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, we were all sick, so I honestly didn't save or actively live terribly frugally last week.  We did SOME things, just not as much as usual.  The good things:

We lived out of the freezer quite a bit this past week.  I'm grateful I had a few things stored away.  I had a container of Potato Soup (this is what my recipe started from.  Now it's more my own!) and two loaves of French Bread in the freezer, along with beans, etc.  The first day that I was feeling under the weather, I made myself a pot of veggie soup that lasted us 2 days.  It was very inexpensive and from items I had on hand.

When we were healthy enough, we went on walks and bike rides.  We also went on lots of rain walks--aka, we let the kids splash in lots of puddles.

We got a Walk-In Green House.  They were on a super steep clearance at Fred Meyer, so we decided to get one.  I'm going to be planting lots of greens through the winter, and then I'll use it to get my seeds started early next spring.  I'm very excited!  I think it will help us to save quite a bit.  I'm hoping I'll be able to grow greens year-round now.  Fingers crossed.

I cleared out my tomato and squash plants and we'll be using the space to build a raised cinder block bed.  I'm hoping to overwinter some carrots here, as well as plant some garlic, lettuce, and other greens.  It's a perfect place to add a cover if necessary.

We attended our local library story time.  Our library is amazing.  The gal does a fantastic job, but they always have an on-theme craft as well as a snack.  My kiddos usually love it.

Thing 1 (my little gal) and Thing 2 (my little lad) are in the picture above.  We popped popcorn for snacks twice this week.  After popping it and putting it in bowls, they wanted to sit in their little chairs at the piano bench, which would normally be a huge no-no.  They were so sweetly eating, I decided to let them!  Popcorn is such a great snack, and awesome for food storage.  We don't add any more fat that 1 TBS veggie oil at the bottom of the pot with 1/2 C kernels, so it is very inexpensive, a whole grain, and actually pretty healthy.

I worked on our budget for the coming month.  I usually re-evaluate our budget several times a month, and then my husband and I go over it together.  It works well for our family, and keeps us on track...for the most part!

My kids sold some things at a garage sale, so when they wanted some new craft items (Thing 1) and a new toy (Thing 2), I gave them the option to get something with their own money that they had earned.  They chose to use their own money and they made pretty wise purchases.

How did you save this week?  Have you had the nasty first-month-of-school cold yet?