10 Friday Things, Most of them Frugal

It would seem that our beautiful Colorado weather, while still beautiful, has taken a dive in the last few days. Today, mid thirties and perhaps some snow showers. Then mid forties for the next week. I suspect that in April and the beginning of May will get slammed in retaliation for our seventy degree weather. Admittedly "slammed" in Denver is not "slammed" in Philly, or DC, or New York or Minnesota or many other places. However said weather does say to me that my late April and month of May travel plans were a good choice.

Meanwhile, my friends, I am staying close to home in this cold weather.  It used to be that staying home meant an automatically frugal/non spending time. These days, the two don't automatically go together! I used to be able to say that staying home was always no spend, but with the advent of Amazon, Boxed and other Internet shopping, it's just as easy to spend by staying home as is by going out!  This week however, I have been mainly making, reading and watching rather than spending.

1. I managed to finish both my quilt tops-the very traditional one for a gift, and the bright modern one purely for me. Frugal because I'm on the way to completed products, I spent time sewing as opposed to doing something else, and I used materials on hand. 

2. One of my two out of the house treks this week was to knitting and my book group (same location, one right after the other). I did get a huge hot chocolate as well as a frosted lemon pound cake. Frugal, because, well, I needed sustenance,  And I'm attempting to duplicate said pound cake. Our book for this month was Ordinary Grace. For those readers who follow the Cork County mysteries of William Kent Kruger, this was a completely different take for me on his writing. We were equally divided, half liked the book and half did not. Fortunately, I don't belong to one of those book groups where people who disagree get all excited. We just dissect said book, agree to disagree and move on. 

3. My only other outing this week was to my Wednesday night Lent program of prayer, soup, bread and salad supper and evening program. For  a small donation I had two cups of potato soup with bratwurst ( I cannot refuse bratwurst, ever), a lovely salad, bread, and more cookies for dessert than I should admit here. Plus a lovely evening that included a program, a discussion of the best books to read and more. 

4.  After muttering here (and elsewhere I am sure) about those recurring subscription prices, I recently joined Craftsy Unlimited. For $15 a month, I now have access to 800 individual classes on art, sewing, quilting, drawing, cooking, weaving and Lord knows what else. Frugal because each individual class costs a minimum of twenty bucks and some times as much as fifty. At this moment, I have 46 classes saved and they include colored pencils, quilting with a walking foot, custard pies and much more. Right now I'm alternating a class on colored pencils with a quilting class so that I can do something fun with the two quilts above. I enjoy ever single one of my subscriptions , and I use each and every one, let me tell ya. But with Craftsy, the Great Courses, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Ancestry.com, there is no doubt in my mind that in my life subscriptions now deserve their own budget line! 

5. Wednesday is my father-in-law's memorial ceremony and I'll be sharing a bit about his life and how he helped and supported me along with my mother in law. My son is in the middle of mid-term exame seasons and work. And I'll be traveling back to Texas for a wedding and some vacation/travel time in April. Since we're leaving the unfrugal hound home for this trip (A coonie requires long walks every two hours and a soft bed, regular mealtimes and such, even during travel), we're gonna try driving through, the full eleven hours for the first time. If we cannot stand it and have to hit a local fleabag we will, but it's lighter south and worth the try, instead of our normal good quality hotel, versus motel stay that we normally make on said trip.

6.  A friend went Airbnb-ing last week and got a code, which she shared with me, for a night off if you book a certain amount of nights. I was thinking of saving it for the wedding, but that's just a couple nights. I'm wondering if pricey Jackson Hole has Airbnb. If not I can surely use it in the Texas hill country, so that's a yea for me!

7. I've been trying very hard to work out ONLY at home. Normally I do this part of the time, and then go once a week to yoga, or pilates reformer. However, my discounted tickets at the rec center are out, and the big sale isn't until March 17th-when you get five for every 20 you buy. It wasn't so bad last week when I was out walking but this week I am being creative. Who knows, I may need to break down and get some at regular price. Meanwhile though, I have found a lovely mindful chair yoga hour to add to my repertoire.

8. I have been judiciously alternating our stock of Schwans frozen food (this week we had crab cakes, brats and shepherds pie) with the friendly slow cooker. With two emails per day (one from Pillsbury and one from Betty Crocker) I have a nice pile of new to me recipes to play with. One of today's offerings was Ham and Cheese Breakfast casserole. I'm not a fan of casseroles for breakfast (most trips to Village Inn end with me partaking of waffles or some version of Eggs Bennie) but I am all for trying new things.

9. I don't go to Walmart that often, but I have to say that they do have the best boot socks anywhere. That includes expensive department stores, I've tried 'em all. It used to be Kohl's, but no more. Since I knew they were cleaning out on cold weather stuff, I used Walmart for my exercise today-and picked up one of each color of boot sock, plus many fuzzy socks on sale. I love it when things like that come together (The folks in my nice Target like suburban Walmart are fairly used to seeing me walk up and down the aisles with my cart for a half an hour before doing any shopping)!  

10. Like Laura and some other bloggers/readers, I've left most of the passive earning stuff aside since the beginning of the year. Both cause I have other things to do, and because this is the slow season for offers and ads and such. However, I did place an order with Boxed, which is a bulk ordering site trying to compete with Walmart, Amazon and the like. While I'm not likely to change to all grocery delivery, the opportunity to get enough little V8 cans for a month (I drink one a day, low sodium), along with other things, had me taking advantage of their free shipping at fifty dollars deal. Of course. Swagbucks offered $20 back, and another website offered $20 back on the same deal. I'll be getting those two $20 gift cards in the next few days, making my fifty dollar purchase of necessities a whole ten bucks. A win, a win, and a win again.

Happy weekend everyone. Do feel free to wander over to Bob Lowry's blog on Sunday, where at his request I attempted to do some coherent writing about the financial issues I faced in early widowhood and those I face now.