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What a weekend! I spent a big chunk of my time catching up on freelance work, but we had tons of fun frugalin’ around the house. Check out all the ways we worked to save (and spend) money this Weekend. Share yours in the comments!

Saturday fun

We felt bored and listless on Saturday afternoon. Instead of moping around the house like a couple of stiffs, we decided to have a bit of fun. We made a trip to Walmart, where we each got to pick a bag of our favorite junk food. I scored some Rolos and hubs got Hershey’s Nuggets. Mmm.

We returned to the house and watched Little Miss Sunshine on Amazon for $3. It still cost us money, sure, but it was much cheaper than going to the movies. As an added bonus, we got to watch the exact movie we wanted to see instead of settling for something at the theater.

Kombucha

Time to get our ‘buch on! My Kombucha SCOBY is stronger than ever, which means it ferments kombucha much more quickly. I drained the fermented contents of our kombucha crock into a keg, which we use to carbonate the kombucha and put it on draught. Fancy, eh?

That did mean I had to make a batch of sugary tea to make more kombucha. I made a double batch this time using green tea I found in the pantry. I think I prefer the green tea over the black; the flavor of the kombucha is much smoother.

I’m so pleased that the kombucha system is working out! I think this is one of the highest returns we’ve gotten on a homemade food, given that storebought ‘buch is so expensive.

Want to make your own kombucha? Check out this quick video tutorial.

Blueberry wine & beer

This fermenting party was just getting started, y’all. My blueberry wine was ready to strain this weekend. Hubs strained it off and stored it in our one gallon glass carboy. It’ll be ready to siphon into bottles and drink in one month!

Mr. Picky Pincher joined a local beer club and met with them on Friday. I was worried because he stayed out so late, but he had an absolute blast connecting with other beer-lovers. He was even able to troubleshoot some of his brewing problems!

On Sunday hubs brewed a new batch of beer and put everyone’s advice to work. Let’s see how it goes.

Recycling petals

Soooo. I have a weird habit. If I’m having a hard week at work (like, a really hard week), I’ll buy myself flowers. Not fancy, expensive ones, just a $5 bouquet from Walmart. I had a tough day last week and got myself a bouquet that was on sale. Little did I know, it was on sale because it was ROTTEN on the inside. Some of the flowers were salvageable, but the whole thing was nasty within days. Gross.

Instead of tossing the entire bouquet, I reserved its colorful petals. I stuffed them into a brown paper sack, where they’ll slowly dry out in the coming weeks. After that, I’ll keep collecting petals and eventually use them as natural dye. Nifty, eh?

Garden update

Oh garden, my garden! It’s been consistently in the 90s around these parts, so the yard has been full of activity. Much of our garden still hasn’t recovered from the deer attack, so crop yields have been ‘meh’ at best.

I harvested all of the butternut squash, as well as some beans and cucumbers. The squash looked worse for wear, but once I cut them open, they were still squash. I steamed them and turned them into about a cup of mash. It sucks because I spent way more money and time growing these suckers to get A CUP of squash. Argh!

As far as the deer, thank you guys for your suggestions! We’re taking a two-pronged approach.

We heard deer despise the smell of Irish Spring soap. Fortunately for us, Irish Spring was on fire sale at HEB, so we picked up a case. Hubs put the soap into wire cages and hung them around our plants.

But that’s not all, folks! Hubs also ordered concentrated Coyote Pee. Yes, we paid money to buy urine from the internet.

Y’all.

I’ve done a lot of country things, but I’ve never smelled coyote pee in my life. The second hubs opened the Amazon package, a horrible, skunky funk filled our house. It smelled SO bad. And, mind you, the actual bottle of pee wasn’t even open yet. We had to store the coyote pee on the porch because it was so rank. Dang!

It repels me, so hopefully it repels deer.

In other news, Zap loves the smell of the coyote pee and we’ve had to hide it from him.

Sausage patties

We ate through our sausage patties in the freezer, so I cooked a new batch this weekend. I like to buy two rolls of sausage and cook them all at once. Once they’re cooked, I let ’em cool and then store them in the freezer for easy breakfasts.

I meant to also make biscuits this weekend, but the time just got away from me. Argh!

Zap’s Adventures

Zap was quite excited when Mr. Picky Pincher returned from New York City. …Mostly because he got to play in the suitcase. Zap loves to crawl inside and grab us by the legs. It’s actually really scary, but it’s so adorable that you can’t get mad at him.

I watched Sophie the Shih Tzu this week, who was sad her hoomans were out. I like to think we had a good time, but the poor chica didn’t want to walk or play very much. By Thursday night, Zap finally had the courage to start yowling at her. So that was progress, I guess?

Zap loves to be spoiled!

We want to know: How did you save or spend money this weekend?

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