Sorry I didn’t get up the weekly frugal accomplishments last week. I got sick Thursday evening and didn’t recover until Wednesday of last week. The kiddos are still sick, but I think we are on the better end of this, and will soon be back to normal. So for this weeks frugal accomplishments I’m going to cover the last two weeks. Last week I didn’t have the energy to do much of anything, let alone be very frugal, but I got a few things done.

Weekly frugal accomplishments for March 23rd – April 5

Made chicken bone broth.

Earned 50 swagbucks (referral link)

Collected rain water to use on the flower beds.

Purchased some items from an online action for a much reduced price. Some items were needed, and others we intend to clean up and sell for a profit. We are hoping to make this a small side income for our family so we don’t have all our eggs in one basket. Wish us luck.

Our homeschool group was canceled the last two weeks so that saved us the gas to make the trip to town.

I had my husband shop for groceries while he was in town for work saving us gas there as well. We try not to make a trip into town for just one thing.

I have been trying to be diligent to rinse out cans and bottles to recycle. It’s often easier just to through some of them away because I didn’t get things rinsed right away and it can be a pain to soak them and then rinse them, however our town participates in recyclebank.com so we receive a point for every pound of of recycling they pick up. You can then redeem the points for discounts, magazines, and even gift cards. I’ve redeemed several magazines, and when they are available, Amazon gift cards as well! The great thing is, even if your city or recycle company doesn’t participate you can still create an account, and take little questionnaires or read through info and earn points that way. I’ve been earning and redeeming points for years, but have only been participating in their recycling program for about a year and a half when our town switched companies.

I hung out clothes 4 days over the last two weeks.

Our power went out at midnight Friday morning (April 3rd) and didn’t come back on until the evening. It went out again Saturday morning around 10am or so and didn’t come back on for several hours. We had a micro cell that came in for a few minutes and then was gone, but it did a lot of damage through out the entire county. We were fortunate to have no damage, just the inconvenience of having no power while you have sick kids who want to watch a movie, but we managed. We were able to get some ice for free to keep things cool. I put a bowl of ice in our frig and just kept the freezers closed. I threw a heavy blanket over the deep freezer just to be safe though. Our ice cubes in our frig’s freezer didn’t even start to melt. I think it helps that we keep our house cooler in the winter/spring months as well. We didn’t need to get take out. We made scrambled eggs on the grill, and I had Joel cook up some hotdogs for lunch while he was cooking the eggs since he was going into town over lunch and I wanted things to be as easy as possible while he was gone (don’t forget I had three sick, slightly cranky girls to entertain.) I did have him pick up paper plates, disposable diapers and wipes, and a few staples items, but the staple items I was planning on him picking up before we woke up to no power. We did have hot water since our water heater runs on gas, but I was still only functioning at about 75% and, of course, taking care of three sick girls, and I needed a little extra help and the disposables did the trick.

We had a busy Easter Sunday since our church was hosting the community sunrise service and breakfast. Joel was running sound/media, and I was singing on the worship team, so we had to be there extra early, like 6am. So we arranged to have the kids spend the night at Joel’s parents so we only had to be up by 5am instead of 4am if we’d had to get the kids ready as well, plus really, who want to get little kids up at 5am and deal with the consequences of that all day, maybe even week. We got our breakfast to go and headed over to Joel’s parents’ house between services to get the kids ready and then headed back. It was a blessing to not have to worry about breakfast. It was a great Easter service, and thought I was terribly tired by the time it was all done, it was worth it.

So what are your frugal accomplishments from the last week?

These are my grandmother’s daffodils.

I’d like to give you a look into my previous weeks frugal accomplishments. This is to serve as encouragement and inspiration for you as well as me. I plan to attempt to do this on a weekly basis. Sometimes we need to take a moment and reflect on our week in order for us to find the strength and will to stay the course. I think frugal habits are a good thing to have and practice at any stage in life, but there are many, myself included, where they are a necessity right now, and I want us all to remember that we are not alone. God is not only providing for our needs, but also the creativity to stretch what we already have to make the most of it.

I would like to encourage you to take a few minutes and share your frugal accomplishments in the comments below. We all have knowledge to share, and you may have an idea that none of us had considered, or that we can tweak to fit our situation. Let’s use this as a place of inspiration and ‘ata girls’!

So let’s begin. Here are my frugal accomplishments from last week:

I had a couple of days that I was able to hang laundry out on the line instead of using the dryer.

I’ve been turning off the furnace during the day every day for the last week save one, when it was rainy and windy. We’ve been turning it on first thing in the morning to take the chill out of the air (it’s usually down to about 64-66 degrees in the morning) but by 10am or so, I turn it off for the day, and don’t turn it back on until we go to bed, and at that point I set it at 62 just in case the wind picks up during the night and really chills the house.

I tried the “no poo” method with my hair this week. I’m going to continue this for a few weeks and see where I’m at.

We only had one small shopping trip this week.

I picked my first daffodil this week and brought it in the house to brighten things up.

I brought foam trays from veggie packaging to use as paint trays during craft time at homschool group.

I turned off LOTS of lights the girls left on.

I cooked a double batch of beans and then made a double batch of black bean soup with them so we could have it for dinner twice.

I printed off some connect the dots sheets for Emma for free and put them in page protector sheets so they can be used over and over again. I found them here.

We planted tomato and pepper seedlings a couple weeks ago and the tomato seedlings have started coming up!

I made corn beef and cabbage with potatoes and carrots to share with Joel’s parents after church on Sunday. It was my first time making it. I cooked it in the crockpot so it would be ready after church and it turned out wonderful! Everyone loved it!

I Cooked two chickens in the crockpot to use the meat for sandwiches, salads and dinners. I saved the bones and will be making broth with them probably tomorrow.

I attended our church’s Ladies Night Out pajama party Monday night. I knew that one of the gals is gluten free, one was diabetic, and two others were doing a detox, so I made a gluten free, dairy free, sugar free chocolate pudding, and yes it is quite yummy! I also brought chocolate chip oatmeal cookies to share as well. We had a fun time as always!

That’s all for me. What frugal accomplishments did you have last week?