Sunday, December 23, 2018

My Frugal Ways this Past Week 12/23/18!

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This is what I call my little stress free Grandma tree.   I have bits of Christmas decorations everywhere but this little easy tree I love!  

First of all I want to say Merry Christmas!   I hope each and everyone one of you have a wonderful Christmas.   I'll be taking off Monday and Tuesday from the blog and then will be back the day after Christmas (Wednesday).

Here are the ways I've saved (the good and the bad):
I'm sorry that I did not do a grocery shopping post yesterday but I didn't know how to tell you guys we went over our budget.  Husband said not to worry that it's Christmas and we will do better in January.   A night's rest and I feel braver this morning.  Here goes: our total for this month is $440 (we won't go grocery shopping again till next year).  We went over our original budget of $400 a month by $40 and went over my hopeful budget of $340 by $60.00. I will work harder at saving this next year (it has become a job)! Sigh, I've got to keep on trying!





About mid week we remembered  that we didn't have a gift for two teachers.   I was able to go in to my present cupboard for the two cookie bags I made last winter and the mixing spoons I bought after Christmas last year.  I made two chocolate chip cookie mixes (just dry ingredients) then googled a recipe card and wrote what they needed to do next.  I then used two gift tags that I made from Christmas cards I received last year.  Whew, crisis was solved!  

A car wash offered $1.00 car washes as a gift to the community for the day.  We heard about this last week and we waited on washing our dirty cars till then.  This saved us $10 ($5.00 a piece) for the lowest price car wash.  There wasn't even a line, believe it or not!  

Made turkey dinner last week with the free turkey I was given from Kroger for using clicklist.  We have had many dinners of leftovers and I will freeze the rest.

I bought my gift cards from Kroger bumping our fuel rewards to .20 a gallon this month.  We only paid $1.79 a gallon yesterday.  That was a savings of $30 for two cars this fill up.   This helped the budget a lot so I hope the prices stay down.

I finished the last fleece tied blanket and wrapped it up.

Here is the menu plan for this next week:

Our low carb diet lately has mostly went out the door.  There are days when we are very bad and then the next we try to be good.  So many temptations.  I'm glad Christmas is just once a year!  

Monday      Pork Chops and a salad.             

Tuesday      Ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls.   Deserts Blueberry and Pecan pie, fudge, and gingerbread cookies.  

Wednesday   Leftovers (ham sandwiches made with low carb bread)

Thursday      Ham and Cheese Omelettes

Friday          Pinto beans with ham and cornbread (we will start back totally on our diet after the lst) 

Saturday      Low Carb Pizza (made with leftover ham)

Sunday        Outback for my birthday with the whole family (we received a gift card for Christmas)

My goals for this next week:

Wrap up a few gifts today then I'm done with that.

Make up two pies tomorrow that were requested, Blueberry and Pecan.

What are the ways you've saved this past week?  

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