5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. Made Kid # 4's homecoming flowers, spent $3.92 on supplies.

2. Ate our leftovers

3. Bought 2 Christmas presents. Had a great coupon and spent less then $5 on both.

4. Sold some items and made $20

5. Found a unopened gift we never used to repurpose to someone else who will love it!

I sold a few things and other random stuff....

The hardest part about writing everyday is coming up with good titles lol :)

I sold a small grocery bag of Kid # 5's outgrown clothes today, making $15. That brings my total for the week to $20 so far. I have a meeting set up tomorrow to sell two more items. Hopefully that works out.

I am setting aside this cash I am making selling items to add to our Christmas fund. Once we have finished paying for our gifts, I will then start adding it to the school tuition fund. If that should already be funded then ( I am setting aside my pay to do this with) I will have to reevaluate what is next on our list.

We did not end up following the menu plan this evening. We had a lot of leftovers in the frig so I declared it a leftover night. We emptied two containers and so far have not wasted any food.

I had some leftover garbanzo bean salad that we had at work last week and no one ate. I ran it through the food processor tonight with some sun dried tomatoes I picked up at Costco and turned it into Hummus. I love Hummus! We will have some of this tomorrow night for snack night.

The picture above is my new bag drying rack I picked up at a yard sale for a $1. Yes I know it is a baby bottle drying rack but I have no babies and I needed something to dry zip locks on. Works like a charm and folds up to store when not in use.

Well time to get back to homecoming flower making. Hope everyone had a good day :)

A Little of This, A Little of That

Today I listed a few more things on my local Facebook sites to sell. I have two items pending. Hopefully they both will sell by Friday.

We had Chicken Cacciatore for dinner. It was a crock pot freezer meal I had made up before school started. I really love having these crock pot meals made ahead of time. When I use up the last of them I plan to make some more.

Tonight I am working on Homecoming flowers for Saturday. I always made Kid # 3's. This time I am working on Kid #4's. The supplies cost me $3.92. I used a 40% mobile coupon at Hobby Lobby. I'll post some pictures when I get them finished.

I also cut a couple scarves. I am way behind in my orders and need to get these done ASAP.

Today I brought home some leftover sliced bananas from work. I plan to put these in the freezer ( need to get that done before bed) and use them in smoothies and banana bread. Yeah for free/cheap food!

Yesterday I got a fabulous deal on a by one get one deal at Target. This is the deal here. Yeah for cheap Christmas presents :)

I had to run to Kohl's this afternoon to pay my bill ( which I almost forgot about, bad me!). I had a 30% off coupon so while I was there I decided to check out the flip flops. I had heard that they were marked down to about $4 a pair and mine were all falling apart. I usually wear them for a few years at a time. Anyway, I got 3 pairs for a little over $9. I used my coupon and Kohl's charge and the paid the charge bill before I left the store. 

My day was good. How about yours?

31 Days Series....

So every year for a number of years now The Nester has hosted a blog link party for the whole month of October. The idea is that you pick one topic to write about everyday for the whole month. 

This year I have decided to join in. Since my blog is primarily about my frugal adventures saving my family money and trying to become debt free, that is what I will be writing about. Nothing real fancy or new but it will be a challenge for me to write everyday.

I have also decided that I will continue with the low- no spend challenge like I did last month along with Carla. I hope to cut our grocery budget again by $150 which I will set aside for purchasing Christmas gifts with. I also hope to be able to put all of my pay checks in my "mom account" to use for Christmas gifts and then to begin saving for our half of Kid #3's community college tuition which will be due again in January. Any other savings that we may accomplish will go towards debt reduction.

So there is what my October blogging will be about in a nutshell. Hope you all follow along :)

Day 1: October Menu

Day 2: A Little of This, A Little of That

Day 3: I sold a few things and other random stuff

Day 4: 5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

Day 5: Homecoming Flowers

Day 6: Slow Sunday

Day 7: Manic Monday

Day 8: Good Day

Day 9: Ugh!

Day 10: I Am Behind

Day 11:  5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

Day 12 : Present For My Nephew

Day 13: To Do List

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. Found Kid # 5 items for her Halloween costume at Goodwill for $3.24.

2. Made a pot I'd soup and used up all the little odds and ends out of the frig.

3. Combined errands to save on gas.

4. Did not go grocery shopping :)

5. Watch the premier of Grey's Anatomy for free using our digital antenna now that we are a cable free household!

September Challenge Update -The End

So you all know I have joined with Carla for a no-low spend challenge for the month of September. Today starts a new month for us pay check wise. All of the first of the month bills come from this pay check. So I thought I would call it good and tally the numbers.

My first goal was to save $600 cash to take a weekend trip with my hubby and Kid #5 to Michigan for my BFF's wedding. I completed this by using my work pay checks and selling some stuff on Facebook.  We drove the Pruis to save on gas. We spent two nights in a hotel but made sure they included breakfast with the price of the room. We ate dinner Friday night with my BFF and her soon to be hubby. We ate dinner Saturday night at the reception, which was beautiful by the way. We came home Sunday afternoon. So all together we bought 3 lunches and that was it for meals. Anyway we only spent half the money I saved!!!! So I still have $300 sitting in my "mom account". I will decide how best to use that money at a later date.

Next up was to increase our ER Fund to $1200. I planned to do this by shaving $150 off our grocery budget. Not only did I accomplish this but I only spent $200 for the entire month of September.  Woohoo go me! We even fed one to two extra people a few days a week for almost the whole month.

If you are wondering how could she have possibly done that? Well I made a menu plan by first shopping my house. I also planned for the whole month and for the most part used meat that I already had.  I have a deep freeze that I use when I purchase meat on sale. I also have a pretty large pantry but I do not really have a large stockpile in it. The biggest thing was having a plan!

I am planning to continue this low-no spend challenge for the month of October. I'll update with my plan for the month in a day or two :)

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. Saved up enough cash for our weekend trip!

2. Did did not turn on the air even though we had 2 pretty hot days

3. Organized a few spaces in my home using some baskets and items I already had

4. Stuck to the menu plan even with extra people to feed.

5. Did not go grocery shopping.