Last Week's Thrifty Moves

Sunday began with my oldest driving me to a few grocery stores.  My main focus was to load up on fresh produce and a stop into Trader Joes took care of that quite nicely.  Winco rounded out the rest of my list and a stop on the way home at Fred Meyer got us a few items there while my daughter picked up a Christmas gift for her sister.

Trader Joes haul

When we got home we put away the groceries and I did a few little chores around the house.  The youngest ran a load of laundry and that pretty much summed up what we needed to do.  I settled in with my laptop on Youtube and learned how to crochet with thread and made two lace snowflakes for our Christmas tree.  I am super excited about learning to crochet lace projects.

Winco haul

That evening I put together a nice Chinese food supper of fried rice, potstickers and eggrolls.  We watched White Christmas on Netflix.

Fred Meyer with freebies & markdowns

Monday was the only day we didn't have something going on, which was good as I ended up working an 11 hour day.  The rest of the week was nonstop with Tuesday being the most crazy.  After only working a 9 hour day I headed home for a quick supper my oldest made, which was breakfast hash and quite delicious.  Then we all piled into the car to pick up my youngest daughter's friend and drop both of them off at the junior high to warm up for their Christmas concert.  Over to the high school to drop off the oldest for a basketball game, then back over to the junior high to watch the concert, then back to the high school to pick up the oldest and we made it home by 9:00.  After a hot bath I headed to bed and slept like a dead person.

My first attempts at crocheting lace

Wednesday and Thursday were much better in that I only needed to pick up the youngest from cheer practice.  My oldest managed a ride home after science club with one of her friends.  Friday she had another basketball game at the high school so we dropped her off and while we waited for the game to end the youngest and I finished up the Christmas shopping she needed to do at a nearby strip mall.

We still had some time to kill before the game ended so we went to the mall.  I was super excited to find a pair of Clarks for my work shoes on clearance for $49.99.  I had looked at these same shoes several months ago and they were $119.99 so I was extremely happy to get them for such a low price.

Saturday my youngest had her cheerleading Christmas party.  They went ice skating by the outlet mall so while we waited for her to attend her party the oldest and I checked out the outlet mall.  I hadn't been there in years and since I really needed new underwear we decided to go to the Vanity Fair store.  They have combined that store with the Lee/Wrangler stores so we had plenty to look at.  I picked up an extra gift for my youngest as well as six pair of undies for $42 (regular price was $11.50 a pair!  I paid $7 a pair) as well as two bras for my oldest on clearance for $5.99 for both.  I also found a nice pair of Lee blue jeans on clearance for $7.97!  Between the shoes, the undies and the jeans I was able to mark off all but one thing off of my list of clothing items I needed.  Last on my list will be to get another new pair of black slacks for work.  Then I'll be all set.

In order not to lose my mind I got most of my daily chores done in the mornings before I left for work.  Coming home to a clean and tidy house each night really helps me keep my sanity and reduces a ton of stress.

We cleaned up a lot of leftovers by packing them into our lunches each day which made for some easy lunch prep and no food waste.

We made fudge for teacher gifts

I worked a gob of overtime last week which will be very nice to have on my final paycheck of 2018.

I picked up two Friday Freebies at Fred Meyer on Sunday and downloaded another one to my store rewards card on Friday.

I carved out some spare time in the evenings and two of my mornings and worked on the scrappy afghan I started the week before.  It is coming right along and is going to be very warm and toasty.

How was your thrifty week?