Holy Moly! When it rains it pours. First the good news! I had a wonderful craft fair at our fall foliage festival last weekend. I sold out on most of my hats, I do wish I had made more, but ya know, working 60 hours a week and having 3 kids puts a damper on the amount of time I have to crochet- I actually do get a fair amount (most) done at my second job, but I just ran out of time.
The bad news? Our T.V. and our dishwasher both crapped out ON THE SAME DAY. Seriously!! It also happened to be a day when all 3 kids were sick with colds and I don’t know about you but blobby sick kids like to have screen time. We opted for purchasing a new one that day (with a protection plan), and we’re going to see about potentially getting the other one fixed to save as a back up. We only have one T.V. in the house and I don’t plan on changing that any time soon.
The dishwasher we think (hope), can be fixed. There is a really great appliance repair man the next town over, the only down side is that he can’t be here until Wednesday. We’re lucky though, the dishwasher still works, the heating element just stays on ALL the time, so we have to turn it off at the breaker when we’re not running it. An only use the oven (on the same circuit) when the dishwasher is running, which makes for some interesting timing issues.
UGH!! So that being said money? what money? I don’t think we’re going to come out ahead this month and I hate having a backslide, but that’s murphy for ya. Here are 5 things I did manage to save money on:
- (Before the dishwasher/tv debacle) I bought the kids snowboots on sale from zulily. I haven’t actually found much on zulily that I’ve been impressed with, but I saved about $20 purchasing through them on Kamik snow boots. This is one thing that we always buy new- the kids wear snow boots more than half the year and they take a beating, they need boots that are super warm and will stand up to daily use.
- I stocked up on our favorite spaghetti sauce while it was one sale. I mix a jar of sauce with a mason jar of canned tomatoes and blend, it extends the sauce and the flavor of home canned tomatoes can’t be beat. We’re working on coming up with a list of things that we use regularly throughout the year so that we can buy a full year in advance and have a really well stocked pantry. We already buy in bulk, but not a full years worth.
- We have a couple of birthdays and baby showers coming up. I purchased yarn on super sale and will be crocheting presents. A crocheted animal hat with a book about said animal is always a hit.
- We had a very cold night and we fired up the woodstove- the wood we’re burning I actually won in a raffle! And yes that’s right, here in the northeast you can win crazy things like 2 cords of wood in a raffle.
- I got a (free) quote for fixing our walkway. It’s not compliant with building code and if we want to drop the PMI from our mortgage we’ll need to have it fixed for when we get the house re-appraised. With all of the recent financial explosions we’ve had, I’m not sure when this will happen, but I’d like to know what we’re working toward.
Anyhoo, stay tuned I’m halfway through a post on how we save money in the winter time (which really starts in the fall around here 😉 )
Thanks for stopping by!
Giving a crocheted hat with a book sounds like a wonderful baby present! It’s too bad everything broke. Hopefully, you can get things fixed without too much expenditure.
Thanks Becky! Fingers crossed- the repair guy comes tomorrow!
I would love to see a picture of the hat/book gift when finished. I too think it is a wonderful gift!!
Will do!
So glad to hear your craft sale went well. I agree on the winter boots – we always invest in a good new pair – although if they are in decent condition they do get handed down between siblings. I actually got a great deal on good kids boots at the Saks Off 5th outlet. Not a place you normally think of for that stuff, but they had a decent selection at good prices.
Good idea on the tomato sauce.
If you have to replace the dishwasher check scratch and debt sales. A lot of independent appliance dealers have great scratch and dent or floor model deals.
Good luck!!
Thanks J! We actually bought our oven from the scratch and dent section at Lowes- hopefully we don’t have to replace, but if we do that’s a good reminder.