I’m realizing that I talk about the weather a lot, but it really was perfect this week: high sixties to seventy and sunny during the day and fifty degrees at night. Of course, this means we’ve spent a good amount of time outside and I’ve gotten quite a bit of my fall garden prep done (more on that next month). The summer harvest may be just about over, but I should hopefully have something growing through the winter again like I did last year.
Work has continued on the crazy bent that’s been par for the course this month, but it’s been for mostly good reasons. Because of that, though, I had two extra early mornings this week and our schedule was thrown off a bit. It makes me extra appreciative that I don’t work this many hours all the time, but I am glad that our childcare situation is such that it can be adjusted a bit to adapt to the odd week.
And yes, I know I’m not at FinCon today like sooooo many others, which is a total bummer. Perhaps I’ll manage to get out there next year, but at least I’m saving quite a bit of money by skipping the conference. What I keep telling myself anyway, though really I just wish I was there. In case you missed it: Military Dollar’s genius print out that she brought to the conference:
Friday’s Frugal Five
1. I went through some more of the kiddo’s old clothes that he had outgrown and passed a bunch of them plus a few toys and books to a friend’s kid. He’s two years younger but built differently so he’s been the perfect candidate to pass things along to. And better yet, we see them often enough that it’s fun to get to see some of the clothes worn again. I also passed along a bag of disposable pull ups that we’d had to take to preschool, but now that we’re out of that stage, I had no use for them. Since the bag was already opened, they couldn’t be returned, so along they went with the clothes.
Before my friend left for the day, I mentioned to her a few wooden clothes hangers that were in a bag of giveaway stuff that had been sitting for far too long that I thought she might be interested in as they’d recently moved back to the area and have an apartment to fill. Not only did she take the hangers, but she said she’d look through the rest and then drop off the bag at the thrift store because she was already headed there with a few other things. Perhaps not as well done as Reaching For FI in making sure all of the items were off to great homes, but good enough for this time.
2. My father took the kiddo fishing for the first time on Sunday and we tagged along, my husband to fish as well, and me to be out on the water, since I have no interest in eating salmon. It was a gorgeous morning and a successful fishing trip, with a good sized fish headed home with us for dinner. While he didn’t get to keep the fish because it was too small, but he did get the chance to reel in a small fish all by himself, and he’s been talking about it every day since. Now that he’s been once, my dad had better be ready to take him out often, because he won’t forget it soon.
He was so proud of the fish he helped catch that he had us invite the neighbors for dinner, and between nine of them, the fish was devoured (along with pesto pasta our neighbor made with fresh grown basil).
3. I downloaded another $5 Amazon gift card from Bings rewards, which was then automatically applied to another purchase of pill pockets for our dogs meds. They aren’t the cheapest way to feed her the medication, but I haven’t found another good way to consistently get her to take them. She takes six pills in the morning and seven pills at night which fit into four pill pockets a day, which means we go through a lot of them in a month.
If you have a tip for me for a good alternative, I’m all ears. We’ve tried a number of different ways but she’s pretty good at spitting them out at this point now that we’ve been regularly medicating her for more than a year.
4. We made a double batch of a recipe for dinner earlier this week so we had two nights taken care of with one night of cooking. We tend not to like to do that often because we get bored of eating the same meal more than once a week, but this week the convenience of not having to cook outweighed the want of variety. We didn’t order out take out instead though, which is still a weakness of ours.
It helps that the meal we made (my Easy Beef and Pepper Skillet Recipe) is really quick to make and pretty dang delicious. Plus, I went down to our neighbor’s garden and supplemented the meal with a big bunch of Swiss chard, along with some of the last of our tomatoes and peppers and a bit of the (lots of) garlic we have drying inside. We won’t have a ton of variety to harvest soon enough, so it’s a bit bittersweet using up some of the last of the summer produce.
5. We had a flu shot clinic at work this week, complete with a breakfast buffet and a $50 gift card for each person who got a flu shot. I’ve gotten mine in previous years regardless because not having to find time for a separate appointment is awesome, but free food and a gift card made it extra awesome this year.
Running Update
I’m really enjoying fitting in weight training workouts again, and Monday was no exception. And I got to go up in weight a tiny bit, which makes me realize I’m finally going often enough once again to make a difference instead of just holding steady. I do love running best and will choose it if I don’t have time for multiple exercises, but I really love having time for both.
Tuesday I also fit in a short twenty minute run, but that’s all I had time for that day because I had to pick up the kiddo from preschool. My husband has been able to pick him up most often these days, and I’ve really enjoyed the extra time to work out. Work didn’t allow for that on Tuesday, so it was back to me. Amazing how much just a little bit of time for me makes such a difference. Wednesday was another morning run with a friend, and as the weather has been lovely lately, it was a great start to the day. Those first few runs in the rain and dark are going to be rough, but I’m certain they’re just around the corner.
Did you go to FinCon this week? I’m totally feeling like I missed the party! Perhaps next year.