Sunday, November 17, 2019

My Frugal Ways this Past Week 11/17/19!

We received 9 1/2 inches of snow on Monday.  The forecast was 4 or 5 inches but it just kept coming down.  It was just beautiful but it took a lot of work to clear it away.       


This is our indoor cat who insists on being an outdoor cat when the door opens. We call him the escape artist.  He is very sad about the snow in the garden and just doesn't understand what's going on at all.  This was yesterday and the snow now has melted some.  Now, we just need to watch out for the ice!  





The snow and cold came so early that it caught us off guard with a mad scramble to find gloves, hats, boots, and coats/snow-pants for the kids.   They had everything but the snow-pants  and boots for the grand daughter, it was just a matter of  getting everything organized.  Usually, we do this sort of thing a little slower as the winter progresses.  My husband took the zipper mechanism off one jacket that was too small for the grandson and was able to fix the jacket he loves the most.  They were able to buy the snow-pants for the granddaughter on Facebook but they had a tear on the seam.  I was able to sew that up in no time.  They are all set now for the next system that comes in.  

Not too far away from us a new Aldi opened us this last week.  I decided to go the morning they opened and they gave me a quarter keeper, a bag, and coupons for the next 3 weeks for $5.00 off $30.00.  I used one of those coupons and then gave the rest to my daughter who lives somewhat closer to that one than we do.  

The prices there seemed to be the same as the one by me, except for the milk and it was a good 60 cents higher per gallon. Location makes a difference I think.  The best deal I bought there was butter for $1.99 a pound.  I was able to buy 6.

I bought my turkey for a great price from Meijer this week  (I ended up with 2 turkeys-thanks for the push I needed to get out there everyone) .  You  can read about my grocery deal here.  


I made pie crusts to freeze for Thanksgiving while I made a apple pie.    


I was able to get two Groupons deals this week.  One for a local coney island resturant for $6.80 for $16.00 worth of food and one for the trampoline park for the kids for $7.00 off the price of the ticket.  I had discount codes for both groupons.  After 90 minutes of jumping, they were wore out!  

I changed the menu this week and used what we had after realizing just how much a roast cost.  I might find one on a good sale later.  

I sewed three small Christmas gifts last week.  

I download a book that was free with my Amazon Prime Membership along with some of the others that were free this week.  

My Goals for next week:

Keep Fall cleaning/organizing.  

Cook what I can ahead for Thanksgiving.  


How did you save money this past week?

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Vickie and your cat looks totally confused the poor thing. Always a bit of a scramble to get organised when the weather suddenly changes and glad you were able to get some discount vouchers at Aldi :).

Our savings added up to $358.80 last week :) in a week where many things have broken down and or needed spare parts.

Helping others and blessings -
- An elder lady we know in the neighbourhood had part paid someone to cut down and clean up some trees for her and he did some of the job and left tree remnants strewn everywhere. We offered to finish the job for her in exchange for the ironbark firewood and ended up with 1.5 cubic metres so far saving us $180 over buying it. Good for her pensioner budget and us :).

In the home & kitchen -
- Cooked all meals and bread from scratch.

Finances and listings -
- Listed 10 items on a free listing promotion on eBay saving $16.50 on usual listing fees.
- Banked more money into our 3 monthly living expenses emergency kitty bringing us up to 54.80 % of the way there.

Home maintenance -
- Our grey water pump gave up the ghost and I asked the plumber if we paid cash would he be able to do a better price so he gave us a $40 discount :). So great to have a home cash emergency kitty for things just like this.

Purchases -
- Through the plumber we were able to source some more rainwater down pipe from a local who had some spare as we need to run some rain water from the gutters of the back patio to the lawns and put in bubblers for the lawns saving us $10.30 over buying it in the shops.
- Using and coupling a 10% off discount supermarket online code, weekly specials and another 5% off using our RACQ wish e-gift card discount we saved $31.94 on our fortnightly grocery shop.
- I ordered an RACQ e-gift card for fuel saving us another $10.93 or 5%.
- By combining another 10% off online shopping code with BigW, combining specials and another 5% off RACQ e-gift card we were able to buy 2 x dvd's DH wanted, 3 pizza trays we needed & a set of 4 plastic cups for traveling in the cars saving $12.45 on usual costs.
- I managed to source 2 x chainsaw recoil starters on eBay for one chainsaw so we now have two spares saving us $57.10 over buying them elsewhere. This was prompted by our larger chainsaw starter breaking down so I bought two of these too and now we have one to install and one spare as well as these go regularly.

Have a fantastic week ahead everyone :).

Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).

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

Hi Lorna, I love that you came to the aid of your neighbor and your neighbor was able to help you as well. Terrible sometimes how people do business.
Sorry to hear about your grey water pump. Glad you had the money to get a new one.
You guys sound like my husband with chainsaws and power equipment. He says it's always good to have a back up. I'm glad you could get yours for a great price.

Have a great day!

Jenny said...

I am hoping for some snow this winter. We don't get it every winter but we're pretty cold here already so maybe this is the year!

I've been trying to keep a list of my frugal things to keep me motivated but didn't get that done this week. I was sick early on & didn't keep up with much of what I usually do.

So I guess I'll share some savings in our remodel plans. We're remodeling two bathrooms this winter....not very frugal I know. But we made some decisions this week & chose the more frugal options.

-Bathtub..we wanted to get a deeper tub for soaking. We are getting one that's about 5 inches deeper but we chose it because it fits into the framing already in place...which will save quite a bit installing it.

Tile - I'd chosen tile for the master bathroom shower & we were trying to decide if we wanted to tile the main bathtub. We found a much cheaper tile I love & discovered we could tile both bathrooms with the cheaper tile for less than just the shower using the first choice. Naturally I chose the cheaper tile!

So not big frugal things but my bathrooms have had some major water leaks with floor damage that we need to take care of. We're keeping our toilets, sinks & cabinets as well to save more money.

Lana said...

Brrrrr.....too cold too early! If I did not have memories of last years heating bills I would turn the heat up to about 74! We got a cute video of our 2 year old grandson walking in the first snow and saying he is walking on ice and it's cool!

I have a master list to get it all done for Thanksgiving and we are working through it day by day. It really takes the stress off just to not have to wonder what I should be doing but forgetting. We got the butter deal too and I am hoping the price holds for next week like it usually does. Hubby had told me we had a small turkey in the freezer a couple of weeks ago and last week he came in and told me we also have a turkey breast. So we decided to just use those up and not buy more. With just the two of us we would not cook another turkey but we will be glad to have the freezer space freed up. I have my grocery list made for Thanksgiving and I am picking up items as I see them on sale. I put a few meals in the freezer this week for the coming weeks when we are too tired to cook.

I downloaded the Old Fashioned Housewife book that you posted on Friday and have found a few great tips and we are going to make some schedule changes around here and see if we feel less stressed with getting everything done every week. Thanks for that.

Have a great week!

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

Sometimes things just have to be done. I love how you are looking for more frugal options through it all. It sounds like they will be so nice Jenny. A big project but So worth it!

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

Great way to get things done Lana, one thing at a time. It will be perfect when you are finished. Your grandson sounds so cute!
Kate Singh has some good books and I'm glad you found some hints!

Terri said...

I got lucky and found Angus Bottom Round roast on sale for just over $2.00/lb, limit 2. I made my daughter grab 2 and get in line behind me. We went back the next day and grabbed our limit again. When I was debating about going back, my kid asked me how many roasts I thought I needed. I told her, at that price, as many as I can afford. We have a chest freezer and room, so gotta take advantage of deals. Lol. I took pity on her and didn't go back but we did end up with 8 in the freezer, so not a bad haul. Lol Each one makes 2-3 meals, depending on the size. :-)

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

What a deal on roast Terri! I would have filled my freezer too. We saw it for 5.49 a pound and decided it wasn't for us to buy. I've been really wanting a roast too, so hopefully there will be a sale like that soon.