This week has been a little more settled this week at our house. Not so quiet, quite busy yet, but a good week all the same. I tried to keep the costs down and not spending on extras. The only money I spent this week that was not for gas or groceries was money I earned outside of my budget. I have been trying to sell things around the house to make extra money and use that as spending money/gift money.

Jordan got her license last Friday which will mean a bit of a readjustment in my budget for insurance and money spent on extra gas.

We have also been watching Extreme Cheapskates on TLC. Oh my word. Honestly…I could probably learn a few things from the people on the show so far. There are quite a few good ideas. But I will never be able to dumpster drive or look through trash cans unless my family’s survival depended on it. If you are listening to news reports about Superstorm Sandy, you know people are supposedly having to do that very thing. I encourage everyone to keep up on their food storages and keep those pantries stocked! That aside, we all have something to learn about being more frugal!

With being said, this is what we did this week to be more frugal:

1. I took cans and bottles to the redemption center for extra cash. We had a few in the garage that needed to go and some from Rob’s house too.

2. I sold two shirts on the Facebook garage sale for $10.00. Woo hoo!

3. We used pumpkin seeds from pumpkin carving for roasted seeds. We have a couple more pumpkins that we did not carve that I will save seeds from to grow our own.

4. I canned six quarts of potatoes from the garden. I also canned four quarts and one pint of chicken stock.

5. I only ate out once for work. This is huge for me. I am aiming for no times though.

6. I downloaded books for free for my Kindle.

7. I also signed up for a bunch of freebies on the internet and Facebook. Some of these I will use for stocking stuffers.

8. I also got one Christmas present that originally retailed for $50.00 and got for free paying only $6.95 for shipping. This should be a great present for Paige who will be getting her ears pierced for her 12th birthday.

9. We did not go anywhere this weekend except the library to get some books and movies to check out. We can check out movies for free from our library so this is a really great deal. Shali did go to a friend’s house Friday night, but she did not have to drive. Yeah!

10. I won a giveaway from the Vitafamiliae site. Yeah! This too will be a Christmas present for one of the girls! Shhhh…don’t tell!

11. I got my area set up for my compost pile! This has been a goal of mine for this year and it’s done! I hope it works!

That is about it for this week. I didn’t write down last week’s activities like I have been doing which means that I am having a bit of memory loss over what did happen last week!

Some of you have asked if I am being a bit cheap on the whole “spending as little as possible this Christmas” plan that I have. No, I don’t think so. I am having a ton of fun hunting for the gifts and being very creative with the finances. If I have time, I might even make a few gifts for the kids in addition to the teacher gifts and  friend gifts. The goal for me for Christmas every year is not to go into debt. What is the point being that miserable in January when the bills come for the money that was overspent when you could have prevented it in the first place!

Remember: Use it up, Wear it out, Make Do or Do Without! 

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

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