Thursday

My daughter was still in a great deal of pain yesterday, so I dropped by the pharmacy and picked up some Azo that the pharmacist recommended and that did seem to help some. I am hoping the antibiotic will kick in soon. 

After dropping her off at school today, I came home and went to work in the kitchen. Using pantry supplies I have on hand, I first made two pineapple upside down cakes.  I did not have maraschino cherries, so I just left them out, which was no big deal. Cost was under $2.00 to make these. 

This is what one of them looked like after came out of the oven.

We ate all the jello I had made the other day, so I went ahead and made more using up two cans of mixed fruit and two boxes of jello from the pantry. This only cost me 50¢ as the fruit was given to me. 

This is before it set up. It will look better after it gels.

I then cooked off the chickpeas I had soaking and made Mock Tuna Salad. I just cook the beans, mash them and add sweet pickle relish, celery seed, and mayonnaise. We really like it as it tastes just as good as tuna salad without the worries about contaminated tuna. My daughter really likes this, which just tickles me because she wasn't crazy about tuna salad like she is this dish. 

This is what it looks like afterwards, just like tuna. 

I did not work today, but am scheduled for a full day tomorrow. I already have plenty of food prepared to take for lunches and I'll be bringing ice water to drink in my thermos. 

Our air conditioner has frozen up this afternoon because of being used so much due to the heat wave. Dinner will be something cold like pasta salad, jello salad, or a sandwich as it is 81° in the house and really too hot to cook or even want to eat for that matter. I'm concerned that the a/c may be on its way out as it did this about a month ago. I turned it off for the rest of that evening and night and it worked fine the next day.  

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.

Thursday ~ Owner's Manuals

  

Pictured above is the binder where I keep all the important papers, receipts, and owner’s manuals to all the appliances, electronics, and other important items I have purchased over the years. Each product has its own plastic sleeve to keep everything together. 

Keeping them in one place is a good organizational plan, which makes it easy to locate them if needed for any reason. 

Here is the sleeve for the new freezer. 

No School Wednesday through Friday 

The weather has been snowy, icy, and extremely cold here, so school was called off for the rest of the week here. We are iced in, so no plans to go anywhere. I'm going to stay home and do things around the house. We will probably venture out on Saturday for my daughter's library duty, which means we will have spent the whole week at home and spent no money. :)

Oranges

This is my overabundance of oranges we've received lately. I have been eating them, but decided today to make some orange juice with them. When I was little, I used to love cutting a small circle in an orange and drinking the juice from it. Today I used my citrus reamer and made my own glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. It was so good and refreshing. 

Peppers

I also had an overabundance of peppers, which were given to us as well recently. Today, I washed them and chopped them and placed them into freezer bags and put those in the new freezer. 

Tea Kettle

I love my new tea kettle that I received for Christmas. It will hold up to seven cups, so tonight I made all seven cups of hot water, which went to boiling in under two minutes, which is such a time saver. 

With that I made up some Jell-O cups using my on sale mandarin oranges (39¢ each) and some Crash & Burn Jell-O packets (31¢ each). I ended up with seven orange Jell-O cups, two lemon with fruit, one plain lemon, and a bowl of fruit with strawberry banana Jell-O. 

Afterwards I still had enough water to make a cup of hot chocolate. 

Beans

I also put a bag of Yellow Eyed Beans on to soak for Thursday night dinner. I'll serve this with some potatoes cooked in the oven, smoked sausage, and fresh green beans. 

What's for dinner at your house today?

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop

Homemade Gelatin Cups

Another way we save money at the Frugal Workshop is by making our own gelatin cups with fruit. Remember when I bought the mandarin oranges for 66¢ per jar at IGA? I also bought some Great Value orange gelatin at Walmart for 56¢ per box. Today, I made our own version of gelatin cups with fruit. I made 16 gelatin cups in all for a cost of 30¢ each. Compared to the store bought ones, which sell for anywhere from a little over 50¢ to $1.00 each, our homemade ones are definitely a money saver. These will go in a couple of my lunch boxes this week. They are so good and refreshing especially in this hot weather.

Belinda

© Belinda Richardson and Frugal Workshop, 2012.

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”