First Frugal Friday of October 2026

 

Welcome to Frugal Friday

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