Last Week's Thrifty Moves

 

Happy New Year my friends!  Last Sunday morning I put up my final posts for 2020 on the blog and closed out my year of blogging with a sense of satisfaction.  All in all, it had been a pretty good year.  Next I organized some computer files and got myself better ready for the upcoming year.  When I was done with that I updated the listings in my Etsy shop and added six new sets of greeting and thank you cards.  I love that I'm able to find a place to sell my cards and support my crafty habit. 😊

 

Monday and Tuesday the young one and I had the days off from work.  We both slept in, I tinkered around the house and chopped up eight bell peppers to put on the dehydrator while she worked on cleaning her room and washing her bedding.  Then we decided to go thrifting just for the fun of it.  We hadn't been for a while and had a few shops in mind to go to.

 

We decided to take the truck and it had a really hard time starting which made me suspect the battery I had purchased in 2017 was giving up the ghost.  Turns out I was right and although it was out of the free replacement warranty it was still under the prorated portion of the six year warranty so $65 and thirty minutes later we were back on the road.  While I didn't relish spending over $200 on car batteries this last month I am just incredibly grateful I had the means to deal with it and we weren't in any crisis as a result.  Now both of our every day vehicles have brand new batteries and we are good to go for awhile.

 

Off to the thrift shops we went and I did have some good fortune there.  I picked up a cute pair of brand new coffee mugs for 20¢ a piece that I plan to use next Christmas in a gift basket. Super cute!  In the craft aisle I scored a box of brightly colored envelopes for $3.19 and a set of Memory Keepers circle, oval and border guides with the cutters and the cutting matte for $3.19!  The crazy thing is I was actually thinking how nice it would be to have the oval set (I already had the circles) and an extra matte to work on and not care if I got glue on it.  Now I do!  My daughter found a birthday gift to give her sister next year for $1.99, brand new and unopened, so that made her happy and she knows it is something she will really want which makes it that much more exciting.

 

Christmas clearance at the thrift store 75% OFF

Our next stop was Goodwill where I found a square glass Pyrex baking dish and a darling Corning Ware casserole and lid for $3.99 each, less my 10% senior discount, and now I have two more gifts to give my girls.  Not sure yet if they will be birthday or Christmas gifts though.  At the next shop I really scored big on the Christmas aisle where everything was 75% OFF.

  

So pretty!

I picked up two beautiful brand new still in the box Mikasa Christmas candy dishes for 80¢ each!  They are gorgeous and I might just keep one for myself.  A bag of thirty five sticky bows for 20¢ was a super score.  We were getting low and we use them for all occasions, not just Christmas, so now we have plenty for the year ahead.  A brand new package of treat bags for 20¢ to replace the ones I used up this year and a darling little like new Corning Ware ramiken with a lid for $1.19 that I know one of my daughters will love to have so another gift acquired.  I am extremely happy with all of the items I found and we didn't spend much at all.  To me that makes it even more fun.

 

Before

Tuesday we stayed home and had a nice relaxing day.  I spent most of my time writing and in the craft room where things are coming right along with a variety of projects.  I will be sharing more about those as time goes on.  I finished repairing one of my favorite little Christmas décor items and giving him a little face lift as he was beginning to show some wear and tear.  His wife is quite pleased with the results by the way.

 

After - they are so cute!

Wednesday and Thursday I was back to work, my daughter worked Wednesday as well.  Wednesday evening I took down all the Christmas décor and got that all put away while I waited to go and pick up my daughter from work.  Thursday evening we had our own little New Year's Eve celebration with champagne, a cheese and sausage plate and some dominoes.  We finished playing dominoes just in time to ring in the New Year and then we headed off to bed.

 

The receptionist at work saved me all of the company holiday cards

Friday I was off for a three day New Years weekend and quite happy about that.  My only plans were to do whatever I felt like doing, which I did.  It was glorious!  Perfect way to bring in a new year!

 

Christmas cards I get to recycle

Saturday I pulled some items from our garage storage area and listed them to sell on eBay.  The remainder of the day was spent making some new greeting cards using the stack of Christmas cards the receptionist at work saved for me.  I was extremely happy to get all of those cards and even more happy using some of them to create new ones.  It is definitely my favorite kind of card making.

 

THINGS I PREPPED:  dehydrated 8 bell peppers, vacuum sealed 12 packages of graham crackers, 100ct quart bags, 200ct sandwich bags.

 

My craft & sewing room

THINGS I CLEANED IN 15 MINUTES OR LESS: 

Kitchen & Dining Room - vacuumed & spot mopped floor, washed kitchen ceiling& walls, cleaned kitchen light fixtures switches & outlets. 

Bathrooms & Laundry Room -I vacuumed the bathrooms and did my daily swishing and swiping to keep them neat and tidy, two loads of laundry. 

Bedrooms & Living Room- vacuumed & dusted.

 

THINGS I DID TO SAVE A BUNDLE OF $$:  I used some shower gel to make foaming handsoap solution to refill all of our holiday soap dispensers.  We ate all of our leftovers to minimize food waste and gave our kitchen scraps to the chickens.  I gathered up 5 spent candles and used the leftover wax to make 2 new ones.  I washed out several Ziploc bags to reuse.

 

I filled up our dehydrator with bell peppers I bought from the markdown bin

How was your thrifty week?