Sunday, February 3, 2019

My Frugal Ways this Past Week 2/3/19!

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It seems my frugal ways this week are very few.   I stayed busy and it seemed like the week flew by watching grandchildren.  We had a lot of fun but it was different than before because we couldn't let them outside to play, the cold was just too severe.   According to husband it was down to -15 with a windchill of -40.  You could get frost bite within 10 minutes I think they said.  Around that time I quit looking at the weather.

I stayed pretty much stayed caught up with the work here at home. I even found a few moments here and there to finish reading my book, The Forgiving Jar.  My review is a little late though and I hope to remedy that soon.  

The Forgiving Jar (The Prayer Jars Book 2) by [Brunstetter, Wanda E.]
The Forgiving Jar (The Prayer Jars Book 2)


We dripped our water so that it wouldn't freeze.  This will make a little bit higher electricity bill for running the pump but it will be far less than having someone come and thawing out the pipe.  


The grand kids loved not having to go to school and stay with us!  We loved it too (so did the cat)!  It's going to be a sad Monday when they go back.  




The grandson did the boiling water experiment for school.   We boiled water and put it in a cup then he threw it in the air.  It was so cold that it turned to snow. We did this experiment then ran inside!  Kids make sure to have adult supervision if you are going to do this!  

We took them both to a museum that was offering free admission for our county's residents.  They had a great attraction there about the rain forest and they loved it.  

I made blackberry jelly from the blackberries I picked from our backyard this summer.  It only made a small 1/2 pint but I'm very proud of that jar.  It seems to be disappearing fast so it must be good.  I used the old time recipe from The Blind Pig and Acorn blog but I only used 1/2 cup of sugar for my little cup of juice.  


Goals for this week:

I looked back on my goals last week and I didn't keep one of them!  We even went grocery shopping when we heard the Polar Vortex was coming.  We were just in survival mode. The weather has improved greatly so I'm just going to try it all over again! 

Finish knitting the scarf (almost there).  

Winter sow more jugs today!  


Only go grocery shopping for essentials (fruit and milk).  


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


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12 comments:

Cheryl Kimbley said...

Hey, goals be gone when it comes to grandkids! Glad you enjoyed your week - sounds wonderful.

Vickie @Vickie's Kitchen and Garden said...

Yes goals were out the window...memories of the cold week were to be remembered instead! Have a great week Cheryl

Lana said...

I love the picture of the cat watching your granddaughter!

We may not have done a thing super frugal last week. We drove two hours to look at a house that had been grossly misrepresented by the listing. That was a bunch of gas and two meals out. Live and learn. Then we had another day that we ate breakfast and lunch out just because we did. But, that came from the eat out budget and there was plenty in the fund so whatever on that one. We ended January with a lot of budget categories bloated with extra money just because we have not been going out in the cold. It is supposed to be much warmer this week so I expect we will be out and about more.

Have a good week!

Vickie @Vickie's Kitchen and Garden said...

January saved your budget! I do think it's a excellent time to put more money in our account with a low spend January!
Sorry about your wasted trip ... sounds like a couple of our estate/garage sales. Big sales they say then they have nothing!
Have a good day Lana!

Anna of Stuffedveggies said...

I love the boiling-water-to-snow science demonstration! How totally cool! Thanks for sharing : )

Deb Beeuwsaert said...

I didn't do a no spend grocery week in January, but did spend less. Will try again in February instead. Am using up pantry & freezer items as well. Made a banana split dessert using all ingedients I had: Cool Whip, unsw condensed milk, cherry pie filling, crushed pineapple, nuts, and bananas. Had hot dogs, but had to pick up buns. Did pick up chicken breasts as they had been on sale.

Anonymous said...

Vickie that cold you are having over there is horrid and had to convert it to degrees celcius to get the full extent of the cold brrr. We have got down to -11 oc at the last house we were at and from what I have heard it gets colder here where we have moved to in winter. Extreme weather calls for being prepared so good on you for doing that and don't worry all your plans went south and keep trying :) now that the cold is subsiding.

We have been really good here as we are going into a low/no spend February here. The last 2 fortnights we are $21 in credit on our splurge allowance and we even went out and spent some money on raffle tickets to aid local charities and drank water. This money and some from DH's gardening jobs will purchase another roll of sullage/grey water hose so we can water more fruit trees and lawn around the home.

It was fortunately a bit cooler here this week which was a relief but we did go swimming in our rain water tank pool often to cool us off none the less.

Finances -

- Paid another extra small payment off our mortgage which will save loan time and interest.

Using up what we have -

- We repaired a rain water tank filter with a piece of aluminium flyscreen off a window that had a large hole in it and there was just enough so we didn't have to buy any.
- Used paint we already had to paint 2 window sills, a beam holding pipework leading to the rain water tanks which had no paint on it, a window surround and window and a step leading to the outhouse toilet which took around 2 hours to put on two coats of paint. This saved us $70 over hiring a painter to do it for us.
- I also collected peeling paint chips from the rain water tank shed to match up the paint to repaint it when we save the funds shortly.

General frugalities -

- DH cut my hair and I cut his saving around $100 over getting our hair cut in a hairdressing salon or barber.
- Saved grey water from our washing machine and hand washing water and shower warm up water and dish rinsing water to water fruit, herb and ornamental pot plants.

In the kitchen -

- Made a quadruple 2.8 kg batch of honey, almond, sultana, honey and oat granola with a splash of vanilla extract to last a few weeks saving $47.45 over buying the equivalent quality in the supermarkets.

Home organisation -

- Moved all fuels, tilling machine, palm frond and branch shredder from the metal 2 door shed into the 3 bay leanto garage as it is more ventilated in there.
- Moved all garden pots, compost bins, garden hand tools and brooms under the tank stand shed. This will give us a dedicated gardening shed to work from.
- DH assembled 2 x 4 shelf metal garage shelving to put into the double bay metal shed to store tool boxes and other items in there on.

In the gardens -

- I trimmed a hedge growing over the side of the garden path.
- DH cleaned out the gutters on the patio and home with the blower vac and a gutter cleaning tool taking around an hour saving us around $50 over hiring a general handyman to do it for us.

Have a fantastic week ahead everyone :).

Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).

Little Penpen said...

Nothing much frugal this way either. We ate out two times last week. I'm glad you survived the cold cold cold weather!

Vickie @Vickie's Kitchen and Garden said...

It was a rough week for everyone I think! We will get more done this week I hope! Have a good night!

Vickie @Vickie's Kitchen and Garden said...

Lorna, That granola sounds so good -I can imagine it would be expensive to buy. Your guys stay so busy and work so hard to get so much accomplished! I bet it's the transformation is amazing!
Today our weather is warmer thank goodness. The temperature went up a good 60 degrees or more since the coldest spell this past week. The weather is definitely extreme. It felt so good though to actually be able to take a deep breath!
I love that you were able to cool off in the rain water tank. I can imagine that was also a lot of fun! Have a great week Lorna!

Vickie @Vickie's Kitchen and Garden said...

We are doing a low spend Febuary as well and hope to save some more money. So I hope we can give each other some encouragement. You just gave me an idea for dinner and dessert for the grandkids tomorrow evening. We have all your ingredients also. They will love it thanks!

Vickie @Vickie's Kitchen and Garden said...

Yes it was recommended by their teacher in a text sent to him. She said we could try to blow bubbles too (I think they freeze too). We didn't have any bubbles at the time. I want to say maybe the next cold snap but I don't want to think about that again.