Sunday, February 1, 2015

Frugal Accomplishments This Week and Accountability For My Struggles

Thank you for joining me once again where I have my little accountability session- tell you what I have been struggling with this week in a frugal sense, and share what accomplishments I'm proud of.


So, I'll admit, I really wasn't good with laundry and cloth diapering this week....
I had a lot of things going on, and certain things fell by the wayside. Like laundry. I think there were two loads I ended up needing to rewash since they sat in the machine too long, not hung up. Yea, that's not good...
On top of that, I went to the city a bunch, used babysitters who I wouldn't expect to cloth diaper, etc... and then we ran out of laundry detergent, and I didn't have any homemade bars of soap to use to make my own laundry detergent, so laundry piled up... which meant that I didn't want to use cloth diapers and add to the laundry load. So I'll have to say we probably used cloth about half the time this week, the rest disposables... But half is still loads better than none at all...

However, on a positive note- no food was thrown out this week! :-D Keeping that food waste down, so that's exciting!

In terms of frugal things we did this week....


Foraging:
Foraged dock and eryngo and wood sorrel.
Foraged wild mustard, mallow, and chickweed.
Foraged eryngo and sow thistle.

Frugal In the Kitchen:
Made From Scratch
Made vegan cheese sauce twice.
Made crispy fried noodles.
Made beef broth from scraps I cut off my steaks and leftover water from boiling cheap cut of beef.
Made super simple gluten free vegan bread twice (recipe to be shared soon).
Made gluten free vegan sugar free biscotti.
Made 2 types of homemade healthy jello.
Frugal Dishes
Made a salad with chickweed and sow thistle, plus left over quinoa and mackerel bought super cheaply on sale, with foraged lemons and onion greens.
Made fried rice with leftover rice as well as rice that I'd made made with vegetables I'd made that were too salty (and their broth), plus leftover carrots and peas, and chicken picked from a chicken carcass with which I'd made soup.
Turned leftover hummus and quinoa plus wild greens into patties/burgers.
Made vegan chili with leftover beans and leftover tomato paste.
Made vegan chili cornbread skillet.
Served wild mustard and mallow curried with cabbage.
Turned cheap beef roast into steaks! (Post on how I did that coming soon!)
Saved the beef fat from soup to be used to sauteing.
Served leftover rice.
Made Ethiopian chickpea vegetable stew for lunch (basically alicha, with added chickpeas).
Used foraged morel mushrooms and foraged eryngo in my beef soup.
Made sandwiches with chickweed, cheap beef cut into steaks, vegan cheese sauce, free pickles I got, on homemade bread.
Made a salad based on chickweed and sow thistle.
Used leftover soup to make rice.

Frugal Shopping:
Bought potato starch, rice milk, canned peas, grape juice and wine on sale from the scratch and dent store.
Bought reduced rack carrots, potatoes, kiwi, apples, persimmons, sweet potatoes, beets, avocado from stores at the farmer's market.
Got my delivery of cheap clothing for the kids and myself from NextDirect.com and have been very pleased with the quality, fit, etc...
Bought clothes for the kids from a local cheap store with buy one get one free sale.
Ordered a birthday present for Mike from a local deal site.
Ordered a cast iron waffle maker for myself for my birthday- from a site in the US that was cheaper than ebay and amazon, even once shipping was factored in.
Made an iherb order- that ended up being free, other than $5 shipping, thanks to reward points!

Free Things:
Got free ice cream for the kids (hubby's friend works at the ice cream store and treated my kids).
Had a coffee date at home with friends.

What did you do to save money this week? Any areas of frugality in which you found you particularly have been struggling?

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