Last Week's Thrifty Moves

After a solid month of go, go, go (actually we've been on the go since mid August) we ran out of steam.  The BIG band competition wrapped up on Saturday night, we got home at 10:00 that night and I woke up Sunday morning feeling wrecked.  We took the day off and I mean OFF.  None of us got dressed all day and we didn't do anything but watch TV and eat reheated leftovers.  We were all done in.  I thought of a million things I could and should be doing, but I didn't do any of them.  Late that afternoon the youngest and I did manage a quick little Christmas project we had planned to do (details to come), but that was it.  By Monday morning we all seemed to be back on track and feeling pretty chipper.

Monday I came straight home from work and pulled chicken, sausages and salmon out of the freezer to thaw in the refrigerator.  We polished off the leftovers that night for supper making it pretty easy.  I made some coleslaw and my oldest put a pan of seasoned broccoli in the oven to roast.  She loves roasted broccoli.

Tuesday I picked up you young one from cheer practice and we stopped in at Albertson's to stock up on sirloin steaks that were on sale for $2.88 a pound.  I bought two large packages along with a gallon of milk and some asparagus that was buy one get one free.  It's a little on the pricey side even at that, but I really enjoy it so I do splurge from time to time.  After a quick supper we were off to the high school for a marching band wrap up concert and awards ceremony and that officially put an end to my oldest's high school marching band career.  Now onto pep band!

Wednesday was Halloween!  We stayed home and pretty much just hung out.  It made for a nice quiet evening for us, which has been lacking around here for quite some time.  We watched Michael Jackson's Thriller video and called it a night.

I reorganized my home office space so I can get back to paper crafting and other crafts whenever I want to.  Feels good to know I'm all set and now know where everything is should the mood strike.  I also know I have more than enough supplies and probably shouldn't buy anything for a while.  I also gathered up and sorted some photos and got them somewhat organized.  That is another project I'd like to work on and get finished up this winter.

Thursday was deadline day for my daughter to complete the second round application process, (she is a finalist) for one of the scholarships she is applying for.  Fingers are crossed that she gets it, but we are realistic in that there are a lot of people vying for this one.  She has been working extra hard on this phase of the process for the past two weeks.

I gathered up all of the Halloween decorations and got them put away.  A couple weeks ago I purchased a large orange storage tote at Walmart for $5.88 and I was able to get everything inside of that and the one I already had so my largest jack-o-lantern no longer sits alone in a plastic bag.  I still have plenty of room inside both totes for the rest of our Fall/Thanksgiving decor as well  I set out my new ceramic pumpkin set I picked up on clearance at Bed Bath & Beyond.  Now we are officially decorated and ready for the next holiday.

Friday evening we all got to come home and just relax.  Once again I felt the week just zoomed right on by although it seemed we had a little bit less to do.  I made the girls corn dogs and tater tots for supper, they thought they had died and gone to heaven, and we watched some or our Fast & Furious DVDs together.

Still dark outside when we headed off for the parade

Saturday ended up being our busiest day of the week.  My youngest marched with her cheer team at the Veteran's Day parade.  I had to have her at her school to ride the bus at 7:45 in the morning.  Denny's had their Grand Slam breakfast's on special for $5.99 so the oldest and I had breakfast there and I also used my AARP card to add on a 15% discount.  I brought my pancakes home for the girls to have with their breakfast another day.  After breakfast we ran a few errands before it was time to pick up the young one.

We did some pawn shop shopping and came home with a treasure.  I'll be doing a post on what we got coming up in a couple of weeks.  Super excited to share that with you all.

I collected some more pinecones at work and also at our neighbor's house for Christmas crafting.  Free pinecones are a great thrifty find!  I can't believe what they charge for them at the craft stores when they are all over the ground here.

Markdowns

I squeezed out every last drop of toothpaste in the tube before I tossed it.

I brought home a large bag of stale hotdog buns left from our company BBQ the week before for the chickens.  We didn't have a lot of kitchen scraps to share with them this week so that worked out quite nicely.

How was your thrifty week?