This year I learned:

* to make pizza dough from scratch - I had tried recipes before, but just didn't like the out come. I finally found a recipe that I absolutely love and it comes out great every time.

* to make pizza sauce from plain canned tomato sauce. - I always used to use the already prepared, canned pizza sauce

* I finally found a detergent that lets me wash clothes in only cold water. It was hard to find one that worked well along with my hard water and the nasty stains the DH and the kids get into without me having to pretreat every single speck on their clothes (which could take an hour sometimes!)

* I started cutting off the hot water heater over night and when not needed during the day. Even though I have slacked lately where this is concerned, I figured up before that it was saving me nearly $15 a month on the electric bill - eventually we will get an on-demand tankless heater

* I taught myself to crochet. It is a big stress reliever for me, and fairly inexpensive as long as I don't drool too long over the premium yarns LOL