Last Week's Thrifty Moves

Sunday I was in full on project mode working on those stairs.  I made a lot of progress, although I had hoped to be further along than I was.  I put in a full day and then cleaned up, showered and got busy with my daily chores and fixing supper.  We were blessed with a much cooler day too, which made it even more wonderful.  I was able to have the doors and windows open all day.

Wednesday I came home from work, changed into my grubbies and spent a couple hours working on our stairway project.  The girls helped too and I was able to finish the trim, sand the drywall repairs and get a couple of the treads permanently attached.  Once again I had hoped to make more progress than what I did, but that's me.

Last week's bounty from the garden

During the week I did some meal planning and came up with ten weeks of meals using pretty much items I already have on hand in the pantry and freezer.  I also planned for some meal prepping sessions to help give me a little boost as our weeks ahead get busier.  Then I checked out the new grocery ads and made myself a list of what I wanted to buy for the week.

Thursday evening the youngest and I went to the feed store to pick up supplies for our new family member (post coming about that this Thursday) and I grabbed a 50# bag of scratch grains for the hens that was on sale for $10.99 since our bin is getting a bit low.  I plan to buy two more bags of layer pellets this fall to get us through the winter and we'll be good on feed until spring.

Fred Meyer haul

Saturday morning the oldest and I headed out early to pick up groceries at Fred Meyer and pick up a few items at Home Depot.  I took an entrance I usually never take to cut through the Ross parking lot and as I was heading through I saw what looked like a folded dollar bill in the middle of the lot.  I stopped and had my daughter jump out and get it.  Turns out it wasn't a dollar, but rather four twenties folded up.  Holy cow!  I just found $80!  It was too early for the businesses around there to be open and who knows how long it had sat there, likely overnight I suppose.  What a nice windfall for us, especially with as much money spent last week with school registration.  I was feeling very, very blessed.  I've never found money like that before.

We did our grocery shopping and picked up the things I needed from Home Depot then headed home.  I put the groceries away and then it was time to work on the stairs again.  They are almost done!  Yay!

Homemade pepperoni pizza

I cleaned out the refrigerator and we fed lots of extra produce and stale bread to the chickens along with our regular every day kitchen scraps.  I have a tendency to overbuy produce, especially when it is on markdown, which really benefits our hens and adds variety to their diet.

I cleaned up around the house and put a lot of cardboard into our recycle bin and glass into our collection container.  I rounded up a bunch of empty paint and spray paint cans to take to the mobile hazmat collection center next time they are in the neighborhood.  I also have an old TV to take to them as well.  Once all of the home improvement projects are completed for the year I'll be loading up the truck and taking all that stuff over to there.

Working on the stairs again

I consolidated a handful of deck screws that were rattling around in a box to our can of miscellaneous screws.  Then I threw the box in the recycle bin making more space in the fastener tote without that box in there.

We set out the final load of demolition trash at the curb.  This week we were able to fit it all in our own trash bin without using our neighbor's.  We are still incredibly grateful to her for allowing us to stick our stuff in her bins.  As a thank you the girls and I plan to clean up her front yard and get some weeds pulled this weekend.

That pretty much sums up our week.  How was your thrifty week?