My frugal week in pictures :) PIC HEAVY

[shortstack]

Just for fun and possibly to inspire someone... My frugal week in pictures:

To begin my story I have to admit to something not very frugal. I took my daughter, along with a friend whose mom paid for her ticket, to the Taylor Swift concert this weekend at Heinz Field for my daughter's 10th Birthday. I save in pretty much every other area in my life so that I can be the rockin' mom who takes her kid to cool places and make memories.
All of that being said I couldn't stand the thought of spending tons of money on a concert T-shirt and I couldn't find a Taylor Swift shirt anywhere in my town so I decided to make big pins for the girls to wear on the clothes they were already wearing. I ended up making 3 pins for $2. 3 you say, there were only 2 kids? The third was for my five year old son so he wouldn't feel left out. The pictures in the pins came from my daughter's BOP Magazines and my son's video game manual.




My avatar picture shows the backpack at my left foot I took into the concert filled with snacks and beverages for me and the girls. When I got back to the hotel and met up with the little girl's mommy she was completely surprised that we only spent $6 out of the $100 she sent in with her daughter and that was for a personal pizza for her daughter.


A little further into my week I made Coconut Almond Oat Cluster Cereal with added Wheat Germ:


Please whoever gave me this idea on here take credit. I've looked and can't find who it was...
I made Pizza Pot Pies for dinner:


Flipped over to eat:


Threw in a little gardening during the week for good measure.
3 squash plants and 1 pumpkin. In the background, green beans, tomatoes, onions and peas at the end of their lifecycle. Also my Tree of Life painting I painted on an old farmhouse window partially shows.
I can tell a HUGE difference in my square foot garden this year since I used Vermiculite.


Peas mentioned above, harvested:


A trip to the library to get new reading material for bedtime stories. My favorite book we got:


Then finally Wed night we projected a movie onto the side of our house for all the neighborhood kids to watch along with a jug of Sugar Free Koolaid and 5 bags of microwave popcorn which we split between the kids. My neighbor right next door has the projector for her business and I have the laptop with Netflix. So the cost to keep 10+ kids entertained was around $5 for the snacks.

Hope I inspired someone

[nuisance26]

~That's awesome!
You're garden looks almost exactly like mine. The squash are so huge it's hard to see anything else. Loving SFG!
You are going to share that granola recipe aren't you? ~

[oheoh's momma]

That is awesome I have to learn to post pics

[shortstack]

As with most of my cooking I didn't go completely by a recipe but here is the jist of what I did or at least it started out like this lol:
Golden Granola Recipe - Allrecipes.com

We have blood sugar/insulin issues in my house so I used sugar free pancake syrup instead of honey and I left out the dried fruit because it shoots my insulin up. Next time I'm going to try it with Splenda brown sugar to reduce the sugar even further. I also didn't have a whole TBSP of Vanilla so I did 1/2 TBSP vanilla and 1/2 TBSP almond extract. I also added a tsp of nutmeg.
The trick to making it more like cereal is to take your hands and make clusters out of the granola. Then the most important part... turn off the oven and leave the pan in there over night. It is so nice and crunchy in the morning when you do this!

~That's awesome!
You're garden looks almost exactly like mine. The squash are so huge it's hard to see anything else. Loving SFG!
You are going to share that granola recipe aren't you? ~

[shortstack]

Post them to photobucket and then once they are on there copy the IMG link and put it in your message. At least that is how I do it.

That is awesome I have to learn to post pics

[Jamielane]

We saw Taylor Swift as well Shortstack on June 11th but I bought a concert tshirt. We saved and saved since we had the tickets for so long. The pure joy on her and her friends face was priceless for me. The shirt though did indeed cost 25.00 and the nachos and pop were another 12. My husband drove us and dropped us off at Ford Field in Detroit and then picked us up so we saved about 20.00 at least on parking . It was an amazing concert wasn't it?

[shortstack]

Yes it was amazing I was very surprised it was more of a stage show than a concert. I've seen three Broadway shows in NYC in the past few years (one being Mary Poppins with my daughter) and I can say her production was every bit as good as those. I was also impressed with the three people who came out of the bells and were suspended from the ceiling doing acrobatic tricks.
I think the money for the shirt bothered me because my daughter has sensory issues with clothing and I was worried I would spend the money and then it wouldn't be worn.
And yes the look on their faces was totally priceless. I'm so very glad she will have that memory.

We saw Taylor Swift as well Shortstack on June 11th but I bought a concert tshirt. We saved and saved since we had the tickets for so long. The pure joy on her and her friends face was priceless for me. The shirt though did indeed cost 25.00 and the nachos and pop were another 12. My husband drove us and dropped us off at Ford Field in Detroit and then picked us up so we saved about 20.00 at least on parking . It was an amazing concert wasn't it?

[Jamielane]

I can understand the sensory thing. My younger daughter has some issues also like that so I would be leary of buying one for her without it being tried on etc. The acrobats were great and the way every song was told as a stage story. My favorite is Love Story and the flying balcony was great. I have seen alot of concerts in my 42 years and I gotta say although it isn't my very favorite music it was the best show and the longest. = )

[mauimagic]

Mahalo for sharing your wonderful week and all the great things that you did!! I think that it would be fun if everyone shared like this too!!

[nodmicks]

Looks like a great week! thanks for sharing!

[bumplett]

great pics!!! thanks!

love the projection on the side of the house!

[Lora88]

All I can say is your awesome

[Debbie-cat]

What a wonderful mom you are!! Thanks for sharing the pictures. You are truly inspirational!