We received sad news this week. My daughter's first grade teacher passed away. She was only 51 years old and had a heart attack. She had spent a large part of her summer cleaning, organizing, and painting her classroom getting it ready for the new school year.
She was always so funny and had the best personality. She came to me after Bailey, who was moving onto middle school, graduated from 5th grade to tell me she would miss me being there regularly. This is a huge loss for our small community and honestly we are just heartbroken.
This week, as usual, we have stayed home, which is a huge money saver. My daughter has had to pay shipping to get inventory sent here, but I told her what we have saved on gas by not going to yard sales more than pays for that postage.
In My Frugal Kitchen
We put a whiteboard on our refrigerator, so we could list whatever leftovers are in there that need eating. It will save us from food waste, which will also save money.
I saved multiple jars this week by washing them and removing the labels. They will be stored with my other empty jars and used for another purpose when needed.
The last of the money saving cookbooks I ordered came to me this week. This one ended up getting lost in the mail, but finally arrived.
It's Ida Bailey Allen's Money Saving Cookbook from 1940. I've been reading it this week and it really does have good money saving recipes in it.
I'll be sure to share them when we find and try recipes we like.
This pair of kitchen tongs loses the parts on a regular basis even when I am cooking with them, which is frustrating.
I finally fixed them using some Gorilla Glue. I made sure to put the glue where it would not come in contact with any food. Hopefully this will fix that problem.
For those that mentioned how good the Tony Chachere's was last week, we agree! I made some fried onions and potatoes this week with smoked sausage and seasoned them with the Tony's and it was very good. We will definitely be using this again.
Gooseberry Patch has these free printables for Skillet and Slow Cooker Dinners if you're interested.
This week I received a survey from Consumer Opinion and $5 for completing it.
Free food for coins. A Chick-fil-A in Virginia needs your coins...badly.
For every $10 of rolled coins that customers bring in, customers will receive the same value in paper bills AND a free entree.
Why are they doing this? To avoid going cashless amid a nationwide coin shortage due.
Entertainment
This week I watched Alabama Moon for free on YouTube. It was a clean, family film, with nothing bad in it.
This week I fixed my laptop with electrical tape. The cord continued to fall out of the laptop, on both ends, and then it would go dead right in the middle of work, which was frustrating me.
So, like Amy Dacyczyn, I decided to fix this little problem and used electrical tape to keep it together permanently. It's worked great ever since and not fallen out again.
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Welcome to Friday, our 19th week of staying home and avoiding crowds due to coronavirus. No grocery shopping, yard sales, or thrifting. Some days are hard mentally, some days are easier though.
In other news this week, my daughter received her stimulus check this week. She planned ahead on how she would spend this and managed to save part of it while also treating herself at the same time.
We did go out one day this week to pick up an RX at Publix, which was made contactless (paid online) through the drive through.
The last time I filled up my car was on July 6th. I still have almost a full tank since we are not driving as much. At that time I paid $1.79 per gallon.
This week I placed a Walmart.com order to be delivered free to our home. The order included freezer bags, probiotics, mayonnaise, tortilla chips, walnuts, and Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, which I've been wanting to try.
This week I already received a call to sub for this upcoming school year.
Our dryer wasn't working correctly, so we called a repairman out on Tuesday.
Turns out the heating element burned out. Total cost of the service call and parts came to $189, which is cheaper than buying a new dryer.
So I'm glad we decided to repair this one rather than buy a new dryer. We did ask the repairman to wear a mask and disinfected after he left.
Entertainment:
Tuesday night movie we watched Bridge to Terabithia. My favorite parts of this movie involve Miss Edmunds, the music teacher. Wouldn't it be wonderful if every student had a music teacher like her?
In my Frugal Kitchen:
I emptied a spice container of Mrs. Dash and cleaned it up. I'm going to reuse it for another spice as I like the size of these bottles.
I stocked up on Chinese/Japanese oils and sauces this month. This week I'll be using oyster sauce in Sticky Pineapple Chicken and hoisin sauce in Chow Mein Noodles.
My mom had me order her 24 cans of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs, but turns out she didn't like them. So, she gave them to us and now we have 23 cans on our pantry shelves.
Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.
Hello to all my frugal friends. Thankfully we've made it to Friday again. I hope and pray that all of you and your families are safe and sound and healthy.
The news in the world is about the same as last week. Schools here were closed due to Spring Break, but we would have been closed due to the Coronavirus Pandemic anyway.
I've gotten the official word that schools will be closed here now until at least April 24th. I had been scheduled to work next Thursday and Friday, but that will not be happening now.
I'm trying to keep my routine as normal as possible. I wake up and shower and have a to do list on my phone that I accomplish each day. I've been keeping myself busy and reading more than I normally read.
This week we listened to The Secret Garden for free on Audible.com this week.
I also completed the 2020 census during my down time this week.
My eye doctors office called and cancelled an appointment I had for Friday. This was fine with me because I was going to call and cancel anyway because of the virus.
My paycheck came in the mail this week. The thought of going out when we have been self quarantining bothered me, however.
What I ended up doing was taking a photo of my check and depositing it in the bank via my smartphone. I had no idea I could do that until Bailey mentioned it to me.
See, the school district has direct deposit for faculty and staff members, but not for substitute teachers.
On payday I have to drive home, get my check out of the mailbox, drive to town and deposit it, which is a 45 mile round trip. Being able to do this on my phone saves me gas and wear and tear on my car, which is a win- win situation.
In the kitchen I've been cleaning, organizing, taking pantry inventory, cooking and all the other little tasks I find to do in there. I love puttering around our home cleaning and doing things to make life here better. This is a perfect time to do things just like this.
-Some time ago I bought a container of soy sauce packets from Amazon, so I could take them in my lunch box. Little did I know how long it would take to use those up.
Today I decided I was tired of the little packages, so I took the packets, cut the tops off and put them in our regular soy sauce bottle. I washed the jar they were stored in and quickly found a better use for that jar.
-I went looking for and found my sour cream containers. A bad habit I know, but I wasn't putting them in the same place after they were washed, but that is fixed now.
I don't want to throw these large containers away and contribute to the landfill as I know someone will have a good use for them and probably ask for them someday.
So far I have given large glass jars and egg cartons to teachers at school. It's because I save these items that I'm able to donate them when a request is made. It's been my experience that teachers are thrilled when a request like this is fulfilled.
- On Sunday I took our last chicken out of the freezer to cook for dinner. I decided right off the bat that I would stretch the chicken like nobody's business.
I cooked the chicken in my Instant Pot and added onions and several spices (salt, pepper, paprika, Weber's garlic and herb) along with enough water, which ended up making a very rich broth.
On Tuesday I made a chicken pot pie using Bisquick instead of a pie crust since that is what I had on hand. I used part of the rich broth for the pot pie and froze the rest of the broth for a later time.
My bank offered "relief of fees" due to the Coronavirus Pandemic this month, although you had to ask for it. They kindly refunded my service fee for March, which is savings for me of $8.00.
I cleaned up and organized my spices this week. I emptied several of the same spice into a larger mason jar and labeled it. I had a couple of glass spice jars that I cleaned up and will save for another purpose.
The following tip comes from Chef AJ. She saves her spice bottles when they are empty and reuses them. She says that research shows that most people don't eat 30 distinct and different meals each month, but rather repeat their favorite meals every week.
Chef AJ says her Red Lentil Chili is no exception. Instead of measuring out all 7 of the spices every time she goes to make it, she uses several empty spice bottles and makes them all at the same time. Then all she has to do is grab one and put them in her pressure cooker with the rest of the ingredients.
I do this with taco seasoning mix that I make up, although I just place them into small bowls. I make about 10 at a time and it is a big time saver, but now I'm saving my glass spice bottles for this purpose. :)
I cleaned out my e-mail box of any unwanted subscriptions. Not knowing what is on sale where will help me save money.
We did a curbside pickup this week at Piggly Wiggly and Kroger. The reason I did this at two stores is because they were out of stock of several items we needed. We used our last roll of toilet paper on Wednesday. Piggly Wiggly's website sold me toilet paper, but when I got there they didn't load it into my cart. Turns out, they were out of it, but I am grateful for the items we did get.
Finally, we’ve been drinking herbal tea every day through quarantine. It’s healthy, hydrating, and a great self care routine. My favorite is the Peppermint. What’s your favorite herbal tea?
Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.
Good Friday morning to all my readers. I hope you've had a great frugal week. This week I was able to sub three days and I'm grateful for that. Tuesday was Super Tuesday, so school was closed as we use our schools here to vote.
Bailey and I made sure to get our votes in too!
My brother and his fiance came from Illinois for a visit this week. We had not seen each other in eight years, so it was good to catch up with him.
We made a trip to Kroger this week to use the $25 gift card they awarded me. They actually put $30 on my card and said the extra $5 was for an order pickup fee, which we didn't use. They let us apply it towards our groceries and not the fee anyway.
These are the items we picked up:
- 12 Chobani yogurts, marked down to 45¢, we had $1 off four coupons, so we paid 25¢ each.
- Kroger brand Yogurt
- one gallon of Milk
- four packages of cream cheese
- two packages of Doritos
- two container of Lay's Stax
- 2 bags Teriyaki Stir-fry that was on markdown
- tomatoes
- bananas
Needless to say I was really tickled to be able to pick up all this food for free.
Other things we did this week to save money include:
Used the same dryer sheet for two loads.
Used a buy one get one free Subway deal to get two foot longs sandwiches for $6.54
Two free orange juices from a student at school.
Submitted my income tax return using the free version of Turbo Tax.
Received a free RX prescription in the mail, which is good for three months.
The sad news that our local IGA is closing came this week. This will officially make the town where I sub a food desert as it will have no grocery store. Thankfully we have other options in other towns.
If you have a Hardee's in your town be sure to stop in on Monday March 9th as they are giving away free sausage biscuits.
Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living here at Frugal Workshop.
Payday fell this week and unfortunately my check was short due to a clerical error. Normally I will pick up take out on payday, but not this time. I just came home and made dinner using items we had here. So, a frugal win on dinner anyway.
Our local gas station changed rewards cards, so I needed to have my information switched over and it turned out to be more work than I thought it would. Several phone calls later it's now fixed and can be used to save money on gas again. This saves me 10¢ per gallon and adds up over time.
This particular gas station has two reward cards. One is for Exxon and gives you points for each purchase while the second reward card lowers the price of gas by 10¢ per gallon. When I paid for the gas myself I paid $2.02 per gallon.
When I filled up my car this week I used my Exxon rewards card to use the free $8.75 worth of gas I had earned. We have found that the reward does not come off if you pay with a debit or credit card. So, to get around this issue we insert $1 into the pump and can then get all of our rewards. It might seem like a little bit of work, but I received $8.75 in free gas today, so I consider that worth the effort.
My Dad, an electrician, came down from Illinois and fixed one of our thermostats while he was here. This allowed one of the rooms upstairs to have heat again. Cost for the thermostat was $22, which was the only cost involved and saved us from calling a local electrician and being charged for labor.
We used the free weatherstripping we received the other day and redid the weatherstripping on our back door. There was a draft coming in the door, which we used to solve by hanging a coat on the doorknob, but now it has been fixed.
Last week I requested and received two free Sesame Street coloring books for fire safety. I'll be including these in a Christmas gift for two little girls this year.
This week I perused the grocery store sale ads online and saved myself $1.00 for the cost of a newspaper to get them.
Payday came this week, so all my bills were paid online, which saves me money spent on postage.
Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living from Frugal Workshop.
Good Sunday afternoon. I hope you've had a great week.
We were able to get in on multiple freebies this week. I think that was the most freebies we ever received in one week.
Last Saturday we attended an energy workshop. Afterwards we were given a free energy saving kit.
One free orange juice from school.
Three pairs of socks and this cloth napkin from a free box.
We ordered a free drink from Sonic.
Taco Bell was giving away free tacos on Wednesday, so we made sure to stop by and get our taco. And ran a couple of errands on our to do list as well.
We also had a voucher for $3.90 off of Snickers bars at Walmart and used that and ended up with eight Snickers bars in all. We also used the free Snickers coupon that coupons.com gave out this week.
Bailey ran into Walmart for something and used the Freeosk to get us both a sample of Bounce Wrinkle Guard.
e had to run to Publix for an RX and I used my Starkist tuna voucher and picked up three cans of albacore tuna for free.
We also picked up an RX at CVS and got two free bottles of water.
We've been combining errands as usual when we go out, and cooking all of our meals at home.
I've been using up some lurking items in my pantry. One lone packet of hot chocolate, six packets of oatmeal, and one small box of raisins were used up this week.
Several days this week it was cool enough to open the car windows and not have to run the air conditioner. This helps me to save money on gas.
The day before Halloween it rained and rained here and a cold front moved in, so it's definitely cold here right now.
The temperature in the house is down to 53 this morning, but I'm bundled up in a blanket, no heat on yet, but if this keeps up I may have to turn it on.
Thursday evening we had some errands to run and ended up at the Samaritan Center thrift store. I found a like new Tupperware salt shaker for 35¢, a steno pad for 35¢, a new box of Christmas cards for 35¢.
I've been busy sewing this weekend, repairing a towel that had a rip in it and sewing gifts for Christmas.
Before & After
How was your week? Anything exciting to tell us about?
Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay and it helps me to earn a living from Frugal Workshop.
