Five Frugal Things
by Katy on February 10, 2025 · 44 comments
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My son and I watched the movie A Real Pain through my friend’s Hulu account. (Thanks, Lisa!) Written, directed and starring Jesse Eisenberg, the movie is about a pair of cousins whose recently deceased grandmother was a holocaust survivor. The two of them travel to Poland for a guided tour to see where she grew up, as well as the concentration camp where she’d been held. Also starring Kieran Culkin, this film had nuanced characters and was beautifully filmed, thought provoking and even funny at times.
Although my Jewish family left Europe long before World War II, (I had a great-great grandfather who fought in the Civil War.) I did have extended relatives who didn’t make it out.
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I curb picked a pair of structured basket cubes that I’ll clean up and use for storage. These Branäs baskets sell for $24.99 apiece at IKEA, so it was well worth turning the car around. The baskets do have some superficial mildew and condition issues, but I can give them a soapy vinegar scrub and bring them back to life.
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I mailed one of my father’s framed needlepoint mazes to my cousin in Pittsburgh and used PirateShip.com to prepay for the postage. I spent $16.24 for UPS shipping as opposed to the $25.98 had I gone directly though the UPS.com website! (I’ll save you the math, that’s a $9.74 savings!) I don’t have a photo of the specific piece, but here’s one that hangs in my home:
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• I took my daughter to Winco and although I didn’t have more than a couple things on my shopping list, I did stock up/take advantage of a few sale items including mini peppers, avocados, onions, cucumbers and bananas.
• I got another Fred Meyer coupon in the mail for a free pint of Häagen Dazs ice cream.
• I had a carton of blueberries that got unpleasantly soft, so I made a tiny batch of refrigerator jam adding a squirt of lemon juice and a handful of sugar.
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I didn’t spend 290 million dollars to buy myself into an unelected federal government position.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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1. Saved condiment packets from Mcds.
2. Went on a walk, free exercise.
3. Had a family get together. Made it cheap by just gathering at a church building gym and making it a potluck.
4.Enjoyung free fun as a family, card games, video games and just talking and laughing
1) Maxed out my Hoopla borrows for the month. I will frequent and support public libraries in every way possible. Picked up my hoard of banned books as well! I want them showing relevance in the borrowed lists at my library.
2) I pulled all art out the back of my closet and hung it all over the walls in my home. I feel like I have a new space! I have been working on a minimal lifestyle for a while, but plan to appreciate the things I love too much to part with.
3) Finished the last of the *not so tasty* flavored coffee I was gifted for Christmas. I am so happy to be back to the dark roast I love in the mornings.
4) I pulled all produce from the local farm out and prepared for meals around it. I had a delicious salad for lunch and made a casserole for dinner. Scraps when into the veggie bag in the freezer for future veg stock. No waste.
5) Sorted and prioritized my self -care items to finish off what I have before expiration. Prepared with mini spatulas to clear products from those bottles before cleaning and reusing/recycling. I plan to make a trip to the sustainable store once I need products so not to consume more plastic packaged items.
Got brain chip implant so I can receive ai downloads and live my best life.thank you technocrat mothership.
1. Continued reading Hillary Clinton’s book with my Libby app. I just finished the “beware of fascists” section.
2. My in-laws took us out to dinner. I took the leftover bread home for future bread pudding.
3. I thrifted a heated cat bed for my arthritic cat. I’m trying to convince her to sleep in it!
4. I found a pint of raspberries and a pint of blackberries bundled together in the “scratch and dent” produce area. The pair was priced at $1! I ate them with ice cream. Yes, it’s silly to buy blackberries when I live in Oregon, but I would have paid $1 for just the raspberries.
5. I interacted socially with a known Trump supporter and managed not to say anything out loud. My interior monologue was screaming, “YOU SELFISH FOOL!!!!”
Li, Please let us know if you are able to convince your cat to try the heated bed. My old arthritic cat also refuses. I put treats in the bed and he reaches in carefully to pick them out.
My senior cat will lay anywhere there is flannel fabric.
I have several flannel pillowcases placed around the
House. Perhaps a piece of cozy flannel on the cat bed?
So far, she’s giving it a wide berth. Haha. I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I will put the bed on my lap and see how it goes I’m happy I thrifted it because they aren’t cheap! It would be frustrating if I spent the big bucks on something she won’t use.
Persuaded my son to go through the disaster that is his linen closet and donate some items to a friend’s fund-raising yard sale.
Tidied up the pantry and pulled a few items to donate to the church food pantry in our neighborhood. The church sets out bins in a neighborhood park on Saturdays, so donating is easy.
The dogs and I are still eating our use-it-up freezer meals and frozen kibble topper. Made the family a snack of homemade popcorn. Cut up a few worn-out t-shirts to use as rags.
Those baskets are a good find!
1. I sold a book on ebay for $20, that I had bought at a library sale for a quarter.
2. Someone had given my dad a box of Stroopwaffles that he was not impressed by, so the rest of the box came home with me.
3. We replaced our microwave and put the broken one by the curb. Someone picked it up before trash day. Anything I put out there gets taken. Not everything has scrap value, so I don’t totally understand it, but appreciate it.
4. I had gifted knit dishcloths to a friend last year and she mentioned how much she liked them, so I knit several more for her from a stash of cotton yarn that someone had given me.
5. I split some spider plants that had outgrown their pots, gave away two good sized ones to friends, and have a bunch of rooted babies to get potted. Those guys are prolific.
Katy, In the book of Revelation in the New Testament, a verse says that the blood of the martyrs is underneath God’s throne. I’m sure your extended family members, along with all those who didn’t make it out of the Holocaust, are there with God, in the place where there is no suffering and no sorrow. May they never be forgotten!
My frugal 5:
1. Ordered my vinyl flooring, at long last. It was on sale at Lowe’s (a store brand, I think) and I ordered just in time before the price went back up. The installation cost includes removing and hauling off the old carpet. So I think that is a good frugal thing. However, 2 days later, Ollie’s Outlet advertised it was blowing out its Armstrong brand vinyl flooring, and the advertised price was a dollar (per sq. ft.) less than what I’m paying. So my #1 may be a frugal fail, although Ollie’s does not offer installation/removal and I’d have to pay someone else extra for that. Hmmm — I’m guessing it all evens up in the end.
2. Paid with a credit card that gives me a discount on home improvement stuff.
3. Friend at church wants to give me the dog she’s been fostering, free. All the animal shelters around here, and most folks on craigslist, charge “rehoming fees” — usually $100+. I will go meet the dog this afternoon and see if he likes me (and vice versa), and if I don’t have to pay rehoming fees, that’s doggone frugal.
4. Did not watch the Super Bowl, but worked the closing shift. Came home and did a lot of housework.
5. Did not take up/erase a positive and worthwhile end zone message in an effort not to offend the most offensive person on the planet.
The “rehoming fees” are there because supposedly, someone who pays for a dog will value it more. I’ve always thought it sounded stupid. Then again, it helps defray shelter/charity costs. I gave a donation of a couple hundred to the rescue who took in our rescue pup last year, even though she didn’t ask for anything.
The rescue we got three of our dogs from was a rescue that specialized in dachshund and dachshund mixes. They charged an adoption fee of $200 per dog, and every dog was spayed, fully immunized, free of heartworm and fleas, and came with several months of flea and heartworm preventative and a little bag of kibble. That was really quite a money-saver. All their dogs were beautifully socialized as well.
The rescue my Dora Kitty came from did pretty much the same thing for $100. Demon Puppy came from a shelter, which charged more for small breeds, so she was $295 for her and all her medical treatment.
I’d say you can’t get cheaper than our Trash Kitty, but then again he needed all his kitten shots and neutering, so there we are. Really, Rescue Pup was the cheapest. His neutering was done for free before we picked him up via U of Tenn vet students. His shots were $79, which would probably be $400 here. Whatever, they’re all worth it. Love my pups (today is the littlest, Jasper’s, first birthday!) and Trash Kitty.
Ruby, we also have a Dora Ktty. She is ENORMOUS.
So is my Dora! The vet thinks she’s part Maine Coon, so she’s 15 pounds of scrumptious fluffy sweetness.
1. To sweeten our oatmeal, we’re using brown sugar on hand rather than pricier real maple syrup.
2. Brought more items to the consignment store rather than donate them via Buy Nothing or a thrift store like we usually do.
3. Decided to switch up our furniture among rooms rather than purchase anything more for our house.
4. Used up bottled horseradish in a veggie dip.
5. Taking shorter, cooler showers to save on water and electricity. I do a lot of thinking in the shower and lose track of the time.
We frequently ate hot cereal for breakfast when I was a kid. My sister and brother liked maple syrup on their farina or oatmeal, while I always preferred brown sugar. The sugar melts and then you sometimes get little lumps of brown sugar as a bonus. Today still, I prefer plain white granulated sugar on French toast because of the contrast between the gritty sugar and the soft toast.
Today I eat oatmeal like the Scots do, with just salt and milk.
1. Bought toothbrush heads for my son’s electric toothbrush on clearance. (Toothbrush heads are like printer ink cartridges– the prices just keep going up until it might be easier to just buy new equipment. Hate that).
2. Had a $5 off any Hallmark coupon print out at Walgreens, for no apparent reason. Spent it on two birthday cards. I have a stash of yard sale/thrift store cards as well, but it was nice to go through the rack and find specific ones for two friends.
3. Re-reading an early Martha Grimes/Inspector Richard Jury from the library. I like her earliest books. It is also kind of fun to have stories that do not rely on cell phones or computer searches for clues.
4. Just put on a sweatshirt instead of adjusting the heat up.
5. Time to do taxes. Good week to all!
Those baskets are a great find!!
1. Sold a rug on FB marketplace. Have 2 more sales lined up for today (hopefully they show up!). This will put $100 into the pocket of my grad school son-with a wife and 2 kids. They are living as tight as tight can be. I sell their outgrown kids things for them.
2. Gave a little shine to a coffee table/chest that I got for free and intended to sell, but I may keep… Will decide today.
3. Ordering free birthday pizookie from BJ’s today. I can’t eat it but my husband can.
4. Received 20 meyer lemons and 5 oranges from Buy Nothing.
5. Sat with a friend whose sister just died. We didn’t talk of anything of consequence, just a meandering gentle chat. We both did some hand sewing as we talked, which I think is such a calming activity. She hand hemmed some jeans and I darned 2 wool socks.
PirateShip is awesome. A few months ago I helped my son’s girlfriend when she wanted to ship a big box of clothes and it was going to cost about $70 according to UPS or USPS. Not on my watch. The only trick was getting the package weighed(we’re not in the same town), but then I remembered that she’s in grad school for chemistry – and they have scales in science buildings. She weighed it at school, I bought and emailed her the shipping label, and she saved about $50.
1. Finally switched to wool dryer balls. I’d bought them awhile ago at grocery outlet but then was given a large unopened package of dryer sheets so finished those before switching. The dryer balls work great and as an added bonus they look cute too which my kids enjoy (they look like ladybugs)
2. I canceled my Target Redcard. Their recent DEI decision was the final impetus, although I’d been wanting to for awhile anyways as I feel Target encouraged overconsumption, at least for me. I want to focus more on consuming less anyways, and if there is something I really do need, I don’t mind paying a bit more and avoiding Target(I already don’t shop at Walmart or Amazon, so the options are narrowing but I’m up for the challenge).
3. Organized the clothes I have for the kids in the next size up in clear plastic storage bins that I already had. This way I can see what I already have for them and avoid overbuying clothes.
4. Cooked some butternut squash curry and added a whole bunch of kale and some beet greens to make sure those got used before going bad. Some servings are in the fridge for my lunches this week and some are in the freezer for later.
5. My son had a very full piggy bank and wanted to trade in the coins for cash. He’d seen a coin star machine at the grocery store and wanted to use it. I told him the machine would take some of the money though, whereas if we rolled the coins, our credit union wouldn’t charge anything to exchange for cash. He’s only 6 so didn’t quite seem to get it. So we counted up the coins, and multiplied the total by 12% and I told him that’s how much coin star would take from his money, and how much he would have left. It then clicked for him and he no longer wanted to use the coin star machine. As an added bonus, counting and rolling the coins was good math practice and we were able to go to our credit union Saturday morning to trade them in so he has his cash now.
FFT, Keepin’ On Keepin’ On Edition:
(1) I have been sending the 5calls.org link to everyone I know, and have been making some calls on it myself. Non illegitimi carborundum, as I said in my most recent comment.
(2) I have finished filling out the online form that my law office requires, prior to the consultation for end-of-life paperwork that CF and I are taking NDN to on Thursday. The firm wanted a ballpark idea of her financial assets, so CF and I had to do considerable spelunking through NDN’s massive piles of paperwork all through the house. Thank goodness she’s still a sweetie and fully trusts us both; I can’t imagine the hell this would be if we were working with someone with paranoid tendencies.
(3) I made a squash soup yesterday, using a 2-year-old Ziploc bag of frozen trashpicked pumpkin (not just ordinary pumpkin, but one of those fancy green Australian types–hello, Coral!), plus a box of chicken broth and a can of coconut milk that were a bit past their best-by dates. So far, none of us who have enjoyed it have died. Long may we wave.
(4) When I laundered sheets yesterday, I used up the very last Bounce sheet out of an old, old box DH salvaged from a rental property years ago. I don’t run the dryer for anything except sheets, and I plan to use the dryer balls a friend gave me for Xmas from here on. But I figured that using up the Bounce was preferable to just throwing it out.
(5) And instead of watching the Super Bowl and its ads last night, I enjoyed a Cornell Lab of Ornithology “Superb Owl Awards” video. I’d rather have Superb Owls than the Super Bowl any day–and I must say that the video was a hoot. I’ll see myself out now. 😀
For all those no longer using their driers. How do you keep your towels from being hard and scratchy? My drier broken and I haven’t fixed it because not using it is better but the towels! Once a month I go to the laundromat with my washed towels. Suggestions?
It takes flapping them hard when wet and again about halfway through the drying process to soften them up. Or drying them in a gusty breeze will help. They still won’t be as soft as when they are dried in a dryer, but a lot less like sandpaper.
The preternaturally itchy among us LIKE scratchy towels! I know, I am weird.
Then I must be weird too Rose! I love the texture of line dried towels. It feels a nice exfoliation. Plus I think they’re more absorbant when dried on the clothesline. But to each their own. My DD likes her towels soft and fluffy like you do Marydru.
Marydru, I’m with the others who prefer hard and scratchy for towels. I too enjoy the exfoliation effect. Besides which, I find that rack-dried towels are a whole bunch more absorbent than dryer-dried towels. But you do you.
I love scratchy towels but DH does not. I made some towels for drying my hair out of cotton flannel and sometimes just dry my whole self with them because they’ve gotten a bit nubbly with age.
Marydru, I have found that my towels are soft and not scratchy if I make sure ALL the soap/detergent is rinsed out. These newfangled washers are using less water (good to conserve water) but do not always get all the soap out. My MIL used to compound this by using liquid fabric softener – and her towels were very soft, fluffy, and absolutely, totally non-absorbent.
To test the soap removal, put a load of (clean and dry) towels in the washer without anything but water, and take a look when it’s been agitating for a few minutes. If you see suds, there’s still soap in the towels. Adding plain white vinegar to the rinse helps, too.
Good luck!
Well done on sharing the 5calls.org info A Marie! Keep up the good fight, RISE OF THE RESISTANCE!
Wondering when they burn down the Reichstag.
1. I volunteered at my church’s thrift shop last Saturday. I bought a set of stainless-steel measuring cups since the set I have are missing handles and the 1 cup part of the set has been missing for years. $4 for a little more convenience. I really love to work there. It’s very satisfying as a NC to see things that might have gone into the landfill get another life, for very little money, I might add. Our church is in a low to middle income area, so we know the items we sell are items the customers may not be able to otherwise afford.
2. Food for the Superbowl was leftover American Chop Suey for dinner, one of DH’s favorites. For a snack I made popcorn in a pan on the stove with a little oil in it. He was happy his team won.
3. I sat with my friend who had a stroke last year that devastated her eyesight and depth perception. Her balance too. Her and her husband are retired and his side gig is plowing during snowstorms, but he can’t leave her alone. So her and I sat and chatted over tea and she told me some funny and sometimes sad stories from her career as a nurse practitioner. Not frugal for me but I think for them it was.
4. I finished another library book, First in the Family by Jessica Hoppe, which I will return tomorrow night at the free Valentines Day program being held at the library. Chocolate included! Poor DH had some day surgery on his nose and is bandaged to the hilt. He doesn’t want to leave the house with his new look so until the bandages are off in a week, here he’ll stay. So I’ll go alone or one of my friends can be my “date’ for the evening.
5. I did not pardon a dangerous insurrectionist who was also wanted by the law for being a child predator. Arrest completed…back you go to where you belonged in the first place!
1. Took a friend skiing with me yesterday – we went to a mountain on my ski pass and she was able to get a good discount.
2. We brought our lunches and some sweet treats to enjoy, avoiding $14 chicken tenders (which I, admittedly, give in to frequently).
3. Got home and watched the super bowl on the free CBS app. I had made a big buffalo chicken dip but the friends I was planning to watch with have a sick kid, so I opted to stay home. I’ll freeze most of it in smaller portions and get excited every time I remember I have buffalo chicken dip in the freezer!
4. Using up all the produce as quickly as I can to avoid wasting any. Had a borderline banana for breakfast – but I refused to let it go into the black hole of frozen bananas for banana bread that I never end up making!
5. Same old, same old – coffee at home, drinking water, no expensive cafe runs.
The seemingly endless stretch of single digit/subzero days this winter has resulted in a higher than normal utility bill. Since the cold weather is showing no sign of leaving any time soon, I’m trying to find frugal ways to work with it.
1. Any leftover food now gets an hour or two of “outdoor recess time” on the deck before it goes into the refrigerator. Since the food is ice cold when it goes in, the fridge doesn’t have to work as hard to deal with it.
2. We defrosted the downstairs freezer last month, and have kept it unplugged. Some of what was in it fit into the garage freezer. And the large items that didn’t – ham, turkey, etc. – were put into our largest cooler, which has been living in the screen room for the past month. Everything in it is staying frozen solid, and a look at the extended forecast shows that we should be able to use the screen room “freezer” for a good while yet.
3. I have temporarily turned our guest bathroom into a walk-in dryer. We have very few overnight guests in winter (go figure, right) so that bathroom is not in use. I set up a couple of drying racks, and between those, the shower curtain rod and the towel bars, there’s room for everything. Except for king size sheets; I’m not ready for that level of fun just yet. It gets incredibly warm in that room when the heat is on (small bathroom, large heat vent, located right over the furnace area) so most items are dry in an hour or two.
Well, that’s three frugal things anyway.
1. It’s been a long time since I found money but found a dime today.
2. Went to Trader Joe’s this morning to get eggs and was happy they had some for $4.99 limited to 1 carton per customer. I also bought some ground flaxseed as an egg substitute for baking and a healthy addition to cereal. Got 99 cent Valentine cards for my young granddaughters. I will deliver the cards when I babysit on Friday.
3. We are making sure to open the appropriate blinds on sunny days to get a bit of solar heating. Our house needs an insulation upgrade which we are doing this year but every little bit of free heat helps.
4. Used a coupon at CVS to cut the cost of a small bag of sugar over 50%.
5. I did not hack into the database containing financial and identity info for all US residents and many companies/organizations.
Love the basket cubes!
1. Made up some rice to go with leftover NO Peek Beef Tips. Dished it into pyrex. I think leftover presentation is key to getting things eaten!
2. Set my timer all day long……to not let dryer go too long, a few minutes early for baking and stove use, etc.
3. Getting my tax papers together. Hope we won’t owe as we are on our new lower retirement income. Silver linings!
4. Making nachos tonight with all the assorted leftovers in fridge.
Guess I only have 4!
Agree on your number 1! I used to just put leftovers in the fridge in the dish they were cooked in and they wouldn’t get eaten. Then I started portioning them into individual servings in containers and suddenly they’d get eaten very quickly (and brought to work to be eaten there) It’s more work up front but definitely worth it.
1. I did a mystery shop (those who do them know which one!) for a burger delivery. I didn’t particularly want the food, but I don’t have to leave the house, and I’ll make $6 on top of the food. I’ll save the fries which will be the starch for dinner tomorrow night and save the bottle of Coke for when I am desperate for one.
2. A scheduler also reached out to see if I would do another mystery shop and this one has a payout of $30. It is on my way home from work and the paperwork is minimal, making it worth my time.
3. One of my BFF is coming to stay with me in March for our joint birthdays. We both work in the field of food/hospitality, and we have often dropped coin eating at great restaurants. However, we are both trying to save money and so we have a very reasonable plan, which includes 2 dinner parties at my house and the menus center on protein being free from mystery shop, along with dessert, and some produce from the free CSA that partner gets from work. Our big dinner out is being covered by my partner, who was gifted with a generous gift certificate for one of the restaurants on our list. So that will be his gift to me (us) that won’t cost him anything and we will get our fancy dinner out without costing us anything.
4. We stayed in for the SB and made potato skins (free potatoes and cheese) and shrimp po’boys, using shrimp that I had gotten free from my local Buy Nothing (it was leftover from a seafood expo in town, and frozen, so trustworthy).
5. I didn’t cancel USAid, leaving tons of food on docks and being kept from [literally] starving people.
Thanks for the movie recommendation. Our Hulu account came out of pause mode last week. I already set it to go back into pause mode ASAP (30 days).
1. I broke the extension wand on our Riccar canister vacuum. The shop where we bought it many years ago said they can no longer get parts and they didn’t have it in stock. I found what I needed used on eBay. For about $40 the vacuum is working again and won’t be headed to the landfill. I didn’t have to think about a replacement which saved time and money. The wand was sent with just a bit of cardboard wrapped around it and sealed with a lot of packing tape. It made me think of something that Katy might do.
2. I received an email from Ryobi telling me our three year old cordless mower has a safety issue. They will replace it but when I called this morning they were not taking calls today. I have an alarm set to call again tomorrow.
3. I was able to borrow Ted Lasso from the library. The DVD set includes the first three seasons. We are enjoying the show.
4. So many books, so little time. I currently have three that are good: The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell, The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis, and The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison. All the books were borrowed in various forms from the library.
5. A friend invited me to her house for lunch tomorrow, weather permitting.
1. We do not have dental insurance so I book appointments at the Dental Hygenist school that our daughter-in-laws sister graduated from. It’s $40 for a cleaning and x rays. It takes awhile – 3 to 4 hours – because each hygienist is tested and graded on patients. But you can’t beat the price and the students get necessary practice.
2. We used the gift card that our daughter got us for a chain restaurant and I enjoyed every minute of it. And took home leftovers for more meals.Tip: go out for dinner when the Super Bowl is on TV. Last weekend was an hour and a half wait so we were unsuccessful in dining out. Last night we breezed right in.
3. Our daughter lives in Brooklyn and is in a dance group that performs in parades (Pride, Coney Island Mermaid Parade) and we’ve never been to see her perform. So I’m looking at flights way in advance to hopefully get a good price and plan on spending an extra week with her. I’m so excited!
4. I –
– rotated out my grandsons toys at our house. Change of scenery for the winter.
– have been walking every day that I can for my physical and mental health
– gave our upstairs/guest bath a thorough cleaning and washed the shower curtain.
– used our state park pass to go see the migrating bald eagles at our closest state park. No luck but our grandson did enjoy the nature center. Then we saw one at our grocery store flying over the parking lot. Ha Ha
5. Colorado has a plethora of rec centers with indoor pools so we’ve started visiting as many as we can. Usually there is a lot of natural light and some sort of kid play structure. Last week it cost us $10 for 3 of us to go swimming for a couple hours.
Found 3 pennies at 3 different places.
Reading book from Little Free Library.
Went home from friends house after Super Bowl armed with many snack tray leftovers and a pizza! Leftover “snacky” foods (cheese, crackers, raw veggies) have been made into my office lunches this week , and pizza was wrapped (Individual slices in 2 Ziplocs) and frozen for future eatings!
Recycled a brown banana into banana pancakes.
Have not tried to take over anyone else’s land for real estate purposes, or any other reason!
1. Received a $10 off of a $50 grocery store purchase from a store we do not go to. Dog food counted, so we bought 100 pounds of that.
2. Accepted a pumpkin from someone who had purchased it “by accident.” Not sure how that happens, but okay. Cooked it while baking bread and am using it to supplement dog food.
3. Did four different grocery mystery shops this morning, netting $120 in free food. The shops came up and I was going to be waiting for the husband at two different doc appointments so I used the time to do the shops. As a bonus, all of them were pick up orders, so no risking my neck on icy parking lots.
4. Mended a dog collar. Our dogs have somehow figured out they can chew off each other’s collars, so I mend them weekly. My sewing friend is making us collars that have little chains in them, to deter biting through.
5. A moose jumped over our fence, bending the top of it down. The Dane discovered this and used the opportunity to make a break for it and go for a run on the frozen river behind our house. The neighbor saw him, coaxed him home and had her 17 year old slog through the snow in the backyard and fix our fence. It only took about 15 minutes and he didn’t expect to be paid, but I gave him $20. This is frugal because leaving it the way it was would invite more moose into the yard and if he sees them the Dane throws himself against the picture window to get at the moose. One of these days he is going to crack the window…
Your dogs are evil geniuses. Mine are evil, but not geniuses. Well, neither am I for leaving a carton of bread crumbs at the back of the counter, which was surfed into FUN RUG SNACKTIME when I was out this afternoon.
Frugals
1. Bought Hubby $5 dark chocolates at dollar tree for Valentine’s Day this Friday.
2. Went to senior center today for $3 lunch of chicken wrap, soup, Mac salad, ranch beans and lemon bar for desert (brought home most of it for dinner).
3. Visited senior center gift shop and bought a 25 cent Valentine for hubby also.
Got to cut corners where we can now that our idiot in chief is doing everything he can to spur inflation with his “tariffs”.