First Frugal Friday of July 2022

Welcome to Friday! 
My Frugal Week
On Saturday we went to several yard sales and one of the things I found was a vintage Tupperware Vegetable Dip serving tray for $1.00. New ones on the Tupperware website go for $49, although you can buy the vintage ones for around $10 and up online at eBay. 
We also bought a little chicken coop for a couple of chickens. We’ve been thinking about getting some again since the price of eggs has risen so much. 
We went inside Food City and I used their coin machine while I was in there. Mom had coins in several different places, so I had just been putting them all in a ziplock bag. Turned out to be $8.76 when the counting was finished. 

Some of my friends sent flowers after Mom passed away and I wanted to share the pictures of them with you. Both of them came in pretty vases to keep and one of them came in a pretty piece of purple tissue paper, which I kept to reuse later. 

We use these grabber tools around the house for various things like reaching for something we can’t get without assistant. They really come in handy for all sorts of little jobs. In fact, we have several of them around the house for various reasons.

This week one of the suction cups came off of one of mine and I was determined to fix it. I found the suction cup and using a sharp knife “drilled” a hole all the way through the suction cup and then used a plastic coated wire to fasten it to the end of the grabber. It works just as good as it did before the suction cup fell off. 
The plastic coated wire I had was saved from various new products we purchase. They are sort of like a bread tie, but much sturdier. They come in very handy for various repair jobs such as holding the cage onto a fan when the clips have failed. 
Question of the Week
Does your vacuum have a bag or is it bagless?
About one month before Mom passed away she asked me to buy her a new vacuum. The one I bought for her is a Bissell that uses vacuum cleaner bags. The one Bailey has is a Dirt Devil bagless model. 
I was vacuuming up dirt/gravel the other day and the Dirt Devil was throwing it back at me from behind. I could feel it hitting my bare feet. So, I got Mom’s new vacuum out and started to vacuum up the mess. 
I was shocked at how much better the Bissell vacuum worked over the Dirt Devil. It was a BIG difference, but it could be due to the fact that the Bissell uses vacuum cleaner bags. Now Bailey is using the Bissell vacuum cleaner as well. 
Avoiding Spending
I tried to avoid spending this week, but that cats needed some Frontline medicine for fleas and ticks, so I did have that expense this week. 
Saving Money In My Frugal Kitchen
We stopped in at Food City after we were done with yard sales on Saturday. They had two pound bags of rice marked down to $1.50 (75 cents/lb.), so I picked up five of those. I also found a couple of bags of marked down cole slaw, which I picked up to make deconstructed egg rolls for Sunday dinner. 
I also picked up four pounds of great northern beans and four pounds of cranberry/October beans. I feel the need to be stocking up on non-meat alternatives after watching this video on YouTube this week. 
Here is a link to the video if you’re interested: A Warning from a Farmer
On Sunday I made four gallons of tea, two sweetened and two unsweetened. We’ve been drinking a lot of tea now that the weather has turned hot. Of course, we do drink plenty of water, but I do like to have a glass of unsweetened tea with dinner.
Meals This Week
Friday: Blackened Chicken, Buttered Basmati Rice, Mixed Vegetables. 
Saturday:  Chicken Strips, Potato Salad, Watermelon. 
Sunday: Deconstructed Egg Rolls, Egg Rolls, Mixed Vegetables. 
Monday: Deconstructed Egg Rolls to finish it off, but first I doctored it up by using a mix of peppers and onions from the freezer and more ginger. I served it with steamed broccoli. 
Tuesday: Movie Night Pizza. 
Wednesday: Tacos with all the fixings, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, jalapeños, and I put potatoes and onions in the taco meat to s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out as far as possible. I grated the cheese and chopped up all the vegetables early in the day that way I just needed to brown and season the meat and warm up the tortillas. 
Thursday: since I had taco meat left from Wednesday night’s dinner, I decided to make a taco salad with the leftovers. I served it with corn and a salad. I made my own dressing using sour cream and two Taco Bell taco sauce packets. 
Saving on Entertainment
We’ve been watching North and South this past week, which is the adaptation of John Jakes’ trilogy of books. The mini-series depicts the lives of two families, the Hazards and the Mains and tells the story of the events and emotions before, during and after the civil war. It’s an old tv mini series from the 1980s, but has been interesting to watch. 
Freebies

Bailey went to her book club meeting on Friday night and one of the ladies gave everyone some cucumbers from her garden. We had them for dinner with several dinners this week, they were so fresh and delicious. 

Do you have big plans for the holiday weekend? We would normally yard sale, but often notice that not many people hold yard sales on a holiday weekend, so we will stay home and do stuff around the house this weekend. 
I did check for yard sales and there is one in Hixson, but we will not use the gas to drive there for one yard sale. We have to make it worth our time and gas money by going to multiple yard sales, so only one doesn’t work for us. 
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.
BelindaDebt Free & ~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree