December was another relatively quiet month on our hobby farm.

Goats
I continued feeding the goats a small amount of grain (half corn, half "sweet mix") and hay. 

Chickens
In the middle of December, it got very, very cold. I did have two chicken fatalities this month; both were older birds. I figured that some of my birds would die over the winter due to old age. One of my favorite hens, a little white bantam that I had named "Princess", was one of the chickens who died. So, that was a bummer. 

Ducks
My "baby" ducks grew up into adults. I've determined that the two ducks I hatched in September are drakes- male ducks. I was kind of hoping for girl ducks so I could hatch more ducklings this spring from their eggs. But I'll just have to be happy with boy ducks.

We cooked one of my ducks for Christmas Eve. The duck meat itself was pretty good; it tasted a lot like chicken, but all of the meat was dark instead of just the drumsticks. The breast meat turned out nice and tender, but the drumsticks were dry. I am going to try cooking the breasts and drumsticks separately the next time.

One thing I loved about cooking my duck? The FAT! There was so much of it. Unfortunately my bowl of fat tipped over and most of it ran down the top of the oven. But what little I did salvage smelled like potato chips. I can't wait to try cooking with it.

Rabbits
In the middle of December, my brother-in-law was in a car accident and hospitalized with broken ribs, a punctured lung and other minor injuries. Though he is now at home, he hasn't been able to take care of his bunnies. So I am the new bunny caretaker.

To make chores easier, Hubs and I moved the four bunnies into the feed room of my chicken coop. They each have their own "cubicle" that Hubs built out of scrap lumber. Right now, the rabbits are pretty low-maintenence and only need corn, water, and hay every day. BIL breeds and sells the baby rabbits as pets (I think they are Holland Lops), so like all of the other animals, the bunnies are non-producing this time of year.

Profit & Loss for December

Expenses:
Layer Mash- $93.60
Corn- $20.00
Oats- $3.00
Total Expenses: $116.60

Income:
Eggs- $6.00

Net Profit: -$114.60

Year-to-Date Net Profit: $318.62

We used more grain this month than I estimated. I was not as strict with the amounts due to the accident, extremely cold weather and Christmas, etc. Plus I used some corn for the bunnies. Next month I am going to re-calculate the amounts and also experiment with fodder. This will hopefully bring the cost down a little.

Another forthcoming expense is hay. At the time of this writing we still have two bales left, but will need to purchase 10-15 bales for 2017. This will set me back $50.00-$75.00. That expense, plus $80.00 per month for feed, will probably drain my little farm wallet dry just as money starts rolling in from eggs, baby animals and farmers market.

Overall Budget Report for 2016

Regardless of upcoming expenses, for my 2016 Overall Budget Report, I am going to call net profits for this year:

$318.62

Here are some other interesting tidbits for 2016:

Total recorded income for the year: $1166.37
This is "recorded" income. I was not consistent in how I recorded net vs. gross income in the blog posts, which is unfortunate. However, I know that I sold at least $1166.37 worth of goods at farmers markets and in out-the-door sales. Some of the things I sold were baked goods, soap, and eggs. I also sold some other things hit-or-miss from home. One big moneymaker was the two goat kids I sold in August for over $300.00.

Total recorded expenses: $1039.21
Wowza! I spent a lot of money on animal stuff in 2016. Recurring costs were things like goat mineral and feed/"sweet mix", shelled corn, layer mash, and/or hay.  Non-feed items I bought were:

Flea and lice powder- $6.49
Fiber processing- $65.00
ADGA Registration fees- $50.00
ADGA transfer fees: $12.00
Tattoo kit and dehormer- $122.90
Cattle panels- $60.07
Vet visit- $94.88
Bottle nipples $10.90
The Goatkeeper's Veterinary Book- $4.71
CDT vaccine: $6.99
Needles: $2.25
Syringes: $2.90
Green tattoo ink: $6.50
Goat collars: $9.00 ($3.00 each)
Trash cans to store feed: $40.00
Chicken watering nipples: $6.40
Herbal dewormer-: $28.17
Chick grower: $6.30
New chicks- $11.00
Light bulb for heat lamp: $2.99
Heat lamp- $8.99
Poultry watering cups- $5.99
Duck incubation- $20.00
Chick starter- $7.41
Gardening For Goats ebook- $1.99

If you are thinking about starting a hobby farm, that is a partial list of the things you will have to buy. It is not easy to break even with so many purchases!

Successful projects in 2016:

Owning Ducks
I bought two ducks at our county fair this year, and got a third duck from the owner of the first two. I loved having ducks around. They were pretty consistent egg layers and laid big, fat eggs. The butchering process was not too complex and rewarded me with gourmet meat and beautiful golden fat. Ducks are a nice addition to chickens, if you are willing to meet their water needs. The water cannot be kept inside the chicken coop, because ducks fling water all over the place. They also dirty the water, so it must be changed frequently. I have to change their water every day.

Farmers Market, Year 2
I made major improvements this year in the farmers market department. I made more money with less time involved. You can read about my second season here.

Selling Eggs
This was my first year with a sizeable amount of egg-laying chickens. I priced my eggs at $2.00 out-the-door and $3.00 farmers market, and had NO trouble selling them. I could have sold more eggs, if I had more. $2.00 per dozen was a break-even point for the chickens (that is, they paid for themselves at that price), and at $3.00 I could actually make extra money with the extra eggs (I did keep a dozen or more per week for us). I would highly reccommend egg selling for those of you who are trying to make the hobby farm pay for itself.


Failed projects:

Incubating Ducks
In August I tried incubating ducks, with a 10% hatch rate. Out of 20 hatching eggs, we hatched out two ducklings. The time spent hatching and nurturing two ducks was not worth it, especially when they turned out to be male ducks.

Fiber Goats
I tried keeping fiber goats in 2016. Ultimately, we did not have enough pasture to support the 5-6 goats, and I could not sell the fiber fast enough to pay for the herd. There were some breeding problems as well. I did send some of the fiber in to be processed, and it turned out great- but including the cost of shipping TO the fiber mill and gas to pick it up, processing was just under $100.00. 

If I had been able to sell the fiber for what it was worth ($8.00/oz.), minus the cost of processing I would have come out ahead $150.00+. Selling the kids from each doe (there were three) would have paid for the goats' upkeep. However, my goats had issues with breeding. Two out of three did get bred, but one died before she kidded. The last goat gave birth to one kid, but had a deformed udder. After having the vet out, I discovered that mama goat would not have any extra milk for me, plus it would be unwise to breed her in the future because of the udder defect.

So there I was, left with five goats (plus one kid) that I didn't have enough pasture for, couldn't breed, couldn't milk, and didn't want to butcher. Plus, I had a pile of luxury fiber that I couldn't sell and wasn't skilled enough to spin into a sellable product. In the end, I chose to sell the goats. It was a project that could work for someone else, but in my case it didn't.

Alternative Poultry Waterers
During the last year I also tried using chicken nipple waterers, and individual "cup" waterers. Not only did the chickens completely ignore these waterers, but the small parts froze during the winter. I needed an open water container for the ducks anyway, so it was a waste of time and money to make the alternative waterers.

Til next year,
-Bethany

Last week was a great time for me to unwind a little bit and work on some projects around the house. I love working on projects! The last half of the week, I spent making Christmas goodies and wrapping presents. We ended up buying most of our gifts this year, but I was able to find a few things on my list used*. I also got Ebates money for some of our gifts, but other than that we had a pretty un-frugal Christmas.

*I don't give used gifts unless I know the recipient is okay with that. About half of the gifts exchanged on my side of the family are from thrift stores or Goodwill. And no, we don't give each other faded, pilled, stretched-out sweaters from the 1990s. Used gifts are always clean, in good working condition and appropriate for the recipent. I was able to get one of my siblings a large pack of new socks AND an accordion (which he absolutely loved) for under $20.00. The socks were new from Walmart, but the accordion was used on Ebay. He got me a spice rack (that I wanted) for our RV, for $0.00 (it was re-gifted from a White Elephant party earlier in the year). 

Don't get me wrong... I like giving and recieving brand new gifts as well. But sometimes that perfect gift can only be found at a garage sale or on Ebay, and people who don't like getting used things are just going to miss out. 

Frugal things I did this week:

1. Dried some almost-spent eucalyptus branches and rose petals to make bath salts with. The plant matter was from an arrangement I did for my brother-in-law's funeral.

2. Did some research on aquaponics for growing herbs indoors. I also bought the very last mid-size water pump available at Walmart. I tried doing aquaponics/hydroponics several years ago, with limited success. The plants did grow, but they didn't grow to an edible size. My lettuce (that I re-grew from store bought lettuce) grew little 1" x 5" leaves, and then stopped growing. I wasn't 100% sure what I was doing with the bottled nutrients. This time I am going to use a water pump to cycle the water through grow trays instead of doing a deep water culture system. I'll also be using fish to provide the nutrients instead of using bottled nutrients. 

I am not ready to try this on a large scale yet, but I am going to try one larger (1'x 2') bed and a few smaller jars with beta fish in order to grow some of my favorite herbs indoors. Though I did have to buy the water pump (and I will have to find a container/tank somewhere for my larger bed), small net pots required for the mini-setups were already in my stash of stuff. 

3. Bought some oats from the farmer's elevator to use for fodder for my chickens. My first choice was barley, but they didn't have any, so the cashier suggested oats. I bought 25 lbs. for $3.00. When I got home and did some more research, I found that wheat is a lot better for fodder than oats. Even though the oats are sprouting fine so far, next time I will ask for wheat and try that instead. 

4. Kroger deals: I used rebate apps (Checkout51, Mobisave, and Ibotta) and Kroger E-coupons to get two free bananas, a free bag of caramel candies, a $0.64 loaf of bread, a $0.75 pineapple, and a $0.75 box of saltines. We also redeemed $11.10 worth of bottle return slips to offset the cost of groceries (which was more than usual because of Christmas).

5. Gave Hubs a haircut. For previous cuts I have only used a pair of hair-cutting scissors, but for this one I got out the clippers. At first it was hard to tell if I had the blades (rather, the guard) close enough to his head and he kept saying, "Closer, closer! Right up next to my head!" Finally I got the hang of it. I was afraid that the clippers would make his curly hair look choppy, but when cut short enough it looked just fine. I used the scissors to finish off the top, which was left longer.

The end result was so much nicer. Hubs has very curly hair, which is a blessing and a curse when it comes to haircuts. The good part is that if you mess up, it doesn't show as much. The bad part is that it's so hard to control! And difficult to tell how long or short the hair is. In the past, I have rarely cut enough off the sides. When the hair grows out a little bit, the curls start going horizontal like Bozo the clown. I hope that using the clippers will prevent this humorous effect!

6. I am finally starting to see the fruits of my labor when it comes to revived, sale-bought houseplants. 

Amarylis bulbs: The amarylis bulbs I bought in February spent the spring and summer on our porch growing leaves. This fall, I dug them up and cut off the long leaves. I replanted the bulbs at the beginning of December, and here a few weeks later, the leaves have started to re-grow. If the plants rebloom, they will be "free" flowers for me to enjoy this winter.

Orchid plants: I have a collection of five orchid plants. They are all "add ice" phaleonopsis orchids; three full-sized and two mini plants. Adding ice has not worked for me in the past, so instead I just run water through the pots once a week, letting them drain for several hours in the kitchen sink after that. Infrequently, I use "orchid food" that I bought at Walmart (mixed in with the water I run through the pots). In November, some of the orchids started growing new shoots and buds, but before they opened (or even grew to a decent size), the buds would die and fall off. One of my mini-orchids "blasted" 34 buds- I am not even kidding. 

Two weeks ago, I noticed that one of my buds was not dying- in fact, it was growing larger and larger! The two other plants that had been bud-blasting were also growing bigger buds. I am crossing my fingers that these plants actually rebloom for me. The orchids will be one more "free" flower I can have in the winter!

It takes a lot of patience to buy a spent plant and nurture it for an entire year before it starts to reward you. But I think it's worth the wait, especially if your houseplant blooms in the winter when everything else is dead.

What were some of your frugal accomplishments last week?

So, today I'm going to list of of the frugal things I've done in the last three weeks. In the last two weeks it has been really hit or miss due to the accident, so I decided to pile those few accomplishments onto the first week of December's accomplishments.

​1. Ordered the wrong bottle of cod liver oil. Let me explain! During the winter I take fermented cod liver/butter oil as a source of Vitamin D (and other good stuff). The brand I buy is super expensive, but it is supposedly the best and it's about the only supplement I take... ever. 

So, normally I buy the capsules. These were priced at $62.31 for 60 servings. However, this time I actually ordered the straight oil, which cost $53.10 for 96 servings. Not only was it a better deal, but the straight oil is easier to take than the capsules, and there are no fishy burps. The oil is a very strong cinnamon flavor, so sometimes you get cinnamon burps with a tiny hint of fish. But it's really not too bad.

This is a mistake I'm going to continue making in the future.

2. Line dried one load of laundry.

3. Bought some fancy cheese for Christmas using a rebate. Originally priced at $6.00 each, I used Ibotta rebates and bonuses to get two packages for $2.50 each.

4. Kroger sales: I took advantage of some more great sales. These included flour at $0.20/lb., sugar at $0.25/lb., eggs at $0.60/dozen, cream cheese at $2.00/lb. ($1.00 per package), and an orchid plant that was on clearance for $2.00.

5. Re-covered an RV cushion! This was one of my favorite December projects. This winter I would like to re-cover ALL of the cushions in our little RV. I purchased the fabric at Joanns for $10.00 per yard (used a coupon, rebate, AND bought it on sale), so this was not a free project. However, I will be able to reuse the zipper, some of the foam and the vinyl side of each cushion. I was also able to cover the buttons with my new fabric instead of buying new buttons.

You can see the "before" picture at the top of this post.

The one cushion I have done so far turned out great. I bought a set of special upholstery needles ($7.00) in order to reattach the buttons correctly. This made all the difference in how nice the finished cushion looks. 

To  re-cover, the cushion, I took it apart first. I set aside the buttons, zipper, and piece of vinyl that had been on one side. Then I used the old carpet-like fabric as a pattern, and cut a new piece out of the brown suede I bought. Even though the old fabric was a little warped, it still worked okay. After I cut the new piece out, I simply re-assembled the cushion as it had been put together in the first place. Then I inserted the old foam back into the "pillowcase" and zipped it up. The last step was to attach the buttons. I used a heavy-duty thread (from an old lady's garage sale) and my special upholstery needle to attach the buttons on each side.

​The finished look was a lot more tailored than your traditional DIY slipcover. I did make a few mistakes, but I figured that with eight more cushions to go, the last one will probably be perfect. I'm hoping to put up a step-by-step tutorial in January, if possible, with links to the tools and Youtube videos I used.

6. Bought used gift cards online. I bought a Tractor Supply card for 7% off, a Dollar Tree card for 8% off, and a Joanns card for 9% off. Discount gift cards are an easy way to save because they don't expire and can be stacked with sales, clearance items, coupons or rebates. If I buy something at Joanns and use a 40% off coupon with my 9% off gift card, the item is almost 50% off. 

7. Used paper grocery bags to wrap a few gifts. If you are going to do this, you have to ASK for paper bags, otherwise you will automatically get plastic. I usually go through the self-checkout, so remember that the paper bags are only available in the regular checkout lines.

8. Made yogurt and cheese.

9. Melted the wax out of some almost-empty glass candles. I will use half-melted free candles from garage sales to re-fill the glass candle jars. Cool fact: You can buy wick string and metal wick-holders for the bottom of your candles at Joanns. Probably for 50% off if you use a coupon and discount gift card.

The glass candle jars, if cleaned properly, can be used for flower vases or other home decorating projects as well. Some of my jars had lids, so I will be able to reuse them for bath salts or other non-food items.

9. Pressure canned black beans. Usually I don't buy black beans because they are more expensive, but I had two pounds of black beans in the pantry that I got from the bent 'n' dent for very cheap. We were almost out of home-canned dry beans, so I thought I might as well soak the beans and see how much two pounds would expand. I ended up with six pints of black beans for a cost of $0.10 per pint (not including jars, lids, or rings, which I reuse).

Now I know that I need to soak 3.33 lbs. of beans for every 10 pint load of canned beans I want to make. 

10. Made a birthday cake for Hubs out of ingredients that were mostly on sale. The recipe (it's for a "cheesecake fluff" type dish) used cool whip ($0.75 on sale), jello ($0.35 at the bent 'n' dent) and cream cheese ($2.00 on sale). I also used some graham crackers that we had bought (but not used) for a camping trip this summer. Normally this dish costs $5.00-$6.00 to make, but because some of the key ingredients were on sale I was able to make it for under $4.00.

That is all for now! 

Til next time,
​Bethany

Hi everyone. It has been a while since I posted anything, so I thought I'd check in to explain what has been going on. 

Sunday before last, Hubs' mom and two youngest brothers were in a very bad car accident. My mother-in-law and the oldest brother made it out, but the younger brother Anthony (only 14) died on impact. This happened less than a quarter mile from our house, on their way home from church.

With two family members in the hospital and a funeral to put together, Hubs and seven of his other siblings were extremely busy. I won't lie- it was a really hard week, emotionally and physically. 

The local community plus friends and family pulled together to help out in prayer and in person. Food and financial support came in from all over. People came over to stock the furnace, plow the driveway and feed the animals. Thanks to the prayers of many, my brother- and mother-in-law were able to attend the funeral. This was a big deal, since my MIL was originally told there would be no way for her to come. We are so, so thankful for those who stepped in to help.

So, that is it in a nutshell. Right now BIL and MIL are home from the hospital. They are still recovering from broken ribs and spend a lot of time sitting down or in wheel chairs. The upside is that some of us get to push each other around in the vacant wheelchair. Last night I had the pleasure of being pushed around by my 18-month old nephew.

If you are willing, we would appreciate your prayers for the next several weeks. In particular, pray for peace on behalf of my husband's family and the ones who spent the most time with Anthony.

****

 Thankfully things are starting to settle down and get back to "normal"... as much as you can call life without a loved one normal. I plan on doing a "frugal round up" later in the week, and hopefully will get back to regular posting after Christmas.

-Bethany

November was a sleepy month for my little hobby farm.

Goats

Both of the goats are fat and happy. I was able to avoid feeing hay for most of the month because it was SO, so nice out and the grass just kept growing. Now I am feeding them hay leftover from last year, plus "treats" that I grew/harvested myself like overripe summer squash and sumac.

Chickens & Ducks

Egg production was up and down last month, depending on the weather. During the last few days it finally got cold and egg production went down to 2-4 eggs per day. The good news is that I consistently get one duck egg every day! That is pretty decent coming from two laying ducks. Especially when I realize that I have 20+ hens producing between 1-3 eggs every day.

My one new learning moment this month was: our first hawk attack.

One morning I went out to do chores, and saw that one of the roosters was out. That was kind of funny, because only the smallest of my hens can escape the pasture. As I got closer to the coop, I saw a large bird swooping about. I knew right away that it was a bird of prey. Fear struck my heart for my precious chickens!! I hurried to the gate, got inside, and sure enough, a big white hen was collapsed near the fence. The hawk was at it's side, but flew off when it saw me start to run over. I noticed, thankfully, that most of the other chickens were in the coop at this point even though it was a gorgeous, 70+ degree day.

The hen was dead, unfortunately. However, she was still warm and not stiff at all. I suspected that she had just been killed. I took her up to where Hubs was working, still scared for the rest of my chickens. We decided to do an emergency butcher session to see if the meat was salvagable. In the meantime, I locked the chickens inside the coop until I figured out what else to do.

We ended up eating the breast meat of our salvaged bird, but nothing else. The legs were very tough. The bird was older, and extremely fatty on the inside. She was probably too fat and old to run away from the hawk. In the future, I don't think we will try to salvage any more birds. It was a lot of work for a little bit of breast meat. I wouldn't recommend it, as most birds die more questionable deaths via sickness or attacks by dogs or raccoons, which are more likely to carry disease. In our case, the bird was killed by suffocation and it was a fresh kill, which is why we attempted the emergency processing. However, like I said before, the small amount of salvageable meat was not worth it.

For the rest of the day, I decided to let the goats in with the chickens. When it got colder (and I hadn't seen the hawk in a few days) I separated the chickens and goats again, and we haven't had a similar occurrence since... that I'm aware of, anyway.

Garden

Since there's not much to write about in the way of animals, I thought I'd write about my new garden pest discovery: grey aphids. These little bugs were all over my broccoli. Apparently they make their appearance during late summer or fall, which explains why I didn't notice them early in the year. Organic methods of control include insecticidal sprays (dish soap + water, etc.) and possibly row covers.

Profit & Loss

Expenses:
Goat mineral block- $4.04 (I used a 10% off coupon... be proud!)

Income:
Eggs- $8.00

Total Net Profit: $3.96

Year-to-date Net Profit: $429.22

Looking Forward: Bees or No Bees?

If all goes well, I'll end the year with a tidy $400.00 profit for my hobby farm. Of course, I'll spend $100.00-$200.00 in January and February for chicken feed and goat hay, with little or no income. I am still trying to decide if 2017 is the year for bees or not. I really want bees. The problem is that a bee setup cost around $500.00. I'm not sure if I am ready to invest that much of my hobby farm money for something that will not give an immediate return.

Cons of Getting Bees in 2017:
1. Less time to prepare and learn about bees. If I wait until 2018, I will have a whole year (and plenty of hobby farm money) to buy/read books about bees, visit bee farms and possibly attend a class or two.

2. Less time to shop around for deals and/or DIY some of the equipment. I know that Hubs could build some of the boxes, which would save money. I'm sure there are other ways to save on individual supplies as opposed to buying a kit. If I got bees this year, I would just buy a kit.

3. More cushion in the budget. At the end of 2017, I will have a larger chunk of "investment money". This means that I could use 100% "farm money" to pay for the bees (and still have extra left) instead of subsidizing the bees with our personal money*.

Pros of Getting Bees in 2017:
1. The earlier I get bees, the faster I will get honey... for a long time. After the initial investment of equipment, the bees will support themselves and not require more money (unless they die, but replacement bees are nowhere near $500.00).

2. I don't plan on getting more animals this year. That means I'll have more time to dedicate toward the bees. Who knows what could happen if I waited that might prevent me from having the time to do bees?

3. I just really want bees. Sometimes the best way to learn something is to jump in and do it. If you keep making excuses, "educating yourself" and whining about lack of funds, you end up never doing it.

*Note: money is not tight for us, so I could easily afford to get the bees. It's just the principles of frugality and a hobby farm supporting itself that I like to uphold.

What do you think? What would you do if you were in my shoes? 

1. Line dried 2 loads of laundry. I tried line-drying indoors for the first time this week. It worked pretty well! The clothes did take longer to dry than they would have outdoors, but on the plus side I didn't have to use the dryer at all. I need to put some hooks in our walls, though, for a more permanent line setup. Currently I am using whatever I can find (this includes a picture frame nail, chin-up bar, and shower curtain rod, among other things) to tie the lines onto.

2. Ate kale and cilantro from the garden. It has been a while since I harvested anything from the garden, which has been mostly dormant for some time now. However, I did find some cilantro out there, and the kale will probably be usable as long as there isn't snow on it. 

3. Dug up gladioli bulbs from the garden and brought them inside for the winter. These are bulbs that I will be able to plant next year for free! I also saved seeds from one of the mini pumpkins I bought as a decoration.

4. Went to the Volunteers of America 50% off sale. It is worth the call to see if your local thrift store has a 50% off day. Ours has a monthly sale. Although it was busier, I thought they still had a lot of items. I bought some books for $0.50 each, as well as two shirts for $1.00 each and a badly needed purse for $2.00. If that weren't enough, I saved the trashbag that the cashier put my stuff in, to reuse for trash. Frugal bonus points!

5. Regrew some green onion tops that I had purchased for Thanksgiving. 

6. Knitted a shower scrubbie out of an old sock. Lately I have been trying to find ways to recycle clothing that is too worn out to use or donate, instead of just throwing it away. In particular, we have a lot of holey socks. Normally I just use these for cleaning, but they have been piling up fast. I discovered a way to cut the sock into one long strip. When you stretch the strip, the knitted fabric curls up and starts to look like yarn. So I knitted it. It took about 45 minutes from cutting up the sock to getting a finished scrubbie (for cleaning the shower... not myself!). I know some of you are thinking I have way too much time on my hands. But think about the possibilities! You could knit an old sock into a new sock!!! ​

Seriously, though, December is a slow month for me and I can afford to do less productive things like re-knitting socks or couponing. It is okay not to be busy all of the time. These days people wear "busy" like a badge of how important they are. We are all trying to out-busy each other, which is kind of dumb.

7. Purchased a wireless speaker on clearance for $12.00. It is one of those small circular bluetooth speakers that can recharge with a USB cable. I use it for listening to podcasts while doing dishes. Previously I had to use my computer, but when the computer is open I usually get sucked into surfing the web or doing other non-productive things. Now I listen to podcasts from the Stitcher app on my phone. I spend 5 minutes adding to my "listen later" list, and then I do housework while all of the podcasts play from start to finish, without me having to stop and find new ones to listen to every half hour.

8. Did some couponing. I am going to do a separate article about couponing at some point, but for now I will just give an overview of some of the things I bought this week.

​Curad bandages: $0.50 (They were supposed to be free, but I only bought one instead of two.)
White Rain shampoo and conditioner: $0.63 each (these would have been cheaper as well, but my coupon malfunctioned)
Head & Shoulders shampoo: $1.79 each (normally we buy cheaper brands, but this one is good for winter use)
Name brand deodorant: $3.00 (this was for me... not as good a deal as last time, but better than full price).

9. Sold a dozen eggs.

10. Used Ebates for some Christmas shopping. 

11. Filled out two McDonalds surveys. If you fill out the survey on a McDonalds receipt (scan the code at the bottom with your phone, then fill out the survey online), the receipt functions as a B1G1 free quarter pounder, valid for the next 30 days. Of course, the truly frugal person would just order from the Dollar Menu. But wait, there is no longer a dollar menu!!

During the same trip, I also used a McDonalds gift card that I purchased on Gift Card Zen for 11% off. So I actually got 11% off AND a B1G1 coupon with our meal. (Note: The first gift card I tried to use at Red Robin didn't work, but GCZ refunded the money and it was not a big deal. I will continue to order gift cards from them in the future.) 

12. Made a wedding card. I used some paper quilling supplies that I already had, as well as a notecard and envelope purchased at Joanns with a coupon ($0.13 for the pair). It took about an hour to do, because my glue had dried up and it took forever to get it to come out of the bottle. Savings were only about $1.00 from what we usually buy (cheap-o Walmart cards or Dollar General), but the quality was much better. Plus I had fun making it. After I made the card I ordered some more quilling supplies and glue on Ebay for $6.00. Thank you, China.

During the months of November and December, my goal has been to acquire more shopping skills. That is, how to shop sales and use discounts, coupons and rebates whenever possible. A few tricks I have learned are 1) buying discount gift cards, 2) using rebate apps, 3) using coupons, and 4) using rebate sites like Ebates. All of these things can save a small percentage almost effortlessly. They are easy, mindless ways to save money on items I will buy anyway. December is a good month to practice shopping skills because we are shopping a lot more than usual.

Swagbucks- A Winter Side Hustle

One last thing I have signed up for is Swagbucks. I signed up for Swagbucks as a teenager, but got tired of using their inferior search engine and switched back to Google after earning one $5.00 gift card.

A few weeks ago, I learned that Swagbucks will reward you for other things besides just using their search engine. You can earn points (swagbucks- 1 SB = $0.01) for answering a daily poll, filling out surveys, entering swagbuck codes or watching movies on "Swagbucks TV".

In the beginning I wasted a lot of time trying to fill out surveys. I would spend five or ten minutes filling out a survey, and then a screen would pop up that said, "Sorry, you did not qualify to answer this survey. Here is 1 SB for trying." Let's see, $0.01 for five minutes of my time... that means I was "earning" $0.12 per hour for answering surveys. FAIL!!

Now I have a daily system for earning swagbucks. Usually I can earn at least $0.25 per day, if not more. First I answer the daily poll ($0.01). Then I open up a new window and start playing videos on their website. Of course I turn the volume down on the computer, then do other stuff. Watching random videos is a complete waste of time. However, if I can earn money by leaving my computer open, I will do that. If I am working on the internet with other tabs open, sometimes the videos will stop or not run fast. However, I can still work on Microsoft Word, Excel, or other non-internet programs while the videos run. I try to pick video playlists that are under 30 minutes and earn 3 SB (the maximum for video playlists). If I walk by the computer and see that a list has finished playing, I find another video playlist to run. I will do this until I reach the "daily goal", which is usually 40 SBs. If I want to earn even more, I run videos on my phone using the Swagbucks TV phone app. I only do this when I'm not using my phone for anything else though (like podcasts or couponing!).

In the summer, my little side hustle is collecting beer cans alongside the road and recycling them. During the winter, though, I collect precious few cans. Swagbucks is a nice alternative to collecting cans.

What frugal things did you do this week?