1. Shopping: We went to Aldi this week and spent $24.64 after a $0.50 discount from returned bottles and a $0.25 Ibotta rebate. I did make a haul for Youtube, but haven't got it edited yet. So you will all have to be satisfied with a picture:

Some meals we had this week were macaroni and cheese, scrambled egg burritos, ham and cheese sandwiches, taco bowls, leftovers and more leftovers. Hubs was gone for three lunches this week so I just had smoothies or eggs for those meals. We also did a fair amount of potlucks and eating out this week. 

2. Garden: harvested bell peppers, cucumbers and herbs from the garden. We might have been eating sweet corn right now, had the raccoons not gotten in and decimated my patch. After this incident we put up a short electric fence around the corn, but one night it got turned off and they got in again. Thankfully there are still a few ears left, but I'm still waiting for them to grow to full size.

As a side note, I also picked some wild elderberries to make cough syrup with.

3. Cooking: this week I canned nine pints of dill pickles and two pints of plums. Our plum tree was badly rotted in the center, and a strong wind blew it over last week. Thankfully the plums were almost ripe, so I picked them and brought them inside to ripen gradually. This week I will probably can or freeze the rest of them. Apart from the canning, I also made cheese and popsicles with leftover smoothie "batter".

4. Collected cans on various walks. 

5. I bought a tank top and pair of bed sheets (needed for a project) at our local thrift store. The shirt was $1.50 (50% off) and the sheets were $6.00. Usually I don't shop at our local thrift store because it's expensive. However, I had JUST purchased a brand new set of sheets at Walmart for $25.00 when the thought occurred to me that I could get away with using thrift store sheets. Even though they weren't half off, the used sheets saved me $19.00. Normally I would never spend $1.50 on a used tank top either, but it was a specialty shirt that I will use heavily for the next couple months. ;)

6. I did a lot of organizing and de-cluttering last week. Isn't it amazing how cleaning will reveal treasures that you didn't know you had? One of the tasks on my to-do list was to clean out my herb collection. I found over 36 medicinal herbs (dried), several tinctures and a salve. Most of these were homegrown, foraged or otherwise made by me for pennies on the dollar. I moved them from a high, hard-to-reach cupboard down to a more easy-to-access one. Some of the older herbs I replaced with new herbs of the same variety. There were enough extras of some herbs to start a separate collection for animal use. My goal for this project was to make the herbs more accessible and usable, which I think was accomplished.

Mixed in with my herbs were a ton of non-medicinal loose-leaf teas that I had forgotten about. Yay! I will really enjoy those this winter, now that I'm aware of their presence. I also found an envelope with cash in it that we had saved for a previous vacation. THAT'S an exciting find.

6. Downloaded some free audio books from Amazon. If you are homeschooling or enjoy classic (out-of-copyright) fiction, you can almost always download the free ebook on Amazon. For those who don't know, you can get a free Kindle app for your phone or device, and then read the book from there instead of buying a Kindle.

Amazon is the parent company of Audible, producer of audio books. I love audio books because they save me a massive amount of time. I can "read" while I'm on my daily walk, doing animal chores, gardening, cleaning or washing dishes. The only problem: even though the Audible app is free, most of their high-quality audio books are VERY expensive- like, $15.00 or more per book. However, if you "buy" a free classic fiction ebook on Amazon, sometimes you can order the audio version between $0.00 and $2.99 as an add-on purchase. 

The books I downloaded to my phone were Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, and The Man Who Knew Too Much by G.K. Chesterton. Both are fiction works. I may or may not listen to the first (after reading the description I realized I had already seen a movie of the story), but I really like Chesterton's non-fiction and am interested to see what his fiction is like. The Man Who Knew Too Much is a collection of eight detective short stories, with a total listening time of six hours. For productivity reasons I favor non-fiction over fiction, but I feel like there is less time wasted with audio books because I can do something with my hands while listening to the story.

Note: obviously if an audio book is not free on Amazon/Audible, you can most likely borrow it for free from your local library. Several weeks ago I figured out how to put CD audio books onto my phone, but it does take a lot more time and you don't get to keep the book.

7. Lastly, I sold three dozen eggs and three bars of soap. This will help a LOT with my hobby farm expenses.

​
YouTube Videos:

I only uploaded two videos this week.

1. Amazon Unboxing (a "haul" of some non-food items I ordered!)
2. How to Make Dill Pickles

The longer I put up Youtube videos, the more I realize what people will actually watch. There is far less interest in DIY or tutorial videos than there is for "here's what I bought" videos.

Because of this strange phenomenon, I've decided to start doing Amazon hauls (infrequent as they are) along with the grocery store and garage sale hauls. Most of my Amazon purchases are well thought out, researched and "slept on"- sometimes for months- before I actually buy. I explain my Amazon rules in the video, as well as my thoughts on Amazon Prime.

For those of you who are interested, I've set up an affiliate links page for my Amazon purchases. If you like the same things that I do, and you're interested in passively supporting my blog/Youtube channel, buy through those links! Another way you can support my work is by purchasing my books and leaving a review on Amazon. I'm not desperate for money, but I AM desperate for reviews! So if you have already purchased/downloaded a book, thank you SO MUCH and I would really appreciate it if you could leave an honest review for other future readers.

Til next time,
​-Bethany

Hooray for another awesome week of frugality!
​
1. Shopping: This week I went to our local Spartan Nash "village" store for couponing. You can see a picture of that haul below my Youtube video. I passed up several coupon deals because they were still too expensive to be worth buying (this is a frugal accomplishment in itself!).

Then we went to the Dollar Tree. I forgot how much I loved the Dollar Tree! You can see what we bought in the video below:

I did end up going to Kroger on Sunday and purchasing some grapes (on sale for $0.88/lb.) and also a can of orange juice concentrate. Total spent on groceries this week was $11.12.

2. Gardening: harvested cucumbers and cut flowers from the garden. I also saved some calendula seeds to plant next year.

3. Cooking: This week was definitely a "cook to pad out the grocery supply" week. I made cheese, bread, mayo and cooked a batch of boiled eggs in my Instant Pot (affiliate link). I also used last week's Free Friday juice and some bulk gelatin powder to make jello snacks. Fun fact: you can still use months-old cabbage if it has started to get mold spots on the outer leaves. Just wash well and cut off the moldy part. The inside will most likely be pristine!

Lastly, I used my new Dollar Tree popsicle molds to make some chocolate/banana popsicles. The molds worked out great, and the recipe wasn't too bad, either. In the end, my recipe was basically a fruit smoothie with cocoa powder, poured into popsicle molds. I really like this idea because it retains the health benefits of smoothies without sacrificing the "treat" quality of ice cream. From here on out, I think I'll just pour half of my regular fruit smoothie into the molds. This will make my smoothie last for five days (one day for liquid smoothie, four days for popsicles) and I'll only have to wash the blender once.

​Some meals we had this week were: bean burritos, leftovers, turkey wraps, tacos, cabbage/sausage/potato hash, grilled potatoes & venison and tomato cheese sandwiches. Wednesday evening was date night, and Tuesday we ate dinner "out" at our local county fair. On Thursday my mom brought over some potluck leftovers and we had those for dinner.

Are You Really Eating for $10.00 per Week if You Eat Out?

I like to be transparent with you guys about how often my husband and I eat out. It's something we really enjoy and can afford to do. However, I can imagine many pointed fingers accusing us of not "really" living on a budget because we eat out. Recently I was browsing a grocery forum where people were sharing their budget. One lady posted a low-ish budget. Another forum member asked if her if she was "supplementing" with takeout a few nights per week- as if she wasn't being honest about their spending. Sometimes people like this are just curious, but other times they are looking for excuses to justify their higher spending ("she only cooks six nights per week and I cook SEVEN!"). Oh dear, mommy wars at their finest. 

Are Hubs and I being two-faced about our grocery spending? The reality is that most of my homemade dinners cost less than $0.75 per person. Breakfasts are far cheaper. If we really couldn't afford to eat out, it would be a simple matter of exchanging restaurant date night with an "extravagant" $3.00-4.00 in-home date night. Some great in-home date night ideas are grilling out (we currently do this every Friday, and it's just as cheap as my other meals!), homemade or frozen pizza, or some other favorite meal.

​By pushing two meals per week out of the "grocery" budget and into the "eating out" budget, we're only shaving a few dollars off of grocery spending. So eating out is NOT how we spend so little on groceries. It has more to do with the things I already mentioned in this post: shopping sales, buying reduced produce, using coupons, gardening and making grocery items like yogurt and popsicles from scratch. As you can see, we aren't even spending the full $20.00 every week, so there would be plenty of grocery money left for an in-home date night and the occasional sack lunch for the road instead of McDonalds.

Many "newbies" at frugality have a simplified idea that cooking meals at home will solve all of their grocery budget problems. They start cooking at home more, but it's a lot of work and they are still spending twice as much as other ladies on the grocery forums. In order to REALLY save, you have to figure out which meals are cheapest for your area, and then find out how to get the cheapest ingredients for those cheapest meals. This is also a lot of work for people who are still learning, but it can reduce the grocery bill by another 25%. Making excuses will lower your grocery bill by approximately 0%.

4. Collected cans to recycle on various walks.

5. Line dried four loads of laundry.

6. Made a shoe organizer for our mud room. The organizer started out as an old (free) TV stand. It's kind of ugly and was inefficient for storing shoes, so we made some grid shelving for the bottom section. This works very well for holding different pairs of shoes as opposed to just having a pile of mismatched shoes shoved in the bottom. I'm also going to put up a little curtain on the front of the TV stand so you can't even see the storage, but that is a picture for another time.

7. Used coupons for toothpaste and toilet paper. These are both items that we prefer to buy name-brand, which make them suitable for couponing. I like Scott toilet paper because I think it gives the most value per roll. A lot of people like thick, paper-towel/kleenex-like toilet paper, but I really don't. In addition to being extremely wasteful,  I don't like the lint fuzz it leaves all over. I can't speak for anyone else, but in my experience I use the same amount of sheets whether the toilet paper is thin or whether it's thick and fluffy. And what's more likely to plug up the toilet? Not Scott. Anyhow, that is my preferred brand and I was able to use a $2.00 off coupon at Walmart, bringing the price down to $0.61 per roll. I marked the date inside the last roll I put out, so now I can estimate how much money we spend per year wiping our tushies*. Because I'm a nerd like that.

Secondly, toothpaste. I could use the el-cheapo $0.88 Aim toothpaste all day long, but Hubs requested that we buy something else. Anything else, as long as it wasn't the el-cheapo stuff. So I used a $1.50 off coupon on a three-pack of Colgate toothpaste, also at Walmart. This brought the price down to $1.02 for an 8 oz. tube, thereby making the Colgate toothpaste CHEAPER than Aim by about $0.03 per oz. Total savings: $0.72 by couponing for toothpaste, while simultaneously fulfilling brand preferences. What a deal.

I think I am going to continue to use coupons for things like toothpaste, toilet paper, deodorant, etc. in order to save money. This will be especially helpful for the name-brand items that we like.

8. Made a table arrangement with (almost) free flowers from the garden. I have been wanting to do this ALL summer and just never got around to it! By a stroke of luck, I had sunflowers, delphinium and bells of Ireland blooming all at the same time, and they made a lovely arrangement. The only thing I paid for was the bells of Ireland seeds ($2.50 for a packet). I plan on saving some of those seeds from this year so next year's plants will be truly free.

9. Cleaned out my bottle collection (I like making sodas and other drinks) from beneath the sink and found some that could be recycled. I added these to the pop cans I collect while on walks.

10. Cut up several pairs of jeans to use for a braided rug.

11. Made laundry soap.

Whew! I think that's it. I had such a fun week making and doing frugal things. 

Til next time,
-Bethany

*Have I heard of reusable toilet paper, AKA "family cloth"? Yes. Will I ever use it? I hope not. 

​Hello everyone! I had a pretty decent week by frugal standards. It's been one of those weeks where your look back and literally can't remember anything you did. Thankfully I have a daily planner where I keep notes on all that happened.

1. Shopping: I spent $4.46 on my Youtube shopping haul (see below). Later in the week we again stopped at Kroger to pick up some Free Friday items that I didn't have time to look for during my first trip. Some of the employees had set up some free photo ops (see picture above!) that we took advantage of. Sometimes the little things make life a whole lot more fun.

​Total spent this week on groceries was $25.53, with the vast majority of that being our last-minute Sunday lunch purchases. Out of those items, we still have two leftover chicken breasts, half the bag of potatoes, a whole container of ice cream and one cantaloupe. 

There are a few ways we could have saved money on our patio dinner. 

1) 50% could have been cut automatically on the meat, had we just used some from our freezer. As it was, the grill idea was spontaneous and we didn't have time to thaw anything out.

I do still plan on buying chicken for grill meals, because my free spent-hen/rooster meat is much more suitable for the Instant Pot or crock pot. However, we paid $1.79/lb. for the chicken breasts, and I know I can get thighs for $0.68/lb. at Walmart. 

2) 30-50% could have been saved on the potatoes by purchasing regular brown potatoes instead of red ones. I wanted to see if the red ones tasted better on the grill. We didn't like the flavor of the grilled red potatoes as much as the peeled, grilled brown potatoes, so that will save money on future grill meals.

As we get more comfortable with the grill, I would like to have some regular "company" meal ideas that I can plan ahead for and fit into our normal grocery budget. Even if I can just do sides and dessert from pantry items, that would be a great start. There are a lot of ways to save when hosting a meal, but many of them get blown to pieces if the meal is a last-minute affair. Planning, even for unexpected things, is so important!

Total grocery spending for the month of July was $38.07. That's less than half of our normal budget, but spending typically drops during the spring and summer months thanks to free milk, eggs, produce and yearly "cleaning out the freezer". I know that the extra $40.00 from July will be spent in November when those fabulous Thanksgiving sales roll around and I purchase large amounts of butter, flour, sugar and other staple pantry items.

2. Garden: harvested cucumbers, calendula and lavender from the garden.

3. Made yogurt.

4. Line-dried one load of laundry.

5. Received an Ebates check in the mail ($31.00) and also returned some recycle-able cans worth $7.90. I really like Ebates (affiliate link) and pop cans because they are literally free money. If you're just buying household items it may take a while for Ebates rebates to add up, but I also try to get rebates whenever I purchase wedding/baby/Christmas gifts. What really adds up? My husband's business purchases. Two weeks ago he wanted me to buy a tool for him on Ebay (he doesn't have an account). It only took 30 seconds for me to go through Ebates before purchasing, and I earned $1.00 for doing so. I am going to try putting an Ebates widget on his office computer and see if my earnings go up at all. :)

6. Collected more cans on various walks. Like using Ebates, it only takes a few extra minutes during every 30 minute walk (that I'm doing anyway) to pick up cans. In MI, most of the pop and alcoholic beverage cans are worth $0.10 each. On an average walk, I can find about five cans. At four walks per week, that's an effortless $8.00 per month that I can earn. Which is pretty cool.

7. Got some free all-natural spa items! I babysat for a friend the other week and she traded me product (she sells Lemongrass Spa stuff) for babysitting.

So, that is really about it for the week. I spent a lot of time weeding strawberries, cleaning house and working on book marketing stuff. The weeding and cleaning hasn't paid off yet, but my book royalty earnings were the largest they've been all year. I'm not ready to give actual numbers, but... I made almost enough in July to buy the new Instant Pot I've been drooling over! 

(Yes, I already have an Instant Pot, and I love it. But my 6-quart model doesn't make yogurt, and the much-wished-for 8-quart one does. Plus, IPs are like crock pots... it never hurts to have an extra one.)

How did you do last week?

​1. Shopping: I didn't do a shopping haul this week. On Sunday we went to Walmart to buy flour, oregano, and some non-food items. We also ended up buying a package of cookie mix. There is a certain type of Hershey's cookie that we sometimes get from the Walmart bakery, and we were wondering if a cookie mix would make the same quantity/quality as the bakery cookies (for $1.00 cheaper!). After an Ibotta rebate ($0.25) the total spent on groceries this week came to $3.50.

​Some meals we had this week were turkey wraps, BLT wraps, ham wraps, leftovers, pasta salad, baked potatoes and some AMAZING venison steaks and potatoes that my husband cooked on the grill. We bought a new grill last week, and it has been a lot of fun to try new cooking projects together.

Hubs was out of town on Friday night to early Saturday morning, so on Thursday I just ate scrambled eggs and leftovers. On Wednesday afternoon I made some cinnamon rolls to send with him on his road trip (this is notable because I NEVER make cinnamon rolls!). 

2. Garden: I harvested raspberries, lavender, calendula, cucumbers, lettuce, and some more green beans from my MIL's garden. I also planted some potatoes that had started sprouting in the kitchen cupboard.

3. We went "out to eat" at Arby's and Subway (date night!) this week. We used a few coupons I had for Arby's. Restaurant eating isn't really frugal, but... did I mention that we spent $3.50 on groceries this week??

I also used a $0.50 off coupon for toothpaste at Walmart.

4. Line dried three loads of laundry.

5. Processed two male ducks. This has been on my to-do list for MONTHS! So happy to have it done.

6. Made ice cream and mayonnaise from scratch. This was my first time making mayonnaise in the Vitamix, and it worked like a charm. I used 100% canola oil this time around, but I think next time I will try mixing in 25% olive oil and see if it affects the flavor.

​DIY Mayo: Worth It?

Is homemade mayo cheaper than store-bought? My recipe cost $0.31 per cup. Bent 'n' dent mayo cost $0.20 per cup ($0.75/jar). Regular off-brand store mayo is similar in cost to homemade... perhaps a tiny bit cheaper.

That being said, homemade mayo has fresh ingredients with no preservatives/additives, and I do think the canola oil is an upgrade from vegetable (aka soybean) oil that is found in most brands of commercially prepared mayo. 

Because we're using so much of it (wraps, pasta/potato/chicken salad, etc.) and because we have extra eggs, I'll continue to do the homemade mayo. However, during autumn I think I'll switch back to store-bought because it has a longer shelf life and we don't use it all that much for winter meals (soups, casseroles, roasts, etc.).

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7. Learned how to transfer CD audio books onto my phone. This is a big deal, because I do almost 100% of listening on my phone. This spring I tried using Audible, and came to the conclusion that it was not worth the money. For most audio books, I would be paying $1.00 per hour to have someone read to me. I can easily burn through 4-5 hours of audio per day, so that was not a sustainable education program. I had some CD audio books lying around, but I hadn't listened to them because I can't take my laptop out to the garden.

Recently I ordered an audio book from our library's interloan system, which was FREE. With Hubs' help, I ripped the audio files onto my computer, and then moved those files onto my phone via USB cable. You can read how to do this here.

I finished the book in three days. Since then, I've found two other garage sale/thrift store CD audio books to put on my phone. I think physical CDs (from the library or garage sales) are going to be a much better deal long-term than using Audible. $15.00 per month will buy a LOT of garage sale CDs and free library audio books.

8. Lastly, I made my very first stuffed animal! I've had a vintage 1930s/40s stuffed animal pattern lying around for over a year. My original plan was to sell it, but it's only worth a couple dollars. Instead of selling it, I saved it to use. Unlike books and wooden/plastic toys, stuffed animals just don't last 80 years and retain their usable quality. The vintage pattern allowed me to make an authentic "antique" toy that will last many years.

Total cost for the stuffed elephant was $0.25. The only cost to me was the stuffing, which I pulled and reused from a $0.25 garage sale pillow. For the fabric, I used an old pair of Hubs' jeans and some scraps from my stash. The eyes were two black buttons, also from my stash.

This being my first stuffed animal ever, it took a long time. Probably five or six hours, if I'm being honest. Normally I try to stay away from crafty stuff that isn't very productive (stuffed animals are a dime a dozen), but finishing the project was very satisfying. It was my first time doing a stuffed animal, so not everything went peachy. I will be uploading a Youtube video this week with details, some of my mistakes and things I would have done differently, and a pattern review!

Youtube Videos

I only uploaded two videos this week:
July Garden Update
Sustainable Chickens: Broody Hens vs. Incubators

Hope you all have a wonderful last week of July!
-Bethany 

​Last week was fantastic. I feel like I accomplished a lot with the time that I had. One highlight of the week was recieving my proof copy of The Housewife's Guide to Menu Planning. This is a book I've been working on revising for the last several months (it was previously called Pizza Night) as a companion guide to The Housewife's Guide to Frugal Food. 

To those of you who are interested, I will be giving away copies of the ebook version FOR FREE in order to get as many Amazon reviews as possible. When the book is published and available, I will send out my July newsletter with a link to the free ebook. If you want to download the book to your Kindle/device for free, be sure you are signed up for my monthly newsletter. You can do that here.

1. Shopping: I didn't buy any groceries last week. BUT, the week prior I did make a trip to our not-so-local Amish discount store. I spent $29.47; you can watch my haul below:

​Some meals we had this week were: rice/cheeseburger helper, taco salad, hash, baked potatoes, leftovers and fajitas on the grill. Yum! We did a lot better this week not going to restaurants. I packed a lunch for one day trip, which saved $5.00-$10.00. On Friday I spent the afternoon babysitting, and by the time I got home Hubs had already left to pick up pizza. Lol!!! We enjoyed the pizza anyway, and had leftovers the next day for lunch.

2. Garden: harvested red raspberries, lettuce, lavender, and calendula.

3. Froze 16 quarts of green beans. My mother-in-law will be out of state for a few weeks, and said we could pick what was ripe from her garden. She specifically mentioned green beans and squash, which is awesome because I didn't plant any green beans OR squash this year. We ate some summer squash fresh, and I was able to put about four month's worth of green beans in the freezer.

4. Cooking: Made yogurt and French dressing from scratch. I used the recipe in my book, The Housewife's Guide to Frugal Food, (affiliate link) except I cut the amount of sugar in half. It was remarkably similar to the Aldi French dressing I bought several weeks ago. The recipe is also available in The Tightwad Gazette (I don't remember which volume- affiliate link is for the all-in-one edition) for those of you who have that book at your library or at home.

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French Dressing from Scratch: Worth the Effort?

Was the homemade dressing cheaper than my Aldi dressing? Even with free onions, garlic and vinegar, my homemade dressing cost $1.14 to make four cups. The Aldi dressing was $1.29 for two cups. Therefore, I saved $1.44 by making my own dressing instead of buying it. It took just 15-20 minutes to make (including washing the blender), which put the hourly wage around $5.00. I think this is probably worth my time to do again.

I didn't have enough red wine vinegar for the dressing recipe, so I used some strawberry wine vinegar that I made several years back. It worked like a charm! I refilled the store-bought vinegar bottle with my homemade vinegar for next time.
_________________________________________

5. A friend gave me several boxes of used clothing to pick through. I found a whole box full to keep, along with some DVDs and a few other miscellaneous items that will come in handy over the next year.

6. Borrowed three books and one audio book from the library. I ordered one paperback and the audio book through our state's interloan system. The interloan system (it's called MELCat in Michigan) gives library card holders access to books at every public library in the state. I've saved hundreds of dollars by borrowing niche books not available at my local library instead of buying them on Amazon.

Audio books are an even better deal, because instead of saving $4.00-$5.00, you save $15.00 or more for each book you listen to. 

7. Line dried ALMOST one load of laundry. It rained on laundry day, so I dried most of the load (socks and underwear) in our kitchen beneath the ceiling fan. The pants and jeans, however, didn't dry completely because our house is SO humid in the summer. So I had to finish off those in the dryer.

8. Made soap.

9. Sold a used book on Amazon. After fees, I earned $7.01. Amazon charged $5.00 in seller fees for an $11.00 book. If you don't purchase their special seller membership, the fees are very high. After the book sold, I removed all of my other listings because they were just not worth selling. Instead, I will try to sell them on Ebay or just donate them to Goodwill.

10. Collected recyclable cans on various walks.

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Youtube Videos:

I uploaded two videos (besides my grocery haul) this week:

1. How I Do Menu Planning (ANNOUNCEMENT!)
2. Selling at a Farmers Market: Calculating Net Profit

I hope you are having a fantastic and frugal week!
-Bethany

​1. Shopping: I spent $5.10 on groceries this week. You can see my shopping haul below:

​We have been eating a lot of eggs, goat milk (and cheese and yogurt) and garden produce like lettuce and berries. Most of my meal efforts have been geared toward using up those free staples. This week we had salad,  grilled cheese sandwiches, baked potatoes and leftovers. We ate out a LOT this week. Monday we had dinner at Famous Dave's (Hubs' business paid), Thursday we went on a date (that's normal, but...), Friday we ended up running to Home Depot and had dinner at Little Ceasar's, and Saturday we were gone most of the day and had breakfast at McDonalds. On Sunday after church we both got $0.50 Frosties and some french fries at Wendy's. Not a real meal, but still eating out.

Between the 4-5 meals at home and 5-6 meals out, we also went to several potluck lunches/dinners this week. And there were several "meals" that I ate by myself consisting of eggs or yogurt and granola. It was CRAZY last week.

2. Garden: harvested black & red raspberries, a couple strawberries, lettuce, thyme, lavender and calendula from the garden. I also harvested Japanese beetles for my chickens, and grass clippings to use as mulch!

​3. Made yogurt, cheese, and Greek yogurt. I also made my very first Instant Pot cheesecake!! I used half cream cheese (bought on sale) and half Greek yogurt from last week in order to make it more frugal. The yogurt make the cheesecake lighter than normal and not as sharp, but we enjoyed the results. :) I think it actually tasted better a few days AFTER it was made. 

In order to waste as little of my goat milk as possible, it goes through several stages before it gets thrown out.

A) Liquid milk. This sits in the fridge between 1-4 days.
B) Yogurt or cheese. Before I make either, the cream is skimmed from the top of each jar and saved in the freezer until I have enough to make butter. The yogurt and/or cheese sits in the fridge for another week. Usually the cheese gets eaten, but sometimes there is leftover yogurt.
C) Greek yogurt. My week-old yogurt is strained to make Greek yogurt (or "yogurt cheese").
D) Cheesecake! This is going to be the last hurrah for my milk before it goes to the chickens.

You could do this with any kind of milk, not just goat's milk. I like this system because it stretches the milk past the normal 1-2 weeks AND gives you higher value dairy products besides just liquid milk. At current milk prices in our area, $1.70 (one gallon) per person could supply us with a week's worth of milk, yogurt, cheese and possibly enough leftovers for cheesecake. Yum!!

4. Collected cans and bottles on various walks to recycle for $$.

5. Went to the Bent 'n' Dent discount store!!! I am saving this haul for next week's Youtube video even though I technically spent the money on Saturday. 

6. Line-dried two loads of laundry.

Guys, that is literally IT for frugal accomplishments this week. When you don't stay home, you can't save a lot of money. I did spend a lot of time in the garden and working on writing projects this week. Those are long-term money savers (earners) but week by week it is slow progress. 

So here's hoping to a frugal-er week!
-Bethany ​

2. Garden: harvested spearmint, peppermint, strawberries and garlic from the garden. I also picked sour cherries from the orchard and black raspberries from different places around the property. The lawn got mowed (finally!) so I collected grass clippings, and I also moved all of my houseplants (except orchids) outside. Moving the houseplants means I won't have to water them as often. :)

3. Made about 12 half-pints of jam with my cherries and berries! This was a fun little project for me. I used honey for sweetener and discount $0.50/$1.00 no-sugar/low-sugar pectin. I would guesstimate that each jar cost $0.25, mostly because of the honey. 

​4. Mended a pair of my shorts and a pair of Hubs' shorts.

5. Printed new pages for my daily planner.

6. Froze eggs. First I ran them through my Vitamix and then poured them into cheap plastic garage sale cups. I plan on using these egg ice cubes for scrambled eggs during the winter months, when the hens quit laying for the most part.

7. Boiled eggs in the Instant Pot. Can you tell I've been trying to clean the excess eggs out of my fridge? Some meals we had this week were: lamb curry over rice, rice 'n' beans, taco salad, soup, goat (chevon) steaks, hotdogs and a potluck meal. For the potluck, I made my friend Esther's recipe for chocolate chip cookie bars. I was expecting to just use a hodgepodge of whatever chocolate chips I had, but lo and behold I found some mini-chips, just like the recipe called for!! There was about a cup of chips left, so that's what I used. I thought they turned out very nice.  And of course... we had leftovers.

Mini-Vacay

We finally had a free weekend, so we spent Saturday and Sunday in the thumb area (MI... it's shaped like a mitten!). It was a lot of fun! On the way to Port Crescent, our campground, we stopped to see the Sanilac petroglyphs; drawings in sandstone made by ancient Native Americans. It was super cool!

Then we spent the night at the campground, and next morning we went to Grindstone City for massive ice cream cones at the Grindstone General Store. When we got there, the store wasn't open so we wandered over to the fishing area. "I wish there was some kind of little museum or historical sign we could read about the grindstone factory," I told Hubs.

A few minutes later, Hubs spotted some old-looking equipment and a bulletin board with pictures smack-dab in the middle of an RV campground. We walked by the RVs feeling a little sheepish, but were rewarded with a little outdoor mini-museum of the grindstone factory! The board had enough information to be thorough, but not more than we had time to read. We also got to see some big pieces of grindstone-manufacturing equipment.

By that time the General Store was open, so we got our ice cream cones. Initially we both ordered two scoops in a waffle cone, but when I saw Hubs' cone I knew I wouldn't be able to get it all down. So I asked the lady scooping (just in time!) if I could just have one scoop. It was PLENTY. :)

​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.

********

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?