Tag: Five Frugal Things

Friday’s Frugal Five

It’s been a busy week, but it seems like it flew by.  I wish I had some earth shattering frugal tips for you today.  Sometimes it’s hard to remember the frugal things to post about because they are so routine for us.    Things like using the clothes line to dry clothes or taking leftovers to work for lunches.

But I’ll say it again, it’s the little frugal things that add up and over time they just become the normal way of doing things.

Five Frugal Things:

  • This week the Z Man and I celebrated our anniversary.  A long time ago we decided that our food is better than most restaurants we’ve been to so very seldom to we ever go out for a meal.  We started a tradition for our anniversary celebrations to include BLT sandwiches and carrot cake.  When you have bacon like we have, a BLT sandwich feels like a special meal.  Our wedding cake was a carrot cake, so each year we have carrot cake for our anniversary.
  • I made a weeks worth of salad in a jar for our lunches.  During the busy months at work our dinners become more simple like sandwiches or something grilled which often doesn’t allow for leftovers.  I love salad in a jar and I’m a firm believer that is saves money and prevents waste when making all the salads at one time.  How many times have you bought salad ingredients only to find they got pushed to the back of the fridge, finding them days later in need of Viagra and on its way to the compost pile?  That doesn’t happen with salad in a jar because you make them all at one time.  It’s a great healthy grab and go meal.

   Lori 2016 Pics 036

  • I fell into a frumpy mood this week feeling that I needed to look better, more styled, more modern, prettier.   Fortunately some of my frugal friends gave me a little boost of encouragement helping me realize that I need to just keep taking care of myself (not smoking, eating better and quitting the omeprazole) and let the rest of those (not good enough, negative) feelings go.  More on this later…  lets just say for now I didn’t spend the $500 or so dollars it would’ve cost to (supposedly) feel better about myself.
  • Yesterday was cinco de mayo so we had taco salads for dinner because I had leftover meat and beans from the quesadillas we had on Wednesday so it was mexican two evenings in a row.  The funny thing is that we had BLTs on both Monday and Tuesday evenings.  No waste = frugal.   The Z Man is so easy going with my dinner plans, he is always happy no matter what I serve.  As long as its good food it doesn’t really matter to him what it is.  That makes meal planning so much easier.  Luckiest woman in the world I tell ya.
  • I completely failed to track my grocery spending for April.  I will go back and tally the receipts when I get time, but lesson learned because I’m sure I spent more because I didn’t track it.  So far for the month of May I’ve spent $14.57.  I want to stay as close to my $20 a week ($100 a month) budget as possible.  Now that I’m buying more local and organic foods it is a bit more expensive, but I’m just fine with the extra cost.  I would rather pay for it now than pay for it later with my health.  Tracking spending = frugal.

What frugal fun did you have this week?

Have a great day!

Till Next time,

Lori

Friday’s Frugal Five & A Frugal Fail

Happy Friday Y’all!

I had to change up the dinner plans last night because when I got home the crock pot of bar-b-q pulled pork I had put on before I left for work had burned to a crisp.  I’ve made bar-b-q in the crock pot many times, I’m not sure why it burned so bad yesterday.  Anyway, breakfast for dinner it was.  I whipped up a sausage, sweet pepper, onion and cheese frittata and it was delicious.  I love our chickens, I love having pets that feed us 😉

Friday’s Frugal Five:

  1. I completed a CE course I needed for work last Sunday and got paid 7 hours overtime for it.
  2. I finally got our taxes done, and while there is nothing frugal about waiting till the last minute, getting them done and sending the check in is certainly more frugal than not paying your taxes.  Uuuugghhh!
  3. I’m seriously contemplating purchasing a desk top computer so I can set my lap top on fire.  What’s frugal about this is that I’m doing my research of what we need vs. what we don’t and optional prices.  Perhaps I’ll trade our laptop in on a desktop instead of setting it on fire.  That of course would be the mature frugal thing to do, but it seriously would give me an abundance of pleasure to watch that POS burn in the front yard.
  4. We use our outdoor clothesline year round but in the winter the clothes just don’t smell as good as they do in the spring and summer.  I love clean sheet night with fresh air dried sheets in the spring.  Even as busy as I get in the spring and summer, clean sheet night still happens every week.
  5. Checked out several more books and books on cd from the library, made my returns on time = no late fees.  All meals came from the freezer and pantry which means no meals eaten out or taken out, bills are paid, money in the pickle jar and still breathing fresh air and loving it.

Frugal Fail: Because I don’t like to put hot foods in the refrigerator I usually let them sit on the counter to cool a bit first.  Earlier in the week I put the dinner leftovers on the counter to cool – ALL NIGHT LONG…  Not cool!  Maybe the food was  ok, maybe it wasn’t but I’m sure what isn’t frugal is a hospital visit for food poisoning.  No thank you!

laundry pic   Clean sheet night… one of my favorite things

What’s cooking 4/15/16?

  • Breakfast: onion, pepper, sausage and cheese frittata
  • Lunch: onion, pepper, sausage and cheese frittata
  • Dinner: taco salads, chips and salsa

Have a great weekend!

Till Next Time,

Lori

Friday’s Frugal Five & What’s Cooking 4/8/16?

My hours at work changed this week, which means I go in earlier and get out later.  It also means I work six days a week from now until the end of September.  It doesn’t leave me a lot of time to get all the things done that I “want” to do, but I do look forward to the over time income.  However, I’ve learned that if I don’t plan well and stay organized it’s easy for the extra income to get sucked up into little emergencies like what’s for dinner and such.  Gotta have a plan!

Friday’s Frugal Five:

  1. I purchased a new router for our internet service so the provider we use would stop charging me $10 a month to rent theirs.  Got my first invoice after installing the router, and the $10 charge was still on the bill.  So annoying!  But, I called and had the charge removed.  I swear I think they do this on purpose in hopes that we wont notice it or they know some people wont take the time to call and have it removed.  Either way it’s frustrating….  I’m guilty of getting so annoyed with all the questions when I’m just trying to speak to a customer service person that I hit the “0” button on my phone like 1,000,000,000 times.  It seems to work after about the first 5 questions and you’ve reached a moderate level of frustration.
  2. I’ve set up my direct deposit savings for my overtime income to be automatically deposited.  If I don’t see it I wont miss it and won’t be tempted to spend it.
  3. Checked out 2 books of interest from the library prior to purchasing them to make sure they are what I wanted.  I did buy the books as they are cook books geared toward the direction we want to go in changing our diet.  Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Nourishing Broth by Sally Fallon.  Both very good books that I’ll use for years.  Yes, I could’ve continued to check them out of the library, but I’m sure over time these books will show much use with many food spots and dog eared pages, not something I would want to do to a library book.
  4. I’ve been saving my used deodorant containers waiting to make my own deodorant.  I’ll be making it this weekend, so I’ll let you know how it turns out.  The true test of how  well it works will be when I’m lifting 50lb bags and buckets at work this spring.   I’m going to use a recipe of coconut oil and baking soda. I’ll keep an open mind because the goal is to get away from all the chemicals I’ve been putting in and on my body as much as possible.  The recipe looks easy to just mix coconut oil and baking soda together well and put it in a used deodorant container.  I may need to put it in the fridge to get it to set up quicker, and then of course store it in a cool spot.
  5. Eat Dirt by Dr Josh Axe is another book I checked out from the library.  It is a good book with a lot of valuable information in it about gut health.  It is his opinion that we have become a germaphobe clean freak  anti bacterial nation which has done us no favors for our overall health.  And like the title says, he mildly suggest that we should “Eat Dirt” meaning for example don’t be afraid of the vegetables at the farm stand that still have dirt on them, because those are the ones that will provide us much more nutrition than those that have traveled thousands of miles.  It’s a good read, and I suggest it to anyone interested in getting (back) to real food and good health.  It also gave me fond memories of working in the garden with my Dad and remembering how he sometimes would pick a vegetable and take a bite out of it right there on the spot, then convince me to do it too.  Dirt don’t’ hurt 🙂

As always, meals came from the freezer and pantry, except for those hamburger buns on Wednesday night.  There were no meals eaten out or taken out this week, lunches were from leftovers, bills are paid, money is in the pickle jar and still breathing fresh air and loving it.

What’s Cooking 4/8/16?

  • Breakfast: overnight oats with dried cranberries, walnuts, sprinkle of cinnamon and a drizzle of maple syrup
  • Lunch: the last of the stir fry veggies with jasmine rice
  • Dinner: homemade pizza night

Here is a picture of yesterday’s (and today’s) lunch.

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How about you, what frugal fun things did you do this week.

Till Next Time,

Lori

 

 

Friday’s Frugal Five

I liked doing the $20 grocery challenge last month so I’m going to keep it going for the rest of 2016.  The goal is $20 a week for groceries and allow a $50 a month for “good sale” allowance.  The $50 will help out for those times I run across a good buy on things like the maple syrup last month.   The budget will be for food items, not to include health, medical, work related, entertainment or travel expenses.  I like giving myself little challenges each month, they tend to keep me in line which is never a bad thing.

Friday’s Frugal Five:

  1. The Z Man found me a stash of seed starter trays that I purchased several years back, so I was able to use them for our seedlings.  Keep your fingers crossed for me that they will do well this year and that we won’t have to resort to buying already established plants.
  2. I transplanted most of my indoor plants into larger pots using pots I already had on hand.
  3. Returned my books on cd and books to the library on time, and checked out more.
  4. This weekend will be a lot of organizing and planning for the upcoming busy months.  I look forward to the OT income from working longer hours, but if I’m not prepared that extra income can get sucked up into little emergencies because of poor planning.
  5. Lunches were from leftovers, dinners from the freezer and pantry, clothes dried on the clothesline, bills paid, and money in the pickle jar.  Still breathing fresh air and loving it!

How about you, what frugal fun did you have this week?

Have a great weekend,

Till Next Time,

Lori