This past week’s frugal accomplishments, in many ways, are more in that I specifically did NOT do things, less that I did things. Meaning, I had many opportunities to spend money, lots of temptations… but I was very good and specifically did not spend money. Mike and the kids were all on spring break, everyone home… we did NOT go on expensive outings with the family, but instead chose to stay home, and entertain our relatives at our house, going to the park together, etc…
I’m still trying to take it relatively easy…

Here’s what I did this week:

Got 5 aloe plants from a neighbor who was working on their garden. Transplanted a few, made some into gel which we used to deal with diaper rashes and other skin issues, and froze some.

Got attacked by mosquitoes so made a concentrated foraged rosemary tea which we rubbed on our skin to keep them away.

I had a lot of some stuff in the house, but didn’t have many other things I really wanted to use. For example, we had a bunch of oranges, but no other fruit in the house. I went to the local store to buy fruit and some other stuff, but the prices were super expensive, so I bought just a few fruit, instead of a lot, and went home. I was planning on going to the farmer’s market another day in the week, hoping I’d be able to find what I was looking for cheaper than it was in the local store, but instead I stayed home, and we simply made do with what we had in the house, adjusted recipes as needed, and dealt with it.

I made almond milk, and then took the pulp, blended it with water, and made more watery almond milk out of that… and blended that pulp with even more water, making more almond milk, so in the end, I ended up reusing the pulp 3 times and getting as much almond milk out of my almonds as possible.

I took the almond pulp left from my almond milk, and experimented with making an almond pulp carrot cake. It didn’t come out so great- the texture was a bit off- but we ate it anyhow.

I made homemade quinoa flour, something I’d never done before, because it involved washing and dehydrating the quinoa before grinding it.

I needed to figure out how to make grain free cookies, and made them with coconut instead of the other alternatives available, since coconut is the cheapest grain free cookie base I have.

I made a pot roast using the cheapest meat I can get, and it came out terrific.

Foraged rosemary for a stew.

I reused leftovers- took roasted eggplant that wasn’t such a hit, and added it to my stew, where it was eaten up.

Made homemade strawberry jam (non refined sugar only) with strawberries I bought dirt cheap a few weeks ago and froze.

Made homemade pizza for the family, gluten free and xanthan gum free, using homemade tomato sauce and homemade vegan cheese sauce.

I served leftovers again and again until they got eaten up- this has been a zero waste food week.

What did you do to save money this week?