Tuesday, on the way home from work, I noticed the FREE WOOD bin had been filled.  I stopped to check it out and came home with a small bundle of pieces to use for projects.  I have had a couple in mind and I have been slowly accumulating wood for them over the summer.

I was super excited to see the new Albertson's ad had pot roasts and pork ribs on sale.  I wasn't planning to do any shopping midweek but since it was on my way home from picking my daughter up on Wednesday I decided to pop in and see what they had.  I ended up with a HUGE beef roast for $7.52!  And two packages of ribs.  My oldest loves, loves, loves BBQ ribs..  When I got home they went straight into the freezer as is.  I decided not to divide up the packages of ribs into meal size portions because right now I'm a meal prepper so I'll be cooking up the whole thing in one shot!

All the way out to the car the young one and I were talking about all of the meals that we could make with this one roast.  Shredded beef tacos, bolognese, enchiladas, soup, stroganoff (again), something with rice, the list was quite large.  I'm excited to see what we actually do with it.

I downloaded more digital coupons.  One was for $5 OFF $25 Purchase at Albertsons.  I used that when I stopped to pick up the meat.  I also picked up bananas, grapes and milk on sale.

Thursday, on the way home from picking up my oldest from band practice, we stopped at another Albertsons that was on the way home and picked up two more of those roasts.  I found another good sized one for just under $7.  The rest of them were HUGE and I mean HUGE.  I bought another one for $16 knowing the butcher would cut it in half for me, but I decided to take it as is.  I'm pretty sure that one will need to start cooking overnight in the slow cooker.  Or I'll cut it in half and put it into two slow cookers.  I'll figure that out when the time comes.

My oldest is the one that talked me into the second trip.  I was concerned we didn't have room in our very full freezer but she was convinced she could make a spot for them and when we got home she did exactly that.  My girls love pot roast every bit as much as I do and at that price it was smart of us to stock up.

I made creamy parmesan salad dressing.

I got a packet of coupons in the mail from Fred Meyer.

I washed out a two gallon Ziploc bag to reuse.

We fed our kitchen scraps to the chickens.  They are slowing down on egg production with the sudden change in the weather.  I dread the thought of buying eggs at the store.

Speaking of weather, it got pretty chilly around here and started raining Monday.  It rained all week long until Friday when the sun finally came out.  We really needed this rain and I'm very glad to have it.  The smoky skies are cleared out and hopefully this has helped out the fire situation.  The air quality is certainly better.

I try to not turn on the heat in September (after we pull the A/C units and put them away) for at least a few weeks for a reprieve on the electric bill, but it was pretty cold so I turned on the fireplace in the living room to take care of the chill.  Winter jammies and fuzzy socks are out about a month sooner than we usually need too.  Amazing how quickly the seasons change.

How was your thrifty week?