What did you do to save $ today?

[HEChicken]

I found a source of free greens for the chooks! The house across the street from me is in foreclosure and currently vacant. Both the front and back yards are full of dandelions, and since no one is living there, they haven't been sprayed with any kind of herbicide. All I have to do is go over there and pick me a handful and its a win-win. No future owner will complain about someone taking the dandelions out of their lawn, and the chooks get some lovely fresh greens.....free! (I hold the handful for them so they can tear bits off and they have learned to come running when they see that handful of greens coming....several times a day )

 

[FarmerDenise]

I spent yesterday making bread using what I had in the house. I almost used up the remaining white bread flour that a neighbor gave us a year ago, he gave us a huge bag.
I made two batches of bread, one I have to finish today.
I started sourdough bread, it has to work overnight, so that is the one I'll finish off today. Then I also made a basic white bread, which turned out very well. The important thing is that SO likes it and we had sandwiches for dinner.
I also used leftover cooked brown rice to make rice pudding, using up lots of eggs from the chickens.

I am mending my old quilt.

I got a baby swing for free, from the good neighbor. We help him out with stuff all the time, and he does the same for us. The swing had been outside for quite a while. I took it apart and thoroughly cleaned it. We put it back together and it works just fine. I will be making a new seat cover though, since the one that was on it, got badly faded.

I gathered up the dried grass SO had weedwhacked this week. I put it in a laundry basket, while I was gathering it, and realized that I could probably make mini bales, if I line twine in the basket and then tie them up once the basket is filled to capacity. I gathered up enough "hay" to feed the goats for 3 or 4 days. SO went and cut the rest of it yesterday. I will gather it up and try to make mini bales out of it.

SO had started a bunch of seeds in our homemade green house. We simply covered the old frame of a canopy with clear plastic. Some of the plastic we bought new and some we re-used from last year. I love seeing the sprouts come up.

I stopped at our Goodwill outlet and found a brand new ironing board cover, a nice dress for me, and some baby items. All for less than $5. I really needed the ironing board cover and it is a really good one, not that flimsy foam padding, and it has a sunflower pattern on it. That will help so much with all my sewing projects.

 

[Denim Deb]

I've noticed that my chickens are just barely eating the chicken food. However, I've been noticing the wild birds eating it, and I'm sure the rats have also been helping themselves to it. So today, when I left the farm, I dumped the feed back into the container. I'll put it out again tomorrow for awhile, but I'm not leaving it out. I figure that will save me some money.

 

[tortoise]

I put money into actual saving accounts, rather than leaving it in my checking account to slowly disappear!

 

[BarredBuff]

I built a rabbit hutch which yeah costs money now but will pay for itself with babies and meat

 

[FarmerDenise]

We baled our own hay. SO was weed whacking the field and realized that the back field had nice tall grass. SO he was carefull how he cut it. We let it dry, turning it twice. Today we "baled" it. I put two bits of baling twine in a laundry basket, criss cross fashion. Then I loaded the dry cut grass into the basket, I stuffed it in really good, then using my knee to keep the hay compact, I tied the two strings up. When I lifted the bale out, I had a nice little package. These were easy to load on the wheel barrow and then into our little hay barn.

I made sweet and sour red cabbage, from our own little cabbage to go with our dinner. I also supplemented the storebought lettuce with greens from the garden.

I remembered to dig up the last of our carrots, before the field gets plowed. And I cut the parsley, that is growing in the field, and am dehydrating it.

 

[gettinaclue]

"We baled our own hay. SO was weed whacking the field and realized that the back field had nice tall grass. SO he was carefull how he cut it. We let it dry, turning it twice. Today we "baled" it. I put two bits of baling twine in a laundry basket, criss cross fashion. Then I loaded the dry cut grass into the basket, I stuffed it in really good, then using my knee to keep the hay compact, I tied the two strings up. When I lifted the bale out, I had a nice little package. These were easy to load on the wheel barrow and then into our little hay barn."


What a really neat idea!!!

 

[Laureli]

I saw bankrate.com on here and used my loan numbers to get an amoritazation schedule.... The loan calculator came up with a payment that is 3.23 LESS than what I am calculated to pay. Which is right? this little bit adds up to 38.76 for the year plus the loan company charges me 5 dollars a payment to pay online.

 

[framing fowl]

I'd call the loan company and ask them. It might be the taxes/insurance or if you have to pay the PMI.

I did 4 loads of laundry at work today.

 

[Living the Simple Life]

Called around to the local orchards to see if they had any apples left. Found one that is going to sell me bushels of apples for $12 (I am going to offer $10 when I get there as I plan to buy 3-4 bushels). I will soon have shelves full of pure applesauce goodness for a fraction of what it would cost me from the store....and the only thing in it is apples - not a bunch of other additives!

Well, we got our apples this weekend. I never even had to make an offer, the more the orchard owner talked to us the lower the price got. He had told us $12 a bushel over the phone, when we got there he said $10 per bushel, when I told him I wanted at least two, he told me he would give me all the apples he had left for $25. I ended with just shy of 4 bushels for $25. We will have to do a little trimming, but that okay!

Well, got the apples processed this weekend. DH estimated that we had at least 150# (16 cents per pound). We actually had very little trimming to do, only three apples that were totally bad, probably another two dozen that had some major bruising that needed to be trimmed, the rest were basically double-wash, core, cook and mill. FIL finally unearthed the canning jars he has had stored in his garage for 20 years so that was a bonus.

Final result: 60 quarts of applesauce, 13 pints of apple butter and an awesome day spending time with my kids and teaching them a wonderful life skill. The jars look so pretty all sitting on my dining room table I hate to put them away!