Last Week's Thrifty Moves

 

Hello, hello!  It has been another wonderful and thrifty week!

 

Last Sunday my oldest daughter came home to celebrate our favorite holiday tradition which is Horse Doover Nite.  We make all kinds of yummy hors d'oeuvres to eat while we put up our Christmas tree.  Hands down it is my girls favorite holiday meal and event.  It is a hard one to beat.  And our tree looks absolutely lovely.

 

We don't decorate a lot but I do manage to put something Christmassy in all of the main spaces of our home including our bathrooms.  We don't typically decorate the bedrooms.  Our style is fairly simple so that everything we own for décor fits in one red tote while our tree and wreath sit inside another.  Over the years I have really pared things down and this year I was able to give some more decorations to my oldest for her tree so now I have even less.

 

My extremely busy work week zoomed right on by and before I knew it, it was already Friday!  The youngest and I had dinner and watched a free movie we accessed with our Roku.  We were both pretty tired so we called it an early night.

 

On Thursday I attempted to go to work only to find the battery on my car didn't have enough juice to get her started.  Fortunately I was able to hop into the truck and get to work on time.  I had just been thinking that now that the car is five years old now (yes, it really is) that the battery is likely going to need to be replaced soon.  I didn't expect it to happen that same week!  Saturday morning I was up early, dressed, one cup of coffee down and ready to tackle the situation.  I headed outside in 20° weather and used my truck to jumpstart the car so I could be at the shop when they opened at 8:00 a.m. and get the battery replaced.  I was out of there by 8:30 with the rest of the day ahead of me.

On the way home I stopped into Fred Meyer for a few items to help me tackle a couple organization projects I have coming up.  I'll be sharing more about those when I get them completed.  I was very happy with what I found there and the prices were good too.

 

Pretty awesome for a $14 investment

Later that afternoon I drove three towns over to have a mommy-daughter date with my oldest and see her first tree.  She found the artificial tree on Facebook Marketplace for FREE and said she spent $14 at Wal-Mart on decorations.  It looks absolutely beautiful, she did an amazing job.  A very impressive tree for such little money spent.

 

My new vintage ornaments

We went to a couple antique shops to poke around and see what treasures we could find.  I found two darling vintage Christmas pins for $2.00 each and a box of four vintage glass ornaments that were on sale for $2.50 for the whole box.  I was just thrilled, especially since I'd broken two of my vintage ornaments this year when we put up our tree.  It always breaks my heart when that happens, but I always tell myself it just means it is time to find a new special ornament to replace it with.

 

After antique shopping we went to dinner at a little Chinese restaurant they have downtown.  We were stuffed and left with enough leftovers for my oldest to have lunch the next day and my youngest a late supper.  I took home a box of Lo Mein which she devoured on the spot.  After dinner we walked it off by going through the downtown Christmas light display.  It was fabulous and FREE!  We enjoyed it every bit as much as we did the one we went to last year at the Boise Botanical Gardens on Christmas Eve.  I told my daughter it is stuff like this that makes really love small towns.  It was a perfect day and I enjoyed myself so much.  I can honestly say that is the most fun I've had in a very long time.

 

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

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

Dining Room - vacuumed & spot mopped floor. 

Kitchen -  vacuumed & spot mopped floor, cleaned and reorganized inside of all the drawers, cleaned the base cabinet fronts. 

Bedrooms & Main Bathroom - vacuumed & dusted, scrubbed toilet.  Daily swish & swipe. 

Other - two large loads of laundry, vacuumed & dusted living room, hallway & entry, mopped living room entry floor.

 

My $10 prep last week

Even with the unplanned expense of a new battery for my car it still managed to be a fairly thrifty week.  I'm just very grateful I have the resources to handle the situation and get it taken care of.  How was your thrifty week?