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My neighbor set out free green apples, so I walked around the corner and grabbed a dozen or so. She has a prolific apple tree and has a hard time keeping up with them. I’ll assemble some desserts for the freezer, which’ll come in hand come Thanksgiving. I turned right around and brought her a gargantuan bouquet of hydrangeas as a thank you.
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I baked four mini loaves of no-knead artisan bread from a single recipe, which makes them giftable. This also allowed me to bring a cute lil’ loaf (with thick Tillamook cheese slices) to my mother at her skilled nursing facility.
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I sold absolutely nothing, but I did renew my Facebook Marketplace listings a couple of times. It often takes awhile to find the right buyer and I have nothing against playing the long game.
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• I walked to The UPS Store to return an incorrect vacuum cleaner cord that my son ordered from Amazon. Happy to help him get his money back.
• A different neighbor returned some Pokémon early reader books that I lent to her son last year.
• My step mother handed down a pair of library books that she enjoyed.
• I made a paste with dish soap, baking soda and water and scrubbed out a couple stains from my favorite fall cotton sweater. Stain removal skills are basically an infinite clothing hack.
• I have a neighbor going though rough times, so I raked their yard for them. -
I didn’t buy a Lear Jet.
Five Frugal Things
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Ohh, I bet your mom appreciated the bread!
When I did my clinical rotation at the assisted living/rehab center, the food they served was utterly unappetizing…worse than what I see at the hospital. So some homemade bread would be such a lovely treat.
She did appreciate it! Plus I bring her a cup of strong hot tea every morning. Luckily the facility is just ten minutes from the house.
Katy, I hope that Su Mama is doing well in rehab and will be able to go home soon.
I used to order my mom restaurant takeout every week on Saturdays via Grubhub or whatever. Usually there was enough for two days of meals. She said it was the only decent food she got all week.
Her tea was never hot enough either.
1. Saved $26 by ordering our dog’s eye medications from Chewy rather than from her ophthalmologist’s office.
2. Also compared costs for her heartworm and tick protection meds and chose to continue ordering from our vet.
3. Didn’t have enough pumpkin for a quick bread so I added enough elderly bananas to make up the difference. Taste was the same.
4. Bought two lamps at a consignment store with truly ugly shades. So ugly that I removed them as soon as I got home and am using them with bare bulbs. The lamps were priced low enough that I don’t mind spending some money on replacement shades.
5. Put out our minimalist Halloween decor: a single, small pumpkin that set us back $2.50. A neighbor a couple blocks away had a company decorate her entire front yard as a haunted house, including two 20-foot-high skeletons. I’ve never understood skeletons of any size as “decor” – all I see are my dead parents, family members, friends, and my friend’s 10-year-old daughter.
Your #5…all I can think of when I see one is the poem by Robert Frost about the skeleton in the attic of the old woman and her son, The Witch of Coos. The way he described the sound of the bones brushing against each other while coming down the attic stairs is so real it wakes up a sense of horror.
Christine, I hear you. Me, I don’t need to put out any spooky Halloween decor. Real life is frightening enough.
Amen to that, A. Marie!
I agree! I don’t do Halloween – I do autumn and Thanksgiving.
@MB in MN – please keep in mind the service you get from your vet. I could say a few dollars (far less than $26) if I ordered the maintenance medication for one of my felines. But I’ve been with my vet clinic for a long, long time and have received nothing but excellent service and care. I know if on the outside chance my financials took a huge negative dive, they’d work with me. And that means the world to me when it comes to my felines health.
1. I did some stain removal from clothes too this weekend. I used Dawn dish soap and Hydrogen peroxide. I use an old toothbrush saved for this. Everything came out great. I hung the laundry to dry outside since it is still nice here.
2. Got my electric bill. It always shows where you are compared to other homes in the area and similar size. We used 316 KWH less energy than the efficient homes in our area. Hubby was impressed. I’m thinking about hanging it on the fridge like when the kids were in school and got a good grade.
3. My son came over yesterday to help my husband hang an antenna on our roof. We cut cable in February(after the Superbowl) and Hubby had put it in our eaves. He said we would get more channels if it was on the roof. He was right. We are getting another 24 channels for almost free. He had to get a few parts to put it outside and a grounding rod in case it gets hit by lightning. I was the ladder holder and water girl. I’m not big on heights so I wasn’t going up there.
4. The garden is still giving. Figs are still going strong. I picked 24 yesterday. I also picked lots of tomatoes, string beans, pole beans, basil and parsley. I pulled all of the cucumber plants and string bean plants. Plus a few tomato plants that were done.
5. I did a lot of cooking the last few days. I made a French onion soup in the crockpot with some onions that needed to be used. I made veggie stock with onion skins and veggie ends that were in the freezer in the other crock pot.. Some of the soup made it to the freezer and all of the stock. I made a batch of pasta fagioli soup. My daughter came over and helped me make 3 containers of apple/carrot/grape juice. She took one home with her. I made a batch of muffins with some of the leftover pulp. The rest was frozen for future baking. I made a batch of apple syrup from the cores. Hubby brought them to work for 2 of his coworkers. He also brings figs regularly. While the muffins were cooking, I put in 6 potatoes and a spaghetti squash for meals this week. I made 2 loaves of bread. 1 went into the freezer. I made hard boiled eggs. I currently have a bunch of chicken in the crockpot for easy meals this week. Planning ahead meals is going to be a must if I am working 3 -10 hour shifts.
The windows are open, the heat hasn’t been on yet, the oil tank is still ½ full from our fillup in May, the house is mostly clean, the puppies give lots of kisses and cuddles and we have yummy food waiting to be eaten. Life is good.
Marybeth, I love your #2. DH always used to love getting these notices from National Grid and decorated the stairwell from the ground floor to the basement with them. And the neighbors always jokingly complained that we were the “efficient neighbors” throwing the rest of the street off.
Oh, your #5 is so inspiring!
I have been SOOO busy with election work (yes, Canada has elections, too! Provincial in my case, Oct 19th) that I have not been cooking at ALL.
I finally had a chance to do a small thanksgiving meal and now my #2 son is telling me we have SO MUCH FOOD in the fridge – which is a treat for us both as he has been scrounging for his lunches and I have been eating far too many carbs for the last month. I love all the putting-by you are managing to do, and the baking – well done! I also envy you the figs – our trees only manage to produce the one small harvest, and that is done by early September.
I haven’t done one of these in a while.
1. I bought a bunch of superwash wool through store pickup. I’d rather go in and pick it out myself, but I had a 25% off coupon if I did pickup, so I did. I will use it to make socks to send to my daughter’s friend.
2. Freezing food like crazy. Out farm box has overwhelmed us with veg, more than the two of us are up for eating. I will be putting a vacation hold of the box for next week, so we can eat the freezer veg and not feel like we’re behind.
3. I did unload a bunch of veg with my niece, when I brought salad over to her house. She made soup for dinner, and we got to play with the grandnibblings. They’re 21 month old twins, and a joy to us!
4. Keeping with the theme, I used blue Dawn to scrub the stains out of our lunch bag. One big ugly stain is still there, but it’s so much better. I might go back at it with peroxide. Or I might add a patch. Or I might declare it good enough.
5. Didn’t buy emergency cross-country plane tickets to go see my daughter. She broke her leg in a rugby match, and had to have surgery that night. Her friend stayed the night in the hospital with her (thus the care package for the friend). She’s been really well taken care of, at one of the best medical schools in the country, at her school, by her friends, and by her team. I am so grateful for all her care! And I’m grateful that if we had to go, our frugal habits would have allowed it. She got a rod put into the bone marrow part, she gets her stitches out this week, she doesn’t have a cast, and can already put some weight on the leg!
Best Wishes to your daughter for a speedy recovery. It sounds she is already on her way to fast healing. Nice her friend stayed with her and she has a great medical team.
Katy thought her list was boring today, but boring stuff day after day has allowed my husband and I to retire early, spend our money on things we value and spend our time with our aging parents and young married sons and daughter in laws.
Boring for the win!
1. Like Marybeth, I received a statement telling me my electric usage was lower than my efficient neighbors. I credit that mostly to my clothesline.
2. I saved 42% of my bill at CVS using the $10 off coupon on my ExtraCare Card, a $1 off anything coupon and BOGO free and BOGO 50% off sales.
3. I met friends at the library for a free concert, Counterfeit Cash. Unbelievably talented band and two of them sang. One sang Johnny Cash and one sang Hank Williams. Phenomenal.
4. I volunteered at my church’s thrift shop and shopped between customers. I bought a basket, a fall garland and a bag of miscellaneous cards, all for $4.
5. On Thursday, I have an appointment for my annual check-up and DH and I are both getting our flu and Covid vaccines while there, all free.
I love my clothesline. My son got me a new one this year for my birthday that is mold resistant.
Took my mom to visit a dear friend who lives on her own @ 94! I offered yard clean up grunt labor and planted her tulip bulbs. She surprised me with a native Pacific White Dogwood tree as a thank you! I have been looking for one of these trees for 3 years and she found one at a native plant sale. She had me pull up all of the perennials she no longer wants, I tossed them in a box, split them and planted in 1 gallon pots when I got home. I also collected seeds from the annuals.
Roasted a big marrow beef bone to give the neighbor’s dog as a thank you.
Picked up a trailer load of sawdust to put as mulch on the blueberries, use as walkways around the raised beds…cost $10 for a 2 unit trailer.
Today we are making canned apple pie filling. I picked the melrose, braeburn and granny smith trees.
This morning we had 6 seniors join us for morning stretch/yoga.
Harvesting the winter squashes, wash them and cure them in the greenhouse for 10 days.
RE raking your neighbor’s yard during their tough times: On 9/11/2001, my neighbor mowed our lawn for us. He was a firefighter here in the Seattle area and said he just wanted to do something good on that horrible day. At the time, my daughter was 11 weeks old and extremely colicky. We were overwhelmed and my husband hadn’t mowed in a long time. We moved away 1.5 years later and I lost touch with them, but I will always remember his kindness. I’m sure your neighbor appreciated your thoughtfulness.
Our July and September were not very frugal at all – some medical issues, some fun travel and some company at the house – so I’ve tried to rein in spending in August and now October.
1. I gathered up all my grandsons outgrown clothes & shoes, tagged them and dropped them off at the local kids consignment sale. (Of course, I printed all the tags at the library)When I went shopping there over the weekend I was much more organized than in the past and made a list of what he needed. I scored a couple winter jackets, hats and mittens along with ski bibs and some shoes – just what he needed.
2. We’ve been eating at home and foregoing our usual one restaurant meal per week. When I get tired of cooking the same thing I peruse some recipes online to see what I can make with the ingredients I have.
3. My son was in a wedding out of state so we had care of our grandson all last weekend. The weather was beautiful so we visited a state park using our pass, enjoyed a free day at the art museum and also at the Colorado Railroad Museum – it was $10 extra for all 3 of us to ride a train (Free days are provided at Denver area museums by SCFD, a cultural funding organization)
4. Taking advantage of the loss leaders and buying ahead for when I have family visit in the next few weeks. My 96 year old mom is a real meat and potatoes gal so I am freezing on sale meat now for her visit in November.
5. My grandson had a field trip for his preschool to a local farm For the grand sum of $10 he and his class got to take a hayride, play on the playground and dig up vegetables that he then got to bring home. Potatoes, carrots , corn and a pumpkin have made their way to my kitchen so yay!
1. DH and I went to the local pharmacy for our senior dose flu vaccines which our medical insurance covered. I like to support the local pharmacy and I appreciate having insurance coverage for vaccines.
2. I went to Costco to order glasses. They accept our piddly (better than nothing vision insurance coverage). They had $50 off on a second pair so I ordered sunglasses as well since my distance vision is not quite up to snuff for driving and I want to preserve my vision as best I can. Costco had $5 off chicken breast packages so I bought the smallest package they had.
3. We invited neighbors over for a fire pit fire Saturday night. We burned some wood that came from trees in our yard.
4. While at Costco I noticed they had Southwest Airlines gift cards on sale ($430 for $500 value) so I bought a couple for holiday gifting. I believe they are usually $450.
5. I went to a local grocery store and bought sale and clearance items and used a $10 off a $50 purchase competitors coupon.
Haven’t read everyone’s today, totally amazed by the thought of someone decorating my house for me!!! We will be dipping pretty leaves into melted wax(candle ends) and threading them up for autumn. I have “booked” us a slot at the local pyo pumpkin patch. It’s free to go and pumkins start at £3.
Stitched up several bits of clothing that had started to get a few holes.
Our fish man delivered a big bag of free apples as well as our fish. I’d just canned all ours so decided to make fruit leather, added a few of my frozen raspberries to the pulp. First time making them, take awhile in the dehydrator, but still cheaper and healthier than some bought ones!
Still managing to get washing dry outside, long may that last!!!
Happy frugalling people!! Xx
Hi Katy, I hope your mom moving into a skilled nursing facility means there is improvement to her condition. Hoping things are going in a good direction for her. Glad you’re able to visit and see her.
I’m in Florida and this past week we had a brush with hurricane Milton. The bulk of the storm missed us where we are and hit about two hours North of us. However my neighborhood and area were stricken with multiple tornadoes that branched out of Milton’s outer-bands. It was scary….just four houses over from me was hit, a street over was hit, and more. My house however was spared. So, here goes my hurricane five.
1. I was gifted a week off of work with pay without using any paid time off. I only left the house three times by car last week, leading me to only spend $25 at two stores and not have to refill or spend money on gas.
2. I took back to walking with zeal. I have started to loop the WaWa gas station into my walk as it’s on the edge of the neighborhood. I have been filling an XL cup with their ice and water and enjoying it. My icemaker is broken and it allows me to feel like I am consuming, however they do not charge for ice or water from the soda fountains. I have reused the same two cups to not create a lot of plastic waste. It’s a fun way to participate in retail without spending anything.
3. My best friend’s 50th birthday party was cancelled this Saturday as many people were still without power including the birthday girl. We gathered a handful of friends at my house instead. I made a cake, a friend brought pulled pork and homemade buns, and my boyfriend got some pizza and wings. We played games and had a great time without going out to eat or going overboard with spending.
4. There is typically a free bulk pick up after major storms. We did major trimming to my sea grape tree and put it all on the curb to enjoy the free bulk removal.
5. The storm shutters went down for this storm and I realized how many missing and damaged wingnuts and bolts there were. My neighbor went over everything with me and helped me identify parts and fix things. The shutters are now in better repair then before.
Overall, very thankful my house was spared and our electric stayed on so I didn’t lose my cold items in the fridge. Back to work and back to reality though.
Ashley B., I’m glad you are OK and that your electricity stayed on. Lucky you! And how nice it was for you to make sure your BFF’s milestone birthday was not a total washout, no pun intended. Sounds like you all had a fun reprieve from storm cleanup that day. I’m sure she will never forget your kindness.
A bit of a mix here. Sold a couple of things on marketplace. Continuing to declutter with a view to moving next year. Several bags out to donation.
We bought a new cooker. The old one had two faulty elements now, and replacing those parts was nearly as much as a new one. We would have put up with it a lot longer, but we have an elderly friend staying in the house when we are away for over a month, and we don’t want her to have to deal with its quirks. We will give the old one away, declaring it’s issues. Hopefully it can be of some use to someone. We bought a base model replacement, on sale, as we will only be here another 6 months, so we don’t much care what it’s like. Maybe a new appliance will be a good thing for a buyer, too.
I am in a creamy soup phase. Each week I can use up any sad veg with a potato, blitz the soup and add a splash of milk and some cheese and husband will eat it. It’s a miracle!
Received some homemade bread from a friend in return for some homesteading books I was decluttering. She is recovering from a little health thing, so hopefully some reading matter will help pass the time.
A pileated woodpecker has become a regular garden visitor, which is providing some free entertainment.
Trying to fit in all our health appointments before we loose coverage at the end of the month.
Lucky you with the pileated woodpecker making regular visits! I’ve looked for one my whole adult life and finally saw one a couple of years ago on my to work. The woodpecker was digging into a stump with his beak. Since then, I’ve seen two in flight. Such gorgeous birds.
I entered into a new level of Frugal/ EBAY. I made some less than optimal choices but on the whole am very pleased.
1. We took the 70s mushroom lamps that had been installed in the 1917 River House we are renovating. UUUUUUGLY juxtaposition, let me tell you. However, in the right setting? Research proved lamps were made by LightCraft and handblown in 1969. WOW. I listed them on EBAY, Facebook, and Craig’s list for $2000. I was going to originally list for $400 for the set.
2. Took a $1275. I had UPS Pack/ Ship and Insure the large one. This cost me $122. The smaller ones would be more because they had a longer height. Nope.
3. I checked out YOUTUBE videos in packing, went to UHAUL for super sturdy boxes and supplies, used Pirate shipping for a UPS ground label and shipped the next three lamps for $189 total. Lesson learned.
4. Gave myself lots of grace for not doing it the most cost effectively and efficiently. I was actually really nervous because I am a perfectionist and struggle with a learning curve.
5. In the end I cleared $700, gained a ton of new knowledge/experience; and save some vintage art. A win/win.
Mary Ann, I am so impressed with how you are leaning into learning so many new things since your retirement. And also how you are so thoughtfully renovating your River House. Go you! You are an inspiration!
1. Organized sock drawer as I was scrambling for “socks” to wear with my work shoes. Downgraded the old ones to rags.
2. I’m vowing to find breakfast and lunch (neither are big meals for me) from what is on hand: cereal, bagels, eggs, protein shakes, yogurt from what we have on hand thru the end of the month.
3. Inventoried the non edibles: cleaning supplies, personal care, OTC and we should be able to get by until end of year.
4. Contemplating making beer bread to have with stew from freezer for tomorrow nights dinner and later this week with bell peppers from freezer
5. Chopping up squash in the refrig and freezing before it goes bad.
I’m still working 3 (4 hr shifts) and the conference center/hotel. I anticipate with my upcoming surgery and low occupancy that I won’t be working much the last 6 weeks of the year.
Katy, I hope your mother can come home soon. That is such a tough surgery, particularly on elderly folks. That was very sweet of you to help your neighbor with their yard.
We are almost through with the project to turn our derelict back porch into a sun room. We saved money on this by reusing some furniture and rugs that got cleaned and spiffed up with refinishing, repainting the light fixture instead of replacing it, sewing a curtain valance and cat bed cover from reclaimed and scrap fabric, hiring our own electrician who made us a cash deal, and doing our own landscaping to repair where construction tore up our yard. The bale of straw and bag of clover mix that DH accidentally bought too early in the year have been deployed. Whew with the sweat equity!
I also bought a case of Rotel chipolte tomatoes (so good in chili) for 99 cents a can at Ollie’s Outlet. These sell for $1.79 a can at a regular grocery. Used a $3 store coupon to buy pet food that already was on sale at 28% off. Mended a shirt that had loose buttons. Redeemed $3 in rewards cash at Walgreen’s.
Used frozen veggies I grew this summer, a box of slightly outdated mac and cheese, and some leftover cooked hamburger to make an outrageously delicious red beans-beef-veggie casserole. Also used half a bag of frozen berries that were getting a bit icy to make berry oatmeal for this week’s breakfasts.
Yey for free apples! We usually get a good enough apple crop from the old apple trees on the property that we rent. This year has been an incredibly bad year for apples though – we got exactly 3 apples 🙁 not sure what happened, maybe they are just getting too old.
* When we started out with our now gluten free diet I bought different gluten free flours to experiment with. Coconut flour was not a hit and a packet of it has been sitting in the cupboard since. I decided to put just one tablespoon of it into my homemade oat bread and you could not taste it at all. So now I will add a tablespoon every time I make bread. I make bread 3 times a week and the packet is not huge so it should be gone soon enough.
* I found two sports tops for my daughter in the local charity shop. One is Calvin Klein and the other Adidas, they were 6 Euro and 5 Euro respectively. She is very picky about clothes but actually loves these tops!
* My son brought a box of free manuka honey from work. The expiry date has passed but of course honey lasts forever! I have gifted some jars to friends.
* I ordered lovely low sugar jam from a small batch producer. A friend that also likes their jam and their hazelnut chocolate spread decided to jump on board and we are sharing the shipping costs.
* My husband loves his coffee and he uses his espresso machine all the time. We had a power cut recently and he had to buy instant coffee as all we had was the gas camping stove to heat some water. Hopefully we won’t have a power cut again any time soon so I have sealed the coffee jar with duct tape – instant coffee tends to get moist where we are (due to the high humidity) if not used up within 2 weeks or so.
Similar to what you’re doing with the Coconut flour, I did with some tea bags that were found to be undesirable for single cups of tea. Instead, I used them up by adding one of them to a pitcher of iced tea and used nine tea bags of good tea with it. The 9 to 1 ratio made the blah tea undetectable. I eventually used them all up.
1. I cleaned out my refrigerator and made a batch of minestrone soup and a huge stir fry for dinner. This helped use up some aging produce and some free broccoli my daughter brought home.
2. I finally gave up on my electric can opener that was not opening my jars correctly and leaving small slivers of metal behind. I will dispose of it through a hazardous waste program in my area. I found the exact same kind of can opener at a garage sale just around the corner for $3 and it works great.
3. I used a 10% off code to order my dogs food for pick up. I grabbed it while I was out running other errands.
4. I sold three items on Ebay and listed one. I packaged with some reused packing material and box.
5. I mixed a little cement and filled in where a corner of my walkout basement foundation is crumbling from moisture.
What a kind gesture, to rake your neighbor’s yard.
In the “Can you F-ing Believe This” category, a dear friend is part of the disaster relief efforts, flown down from Alaska so you have a sense of how desperate the need is for experienced disaster relief worker. She texted that they are receiving death threats daily and there have been militia types saying they are going to “hunt” relief workers. On top of working unbelievable hours in difficult conditions, they now have to cope with these threats. What the hell has happened to us as a nation?
Five frugal things:
1. A friend does not have a car or license, so my kindhearted husband regularly drives him places. He is very poor but last month as part of his job he made a bunch of purchases that gave his personal grocery card a huge number of points for gas. He gave them to us in thanks, so today we filled our van and two 5-gallon gas cans with gas for $2.06 a gallon. The frugal part was that we made sure to fill the gas cans, in order to use up the entire 25 gallon limit.
2. I am not able to explain how our Great Dane not only chewed the back off one seat but then managed to do it to another, even though strapped into a harness to stop him from running around the back of the van. Husband scavenged another replacement seat for $50. This dog is lucky we are in our 70s because if we had owned him in our 20s we would not have had the patience (or money) to keep him.
3. Had two friends over for a meal followed by putting together a puzzle while all chatting. Served American style goulash, where all the ingredients were free courtesy of various grocery mystery shops.
4. Puzzle was free from the puzzle exchange at the library, so we will be turning it back in and getting another one.
5. Husband went to a singing competition with his quartet. The hotel was free with points. Today his roommate gave us $250 to cover his half. of the room he and husband shared. We did not ask for it, and he knew we got it free, but we welcomed the money. So we made money twice over with the points we used!
I saw that a white supremacist group was working down in Florida. And then of course we have the people who firmly believe “the government” controls the weather. The more complex life becomes, the more uneducated types become bewildered by it and blame things on a convenient scapegoat.
Re your pup, my own two puppies have been delightedly shimmying out of our fence gate. FREEEEEEEDOM! I rehung the gate and so far, haven’t had to chase the little pests in traffic the past couple of days.
I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears when it became national news people(?) were hunting FEMA workers after the hurricane. It’s hard to imagine this could happen in a civilized country in this day and age but we don’t have to go too far back to remember people were hunted in Nazi Germany too. Same dog, different fur. I was happy to see one goofball was already arrested for threatening FEMA workers and carrying weapons. Hopefully more to follow.
1. I was as mad as a wet hen this morning bc I had to report for jury duty…yes, the county did not consider this a holiday. The last 2 times this happened, I reported in the morning, immediately told them the reasons most lawyers don’t want me on the juries (due to my former profession — I’m not a criminal!) They made me stay all day, going to this room, getting dismissed, going to that room, standing in line, getting dismissed, going to a third courtroom, etc. — and then at 5:30 or 6 dismissed me for the very reasons I’d cited first thing that morning — what a colossal waste of time! So I hate going to these judicial cattle calls. I got there a minute before reporting time and the line was down the block and circled back again. Everyone had an angry look on their face — don’t blame ’em! Found out that when they get X number of potential jurors, enough to fill the courthouse, they let the rest go home! Fire marshal won’t let ’em have X+1 people in the old building. So I was in the group that got dismissed. Hallelujah! This may or may not be frugal and it may or may not apply to all places, but my tip for today is don’t show up early for jury duty!
2. Resisted the urge to go out for breakfast or go shopping downtown after the above excursion.
3. Got a cheap haircut. Sadly, what used to be $7 haircuts are now $17 — and that’s with the senior discount, not including tax and tip. Had her cut it super short so I can delay my next haircut for several more weeks.
4. Feasted on pantry items and leftovers for dinner: spaghetti with crumbled up meatloaf and generic Ragu (which was fossilizing in the fridge) for the sauce, along with some of the homemade Italian bread gifted to me by the neighbor.
5. Saved all the parts and packaging for the CD player boombox I’d bought, thinking this will work in my car. Nope. It’s going back to Wallyworld this week.
It sounds like a regular week to me, and I appreciate hearing about it. It’s good to share normal.
1. I spread free compost under my fruit trees and in the raised beds. The county has several ‘hubs’ where free compost is available every day. I am thankful.
2. I’m too busy to food shop, so we will have some creative meals this week. Does the budget good too.
3. I’ve sold a lot of things on FB marketplace, from my friend’s house. I appreciate the money, but I’m taking a small break because too much of waiting for flaky people and answering ‘is it available’ is wearying.
4. Several things from my friend’s house I am keeping, such as a lovely North Face winter coat, to replace an ugly red too-big Costco coat. Yay!
5. Received a cute bowling set for my grandson from Buy Nothing. Gifted 2 low flow showerheads. Attended a zero waste fair and got a small repair done on my husbands bike. I was pleased about that.