Frugal Friday 558

 Happy Frugal Friday!

Here's how we saved money, spent money wisely, and made extra money this week:

- Last Friday we did a big five county circle in NW Indiana. We saw all free places - a park, college, cabin, library, and waterfall. All were closed, or dry, so it was quite the bummer of a day but we had a great time in the car together! The highlight was seeing a herd of cattle loose on their farm and in the roads. We ended up in Tippecanoe County to meet up with my sister for a weekend at Purdue. While we could have driven up very early for an event on Saturday, we decided to stay in a hotel. I found the most affordable one. When we got there, I realized it was $75 less than everywhere else because breakfast wasn't included, their pool had closed, and it needed renovations but it was fine for the night. Since I paid for the hotel, my sister treated us all to Mexican dinner. We took an after dinner walk on the canal and the kids played at a park.

- Saturday we enjoyed Purdue Space Day. The kids had a GREAT time and Lu and I enjoyed tagging along to the astronaut speech before having our own day. We walked campus and had a fantastic lunch at 8eleven on campus. Purdue has a great little hotel, coffee bar, and restaurant right on campus - I'd love to go back and stay sometime. 

- We packed along lunches for our Friday travels as well as the kids' Saturday lunch and dinner. Since we didn't splurge on eat out food, I did allow them each to pick an item at the Purdue gift shop. Gift shop shopping is a tradition with the Rileys and my kids have learned quickly that it's very fun. Annabeth chose a running jacket and O, of course, chose a stuffed animal. I was honestly okay with his choice this time as it was a NASA space bear in a Purdue shirt. 

Space Day!

Thank you to O's friend Kail who had just passed

down this NASA sweatshirt, perfect for Space Day!

- Sunday after church and Sunday school we enjoyed lunch with the Rileys. Due to fall travels and lots of sickness, it's been a while since we've been together in a big group. It was great!

- Annabeth asked to be the chef for the week. She made the menu, did the grocery shopping, and made all of our meals this week. She stuck to our $75/week grocery budget too! She made: spaghetti and meatballs + garlic knots, Italian Wedding Soup, homemade pizza and salad, taco soup, and tonight will be homemade sushi. 

- Mark and I had a quick little ice cream date at Millie's while the kids were at dance one night. They had a deal on their freezer meat (we live in a small town, ice cream and farm fresh foods come at the same place) and we saved 10% on some meat for our freezer. 

- Unlike the past few years, we have opted not to buy a beef or pig this year. While Mark really likes having the freezers full, upon doing careful math, I found that it didn't save us very much money at all over the course of the whole year. We decided instead to committ a certain portion of each week's grocery budget to meat and I think we will come out even, or ahead, on the year.

- For Halloween we had our friends and neighbors over for soup dinner before trick-or-treating. Growing up Halloween meant soup dinner and a big family night. To me it's a holiday about being with people and so we enjoyed having a group to trick-or-treat with. The kids dressed up with items from around the house. We did thrift a pair of pants for Annabeth's costume, but she will be able to rewear them in real life as well, for $5.99. 

We are looking forward to a fun weekend with more Indiana travels. 

Happy Savings to All!