Frugal Accomplishments

This past week, we did pretty well with our maintaining our budget.  It really helped that we had some snow days, which saved on fuel costs, and we were gifted some food.  Here are the specifics:

• Cooked all meals at home including:  turkey and greens soup with barley, tomato basil soup, winter squash waffles, roasted veggies, salads, banana nut muffins, and homemade pizza with homemade pesto and veggies
• Continued recycling and composting all available items
• Made a batch of veggie stock and turkey stock for the freezer
• Gleaned from the food pantry (they closed on Thursday due to cold and ice, so we helped with pick up and took items that wouldn't last til next week):  kale, two heads leaf lettuce, five packs berries, dozen yogurts including a few large ones, two grocery sacks of parsley, produce box of bananas, 20 lbs carrots, two packages of mushrooms, bag of organic apples, bag of clementines, about a pound of fresh turmeric, several pastries and gluten free snacks.  So incredibly grateful for all of this!
• We made parsley pesto with the parsley and froze this.  We're now stocked with pesto for the year.
• I froze the bananas for baking and smoothies.
• The boys ate up most of the berries before I could freeze them, but I did manage to freeze two cups of strawberries.
• I used many of the carrots in the tomato basil soup.
• Kale and lettuce have been used for salads, smoothies, and cooked to serve with eggs in the mornings.
• Researched drying the turmeric, so going to try to do the first step of that tonight.
• My grandmother passed away right before the holidays.  We've been in the process of cleaning out her place, so I've been able to use several pantry and refrigerator items.  This has been nice because it's provided us with extra meat, including ham and turkey bacon.  It's been kind of special to think about using her foods and recipes, now that she's gone.
• Continued with using cloth diapers, but beginning to work on potty training with little one.  
• Hung all laundry except sheets inside to dry.
• Used things at home to treat little one's cold, including some essential oils, humidifier, and baby vapor rub.  Also continued nursing to treat this.
• Played with toys and games at home to save on trips out during snow days.
• Found items for my new diet on sale, so stocked up.  There were also in store coupons for several of them, so I used these too.
• Cleaned out two more bags of items to send to Goodwill.  Feeling like I will hit my 400 item goal much sooner than anticipated!
• Combined errands as much as possible.
• Benny picked up more hours at work since I was at home with the boys on snow days.  This will be nice to help us out since our downstairs tenant broke her lease early (we understand the reasons, but still will miss this income).
• Deposited holiday checks into savings.  
• Benny repaired our storm door that wasn't latching properly.

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