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Frugal Accomplishments – Week Ending 5 February 2017

Each week Brandy at The Prudent Homemaker shares her frugal accomplishments from the previous week. There is so much inspiration and encouragement in her posts and the many comments from her readers. Here’s a little run down of our frugal happenings for the past week:

  • Used fuel points to fill up car – received $1 off per gallon (savings: $16.27)
  • Had a “Mommy-Bubby date”; received a military discount and used store points to pay for lunch (savings: $7.99)
  • Received a 15% discount for refilling our bulk dog treat bin instead of using plastic bags (savings: $1.46)
  • Used no additional fuel for our lunch stop – it was on the way from the gas station to the pet supply store.
  • Downloaded five more books from the county library on Overdrive.
  • Drove less – my daughter’s crochet class ended the week prior, then she was out of town, so three less activities driven to.
  • Combined two days’ meet-ups: rescheduled a trip to the town that I pick my daughter up in so that I didn’t have to drive there two days in a row.
  • Looped errands: dropped books in the library bin on the way to the post office, then checked thrift store hours and stopped at a base store on the way back.
  • Saved $54.00 by not buying a skincare set I thought would help my rosacea. I knew the base store carried Origins, so I went and checked out the set I was interested in, rather than buying it online untested. It’s a good thing I did – I am sensitive to smells and after smelling the lotion, that product line is not right for me.
  • Deactivated my Facebook account for a bit. (Savings: several hours of time. I read so much on my library & Kindle books Friday that it was almost scary; I kept thinking I was forgetting to do something, but it was checking Facebook!)
  • Purchased layering tops for daughter: The thrift store was closed, and I had planned to look for an item for crafting and clothes for her. While at the base store to look at the skincare stuff, I suggested we check the clearance racks for her instead. We were able to find eight long sleeve tops on clearance and pick up some inexpensive T-shirts for layering under them. They are all lighter-weight items that will easily take her through the year – right now she can wear them with a sweater if need be. (Total savings: $92.54; our best deal was a shirt down from $19.00 to $4.67.)
  • Read a library book.
  • Ate from the pantry.
  • Took the kids sledding at a local park.
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Prepare Anywhere: Morale Boosters

As you may recall, I am currently working on a nonfiction book entitled Prepare Anywhere. The anticipated release is September of this year, with the hope that it will be available during National Preparedness Month here in the USA. This project came about because of my passion for helping people get more prepared no matter what their season of life or their ZIP code. While I enjoy reading fiction where folks have rural compounds and pantries the size of my bedroom, and I’ve gotten a kick out of watching reality shows where the family is building a castle, the truth is that’s just not attainable for me – or for a lot of folks.

Due to the military lifestyle, I’ve lived in areas where preparedness was a necessity; both when I was a child and now as a wife and mother. It can be overwhelming to look at some preparedness checklists and feel like you have to do it all, all at once, or it just isn’t going to be “right”. I really enjoy helping folks break those checklists down into more accessible chunks, and this morning I got a reminder on social media of one fun way of doing just that: storing morale boosting foods. Continue reading →

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Knitting and Reading ~ 31 January 2017

I’m joining Keep Calm Craft On (at Frontier Dreams) and Yarn Along (at Small Things) again this week – and boy, do I have things to share! First up, a finished project:

That’s the crocheted scarf I’ve been working on a bit at a time each week when we go to my folks’ house for lunch. There’s one in the donation basket for the Warm County efforts – WOOHOO!

Next there’s my simple knit scarf, which I’m making for a friend’s daughter. She gifted me a whole hat box full of super soft mohair; so far I’ve made a shawl for her, and my daughter knit a scarf for her younger daughter as a welcome gift when she aged up into our church young women’s group (for ages 12+). This scarf will be for her older daughter. When all is said and done, I’ll also knit a shawl for myself with the leftovers. Yes, there was THAT MUCH yarn in the box! It will be a cozy reminder of their family when I’ve moved. And if you look closely, you’ll see the library copy of Heat & Light from last week’s post. (And for those who are wondering, I had my son take the picture – he’s not a bad photographer; my face is absent since the photo was going on Ravelry and this blog.)

Last but not least, is my Knúsa shawl. It’s officially well past halfway done and at over 225 stitches it’s pretty hard to get a good picture of. As you can see, in order to stretch it out further, I’d have to take it off the circular! Noooope… I think we can all agree that iffy pictures are okay until it’s ready to bind off safely instead. 😉

On to the books, as I’ve got a whole handful I’m working through right now. First of all, in print is Heat & Light, as mentioned previously. In digital format are Give Your Child the World and The Latter-day Morning on Kindle and Sustainability Starts at Home on my laptop (part of the Back to Basics eBook Bundle, which I purchased earlier this month). My son is listening to Elon Musk on audiobook from Overdrive, so I’ve been able to hear bits and pieces of that while driving and knitting. I also finished several other books since my last post – if you’d like to see what I’ve read during the month of January, just click over to my Reading List tab!

So what are you crafting and reading this week?

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Mid-ish Week Wrap-Up

I had a lot of fun writing up my “wonderful Wednesday” post last week; so much so that I thought it would be nice to do a midweek round up again. I can’t guarantee I’ll do one every week, but I’ll try. (On that note, what day do you consider to be the “middle” of the week? I usually think of it as Wednesday, since that’s the middle of the traditional work week – but I haven’t got a traditional work week. Even when I worked outside the home, I was in retail management, then property management, so my schedule wasn’t a nine-to-five, Monday through Friday gig. But I digress….)

Here’s some stuff that will hopefully give you a smile or something to ponder from my week thus far:

First of all, who can resist cute puppy and kitty pictures – especially when there’s so much negativity on ye olde interwebs these days? I give you – Courtesy Cute Dog Photo:


She looks a little downtrodden, doesn’t she? In her defense, we had just gotten back from the vet’s office. I’d share what she had done, but trust me, you don’t want to think those things. Don’t worry, though – it’s a routine procedure and she’s not ill. Feeling violated, yes, but not ill. (And for those dog people out there, she’s a five-year-old Lab and Fox Hound mix, adopted from a shelter a little over four years back. She has the lab “woodle”, not the hound bay. As she will tell you quite passionately, she is a goooo oooo oood girl who likes to goooo in the Subaru ru ru.) 😀

What are you reading and crafting this week? I’m about halfway through Give Your Child the World now (just started the North America section) on Kindle, and I’m a very few pages into Heat & Light. That one seems like something that I’ll need to really dedicate quiet time to; I just don’t feel like I’d be able to read it in earnest at the kids’ activities so it’s been waiting patiently in the book basket for a calmer time of the week.

If you haven’t already noticed the Blogroll tab here on my site, I’d like to encourage you to go check it out. The blogosphere is chock full of amazing people – I bet you’ll stumble across a few that you’ll enjoy reading as much as I do. I’m adding to it whenever I find blogs that I enjoy, so keep refreshing when you head to that page. For online reading this week, I’d recommend:

  • The 40 Bags in 40 Days decluttering challenge at White House Black Shutters – As some of you may know, this is an annual decluttering challenge that has been going on for quite a while now. This year the challenge begins in March; seems to me that it’s the perfect time to pick back up when one’s new year inspiration might be petering out a bit. I particularly liked the list of non-stuff things to declutter, as that’s what I’m personally working on these days.
  • A friend liked an interesting article on Aleteia today, making it pop up on my Facebook feed. It’s entitled Why a pro-choice woman joined a group of religious sisters for the “Walk for Life”. I enjoyed it because it speaks of friendship, love, unity, dialogue, and the ability to compassionately agree to disagree. I hope to see more folks coming together like this in the coming weeks and months, drawing on what we have in common, rather than continuing to allow ourselves to be divided over our differences. We can still be on our respective sides – whatever they may be – and be kind and respectful, as the women in this article showed about each other.
  • Speaking of love and respect, here’s another one – this time over at Literary Mama. It’s a piece called The Fall which shares a mother’s trepidation as she explains to one passionate youngster how things didn’t go their family’s way during the election. Beautifully handled, Mama.
  • Lastly, when it comes to stories, we’ve all got them to tell. I’ve been reading Gregory Patrick’s Mad Man Knitting blog for a while, and I’d love for you to head over and visit him as well. Even if you’re not a knitter, you’re in luck – he’s got a fine way with words for those who aren’t crafty, and a husband who crochets, for those “hookers” amongst my readers. He’s also got a new book coming out that promises some stories that really get into the background KNITTY-gritty  of how he got where he is today. (I’m sorry – I couldn’t resist that one.)

One last thing before you go: a friend and I have been discussing locavores and what kind of things one could source locally – and what ONE item we could individually commit to buying from local sources. Some folks are in spaces where they can grow larger gardens and raise livestock; others, like me, are in situations where livestock isn’t authorized but container gardens are. If you’re not already hyperlocal, can you think of something that you could source locally, and will you commit to doing so – maybe for one month, maybe for a season or a year? I’d love to hear from you in the comments on this, as I’ll be sharing some of our efforts in the coming months on just this matter. First I’ll bring some posts in from my old blog so you can see what we’ve done in our current area, but once we get moved and settled, I’ll share what we can come up with in our new region. I must say that the technology of today makes PCS’s (Permanent Changes of Station) exponentially easier for military families; I’ve already connected with the local homeschool group, figured out where the farmers market meets, and gotten info on a town food co-op that sources as much as they can locally. It’s going to be interesting how our garden changes as well, since we’ll be reversing our climate type completely for the fourth time since 2008!

Happy Thursday, everyone!