​2. Garden: Harvested strawberries, thyme, lettuce and lavender. I am SO excited about my lavender plant finally producing blooms! I started the plant from seed last year, but it was so small that I didn't have much hope for a harvest anytime soon. This year it is full size and producing lots of blooms. I've been harvesting them every few days and drying them to make lavender sachets out of.

​Growing lavender has been one of my homestead dreams for several years now. Even though it takes more time, I've chosen to grow the lavender from seed instead of buying plants. I bought one plant last year for $4.00, and it died over the winter. This year I decided not to buy any plants and just do it the frugal way by starting from seed. Unfortunately my germination and survival rate for seedlings is not awesome, but I did manage to get three baby plants into the garden and only one of them died. If both of the other plants survive, it's an $8.00 value and that was just using the lavender seeds I had from last year.

3. Earned $60.00 picking strawberries for the neighbor lady. I won't lie; getting up at 6:00 or earlier and picking for 3+ hours each morning Monday-Friday wasn't exactly fun. BUT I wanted some experience for my own patch next year, plus I earned enough money to pay for my new strawberry plants.

Another thing I did for my strawberry patch this week was set up a sprinkler system. It cost over $40.00, but I trust it will pay for itself next year by providing an increase in berries.

4. Cooking: Cut up and froze the free onions I was given (see grocery haul). I also made cheese, yogurt and Greek yogurt, and froze some of our surplus eggs. There are several ways you can freeze eggs. I froze my yolks and whites separately, but you can also mix them together and freeze in ice cube containers (1-egg portions).

Some meals we had this week were tacos, salad, baked potatoes, salad, leftovers and more salad. We also went to a contractor's lunch at Menards and ate for free there. They were giving out free T-shirts, so I picked up a large one to re-cut into a fitted T-shirt for myself (Youtube tutorial forthcoming!). Dinners were pretty sketchy this week because we were gone every night to a local church camp meeting/ revival services. Usually when we have somewhere to go at night, Hubs tends to wait until the very last minute to come home from work and ends up skipping dinner. This happens mostly during the "busy season"- thankfully not all year long. Of course it doesn't give much incentive for me to make/eat a real meal. Instead we just had cheese and grapes or whatever grab-and-go food I could come up with.

5. On Saturday we went to one of my favorite places here in MI- Greenfield Village!! Even though it wasn't frugal, I thought I'd share anyway. For those who aren't familiar, the village is a living history museum started by Henry Ford in the 1930's (it's affiliated with the Henry Ford Museum, also in Dearborn). Below are some fuzzy pictures I took with my phone. Too bad the lighting wasn't better in some of them.

​One of the reasons I LOVE Greenfield Village (or history museums in general) is because I can collect new ideas to implement here at home. Even though I appreciate technology and modern advancements, sometimes the old-fashioned way of doing things is more economical, efficient and healthful. A lot of ideas have been lost over years and centuries. My husband took a picture of one of the Firestone Farm wooden gates so we can make a similar closure at home. We have pallet gates, so this particular closure will work well.

​One of my favorite sites at the village is Daggett Farm. It's a home from the 1740s that portrays farm life of that time. Unlike the modern system of purchasing whatever we need and paying for it with a salary, people living in pre-industrial times had to make their own stuff. The Daggett home had a garden in back that not only produced food, but also medicines, plant dyes, and other useful things from plants. Inside, there was a giant spinning wheel with some homespun yarn on display. The Daggetts weren't rich, so they owned a "junk breed" or mixed breed of sheep that would have produced meat and wool. Today we have money to buy whatever animals, medicines and food we want, but back in the day they just made do with what they had. Visiting the farm inspired me to expand my garden and look for more ways to have my little homestead provide value.

Some other sites I really enjoyed visiting were Dr. Howard's office (full of herbal and plant-based medicines!) and the Hermitage slave quarters. One of the slave cabins is just an empty building with a bench in the middle and quotes/photos on the wall, but the other cabin is furnished. Slaves from the second cabin worked within the "task system" which meant that after 8-10 hours of work they could do what they wanted. I really enjoyed seeing examples of baskets, instruments and other handcrafts.

The last of my favorite sites for this visit was the Mattox home. Even though the house itself was built in the 1880s, the interior looks like it would have during the Great Depression. The staff member there described how the Mattox family would have practiced subsistence farming and made as much of their own stuff as possible because money was tight. I thought it was interesting that the family had a vineyard out back and sold wine to make extra money. This was probably extra lucrative during the prohibition years, which overlapped a bit with the Great Depression.

So that was our fun Saturday! Like I said, our visit wasn't particularly frugal. We paid full price for tickets, bought the ride pass, and ate lunch at the historic Eagle Tavern restaurant. And bought TWO frozen custards each! Travel isn't really something we economize on, but tourists on a budget could easily save money by finding cheaper tickets, buying a membership (for large families), forgoing the ride pass and bringing a sack lunch. 

So, that was it for frugal accomplishments. As fun as our week was, I'm looking forward to some more time at home. 


Youtube Videos:
I put up three Youtube videos this week:

 Fresh Lettuce Prep & Storage 
Thursday #2: Chicken Salad Wraps (part of my Weekly Menu playlist) 
Aldi Grocery Haul: $19.94 

How was your week?
-Bethany

​2. Garden: used free grass clippings to mulch the garden. This week I harvested strawberries, lettuce, and cilantro. I spent a lot of time out there weeding. Right now the lettuce is in full swing, so we will probably be having a LOT of salad this next week.

3. Cooking: made cheese, yogurt, Greek yogurt, butter and ice cream. It was a dairy kind of week. Most of our meals were variations on salad and leftovers (I pretty much cleaned out my leftovers stash in the freezer).

4. Clipped some coupons from newspaper ads.

5. Went to garage sales and spent $8.55. Some of the things I got were clothing for myself and kitchen items. I have a haul video with all of the specifics here.

6. Resized a t-shirt to fit myself.

7. FRUGAL FAIL: Farmers market. This week I tried selling at a Thursday night market instead of my regular Saturday morning market. I spent pretty much ALL of Thursday baking and/or selling, and ended up losing $4.75 after costs. This was my last scheduled market of the year, thank goodness. I can usually make $30.00 or $40.00 at a Saturday morning market, but the Thursday booth cost more and I sold less than half of what I normally do. It was a complete waste of a day for me. 

I am happy to be done with farmers markets for the year (most likely). I will be able to focus a lot more on my soap making, strawberry patch, writing and homemaking. 


Youtube Videos:

I put up FIVE (!) videos over the last week:

Wednesday #2: Spaghetti (our lunch meal for Wednesday)
Instant Pot: Boiled Eggs, Bone Broth and Rice (food prep in the IP)
Eat for $10 a Week: Couponing
Kroger/Couponing Grocery Haul: $12.42
Garage Sale Haul: $8.55 

Well, that's it for my frugal week!

Til next time,
-Bethany

1. Garden: harvested lettuce, strawberries, thyme and raspberry leaf from the garden. I dried the herbs in my oven to use for tea and spices. We have a gas oven, so I don't actually have to heat up the oven in order to dry herbs. The pilot light will provide enough heat. This saves money because I don't have to use the dehydrator.

2. Shopping: I went shopping at Aldi this week and spent $10.76. You can watch my haul below:

3. Sold one book on Amazon and earned $1.34. I expected the earnings to be higher since it was a $5.00 book, but alas. I need to look for another place to sell used books. Any ideas?

4. Made another Goodwill donation. If feels so good to get rid of things we don't need! I also listed some items on Ebay, so hopefully those will sell.

5. Made yogurt, Greek yogurt and cheese.

6. Line dried two loads of laundry.

7. Made a new batch of oatmeal lavender soap! I got to use my new soap mold (Bulk Apothecary) and wavy soap cutter (garage sale). Both of them made the process so much easier and faster. I also melted/rendered almost all of my fat collections into single-batch-sized blocks. "My fat collection" sounds really weird, but I save little scraps and bits of fat in the freezer. Then I melt these scraps down and use them half and half with olive oil to make goat's milk soap. If I can use free fat and free goat's milk for soap, it means my only costs are the olive oil (cheap enough at Walmart), lye and essential oils. Selling one bar of soap will pay for a whole batch (10 bars), and the rest of the profit from each batch is mine to keep. 

My previous recipe was not quite enough for the new mold, so the bars turned out short (I made them wide to compensate, though!). The ugliest bars I'll use for around the house, but the better looking bars can be sold or given as gifts.

8. Menu Planning: Some meals we had this week were spaghetti, leftover chili, fettuccine alfredo, hash, chicken salad wraps, turkey/swiss sandwiches and turkey noodle soup. If you'd like to see HOW I make some of these meals, be sure to check out my Weekly Menu playlist on Youtube. Every week I plan meals according to the same basic menu (pizza, tacos, rice, sandwiches, etc.). As seasons and sales fluctuate, I do variations on those basic meals. Currently I have Monday-Friday dinner videos up, but this week I am going to start adding lunch videos.

Normally I give a little introduction to each meal and show each ingredient, where I got it and how much it costs. These are NOT difficult meals to make. Most of them are made in my Instant Pot, but you can also use the oven, stovetop or crock pot. I use the Instant Pot because it is fast, easy, saves money on electricity/propane, and it also makes for easy cleanup.

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YouTube Videos

I had time to edit three new videos this week. One was my grocery haul (of course) but I also did a library "haul"; a condensed book review of three books that I checked out at the library. Two of the books were good, and one of them was not. Lastly, I made a farmers market video about the stuff I sell at farmers market and how I package it. 

Aldi Haul: $10.76
Library Haul: Tidying Up & Orchids
Selling at a Farmers Market: Products & Packaging

So that's about it for my week. What were some of your frugal projects?

​2. Bought some badly-needed clothing items at the local Volunteers of America 50% off sale. VOA has a 50% off sale on the last Tuesday of every month, so I try to put off buying clothes and household items until then. I spent $6.34 on two shirts and two pairs of jeans, plus $0.30 on a book. 

3. Garden: harvested peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, lettuce, and ONE fresh strawberry from the garden! During my massive Aldi/Walmart/VOA shopping trip, I also stopped at a local greenhouse and bought $10.31 worth of pepper and cucumber plants. I love to start seeds, but this year it just didn't happen for the peppers. The pepper plants cost $0.45 each, so I know that if each plant bears just one pepper, it will have paid for itself. I only bought four cucumber plants, and those were just $0.34 each (again, one cucumber per plant and they will pay for themselves). I should have started my cucumbers from seed, but I forgot to buy the seeds. Last year my little seedlings got eaten by bugs, so I thought it would be a good idea to start with bigger, hardy plants. At least maybe I'll get some cucumbers from them!

Some people have an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to gardening. If they can't plant a big row garden, and start all of their own seeds, then they just won't grow anything at all. I think this is very silly. Every item you grow yourself will save money over buying it at the store/farmers market. Even if you buy transplants from a nursery like I did.

In addition to the seedlings, I also planted the last of my sweet corn seeds in a pot on my porch. This is a little experiment I'm doing for the benefit of all you city folks. My lettuce has done AMAZING in the porch pot. I'm excited to see how much money there is to be saved with my sweet corn porch pot. Like I said before, gardening is not an all-or-nothing venture. Every plant you grow has the potential to save a few dollars. Even people with just a balcony can save a few dollars gardening in porch pots. 

4. Line dried three loads of laundry.

5. Butchered a rooster. It kept attacking me, so... we ate chicken this week.

5. Made cheese, yogurt and Greek yogurt.

6. Collected cans to recycle while I went on walks.

7. Used a $1.00 off coupon on our weekly date night.

8. Sold three dozen eggs.

Some meals we had this week were tacos, chicken salad, chicken soup, cheesy rice/broccoli dish with coleslaw, baked potatoes, and venison roast. And of course, leftovers. I still have a lot of the cabbage left from two weeks ago, so we will probably have coleslaw again and I might try to do something else with the cabbage. Any ideas?

*************

Youtube Videos:

I uploaded four videos this week.

Selling at a Farmers Market: My Story (first of my farmers market playlist)
DIY Milk Processing at Home
Friday: Pizza (part of my weekly menu series)
Aldi/Walmart Grocery Haul: $25.27

Well, that's all folks! How did you do this week?

Hi everyone! We had a beautiful Memorial Day weekend. Below are some of my frugal accomplishments for last week.

1. Shopping: I went shopping at Walmart this week (see haul video below). We also bought some Chex Mix to take to a potluck for $2.00. I walked up to the cash register with two bags of off-brand mix for $2.19 each, but then the cashier pointed out the brand name kind, which was on sale for $0.99 per bag. Yay! Total spending for groceries this week was $12.53.

​2. Made cheese.

3. Line dried one load of laundry. I tried for two loads, but it started raining and I had to bring the second load back in wetter than they went out. :(

4. Clipped some restaurant coupons from the local newspaper, and used some others over the weekend as well.

5. Donated some stuff to Goodwill. This was my biggest "Aha!" frugal accomplishment of the week. Of course I have donated things before, but this time Hubs and I asked for a receipt. I didn't know it, but if you itemize your tax deductions (instead of taking the standard deduction) you can write off donations of physical stuff. This is Goodwill's suggested value of different items:

Whoa! Our donation last week was mostly books, so we figured $1.00 per book. I also donated a garbage bag full of different clothing items and miscellaneous household stuff. The books alone will give us a write off of at least $75.00. If you figure a 10% tax savings (it's probably higher than that... I'm just being conservative) then my book decluttering will save us $7.50 in taxes this year. It's not a lot, but it does put a monetary value on decluttering. We can donate up to $500.00 worth of stuff without getting a special IRS form, so that is going to be my goal for this year.

Note: Most people don't itemize their tax deductions (around 75% just take standard deductions) but I thought I'd throw this little nugget out there for those of you who do. It's worth asking your accountant about if you have a mortgage, high medical expenses, or if you do a lot of charitable giving (at least that's what Youtube says! We just do what our accountant says). Hubs and I pay more in taxes than all of our other living expenses combined, so we're always on the lookout for new ways to save on that line item.

6. Collected cans to recycle while on various walks.

7. Earned $30.99 at the farmers market. 

Youtube Videos:
Due to the holiday weekend, farmers market and general busyness, I only got around to uploading three videos this week.

Walmart Haul: $10.55 (shown above)
Three FRUGAL Ways to Grow Lettuce
Eat for $10 a Week: Inside My Pantry

What were some frugal things you did this week (or weekend)?

 1. Shopping: This week was relatively no-spend when it it came to groceries. I did spend $4.95 on Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce, which was on sale for $0.99 per bottle! This is one of the very FEW brand name items we buy, so I stocked up and bought enough bottles to last until the expiration date.

We also spent about $15.00 on snacks for a special trip this week. I'd consider that more "eating out" than real groceries (prevented us from eating at gas stations & restaurants!) but... just throwing it out there.

2. Line dried two loads of laundry.

3. Checked out three books from the library. Hoping to do a "library haul"/book review video when I've finished reading them. Two down, one to go.

4. Made yogurt, Greek yogurt and cheese.

5. Harvested lettuce, cilantro and asparagus from the garden. Also planted some more lettuce, onions, summer squash and flower/herb seeds in the garden. I also started pre-soaking/sprouting my sweet corn seeds to plant later this week.

6. Collected cans on various walks.

7. Saved $$ on admission tickets and parking to Cedar Point. We were scheduled to go on a group trip last week, but I delayed purchasing tickets until the last minute. I knew I wouldn't be able to go on most of the rides, but figured there would at least be shows to watch and other things to do. Good thing I didn't buy any tickets! The night before, I went to the website and found out that almost NONE of the shows would be running the next day!

We decided to still go down with the group (Hubs had offered to drive), but skip out on Cedar Point and find something else to do in the area instead. On the way into the park, Hubs went through the "bus" entrance (we had a 16-passenger van, so weren't sure which lane to take) and since we had more than ten people, parking was free! That saved $20.00 right off the bat. We dropped everyone off, then took the 30 minute drive to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential library/museum and home. Admission was $12.00/person- MUCH less than the $52.00/person we would have spent to ride the roller coasters. We had already been to the home, but Hubs' mom was with us and it was her first time going.

After lunch, we realized that Hubs' bus parking receipt included a free park pass for the driver (you have to show your CDL at the gate, so it doesn't apply to just anyone driving a van). Hubs decided to use the ticket and ride some of the coasters, while I stayed in the van and finished my library book. Honestly, I preferred to stay in the van because it was unfortunately cold and rainy that day. :( The park kept closing down certain rides because of the weather, and lines were so long that our group averaged about one ride per hour. Hubs got two rides in, and then came back to the van soaking wet.

It was a long day, but we ended up spending less than $40.00 (museum/house & snacks) on a day that could have easily cost $150.00 had we chosen to buy park tickets and restaurant/park food.

So, note to all: if you are going to Cedar Point and taking more than 10 people, you can get FREE parking. If your driver (or someone else in your group) has a CDL, you can use the bus receipt to get that person a free ticket. 

8. Decluttered my books. Inspired by one of my library books (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up), I decided to clean out my book collection and ended up discarding over 75 books that I've accumulated over the past 10+ years. A few were worth some money, so I listed them on Amazon. The rest were not worth selling, so I will just donate them. 

****

With the day trip and a full weekend, I only had time to upload one video on Youtube:

BeanTalk #2: Prioritize Consumer Spending

The BeanTalk series is my attempt to discuss personal finance using some mason jars and navy beans. This week I talked about what budget categories we have cut to the bare minimum, and which categories Hubs and I splurge on. These videos take a little longer because I'm not just showing people what I got at Kroger. Oftentimes I say something and then think, "Wait a minute, that's not what I'm really trying to say," so there is a LOT of editing that goes on after the fact. I'm thinking these videos might end up being once a month, rather than once a week!

How was your week? Do you find yourself more busy in the springtime like I do?

​1. Line dried two loads of laundry.

2. Collected cans to recycle on various walks this week.

3. Made cheese, yogurt, Greek yogurt, and bone broth. I also cooked the last one of our Thanksgiving sale turkeys this week. We ate some of it for dinner, and I put the rest in the freezer and made bone broth with the carcass.

4. Shopping: We went to Aldi for groceries this week. I bought mostly regular "staple" items, some of which were on sale. Later in the week we stopped at Kroger to pick up two Free Friday deals (a candy bar and specialty yogurt). When I got home, I used a $0.25 rebate on the free stuff, which brought total grocery spending down to $22.74. You can watch my Aldi haul below:

Some meals we had this week were taco soup, potato/corn chowder, hash, fajitas, chicken noodle soup, turkey/mashed potatoes and turkey wraps. And probably some leftovers... that's all I wrote down!

5. Planted strawberries and collected grass clippings to use for mulch. Harvested lettuce, cilantro and asparagus from the garden.

6. Made bag balm (udder butter... basically a salve) for my goat with ingredients that I had already on hand. A tin of the stuff costs $7.00 or so, which made homemade a real savings for my hobby farm.

7. Picked up a free tomato cage and free strawberry boxes. A nearby town had their annual "junk days" this week, so I was able to pick through some of the piles beside the street. I will use the tomato cage in my garden, and use the strawberry boxes to sell berries at the farmers market.

8. Listened to free podcasts/Youtube videos while I worked. I also read and took notes from some books I ordered from the library.

Some Youtube videos I made this week were: 

Perennials for a Cheaper, Easier Garden
Weekly Grocery Haul (see above)
Wednesday: Date Night! (part of my dinner menu series)
Groceries from the Garden (Eat for $10 a Week, part 3)
How to Make Cheese EASY

As a housewife, I realize that it is easier to "read" content by listening to Youtube videos on my phone while I do dishes. Or garden work. Or cleaning. In addition, some of the content I have on the blog (tutorials, for example) are just better conveyed in a video than a blog post.

Slowly, I am putting a lot of content from my blog onto my Youtube channel. This easier for me than taking pictures plus writing and editing a post, even though it's been a crash course in videography with cheap equipment, poor lighting and background noise. That's what it will have to be, for now! If you have any suggestions for my videos, please let me know.

Til next time,
Bethany

​It was a cold, rainy week in our corner of the world. Most of my activities this week revolved around inside stuff: writing/blogging, Youtube videos, reading, cleaning, and the new venture I wrote about last week (I talked about this in my last email newsletter... you ARE a subscriber, aren't you?). However, I did manage a few thrifty things last week. 

1. Shopping: All I bought was a container of sour cream for $1.25. Other than that, it was a no-spend week in terms of groceries.

2. Made egg noodles. I took all of my duck eggs from the past several weeks and made egg noodles with them. Duck eggs have HUGE yolks, so they are great for making noodles with.

3. Went to a "free" church rummage sale and got some strawberry boxes, clothing, an apron, a silicone ice cube tray (yay, one that won't crack!), books, and a tiny ceramic turkey to use with my Thanksgiving decor.

This month I came in under budget by just $2.09! As much as I love grocery shopping and doing hauls, April was kind of close for me. In May I would like to save up some of the budget for bulk buying. The next few months will be very busy for both of us, so I will probably pull a few no-spend weeks or lay off on the sale shopping for a bit.

2. Line dried two loads of laundry.

3. Garden: harvested lettuce and asparagus this week! Planted onions, lettuce, carrots and mangel beets (thanks to the reader who suggested the mangels!). I also bought some liatris corms at Tractor Supply for $5.00 and planted them in the garden with some landscaping fabric. We tilled up the "market garden" half of last year's garden, but I will not be planting the entire thing. Instead, I might do a few rows of flowers or perennials using landscape fabric as weed control. The rest will be planted in a green manure or cover crop, just so the whole thing isn't covered in weeds next year. My plan is to gradually add a row or two of perennials each year until the whole thing is full and growing relatively maintenance-free every year.

In addition to planting, I also collected several wheelbarrows full of grass clippings to use as mulch. I used this to mulch the strawberries, delphiniums, kale, and some of my raised beds. The rest is in a pile, and I will use that to mulch other plants when they start to germinate. In addition to mulching, I also moved some chicken manure up to the garden compost pile to rot. About half the manure went into my still-being-developed raised beds for sheet composting.

Last year, we started just weed whacking between my raised beds instead of weeding or laying down plastic or mulch. It makes the beds look GREAT, and only takes five minutes every other week or so during the summer. Really no different than mowing the lawn. This year I am going to do the same thing with my row garden crops. Anything that isn't mulched is just going to be weed whacked (that is, between the rows). I just don't have time to weed walkway paths, and the mowed grass look is attractive, in my opinion.

4. Collected cans while walking. We also recycled my growing stash of cans this week and earned $11.10!

5. Redeemed $20.00 of Ibotta money for an Amazon gift certificate. I've been working on that $20.00 for about five months now! My average weekly rebate money was $1.00 per week, but in reality it was more like one $0.25 rebate per week plus one big rebate ($3.00-$5.00) per month. If you're looking for quick ways to get more Ibotta rebates, use the restaurant or department/craft store rebates. Like any coupon or rebate, make sure the purchase is one you would have made anyway. I used two craft store rebates on fabric to reupholster our RV cushions, and used a couple for restaurants on our weekly date nights.

6. Went to more garage sales! I spent about $20.00 and bought many needed items and also some cool stuff that I didn't really need. I also found some free tomato cages for the garden!! I am hoping to get up a garage sale haul/philosophy video on Youtube to talk a little more about what I bought and my approach to saving money at garage sales.

7. Made cheese, yogurt, and bone broth. Some of our meals this week were carrot/broccoli stir fry, ham & potato soup, quiche, tacos, chicken noodle soup, pizza, chili and leftovers. I've started a little meal series on Youtube explaining what we have for dinner on each night of the week. Last week I featured Monday's meal; explained how and where I got the ingredients, and how to make the meal. Those of you who watch my hauls might wonder how I came up with a variety of healthy meals if I spent all of my grocery money this week on cheese, a tomato, two boxes of mac 'n' cheese and a bag of candy.

I explain more about this shopping method in my book. It's a "feast or famine" type of grocery shopping. Instead of buying five items at retail price and one item on sale, I buy six things on sale. Then when I get home, my "item of the week" is put in the pantry or freezer and I use it up little by little, over the course of weeks or months, until it is gone. It's probably possible to eat for $10.00 per week (or your state's equivalent) buying everything full price, but it would be a SUPER boring menu with just rice and beans all the time. Hubs and I eat meat, cheese, and produce every day!

People seem to think that feeding two people for $20.00 per week is some sadistic type of deprivation. It's not. It's extremely systematic, and once you get the "system" down, sliding in under budget is an act of creativity and competition with yourself. For me, it's a game that is super, super fun. 

Some other things I try to highlight in my hauls are using coupons, rebates and free stuff to buy high value items that would otherwise be unaffordable. You might also be interested in part two of my "Eat for $10.00 per Week" video series. It's about extracting even MORE value from your $10.00 worth of meat, grains, milk, and produce every week.

8. One last thing... the toilet is finally flushing again! Last week I was cleaning the bathroom, and accidentally knocked an eyeliner pencil into the toilet. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but I had finished swishing the inside, and was in the process of flushing all the gunk down. The pencil went down the hole before I even had a chance to fish it out. Oh bummer. I thought for sure we would have to take the toilet apart in order to get it working properly. Hubs thought the pencil might "break down" in there. I had my doubts.

We spent the week plunging to assist every flush. Sometimes it took several flushes and plunges to get you-know-what down. I used a lot of homemade toilet spray. Oh dear! You never know what you have until it's gone. Or rather, you never know what you DON'T have until it sits there all day.

On Friday, Hubs had an idea. "Do you have any lye?" he asked.

"Of course I have lye! I'm a soap maker," I said. He dumped a bunch of it down the toilet, and we resumed our activities for the evening. The next morning we celebrated our first unassisted flush in a whole week. I can't tell you what a joy it is to watch all of the contents go down like they are supposed to. YAY FOR LYE DRAIN CLEANER!!!

Perhaps that was all a little TMI for some of you, but I share the story to help out fellow flushers who might be in need. It could have saved us a week of plunging.

Til next time,
-Bethany

1. Shopping: I spent $22.44 this week on groceries. This was a little over budget for us (we do $10/person/week) but HAM was on sale! You can watch my Kroger haul below, and my Walmart haul here. ​

This week I spent almost as much money at Walmart, even though I got fewer items. That's because I shopped at Walmart for items that I "needed". Conventional wisdom is to always shop with a list. I don't make my list based around a meal plan or what we are going to use in the next week, like most people do. Instead, I make a list of what will be the best value at the store each week for my $20.00. I always spend more money on items that I urgently need, because I don't have time to wait for sales and coupons with those. 

I have been working a little harder at Kroger eCouponing (is that a thing?) but it's difficult because I have to "clip" the coupons on my phone, then write all of those coupons down, and then match my coupon list (with expiration dates) to sales. This week I saved $0.70 with eCoupons, and got two free items with additional eCoupons. These coupons were for vegetables, cream cheese, salsa, and a sugar-free/grain-free snack bar. Coupons are not just for junk food!

Note: I uploaded my videos without music this week. Sorry about the furnace going in the background! 

2. Sold two bars of soap and seven dozen eggs. My husband actually sold most of this to HIS customers! I think he is a better salesman than I am. :) It is so nice to have some hobby farm income again.

3. Made yogurt. I also used my discount ham to make ham broth for future meals. It was really easy to do- I just put the ham bone, some chicken feet, water and apple cider vinegar in the Instant Pot and let it do its thing.

4. FREE LIMES! My mom brought over three bags of limes to share with me. Over the weekend we had two potlucks, so I used some of the limes to make key lime pie. I am looking forward to finding uses for other two+ bags. What is your favorite way to use limes?

5. Scavenged a graham cracker crust. I was going to buy graham crackers, or a pre-made graham cracker crust for my key lime pie, but instead I used the crust from a boxed cheesecake mix that I had.

6. Collected cans. I have been trying to walk at least a mile every day for health reasons. This has been pretty profitable in terms of cans. If I vary my route, I can get at least two or three cans (worth $0.10 each). One day I walked two miles and came home with at least $1.00 worth! It doesn't sound like a lot, but 3 cans x 5 days = $1.50 per week. I think most weeks I can get more than that, especially if mix things up with a 3-4 mile bike ride here and there. 

7. Modified a piece of clothing to make it last longer.

8. Watched a show on Netflix. For the past few weeks we have been watching "The Great British Bake Show". The first season was excellent! The show is very clean, educational, but still fun to watch because of the competitive nature. The second season has been less interesting (I feel like they were not as picky about their contestants), but still fun to watch.

I think that is about it for the week! What were some of your frugal accomplishments?