It's all uphill from here

More than halfway done with Frugal February, but I know the hardest part has just begun. We were coasting by supplementing the food we had in the house with some fresh food, but are out of everything now - no more meat, nothing stored away in the freezer, cocoa powder and peanut butter gone, out of cereal. No, you can't leave any of those things on my doorstep. But thanks if you thought of it. Now the grocery money we have left has some work to do! I need to do some smart shopping.

We made it through Valentine's day with computer-printed Valentines that we cut into puzzles with the Sizzix, then tucked into gift bags with miscellaneous goodies from my craft box - silk petals, red curling ribbon, sparkly stickers and little bits of a plastic pearl trim. My daughter closed her bags with wired silver leaves left from our wedding over 13 years ago!

I sewed into the wee hours and made the big kids flannel lounge pants and the little guy another pair of training pants (nothing like hearing a sincere, "Yay, underwear!").

We voted that we needed a treat last night and pooled our funds to buy pizza for dinner. The big kids each put in $3 from their Valentine's cash from Grandma (unsolicited gift!), the little kid insisted he wanted to give me a buck too so I didn't refuse, and the grocery fund put in $3.80, and we got two cheap pizzas, enough for dinner and lunch leftovers for the big kids.

So adding $3.80 plus $21.91 for more milk (seriously!), yogurt and butter, grand total $183.08.