Frugal February

My brother brought me a big stack of recent coupon supplements. He also saves his Boxtops for Education for my grandchildrens school.

My Aldi had pints of heavy cream, that are close to their date, for 49 cents. I plan on making freezer biscuits with some and I used one to make this delicious Creamy Tomato soup, she said the leftovers freeze well so I put the extra in serving size containers in the freezer.

Creamy tomato soup

Grandson Gavin will be 5 tomorrow! He spent most of today with us and he really had fun playing with this gift from his Aunt, a Stomp Rocket. His uncles had a lot of fun with it too, maybe even more than Gavin.  It would be a great gift for boys of all ages. It is pretty simple, it has an air bag that you stomp, and the harder you stomp, the higher the rockets go.

Stomp Rockets

And now we are waiting on the heating repair man. The furnace comes on but just for a few seconds and shuts back off within heating the house. Hopefully he can fix it tonight, if not we will be sleeping in the living room with the gas fireplace burning. 

It may be an especially good thing I planned to be especially frugal in February.

Friday finances

Linking to Friday Finances at Renaissance

With my homekeeping notebook, it has been simple to keep up with expenditures and things done. 

When I totaled it all up, I was so pleased to see that I had only spent 66% of the grocery budget and 20% of my spending money for January. I did most of my shopping at Aldi with a few coupon deals at Walmart and CVS.  For February, I hope to do the same or even better. 

We have 3 financial goals for 2014 and for January, all 3 have been met. 

January Frugal doings

I have baked all our bread this month, I hope to not buy any bread in 2014. I use a bread machine for most of the work but all the ingredients are just basic, wholesome pantry ingredients. Homemade bread is cheaper than store bread and tastes so much better. 

For all January, We ate all meals at home except my husband ate out lunch one day and I ate out lunch one day.

No sodas have been purchased and I am no longer consuming sodas. Yea Me!

I did our taxes online with Taxact and funded my IRA for 2013. 

All January bills, except our property taxes, were paid online I am big fan of the free billpay our credit union offers, it saves time and postage and is easy to double check. 

I am still keeping up with our freezer inventory. Today, I did a top to bottom organization of the pantry. Knowing what is in the kitchen really helps with meal planning. 

Machine sewing, I learned a new to me trick to sew on a scrap of fabric at the start and end of every seam unless you are chain stitching, to save on thread. It also saves time clipping threads and filling bobbins and buying more thread. 

This month, I've been sewing on a scrap quilt, made a Belle dress and did some alterations. 

 

I don't worry so much about earning money as I do about spending the money my husband earns wisely,  but I do have fun earning Swagbucks and have made goal there everyday.  I've also got a few ads on my blogs.  Even just a few clicks to the ads earn income ( if you ever do click on my ads, thank you!  I try to click on ads when I visit other blogs too.  Earnings are added even if the ad clicker does not buy anything but just opens the ad window)

I hope all your finances are planned out and in order too.

Babies in the 80s

I've been sorting family photos and I noticed some big differences in my 3 babies born in 1981-1984 and how baby things are done now.

In the 80s, we were to told to put our babies to sleep on their tummies, never on their backs.

No Bumpos in the 80s, babies sat in in little recliners.

Disposable diapers were a lot thicker then.  That biggest Luvs box only has 48 diapers. Now, 48 diapers take up about 1/3 of that in space.

I only had 1 ultrasound - hard to tell that is even a baby in that photo.

My grandchildren had some amazing photos in utero.

Babies happily scooted around in walkers on wheels, with no built in toys. And their older siblings pushed them around like shopping carts.

High chairs were simple metal frames that folded up just like a folding chair.

No rear facing car seats in the 80s.

No warnings against raw eggs and my children all enjoyed unbaked cookie dough.

My children with souvenir corncob pipes- I think my parents got these in Dollywood or maybe Branson. 

This is so not politically correct now.

No computer printers or photo editing then- just a hand written sign to show this son's age. 

Juice was served often and always in a Tupperware sippy cup.

No chicken pox vaccines in the 80s. My daughter had the worst case of chicken pox spots- her gum and pink nightgown were not as bright pink as all her spots that lasted 3 weeks.

These 3 little ones are all grown up- one is a lawyer, one is a school librarian and the other is a handyman extraordinaire.

 

But how did they ever survive?  

Homemade goo -Pinterest #4 for 2014

We tried this pin today - homemade slime - goo- goop, it is made from school glue, water, food coloring and 1/2 t borax. It mixes up really fast.

Pin on Pinterest

Ours was not as solid as others I read about. Maybe our glue was not as fresh as it could be.

No matter, the grandsons had a great time with this easy activity.

Gavin is almost 5 and I think this is more age appropriate for him than for 18 month Braeden, 

Getting ready for spring

I saw on Facebook that spring is just 55 days away.

I have not had much success with growing vegetables, so far, but this year I am going to try starting my plants from seeds in the house. 

This is a plate of eggshells that will be used for little starter pots. 

It's easy, just crack your egg carefully on the side of a bowl, just below the pointy end and kind of keep cracking in a circle until the end is off. Use the inside egg for whatever you are cooking. Rinse out the egg shells and let dry. 

As cold and harsh as this winter is, I don't expect any early planting outdoors will survive. So hopefully my plants will get a good start indoors and be strong and hardy when spring finally gets here.