"Money, its either yours or its theirs"

I remember when I was little.

Our tiny town had ONE grocery store.  

And it pretty much JUST sold groceries.

Today, a "Grocery" store RARELY just sells groceries, there are PLENTY of other things in the store to tempt us into parting with our money.  {ahem, Target, oh my the temptations....}

As an Amish man once said 

"Money, its either yours, or its theirs"

Even Aldi, which we LOVE has some hidden temptations, that aren't so hidden anymore.

Extra goodies, a few toys, gardening goodies, etc.

So when we shop, we are armed with CASH and a DETAILED LIST.

Its so true, cash is harder to spend.  Even using a debit card (cash coming right out of our checking account) I spend more.

Hugs and happy "Keeping more of your money"

Homemade Pizza Night

Pizza:

Definitely a family favorite at our house.

Old days:  Papa Johns $25 AT LEAST on delivery

Then:  $4 -6 for a "good" frozen pizza

Now:  $2.15 for homemade

In the past we have tried the box dough (add water) but it tastes more like cardboard than pizza crust.  

I was perusing an Amish cookbook and found our new favorite,

TASTY pizza crust

1 cup warm water

4 1/2 tsp. (2 packages) active dry yeast

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. basil

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups flour, approx.

Combine water, yeast and sugar, let sit 5 minutes.

Add rest of ing. and mix into dough

Knead 5-7 minutes

Let rest 20 minutes

Bake for 7 minutes at 400

Take out and top with toppings and bake additional 8-12 minutes

I have my grandmother's mixing bowls.  

She was a FANTASTIC COOK!

Love remembering her warm, inviting kitchen when I cook

Can you guess which is the kid's side?  {sigh}

Our side has:

Sausage (bulk of the price of this one)

Baby Portebellos

Green Peppers

Mozzarella

Homemade

Frugal

Yummy

Hugs and happy frugal dinners :)

Use it UP!

Amish frugal tip  (and depression era):  DON'T THROW ANY FOOD AWAY!

I could do alot better in this area.

Actually our society (North Americans) could do ALOT better as a whole.

I recently read that  40% of the food produced for consumption in the US NEVER will be eaten (Sharon Palmer, "Paying the High Price of Waste")

That statistic STOPPED ME in my tracks!

So today, I surveyed our fridge and saw 3 ears of corn we just didn't work into our menu.

After deciding that it would be COMPLETELY unacceptable to allow it to go bad, I cut it off the cob, flash froze it and placed it in freezer bags.

We will be able to enjoy fresh corn in our Mexican dishes and chili! 

Happy USING up ALL food! 

How we kept our "Free" event, free

The kids' school (K12 virtual school) had a FREE event yesterday.

A showing of How to Train Your Dragon at the movie theater in Brownsburg.  

We got up and started in on our "lists" for the day

We arrived at the theater to find it was reserved for JUST our group.

So fun.

We packed our own movie-snacks, to avoid the EXPENSIVE movie treats.  {WHY does the popcorn have to smell SOOOO good???} We practiced self-control and ate our snacks instead.

At the end of the movie, each child received a free book and the Learning Coaches (me) received a very nice Reading Comprehension packet. yay!

We practiced a little more self-control as we exited the theater only to be BOMBARDED with AMAZING nearby restaurant smells.  {Seriously, I am usually only this sensitive to smells when a) I am pregnant and b) I am hungry)  and no I am NOT pregnant}

We quickly got into the car and RACED home, narrowly escaping the call of MANY drive-thrus, VERY CONVENIENTLY placed along our path.  

Yikes.  Our fore-fathers may have had to fight off wild animals on  their treks across the country, but they did NOT have to contend with DRIVE-THRUS!

We arrive home safely, fixed a nice HEALTHY lunch at home, and made a batch of home-made chocolate chip cookies. {I felt the need for a reward.  For all of us.  The kids agreed}

I LOVE free events for our children.  But if we are not prepared, our free events quickly turn into, "well the event was free, but then there were treats, and we got hungry..."

Hugs and happy FREE outings :)

Olivia's $6 Easter Outfit

Olivia and I recently visited a local Goodwill store (I know, shocker, right?)

She picked out this outfit and decided it would be PERFECT for Easter!

I LOVE her style and I LOVE that she loves thrift shops as much as I do.

Her dress was $4 and the sweater (Children's Place) was $2

Hair in a cutie bun complete with flower bow (gift) and 2 butterfly barrettes (in the back) that our dear friends sent from Ethiopia.

Not pictured:  Her silver ballet flats, also from Goodwill (brand new with tags, last fall)

I know I am slightly biased, but I think shes adorable  (and the outfit is too) :)

Hugs and happy keeping-more-of-your-money

Charleston, WV

We really enjoyed the capital building grounds in Charleston.  Pretty view of the river (don't think we got a pic).  The kids ran around and explored :)

When I saw this picture my first thought was "look at that running form!"  He could just pull his elbows back a little bit, not crossing his body so much.... oh my.  Years of running ingrained in my head. HA!

This was a GREAT trip.  From a Fruglicity point of view we had a couple setbacks.

Not so good:  1.  Had to stay at a hotel without FREE breakfast.  Ugh.

                      2.  Had to stay at a hotel without FREE breakfast.

{That one was big enough to be counted TWICE!}

Good Fruglicity parts of the trip:  1.  We ate 1 sit-down meal and Tommy and I shared an entree.  This is HUGE for us!  ( I can never get him to share).  Glad we did, saved us at least $10.

     

            2.  Most of us (ahem, Tommy) had water for lunch at said sit-down restaurant.  After working in a restaurant (Panera Bread) and realizing HOW MUCH MONEY people spend on restaurant drinks, we do our VERY BEST to only drink water.

           3.  We took alot of snacks.  The kids and I baked a full batch of chocolate chip cookies and instead of stopping for sweet treats, we had cookies and bottle water (which we ALWAYS pack).

Hugs and happy Fruglicity Traveling!

$25 outfit

Sweater (Goodwill) $3

Black T-Shirt (Meijer of all places!)  $7

Skirt (Meijer, who knew?) $15

Total $25!

Hugs and happy bargain hunting :)

How long can we go?

Our dryer died a few weeks ago.

We have money saved for a new one...

 but I have been meaning to reduce our dryer use 

and hadn't tackled it full-force yet.  

Nothing like being without one to make me dive in!

So we (mostly me) decided to just wait on purchasing a new one.

What would our energy bill look like after a month of not using the 2nd MOST ENERGY CONSUMING appliance?  

(refrigerators being #1 and I have 

NO desire to tackle giving up that one. 

Even I have my limits)

Would our laundry pile up and make me crazy?

Actually, I have been more organized and more "on top" of the laundry 

I do a load every day and hang it to dry over night. 

 (Kids fold it in the morning)

So our living room has one of these at night 

(so the ceiling fan can expedite drying)

And our bathroom looks like this...

So while I caved and bought a coffee-maker when ours died (only boiling water to pour over the grounds for about a week),

I am holding out a while longer on this one.

BIG PLUS:  No more full loads sitting in the dryer for days getting wrinkled.  Not that that EVER happened at our house.

Hugs and happy energy saving!

Goodwill Love...

If you know me at all, you KNOW  I LOVE Goodwill!  I have found that I have to be choosy about the ones we visit in order to find what we are looking for.

Over past few weeks we have had some luck at a couple north-side (Carmel) and far west-side (Plainfield and Brownsburg) Goodwills.

We spent $90 for:

Logan:

1 pair jeans (Old Navy)

2 pairs of sweat pants (1 Under Armor)

1 pair of shorts (Old Navy)

1 shirt (Old Navy)

Olivia:

4 dresses (Children's Place, Justice and Old Navy)

4 shorts

2 tops

1 sweater

1 pair of Jeans (Children's Place)

1 purse

leggings

Me: 

2 purses

1 Jacket (Columbia)

1 sweater  (Hollister)

1 sweater (Gap)

3 sweaters (off brands)

1 skirt (Old Navy)

1 dress (Merona)

I think thats everything,  total of 29 items which equals out to average $3.10 an item.  My stuff is obviously more expense than the kids their stuff is usually $1.99, Olivia's dresses were $3.99 but if you buy the color of the week, they are half off.

Here are a few of my favorite finds:

Hugs and happy bargain hunting!