Second Frugal Week November 2017

There was a Veteran's Day program at the school where I worked on Monday. After the program was over, teachers were able to go in and have any lunch items that were left. 
I had some delicious chicken noodle soup, scalloped potatoes, green beans, half of a pimento cheese sandwich, sausage balls, and a brownie. It was so good too. It is always nice to eat someone else's cooking for a change. 
I brought my lunch back home and will eat it tomorrow. After school I came home and made spaghetti with garlic bread and steamed broccoli for dinner. 

Kroger is having their Buy 10 Save $5.00 sale, so on Tuesday I went to Kroger and bought the following sale items. 

Betty Crocker Cake Mix 49¢ (I bought two)

Ronzoni Pasta 49¢ (I bought 40 boxes)

Del Monte tomatoes 49¢ (I bought 50 cans)

Milk 99¢ (I bought 4 - 2 skim & 2 chocolate)

Kroger Cheese 3.79 (16 ounces)

Bob’s Red Mill Sale 20% off 

One thing I bought at Kroger was a bag of Bob's Red Mill brown rice flour. Kroger had Bob Mill on sale for 20% off and I had a coupon for $1.00 off from a free magazine, so I paid $1.22 for the bag. 

We also went thrift store shopping on Tuesday before we bought groceries. I found two ink-jet cartridges for our printer, they were marked at $1.99, but the cashier only charged us 10¢ for them. These normally cost $18.99, so a great savings there. I also found a new book of scrapbook papers for 25¢. A brand new deck of playing cards for 49¢ and a flower pot for 49¢.

On Tuesday I needed to have a new battery installed in my car, which cost $110. My brother in law installed it for me, so no cost there.  

I received a $50 Walmart card from my insurance company for having a mammogram in October. I will either use this for gas in the car or Christmas presents. 

I worked four days this week and have all of next week off for Thanksgiving. Today we are going thrift store shopping again. What are your plans for the weekend?

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

First Frugal Week of August 2017

Image Credit

School started back here on Friday, August 4th and I am already scheduled to work three days this week and every day the next week. I'm definitely grateful to be back to work and earning again. 
On Friday I made a pasta salad for lunch and dinner for a few days at least. I had so much fresh produce on hand like cucumbers, tomatoes, and broccoli that it just made good sense to use them in something refreshing. 
Friday  night we went swimming and spent about an hour exercising in the pool.

On Saturday we went to several of our local Goodwills for their 50% off sale. I found several pairs of curtains for the house for both the kitchen, hallway, and bedroom. I've had them on my yard sale list, so it's nice to cross that off the list. 
I found a gallon bag about half full of pencils, pens, highlighters, mechanical pencils, erasers, and lead for 50¢. I've already put this in my sub bag as you can never have too many of these. 
I found another Vidalia Chop Wizard like this one: 

I love mine, but if you have one, you know the bottom will break easily. The tops are made very well, but the bottoms are not made as well. We find the tops and middle green parts at yard sales regularly, and I have extras of those. The bottoms are not as easy to find, so I was tickled to find this one marked at $1.00, so we paid 50¢ out the door for it. 
I also found a vintage quilt for $2.00. It is hand quilted and you can tell from the prints that the fabric is from the 1950s era. I bought it with the intention of flipping it, but my daughter wants to keep it, so we are going to keep it instead. 
I found one movie ($1.00) that I've watched, but did not care for so that will go into our McKay's box to be traded. 
We came home on Saturday and I made Salmon Patties, Fried Potatoes, and Soup Beans for dinner. Afterwards we played a board game for more free entertainment. 
We made another exchange at McKay's Used Books during the week with the scientific calculator and more board games we bought at yard sales and realized over $100 in trade credit. I picked up a couple of books, but we mostly saved it to spend on another day. 
Sunday lunch was the rest of the pasta salad while Sunday dinner was leftover salmon patties made into salmon burgers with tartar sauce, cheese, and dill pickles. 
We went to the local apple orchard on Sunday and bought apples. It's that time of year again.  :)
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

February ~ End of the Month Report

All of our bills have been paid for February 2016. I did charge several things this month, but they have already been paid in full. 
Grocery:  $242.32 Gas:  $65.77
Grocery spending was up due to me renewing our membership at Sam's Club. Gas spending was down due to lower gas prices here. 
This was a month which saw a lot of expenses for my daughter who will be graduating in May. Seems like every time I turned around there was another fee to pay.  
I paid for her senior graduation package including announcements, graduation fee for the high school, yearbook, tassel from the NHS, and graduation cap and gown. 
Senior year comes with extra expenses, but I believe everything is paid for now unless something unexpected comes up. 
There were extra clothing expenses for my daughter in February due to her Spring Break coming up in March. She is preparing for a trip with her surrogate grandmother. All expenses for that trip have already been paid for as well. 
Looking ahead to March, I already have my budget prepared. Our school system used seven snow days in February, so my paycheck in March will be much smaller as a result and I have planned my budget accordingly. 
Belinda ~ Living within my means in Southern Tennessee ~

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Frugal Friday

We made it to Friday!
I was able to work all five days of school this week for which I'm grateful. 

Before we headed home from school for the weekend, we stopped at IGA to run in and get one of their sale items. They had eggs on sale for 99¢. There was a limit of four, so I bought four cartons. What a great price.  :)
I also stopped and filled up my car with gas and paid $1.53 a gallon. I am enjoying the lower gas prices, but have to wonder what is going to happen down the line due to the lower price. 
I read the other day that many of the oil companies in the US are filing bankruptcy because they cannot make a profit if oil falls below $60 a barrel and it is at $28 right now. 
We came home and I scrounged around in the kitchen and pantry to come up with something for dinner. 

We had some Old ElPaso kits with tortilla boats that we bought some time ago very inexpensively using a sale and a coupon.  

So, I made some Mexican rice in the rice cooker and then heated up some chili beans. I then cut up and put out some taco toppings I had such as tomatoes, black olives, sour cream, cheese, and avocado. 
I layered the bowls with rice, cheese, beans, and then whatever toppings that person wanted and served these with a side of corn. They were a big hit with my family.

I just improvised and made these with items we had on hand. The kit still has hard shell tacos, sauce, and taco seasoning in there that I will need to use up at a later time. 

After dinner I washed up the dinner dishes and also washed out my lunch bowls and baggies that we used today. They are drying on some chop sticks right now. 
I buy the freezer bags when I buy storage bags as they are heavy duty compared to regular sandwich bags or even regular quart size. 
I did some calculating the other day and these bags cost me 6¢ each, so by washing them out I am saving almost 25¢ a day (2 in each lunch box). At the end of the month that is almost $5.00 I've saved, which adds up to a savings of $50 at the end of the school year.  

I've also been wanting to mention these peanut butter jars I've been saving. I bought all of these on a very good sale using coupons. They are the 15 ounce size, but the jars are so great that I've been using them in my lunch box. I packed cucumbers and my homemade ranch dressing in one the other day for lunch. They are the perfect size for a lunch box and also very sturdy. 
How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within my means in Southern Tennessee ~

Earn with Swagbucks

Sunday & This Past Week

Thinking back over the week I sit here feeling blessed. Even though I had been sick last weekend, I ended up working every day this week. Some days the call came late, but I worked all week. 

One day the class I was subbing for had no car riders, which meant I was able to leave on the bus bell. When I walked out of the school building, students from about three different busses pulled down the windows to say, "Ms. Richardson!" and wave to me, which is like music to my ears. 

One day I doubled up on two classes simultaneously and one day I worked half a day in the classroom and the other half in the office, which I loved because I was able to see so many students, parents, teachers and friends and had delightful conversations with many. At three o'clock on Friday I was tired, but it was a good tired. I love what I do even though it can be challenging some days.  :)

I spent part of last weekend making and packing snacks for my daughter to have in her bag at school in case she needed them. I made her more granola bars and packed those on Saturday. On Sunday I made her some popcorn on the stovetop and packed it into ziplock bags as well. 

Meals this week included...

Sunday Dinner
15 Bean Cajun Soup
Cornbread

This is always a huge hit here and was enough for Sunday dinner and lunch on Monday. 

Monday
Vegetable Soup
Cornbread

I started out this soup by sauteing onions in tomato juice. Then I added carrots, white, sweet, and red potatoes, canned tomatoes, frozen lima beans, frozen green beans, kidney beans, tomato sauce/salsa, frozen yellow peppers, macaroni (from my huge container) and several different spices like bay leaves, curry, salt, pepper, Hungarian paprika, smoked paprika, and celery seed. This made a large stock pot full of soup, which lasted for several days this week including lunches, which is what I took for Tuesday's lunch. 

I have this lunch time Crock Pot, which I bought from Amazon a few years ago. It works perfectly to bring to a teacher's room who has no microwave. I just fill the metal container, place inside, and then plug it in when I get to the teacher's room. I used it twice this past week. 

Tuesday
Tacos

Again there was enough leftover to take for Wednesday's lunch. 

Wednesday
Egg Salad Sandwiches 

I was still feeling under the weather, so this was an easy dinner with plenty left for lunches. 

Thursday
Chili Tacos

Friday
Bean & Cheese Enchiladas

Saturday

Leftovers

This weekend I read "The Frugal Homebody" by Homespun Seasonal Living. It's a good blog post about staying home and not spending money. Just enjoying the things you have sort of like I was writing about last weekend. I like Kathie's style of writing and I think my readers will too, so if you get the chance go to her blog and read the article.  

Today I am cutting up strawberries because I was blessed with fifteen pounds yesterday. 

How is your weekend shaping up?
Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.