Skip to main content

The Frugal Five: #93

 The Frugal Five: #93


With inflation on the rise and salaries not increasing, our ability to make ends meet keeps going down.    Therefore, we must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.    


I am exploring how to keep costs down during busy weeks. One strategy is to keep dinner on the table instead of eating out. Here are some of my tips and trips.   


1- Grateful for Social Gathering 

October has been a month filled with many social gatherings.    On the last Friday of each month, the social committee takes turns providing a treat for everyone.  In addition, our community garden hosted a thank-you luncheon for the gardeners for all of our hard work.   As a bonus, I won one of the raffle prizes.   There was a wedding shower breakfast and our school has conferences twice this month.    The PTO supplies the teachers with dinner each conference night and there is always enough food for lunch the next day.   


2- Vaccines 


I used my health card insurance and got my flu and COVID-19 vaccines.   This should help protect me from getting sick this winter.    Since my insurance provides this protection is free, there is no reason not to get your vaccine shots.    However, everyone will need to make their own decisions regarding this issue. 


3- Pantry Clean Out and Rotation


Since I have picked up a lot of shelf-stable items over the past few months, it is time to clean out, organize, and use up my pantry items.   I checked their expiration date, rotated them, and put a plan in place to use.  November is a big sales month, so I want to have space for the upcoming deals. 


4- Winterizing My Home

Winter is on its way and the reports indicate it will be wet and cold.   The shovels, salt, and scrapers have been pulled from storage.   Our seasoned wood pile rotated and a wheelbarrow of wood was brought up to the porch.    Windows and doors have been checked for drafts and sealed if needed.     The boiler has been checked and the fireplace is cleaned out.     We have rotated our bedding, clothes and have taken our winter gear out of storage.   Our cars have their winter emergency kit updated.    We are ready for the season.  


5- Soup Season is Here!

The menu has changed from salads to soups. We enjoy many soups, stews, and other comfort foods. Soup is a great way to use leftovers or stray vegetables left in your refrigerator. In addition, there are usually leftovers, so lunches are easy to pack. Our crock pot is regularly used, so I don’t put it away. This makes dinner during the week easy to get on the table after a long day.   


What Free-bees have you been able to pick up this year?    My entire year is attached below.    


Here is my list:

Do you want to see what we did last week?   

Just click on the picture for the link. 



Please leave a comment below with your ways of saving money this week. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keeping Cool Without an AC- Part 5

  The news is full of headlines indicating that energy shortages are on the horizon for most of the world. Over the decades, we have become reliant on the coolness of our air conditioners and have forgotten how we survived without them. It is now time to rediscover how to stay cool without our AC. Our 5 part series provides ideas on how to beat the heat this summer without the AC.     House Adjustments- Part 2 By placing house plants, such as English ivy, ficus, and spider plants, throughout your home, you can drop the overall temperature of your house by 10 degrees. In addition, house plants are air purifiers and add oxygen to your home.     For quick relief, create a personal mister to help drop the temperature of your skin: thus making you feel colder. Some people combine a spray bottle and a fan to create a cooling effect. However, I use just the spray bottle with cold water throughout the day and it keeps me cool. In addition, we use coo...
2 comments
Read more

Frugal 5: #26

  The Frugal Five: #26 With inflation on the rise and our salaries not being able to keep up, it seems like we have taken a pay cut and must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate our daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     ** Sorry for the lack of pictures. My week has been really busy and I just didn't get around to it. 1- Fall Garden Harvest    With the weather turning cold, we harvested the tomatoes that were left and made dice tomatoes out of them.   This will come in handy for making our taco soup and chili in the upcoming weeks.   In addition, we are able to add a few jalapeno peppers to the dishes.  Our dried mint was placed in containers for making tea this winter and fresh clippings were added to the drying rack.     Finally, our seeds are dried and ready for storage for next season.      It was a lot of work but worth it....
1 comment
Read more

The Frugal Five: #80

  The Frugal Five: #79 With inflation on the rise and salaries not increasing, our ability to make ends meet keeps going down.    Therefore, we must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate the daily or weekly activities that help us live a frugal life.     This week I am exploring how to keep costs down during busy weeks.    Keeping dinner on the table instead of eating out is one of my strategies to get the job done.    Here are some of my tips and trips.    1- Samples Each time we go to Costco on the weekend, there are a lot of sample stations up and running.     I have been able to get unstoppable and tide samples.   In addition, there are various food stations set up throughout the store.      You can sample your way through the store.   In addition, I was able to order several samples this week.      2- Free ...
Post a Comment
Read more