Saving Money in My Frugal Kitchen ~ Week One January 2026

Welcome to Frugal Workshop where every Monday I share the simple strategies used to save money over the past week, along with the meals that made it to our dinner table. You'll find practical tips on how we saved money on food hopefully to inspire your own meal planning using the foods you have in your own pantry.

My Frugal Week

On Monday I took a rotisserie style chicken breast out of the freezer to thaw and centered our meals around it all week long. It’s high in protein, low in calories and very good for our dietary lifestyle these days.

On Thursday I opened a can of pickled beets and served them with dinner. I saved the juice and poured that into a wide mouth mason jar. I then added a can of beets that were not pickled to the pickled juice. I have a recipe located here on how to pickle a can of beets, but this will save a little money to reuse the juice from the can of pickled beets. 

We’ve used up many grocery items during the last month and the freezers and refrigerators reflect that. So, on Friday we went to Georgia to do our monthly grocery shopping. We went to UGO, Kroger, and Ingle’s, and I made sure to peruse the sale ads before going. 

On Saturday I made sure to go to Food City and buy their 32 ounce bags of cheese for $5 each with a limit of two. 

Photo of the Week

This is the bargain of the week. Carnation evaporated milk with jalapeños, found in the Christmas clearance section, for 41 cents. I bought six cans and used one of them to make queso dip for dinner on Saturday night. 

 

What’s for Dinner

Monday ~ Ham, Broccoli Casserole, Hash Brown Casserole. 

The ham, hash brown and broccoli casseroles were ones left from Sunday. Both casseroles were enjoyed by family at our get together and one person even asked me for the broccoli casserole recipe. 

Tuesday ~ Chicken Breast, Baked Beans, Rainbow Carrots. 

I sliced the chicken breast meat with my electric carving knife and served that for dinner. Using my vegetable peeler, I shredded the rainbow carrots we got for free from People Helping People and the Mennonites. I served this with baked beans as a second side dish. 

Wednesday ~ Chicken Breast, Hash Brown Casserole, Rainbow Carrots. 

Using more of the chicken breast, which I heated up for dinner as it is cold here. I served the last of the hash brown casserole and carrots as side dishes. 

Thursday ~ Chicken Breast, Roasted Sweet Potato, and Mixed Vegetables. 

We had more of the baked chicken breast for dinner, which I had with bbq sauce. Sides were roasted sweet potatoes and a bag of mixed vegetables from the freezer. 

Friday ~ Smoked BBQ Chicken, Pit Beans, Loaded Potato Salad. 

We had friends from Michigan in town and they treated us to dinner at a local BBQ restaurant, which was delicious. 

Saturday ~ Chicken, Queso & Chips, Salad.

Dinner was chicken, which I had over a salad and Bailey had over tortilla chips. The queso was homemade using one of the cans of evaporated milk with jalapeños. 

Sunday ~ Shrimp Stir Fry over Rice, Butternut Squash, Red Peppers, and Sliced Oranges.

Bailey told me recently that she wanted some shrimp and when I went to get the cheese on sale at Food City I found a package of shrimp on markdown for $3.01, so I bought one and made a stir fry with it for dinner. Sides were butternut squash, red peppers, and sliced oranges. 

What’s been on the menu in your home this past week?

Belinda

Homemaker at Heart

~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

Image Credit

First Frugal Friday of January 2026

Welcome to Frugal Friday
Each Friday here at Frugal Workshop, I love sharing the frugal wins, quiet savings, and simple strategies that helped us stretch our budget over the past seven days. It’s a gentle look back at the small things that make a big difference. 
My Frugal Week
Last week it was so warm here during Christmas that we were sorry we put plastic over the windows already. We would have turned the a/c on if we hadn’t had them covered. We were wearing shorts on Christmas because it was so warm. Pictures I saw of others get togethers showed many others wearing shorts too. We ended up opening the back door and putting a fan in front of it to help circulate air. 
The cold weather returned by the beginning of this week though with temperatures in the lower thirties. 

Last Friday I took down our porch Christmas tree and stored it back downstairs. We initially put it up because we thought about replacing ours inside with it, but we deemed the one inside to still be good enough for another year, so we turned our porch tree into a snack tree for all our delivery and service people. 
We saved the wrapping paper from our Christmas unwrapping to use as packing material for Bailey’s online business. She sells a lot of hard goods and needs all the packing material she can get. 
We played Dirty Santa at the family get together on Sunday. The gifts Bailey and I brought were a huge hit and claimed multiple times, which makes the exchange even more fun to me. 
Health & Exercise
Santa brought me a walking pad for Christmas this year. I was on it first thing last Friday and walked for twenty minutes and ended up with over 10,000 steps by the end of that day, which is one of my goals for 2026 to get in 10K steps or more every day. 
Saving on Electric
Well, we didn’t turn on the air even though we wanted to, so that’s a win for saving on the electric bill this week. 
Saving Money on Entertainment
Bailey and I had the best time after Christmas, which is the time of year where she takes the week off and we do fun things together. 
This year we went through all of our board games, especially the ones we picked up second hand in 2025, played them to determine if they were keepers or not, and placed any unworthy ones in the McKays bag to trade. 
We used to play games every Saturday night, but have let that lapse this past year. But we love it so much that we’ve decided to get back to this in 2026. 
What I've been Reading This Week

Struggling families warned of ‘devastating’ increases in heating costs this winter. ~ Those who use electricity like we do will see an average cost of $1,233, up 12.2% from last year. Yikes! 

In Conclusion …
Prices on several items remained higher than we were willing to pay in 2025. We stopped eating out as the price of restaurant meals, especially when compared to food cooked at home, were too high for our frugal hearts. 
In 2026 our frugal ways will be out in full force. We will strive to do even better this year than last year and I hope you’ll be here with us on the journey. We hope that 2026 is a good year for you with many blessings along the way. 
How was your week?

Thank you for dropping by my frugal blog, you are always welcome here. 
We would love to hear all about your week in the comment section.

Belinda 🫶 💕 Homemaker at Heart 💕 ~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

Saving Money in My Frugal Kitchen ~ Week #5 December 2025

Welcome to Frugal Workshop where every Monday I share the simple strategies used to save money over the past week, along with the meals that made it to our dinner table. You'll find practical tips on how we saved money on food hopefully to inspire your own meal planning using the foods you have in your own pantry.

My Frugal Week

We are still in use it up mode here in our kitchen. I’ve been working on clearing out the freezers to make more room and using those foods I bought for our holiday get togethers really helped with that issue. We will be doing our monthly grocery shopping soon and have freed up a great deal of freezer space for that purpose. 

On Saturday I made Hash Brown Casserole, Broccoli Casserole, and Chocolate Cake to take to our family get together on Sunday. This really helped clear freezer space as I bought the hash browns and broccoli at the beginning of the month and those are gone now. 

I sorted through my bin of winter squashes to make sure none were spoiling and to use those items up as well. 

Use It Up Item Of The Week

This would be the cream cheese we bought on sale at Ingle’s at the first of the month. It was on sale, so I bought ten of them for $1.00 each and centered the dishes I made for the holiday towards using them up, which helped us save money by spending less on our holiday meals. I have two left now and will find a way to use those up as well. 

 

What’s for Dinner

Monday ~ Meat Sauce, Protein Pasta, Spaghetti Squash, Broccoli. 

This was a planned over meal from the Sunday before. Bailey wanted protein pasta, but I wanted spaghetti squash, so I made both and served broccoli on the side. The meat sauce had time for the flavor to get even better. 

Tuesday ~ Family Get Together ~ Finger Foods

Ham and cheese sandwiches, chips, cheese ball, vegetable tray, Mexican pinwheels, Neman Marcus cake, cookies, German chocolate cake, and cupcakes. 

Wednesday ~ Christmas Eve ~ Chili Cheese Dip, Cheese Ball, Mexican Pinwheels.

We decided to keep the finger food theme going, so I made a chili cream cheese dip and had pretzel thins and tortilla chips for dipping, cheese ball with crackers, and Mexican pinwheels. We had Newman Marcus cake, which Bailey made, for dessert. 

Thursday & Friday ~ Christmas ~ Ham & Soup Beans, Cheese Ball, Mexican Pinwheels. 

I used one Honey Baked Ham bone to make ham with soup beans for dinner. I bought them on a buy one, get two free sale about two months ago and stored them in the freezer. There was plenty of ham on the bone to satisfy our appetites. I served this with the appetizers from Christmas Eve, so cooking was very minimal, which made for a very relaxing day. 

Saturday ~ Chicken Sausage, Hash Brown Casserole. 

The chicken sausage was a package we bought on markdown at the beginning of the month. I made the hash brown casserole for Sunday and had extra, so served some with dinner. 

Sunday ~ Family Get Together Dinner - Ham, Oven Roasted Potatoes, Hash Brown Casserole, Broccoli Casserole, Green Beans, Baked Beans, Rolls, Deviled Eggs, Chocolate Peanut Butter Eclair Cake, Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Covered Peanuts. 

What’s been on the menu in your home this past week?

Belinda

Homemaker at Heart

~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

Image Credit

Fourth Frugal Friday of December 2025

 

Welcome to Frugal Friday
Each Friday here at Frugal Workshop, I love sharing the frugal wins, quiet savings, and simple strategies that helped us stretch our budget over the past seven days. It’s a gentle look back at the small things that make a big difference. 
My Frugal Week
The weather was so nice here on Sunday that I was able to walk outside and got in over 12,000 steps. Walking counts as weight bearing exercise and is good for the osteoporosis in my hip. And guess what I found on the edge of the driveway? A crow bar, which probably fell off someone's truck at some point in time. It was buried in the dirt, so it had been there a while. 
Monday was laundry day as usual and all the laundry in the house was washed, dried, folded and put away. We then cleaned up the house for Christmas. 
Tuesday was the first of two family get togethers. We had the best time visiting, playing games, eating together, and exchanging presents. 
I received $118.44 from Adsense this week for the last four months from this blog. 
We spent Christmas Eve at home having finger foods for our dinner. We had a really good day playing board games, watching Christmas movies, and TikTok videos we’ve been saving to show each other. 
Christmas Day was also spent at home. We had a leisurely day taking our time to open presents and telling stories of how some items were procured, which are fun to share and hear. We spent part of the day playing more games. We have a lot of games, which we buy second hand, and went through many of them and put aside the ones we didn’t enjoy to trade at McKays. 
Frugal Laundry 
Do you use those scent boosting laundry adds ins? I was reading the other day about how those are made and the main ingredient in the DIY version is epsom salt. Well I bought a bag of Dr. Teals lavender scented epsom salts a few weeks ago at an estate sale. I tried it in my own laundry this week using about 1/8th of a cup. It really made my laundry smell good too and was very affordable. 
This week’s blog post is shorter than usual due to the busy activities of this week, but I hope you enjoyed reading it. How was your week?

Thank you for dropping by my frugal blog, you are always welcome here. 
We would love to hear all about your week in the comment section.

Belinda 🫶 💕 Homemaker at Heart 💕 ~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 

The angel of the Lord came upon them, and said, Fear not, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will toward men.

Merry Christmas to all my friends and followers. We hope you have a wonderful day!

Belinda

Homemaker at Heart

~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree

~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27