Frugal Things I Did Last Week

Eli enjoying a free carousel ride at the zoo.

It’s been a great week at our house all around-frugal, productive and lots of fun!  I’m so thankful for such a great week and all I was blessed to accomplish. 

I purchased 3 bushels of apples and canned 16 quarts and 20 pints of applesauce.  We’ve also eaten lots of apples.  Yummy!  Canning apples has really helped me get into the fall mood.  I still have a little less than a bushel left and will probably can some more tomorrow.  I’m tempted to make apple chutney.  Anyone ever tried it?

I harvested some tomatoes, green peppers, zucchini, crookneck, and yellow squash from the garden.  I’m going to be so sad when the frost hits.  I know it’s coming soon!

I made homemade bread sticks for dinner and granola bars.  This granola bar recipe is the best one I have made yet!  We ate some of the granola bars and I froze the rest to eat later.

Eli & I  went to the zoo with my Aunt Christy and cousin Anna.  We have a deluxe pass so they were able to get in free.  We didn’t have to pay to park and rode the carousel & train all for free.  I packed a picnic lunch so the cost of the trip was very minimal (just gas).   Eli & I also took water bottles to drink.  We all had a blast!

I purchased close to expiring cottage cheese and yogurt (organic).

I made homemade soft scrub.  Don’t you just love pintrest!  The stuff works wonderful and it was so easy to make!

I made The Prudent Homemaker’s Lemon poppy-seed muffins for a ladies brunch rather than picking something up at the store.  The muffins were inexpensive to make and tasted yummy.  The brunch was wonderful by the way.  I also made homemade Cole Slaw for our church’s fall festival.  It took only 7 minutes!

We had the young adults over for dinner on Wednesday night.  I served Spaghetti with Meatballs, Texas Toast, Salad, and Brownies.  Everything was homemade except the Texas Toast (Brandon’s request).

I froze some of the leftover meatballs I made for the young adults.  I also broke up a bunch of the meatballs and used them in a casserole in place of ground beef or chicken.  The casserole was amazing!   I used the leftover spaghetti sauce in a pot of soup I made in the CrockPot.  (It could have also been frozen.)

I purchased a fall/winter dress and fall sweater for me at the thrift store.  I also bought Eli a turtleneck, sweater, and 3 pairs of socks.  He has grown like a weed!  Unfortunately he still doesn’t have a pair of jeans that actually fit so I either need to keep visiting thrift stores or get sewing!

Eli and I went shopping at Aldi which saved our family lots and lots of money this week. We live pretty far away from Aldi but it is still worth it to visit at least once a month.  I keep a running “Aldi” list on our fridge and buy all of our staples there.

I received a free personalized card in the mail from cardstore.com.  This will be sent to Eli’s Great Grandma this week along with some recent artwork.

Instead of buying a closet organizer for our sewing/guest room I moved a bookcase into the closet.  The shelves are perfect to store my patterns and sewing projects.  I also used empty baby wipe containers to store items.

I sewed a toddler dress for a friend’s little girl’s birthday rather than purchasing a toy from the store.  I already had a pattern in my stash Simplicity 2461 that I had purchased for 1.00 on sale.  I used fabric I hand on hand and my mom gave me the  zipper & bias tape.  The only new purchase I made was the hook & eyes.

What sort of frugal things did you do last week? 

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