Since I have been a little busy in the last week (or two), I haven’t had a lot of time to post. However, I did get pictures taken for several posts!

These last two weeks were up and down on spending. I didn’t want to spend any money except gas and groceries, but I did have to make a trip to Dollar General for a few things like soap. While there I found flip-flops for $.50 a pair so I bought 5 pairs for the kids since Lily the dog found flip-flops to be an excellent chew toy. Consequently, I also bought rawhides for her while I was there too!

We did buy a Halloween costume for Shali last week too so she would have one for work Saturday night. She was a very cute ladybug! I was thrilled that the costume was 50% off at K-mart and that Paige is also going to be wearing it for Halloween on Wednesday! The benefits of having girls that are all roughly the same size is many!

I was also a little disappointed in myself for having to eat out twice last week and will have to once this week. I have had a few meetings and concerts to attend which has left me with eating on the road instead of at home! I don’t really like eating at fast food places and conveniences stores. The quality of the food, the cost of the food, and the nutritional value of the food leave a lot to be desired.

I also got my hair cut and done last week. There was no money saved there, just a piece of mind that someone did it and did it right! But considering that the last time I had a hair cut and highlights was in June, I think I did pretty well stretching that out.

Without further ado, the things we did to save money and use what we had:

1. I made fajita packets for the freezer with green peppers that I found on reduced sale (6 for $.99) and red peppers that were on sale for $1 each. I already had onions on hand.

2. I dehydrated onions for dried chopped onions. One chopped onion fills my dehydrator so I just did one for now. I am hoping to do more this week!

3. I LEARNED TO MAKE CINNAMON ROLLS FROM SCRATCH!!! Woo hoo!!!

4. I tried four new recipes one weekend with ingredients I had on hand. All four recipes were what I considered frugal also so I hope to incorporate them into our regular rotation for meals.

5. I bought an package of eight tomatoes on reduced sale for $.75. These made several delicious additions to our meals.

6. We babysat on one Friday night to swap babysitting services and gave the kids someone to play with instead of arguing with each other. Love it!

7. I did make it one week without unnecessary driving. We only drove to work, school, and one game. I normally do my errands over lunch so that helps keep the gas down tremendously. We had a lot of doctor appointments and meetings the next week so having a week of unnecessary driving helped with the gas expenses of the next week.

8. I had to pay the car registration on Shali’s car. OUCH! Although I was informed that next year it would decrease by $50!

9. We took Lily back to the vet for a follow-up on her ear infections and found out they were gone. Yeah! He also did not charge us for a follow-up appointment. Double yeah!

10. I bought a Christmas present with some Kohl’s cash I had online. The Kohl’s cash paid for the present, tax, and shipping. Woo hoo!

11. We took cans and bottles back to the redemption center. With the Iowa deposit of $.05 for each bottle/can, we made $18. A lot of cans and bottles, but it had been quite a while since I had taken some and I had some from Rob’s house too.

12. I made my own oatmeal packets for breakfast. I will be posting on how to do this soon. So easy!

13. I also made a roast chicken in the slow cooker one night which provided for three more meals, broth for soup, and a carcass for chicken stock. Yum…

All in all, we had a pretty decent few weeks of being frugal and saving, but I want to ramp that up a bit. I am really trying to make use of this saying:

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

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