Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap and Garden Update

This has been a week of savings in that we really didn't go anywhere or do much of anything that would cost money to do.  We're down to the "save every penny to make the mortgage and other bills at the beginning of the month" crunch this week and next, so I am buckling down to get only bare necessities at the store if need be and call it good (which means getting extra meat is out this week, so that means staying away from the grocery stores if possible).

I did, however, manage to get creative on the money saving front this week.

1.  My anniversary is next week.  I wracked my brain a lot to give things to my husband that he would like, but would also not cost anything as we really don't have money to spend on said anniversary.  It's been kind of hard to do as my son has been really challenging lately.  He was getting really violent at the beginning of the week to the point I got really depressed thinking that I was going to have to call a psychologist finally and start talking about getting him on some type of medication to help cope with his autism. 

I decided first to try the new supplements that I got from Amazon.  They contain cod liver oil, vitamin C and vitamin D.  I figured when I ordered them that those three things kept British children healthy during WWII (cod liver oil and rose hip syrup were even given to children at school to help supplement those necessary nutrients) so hopefully with my son's non-diet that it might help in some way with the hitting. 

I managed to actually get him to take the supplements with a combination of bribery (Smarties) and using the feeding therapy techniques his speech therapist taught me.  So far he's been on the supplements less than a week and I've found the hitting is getting better.  Less often, less severe when he does it and his head butting is WAY down.  So, hopefully I might have finally found something that might help him a bit.  Prayers, once again, would be appreciated there.

Anyway, back to the anniversary.  I kept wracking my brain in my spare moments on what else I could do to make the anniversary gift a bit special.  I finally realized what I could do when my husband was looking through the photos of my son's ski trip from last school year.  My husband really liked the photos of he and my son together (which I have to admit came out really cute) and so I dug out my frames and found one that I'd gotten at a yard sale ages ago that someone had never used (original price tag was still half on it).  I cleaned it up, painted where the paint had chipped in places and then mounted the photos of the trip in the frame.  I thought it turned out really cute.  I also decided, instead of making chocolates, which I know my husband would say that we had chocolate that I didn't need to do that and such, I instead grabbed one of the free candy bars I'd gotten for free with a Freebie Friday coupon a while back. 

So, all the total gifts I made and are giving are above.  I think I did decently well for spending nothing on my anniversary so far :).  Now I just need to figure out what I can make for dinner that night that might be different for fun.

2.  A reader was nice enough to send me some fabric that she wasn't using (thanks, Dorothy!) and I was able to add at least two gifts to my list out of the four pieces of fabric she sent me.  So far.  I've still got plans churning in my head ;).

3.  I am actually, starting to turn my brain toward Christmas as it takes a lot of planning to figure out what to make, who to make it for, etc.  I started thinking of things I could make for teachers and therapists and looked down at the bag of corn husks I'd just removed from my ears of corn last weekend.  And an idea was born.

Seen above is the corn husk angels in their beginning stages.  I plan on making them a bit fancier closer to Christmas, but I'm happy they seemed to turn out okay so far and cost me nothing to make :).  I'm going to make them into Christmas tree ornaments when it's all said and done.  My first attempt at making corn husk dolls, so I was proud that they came out looking like...well corn husk dolls *laugh*.

4.  My daughter had a pair of yoga-type pants that I'd bought at Sears a while back super cheap, but when she wet to wear them they were a bit big in the waist and when she went to tighten the ties on them we found that they were fake ties.  But the holes for said ties were real...the ties were just super short and made a bow at the front (weird).  I cut the ties away carefully with a seam ripper and grabbed some bias tape type of ribbon from my stores to create a new waist pull and then threaded it through the holes in the pants, neatened the ends and voila!  New tie waist band for the yoga pants.  My daughter is happy with it and I'm happy that she can use the pants now.

5.  I opened one end of a pillow that was going super flat and stuffed it with the insides of another pillow that was going super flat.  End results were a serviceable pillow that could be used for a while longer before needing to be replaced.

6.  When I realized that my sideboard needed better protection from a bottle spin loving son, I grabbed a rug I'd gotten at the used store for 1.50 (it's a Persian rug...I just couldn't pass it up for that price) and put it over the top.  It works perfectly and cost me nothing to do.

7.  I rearranged where things went a lot this week to make them work better.  Cost me nothing but time.

8.  I, despite not having a menu plan, managed to make all of our meals at home this week.

9.  Instead of buying Bisquick I made a home made master mix instead (I'll share that recipe soon), which is the same as Bisquick, but cost me nothing to make as I had all the materials here.

10.  My vacuum started having problems with suction last night and I asked my husband for help as I had everything cleaned that I could find to clean (I'm very careful at taking care of my vacuum cleaners as they get a LOT of use around here).  My husband discovered a new place that I hadn't cleaned because I didn't know it existed and the vacuum was indeed clogged.  He and I worked on it for about 1/2 an hour to get the clog removed and from now on I'll know to check that place as well as the others on the vacuum for any potential blockages before they become a problem.  Thank goodness for having a mechanically minded husband.  If it had just been me I would have ended up having to take the vacuum to a repairman and goodness knows how much it would have cost me to remove a clog in the vacuum.

When it comes to the garden, I have a lack of pictures this week (sorry).

My rat tailed radishes are developing pods!!!  I'm so so excited to see them growing and pray they produce a lot at once so I can pickle them :). 

My potatoes are doing well, at least that I can see as are the carrots, but the lettuce is probably going to be getting harvested in large quantities here soon as the slugs are having a FIELD DAY with it.  I spent a half an hour out there this afternoon just picking off huge quantities of slugs.  Not cool.

The peas are finally starting to develop peas and are so high now that I'm wondering if the trellis will hold them once the peas start growing bigger.  I'm hoping to somehow convince them to bend down and re-vine on the trellis, but we'll see how it goes.

I also got to see my first nasturtium today!  I was thrilled to see that they were finally flowering :).

And yeah, that's about it on the gardening front at the moment.  I left the lettuce to grow in the garden this week for the most part as I still had a huge bag we were working through in the fridge, so I'll probably head out over the weekend to harvest a bunch more for next week.

So there you are folks.  Some of the things I did to save money this week.  How did you do?