Frugal Accomplishments September 24- October 1

This week we had visitors from Burma at our house for 5 days! I was able to feed 15 people for mostly what I had on hand! I did purchase additional milk, cereal, eggs, orange juice, bread and taco shells. I used a large can of tomato sauce and made spaghetti sauce the night before they came. I had enough leftover to make  goulash another night. Broccoli beef stir fry over rice, Sausage Rice, and taco's we some of the other meals I prepared. I save a substantial amount making foods from scratch at home for 4 nights.

We also had a pot luck at church and used some hot dogs and cornmeal to make corndog muffins for the carry in dish. It costed us maybe $1.50 to make 24 corndog muffins. We also had some leftover to have for lunch another day in the week.

 The wife and I also made up homemade lunchables to take with us to the zoo along with our own water bottles. We also bought treats like granola bars and some cheese-its to make the snacks sold at the zoo less appetizing! Cost of extra "fun" foods was $15! for 15 people I think we did rather well!

I saved $28 cutting four of the boys hair at home.

I spent $100 at a consignment sale purchasing a jacket, a complete winter wardrobe in 4T, and pants, shirts, and sweaters for the older children. I purchased new looking clothes for 70% of the retail price. Our winter wardrobe is almost complete minus some winter jackets for big kids and I could use a few pieces eventually.

Our 12 Passenger van broke down this week so we have save a lot of money walking places or taking the smaller van to transport our family places. We also saved money on towing through our tow insurance. We have had our an towed a few times since owning it so its been well worth it. The Husband said he averaged it costed us $8 a tow so far! Not bad!

We borrowed a friends large van for driving to the zoo, which saved us renting.

We used zoo passes that were gifted us this summer making our trip free!

We have not had to run our air conditioner all week.

We also have had leftovers for lunch every single day this week.

I used a gift of $50 to purchase a 20 cup rice cooker.

I used a $30 gift to go out on a Mom's night with some friends for a birthday present.

We completed out allocated spending plan for October for our FPU class.

My Menu plan this week is completely covered by food we already have at home except sliced cheese for grilled cheese. So I will be using this weeks grocery money to stock my pantry with sale items. I also only have 1 vehicle so I will be staying closer to town to save on gas!

We have used the library to rent videos, check out books, and for entertainment this week.