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 ~

Tennessee

Tennessee has been in the news this past week for multiple reasons, which include the extreme drought, a deadly school bus wreck in Chattanooga, the wildfires in our community and especially the one in Gatlinburg, and the devastating tornadoes, which swept through the community we call home.  

Tennessee U.S. Drought

Our local fire station was leveled to the ground by a F3 tornado that swept through our community Wednesday morning at 2:30 a.m. while most people were sleeping.  

We have no warning sirens here for tornadoes as we live in a rural community.

 Our local post office was also a total loss. 

We are very grateful for the rain that we prayed for to end this extreme drought, but deeply saddened by the devastation to our community from the storms that came with the rain. 
The wild fire that swept through Gatlinburg, Tennessee has also been devastating. Thirteen people were killed during the fires in Gatlinburg, two people from my community were killed in the tornado, and multiple homes and businesses have been lost in both places. 

How has this impacted our lives here?
We are OK here and are counting our blessings, grateful to still have our home and each other. 
We were without power for 18 hours when it was finally restored Wednesday night. 
School was cancelled for the rest of the week as power lines were still down, roads were still closed, buses could not get through, and the high school, where I sub, is still being used as a Red Cross shelter. 
Next week there was going to be a 3 day seminar in Gatlinburg for teachers and all the subs were booked for those 3 days next week. That conference has been cancelled. 
As a result of all this devastation, I did not work this week and have had 3 days cancelled for next week due to the conference being cancelled. I am hopeful that someone will still call me to sub if school is reopened next week. 
You see we were off last week for the Thanksgiving holiday, and having 3 weeks off with no pay will make it hard, but we are strong. Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State and they have lived up to that motto during this time. The community where I live is strong and we are #TennesseeStrong. 
If you are so inclined, I'm asking you to pray for Tennessee.  

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~