Last Week's Thrifty Moves

On Sunday the weather was absolutely beautiful.  We got home from our weekend getaway and we got right to work unloading the food from the motorhome refrigerator and starting a load of laundry.  While the washer ran I vacuumed out the RV and she is all ready for our next trip.  That is how we roll! 😏

I hung the Sunday washing up outside on the clotheslines.  My first time doing so this year.  I love the fresh smell of the towels when they dry outdoors.  Hurray!

After hanging up the wash I made a quick trip to the Fred Meyer gas station to fill up my car.  I used my rewards card and saved 10¢ a gallon.  Yay! Then we were off to Trader Joes for produce to round out what I already had at home.

A friend lent us some DVDs so we finished off our weekend with a Sci-Fi themed Family Movie Nite.

Monday I had to drop my daughter off at BSU to play in the band for graduation.  I took that opportunity, since it is close to the library, to drop off the books I had finished in the drive-thru book return.  I did not pick up any new ones to read as I am now trying out their eBooks on my Kindel.

Tuesday we went to my youngest's outdoor orchestra concert to enjoy their final performance for the school year.  It was very nice and the weather couldn't have been more perfect.

Penelope laid this double yoker!

Wednesday one of my dear friends came over for a quick visit.  While she was here she bought 2 dozen eggs.  Our next door neighbor came over a couple days later and bought a dozen.  The chickens have now earned enough to pay for the bag of feed I bought for them last week with money left over.  Love that!

We gave the chickens our kitchen scraps and some stale bread.  I also picked them a huge pile of dandelion greens from our back yard which they love.  Right now we have a lot of good weeds in the backyard for them.  We also let them out to do a bug patrol in our yard, which we do quite often.  They keep the earwigs and ants in check quite nicely.

On Thursday a coworker bought me lunch at Subway.  It was totally unexpected and very much appreciated.

Yogurt dippers on markdown

I printed several $3 OFF coupons for laundry detergent from Coupons.com.  I also downloaded a gob of digital coupons to my Fred Meyer rewards card and the weekly Friday Freebie for a pint of Silk almond coffee creamer.  I chose caramel flavor.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early and ready to make the most of my three day holiday weekend.  After a fried egg sandwich it was off to Walgreens to use those laundry detergent coupons.  They had the detergent on sale for $3.99 so I picked up four bottles at 99¢ each.  The regular price was $6.99 each.  Holy smokes!

Next stop was Home Depot to return a few items I didn't need.  I had paid for them with a gift card so they gave me store credit which was perfectly fine.  We then wheeled our way through the store and picked up a hodge podge of items to complete a whole slew of different projects I had on my list.  I used my store credit plus a $25 Visa gift card I had and all my supplies were FREE!

Be sure to check out Thursday's post to see what all I did over the weekend.  It was a bunch of stuff, let me tell you.

Fred Meyer was our final stop to pick up fresh produce and a few other items for the holiday weekend.  Because in addition to all the projects going on at our house we were also entertaining guests.

I grabbed ice cream and rootbeer on sale to make floats

Throughout the week I washed out several ziploc bags to reuse.  I composted banana peels, egg shells and coffee grounds.

I pulled a few leftover items from the freezer in the kitchen to use to prepare meals throughout the week.  I still need to work on clearing more items out of there.

Phew!  How was your thrifty week?

Memorial Day

Laverne's Maiden Voyage

One thing you can always count on in Idaho is sweeping changes in our weather.  In less than a week we went from hail storms and frozen rain all over everything the next day to a gloriously warm and sunny weekend.  And when that happens RVs and campers hit the road!

We were more than ready for a weekend getaway, let me tell you.  Have I mentioned it was a loooooong winter?  I got off work early that day to take my youngest to the orthodontist with the idea in my head that we could get home, throw food in the RV refrigerator and get the heck out of Dodge.  And that is exactly what we did.

I knew that a quick trip to an RV park, not too far from home, would be a great way to test out Laverne and she did great.  Me on the other hand, not so much.  I could feel that blasted migraine creeping up on me all day Friday, but I wasn't about to change plans.  No way!!

I put this first aid kit together with $ store items, a few
items we already had and a plastic bin I had out in the garage

We stayed at a lovely RV park in Hagerman, Idaho about 100 miles from home and we were able to completely hook her up and give her a go.  Everything worked as promised, even the AC.  And I made a list of a few things to add and adjust, but for the most part she is pretty much good to go.

The girls were very excited to cook supper on the old campstove

Saturday was a bust.  Our plans to head to Balanced Rock State Park didn't materialize as I was pretty much down for the count.  But I did discover that Laverne makes a cozy cocoon to be laid up in when you don't feel well.

I love my log cabin plates

It worked out fine for the girls.  My oldest had a ton of homework to get done that day and we had WiFi so my youngest downloaded a new game from Amazon Prime onto her Kindle and was pretty happy with that.  In the meantime I found out that the bed and the couch are both extremely comfortable.

Playing cards

Saturday evening we did a complete walk through the RV park and I took some pictures.  The weather was perfect and even though a storm rolled in around 8:00 that evening and thoroughly drenched everything overnight we were snug and dry in our RV.

The next morning the sun was out once and so was I.  With my head much improved we enjoyed a lovely Sunday breakfast before packing up and heading out.  I washed all of the dishes and cleaned up the place while the girls rolled up their sleeping bags and gathered up dirty clothes in a bag.  My youngest took out the trash while the oldest helped me finish up.

Log cabins to rent at the RV park

Working together it only took us about 30 minutes to get Laverne ready to hit the road which included dumping and flushing the holding tanks as well as rolling up the water and electric lines.  We pulled out at 10:30 and were home by noon.

Pretty snowball bushes

Our old habits from our days with our Scamp apparently haven't left us.  Once home we unloaded the bag of laundry, emptied out the fridge and I vacuumed Laverne from one end to the other while the girls put the food away in the house.  The motorhome  is ready to hit the road once again whenever we are.  Just like we did with our Scamp we are travel ready whenever the urge strikes, which is one of the reasons I really like having an RV.

So I consider our maiden voyage a whopping success with the only headache being the one in my head.  Everything else went as well as we could have hoped for.  Now, whereto next?

Christmas Prep 2017 - Only 7 Months To Go!

As crazy as it sounds five months have passed since we celebrated Christmas.  It blows me away at how fast time seems to be going.  My girls are out of school next week!  That, to me, is even crazier!

I only managed to shop once for Christmas and I did absolutely nothing else to get ready.  What I did do, however, was pretty spectacular if I do say so myself.  I used a $10 OFF a $10 Purchase coupon at JC Penney and picked up two workout tops for my girls that were on sale for $5 each.  I walked out of there for FREE!  They didn't even charge me sales tax!

I did manage to come up with a couple more gift ideas to add to my list, but other than that that's it.  Pretty much sums it up for me.  How about you?  Did you do anything to get ready for Christmas?

Poor Man's "Egg McMuffin"

I love egg sandwiches.  Breakfast, lunch or dinner.  A quick and satisfying meal that is easy on the pocket.  But I don't need to head to a fast food restaurant to get my egg sandwiches.  I make them at home and for a fraction of the cost too.

All I need is a package of English muffins, eggs, cheese and some ham, bacon or sausage.  Most of the time I make mine without meat which is even thriftier but a slice of ham or a sausage patty every once in awhile is nice.  Bacon strips are really good.

In the time it takes to toast the muffin I can prepare everything else so I start that first.  While the muffin is in the toaster I use a cast iron skillet and a little pan spray to cook the meat and an egg.  I like to break the yolk and then turn it so it cooks on both sides.  The I remove the pan from the heat and lay a thin slice of cheese on top of the egg.

Once the toaster pops up I lay the ham on one half of the muffin, lay the fried egg with cheese on top of that and then top it with the other muffin half.  It is that simple.  And delicious!

Bakery outlet haul

Purchase your meat, eggs, cheese and muffins on sale or better yet on markdown and you can make a lot of these very inexpensively.  This is just one of the ways I feed myself and my family tasty and nutritious food on a budget.

Chicken Feeder Improvement

There was an obvious design flaw with our chicken feeder.  The hens could easily tip it over and spill out the pellets, which they have done and often.  Lately it has seemed like they are going through more feed than usual and there has been plenty on the ground.  Normally not an issue as chickens enjoy scratching in the dirt and pecking at their food, however with all the moisture we've had lately I do think it was dissolving and getting wasted.

After a bit of thought I decided the best thing to do to rectify this situation would be to build something to place the feeder in that would hold it and protect it from being tipped by the hens. 

I used three fence board ends leftover from our fencing project several years ago to build a rectangle frame.  I used screws from my can of miscellaneous screws to hold it together.

Then I cut a piece of 1" X 2" I had in my scrap wood bin to make a pair of feet to stabilize the box and keep it from tipping.  The feet also provide a way for the galvanized feeder to rest so it won't fall through.

It has been more than a week now and so far no food waste or mess in the coop.  The hens seem to appreciate their newly improved feeder too.  They've laid a lot of eggs ever since. 

Did I mention that this thrifty little project cost me exactly zero dollars and zero pennies? 😁

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

My Mother's Day was delightful and I hope all of you mothers out there enjoyed a very special day as well.  Much to no one's great surprised I spent the majority of my day doing some small Laverne projects.  Mostly I cleaned out and spruced up the outside storage areas.  I also revamped our chicken feeder.  I'll share more about what I did to it tomorrow.  I think it deserves its own post.

Tuesday evening we had a tremendous storm come through.  Thunder, lightning, wind and hail followed by a torrential downpour that thoroughly soaked everything.  It was incredible and it left an incredible mess for us to clean up the next day.  The temperatures dropped that night and when I went out to go to work the next morning everything was coated in a layer of ice.  It has been a super crazy winter and spring for us weatherwise this year.

We worked on eating from our freezers and pantry quite a bit throughout the week.  I did stop into Albertsons to take advantage of some loss leader items that were very well priced.  I also found some turkey sausage on markdown.  I think the sausage filled in the spaces I made in the freezer so not much progress made there - ha, ha.

Friday I left work early to take my youngest to an orthodontic appointment.  We got home shortly after 3:00 and started throwing some stuff together, grabbed food out of the house and climbed into Laverne for a quick weekend getaway.  I'll be posting more about our little trip later in the week.

I received my free energy savings kit from the power company.  It was full of light bulbs and lots of other fun goodies to try out.  I am really glad my coworker told me about it so I could order it.

I used a digital coupon worth $5 OFF a $25 purchase when I did my shopping at Albertsons.

I rinsed out the laundry detergent bottle and had enough soap to wash an extra load of clothes.

I shopped the house to fill up the pantry and refrigerator in the motorhome.

I used my Fred Meyer rewards points to save me 10¢ a gallon and fueled up the motorhome.

We gave the chickens our kitchen scraps and some stale bread.  They gave us plenty of delicious eggs for us to enjoy throughout the week.

Not much more to report.  How was your thrifty week?