My Frugal Week

Good Sunday morning to all my readers. What a week this has been. Like so many other schools across the country our local schools will be closed this week and were already scheduled to be closed next week due to spring break. 
This week I was scheduled to work every day, so that is more lost income for my household. However, we still have some income as we believe in multiple income streams here.  In the meantime we are staying home and waiting it out along with so many others. 
We are planning for the worst, but hoping for the best.  

Last Sunday I worked on making some scrunchies on my sewing machine. They are pretty easy to make and are popular once again. These would make a simple gift to give to someone and would use up some of your scrap fabric. 

On Monday morning I stopped in at Hardee's on my way to work and said "Happy Morning" and received a free sausage biscuit. 
On Tuesday we were invited to a birthday party at my BIL's home. I asked him ahead of time if he could fix the headlight in my car as it was out. He only charged me $6 for the bulb to fix it. 
This week I sold two items on eBay and am thrilled to have those items out of the house. 
My income tax refund came this week, which was quick as I only filed at the first of the month. I quickly paid my auto insurance premium and have left the rest in the bank. 
Saturday was the day I was going to get our usual monthly grocery order. But as the last few days progressed, items on my order were marked out of stock to the point that I decided not to fill the order. 
We will just wait until those items are back in stock and then fill the order. We have plenty of food here to make it through even if we need to get creative. We are used to doing that. 
And if we do run out of toilet paper I'll just cut up an old t-shirt and use that. I'm sure most people have a couple of articles of clothing they no longer wear and can use that. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. :)
How are things in your area of the world?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

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April 2019 End of the Month Wrap Up

My goals for April included at least fifteen no spend days, a new source of income, and no new debt. I ended up with twenty-two no spend days and no new debt! I have several ideas in the works for the new source of income, but I am still working on those. 
Some bloggers say no spend days don't work because they will simply spend the next day. In my case I like to string as many no spend days together as I can and hopefully have more no spend days than spend days. 
I think having twenty-two no spend days out of thirty is pretty good. Having no spend days helps me to save money by not spending it in the first place. 
My goals for May include no eating out, no new debt, and as many no spend days as I can get, which will hopefully be over twenty. 
Some of my spending in April included..
Gas $94.01 Groceries $132.69  Insurance $255.67 Yard Sales $5.00
Insurance is normally our biggest spending category. It's a necessity in my book as I would not want to be without it. 
I already have my budget written out for May and plan to continue as many no spend days as possible. 
In May and June we will have income from pet sitting again. I am still working on other sources of income for the summer as well. 
Have you made any goals for May yet? Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Frugal Friday ~ August 3, 2018

My daughter went to do a load of laundry on Wednesday, but the washer wouldn't work. Thinking it might be a breaker, I went downstairs to investigate, but that wasn't the case. 
This washer was purchased on 8-29-17, so it was still under the one year warranty. A phone call was made to Roper and a service call was made for Thursday. 
Turns out the control panel inside was dead. He order a new part for it and it should be here on Monday. I'm expecting $0 in costs associated with this as it is still under warranty. 
When I buy something new I take the receipt and the owner's manual and place them in a clear plastic sleeve and add it to my binder that holds these. So I had my receipt on hand when I needed it for the service call. It's so important to keep track of these important papers, so you don't have to spend unnecessary money. 

My daughter went thrift store shopping yesterday while I took Mom to vote. DD and I went later in the day to vote together. 

After she was done thrifting, she went into Ingle's and found some terrific items on markdown. 
Welch's Cocktail Juice $1.00

Minute Maid 

Pineapple Coconut Water 

$1.00

Brown Eggs 50¢ x 2

Oui yogurt 50¢ x 4

Milo's Sweet Tea 75¢ x 2

Silk Cashew Milk $1.30

Laura Lynn Orange Juice $1.50

I'm tickled that she went in there. I was overlooking that as a source of markdowns because we have other grocery stores we check. 

She is now going to be checking this as a source of markdowns when she goes thrifting on Thursday in that area. 

I made $262.44 on Ebay during the month of July. That was more than enough to pay my car insurance, with some leftover. 
In fact, I made enough money from multiple sources to pay all of my bills, so I did not have to dip into any of my savings. 
August 13th will be my first day back to work, but I won't see my first paycheck until September 20th. So we will still need to continue our summertime budget for a while. 

Our neighbor came over on Saturday afternoon and using his own tractor along with one of my Dad's farm implements, fixed our driveway for us. 
We are so thrilled! 
I'm making him a batch of brownies along with a nicely written note as a way of saying thank you to him. 

We stopped at our local peach orchard and picked up peaches for the first time this summer. 
The big baskets were $15 each, but you can save $1 on your next purchase if you bring the basket back. 
These are good peaches with so much juice it runs down your arm. 

No yard sales today as the weather is not cooperating. 
How was your week? Frugal or not? 
I would love to hear all about it in the comment section. :)
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Yard Sale Saturday

On Saturday we spent part of the day going to several yard sales. Even with the rainy weather we were able to find multiple sales. 

Some of the items I picked up were in order for me to resell. I picked up a tupperware canister set, a Tennessee Vols jacket, and a Pampered Chef Deluxe Cheese grater all in order to resell. 

Yard sales can be a treasure trove of items that you can pick up and then resell. As long as you find one where the prices are reasonable.

We've stumbled across plenty of yard sales where the prices are too high. But as Amy Dacyczyn implied in the Tightwad Gazette, going to multiple yard sales is what will yield you the best results. 

Reselling allows me to create another income stream without having to put a lot of effort into the mix. I absolutely love going to yard sales, so this part is pure enjoyment for me. 

For myself I picked up a tupperware pitcher for $1.00, a brown jacket, two dishtowels, and some pop tops.

My daughter uses the pop tops on her canned drinks. They keep the soda contained in the can, which saves on possible spillage and makes it easier to tote with a person. We picked up nine of these for $1.00, so 12¢ each. 

Image Credit

One yard sale we went to had a sign that read, "prices are negotiable," and the seller even told us the same. 

She had DVDs listed for $3.00 and I found one I hadn't seen in a long time, so I haggled with her to she would take $1.00 and she agreed.  

Now when I'm done watching it, I can trade it at McKay's Used Books and get my money back. That's another way we save on entertainment here. 

Haggling is fun and also saves you even more money. 

We are not yet in full yard sale mode here yet due to the weather, but it is picking up slowly and will be in full session before we know it. We are definitely ready for it here. 

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Missing Frugal Queen?

It's been a busy two weeks here and I ended up working nine of the last ten school days. Payday came early this month and I've already paid the monthly bills, which always gives me peace of mind. 
Last week I sold three things on Ebay that netted $36.83 after fees for the items that cost me $1.24 at a thrift store and rummage sale. 
We've been in use it up mode here using several items out of the pantry that are good to get off the shelf.   It's so important to use up what you have stored in your pantry because it saves you money because then you don't have to buy more food. That will free up money for other things like an unexpected expense. 
With that in mind, I would like to share a link with you. 
Better Times Almanac
I've shared this link before, but it's been a while. There is a lot of good, useful, and frugal information there. Bob advises people to keep two months worth of food in their pantries. 
He says...

If hard times come your way -- if you get fired, get sick, there's a blizzard, your utility bills are too high, whatever the crisis, with food in the pantry, hard times are less hard. 

One way we do this is our home is to get the Wednesday grocery store sale ads and find out what is on sale that week. Food City has begun to have Friday only sales or three day only sales, so we went yesterday and picked up four packages of sausage, bacon, and cream cheese. 

These were good prices for our area and I've already put the bacon and sausage in the freezer. Bacon is a rare treat in our home, due to the expense, so I was tickled to find it at this price. BLT's will be on the menu sometime soon. 
It's cold here this weekend, so I'll be making soup today. I have plenty of ingredients on hand from shopping the sales and stocking up on them. 
Many people are talking about the Frugal Queen blog disappearing. You can always use the Internet Wayback machine to access her older blog pages. 
Frugal Queen on The Internet Wayback Machine
You can even access her recipes using this link. 
Hope all of my readers are doing well and have a great weekend!
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Third Frugal Week of August 2017

As I mentioned last week, I was scheduled to sub five days this week. I brought my lunch to school every day and didn't succumb to any take out. On Friday one of the teachers gave me some chicken salad & bread from a local deli, which fed me and my daughter for breakfast Saturday morning. 
I came home Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and my daughter had dinner already warmed up, which was so great after working all day. On Thursday we went to Chattanooga to pet sit for a friend, making $40 in the process. 
Friday was payday already and since I worked 1.5 days prior to the tenth of the month, I received a paycheck as well. That doesn't happen every year, but it's great when it does. My renter's insurance will come out of the 25th of the month, so now I won't have to pull money from my savings to cover the amount. 
On Friday night we decided to have a pizza delivered since we were in the city, which is something we don't have where we live since it is rural. Having a pizza delivered is a real treat to us. 
And guess what? 
Pizza Hut sent us a text on Saturday that they were sorry our pizza took too long to be delivered and offered us a free one topping pizza as compensation. I didn't even think it took that long to be delivered, but what a sweet offer. 
Monday we will be going to a free event for the eclipse and schools are closed here, so this will be a four day work week and I am already scheduled to work two of those days. 
You may have read in the comments from my last blog post that the principal gave me two free pairs of eclipse glasses for Monday, one for me and one for my daughter. 
We picked up red grapes at Aldi this week since they were on sale for 79¢ a pound. 
Several free magazines arrived in the mail this week. Women's Health, Weight Watchers, Money, Time, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Parents and This Old House. I mostly use Recycle Bank credits to earn free magazines. Some of them even have free coupons in them, which is another plus. 

On Sunday we went to the mall as we both had a coupon for $10 off $10 at Yankee Candle and wanted to use it since it expired that day. We both bought a car air freshener and a candle melt and paid 52¢ each. We also picked up our free pizza at Pizza Hut and had that for dinner. 
I picked up one of my prescriptions at CVS on Sunday and we were given two free bottles of water. 

We watched a couple of episodes of Parenthood on the Internet for free while we were in Chattanooga. It is one of my favorite tv shows and I love so much of the music they chose for it. 
That's it for our frugal week here. How was your week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

My Frugal Week

For two days only our local Fresh and Low sold five pound blocks of sliced American deli style cheese for $10. This normally sells for $15, so this was a good deal and I picked one up yesterday along with two bags of cole slaw mix, which they were selling for 50¢ each. 
I'll be incorporating grilled cheese sandwiches, rice and cheese, and macaroni and cheese into our July menus with this cheese. 
Today I finished an inventory of my pantry and freezer. It's a good way for me to know what's on hand, so that I can plan meals around those food items. For example, I found that I have an oversupply of kidney beans (18 cans), so I will be looking for a way to use those up. 
Also, I can search for recipes/ideas online using the ingredients I have on hand. This is one way to save money on food by using up the food I have on hand rather than looking up recipes for dishes I want to make and then going to the store to buy those ingredients. 
I made more chocolate syrup this week as it's good and inexpensive to have on hand to stir into a glass of chocolate milk or over a banana for chocolate cravings. 

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cocoa 

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, mix together the sugar and cocoa powder until most of the lumps are gone. Add water and salt and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes, until thickened, continuing to stir frequently. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes, then add vanilla extract. Store in air tight container in the fridge.

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We went to the flea market and set up on Wednesday. Many of the regulars we see on Saturday were at the Wednesday show, which is held in a different location. We did well even though it was threatening to rain most of the day. Of course, we took sandwiches and drinks with us and other than the $2.00 I spent on cucumbers, did not spend any money today. 

I picked up six cucumbers for this week. They were priced at 3 for $1.00 and the lady that grew them bought several things from me as well. She and her husband are retired, but grow produce to sell as a side income. She sold most of her produce for $1.00 a pound and said it made a good side income for them. 

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We continue to make do without a microwave. I have been using a loaf pan to heat up leftovers in the toaster oven, which works remarkably well. I wanted to make cornbread muffins the other day, but do not have a six-cup muffin pan to fit in the toaster oven, and I did not want to heat up the house with the big oven, so I made corn bread patties instead on my griddle. _________________________ We continue to eat the food we have in our pantry and do as little grocery shopping as possible. I have spent very little on groceries this month ($14.10 so far) and will continue to do so at least through the month of August. I do have a growing grocery list though.  _______________________
How is your week going?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~