I made drawer dividers out of half gallon milk cartons and two cat litter jugs. Husby is so familiar with my fondness for cat litter jugs, he salvaged these two from the recycle trailer last time he took our recycle stuff out.
I think I finally have a workable system for the rosettes I make to put on baby gowns. I like this new arrangement much better than the numerous things I've already tried, and it's free. The drawer is from a three-drawer plastic Sterlite storage drawer set I got for $4 in a thrift store last year on vacation. It needed to fit into a certain place but was 1/4" too tall, so I performed surgery on it and cut off part of the base. It's a perfect fit now and I like where it's living. Here's the result of my drawer inspiration.
I made a sleeve out of an old tee shirt that was previously made over to cover Shadow's incision after she was spayed last September. The sleeve covers Storm's fixator and wounds so he doesn't lick them. Covering them means he does not have to wear his stupid cone except at night, which is so much easier and comfortable for him. This pic looks like he has both legs in the sleeve but it's just the fixator up against his good leg and partially covering it.
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When he had to have the cone so he wouldn't chew the toxic pain patch on his back leg, I reused a cone we had for Sugar a couple years ago. I had cut the cone smaller for her, but Storm's face is so much longer he could reach things he shouldn't have been reaching. I used my trusty hole punch and punched some holes in the two pieces, then used small cable ties to reattach the two pieces so the cone was longer again and he couldn't hurt himself. Cost difference: a new cone would have been $14 or more, while the cable ties cost a few cents. Fourteen dollars might not be much out of an anticipated $1,500 bill, but it's still $14 we have in our pocket yet, plus the gallon of gas to go get a new one since we needed it right away and would have had to make a special trip.
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Husby is playing a coupon game with one of the grocery stores in town by stopping for groceries there four different days to use four coupons that can't be used together. That will save a total of $16. He literally drives right by that store twice a day so it's not any extra cost for gas and won't take much time each day. That savings and not buying a new cone for Storm will pay for four bags of corn for our deer herd, who need it badly with the cold weather.
Dog doors are closed till Storm gets the all clear to use them again, and that's saving a ton of money on our heat bill, especially with daytime highs below zero (not wind chill, actual temp. Wind chills have been hovering around 20-30 below.) Having those doors closed 24/7 will help offset his vet bills by saving propane through the coldest months of the year.
I'm so grateful for having the foresight to stock all the sewing, crafting, and other inventory here. Going out of town to shop right now is not an option, but usually I can find workable things when we need something. A couple years ago we came across a bunch of baby gates at a rummage sale for $1 each. We bought all of them, six or eight, because we knew something would come up and we'd need them. Now's the time. Storm can't be allowed in any room with furniture he can get on. He can't jump down without risking injury now. So we need gates to close off several rooms to make sure that can't happen. We need to close him up in the office at night, where he and Husby are now sleeping on the floor. We also needed two to close off the top and bottom of the dog yard steps, because he can't do steps right now. We'll soon have to add a second one on top the bottom gate because snow is piling up there and he can't be allowed to jump over the gate and onto the steps. The gates, and some reusable cable ties, solve the problem quickly and easily. The clutter around here is frustrating sometimes and we're still actively purging stuff, but having certain things on hand is a lifesaver more times that we'd ever be able to count, not just for saving money but just for the convenience.
Aside from all that, we're doing the usual frugal stuff like putting on sweatshirts instead of turning up the heat, keeping on top of the leftovers instead of letting them spoil, cooking my own WW meals, etc.
