Welcome to Friday and the start of the weekend.
I think it's been a pretty good week. I've been working on my coupon binder all week. It's been a goal of mine to complete since joining in on the 52 Weeks of Organizing challenge with orgjunkie. The binder isn't complete yet. I still have a lot of coupons to get in to it. In fact, so many that I don't think my 60 pages that I bought are going to hold all of them.
I paid $34.45 for the 60 coupon binder pages with shipping. The special deal was that as a bonus I received 22 Sunday supplement coupon inserts from past weeks. The first thing I did was go through those inserts and take out coupons I thought I would use right away. I came up with $31 worth so almost enough to cover my cost in savings. That made me feel better. I didn't end up getting them all used, but since cutting out the coupons from the rest of the inserts I have already used 4 more of the coupons.
I will be doing a post later with photos. I hope you will check it out. I will also link up the later post with next week's frugal linky.
I'm more or less naturally a frugal person. I actually enjoy making due with what we have. Extravagance doesn't make me happy. I like that feeling.
I stopped at a few yard sales this past weekend. I was specifically looking for things I could use in my crafting. I didn't buy anything except at one. I paid $1 for a VHS of the movie Grease. The grandkids love that movie.
I did pick up a t-shirt for myself on clearance at Wal Mart for $1. I also picked up a shirt that will part of a Christmas gift for just $1 too. I wish I would have thought more along the lines of Christmas past the one shirt though as I have several to buy for and some no clue what to get, or make them.
Each week I've been sharing tips out of the 99 Cent Solutions book that I bought. We are still on baking soda!
1. Soothe a canker sore. It's hard to believe how much pain a tiny sore on the inside of your mouth can cause. Soothe the pain away and help heal the sore faster by swishing every other couple of hours with a solution of 1 teaspoon of baking soda stirred until it dissolves into 1 cup of warm water.
2. Soak your way to comfort. In the evening, put your feet into a basin of cool water with baking soda stirred in. Soak for 15 to 20 minutes. This will soother your feet and help cut down on odor during the day, and it will also help dry up athlete's foot. (Boy am I going to make my husband do this!)
3. Soften hard water washes. Add 1/4 cup of baking soda to a hot white wash to boost the strength of your usual detergent and get your whites brighter. (I'm going to give this one a try too.)
4. Ready your AC for the season. Window air units need the filters washed before each season. Brush off any obvious dirt from the filter then lay it in a basin of water with several tablespoons of baking soda mixed in. Swish it in the water to clean then rinse and dry it in the sun before replacing it in the unit.
Part 1 were boxes for the kids. Part 2 are boxes that adults get from me.
Any of you that follow me know that I shop Walgreen's all throughout the year getting good deals with register rewards and coupons. A lot of what Walgreen's offers are health and beauty aids. All of my adult children, and their boyfriends and girlfriend expect a health and beauty aid box from me. This year they are even fuller than usual.
Each of the men get a body wash, a razor a deoderant and dental floss this year. Each woman gets a razor, or package of razors, deoderant, dental floss, a bar of Neutrogena face soap and a body wash.
For the men other things are mixed in...the box in the photo has shave gel, where another box has body spray. For the women some get lip balms or gloss and body spray, some just the lip or spray.
As I said in Part 1, I didn't keep track of what I paid as I should. I do know that I only paid sales tax after sale and coupon for each of the dental floss (7 cents) The Right Guard deoderants for the guys only cost me 5 cents each plus the sales tax after sale and coupons.
Some of the body washes are the same....just sales tax. The majority of the rest I used a coupon for in conjunction with getting full price, or close to it back in register rewards.
Stay tuned for Part 3
I did find another large store bag to use for the trashcan before having to buy trashbags, but I found something out.
I've been always buying my trashbags at Dollar General for $1 for 10 of them.
I found out that I can get 15 bags in the black and white label at the grocery store (Dillon's) for just .88! This will save me several cents throughout the year, and the gas money from driving to the dollar store too.
I did my Walgreen's Shopping on the 16th.
I had a nice coupon grocery shopping trip on the 21st.
I dried and have saved the seeds from a green bell pepper and a red bell pepper. I really want to try starting the seeds in the house early next year.
I was able to do some yard sale shopping and I loved it!! Steve's sister gave me $20 for my shopping for helping to get the veggie garden completely weeded.
I was able to get a sheet, a sheet set and quilt batting (used for my quilting), a box of embroidery thread with kits in the box too (thread is for Jasmine to make friendship bracelets with, the kits are going on listia), a vase, silk flowers, pinecone candles (all to help decorate around here) 4 shirts,
2 books (sign language and fairy tales), a belt, googly eyes, a table cloth (new in package), set of wheels for a chair, muffin tin.....and probably other things that are slipping my mind right now. Oh yes, 2 jars of buttons that we will use for crafting as well.
I only spent $13.80 of the $20 too!
Now here is my question for this post. Do you think that going and getting commodity foods is frugal, or is it accepting charity??
Every 3 months I can go get government commodity foods at the Salvation Army. I try not to miss it. Not because I want a hand out, but because I want to save that much money on our food bill!
Here is what I got last time I went:
3 cans green beans
3 cans mixed vegetables
3 bags of powdered milk
3 boxes of shelf stable milk
3 jars of peanut butter
1 box of Corn Flakes
3 cans of pork
3 cans of beef
4 cans of chicken
3 cans of fruit cocktail
3 cans of apricots
3 bags of rotini wheat pasta
3 cans of orange juice
As you can see from the list, it was a large variety, covered the 5 food groups pretty well, and will serve a lot of dinners.
They don't ask you for proof of income when you go in. You do have to stand in a long line and bring your own boxes. I try not to miss is each 3 months, and it's a world of help on having food in the house.
What do you think?
Just a few things this week, but every thing that you can do that will help to be frugal and save money helps.
I am still using the larger bags from the second hand store for trash bags. Good thing I was well stocked up on them. My money ran out before I got to the dollar store to buy trash bags.
I did my Walgreen's shopping --Walgreen's Shopping 5/3/10
I always enjoy my Walgreen's shopping, and you can see in the photo that I got quite a lot for my money. I don't buy a lot of food items in my shopping there, but last week I did.
I froze left over supper foods again. I've already warned the family that this might be the week we have a left over night for supper. We will see. We are finally getting low on meats after Steve paying WAY too much for meats from the guy who drives around in the freezer truck.
Here is a post I wrote on gather on re-using tv trays. It has some good tips and uses, and those who commented came up with some more ways. Re-Use Those TV Dinner Trays
We discussed some things last night. He bought celery, forgetting that I had already bought some. He agreed for me to cook up what he bought and freeze it for later stews, otherwise it will end up going to waste. He over bought on hamburger and hot dog buns both for our Mother's Day bbq. He agreed to let me put the 4 packages too many into the deep freeze so that they don't go to waste. Maybe he is finally getting it.
I also did a couple of pretty good grocery shopping trips with coupons. Those are posted here in my blog.
Until next week,
I used to have a nice following on my frugal week posts in themestream (before they went under owing everyone a lot of money)
I want to start posting them weekly to my blog.
I am in a living situation where it's made hard for me to be frugal like I love to be. I am in hopes that by keeping track and posting weekly, I will be able to get it back.
Week of April 18-24:
I put leftover suppers in the freezer. When there is enough, I will pull them out and we will have leftover night. It will be like a buffet with lots to choose from, and the food doesn't end up rotting in the fridge.
I put leftover veggies in a container together in the deep freeze. When the container is full enough, and I've gotten a good deal on a roast, these will be put in to cook with the roast.
I try to always consider my Walgreen's shopping as frugal. I do what I can to save what I can, spend as little as I can, and get things we need and want. Many of the items I buy at Walgreen's also go in to my gift tote to be used as gifts. If you missed my blog post on my last shopping trip, you can find it here. Walgreen's Shopping 4/18/10
I dried several pieces of bread that were the ends of the loaves and getting old. I keep these in a bag in the freezer and use them when making meatballs and meatloaf. If you know any other good uses for breadcrumbs, let me know.
I will be making totes for the grandchildren for their birthdays. I am making these out of pillowcases and other materials that I get super cheap at yard sales and second hand stores. The pillow cases come with sheet sets that I buy cheap, where I use both the top and the fitted sheets in my quilt making. It worked out that I had an inquiry on if I could make fabric totes. That prompted me to give it a try, and also gave me an order for 12 of them from the inquiry.
I got a good deal on 2- Stouffer's Family Size entrees this week at the grocery store. They were on sale for just $3.99 and I had printed 2-$2.50/1 coupons from the internet. The lasagna is in the oven now for an easy supper after a busy day.
That's it for this week.
