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
This update was supposed to be part of my blog post last Friday, but I never got around to posting it…
Last Friday I had a physical therapy session to help relieve the arthritis in my back, which gave us a good opportunity to return the rental car to Enterprise.
On Saturday we went to the Grown Zone dollar dash day, where the leftovers From their consignment sale are up for grabs for $1.00 each.
The weather has been beautiful here, other than rain from the hurricane on Saturday morning. I’ve been enjoying walks outside and we even walked down the driveway trimming bushes and weeds along the way.
As for this week, we spent last weekend celebrating Bailey’s birthday. We had two board game days and went out to eat on Saturday and walked through Rock City. It was so windy and a bit chilly, but we’ve been enjoying the fall weather so much.
That is why I’ve not been online much at all the last week or so. Thank you to those of you who’ve wondered where I’ve been. We’ve just been outside, enjoying life, and walking a lot. I’ve been walking anywhere from ten to twenty miles each day and one day even walked twenty-two miles. I want to enjoy this weather while I can, but I’ll be back soon. I just wanted to update everyone. I hope you all are doing very well!
Saving Money on Christmas Email Series
The Perdue Extension office of north central Indiana is offering a five week free series on how to save money at Christmas.
Make the most of your holiday budget! 🛍
Join Purdue Extension’s free, five-week email series, Curb Your Urge to Splurge: Holiday Edition, for practical tips and creative ideas to help you save money, reduce stress, and enjoy the season.
- Create a holiday spending plan - Discover budget-friendly gift ideas - Find simple meal ideas - Learn about holiday scams - Enjoy the season without overspending
Emails begin October 26, 2026, and the series is available in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
Registration is free! Sign up by October 25.
To Learn more and register:
https://extension.purdue.edu/hhs/money/programs/curb-your-urge-to-splurge-holiday-edition.html
Saving Money in the Kitchen
There was no grocery shopping this week, other than getting free vegetables from PHP & the Mennonites. We received an abundance of red peppers and have been enjoying them with all our dinner meals.
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
My Frugal Week
After many miles and multiple issues coming up, Bailey bought a pre-owned car on Wednesday. We arrived home around 11 p.m. that evening. We had driven over 1500 miles looking at cars over the last week and getting pre-purchase inspections and were worn out.
She ended up with a 2019 Ford Eco-Sport with 65K miles on it, which has brand new tires on it. We drove one as a loaner car when we were having work done on both of our cars this summer and she fell in love with it. Ford has stopped making them, so we had to search to find one was worthy. We are both so happy to have that done with.
I've not been able to comment on any blogs this week and this is the reason why as we were not home. But hopefully things will settle down now and I can get back to posting on all of your blogs.
Freebies
This is just a small collection of the water bottles we were offered on our car search this week. Seems like everyone hands these out these days, which was really nice.
My Reading Nook ~ What I've been Reading This Week
This week our book club met to discuss Tunnel 29, which turned out to be a lovely discussion. We actually met outside at the local park since the weather was so nice that day.
Now I am reading A Sand County Almanac, written by by Aldo Leopold for our November book club meeting.
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
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
Thank you to everyone for your good thoughts for Bailey. The insurance company went ahead and totaled her car, and she already received her settlement check, so now she is shopping for a new one.
She does her research online and then we go car shopping. We’ve been to Chattanooga and Maryville and test drove five cars so far. We took two of those she really wanted and had pre-purchase inspections, which were both failures. So, the search continues for the time being.
The rental car she is driving had a flat tire yesterday when we got in it, so we took my car instead. We called the rental company and had someone come and change out the tire for us once we got home. We will need to change it out at some point as we don’t want her driving on a doughnut tire.
A few weeks ago I mentioned thinking non-clumping cat litter was more economical than clumping cat litter, and I do still feel that way. But, when you have a house with multiple cats, I think the clumping cat litter makes better sense.
We have one cat downstairs and the non-clumping works well for him, but upstairs where we have more than one cat I think clumping is the way to go.
Earning Money
Our final results are in from the latest consignment sale. We ended up selling 557 items at the sale for a total for us of $1,016. The owner of the sale takes 40% of all sales, so we actually sold over $1700 worth.
Saving Money In my Frugal Kitchen
Since it's the end of the month I've taken time this week to clean out the freezers and use up what's in there before we grocery shop again for the month of October. Some items that we were not using were donated to our local Little Free Pantry as I would rather see someone use these items than let them go to waste.
Our crockpot came in very handy this week and it was nice to come home to an already cooked dinner after being out all day.
Recipe of the Week
This was a recipe I saw someone post on a Facebook reel, but then I made it my own using items we like. For example, I left out the green chilis, used blended cottage cheese for the sour cream and mayo, and added grilled chicken to make this a main dish dinner. It was really good and I'll definitely make this again.
Chili Cheese Dip Salad
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sour cream1/2 cup mayonnaisetaco seasoning mixgreen chilis8 ounces cheddar cheese2 cans corn, drainedred bell pepperred onionblack olivesgrilled chicken, optional1 bag chili cheese Fritos
Directions:
Basically I just mixed everything in the bowl and served it for dinner.
Freebies
I went on Saturday night to People Helping People for free vegetables and loaded up on fresh red peppers!
My Reading Nook ~ What I've been Reading This Week
This week I finished reading Tunnel 29 just in time for book club next Tuesday. We will be reading A Sand County Almanac for the November book club.
This has been another whirlwind week of activity. I’ve been getting in over 10,000 steps everyday though and even started physical therapy for the arthritis in my back.
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
