Hi everyone! I had a great week. 

1. Groceries: I spent $38.26 this week on groceries. I spent $35.76 at Walmart for staple items. We also stopped at a mom-and-pop grocery store, where I found some brown bananas. I bought 19 bananas for $2.40. 
   
2. Cooking: I canned a lot of tomatoes this week; some from my garden, and some that were gifted from my mother-in-law. I canned salsa, tomato sauce, and diced tomatoes. Most of my free time this week was spent canning tomatoes. I didn't mind since this was the main garden "project" I had planned for the year. I also froze more Chinese long beans and some sweet corn that we were gifted. My sweet corn failed this year, unfortunately.
   
3. Gardening: Apart from canning tomatoes, I spent the rest of my free time weeding strawberries. Little by little I have been chipping away at that enormous patch. Thanks to some help from my husband, I think I can finish the rest in decent time. Just when you have one end of the patch weeded, the other starts to need it. Gahhhh.
   
4. Personal care: I used coupons to get shampoo and conditioner for $0.53 per bottle. I used another coupon to get Hubs' favorite (only acceptable) brand of deodorant for $1.48 per stick. Lastly, I got some free toothpaste at Kroger with a store coupon, or "Best Customer Bonus." But you know what was truly a bonus? I found a manufacturer coupon in my purse for the same brand. I used both coupons then, and earned $2.00 by getting the free toothpaste.

5. Storage: Hubs made me several new wooden crates. Then he screwed them together to create a storage shelf. For the past year, as Baby gets bigger and leaves more stuff in her wake, I've been struggling to find storage space for everything. The crates are perfect because they are sturdy and you can arrange them however you want to make a piece of furniture. We tipped the boxes on their sides and screwed them together to form a tall shelf. I put Baby's eating and cleaning toys on it. The best part is this: When I don't want her (or any other kids) getting into the toys, I just turn the whole shelf around so it's facing the wall! Then you can set things on top of it like books, baskets, etc. When we move out of our current home, we can unscrew the crates from each other and use them like... well, crates. Hubs makes all of our boxes out of scrap lumber, so they're practically free. Plus they're sturdy and will last for years, unlike some of the pressboard furniture we have.

That's all for this week folks! 
Til next time,
​-Bethany

1. ​Groceries: I spent about $12.00 on groceries last week. I bought two mangoes in the marked down bin ($1.00), a free protein bar, and 2.5 lbs. of shredded cheese. The half-pound bags of cheese were supposed to be $1.00 each, but I apparently didn't download the coupon and ended up paying $2.00 per bag, for a final price of $4.00 per pound... which is FAR more than I usually spend. We were in a hurry, so I didn't bother to return the bags. I feel like this story repeats itself every time I walk into the grocery store unprepared and in a hurry.

2. Garden: I harvested Chinese long beans, Borlotto beans, tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, cucumbers and basil from the garden. We also ate some grapes from the orchard. The Borlotto beans don't taste as good as regular green beans, but the actual bean seeds are lovely.

I've also been attacking the weeds in my strawberry garden. It's hard, thankless work. By the time you finish weeding one end of the patch, the other end is in desperate need of it. Next year I think we will till the walkways and mulch the beds.  

3. Clothing: Our wardrobes have been slowly failing. A lot of our "good" clothes were becoming tattered and worn, so I separated the nice clothes from the work clothes, for both Hubs and I (we both work at home, so "work" clothes are second-quality). The good clothes pile was disturbingly small. For date night, we went to the mall to look for some new clothes. We bought two shirts for Hubs. I didn't like any of the womens' styles that we saw. Actually, there was one store that I liked- Christopher & Banks-, but the prices were shockingly high. I wasn't surprised to find that the target market was 40- to 60-year-old ladies. I guess I must be a middle-aged lady at heart.

I did find some quality swimwear that was 50% off, so I bought two pieces. Swimwear, like underwear, is something I prefer to buy new. 

4. Garage Sale: A church down the road had a free garage sale. I found five shirts and one pair of pants for myself, which was great since I didn't find anything at the mall. I also found two toys for Baby, several books, beautiful old handkerchiefs, a travel bingo game and missing Scrabble tiles for our board. Now all I need is a Q!

1. Shopping: I spent $10.01 on groceries for us this week. We bought 4 lbs. carrots, 10 lbs. flour, one cabbage, and 5 lbs. brown rice. I also spent $10.00 on a "new baby" meal for some of our friends. I would consider new baby meals, large party meals, and other highly irregular spending as part of a "hospitality" budget though, not a regular grocery budget. 

2. Gardening: I harvested beets, peppers, Chinese long beans, tomatoes and basil this week. I tried some different varieties this year. I bought the long bean seeds thinking I would save a ton of time on snapping and picking. I did!! The purple long beans were definitely a winner that I'll plant next year. Not only are they 3-4 times the length of regular green beans, but they are a climbing bean, so the fruits are a lot easier to find and pick (if they're climbing a trellis, which mine are).  

3. Cooking: I figured out this week just how awesome beets are. Not only are the roots edible, but the leaves and even the stems are edible as well! We ate the stems in a hash-style meal, and I dried the leaves to use in greens powder.

​I also experimented with baby food pouches. Now that Baby is old enough to be eating a lot more "real" foods, I find myself scrambling to find snacks and mini-meals to take with us when we leave the house. Normally I feed her what Hubs and I are eating, but when we're out and about I don't take snacks for the adults, and if we do have food it's often junk food or dessert. We keep a bag of freeze-dried baby bites in the car for "emergencies," but those that bag was crazy expensive! My sister-in-law uses baby food pouches, which are very convenient for on-the-go meals because you don't need a spoon. They're also not messy like crackers. Unfortunately, they cost over $1.00 per pouch, which is a bit expensive for how often I need them.

I found some reusable pouches on Amazon for $1.00 per pouch. These seem to work quite well. You can put regular (homemade or store bought) baby food in the pouches, or you can make a kind of smoothie with yogurt and other ingredients. That's what I did for our first pouch. Baby seemed to like it, so I will fill up the rest of the pouches and freeze them. Hopefully these will make for a quick, easy, cheap last-minute snack.

4. Replaced missing buttons on a pair of shorts and a skirt.

5. Tricked out my bike! I added a mirror to one side so I can see cars coming from behind. I also figured out how to fasten a plastic bag on the back of the baby seat, so I can still collect cans. In fact, we found over $0.50 worth last week!

​6. Garage sales: I packed up Baby and we went to a nearby town for their annual garage sale event. I put Baby on my back in a carrier, and we walked to the different sales. This is nowhere near as efficient as carpooling and driving to each garage sale, but it's the best way I know of when it's just her and I. I definitely got in my workout for the day, plus we came home with a few bargains. You can see what I bought below:

Picnic basket ($5.00). This was on my list of things to buy. It came packed full of new plastic cutlery, which wasn't on my list but it was a nice bonus. 🙂

Wooden tray ($0.50) to store Baby's cleaning supplies. 

Bag of streamers ($0.25). I hope to use these for some birthdays coming up! 😉 

Ornamental pebbles ($0.25). The bag came with large and small pebbles. I used the large ones for Baby's water table (see the next frugal accomplishment!) and the small ones I might use for some of my houseplants.

Wooden bead toy ($0.50). Baby Girl loves new toys. It's so hard not to buy #allthetoys. But this was cheap enough, small enough and wooden/non-plastic enough to justify buying.

Star-shaped pie mold ($0.50). I bought this to add to my William Sonoma kitchen item collection. I'm not much of a pie baker, but I want to try this for savory meat pies, or perhaps puff pastries. William Sonoma things make me feel like I'm a rich person and a fancy, uppity cook (note that I said "feel" like... whether I am or not is questionable).  The pie mold increased my WS collection from two items (a spatula and a soup recipe book) to three. So I guess I'm well on my way to having my fantasy kitchen. One garage sale item at a time.

7. Toys: Hubs helped me make a water table for Baby with some scrap lumber and a plastic bin that I was going to donate. Entirely free! I also made her some hand kites. 

​To make the kites, I used wooden rings that I bought cheap from China ($0.39 each) and ribbons that I already had. I made the ribbons shorter than usual, so Baby wouldn't trip on them or get tangled up in them. Later on, I can replace the short ribbons with long ones, or change the colors if need be.

8. Diapers: Some of Baby's cloth diapers were starting to stink, so I "stripped" them (this is a special wash with laundry boosters and bleach). It worked like a charm! No more stinky diapers!! Now I'm trying to figure out how I can prevent ammonia buildup in the first place, and what is the cheapest way to do so.

So, that is all for the week, I believe. I wish every week were this productive!

Til next time,
-Bethany

​Hello everyone! We took a family camping trip with Hubs' side over the weekend, which was a lot of fun. I spent a good amount of time preparing for the trip; cleaning out our little RV, making lists of needed items, doing extra RV laundry and packing. Also: congratulations to Becky S., who won the July giveaway package! If you'd like to try your hand at winning a prize, be sure to sign up for my email newsletter.

 1. Groceries: We bought a lotttt of food, most of which was for the camping trip. Hubs decided to use credit card rewards to pay for it, so I don't know what the total was. Earlier in the week, I found a marked-down bag of avocados for $1.00, and some vanilla beans ($4.49 each!) and stevia extract in the bargain bin. Also... blueberries were on sale! We ended up buying a $5.00 2 lb. clamshell, then another $5.00 2 lb. clamshell, and then an $11.00 5 lb. box for the camping trip. So I guess you could say we spent most of our regular weekly grocery money on blueberries. Which was, again, totally worth it! I didn't freeze any because the price of already-frozen berries was the same as the on-sale fresh ones. But at $2.50 per pound or less, I couldn't resist binge-eating the fresh ones. I had wanted to go to a U-pick this year, but buying the berries from Kroger just as cheap (by the time you pay for gas to a U-pick) and just as tasty, with far less work involved. 

2. Cooking: I made yogurt with almost-expired milk and shredded some gifted zucchini for the freezer. I also saved some celery ends to dry and use in soup.

3. Garden: I harvested cucumbers from the garden. My mother-in-law gifted us the zucchini mentioned above and some sweet corn, which was super delicious!

4. Cans: I collected some recyclable cans while on bike rides with Baby Girl.

5. Personal care items: I found some of our favorite brands and needed items in the clearance bin at Kroger. They weren't the best-ever deal, but I did save about $10.00, compared to regular Walmart or Amazon prices.

6. Entertainment: We went to our local county fair to see all of the 4-H projects. Our fair is pretty toned down with just still exhibits and animals; there is no carnival or vendors. It is a lovely, family-friendly fair, and free to attend.

That is going to be all for this week. Thankfully our summer is beginning to wind down. I was tempted to write down some new frugal accomplishments from yesterday (Monday), but I am going to save them for next week. 

Happy saving!
-Bethany