In My Home This Week, Living Frugally and Well

                                           Vintage Pillowcase becomes Mixer dust cover

Saturday:  Nothing but leftovers for us all day long and it was just as good as it was on Friday.  We had leftovers of cinnamon rolls and sausages for breakfast, leftovers of turkey dinner for dinner.  Yum yum.

I made a quick hashbrown casserole as our second side dish.  I'd parboiled potatoes and chopped onion earlier in the week.  I just added half a can of mushroom soup, 1/2 cup sour cream and mixed it all up.

I put the rest of the food in to warm while the casserole cooked.

For supper tonight I made up a batch of biscuits, cooked a piece of turkey sausage and an egg for each of us.  Leftover biscuits will be saved for another meal.

Loaded the dishwasher tonight and it was FULL.  Washed on short cycle since I'd rinsed things well before putting them in.



Sunday:  We never turned on the propane heat at all...nor did we turn up the electric heat this morning.  I knew we were going out to church and if I turned it up, it would just stay turned up.  John and I wore light jackets in the house instead.

Took along a bottle of water with me.  The church we attend serves coffee.  It was most welcome this cool morning in that chilly building.

We stopped on the way home.  It was planned.  We spent a bookoodle of money.  We planned it.  We had cash sitting in the bank just waiting for these expenses this day.  We also spent a bit extra.  That wasn't planned but was necessary.  It will come out of the next period's grocery funds.

Planned spending?  Foodstuffs for the family party, gifts for the grown up children.  Unplanned necessary spending? Dog food, salad stuff for John's lunch, deli take out for dinner.  I could have rustled something up once home but it was quite late at this point and John and I were both hungry.  Next stage after hunger is grumpy.  We bought dinner and ate a snack from it before heading home.  Results were two hungry but non-grumpy folks which meant the house stayed peaceful.

John washed a full load of clothes and hung to dry.

I made short goal on Swagbucks today.

Did two shop and earns for Swagbucks today.  One was a gift sent to a sweet boy in Texas.  The other was necessary stuff for home we hadn't been able to get at the store.  These won't credit until end of the month.

We ate such a late dinner we skipped supper entirely.

Monday:  When is it time to call it quits?  We bought a radio/cd player/alarm clock last year after Christmas.  It was $9.95 and works just great, if you can push buttons long enough to get it going. It really is a great little thing but we've only made the alarm work once, and it's a struggle to get the Cd player or radio to play without jumping through 3 hoops and climbing 2 ladders.  Once going the sound is excellent and the antenna picks up stations in a way that none other we've ever had does.  Last night as John struggled with it yet again, I asked him, "Can't we just call it quits with this one and get another?"  We've agreed that we'll look for a replacement.  The troublesome one will go into the guest/craft room for my personal use.  I'll have a clock and music as wanted and will never need set an alarm.

Made John's breakfast, packed his lunch.

Noticed the stove looked awfully grungy.  I took a green scrubber pad and put a little Dawn detergent on it, then a bit of baking soda.  It made short work of the grungy baked on grease in the drip pans of the stove.

My day out with Mama.  We went to Dollar Tree.  I bought some things to decorate for Christmas with.  I spent $12 and I think only one purchase is going to prove useless.  Good thing it cost only $1...

My turn to pay for lunch.  All purchases this day from my personal allowance.

Came home and started to play about with Christmas decorations.  Fun....Long way to go but fun!

Went out to shed to dig about in the Christmas stuff.  I brought in a box full of items to play with.  Love when I can pull things from my own storage and create 'new'...

Created a look alike item from rock salt, bottle brush trees, recycled fruit cocktail jars and old Santa ornaments we'd put away years ago.

Spray painted a little stool and a shelf.  All items were on hand, just needed to be transformed so I could repurpose them.

My supper tonight was the last of the tuna salad I made for John's work lunch.

John checked in with his office today about vacation days.  He had 60 hours he still needed to use.  He's taking off a day and a half day and will use those days to attend to necessary errands.

Tuesday:  John and I had a breakfast before we left home this morning.  I had pancakes in the freezer, scrambled eggs to go with them.

Because I personally had planned a long day out, I grabbed two bananas, two bottles of water and two packets of crackers to take with us.

I visited a thrift store and looked for items to use to restock my booth.  I had a set amount of cash to restock with and I stuck with that amount.  I spent $5 in addition on a couple of items I thought I might use here at home.  If I find they don't work for me, they can always be put in the booth as well.

We came home and ate lunch, unloaded the car and then headed to Macon to finish up birthday shopping that needed to be done.

Back home once more and I got busy working on more cleaning/decorating.  I have not spent another penny on the decorations, have used only what I already had on hand. Total expenses thus far $5.

We opened windows to the house when we came in.

Wednesday:  Open windows for the morning hours in the house.

I made sausage gravy and put over leftover biscuits.  I use just two turkey sausage patties and dice them finely, then make lots of gravy.  The secret is well seasoned gravy.  A dash or two of Worcestershire sauce, plenty of pepper and salt all help to enhance flavor and make the gravy more satisfying despite the lack of meat.

Washed a full load of clothes this morning.  Fresh sheets for both beds.  Fresh towels for both baths.  We hung them all to dry.

Cleared the clutter from the guest room and got it looking nearer company ready. I still have to clean my sewing/craft table off and remove a few small items but that is more cleaning than moving stuff out as I did today.

Plundered in the Christmas bins in the shed and found another length of burlap ribbon to use in my decorating and a few items that I am still debating using.  I also found a puzzle the children should enjoy playing with while they are here.

Worked all morning long, and worked hard.  I realized with a shock that it was dinner time...and guess who had forgotten to take anything from the freezer?  I plundered and found one of the frozen entrees I set aside when making a casserole mid-October that made a big pan full.  With rolls and salad it made a good dinner.

Washed a full load of dishes.  I let them air dry, too.

Fashioned a new wreath (burlap with a burlap bow) for the front porch setting.  I'll put holiday pillow slips on pillows and those two chairs there will be comfortable for anyone who chooses to go out and sit on Sunday.  While that porch needs a lot of TLC it's too late to do it now.  However, it will look as though an effort was made to make it pleasant.

Looked up items on ebay before pricing for booth.  My small town flea market doesn't support ebay prices, but I do not have to sell them dirt cheap either.  I did very well with my choices this time around and am hopeful these items will sell for asking price.

Thursday:  John and I were out very early this morning.  He had a work meeting.  I tagged along and we drove just a few miles further to a nearby grocery where we picked up the last of the grocery items needed for the family party.  John gave me cash to cover these needs.

Washed another full load of clothes today.  This was made up of white towels and we added in items that we were not concerned about looking 'fuzzy' with white lint.  Hung them to dry outdoors.

Again with the no plan for dinner...this is the result of being too busy.  Thank goodness for my tendency to stash leftovers in the freezer.  Today's offering: fried chicken.  I made a small batch of potato salad and steamed broccoli that was at point of needing to be used.

While I was steaming broccoli, I steamed the last of the cauliflower and put in the freezer.  I'd planned to make a broccoli cauliflower salad but I realized that the vegetables were at the point that I used right away or tossed.  I hate to throw out money in any form and food costs money!

Found blank calendar pages that were copyright free to print out for my home keeping notebook.

I took the wheat that I'd had for the last two years to use in autumn decorating and put it outdoors near the pecan tree.  I am hoping the birds and squirrels will enjoy that little something.

Clipped and organized coupons.

Friday:  The final countdown to the family party.  I made a list of every thing that needed to be done yet.  Then I divided the list and gave John one of them.  Savings in that?  Not being totally done in at day's end.  We finished all the tasks by 3:30 which included a run into town to do last minute shopping, stocking the flea market booth, dropping off a bill and returning home to wrap the gifts.  I have lists for things that need to be done over the next two days but it's light duty compared to today's list and the week just past.

Made a very nice profit on my booth sales this month.  It's been sometime since I've done that and I'm glad that things have picked up a bit.

Borrowed Mama's grill and a folding table to use as a dining table.  I am tempted to buy extras of things at times but then I remember that we seldom need these items and it's far more reasonable to borrow from some one who has them.

John washed a small load of clothes and hung to dry.  They did not do well outdoors today.  In fact after 9 hours the shirts were possibly more damp then they had been when hung out this morning!  I brought them indoors and hung to dry in the laundry doorway.

It's been light meal duty this week.  Today I used a portion of my allowance to pick up burgers at the local diner and for supper we had a frozen pizza. I have a frozen entree for tomorrow's main meal and that will be the last of my 'convenience' foods.   I couldn't have managed the work load this week if I'd had to prepare all of our meals from scratch, too, even though I'd planned to cook.  I realized the work load was taking over my days and meal prep went by the wayside.  I'll be sure and stock up again over the next couple of weeks.


Living Well

Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year...

Well it's a bit early just yet to say Christmas time is here but such is the life of a family that takes holidays as they can get 'em as opposed to celebrating only on the day of said holidays.  As our family grows, obligations increase in each household and with John's schedule such as it is, we chose a date that suited all parties and are having an all in one celebration for our family this weekend.

It's been a lot of work this week to get the house company ready, decorate, meet other obligations we've had, etc...but I am sure it will all be worthwhile when I look around the table and see my family together.

Of course, there will be faces missing...Amie and her family in North Dakota, Virginia and Bryan and their son in Texas...but you know they will be here in our hearts and foremost in our thoughts as we celebrate our togetherness.

And because it is so early, I'll end here by saying "Happy Holidays"!