Last Week's Thrifty Moves

Another busy week zipped right on by.  The eclipse happened on Monday and Boise saw it at 99%.  It was pretty cool.  I was at work when it happened and everyone was really excited about it.  The girls went next door and viewed it with our neighbors.  They were super excited about it.  They took the picture of the crescent shadows on the ground.  What a neat phenomenon.

The girls started back to school on Tuesday.  They ride the bus in the morning and I pick them up after band and cheerleader practice.  Fortunately for me, the youngest gets done 30 minutes before the oldest which gives me plenty of time to get to the next school.

Freshly made pico de gallo

We successfully wrapped up our second week of meal prepping and I'll be sharing that with you on Wednesday.  The girls are seriously loving it.  They come home starving and are really happy about how quick I'm able to get dinner on the table.  They are also impressed with the variety of meals served.  I think we may have been in a bit of a rut and doing this has obviously pulled us out of that.  Anyway, they want to keep on going!

The meal prepping has been so successful I actually had time to bake!  And boy did I?  I baked a birthday cake for a friend of ours, a loaf of banana bread (took that into work) and a dozen and a half chocolate-chocolate chip banana muffins (gave half a dozen to a friend).  It is still pretty hot here so I used the toaster/convection oven in the garage.

We used the oven in the garage to bake french fries and pizza last week too.

Banana bread ready to take to work

On the way home Thursday I stopped into the dollar store to pick up a bottle of fabric softener.  I stopped at Albertsons to pick up ice cream to go with the birthday cake.  While I was there I picked up some bananas, a bag of grapes and a head of lettuce.

I did not need to do any other grocery shopping so I didn't go on Saturday.

Friday evening we took the birthday cake and ice cream over to our friends house and enjoyed a nice time celebrating.

Saturday I took the car in for its six month service.  I used a coupon good for a $19.95 oil change and they also washed the exterior and vacuumed inside.  Not a bad deal this time!

One of the techs at work gave me some foam padding that is used for shipping.  He was going to throw it out and asked me if I wanted it for any projects.  I sure did!  It is going to be perfect for adding extra insulation to the motorhome.  I am so excited to have this as I was planning to buy a roll of Reflectix and now I don't have to.  Plus, I think this stuff is going to be much better and has a higher insulating value.  He said he'll keep saving it for me.  Yipeeee!

I took three old cell phones into work and put them in the recycle bin.  I love that we can do that with any old electronics.

I composted coffee grounds, tea bags, banana peels, onion skins and egg shells.  The girls picked up fruit off the ground from our trees.  Most of it had squirrel bites out of it and it ended up in the compost bin.  We also gave some pears to the chickens.

I rinsed out of an "empty" laundry detergent bottle and had plenty of soap to run a load.

We got a crazy rainstorm Thursday that dumped a ton of water.  I didn't need to turn the sprinklers on for the rest of the week.

How was your thrifty week?