Simple Savings for April

If you are new to our Simple Savings posts, this is where I share all (or all that I can remember) the things we did to save money the previous month. These are usually very simple things and yet when you add them up, they can make or break your budget.

But here’s the deal, the things I share are things we’ve done, not things I think everyone should do. You’ll also notice that we do some of the same simple things each month to save money, nothing super exciting, just little things that help us out. You’ll also notice that there are some frugal things that we don’t do, or at least don’t do every month. Sometimes there is a time/money trade off and saving time wins out.

April was such a busy month for us and one of my goals was really to just survive it. Here is what we did to either save or not spend money in April.

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I gave three hair cuts (Carl, Gabriel and Benjamin). This is such an easy way to save money and many how to videos can be found online. 

We went to Christian and Lizzy’s home to celebrate Easter with them and her family. This was the first year in 17 years that we did no have a celebration at our home. But love traditions but new traditions are fun too. I brought potatoes and onions, a dessert and filled eggs.

Two of our van door handles broke. I ordered new handles and cables online ($95) and Gabriel replaced them for us. When I called the dealership, they wanted $125 for just the two handles. After getting the parts, Gabriel watched a couple of You Tube videos to get an idea of what to do. We also have a Chilton’s manual for each vehicle but You Tube is easier. 😉

We celebrated Benjamin’s thirteenth birthday party. We had about 40 people attend and we used several ideas that I shared last week to keep costs down. 

I made a huge pot of beans for bean burritos, taco salad, chalupas and taco soup. We also filled the freezer at the beginning of the month with zucchini and pumpkin muffins and  pancake and biscuit mixes. We also made granola bars quite a few times. Snacks can really make or break my budget so I try really hard to have these on hand.

I also made a big batch of granola. I make our granola in an 18qt roaster oven. I thought about doing a whole post on it but then decided, it’s really such an easy recipe that I’d just share it here. It’s 15 cups rolled oats, 1 1/2 cups coconut oil, 1 1/2 cups honey, 1 tbsp vanilla extract, 1 tbsp cinnamon. Mix it all together and cook on 200°F for several hours, until brown and crunchy. Stir it occasionally. Now, this won’t be chunky granola, it’s more like toasted rolled oats, but we really like it. We eat it with milk as a cold cereal or with yogurt. We like to add in raisins or other dried fruit and nuts sometimes too. 

Phoebe, Esther and I went to half price day at our local thrift store. This is such a fun girl’s morning for us. I really like that I can say yes to almost anything they want. Among other things, Phoebe found a skater skirt for $2. She’s been wanting one for a long time so that was really fun. Esther found a Barbie pinata for her birthday party for $2 and a bike for $4. 

We have finished planting the garden. We have some new things like strawberries and asparagus growing plus a few new herbs but mostly it’s the same things we always grow. We’ve had several harvests of green beans and yellow squash. My family is so happy. I’m still using the dehydrated kale but we no longer have to have kale or chard with each meal. 

We finished co-op this month. I really wanted to do something nice for each of the moms so we made them mini-spa sets. Each set costs me under $5 and were a huge success. 

Although I do shop at Sam’s for several things each month, I declined their offer to upgrade our account. Even when the cashier said, “Well if you had upgraded last year, you would have received $40.” And I said, “Yeah, but the cost difference is $60.” I know some people spend a lot of money at Sam’s but I wonder sometimes if they spend more than they normally would because they are getting “cash back”? It’s the same thing with couponing sometimes. If you buy something with a coupon that you wouldn’t normally buy, it’s not really saving money. 

I used the bonuses from The Ultimate Homemaking bundle to get gifts for others. I gave the scarf away in a drawing to one of our readers, I used the Craftsy bonus for Carl, I got a new Bible with the Tyndale Rewards for Phoebe, the Kid’s Green Craft box was for Esther’s birthday and I got two 8X10 scripture prints to use for graduation gifts. This bundle sale is over but you get notified when there is another one by signing up here. 

I found a new (to me) online cash back company, Top Cash Back. I ordered some diapers from Walmart for our grandson through them (it was a special offer) and when it’s all said and done, I will be reimbursed 100%. I usually use Ebates when I shop online. It’s nice to have another company to compare before shopping. 

We’ve tried to keep our windows open and our a/c off as much as possible this month. It’s been pretty humid and a couple of days we needed to run it to get the humidity out of the house. We’ll try to go a few more weeks before we need to run it but we’ve had many 80+ degree days here already. 

We have one last big project before the heat of the summer takes over. We have to replace some trim on our home and paint the exterior wood. In next month’s update we’ll have all the financial details but right now we’re clipping coupons, rounding up gift cards, keeping an eye our for sales…oh, and testing paint samples. 

…and a giveaway! 

Homestead Lady is giving a way an ebelskiver pan and an ebelskiver cookbook by Kevin Craft. I thought y’all would like to enter. (If you are reading this via email you will need to click over.) 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for sharing with your friends!