Sunday I awoke to
rain which put a damper on our plans for an outdoor family photo shoot, but it
did allow us to be able to stay home all day.
I trimmed my bangs and gave the youngest a haircut, ran a large load of laundry
and did my Sunday chores of dusting and vacuuming the downstairs section of our
home. The girls did their chores,
practiced instruments and finished up homework. I helped the oldest with some more college
application stuff too. I'll be really
happy when all of that is behind us.
For a few weeks now
I noticed the sink in the downstairs bathroom was draining slowly so I decided
it was time to pull the drain and clear the clog. Be happy I didn't feel compelled to take a
picture. It was gross. But the trap is clear and the sink drains
normally again.
I did a little bit
of online Christmas shopping at Amazon.
I happened across a killer deal on something I was planning to get my
youngest for a third of the price I was expecting to spend. Score!
That allowed me to use the difference to get a few more items for her
birthday gift bag I'm putting together.
I also got my oldest a Christmas gift so now I'm feeling much better
about where I'm at with gifts so far. And everything arrived via free shipping
too.
Wednesday I left
work early and took my oldest daughter to the DMV and guess what? She has her learners permit and three driving
lessons under her belt so far. I am
super excited that she has finally taken the plunge and I'm having a lot of fun
teaching her. I think she is having fun
too. There for a while I was beginning
to think she was never going to do it.
I did a bit of
grocery shopping on Tuesday at Albertson's and Friday at Fred Meyer. I picked up only loss leader sales items and
a couple markdown items spending only a total of $37 for four bags of
groceries. I was pretty happy about
that. We are now well stocked with boxed
macaroni & cheese (most of that is going to the school food pantry), apple
juice, pasta sauce, bread for sandwiches for the girl's lunches, cheese (99¢
each) and PopTarts (99¢ each, some of these will go to the school food pantry
also). Grapes were 88¢ a pound and they were
so good. Didn't last long either. At Albertson's I used a $5 OFF coupon I
downloaded to my store card which made my total there only $27 (I walked out
with three bags of groceries) and I used some rewards points I had earned to
score a free jar of peanut butter.
Markdown items |
I had some leftover
frosting from the marching band bake sale so I whipped up a batch of vanilla
cupcakes and used it up. I took the
cupcakes into work for my co-workers to enjoy.
I saved six of them for the girls to have in their lunches. I rinsed out the frosting containers and put
them in our recycle bin along with the cake mix box. We recycle so much packaging we hardly put
anything into the trash.
I took a bowl of
ripe cherry tomatoes as well as a cucumber from our garden into work to share
with my co-workers. The tomatoes are
ripening faster than we can eat them and they are so good. Nothing compares to homegrown tomatoes,
especially the cherries.
I added water to the
fabric softener bottle and gave it a good shake to get all that was left out of
the bottle. I had enough stuff for one more
load of laundry and then I put the bottle into our recycle bin.
Thursday the outside
temperature dropped down into the 20s at night. Needless to say we needed to turn on our main
heating system. I'm impressed we made it
into November before that was a necessity.
All stretched out next to my recliner. I just love this little critter! |
Friday and Saturday
were our craziest days of the week. I
left work and took an early and longer lunch so I could pick up my oldest and
run her down to the band room at Boise State.
She was invited to march with the Blue Thunder Marching Band at the
football game that night. I didn't go
back to pick her up until after midnight when it was all over.
Since I knew I had
to stay up late I decided to use that time to get some stuff done. First a quick trip to Fred Meyer on my way
home from work for some more loss leader items that were on sale. Then, once I
got home, I changed into my grubbies and got to work with my youngest daughter
raking leaves. We got two huge piles
raked up just as the sun was setting and got them all mulched by the porch
light. I dumped two bags of mulch in the
chicken coop for the hens to mess around in and the rest were used to cover the
garden boxes in the backyard. I am so
happy I invested in that mulcher last year.
We ate a dinner of leftovers, played with the bunny and watched Footloose until it was time for me to go
get the oldest.
My quick trip into Fred Meyer |
Saturday we were up
early as my youngest had Orchestra Festival.
Unfortunately she woke up with a head cold and wasn't feeling well and I
had woken up with a horrible stomach ache, but we persevered. She played in a quintet and it was really
nice. I always get goosebumps when she
performs and they did an excellent job. Once
we got home she went to bed as did my oldest who was exhausted from her late
night and I curled up in my recliner.
Nothing I had planned to do that day ended up getting done, except for
the laundry. Some days are just that way
though.
I went into work
early three of the five days last week in order to not have to use any of my
stored time off on the day I left early for the DMV or the longer lunch I took
on Friday to run my oldest to the university for marching band. I'm super thrifty with my time off too. I like to use it for fun!
Mulching leaves |
We added coffee
grounds, tea bags, banana peels, egg shells and onion skins to our compost
bin. We fed our kitchen scraps to the
chickens and they provided us with about a dozen eggs. With the colder weather production has slowed
a bit.
How was your thrifty
week?
When I worked I said time off was like money in the bank.
ReplyDeleteIt is! It really is.
DeleteYou got some great deals. I do hope you are all feeling better by now. That bunny is adorable!
ReplyDeleteThank you Debbie. We rallied and are pretty much back to normal. :)
DeleteI have a question about having a bunny for a pet....any chance you could do a short post on the pros and cons? I would love an animal to cuddle, and cats, though good pets, jump on kitchen counters which I won’t tolerate. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI will talk to my daughter and see what we can come up with. She definitely does not get onto the counters! LOL
DeleteI like how frugal you are, yet also how generous you are - repairing the violin from your recent post, school pantry donations, making cupcakes for coworkers ...
ReplyDeleteA lot of people aren't as thoughtful, you are spreading so much kindness.
D.
That is sweet of you to say. Thank you. I know we don't need all of those cake mixes, cereal or the mac & cheese so I'm very happy to share it. :0)
Delete