Five Frugal Things -- Getting a Head Start on Gardening
1. I stopped by Dollar Tree for AAA batteries, which I needed for my UV flashlight. Why? Because my grandkitty most likely peed on an upholstered ottoman and I need to engage in some further investigation. (Deep sigh . . . ) I went ahead and grabbed a pair of reading glasses as well since they had the style I like in the prescription I need.
I spent $4.50.
2. I have four hanging wire baskets in need of liners that I've ignored over the past couple of years. I'd kind of hoped to passively come across some free coconut coir, but that never materialized, so I did a web search for alternative ideas and learned that people sometimes line these with burlap or landscaping fabric.
This sparked a few ideas for me, as I can certainly sew fabric into place and can likely source burlap for free from coffee shops. My spider plants have been wildly prolific and I think I have enough "babies" to fill the pots. I can even use some of free potting soil from last year's Fred Meyer's "Fuchsia Saturday" to complete the project. Of course it's too early in the year to plant outdoors, but I can at least get the liner project going.
As always, my intent is to complete this project while minimizing support of immoral businesses. Wish me luck!
3. My husband and I went out to brunch, but I made sure to eat a little something before we left the house. (Toast and tea.) This way I could order lightly off the menu to save a few dollars. I still enjoyed the restaurant experience as much as I would otherwise, so there was no actual sacrifice.
4. I made a small batch of marinara sauce for a pasta dinner, using a container of crushed tomatoes that I'd thrown into the freezer before last week's vacation. I wanted to avoid travel related food waste and had transferred a few things out of the fridge with this goal in mind.
Not an exciting meal, but it did the trick! Also, there was enough to feed us the next night as well.
5. I stopped into Trader Joe's after brunch and bought nothing more than a bunch of 23¢ bananas as I know I'll be going to Winco in a day or so for truly inexpensive groceries.
I also found a penny.
Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
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Stopped at Aldi after visiting my younger son after work yesterday. It is on the route I use to get home from his house. I bought an avocado, sliced roast beef, and sliced ham luncheon meat, bagels, cream cheese, chips, and a large bag of fake crab meat. I noticed that the luncheon meat was $3.09, when it had been $2.28 about a month ago when I last stopped at Aldi. That is a huge increase. I think the cream cheese increased also, but not sure. It was $1.15 and I think it was around a dollar a month ago. The chips were still 9 oz for $1.50. It was a large bag of crabmeat (I think part of it is an Alaskan fish) and I forget what I paid, but it was less than a same size package at my regular grocery stores. I also bought paprika for 99 cents.
2. I walked both on the stairs at work and in my neighborhood and managed to walk an hour total.
That is all I have.
Thanks for the plant lining tip! I have several wire baskets that hook onto a fence, and was wondering what to do. They were left behind by tenants at a rental that my husband worked at.
Putting off shopping and using food at home. Frugal
Had a new electrical box installed inside and out (50 years old and leaking water from the outside box into the inside box) frugal bc cheaper to replace than recovering from a house fire.
Happily wearing thrifted or gifted clothes. Loved my Valentine’s outfit of thrifted sweater covered with hearts, gifted black pants, and red glitter Converse sneakers that I have had for at least 14 years
Cooking at home including gluten free brownies for V Day
Library and Free Little Library books. So ready for Spring. Our snow finally melted.
I'll add my frugals later but first I want to give a shout-out to Fru-gal Lisa: Happy birthday, Lisa, from your frugal friends!
Another day caretaking my friend. Yesterday her PT came to give counsel and he also changed her dressing -- so I didn't have to!
Her appetite is poor so I scrabbled for things to eat. She seems to mostly want cheese and crackers and yogurt. Easy enough, but not very balanced.
I needed to get out a bit yesterday, so I went to the local Goodwill for fun. I spent $20 and I got a sweatshirt (much needed for cold nights here) two new Eddie Bauer tops with the elbow length sleeves I like, a cookie tin, and a sheet. The sheet was a great find! My top sheet at home has developed a hole, which then turned into a gorge. I have been on the lookout for a replacement. This one is the right color -- gray -- and seemingly brand-new. Score!
Quite unusual for the top sheet to wear out before the bottom, but that's what happened.
Today I'm going to CVS to pick up a prescription and I'll also get some chicken pot pies from KFC, as that seems to appeal to my patient.
The woman who had asked me to dog-sit has cancelled. Not sure why, but I am assuming a change in her travel plans. Darn. That would have been a nice chunk of change.
I had hip replacement surgery 2 years ago, when I was 51. Of course it’s different for everyone depending on health and age, but the most frustrating thing for me after the initial pain was not being able to put on one of my socks. I had to go out for PT three times a week (It’s amazing how far joint replacement has come—outpatient surgery on Thursday, on the bike at PT a few days later.) My husband went back to work after a few days so we strapped a tote bag to my walker so I could do things for myself and my mom picked me up for PT and put that one blasted sock on me. Shoes I could do because I bought slip-on sneakers. Best wishes for your friend that she has a good recovery!
1) We got a first (and hopefully only) NW Washington snow. It wasn't really snow, but graupel, which is a sleet-snow hybrid. Fortunately I caught the weather report so I moved some outdoor potted plants that were starting to bud closer to the house to protect them from the freeze so we don't need to replace them.
2) I arranged to pick up a FB marketplace item at a spot along my bus route to the university, thus saving the need for another trip in the car later to the other side of town. I was picking up for my son's GF, who had purchased the item used to save money. (passing on my frugality to the next generation!)
3) I've been thinking of getting a tablet for carting around my readings for class, because my laptop is heavy and everything is digital now. Instead, I did some research and found out that there is way to sync my school onedrive account with my old digital notebook! It's e-ink and doesn't have color, but I don't need color and neither do I need to spend money on new tech. I just have to upload the readings into my one drive and then I have immediate access on the notebook.
4) Wasn't feeling dinner last night, but I still forced myself to dump some dehydrated veggies in some broth. Ended up making a good (but not jaw-dropping) veggie chowder. I also mixed up some cheddar drop dumplings and added them to the chowder, which took the experience up a notch, flavor-wise.
5) Combined errands for labwork, pharmacy, and library since they are within two blocks of each other.
We got out first 'major' ha snow yesterday and it was still only about an inch. I need to investigate why my dryer isn't working and am hoping for a frugal fix like a blown fuse or similar.
If it is an electric dryer, it has (if it is like ours), two fuses, one for the heat and one for the tumbling. Hope it is an easy adjustment!
We got our free oil change/tire rotation/recall fix which was just some programming done to the computer for the backup camera. I guess it’s not really free when we had to buy the car to have this service for the first 25,000 miles. lol
For Valentine’s Day, we met up with my mom, sisters, and nephew at my mom‘s house. We all just bring what we want to eat when we get together like that and I brought some dumplings I had made from home and my husband picked up a frozen meal. We played games we already had and my sister had made chocolate-covered strawberries. We usually don’t really do anything for Valentine’s Day, so it was a sweet surprise.
Our dog had his yearly checkup. The vet found a benign tumor inside the anus and it needed to come off. I had his nails trimmed the day of the appointment before we knew he needed surgery. (My husband is the official pet nail trimmer of our house and he’s recovering from shoulder surgery.) The tech didn’t charge me for the nail trim because nail trims are included with surgeries and he had his surgery two days later. Our dog will be 15 this year and we weren’t going to put him through surgery unless he really needed it so while he was under they took care of everything including a growth on his head and he got a dental where they found a tooth needed to be removed. He has a history of having a heart rate that slows down during surgery and I was a little nervous, but they were able to bring it up no problem with some atropine. At 60 lbs, he’s already exceeded the “typical” lifespan of a dog his size. He’s lost his hearing, his depth perception isn’t good anymore, but the vet says he looks good, his blood work was excellent, we are happy for all the bonus time we get with him, and most of all HE is a happy dog who enjoys life.
Somehow, we missed increasing our Roth IRA contribution last year by the $1000 total allowed and didn’t realize it until I was doing the taxes this weekend. We had the extra transferred into our account since we have until April to add it for last year.
It cost about $175 to use the tax program that I used, but I went through Rakuten and I’m getting 15% back plus a $30 rebate using a certain credit card. We are getting a tiny rebate but we would rather have our money throughout the year anyway, so I’m just glad we came out on the plus side even after the fee.