Finances on Friday!

Okay, so I linked up again over at Renaissance for Finances on Friday!


What were my frugal efforts this week................?

Um.

Hmmmm.

Crickets.............

I need to start making myself notes. I can barely remember what I planned to make the kids for breakfast this morning much less what frugal things I did last Monday.

Well, let's start with today, because that's at least fresh on my mind. I kind of hesitate to share this, but I'm going to anyway. My son, who'll be 17 this month, has been working at a grocery store since last year. I let him have some time just to spend a little money, since we usually don't have much extra to give the kids allowances or spending money. In January I told him I was going to start putting half his money into my savings account, so he wouldn't be tempted to withdraw it because he wouldn't have access to it. He could have the other half for whatever, but he's really good about buying his own necessities as well as buying the other kids things if they need it. Anyway, as of today he has over a thousand dollars in savings! In just that short amount of time! He'll definately have a nice little sum to buy a car with in the next six or eight months when he gets his driver's licence.

We ate from the pantry for three days this week. Now, I know that isn't a lot, but I was out of bread and peanut butter (gasp!) and so I went through what we had and it lasted three days. I actually don't even have a pantry. This rental house kitchen is so impractical for this family of 12, I don't even know how we've lasted three and a half years. The cabinets were full of bugs when we moved in (unbeknownst to me when I signed the lease) and I have never been able to put anything in them even after we got rid of the bugs. Maybe psychological, but eeeewwww. It's a small 50's style ranch kitchen with no counter space. So, all of our food, and kitchen utensils are on one big metal shelf in the corner of the kitchen. Now, I do have an extra fridge and a small chest freezer, which is hugely helpful, but I just don't have shelf space for a lot of nonperishables. And, I just don't buy a lot of convenience food either, so for us, three days was a long time.

Oh, yes. Last Saturday we went and bought 13 new chairs for our table. We had been using yard sale chairs that were hanging on by a thread and kept breaking one by one, so we knew we were going to buy new chairs with our tax refund. Four of the chairs they had in stock were scratched a bit, not bad really, but David asked the assistant who was helping us if he'd give us a discount. The guy said 5% was all he could do. He went ahead and asked the manager, who said go ahead and do 10%, then when we got to the register, she gave us 20%. That was basically like buying 12 chairs and getting one free! I didn't even think of asking for a discount. Score one for the husband!

I've still been packing and decluttering for whenever and wherever we may get a house and move. Sometimes it's good just to purge and let things go. We ended up getting rid of a ton of stuff, even my beloved baker's rack that David bought me 16 years ago. I get a little sentimental about stuff sometimes and I wanted to keep it, but it was getting bent and the drawers were breaking, so I decided it was time to move on. There are two free landfill days this month, but by the time we tried to load all that in the van and probably have to make two trips there, I thought it was just worth paying the $5 extra so the garbage men could take it all.

Well, that's about it. Don't forget to link up over at Renaissance and share about your frugal week!