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Wowza, what a week! We spent our weekend focusing on writing and studying at an Airbnb out of town. However! We did plenty of frugal things throughout the week. See how we tried to save money on our quest to live a frugal, fulfilled life.

How did you spend your weekend? Let’s chat in the comments!

Free fitness pass

I was toying with the idea of getting a membership to LA Fitness. I’ve been wanting to get out of the house more, and I loved the idea of using their lap pool to get fit. I’m not one to jump into a full-blown membership without giving it a dry run, so I downloaded a free one-week pass on the LA Fitness website.

‘Lo and behold, I was done with it after one try. I guess I’m just not about that #GymLife. I’ll keep looking for other ways to get out of the house, but the gym probably isn’t for me.

Gotta love that free pass, though!

Flower drying

Beautiful purple flowers have been cropping up all over our lawn. Not one to let these wildflowers go to waste, I picked what I could and stored them in a paper sack. This dried the flower petals with zero fuss.

Once I’ve filled my sack with dried petals, I’m going to use them to dye fabric. I’ve done it before here, if you want to see the process!

Jiffy Lube discounts

It’s the much-dreaded time of year: inspection and registration on our car. I had some free time on my hands this week, so I went to get the car inspected. Since I was there, I figured I’d also have them change the oil. We try to change our own oil, but when we’re strapped for time, we just pay for the convenience to have a mechanic do it.

However! Mr. Picky Pincher reminded me that Jiffy Lube always lists coupons on their site. I found discount codes for not only the oil change, but also our state inspection! After it was said and done, that knocked $20 off our bill.

Always search for coupons, friends.

Food

As promised, here are a few highlights from our menu this week!

Eggs Benedict

I visited my sister, Farming Phyllis, a few weeks ago. As you probably can guess, she runs a farm and has quite a few eggs on her hands. She graciously sent us home with two dozen eggs, which I’ve been trying to use up!

On Thursday morning I used the eggs to make a fantastic breakfast of eggs Benedict. Here’s the recipe I used for the hollandaise sauce. I just poached a few eggs and served them on top of homemade biscuits with bacon strips. (We didn’t have ham, so the bacon was our ‘ham’)

The result? Deliciousness! I forgot how filling this dish is; I didn’t even want to have lunch!

Chocolate work

This is my white whale, friends. I love to cook and bake, but the art of Chocolate work has been beyond my grasp until now. I figured it was too complicated and fancy for me.

But then I realized that I needed to keep stretching myself. What good are skills if you don’t put them to the test?

I had a bit of a chocolate fail last week, but I was determined to make it happen this week! I bought a $2 bag of Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips and got to work. I used this tutorial to temper the chocolate and it worked like a charm. Fortunately, the tempering was the hardest part!

Next, I made chocolate shells using silicone cupcake molds. They aren’t built for chocolate, so it was a little tricky removing the shells, but I made it work.

I used this recipe to made a pots de creme, which is a rich chocolate mousse. The addition of espresso powder gives this mousse so much more depth of flavor. While the pots de creme was chilling in the fridge, I whipped heavy whipping cream with 1/4 cup of strawberry jam. I also crushed some of my peanut brittle for crunch.

Now it was time to assemble everything. I filled the bottom half of the chocolate shell with a layer of crushed brittle, then the pots de creme. On top of that went the whipped cream and the second chocolate shell. Sure, I could have cemented the shells together with more chocolate, but I was feeling lazy. I just sat the shells on top of each other and it was fine.

I topped the shell with more whipped cream and a strawberry.

Y’all. I have to toot my horn here, because this was flippin’ delicious. The rich darkness of the chocolate and pots de creme was fantastic with the lightness of the strawberry whipped cream. I do wish my chocolate shells were thinner, but that just comes with practice and better molds. All in all, it was a fun experiment that went well!

Pancakes

Some days you just want to treat yourself, y’know? On Wednesday morning I felt like pancakes. Instead of depriving myself, I took the extra five minutes and made myself some chocolate chip pancakes. I used this recipe for the pancake base and just folded in the chocolate chips. I topped it with plenty of fresh strawberries and a little maple syrup.

Tortellini minestrone

I bought a pack of dried cheese tortellini last month, and ever since I’ve been looking for a way to use it. I finally put the tortellini to use in a tasty minestrone veggie soup for dinner. This was my first time using the cheaper dried tortellini, and I thought the taste was on par with the frozen pasta. The downside is that the pasta quadruples in size, so I wish I would have added more water to the soup. Oh well!

Chicken broccoli rice

This is a new recipe in our repertoire, and it was a big hit! Here’s the recipe. This was a one pot meal that was flavorful, filling, cheap, and simple. Heck, it even has veggies! I only had a head of broccoli, so I threw in some frozen cauliflower I found in the fridge.

Amazon gift card

I received a $55 Amazon gift card this week. Woohoo! I had my eye on a few items in my Wish List, but couldn’t justify purchasing them for a while. I decided to be a little irresponsible and buy everything in my Wish List with this gift card.

I ordered a few silicone chocolate molds for chocolate making, some better blue blocker glasses (mine are on their last leg), and a smart notebook that lets me scan and store notes in the cloud. After all that, my cost was just $2 for everything. Not bad, eh?

Weekend trip

Mr. Picky Pincher and I went on a fun weekend excursion to the Hill Country. I booked an Airbnb several months ago, intending to use it as a writing retreat. I got a little lonely during my last retreat, so I brought Mr. Picky Pincher along for the ride. He’s studying for a professional exam he’s taking in the fall, so he had plenty to work on, too.

I had tried to cancel this trip, actually. We’re trying to rein in expenses and I knew it would be pricey. Unfortunately, even a month out, the Airbnb had a super strict cancellation policy. I figured, “To hell with it,” and off we went.

It wasn’t as fun as my last writing retreat, but we still got so much done! I just didn’t do a good job selecting a high end Airbnb this time. And the surrounding town was kind of lame, too. The food in particular was disappointing, and sometimes downright inedible. Bleh! In hindsight I wish I had just re-booked at the last Airbnb I used, but oh well.

There were still some great highlights of the trip! I did like the cabin we stayed in, which was a 1920s prohibition steampunk cabin. That basically translates to lots of copper piping, a clawfoot bathtub, and old timey decorations. It was really nice to have a change of scenery, and we particularly enjoyed sipping coffee in the quiet of the morning. We did have one great meal at a high-end pizzeria. We enjoyed a weird-but-good appetizer of melon puree with sliced melon, tahini dressing, and pecans. Hubs and I split two pizzas: a chorizo and kale and a prosciutto artichoke.

We took Saturday afternoon to explore the town. Like I said, the town was a big flop for us; more of a bad tourist trap than anything else. The one huge highlight was our visit to a bonsai farm. Yes, a bonsai farm. In Texas. Who knew?

It was obvious we were the only customers of the day. The place is run by an old couple who live there, and they’re passionate about the art of bonsai. We chatted with the owner and learned all about bonsai. After a not-so-brief introduction, we explored their bonsai exhibit and took it all in. It’s amazing! I wanted to support their business, but there was no way in hell I was buying a $200 bonsai plant. We ended up leaving with a funny memory and plenty of gorgeous photos.

I wasn’t sure if this trip would be a good idea, but I had tons of fun. I’m glad Mr. Picky Pincher came along this time and we were able to relax for a change. The upside? We got a lot of writing and studying done, too.

Zap’s Adventures

Zap wasn’t super thrilled that we were gone over the weekend. But don’t worry–he’s always keen to make up over some snuggles.

… After getting a few good bites in on his cat tower, that is.

Zap discovered he can use his litterbox as a ladder to hunt for sunbeams.

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

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