Frugal Friday Week #15
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I always feel like I post many how-to’s and not many “real lifes”. Although I do try and incorporate that into my newer posts, I’ve often thought that it might be even more helpful for my readership to get a better glimpse inside of what our simple/homestead/from scratch/frugal life really looks like.
Frugal Friday Week 15
So I’ve started a new series called Frugal Friday and need your help. My idea for this series is to share some of the projects/recipes/things we worked on this week and, in general, just what life looks like.
I need your help because I’ve tried something similar before, and I gave up after a while. I got bored, felt like no one was reading it or cared, and I moved on to other projects. So what I need you to do each week is to share what your week looked like in the comments section. I think it could keep us ALL accountable and may serve as an encouragement to others!
So let’s dive right into this week!
Meals We Ate
As I mentioned last time, this summer, my meal plans will be more of an overview because they aren’t as much meals as pieced-together things that we eat from the garden!
This week I meal prepped several things with chicken breast to have meals that would be easy to warm up and eat quickly. I made a sweet and smoky chicken breast that I paired with green beans and an herb chicken that went with baked sweet potatoes and broccoli. (I made several of each meal) This ended up working well for us and I’ll do it again next week with other meals.
I also made Tomato Gravy for the kids a few times because it was so easy. My grandma used to make it when I was growing up and I loved it!
For breakfasts, we stuff with overnight oats (3/4 cup oats, 3/4 cup oat milk, cinnamon, vanilla, and maple syrup per serving for my kids, put in the fridge in a jelly jar for the next few days until serving.) and eggs and toast.
For lunches, I’m continuing with “Big Plate” as I have been already this spring. It’s a big plate of whatever fruits and veggies I have on hand that day plus some kind of carb and protein. I served this week’s lunches with hard-boiled eggs and pepperoni for the protein and crackers for the carb. I made some Ranch Dressing to be used as a dip for the carrots and other veggies too.
Shopping I Did
My husband rented a post hole digger on a large skid loader so that we could get the gardening work done and we also bought some of the supplies for the garden like the fence posts.
Outside Projects We Worked On
We had a huge work weekend this past week in which we put in all of the fence posts for the new garden as well as dug holes for trees.
In total, I planted about 100 trees and shrubs so far. I still have a lot more to go but the black currants, roses (to be pretty as well as provide rose hips for tea), apple trees, pear trees, and crab apple trees are in.
I also planted 50 more asparagus, 100 more strawberries, and about 200 more onion plants in the house garden. It’s a process! It’s been raining now for 2 days (which is wonderful for my trees!) but means now I get a break from the garden until Sunday or Monday.
Inside Projects We Worked On
Spring/Summer means that inside projects mostly get put aside until canning season. I worked outside most of this week when I wasn’t blogging.
I did finish hatching out a second batch of chicks. I haven’t decided yet if I’m keeping these or selling them but they are cute to look at in the meantime!
Blog Posts I Wrote
I’m making an effort to be a bit more seasonal with my blog posts, here’s what’s new and updated this week!
- How to Save Money on Lunch Meat – If you pack lunches for anyone, this article is a must read!
- Asparagus Recipes – If you have asparagus coming up in the garden right now like I do, here are some simple recipes!
- Rhubarb Recipes – Rhubarb is one of our favorites! Here are some yummy recipes to make with it.
- Seasonal Menu Planning – All about how to do some meal planning around seasonal produce!
- How to Save Money in the Spring – Need some more money-saving ideas for this time of year? Here are tips from me and other LHL readers.
- Eating Dandelion Flowers – Have dandelions growing in your yard right now? Here’s how to use them.
Looking Ahead to Next Week
The rain prevented me from getting in the row crops this week (beets, corn, etc) so that’s the goal for next week.
Oh and before I forget…several of you emailed and commented and wanted the links to the videos we made so far of the two homesteads on our land. You can find them here. My husband will be adding more videos this summer when we dig more up. 🙂
So tell me….what did life look like for you this week? What did you do, make, or plan to do?
Merissa has been blogging about and living the simple life since 2009 and has internationally published 2 books on the topic. You can read about Merissa’s journey from penniless to the 100-acre farm and ministry on the About Page. You can send her a message any time from the Contact Page.
Hi, I love your articles. I am curious about what all the pans/bags you use to freeze food in. I know you recently posted about silicone pans instead of aluminum pans. What else do you use? Anything to replace a plastic bag? Or a recommendation for freezing individual raw chicken breasts.
I just use regular freezer bags right now, especially for raw meat. I use the Reditainer Containers from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3BjP609 for many other things in the freezer as well.
We had an unsettled week weather wise but it is expected to warm up starting today. I have a whole big bunch of seedlings waiting to be planted and I still have to finish putting my veggie garden seeds in. The yellow marigolds and purple wave petunnias and pansies are what I grew from last year’s seeds. That was the first time that I was able to do that and it feels good that I saved a little bit of money on not having to buy so many bedding out plants. I hope to increase that this next year so that I’m not dependent on the greenhouse. I usually grow tomatoes from a packet of seeds that I buy but this time I grew them from store bought tomatoes. I have two very big beefsteak tomato plants out in the back and a bunch of Romas by my back door. All seem to be catching and doing well. I didn’t do much else this week because of numerous appointments but hope that I can attempt more next week.
I’m not a homesteader but we do live frugally so here’s a glimpse of our week.
Meals: Last weekend we did eat out & do some take out because we were celebrating our wedding ann. weekend at home. Otherwise I ‘cooked’ meals & snacks. I say cook loosely because we eat very simple meals. One night we had cold salmon salad, cold egg salad with crudites & apple slices….so no cooking.
Shopping: just grocery shopping this week. Nothing extra. I bought some pork & beef in bulk to be repackaged in small servings to freeze.
Outside project: just yard maintenance though we’ve been doing a lot of walking through our woods looking at trees. We’re building a house this year & choosing what needs to go & what we’ll keep.
Inside projects: -Right now I’m going through my craft room filling my crafting hutch with things I want to keep & getting rid of everything else to be ready to move next year.
-I also wrote three letters. Handwriting letters is a big deal to me & I try to write at least one a week.
No blog posts…I don’t have a blog. 🙂
Other frugal things I’ve been doing:
I’ve been saving my receipts & only scanning one a day on Fetch to get extra rewards. You get extra points every 24 hrs so instead of scanning them all on errand day, I hold them back & scan one each day to get the extra.
Do my workouts at home…hikes twice a day in the woods & floor exercises inside.
Recycling some things for my craft projects.
I sound so not busy compared to you! But I’m an empty nester & do spend much of my time just playing with my grandson. I keep him around 30 hrs a week & that’s how much of my time is spent. That’s ok with me. I do so love a simple life. If you want to see how an older frugal homemaker lives you can check out my feed @jennylovescharlie on Instagram.
Would you please share your chicken recipe?
Is the tomato gravy a pasta sauce? We are Italian and call pasta sauce gravy. I don’t hear the term too often.
Wow!!! You have planted an amazing amount of things!
love your frugal fridays lots of ideas
Hearing all you have planted makes me long for more space, although I am thankful for what I have. I assembled a new 2′ x 8′ garden bed and am focusing on succession planting. Watering is a bit of a time-eater right now because I don’t have soaker hoses or drip irrigation yet for some of the beds. I also foraged some wild garlic scapes-yum!
On Thursday, I was walking with my dog and spotted a huge bunch of the low, small, wild blueberry plants (shrubs? bushes?) of my childhood. I haven’t seen them since my then 5-year-old brother burned down our woods playing with matches. When I got over my elation, I was heading home with pieces of blueberry bush in my hand, wildly thinking I would propagate them and realizing I knew nothing about how to do it. Hopefully I can coax the wild plant to live happily with my cultivated ones.
Indoors, it was a week for using up stuff that’s been around a while from the freezer and pantry. I cooked and deboned a few chickens. The meat will be so helpful for chicken salad and other meal. I fried up the skins for dog treats, and ground up the yucky, stringy tendons and offal parts for dog food. A package of bacon ends and pieces livened up quite a few salads and vegetable dishes. Made a meatloaf for the first time in a long time.
This week I’m going to make and can chicken stock. I have never canned stock before. I also have a few appointments, the next round of planting, and will be preparing to welcome the daughter of our lifelong friends for a visit. She’s hoping to become a physician and will observing in my husband’s practice for a few days.
Peace to all!
Here it is still cold, but my husband transplanted our onions, cabbage, celery, broccoli, and cauliflower in our garden. Earlier plants are still small.
Been tying quilts for disaster relief. Went to lunch with friends. Got few strawberry plants to add to ones we have, plus petunias to attract bees.
Spring cleaning a bit.
I researched how to make a clothing capsule, again, as I gained a size. Thrifted as much as I could last week. Then, I researched if I really need a serger, at all, even though I plan to sew with some knits. Decided I didn’t. This coming week, I plan to grind my own yellow peas to make 5lbs of protein powder for $16, instead of $150. This is for our homemade frozen fruit smoothies. I plan to weed-wack around house, this coming week, applying a natural spray that kills wolf spider mites here. This used to cost $50 a month for only four Terminix visits a year. Now, it costs $40 a year with only two applications, Spring and September. I walk at an area park trail and arboretum for exercise about 4x a week.