Last Week's Thrifty Moves

We had a great first week of 2018, how about you?  On Sunday we took down our tree and I was able to consolidate all of our Christmas stuff into two plastic totes, including the tree!  Yipeeeee!

Then we went through both of the Halloween bins, purged quite a few items and some outgrown costumes and violá!  We managed to consolidate all Halloween and fall decor into one bin plus an electric jack-o-lantern wrapped up in a plastic bag.  Now all the holiday bins fit in one spot stacked up on each other and take up much less space in the garage.  Yipeeee!  Again.

Once we got done with all our purging and reorganizing we spring cleaned the living room.  It is something I always like to do to freshen up and get ready for New Year's day.  Nothing like waking up to a clean and tidy room on the first day of the year to start things off right, in my opinion.

Monday was New Years and I had to work.  It is just part of my job and pretty much the only holiday where I have to be there.  I honestly don't mind because it is going to look pretty great on my paycheck in the middle of the month as I will have earned double time and a half.  I'm putting every extra penny earned toward my Laverne goal right now so that is going to help a lot.

We got a last minute invitation to join our dear friends at their home for pizza and football on New Year's day and were hard pressed to pass that up.  On the way to their house I swung in and put our water bill in the drop box which saved me a stamp.

Tuesday I surprised my girls and took them to the theatre.  It has been a while since we've been and they were super excited when I told them where we were going.  I had a $10 gift card and it was economy night so tickets were only $5.50 each at the Edwards theater complex.  After purchasing three tickets I only had to pay $6.50 out of pocket.  We saw The Greatest Showman and it was spectacular, I heartily recommend it.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and I'm telling you what, that Hugh Jackman still has it going on!  Zac Efron isn't hard on the eyes either!  Mercy!

Wednesday and Friday I put in a little more overtime.

I spent a good amount of time coming up with my first
meal and shopping plan of the year.  My efforts really paid off!

I spent a fair amount of time perusing all of the grocery ads, coupon sites and downloaded some digital coupons onto my rewards cards.  I also downloaded the Friday Freebie from Fred Meyer.  Then I carefully crafted my shopping list and mapped out my errands in order so I can get them done efficiently and not waste fuel by backtracking.  I also made a new meal plan for the upcoming week.

Friday I stopped at the gas station and topped off my car for the month.  It was just under half and I'm hoping this tank will last me for the next four weeks.  On the way home I swung into the post office and purchased a book of stamps where I was informed postage is going up again (boo).  She wasn't sure when, but soon.

I purged another shirt from my closet.  It looked almost identical to another one I had so I decided it could go into the new bag of donations we are working on after we purged our holiday decor.

My sweet girl dumping the glass into the big collection bin
Sun wasn't quite up yet and it was raining

Saturday morning I began my marathon early by loading up our glass recylables and dropping them off at Albertsons on the way to my oldest daughters all day robotics meeting down at the campus.  Next we went to Winco to pick up items on my grocery list before heading off to Trader Joes to pick up more items I like to get there.

Then off to Cash & Carry to pick up twenty pounds of lean ground beef and a large bag of Monterey Jack cheese that was on their Hot Sheet special.  I've been waiting quite a while for the ground beef to be on special so I was pretty excited to see it show up.

Next stop was the Dollar Tree a few more items on my list and to check out their craft supplies for my upcoming projects that I'm getting ready to work on.  I found a bunch of really good stuff and I am super excited about it too!

Our big haul

Then back to Albertsons to return two packages of pork chops I had purchased that were spoiled.  I don't have that happen often, but it does happen.  While we were there I also picked up a couple items on sale as well as a case of peanut butter from their case goods sale they have going on.  My girls eat a lot of peanut butter so this was a great deal at 99¢ per jar.

Lastly, Fred Meyer to pick up my downloaded freebies as well as a few more items on my list that were on sale.  I had coupons downloaded to go along with those sales items too.

When we got home we got everything put away and then we got the cheese and ground beef all divided up and put away in the freezer.  I also divided the chicken into three packages and put that in the freezer as well.

The 10 pounders actually weighed in closer to 11 pounds!
We put up 22 packages of ground beef into the freezer

We fed the chickens our kitchen scraps and added stuff to our compost bin like onion skins, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells and citrus peels.  For those of you wondering the chickens are wintering very well this year and the new roof on the coop is doing great.  We currently average about three eggs a week.

I rinsed out an empty fabric softener bottle with a little bit of water and added that to a new bottle to use up every last drop so it wouldn't go to waste.

Saturday evening, after I picked up the oldest from robotics, I used coupons I received in the mail to treat my daughters to hamburgers and fries at Burger King spending less than $10.  Then we went to ShopKo and I treated the girls and myself to a new pair of thick fuzzy socks from the post Christmas clearance rack.

How was your thrifty week?