Frugal Friday

I went grocery shopping the other day and it was the first time that I went with a list in my hand in quite a while.  I've gotten into the habit of running to the store here or there, whenever we are low on something.  As I walked in with my list in hand and stuck to what was on it, I realized how easy it is to get off track.

We have lived on one income and a shoestring budget for almost 30 years and yet, unless you stay diligent, you can slip up!  So I'm back to plugging up those small leaks.  I also realized it's been quite a few weeks since I've done a frugal Friday. 

Here are some ways I've saved the past few days:

$ Used my list to shop.  It keeps me from impulse buying!

$ Made homemade mayonnaise.  I went to get mayonnaise out from the fridge the other day and realized we were out.  I googled homemade mayonnaise and found a very simple recipe.  It took me less than five minutes to make and tasted much better.  I ended up crossing mayonnaise off my shopping list. ;-)  I'm sticking with homemade!

$ Our neighbor gave us about 6 quarts of blueberries from their plants.  They were beautiful!  I made Dan a blueberry pie for his Father's Day "pie-of-the-month" gift.

$ The same neighbor also gave me a jar of homemade garlic scape pesto which was used in our dinner last night.  Delicious!

$ I've been diligently using my homemade laundry detergent which works very well and is so much less expensive than store bought.

$ I have a lined journal that I use during my quiet time in the morning.  I write out my prayers in it.  About 6 months ago, I realized that the lines don't go all the way to the bottom and there is about an inch and a half of space on the bottom of each page.  I started using that space to continue writing.  I get two more lines of words in that space.  It's a little thing but if I were to add it up it equals about 4 more pages, front and back, of usable space.

The biggest way I'm going to try and save for the coming week is our vacation.  Money is tight and so we decided to do a staycation.  I'm going to come up with things to do each day that cost little to zero money.  As most of you know, I love a challenge and blogging about it motivates me to stay on track.  So I've been searching out things to do that we will all enjoy but other than the cost of gas, won't cost much. 

Stay tuned!