Frugal Accomplishments This Past Week

This past week has been a bit of a crazy week in our house. The kids are on spring break, and since my husband works in a school, he also is on spring break, so we took the time to do a lot of spring cleaning. Frugality wasn't uppermost in my mind- cleaning was... And taking it easy. Meaning, I took it easy, for the most part, and directed my husband how to clean my house. :-D

I didn't keep track this week, as the week went by, what I did frugally, so the list is more sparse than usual, because, after a whole week, who actually remembers what they did each day that week? At least I don't...

Here's a few things we did as a family that I do remember:

• Used a homemade salve made from foraged plants to deal with a diaper rash.
• Exclusively cloth diapered the baby.
• Exclusively line drying the laundry. 
• Cleaned out the fridge and freezer and stove using homemade cleaners- just a paste of baking soda and water.
• Foraged rosemary and olive leaf for tea.
• Friends went to a clothes swap and bought me some baby clothes there they got free.
• My friend went away for the week so off loaded some of her produce on to me.
• Someone was giving away a box of my husband's favorite cereal, so I got it.
• A friend was giving away a hunk of horseradish- I got some to use for various recipes (mainly condiments)
• Met a lady on the bus a while back, and we started talking about various diets and lifestyles. We see each other occasionally, and we discuss our respective healthy diets, and she knows I am "into" healthy foods, etc... I just bumped into her and she asked me if I eat seaweed- I do and I love it, but don't use it often because it is so expensive so I can't afford to buy much of it. She said she bought it for her use, but it doesn't agree with her, and asked me if I wanted what she bought. Of course I said yes, and now I got a huge amount of seaweed, for free. :-D It pays to strike up conversations with people on the bus!
• Family made a bonfire, using only foraged wood.
• When spring cleaning, discovered a lot items that had been missing that I needed, so now I don't need to go buy another set. (Among them- my breast pump, arnica cream, camera charger, and essential oils.)
• Made a few legume meals.
• Experimented to make a homemade buckwheat and short grain rice flour bread, with no eggs or xanthan gum. It came out great- just need to tweak it a little bit before I post the recipe.

What did you do to save money this past week?