I don't have a whole lot of frugal accomplishments this week. I spent a lot of my free time reading, plus we were gone or busy almost every evening, as well as all of Sunday and Monday. But here is my small offering for the week:

1. Groceries: we didn't buy any groceries.

2. Cooking: I cooked a turkey this week and made broth with the bones. I also baked bread. 

3. Free stuff: Over the weekend we helped my sister remodel her fixer upper home several hours away. We were able to help her get a lot done, but she also gave me some free stuff! I got an assortment of half-used shampoo and conditioners, plus some clothing. 

4. Hobby farm: Hubs helped me (or rather, I helped him) make some structures for my vegetable garden this year. We made two diagonal trellises, a vertical trellis and a tepee trellis to fit over my 4'x4' raised beds. I am going to use the diagonal trellises for cucumbers and small zucchini/melons, and hopefully they will serve a dual purpose as shade for lettuce. The vertical trellis will be for tomatoes, and the tepee trellis is going to be for my purple Chinese long beans. Hubs also put a little shelf in our chicken coop, which has been very helpful. Nearly all of these things were made with scrap lumber; we used one 2x4 for the tomato trellis.

In addition to that, the chickens are beginning to lay more eggs at this point. Last week I used the excess eggs to make boiled eggs, egg salad, crepes and fried egg sandwiches, in addition to eating them for breakfast.

I was very happy to get the garden structures built before "busy season" hits in March. Not only were most of the structures free, but they'll help me grow more produce, do less weeding and they will beautify the garden. I'm so thankful to have a handy husband! 

I won't be posting hobby farm updates this year. Instead, I think I will just do small blurbs in the weekly post. My goal this year is to produce as much food as possible for the $500.00 or so that I'll earn from selling strawberries in the spring. That amount is plenty to support our chickens and garden, but I'll be looking for more things to grow or raise myself, inexpensively.

5. Youtube: If you haven't watched it already, I made a video for Youtube last week: 

I think that's about all for now!
Until next time,
​-Bethany

Good morning everyone! We're back from our little road trip. Two weeks ago we went down to Florida to see my family, and then down to Barbados for a few days (just Hubs and I) to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. It went so fast! I had a lot of fun. Ever the homebody, though, I was still happy to return. I don't have time to write about the entire trip, but I've put a slideshow below for your viewing pleasure:

Alright, now for frugal accomplishments!

1. Groceries: we spent $77.03 at Kroger, and $90.00 (to the penny!) at Walmart. In total, we spent $167.03 on much-needed groceries, plus a few extras. My monthly budget is $130.00, so I'll only spend $93.00 in March. That's fine by me, as I'd rather spend spring months working in the garden than making a weekly shopping trip.

I spent about an hour sifting through digital and non-digital Kroger coupons. I was going in the store for pork loins ($1.50/lb.) and 80/20 ground beef ($2.00/lb.), so I decided to go "all in" and see what coupon deals I could find. I still can't decide whether the few dollars saved with coupons is worth the time. When all is said and done, was the $16.00 spent on produce (to use my "$4.00 off $20.00 spent in the produce department") a better deal than what I could have gotten at Walmart for $16.00, without all of the time spent couponing? None of the deals were extraordinary, but I was able to get some things for at or below Walmart prices. I think I will always use coupons to some extent, it's just a matter of deciding how far down the rabbit hole I want to go at any given time. 

When we were at the checkout counter, I got a kids' fruit card for our toddler. Kroger has a "free fruit of the month" deal where kids can get one piece of free fruit every month.