Finances on Friday

Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_money.html#GISzQHTR0fDiMD8H.9

Some financial efforts for the week:

~ sent in two certificates for two years of soap products (when we ordered our water system it came with vouchers for "five years" of soap products.  This includes laundry, shampoo, dishwasher, bar, dish, all-purpose, and other cleaners/soaps.)  Their "year supply" is pretty small- must be for a three person family or something because I use the laundry soap up in a matter of months.  Even still, it is pretty handy.

~ cut up a loaf of stale-ish homemade bread to make bread cubes for stuffing

~ harvested lettuce from the garden

~ hung clothes on line and by woodstove to dry

~ I am in the market for ten 5-gallon, food-grade storage buckets so I called around to different grocery store bakeries to see if they gave them away instead of buying them for $4.00 a piece at Lowes.  Price Chopper did give them away but they wouldn't earmark any for me and several people go in throughout the week to pick up the ones they do have.  I may or may not be able to beat the regulars and if I did, it would only be for one or two at a time.  This wasn't convenient for me or cost effective (if I had to drive out several times), even if it was for free.  Instead, I went with Walmart instead.  While they did charge me $1.00 a bucket, they would save them with my name on them and call me when there were ten to be picked up.  That was worth it to me.  I saved $30.00 doing this.

~ rolled all my coins that have been laying around and discovered over $85.00!  Cha-ching!  This money will go toward the bulk food order that I will be paying for/picking up next week.

~ Matt tried to repair our long-since-broken printer.  It didn't work...but he tried and that counts for something. :-)

~ made halloween costumes for the children all with stuff I already had on hand.

~ made a batch of homemade yogurt

~ bought a bunch of really nice books at the library book barn for $2.00 a bag, including a few I am going to try to resell on Amazon.

~ dehydrated a large batch of banana chips

~ made a double batch of granola

~ carved jack-o-lanterns with our homegrown pumpkins

~ signed up for a free 8x8 photo book from shutterfly. which I will use to make a baby book for Adele' for her birthday.  (The last time I did any scrapbooking (or even PRINTING pictures!)  was when Corynn was a baby and so Adele' looks at the photo albums and never sees herself.  Poor dear.  A huge goal I have for the new year is to make baby books for each of the other children as well as a yearly photo book from now on.  This business of not-printing-pictures has GOT to stop!)

~ I went to the store today to score some post-Halloween costumes and candy on sale.  I normally use 75% Halloween candy (the ones that don't look Halloweeny- like whoppers and Reese's) for stocking stuffer candy and I use costumes for gifts.  But this year, I picked up three costumes and then put two back down.  The only one I kept was the men's sized one that will work for next years' Renaissance Faire.  (Now I KNOW I am officially a cheapskate.)  I did the same thing with the candy.  Our neighbors were very generous with candy this year (I even got a call from a nearby neighbor to come and pick up all the leftovers from last night!) so instead of buying MORE candy for stockings, I am going to put some trick-or-treating loot aside for each child's stocking.  (They get to keep a ziploc baggie and the rest goes in a communal pot to be dispensed of daily.  Which means: they will never be the wiser!)