Last Week's Thrifty Moves

Sunday morning I was up with the chickens, dressed, with one cup of coffee down and heading out the door with my shopping list.  I went to four stores in total finding only a few items on my list at Fred Meyer.  Their shelves were quite picked over and the meat they had in their ad was nowhere to be found.  Winco, Cash & Carry as well as Dollar Tree were able to meet my needs and once I was done I headed straight home to put everything away and get busy on my next tasks.

I put strawberry rhubarb jam on in my slow cooker
The rhubarb came from our garden!

At Fred Meyer I was able to get some beautiful strawberries that were on sale for $1.99 a 2# box.  I diced up a quart of berries before heading out to our yard to cultivate some rhubarb and after slicing all of that up I made a nice big pot of strawberry rhubarb jam in my slow cooker.  It smelled like heaven!

I found sliced organic mushrooms on markdown and knew
I needed to dehydrate them for our long term storage

I also removed all of the onions and bell peppers from the dehydrator and gave it a quick wash before reloading it with three packages of organic sliced mushrooms I found on markdown, a bunch of celery I had in our crisper drawer and three of the apples I had picked up from the markdown bin as well.  I puttered out in the garden, pulled weeds, spread compost around the berry bushes, did a load of laundry, checked the chickens, cleaned up the kitchen and canned the jam.  It was a great Sunday!

We have been dehydrating (and eating!) a lot of markdown apples

Monday morning I awoke to a well soaked lawn and garden from a lovely overnight rain.  I emptied the mushrooms and celery from the dehydrator and washed the trays.  I cleaned my jam jars that I let cool overnight, washed the rings I'd removed and put labels on the jars before putting them away in the pantry.  I need more jam jars!  So I guess I'll be on the hunt.

This is the rhubarb I harvested from our garden.  Beautiful

When I got home Monday evening I reloaded the dehydrator with more markdown apples completely filling it up.  The ones I did on Sunday taste absolutely fabulous, just like everything else I've dried so far, which has really been encouraging.

Dehydrated onions - they smell fantastic!

Tuesday morning I took the bowl of dried onions and whizzed it around in my little food processor to make them a little finer, but not too much.  I was able to reduce those four trays of chopped onions to fill a quart jar about two thirds full.  I think I chopped up ten onions total and I still have a lot more in the bag to do up.  That evening I cut up a nice sized bowl of strawberries for a future batch of jam and stuck them in the freezer.  I will make the jam once I find enough jam jars at the thrift store to complete the task.

I water bath canned my jams

Wednesday morning I reloaded the dehydrator with frozen blueberries and a tray of fresh strawberries I sliced up.  The girls like the dried apples so much they went to Fred Meyer to see if there were any more apples in the markdown bin.  They came home with three bags of apples for $1 each.  My youngest was super excited about it too.

When I got home from work I put on a big pot of salsa and canned it in my new canner.  I am having way too much fun with that thing I have to tell you.  I am also looking forward to exploring its many other functions too, once I have a spare minute.  While the salsa simmered I refilled the dehydrator with apple slices and let it go overnight.

My daughters made these gorgeous dipped strawberries

After work on Thursday I emptied and reloaded the dehydrator with more trays filled with sliced apples.  I let those go overnight rotating the trays just before I went to bed and again in the morning when I got up.  When I got home from work they were perfect and ready to go into a one gallon glass jar I have had for eons.  The dried apples look so pretty.

Lots of rain last week!

Friday was the official start of my staycation.  I celebrated after work by stopping at the nearby thrift store and picked up nine more canning jars.  Right now they are sold out at the stores and out of stock online.  I prefer to find mine at thrift stores anyway.  A perfect start to my vacation.

Salsa!

Saturday morning I didn't want to sleep away my vacation so I was up early and snuck out to Fred Meyer again this week to pick up butter for $1.99, sour cream for $1 as well as tissues and markdown apples also for $1 each.  Not too shabby.  The apples ended up in the dehydrator, of course.

When I got home from the store I put all of the groceries away, made a batch of strawberry jam with the diced ripe strawberries I'd put away in the freezer on Tuesday and tidied up the kitchen.  Then the young one and I headed off to do some thrift store shopping with the sole purpose to hunt down some canning jars and she wanted to find a couple of books.  We found both jars and  books so we came home pretty happy campers having visited a total of six shops.  Go us!

On the way home from the thrift stores we stopped in at another
Fred Meyer and found this bounty in their markdown produce bin

I added water to the empty fabric softener bottle, gave it a good shake and had enough solution for one more load of laundry.  I did the same thing to the dish soap bottle after I emptied out the contents into my pump dispenser.  I had enough soapy solution to wash up dishes all week long which included all my canning and prepping dishes too.  At work I finished up a bottle of lotion I had sitting upside down for the past few weeks and was able to use up every bit of it.  All of the empty containers ended up in the recycle bin.

A gallon jar of dried apples!

We ate meals using up items pulled from our kitchen freezer which included meat balls, turkey chili, taco meat for taco salads and corn dogs.  The girls bought egg roll wrappers and we made egg rolls, pot stickers and rangoons.  All of the fillings came from our refrigerator or freezer.  We had a fun time making all of that and the girls really enjoyed eating it over the course of two days.  They even had some for breakfast.

Salsa jars labeled and ready for the pantry

Prepper Pantry = canned pancake syrup, strawberry rhubarb jam, strawberry jam, sloppy joes, ground turkey & salsa.  Dehydrated mushrooms, onions, celery, apples, strawberries & blueberries.

Some of the 15 Minute Chores I accomplished to keep my home in order:

Laundry Room & Half Bathroom - vacuumed floors.  Daily swish & swipe.

Dining Room - vacuumed & mopped  floor.

Kitchen -  vacuumed & mopped floor, scrubbed sink, cleaned range hood & stove.

Bedrooms & Main Bathroom - vacuumed & dusted.  Scrubbed sink & tub.  Daily swish & swipe.

Other - two large loads of laundry, vacuumed & dusted living room, hallway & entry, mopped living room entry.  Swept front porch & tidied the garage.

I found 19 canning jars at the thrift stores Saturday

How was your thrifty week?