Frugal Friday 106

Happy Frugal Friday!

Here is how we saved money/spent money wisely/made extra money this week:

- When my family arrived in town on Saturday afternoon, they helped us play "clean out the refrigerator" and we ate our leftovers from the week as lunch. They took us out to dinner Saturday night. I really got the best end of that deal! :)

- Sunday we celebrated the Baptism of Owen Merit. We had lunch at Jockamo Pizza (just like we did after Annabeth's Baptism)* We came in $50 under budget. We will use that money to pay for Annabeth's birthday cake in a few weeks.

End of the baptism celebration picture of just the four of us.
No one but me wanted to be in this picture, can you tell?
Thankfully I was able to crop one of the big group ones from church
so we have a decent one of the four of us.

- Mark worked one night at his part time job.

- I came in $23 under budget on our grocery shopping. We stocked up on Almond Milk as it was on sale and I had an online coupon. I also took advantage of the big cereal boxes being 2/$6 + a $3 off coupon which gave me one free! :)

- Annabeth and I treated ourselves to pink roses at the grocery. They were just $3.99 on manager special! I did have to do some trimming since they were a little old but they ended up looking beautiful on our dining room table. Annabeth loves flowers and we like to have them around the house when we find a good deal.

 "We can complain because rose bushes have thorns

or

we can rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."

- Abraham Lincoln 

- The kids and I stayed home most days. We were home for weeks right before Owen was born and then again during my recovery. Once I felt better we ran like crazy people for a couple of weeks and now we have really settled into enjoying being home again. Thank goodness!

- We ate all meals at home this week. I, thanks to encouragement from my friend Andrea, have gotten back to my recipe books and Pinterest and am enjoying making meals again! Thank you Andrea for the push I needed!

We have LOVED the beautiful fall like weather this week. We have enjoyed many walks and playing outside with friends and neighbors. We hope you have too!

Happy Savings to All!

"Buy Used and Save the Difference"

*We could definitely serve a meal for 15 people for much less money from our own home. However, when we had Annabeth's Baptism we were living in the old house and we would not have been able to fit everyone in to eat. Our church does have a kitchen and meeting room but it is used for a service at the same time as ours and we would not have been able to go in and prepare food until that service was over. In the end, we decided to take everyone out to eat somewhere local. It worked so well! I pre-ordered the pizza and everyone just had to pick their drinks. We crowd and price controlled the lunch by not handing out menus. Since it had worked so well for Annabeth's we did the same for Owen's. By planning and saving ahead it was easy and not financially stressful as we saved for months ahead.*