Frugal Accomplishments

This past week was pretty frugal for us.  We ended up with one snow day, so I was able to work from home.  That day was nice because we were able to get some extra house work done also.  The weather has been a bit crazy, because later in the week, it was almost 65 and warm enough to take a really long walk with the family.

We're working on selling our Subaru because my father-in-law is selling his car to us.  It is in better shape, though just a year newer, and has four wheel drive, which we need.  He is selling it to us for a significant discount, so its definitely a step up for us.  We're hoping that the sale of the car will allow us to make a bit of money to pay for some staining/painting to be done in the spring.  (This is the kind of work that we can do, but Benny really doesn't like doing and its hard to carve out the time with two little ones.)

• Made all meals at home including tomato basil soup (we leave out the cream), meatball subs (we use leftover tomato basil soup as marinara) with oven fries, homemade pizza with veggies and pesto, crock pot black beans with rice, black bean dip with crostini, whole wheat waffles with blueberry pomegranate syrup (homemade), and blueberry muffins.
• Shared one meal with family of rice and beans.  We did use a Chipotle coupon to get free chips and dip to go with this meal.
• Gleaned several bags of Chex mix and Goldfish crackers from school, as well as yogurt and cheese sticks.
• Composted all kitchen scraps we could including brown paper bags and paper towels.
• Made a large pot of coffee and used it for cold coffee drinks for the rest of the week.  Flavored it with baking cocoa.  This saved on the cost of heating water multiple times and filters.
• Made a crock pot of turkey stock using a turkey carcass that we had in the freezer.  Will freeze some stock and use it for a meal this week.
• Made crostini from bread from the food pantry, making it free.
• Treated a sick dog over the phone with the vet, rather than taking her in.  She had some sort of stomach bug, but seems just fine now after a day or so of rice, beans, chicken, and chicken stock.  Hoping she won't turn up her nose at her kibbles now!
• Treated baby for pink eye over the phone using an existing prescription we had for eye drops.  Thankful that we caught it early and that the drops worked, saving a doctor visit copay and time waiting.
• Exercised at home using YouTube, saving on the expense of classes.  We also took a long walk one day, which was good exercise for all of us.
• Washed all laundry in cold water, except towels and diapers.  
• Hung all laundry to dry except towels.
• Used homemade cleaner to clean the bathroom and old washcloths as rags.
• Took advantage of Harris Teeter Super Doubles event to save on stocking up.  Spent about $30 and saved over $40.
• Meal planned for the rest of the month trying to take into account what we have on hand that needs to be used up.  This should save us overall this month.
• Called about getting funds directly deposited to the boys' 529 accounts.  Kind of got the run around, so will try to do this through our local bank after my check is deposited.
• Used existing supplies to make cookies and Valentines for little man's preschool class.  He helped bag them and make tags.
• Took the gifts from little man's birthday party (he asked for items to donate to the humane society in lieu of gifts) to the humane society.  He loved visiting with the dogs and cats!  It was a fabulous afternoon, and we hope to go back again soon.  (It was so nice to not do the gifts thing at the birthday party and just have it about having fun with friends.  We did do gifts at our family birthday dinner.)

What did you do to live and save green this past week?  I'd love to hear from you!