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 ~

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Early in the Week

I can't remember if I mentioned the fact that we have Monday & Tuesday off this week. My daughter and I have been doing laundry and cleaning all weekend, so we could enjoy our two days off this week. We finally got all the chairs and brooms from the drying racks put back where they go, which made the house look better almost instantly. And we are finally caught up on the laundry. Yay! :)

I've been working in the kitchen, cleaning and putting things away. I boiled two dozen eggs today for egg salad and lunches for this week. I am so tired of sandwiches in my lunch, so boiled eggs will be better. I'll add some cheese too. 

Dinner today is Pedernales Potatoes, Carrots, Green Beans with Onions, and Sweet Iced Tea. 

On Tuesday we ran some errands. One place we stopped was Bi-Lo because I had some coupons I wanted to use with their three day sale. 

My favorite coupon site nowadays is Couponaholic. 

Couponaholic

I don't even use the Sunday coupons anymore. I let my daughter deal with them because she enjoys it so much. I look at Couponaholic every now and then to see if there are any good deals. The 55¢ off coupon for Skippy peanut butter was a good deal.  I printed two coupons off my computer and my daughter printed four coupons and she also had an additional six $1.00 off coupons from the Sunday paper for one jar of Skippy. 

The peanut butter was on "sale" at Bi-Lo for $3.12, but it was buy one get one free, which made each jar $1.56. The 55¢ coupons doubled and so our total coupons took off $12.60, which made each jar only 51¢.   This was a really good deal. 

The also had Pillsbury cake mixes on sale for buy one get one free. We had 35¢ off coupons that doubled, so each box end up costing 44¢ each, which was another good deal. 

We did buy a few other things like margarine, crackers, preserves, and olives. 

We also got hair cuts today. I saved a receipt from Walmart for $9.99 haircuts and used them at Great Clips today. Haircuts for both of us came to $19.98 plus tip, which saved us $6.00 off the Great Clips price. 

I also filled up the car today using my Bi-Lo bonuscard fuel perks and paid $2.44 per gallon. It only cost me $21 to fill up today. I should be dancing in the street at the savings. LOL :)

Back to work and school tomorrow. I hope you all have a great week!

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
Professor Penny Pincher 
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 and beyond.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

Peter Pan Peanut Butter

Added two jars of Peter Pan peanut butter to my pantry today from the Bi-Lo sale. Both jars were on sale for 99 cents, and I had a coupon for $1.00 off 2 jars, so I paid 98 cents for both jars, or 49 cents each. 

 Update: I stopped in Bi-Lo today with my Mom and daughter and we all picked up two jars of the Peanut Butter, so I now have about 10 jars to add to my stash in the pantry. This has been a BIG sale in town because not only is Bi-Lo on Keith street wiped out of the creamy peanut butter, and so is Walmart from all the price matching. 

New Life, New Purpose Reuse Blog

Came across a neat website today about reusing items around the house and giving them a new life and new purpose. 

This blogger had an old bird feeder with both plastic and metal parts, and the metal parts had outlived the plastic section. So, she reused a plastic peanut butter jar to fix the bird feeder and made it like new again. 

You can read about it on her blog here: 

New Life New Purpose 

I especially like this fruit bowl she made out of a container from a store bought cake: 

If you want to check out her blog you can go to the most recent addition here: New Life, New Purpose.

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2016 and Beyond.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

Cooke's Peanut Butter Sale

Cooke's grocery store has Peter Pan peanut butter on sale this week priced at 2 jars for $3.00. Checking through my coupons yesterday I found one for $1.00 off one jar of Peter Pan, which I used to buy this jar for 50 cents. Love bargains like this that allow me to stock my pantry with low priced food. :)