What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Friday, November 01, 2013

Finances on Friday


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!)

7 comments:

terricheney said...

All caught up for the week! Loved seeing the children in costume. Judah does a 'mean' man impression, lol. I added up my total savings for this month and was shocked at how high it went. Every little bit, every little BIT, does help doesn't it?

Anonymous said...

I have been able to benefit greatly just by shopping once a month! As of today, I have only spent 310.00 on groceries, will spend about 100.00 more tomorrow, have to wait for the sales. That is almost half of what I normally spend! Woot woot! Jennifer

Julian said...

we save our pennies in an old coffee can, and our silver coins in an old spaghetti sauce jar. Weve been able to save quite a big chunk of change, and deposit in an account for college for our kids. It doesnt add up too quick, but it still adds up.
Smart idea on the candy.
I always like reading all your ideas.
Christina

BajaManna said...

Kudos to you, my friend. It's kind of odd how reading all the things you're doing to be frugal makes me all nostalgic for the years when we had NO money and my life was focused on "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without". That was the richest time of my life in terms of the lessons and skills I learned that have sustained me for all the decades since then.

Unknown said...

You did better than me...I SPENT money this week trying to find some good Bible based homeschool stuff that would give us more structure. I keep trying to "wing" it and our printer is broken too so I haven't even been able to print stuff off! Also...I remember I got two buckets from wal Mart one time from the deli section that they keep their frosting it.

The Prudent Homemaker said...

Too funny--my neighbor offered candy to me too and I was thinking of stocking stuffers as well! I am going to go pick it up when the children aren't looking! (Not sure when they won't be looking but I plan on taking a cloth bag with me).

Rebecca said...

Terri- that is GREAT! Congratulations! I have been positively squeaking but still can't seem to save the amount of money I hope to. I have to rework the budget I think~ something just isn't right!

Jennifer! That is fabulous! I really think the biggest money saver has GOT to be just not GOING anywhere! Good for you!

Christina- I am always shocked to find actual CASH in our change jars. It adds up, indeed! Good for you to allocate it for a particular purpose.

Anna- that right there is my motto in life! haha! What an encouraging comment.

Alyssa- like I said last week- spending money on valuable things is worthwhile. Bible based educational stuff fits that bill quite nicely. You should be proud of yourself for having the right priorities.

Prudent Homemaker- what a pleasure to see your name here! Thank you for the comment. I feel I have just had a brush with fame! ;-)