Frugal week and not shopping

These paperwhites have brought more pleasure than we thought they would especially on today watching the sun shine down on them.I planted them in dirt because I plan to transplant them and hopefully have them again next year.

We have kept bread sacks to reuse.

We have kept the inserts out of cold cereal boxes/baking mix boxes etc to reuse as wax paper.

We kept what few plastic grocery bags we get (we use reusable mostly except for meat) to line the small trash cans in the house.

I made a different laundry soap and only made a little of it as I am not sure if it's going to clean as well. If it doesn't I can always use to to wash dishes with or scrub the floors or something. I won't throw it out for sure.

I double wrung our laundry here is our washer so you understand what I mean by wrung out .LOL

By doing that it cuts drying time in the dryer by 30 min. I hung some things on hangers after they were dried some in the dryer to finish drying, others went directly to the drying rack. I look forward to warm dry weather so I can use our clothes line.

I have been focusing on using my right hand to turn water on at the sinks..why? because I usually use my left and that means I am turning on the hot even when I don't need hot and that runs up the electric bill.

I've checked daily for frugal ideas at The Prudent Homemakers site. Picked the wisdom of Brandy and all that post on her site. 😊

We ate from the pantry even though there was a couple times we had "snacky" foods for meals because of what was going on...like when the furnace went on the blink and I spent most of the day curled in blankets trying to stay warm while the repairman (landlord's nephew) worked on it. We do have a couple space heaters that do an okay job but it was a very windy and cold day so they were struggling to keep the house warm. Even the dogs were curled up with me...or the blankets I should say. At least that isn't a bill I will get. BUT the regular maintenance bill I would get as the landlord doesn't fix what isn't broke. Nephew shows us how to do the regular maintenance so we wouldn't need to  pay someone else (his company only does repairs to what they install) to come do it.

We didn't go to the store to get the buy 2 get 3 free... even though I am craving beef and could have go 2 lbs of ground beef (and 3 lbs of ground sausage for free) I had to really look at the freezers and ask if I wanted to fill them back up....NOPE. I did find 1 1/2 lbs of ground beef in the freezer that is suppose to be fruits and veggies and was able to mix it with a 1lb of ground pork and make Swedish meatballs for last night's supper. SO this week I spent $0 on food.

This week is really busy for me. I have 2 doctor's appts possible 3 as the 3rd one is for filling out family leave papers for Hubby employer. I have 4 webinars to watch for our health ins. I am still spring/deep cleaning and have started planning/organizing seeds etc for this year's gardens.PLUS Saturday is our anniversary and we have chosen to go to the home show which is an hour from us but is in the area we are thinking of moving to when Hubby retires (some year LOL).Price of tickets is less than the local movie which Hubby wouldn't go to anyways.

Today I roasted butternut squash, delicata squash, sweet potatoes and acorn squash and diced them to add to meals through the week. I will also prep carrots,celery, onion, mushrooms and whatever else I find in frig as I prepare dinner tonight.

Tentative meal plan for this week

Bfast: oatmeal,  whatever dried fruit we want mixed in ,cream of wheat, home made egg Mcmuffin using leftover ham instead of Canadian bacon, muffins, French toast(in freezer) and eggs.

Lunch for me  is whatever is leftover or grilled cheese sandwich, Naan bread veggie pizza or crackers, cheese and fruit or cottage cheese and beets. Hubby's lunch is whatever we have leftover from dinner.

Sweets: Eggnog refrig pie, oatmeal and dried fruit bars, cookies (that I need to make for the kids anyways). Jello with fruit, orange jello with shredded carrot(Sunshine jello)

Dinner: spaghetti squash with leftover Swedish meatballs with pasta sauce and cheddar garlic biscuits/ lasagna noodle with mashed potatoes (Facebook recipe) with salad/ hash with root veggies/ mushroom sloppy joes (instead of tomato base sloppy joes it's made with cream of mushroom soup) either as sandwiches or over noodles to make poor man's stroganoff depending on what breads I bake this week/ big egg or casserole to finish off whatever needs ate up. Saturday we plan on eating out.

May you find beauty in your day