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.

This week was a good week in many ways! But it was an especially good week for living within our budget.
First off, we finalized our budget. I always draw up a draft budget with what I think we'll need in the various categories, at which point my husband and I give it a look through. We make any necessary adjustments and give it a final stamp of approval. This is a wonderful way to discuss our financial goals, stay open about finances and it keeps us on track.

I prepared lunches for my husband to take to work. I usually do this, but I found that I packed some inexpensive goodies, leftovers, and notes a little more this week to make it more special, but thrifty.

We went to story time at the library.

I made rice two times this week. I've been wanting to make it more often because it's very inexpensive, filling, and the two recipes I use most are very versatile. I made my Spanish Rice (recipe to come), and I made my Simple Yellow Rice. We used the Simple Yellow Rice for two full meals and a snack.

I sorted through the green tomatoes ripening on my counter to dig out the red ones. I pulled out almost a full gallon bag of red ones. I'm going to wait for about another week, at which point I'll pick out more ripe tomatoes and then I'll make more Basil-Garlic Tomato Sauce.

I went through my craft boxes to make some pretend play objects for the kiddos. I used some hemp and large craft sticks to make fishing poles, which they have been playing with for three days now!

I planted lettuce, radish, spinach, carrot, and leek seeds this week in the garden and greenhouse. I also planted some more Garlic Cloves.

My husband found some free materials to build me a garden bed!! I love the unique box(es) and it is quite deep. It's my very first raised garden bed that I have ever owned, and I can't wait to see what we can get to grow in it. I plan on coaxing some fall and winter gardening out of it.

We used compost that has been building up in our backyard. It it is actually really rich, which was exciting as we jut inherited it when we moved in.  We've been adding our scraps to it all week, quite diligently.

A friend, HER friend, and I started a little home school group. We're just going to meet once a week for science/music/craft type activities as we are all using a different core curriculum. It was very nice to meet up and feel supported and share ideas!

I was able to create a terrarium this week, something I've been learning about and wanted to do for awhile. I purchased the actual terrarium on a steep discount (talk about right place, right time for the exact and unique container that I wanted), purchased a small bag of charcoal vs. a big one, gathered small rocks for gravel from my backyard instead of purchasing a bag, and I was selective about the plants I used. I spent more on one of the plants that I really wanted, then chose a few others that I liked, but was willing to sacrifice for savings. I also made some terrarium accessories instead of buying them. It was way more fun, and I used items I had at home to create the items. I love how it turned out, and I'm excited to watch it mature and cheer up our home. It's a unique decoration/plant!

My garden is quite bare at the moment, however, I did use some parsley out of it this week.  I'm hoping the things I planted will grow quickly.

I made laundry detergent.

I was very aware of electricity usage and tried to flip lights off when not in use.

How did you save this week?