Frugal July part 3

hello everyone.
Two of our grandsons were here one day this week.
They had so much fun at one of our city's splash pads.

They also played at the playground right beside the splash pad.  

Both of these are part of a public city park.  They are well maintained, clean and free 

I didn't plan this trip to include lunch but the boys remembered that  lunch is served everyday here by the school as part of the Federal summer nutrition program for all children 18 years and younger.
They really wanted a sack lunch so stopped there too.


This day's sack lunch was a peanut butter sandwich, string cheese, apple sauce, juice and milk.  It was getting hot so they took their lunches home and we ate inside.

I like those yogurts that come in a 2 section container with yogurt in one and a crunchy stir-in in the other section.  I got them awhile back on special but in general, they are rather expensive.  So I thought I could just buy a carton of yogurt and add some crunchy stir ins myself.
I took those 2 grandsons to a grocery store that has a bulk food section,  I planned to get things like granola and trail mix
but they had other ideas,

Can you guess which toppings I picked out and which ones the boys picked out? 

To keep it frugal,  I did the scooping and kept the amounts of the boypicked topping very small.  

Even after they ate all their sack lunches,  they both ate some yogurt with gummy bears and sour worms mixed in.  I guess all that playing made them very hungry.



Food Prep
We will have company this weekend so we planned some very easy meals.  My husband helped me prep all this produce
- 2 fruit trays and a tub of watermelon chunks
-a dish of greens for salad and a tray of chopped veggies to top salads
-a tray of toppings for burgers or sandwiches
- chopped cheese

Several of you commented on my lunchmeat keeper.  I bought mine years ago at Goodwill for $1.  Tupperware has made several models of it and this is the current model.  I think it's bigger than mine and that would be nice but I'm not going to spend $27 on it.  But if I see it on sale, or at a thrift store or yard sale, I probably will.

100 Day Sewing Challange 

On day 2 - I sewed 20 rags from old towels 

For Day 3- I sewed a cover for this box of paper
sheets that we keep  on top of the microwave.  We use a sheet to cover up food so it doesn't splatter all over the microwave insides.

It looks a lot better covered, doesn't it?

Frugal July part 2 and a challenge

 good morning everyone
From the comments on my last post, it seems a lot of us are watching our budgets so here are a few more of the frugal things from our home

We went to Walmart to get spray paint for our metal patio table set.
We saw pineapples and cantaloupes were marked .97 and since we really enjoy summer fruit, we picked out these.

 But at the register, the cantaloupes scanned for $1.88 each.  We told the cashier and she changed it. 

This Walmart is mostly correct, except the produce department has wrong signage too often,  

So...... I watch prices and watch the register. 

I haven't been in CVS is weeks but I had a few deals I wanted to do,

After coupons and a $2 quarterly CVS ECB,  my total was $1.56 and I paid that with a gift card.

And I got back a $2 ECB.  So I guess this was sort of a .44 money making deal.  

I haven't been to CVS because the deals do take planning and I've done so many deals there in the past,  I am just stocked up on everything at home. 

My parents had some nice candles but they can't burn them st their retirement home. 

So, they gave them to me.  I'm not crazy about burning candles but I do like to scent our home with wax melts in wax warmers. 

Did you know if you put a jar candle in the freezer, that it will slide right out of its container?

I froze this one, un-jarred  it, and then cut it into chunks.  It is highly scented and these wax chunks will work perfectly in my wax warmers.

I read on Patsy's blog  about a 100 day sewing challenge she is doing.  It's perfect for me as I want to sew and have so many supplies on hand.

A Working Pantry
I'll keep track of my progress on my iPad.

My first day of the challenge, I sewed curtains for this front window in the dining room,  the previous  pink toile curtains were nice but they clashed whenever I put seasonal decorations on the dining table.   Pink toile just doesn't work with fall pumpkins or summer Red White and Blues. 

So I put the toile ones on the craft room window and sewed these brown pindot ones with some brown bead trim on the bottom hem.