Ways I Saved

A few months ago, I found The Prudent Homemaker blog. My favorite post is a weekly post called Last Week's Frugal Accomplishments. It's so inspiring and makes me so very much more aware of the way we spend.

Last week, I canned homegrown tomatoes into a Basil-Garlic sauce. It's delicious!

We made do and did without when our children had little activities they wanted to do. It made us more creative and we didn't end up running out to buy extra items.




I held a spontaneous freezer-meal/canning day. I made French Bread, Vanilla Bean Pear Jam, and Pear muffins (I swapped pears for bananas in a banana bread recipe). Two bags of muffins and two loaves of bread went into the freezer. The pear jam is so delicious! I let the kiddos play with and bake some dough again. They had a blast and it held their attention for a long time.

I have been enjoying Pinterest. We have made several crafts, and used many activities for school. We have also baked several items together, which they enjoy so much. I have also been learning about Terrariums on Pinterest and the internet, and I'm figuring out how to create and keep one with inexpensive plants.

We planted some more fall crops, mostly using seed that we already had. We dug up and weeded out another bed around the house. My husband got cardboard and some inexpensive netting (our cat especially enjoys my newly planted beds...ahhhh!!) to protect the crops, and some new soil. The bed is along the side of the house, and I'm planning on mulching as well as using some hoop-house-like covers if necessary to overwinter some of the plants.

I have been more aware of turning the lights off when not in use. It's not perfect, but I'm doing better. With the cooler weather, less electricity from lights, and not using the fans so much, I'm hoping for a lower bill.

I went a little nutso at Fred Meyer last week. I stocked up on PB, 20 lbs of apples for canned pie filling and applesauce, cheese blocks, milk (threw it in the freezer), OJ (threw it in the freezer), and some other things. I think I'm done shopping for awhile!!

What about you? How did you save last week?