Frugal Accomplishments - January Into February

January turned to February this week.  This year is moving quickly for me.  Here are some of the things we did this week to keep our budget on track.

One of the eggs from the henhouse was cracked, so I made a batch of bran muffins.  This recipe is pretty good as written, though I will suggest reducing the sugar to 1/2 cup and adding a spoonful of cinnamon.  Also...that ten minutes to soak the bran?  If you don't give it the full time, the batter will be runny, so get the bran soaking while you gather all your ingredients, prep the muffin tin, etc.

To prepare for the work week and make meals easier to put together, we made breakfast burritos (also good for cleaning up odds and ends in the fridge!), flatbreads, a batch of garbanzo beans, marinated three bean salad, steel-cut oats, and garlic-parmesan popcorn.

I played with my dog, Taffy.  She's a good girl. She tends to look really serious any time you take her photo, bless her heart!  We romped around the yard a while, and wrestled and growled, hee hee.

We went bird-watching.  It was a free, fun activity.  I did a post earlier this week about bird watching as a form of recreation...you can find it here.

I gave husband a haircut, and got out some hair gel from the cabinet that I can use to try and keep my hair in check while it grows out some.  I received a $4 off coupon from the salon where I had it cut a couple months ago, but I am debating about what to do next.  For now, I think I'll stick with hair gel.

I made falafel from scratch.  I just made a half recipe, because it's best fresh.  There are no photos because we ate it up.  It was delicious!!

We bathed/groomed the dogs at home.  I don't think folks are going to hire us to trim their dogs - when he looks up, Reggie's ears make him look a bit like a bat - but they are clean, they smell nice, and they look reasonably presentable.

...na na na na na na na na Bat Dog!!

Husband took advantage of some nice weather by setting up the grill and smoking a pork shoulder roast, two turkey legs and two turkey wings.  We had some of the pork for supper one night and some of the turkey another night in alfredo sauce with vegetables.  Very tasty!  He used trimmings from our apple and cherry trees for smoking, and he makes his own dry rubs for the meat.  He is very, very good at this!

We read books from the library.  Husband and I are watching a series we borrowed from the library on DVD.

I got my first smart phone!  I'm only about a decade behind the times...pretty advanced for me, hee hee.  I want it for the MP3 player, mostly, so I can go for walks on my lunch break and listen to music and/or podcasts.  It came from Freedompop, and they have a free option that will allow me to do a little bit with it as a phone, but mostly I'll use the available wifi at work and home (I hardly go anywhere else) to download free music from Freegal for my walking playlist.  The phone is pretty neat...at least I think it is...and including the phone, activation, and the case I ordered separately to protect it from...me...I've spent $36 of my allowance savings.  The case hasn't arrived yet, but once it does, I plan to make a cross-body bag to hold the phone and some earbuds.  (I'm waiting to measure the size of the phone when it's in the case.)

It's not exactly a frugal accomplishment, but we are fruit-tree shopping for spring.  The electric co-op came out to do some sort of maintenance thing to the transformer, and he ran over an existing fruit tree.  It was not tiny...we're not sure how he missed seeing it, but they agreed that they'll replace it with a similarly sized tree.  The frugal part of having fruit trees is, of course, getting fruit from them, which we do most years.  I've made applesauce, apple butter, fruit leathers, frozen and canned fruits, plus jams and jellies from the fruit trees we have growing here at home.

I gathered the materials I need for starting some seeds.  I have this cute little wooden gadget for making starter pots.  I got it years ago at Goodwill for 59 cents, but before that, I just used a soup can.  You wind newspaper around it, and then insert it in the small wood 'dish', which crimps the base.  When you plant seedlings, you plant them paper pot and all, and the pot disintegrates in the soil.  The 'trays' are kitty litter boxes (that were never used for kitty litter), and I just store them in the barn year-to-year.  This year I am just doing one tray of starts, because our garden is not very big.

We had a 20% off customer appreciation coupon from Goodwill.  I picked up a jacket that is good for indoors on cold days, and can be my outdoor jacket in nicer weather.  It's similar to one I've had for nearly 20 years (that I love, Love, LOVE!!), but a different color.  It matches well with my wardrobe, and with the discount it was under $5.  We also picked up some jigsaw puzzles to send to the in-laws.  I am a bit in love with this cat-in-the-sewing-room one, so I will put it together first, then take it apart to send to them.

Daughter wants to personalize a t-shirt.  I took her to Walmart (I had some other things to pick up there as well) and she picked out a plain yellow one that was on sale for $3.  I also checked in the clearance area and found a camel-colored sweater (which I have been looking for since October) for $5.  I'll wear it some this year, but also for years to come, I am sure.  Our clothing budget for the three of us is about $20 per month, but we often go several months without purchasing any clothing, so it ends up that we have plenty in that fund for when we find a bargain.

Husband earned just over $10 in Ibotta rebates this week.  There were not as many offers that we were interested in.  I'll share more of our grocery bargains in the menu plan post, scheduled for Monday.

Did you have a good week?  What did you do to spend less, save more, or make do?