Second Frugal Week November 2017

There was a Veteran's Day program at the school where I worked on Monday. After the program was over, teachers were able to go in and have any lunch items that were left. 
I had some delicious chicken noodle soup, scalloped potatoes, green beans, half of a pimento cheese sandwich, sausage balls, and a brownie. It was so good too. It is always nice to eat someone else's cooking for a change. 
I brought my lunch back home and will eat it tomorrow. After school I came home and made spaghetti with garlic bread and steamed broccoli for dinner. 

Kroger is having their Buy 10 Save $5.00 sale, so on Tuesday I went to Kroger and bought the following sale items. 

Betty Crocker Cake Mix 49¢ (I bought two)

Ronzoni Pasta 49¢ (I bought 40 boxes)

Del Monte tomatoes 49¢ (I bought 50 cans)

Milk 99¢ (I bought 4 - 2 skim & 2 chocolate)

Kroger Cheese 3.79 (16 ounces)

Bob’s Red Mill Sale 20% off 

One thing I bought at Kroger was a bag of Bob's Red Mill brown rice flour. Kroger had Bob Mill on sale for 20% off and I had a coupon for $1.00 off from a free magazine, so I paid $1.22 for the bag. 

We also went thrift store shopping on Tuesday before we bought groceries. I found two ink-jet cartridges for our printer, they were marked at $1.99, but the cashier only charged us 10¢ for them. These normally cost $18.99, so a great savings there. I also found a new book of scrapbook papers for 25¢. A brand new deck of playing cards for 49¢ and a flower pot for 49¢.

On Tuesday I needed to have a new battery installed in my car, which cost $110. My brother in law installed it for me, so no cost there.  

I received a $50 Walmart card from my insurance company for having a mammogram in October. I will either use this for gas in the car or Christmas presents. 

I worked four days this week and have all of next week off for Thanksgiving. Today we are going thrift store shopping again. What are your plans for the weekend?

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Last Week

Last week was a busy week here. I worked everyday and had sick family members. I took my daughter and Mom to the doctor one day and took Mom for a CT Scan as well. Twice last week we did not get home until after dark. 

One day we took our recycling to the Recycling Center. We've been saving the cans from canned food and any aluminum cans we come across. We pass the recycling center on our way home from school, so no extra gas involved. They wrote me a check for $2.06 for what we recycled today. I was happy with that as these are things we could easily throw in the garbage, but instead we are keeping them out of the landfill and getting money in the process. 

Dinners last week included Grilled Chicken Salads, Pasta Salad, 
Smoke Sausage & Macaroni & Cheese, Hamburgers, and Mexican Pizzas, Tacos and Salisbury Steak with sides, one of them being mashed potatoes. 

One of the frugal things we have always done is to use the water we boil potatoes in to make mashed potatoes. This saves us money over using milk to make mashed potatoes. There is starch in the water you use to boil your potatoes and is a very good substitute for milk in not only mashed potatoes, but also your bread recipes. You can also keep the potato water for a day or so in your refrigerator. 

I've gotten some of my Christmas shopping done. I've ordered a few things online from Listia using Listia points. This is an online auction site where you can earn points for selling things and then use the points to pick out items you want. The things I've sold have been on a small scale basis and things I've picked out have been on a small scale also. I've gotten several stocking stuffers for my daughter. And I picked out a book for my Mom from her favorite author. It's nice because no money changes hands. I'm exchanging things I no longer use and gets points to purchase things we can use. 

I've also used my Ebay earnings to buy a few things she wanted. Again using the money from selling things we no longer use here at home. So Christmas this year will be done on a small scale basis with hardly any money being spent. The upcoming winter months will be expensive with us having to heat our house and every little bit we can save towards that goal will be set aside for that purpose. 

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
Professor Penny Pincher 
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 and beyond.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"