Frugal Friday

"Waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both." ~ Benjamin Franklin

I haven't done a Frugal Friday post in many months and thought I was due to post one. I enjoy doing this as an encouragement to others, but also a reminder to myself. Dan and I have lived on one income for many years and I've had to learn to make due throughout that time. It's become such second nature to me, that I don't always think about it. 

I love the above quote by Benjamin Franklin and I try my best to use both my time and money wisely. Often people will ask me how I can get so much done, and I tell them it's because 1) I do work quickly, but 2) I don't waste a lot of time, and 3) I work efficiently. I get up in the morning and after having my coffee and quiet time, I generally plunge right in. I do take breaks from time to time, but I don't just sit and watch television all day long. Sometimes, I'll have a cooking show on for background noise and to listen to it, but I'm generally working at something else at the same time.

Summers are always a difficult time for us as Dan is not tutoring for the school system. That brings in a bit of extra income during the school year so by the end of the summer and really into October, we are stretched very thin. So I do my best to make our dollars go further.

Here are some ways I've saved this week:

$ We have a window above our kitchen sink that we had the glass removed from. It overlooks our heated sunroom that we use year round. Removing the glass helps to heat the house more efficiently in the winter because we leave the sliding door open and the heat from the gas stove in the sunroom, and the heat from our furnace work together to heat up the whole house. The gas stove in the sunroom is in the corner to the left below this window.

However we didn't take into account the summers which can be very hot and humid. We have a window air conditioner that we have in the living room. We close the sliding glass door to the sunroom because the unit is too small to cool down such a large space (the sunroom has a high vaulted ceiling). So I usually pin up a towel to cover this window but it's quite ugly.

I made curtains the other day and this way I can keep them open when the weather is cool, and close them when it's hot and we need the air conditioning on. This was fabric I had in my stash and it took 2 yards of fabric that I got on sale for $3.99 per yard. So for $8 the problem was solved.

$ I made my own bread this week, as well as my own pizza. One pan of pizza was made with homemade marinara sauce and pepperoni, and the other was Greek style made with roasted peppers that I canned last summer, feta cheese, greek olives, spinach and onions. Yummy!

 

$ I mentioned the other day that I made my own almond butter. I took 2 cups of raw almonds, roasted them until they were golden brown. Then I added them to the food processor and let it go for about 15 minutes. It seems like it's never going to turn to butter, but it eventually does. I just scrape it down the sides from time to time. Once it turned I added 1/4 tsp. salt and let it go a few more minutes. Store in a mason jar in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

$ I make my own glazes and sauces. I had friends over for dinner and had a roast pork loin. I make a rub out of 1 tsp. thyme, 1 tsp. rosemary, 1 tsp. onion powder, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. kosher salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper. Sprinkle over the outside of the roast and then bake at 350 degrees. In the meantime I took a jar of peach jam and combined it with 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard and 1 Tbsp. honey, heated it on the stove until it started to simmer and then shut it off and set it to the side. When the pork was about a half an hour from being finished, I began spooning some of the glaze over it every 10 minutes. It's very tasty!  I will switch up what I add to the glaze, depending on the type of jelly or jam I use.

$ I always have tons of scraps leftover from sewing projects and I will use them in other projects. These are being turned into tea bag totes.

$ I closed my Etsy shop a few months ago because while I was selling quite a bit, I wasn't really making any money because it was all going to their fees. I did some research and found it was less expensive to have my own website so I started working on that yesterday.  It's a work in progress and I only have a few things listed at the moment, but you can find it at https://terriscountrycraftsandbooks.com. 

I have all my inventory down the road at a local greenhouse and winery but I'm finding things aren't really selling there because there is just not enough traffic going through. So I'm going to get some of it out and just list it online. In the fall there are a few craft shows, retreats, farmer markets that I like to participate in each year so I'll have them there too. I have a special project that I'm working towards, so I'm hoping I do well at these.

That's it for this week. I hope this helps you to start thinking about how you can use your time and money more efficiently. I'm off to sew a bit today, try and get my bedroom in some sort of order, and start reading a heavy duty book on eschatology for my consecration requirements. Fun, fun! 😉

Have a great day!