Wrapping Up A Thrifty April

April was an interesting month to say the very least.  Fortunately for us the pandemic and having our state in lockdown all month hasn't affected us as much as it has for many.  Other than the girls are now home doing online education and some mild inconvenience when it comes to grocery shopping not a whole lot has changed for us.  All of us are employed and healthy.  For that we are truly, truly grateful.

I began the month of April with about a half a tank of fuel in my car since I am currently only driving to work and the occasional trip to the grocery store.  I cannot believe I only used a half a tank of gas the entire month of March and again in April.  On payday I paid all of our monthly bills and slugged quite a bit into our savings account which allowed me to finish putting back all of the money I'd taken out last year.  The stimulus money that arrived on the 15th allowed me to complete my first savings goal of 2020 shooting past that and allowing me to start on goal number two.  At this particular time I really feel the need to hit those savings goals.  On my next payday I paid the mortgage early, slugged a chunk of money at our debt goal and added more to savings.  Progress is being made all around!

At the first of the month I decided to top off the truck even though it still had about a third of a tank left in it.  Then at the end of the month I filled up our car.  It had been 9 weeks since I'd put gas in the car and even longer for the truck.  With both fill ups I used my rewards card to shave 5¢ a gallon off of the already much, much lower price of gasoline.  I was able to fill up both vehicles for the same amount of money as I'd spent to fill up one only two months ago.  Pretty crazy.

I grocery shopped sporadically throughout the month and found myself going to many different stores in order to find what I wanted.  We are very fortunate in that we have everything we need and are able to add to that while staying within budget despite an increase in grocery prices.

We started working to put in a garden in our backyard.  I built a new raised garden bed using wood I already had on hand and had gleaned last summer from the FREE WOOD bin.  We added cardboard and leaves we'd raked up during our yard spring cleanup as well as homemade compost to the new garden bed.  I pulled the container of seeds from the garage and picked up a couple more packets at the feed store.  Then using seed pots we already had,  soil we already had in flower pots mixed with some fresh compost I started seeds indoors.  We are hoping for a good garden this year.  Fingers crossed.

We did a handful of small projects around the house using items we already had on hand.  While at the feed store I had picked up a bag of grass seed and we borrowed our neighbor's spreader to reseed our lawn.  I planned it for when there was rain in the forecast so the first two days the new seed got some good rain.  That saved on the water bill too.

Like most of you we did not go to the movies or do much in the way of shopping.  I did do some eBay shopping to purchase supplies for our new prepper pantry we began last month.  We sold enough items to pay for almost half of our purchases and the rest will be paid for on my next payday.  I used my PayPal credit account so I could work it around our sales and my next payday without accruing any interest charges in the process.  Literally our entertainment has been to work on our prepper pantry and our yard which is just fine with me.

I'm anxious to see how things go for us in May.  I have a lot planned for this month and I'm super excited about it.  It is going to be fantastic!