My Frugal Week

Last week I was able to work two days while I will be working every day this next week. 
Days we stayed home this week include Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. We didn't spend any money on those days. I love having days where we spend no money.
We didn't use any heat or air this week to keep warm or cool as the weather has been mild this week. That will help us save money on our electric bill next month. 
Payday was this week. Turns out my check was missing two days pay due to spring break. They'll be on my next check, but I was planning on putting new brake pads on my car this week. 
With the two day shortage I'll have to stretch my budget with less money than I originally budgeted for, so we will be on a bare bones budget until next month. I do not want to dip into my savings unless absolutely necessary. 
My brother-in-law, who is a mechanic, put new brake pads on my car front and back and didn't charge me any labor fees. The back brake pads weren't ready to be replaced, but he figured he would save us both time and money and go ahead replace them now rather than later. 
He also changed the oil for me and I'm so grateful as it was due for an oil change. That will be one thing I won't have to pay out of my budget next month. All I had to pay him was for the parts he used to do all of this, which turned out to be $100. 
I'll be having a front end alignment on the car next month. After that my car maintenance will be up to date and I won't have to incur any of those expenses while school is out and my income is lower for the summer months. 
Since we are on a bare bones budget this month I made a list of meals we could make here with what we have on hand. I also went to Food City to pick up a few things we needed. 
I picked up butter, mozzarella cheese, sour cream, popcorn, marked down Italian bread, chicken bouillon, and found some little smokies on markdown for $2.10 and picked up five on those. I spent $38.22 in total. 
Popcorn made the list because my supply is low. It's cheaper to make popcorn as a snack or for lunch with a sandwich verses buying potato chips to go with a sandwich. 

I went by Food Lion on Friday morning before I dropped my car off and picked up some lettuce, which was on sale for 89¢. I also picked up cheddar cheese, corn for 48¢ each, and two cans of cream of chicken soup for 48¢ each. I spent $9.32 in total.

After picking up my car on Saturday I needed to go to Food City to pick up a prescription. They accidently filled it for three months instead of one, so it cost me $23.85 for the 3 month supply. She asked me if I wanted to have her refill it for one month only, but I told her it was fine, and I've already absorbed it into my budget. 

I checked the marked down sections and picked up two mangos for 99¢ and the last marked down package of Little Smokies for $2.29. Total spent on food was $3.50.
One of the things I made this week was egg salad using those eggs from Kroger that we picked up last week for 88¢. Several egg salad sandwiches went into lunch boxes this week. 
Instead of saving the ends of bread I made sandwiches with them this week. Normally I save them in the freezer to make bread crumbs, but there's no waste either way. 
My daughter was wanting something sweet to eat this week, which is unusual for her. We are not dessert eaters here and I only make them during special occasions or holidays. 
Therefore it's rare for me to have any sweets around or even have something on the shelf to make. What I normally do when the sweet tooth gets me is make a piece of toast with jelly on it. 
I did have the peanut butter I bought on sale for 99¢ at Kroger a few months ago, so I decided on the three ingredients peanut butter (1 egg, 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar) cookies. 
Doing the math the ingredients cost me 83¢ and I made nine cookies, so each one was around 10¢, which is much cheaper than a cookie from the mall. 
I also had a couple of cake mixes on hand that we bought on mark down, so I made one of those as well. 
Other things we did to save money this week include:
Last week I started using a new app on my phone called Hiya. It's free and it blocks some of those annoying robocalls. 
Bailey went to see her first concert this week, The Black Jacket Symphony with Marc Martel performing Queen's, "A Night at the Opera" at the Tivoli theater in downtown Chattanooga. 
Her uncle (the same one who fixed my car) sprang for the tickets and took her to Red Lobster for dinner before the show. She had a great time and made many memories that night. 
Microsoft Rewards rewarded me with another $5 Amazon gift card this week. 
This week I had one ten dollar sale on eBay, which will definitely help the budget this month. 

We went to several yard sales on Saturday. One of them had a free section where we picked up this free Suntrust cup and two free umbrellas. 

One deal my daughter found was a large container of essential oils. Some of them had price tags of $24.99 on them, some were new and not opened and some were almost empty. There were two Ball canning jars inside along with several glass bottles with pump sprayers. 
There were some varieties that she'd been wanting for a while now, but didn't want to spend the money for, so this was a great deal for her, which she picked up for $25. We've already been diffusing rose in the house, which smells so good. 
So that's our week in a nutshell, financial issues cropped up, but were met because of good planning and budgeting. It's so important to be proactive and plan where your money is going before you get it and then the financial losses of life are easier to absorb. 
I hope you have a great week!
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~