Last Week's Thrifty Moves

The final week leading up to Christmas was another busy one for us.  But now they are on break and I get to slow down for a little bit and catch my breath.

I finished wrapping up all of my Christmas gifts, again using supplies I already had on hand.

Chicken & rice soup

I put a chicken carcass into my slow cooker with onion, celery and carrots.  Filled it up with water and made broth.  I used the broth to make two different soups last week.

I cleaned and reorganized the pantry, sending a lot of packaging to the recycle bin.  I filled up half gallon and quart sized canning jars with cereals, pasta, beans, rice, chow mien noodles and nuts.

I put all of our open cereals into mason jars

Rice, beans and pastas

On the way home from a doctor appointment I stopped at the thrift store and dropped off three bags of donations and the big old microwave I took out of the motorhome.  They were happy to get that and I am happy to have it out of my garage.

$50 Winco haul!

My oldest had a robotics meeting Wednesday evening so while she did that we went and got our big grocery shop done for the month.  Hoping I don't have to go to the store again for the remainder of the year!

Goodies from Trader Joe's

We made all of our Christmas goodies out of items we already had on hand.  I've been gradually collecting stuff since October to minimize the impact to our grocery budget.  Everything I bought was on sale and a lot of it I also had coupons for too which made for a gob of extra savings.

Peppermint Bark & English Butter Toffee

Friday afternoon I clocked out and left work.  I was very happy to be heading straight home with nowhere I needed to be!  Shortly after dinner it began to snow and by the time I got up Saturday morning we had a good three inches and it was still coming down.  Again, with nowhere we needed to be it sounded like a good day to hunker down and enjoy the snowfall.

Looks like a white Christmas to me!
Leonard was on the porch yelling at me to let him in

I spent the majority of the day relaxing and working on a few projects I've got going and made some wonderful progress.  I'm super excited about them and will be sharing what I've been up to with all of you after the New Year.

Here is a sneak peak at one of the projects I've been working on

We baked cookies, or rather the girls did.  They made yummy gingersnaps.  I made two homemade pizzas for our supper and they were delicious!

How was your thrifty week?