Frugal Friday.....the May 7th Edition on May 10th

 I am still trying to get up to speed and back to blogging after my fun week away so here is the FF post for last Friday, enjoy!

While Vacations aren't necessarily frugal we had a couple of wins the past week......

* We stopped at Aldi on the way to the beach house and Kim's Sissie used $50 in Aldi gift cards(some unknown person had gifted her lol)to stock up on some food provisions for the stay at said beach house.  I think I made up the difference since we went WILD and the bill was a tad more than the gift cards.

*  During out round robin of shopping we made it to the Vera Bradley outlet on Sunday and neither Kim or Sissie would let me pay for my purchases there, gifting me with belated Xmas presents.  Then Sissie paid for a top I wanted to buy at Talbot's.  They were both very good to me and I sure did appreciate it!
And yes, your girl is no longer a Talbot's virgin.  I even have my very own Talbot's reward card now....lolz......

*  We had free use of an awesome beach house because Sissie "knows a guy".  Of course, I had a mishap with a plunger and ended up having to replace it but it's a story we will treasure. lol  Free beach house vacation versus the cost of a plunger?  I'll take that deal any day!

* Once we got back to Sissie's house we hit Mickey D's twice a day for Diet Cokes for "you know who".  On Tuesday it was free McFlurry Day if you have their app so I paid for "you know who's" Diet Coke on my mobile app but I got a free McFlurry for my efforts......

I sure needed it after being drug through a third outlet mall as well as all the little gift shops down the shore with only 1 day off from shopping. lolz

* On the way down for the vacation I stopped in lower PA and filled my car with cheaper gas.  Cheaper gas, especially lately is better than a poke in the eye with a stick, right? ;-)

* I found money!

Upon arriving at Sissie's house there was a small container of chocolate on my bed with this on top of it....

Technically it was Thursday night but too late to go onto last week's Frugal Friday.  When Kim found out what Sissie had done(giving me a head start on the Great Change Hunt)she threw down the gauntlet and the game was on!

But then when we stopped at Aldi before getting to the beach house I noticed that one of the carts chains(right in the middle of the line of carts)was hanging down and not inserted into the cart in front of it.  This meant there was a quarter to be had so while Kim marched ahead of the three of us looking for change on the floor I went over to the line of carts, plugged the thingamibob to eject the abandoned quarter and took it.

When Sissie told Kim I was now up by .50¢ she got madder than a wet hen! ;-)

On Tuesday when leaving that particular outlet mall I went into the Bath and Body Works store while Sissie had a rest on the veranda and Kim when into the Ann Taylor store.

Found a dime in there by the register area.

Then while getting out of Sissie's car when Kim drove us to Home Goods I spied this on the floor......

A nice forlorn shiny penny.  He came home with me too. 8-)))

Total Money Found This Week..... .61¢

Total Money Found This Year.....$3.39

That's all I gots for the week.

I hope everyone had a frugal week last week.

Sluggy

Thank Goodness this Week is Over!

Have you ever had one of those weeks where, when it was over, all you could do was say, "Thank the Lord the week is over and I survived!"?




That's how my week was.
Don't get me wrong, nothing bad happened this week, that's not why I am thankful that it's over.
It was just.....so.....so.....FULL!
And tiring.

It was one thing after another, ALL Week!

First the 2 oldest kids came home from their summer jobs and the youngest finished Band Camp, so all 3 were hanging around the house all week.
3 Teenagers with little to NO motivation to lift a finger around the house.
3 more mess makers but no mess cleaner-uppers.

And the older two were so kind to bring me back weeks upon weeks of dirty LAUNDRY.
A lot of it being WET Dirty Laundry!!
Smelly, Earthy, Dirty and Twigs and Blades of Grass and Leaves and Tree Bark in the bag with the wet clothing Laundry.
Ugh.

And Hubby had off all week from work. And working around his agenda for the week.
And 3 Dogs in the house because it was too hot for them to be outside for very long.

Everyone under foot!
So it was non-stop action and bedlam around here.

And I am still trying to organizing the stockpile out in the garage.

And the weather was kicked up a notch this week to H-O-T!
I don't tolerate or move very fast when it's Hot.....
So I could be found in the swimming pool out back a lot of the time this past week and nothing much got accomplished around here that involved physical labor.....except laundry.

And I wanted to have a date with hubby during the week.

And getting #1 son ready to go off to college this week.

And then, the heat kicked the Garden into Overdrive!
I have cooked yellow squash every which way known to man and am STILL DROWNING in a Sea of Yellow Produce!!
I swear when it's quiet at 2 am. I can hear the vegetables growing while I lay awake in bed trying to think of a new way to use squash and cukes.

And to top it all off, there were just so many good deals this past week!
I had Price Chopper OYNO Cats to use.
The Acme OYNO Cats to use.
There were expiring Register Rewards from WAGS.
Then the Extra Care Bucks from CVS.
Add to all this, another Round of Double Coupons at KMart= Loads of Free or very Inexpensive Things we need or can use or can donate!

Seriously, just too many to get to everything in time....especially since it was H-O-T and I couldn't move fast enough in the heat to cram it all into my schedule.

How much can one gal be expected to do in a mere week....in this heat!?!?

And then there were blog posts to write. I just can't go neglecting my readers due to my hectic life, right? I'd get on the computer at night and couldn't do anything beyond reading mail and just surfing around.
To-Do Lists swirled around in my head and wouldn't let any original thoughts to blog about enter.

At some point this week, I actually looked at the interior of my car.
Here is what I saw.

That backseat.....
The Cargo net area between the front seats.....

A mound of coupons sitting on the passenger seat and school supplies starting to take over the floor in the front of the car.....



This is the car of someone who hasn't said no to a deal this week, even though she has no time or energy left.

This is when I realized I needed to give myself permission to NOT Get to some of the deals & chores. It hurt at first, like quickly ripping a band-aid off a cut, to let go of the idea that I had to do all the deals this week. But after awhile, I felt ok with it.

There will always be more Deals next week or next month.
Just like there will always be more laundry to do next week or next month.

Since I am so well stocked on most everything, I may take a grocery shopping Sabbatical in Sept.
No stocking up.
At ALL!
On ANYTHING!!
No matter how good the deal.

I am just so tired, like my beagle girl Cherry....

And I need the time this Sept. for my canning/freezing/preserving the garden/farm produce.
Harvest time is labor intensive and I can't be running around hounding for the grocery/HBA deals while the veggies are coming in.
Canning Season is here and it's time to shift the focus onto the local produce and preserving it for the coming year.

As so many Southern ladies before me have done, I may "take to my bed for a month" once Harvest Season is over. It may take me that long to recover from my exhaustion.

What's been happening in your little piece of the world lately?

Sluggy