Valentines and Lemonade

Halfway done and still pleasantly boring! I am thinking that the dullness of this month is not so much a failure to get into the routine, but that making accommodations for Frugal February is becoming second nature now so it doesn't feel like so much work. We made almost 3 gallons of homemade lemonade for a class Valentine's party, and the boys dressed up for a wedding wearing ties sewn by me. (Truth be told, I probably would have made them anyway, because in order to get them to wear the ties, I had to offer their choice of fabric print (they both chose a Lego minifigures fabric I had bought from Spoonflower). A bovine-loving friend received a handsewn cow stuffed animal with a necklace we had left over from party favors we gave in September. I have been cutting coupons and watching sales and was showing off my "saved 40%" receipt from groceries last week. Plus we're used to eating whatever we find. Last night's dinner was chicken-bean wraps with a side of toast.

Still, we are making more exceptions than usual. We solved the issue of the 12-year-old's constant requests for money for social events, movies, lunches with friends by giving her a budget of $20 for the month. That allows her to say yes sometimes (admittedly, not very much!) but requires some thoughtful choosing of events. We were low on gas because the hubby needed to travel for work and in the past, I probably would have calculated our gas mileage and miles driven and put exactly that much gas back in the car. But we just estimated, probably generously, because though this month has been boring, running out of gas on the side of the road is not the kind of excitement I am looking for.

Groceries total to date: $158.02 (including the tween's $20 budget) but we're out of pretty much everything we had on hand so here come the bigger bills. That included $2.50 for a giant bag of Dum Dum pops to give as class Valentines (a frugal find in the regular candy aisle, *not* in the aisle with the much higher-priced Valentine's candy!) and $5 for cookies brought to a party.

The Perfect Lemonade Recipe (makes about 6 cups):

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup lemon juice

 3.5 cups water

Put 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a pot and heat until the sugar is dissolved - you'll know because the water will be clear. Add 1 cup lemon juice, then dilute with 3.5 cups water or to taste.