Thursday -- Thrift and Other Things

I don't really have a Thankful or Thrifty Thursday, today...

Here's a scattering of things I have done/am doing around the house.

Yesterday I spent the day on some decluttering -- the type of things that get put off because they take a lot of time to do and don't make a huge visible difference, but they are big things off my to-do list just because they did take so long.

• Here are the toys that are going to leave the house as soon as my teenager takes out the trash:

Yes, I finally sorted through that whole chest of toy parts, found everything we still needed, gave a bunch of Lego and Bionicle parts into my 11 year old's keeping (with the condition that they would go in the trash if they were found on the floor or littering the counter).

• The other thing I did was go through a box of old homeschooling magazines, tearing out the "keeper" parts in order to keep them in a homeschool inspiration folder. The rest of it went into the recycling bin.

Finally, we got our ice and water making machine fixed on our fridge(my lame thrifty tip for the day is to put off repairs for a long LONG time if you can; then you get the benefit of a working device and you are so grateful for it into the bargain) Today I had the boys empty the freezer and refrigerator contents and transfer them into the outside ones, so we can defrost and clean the inside one.

My other tiny thrifty tip for the day -- get an extra freezer if you can. Especially if you live in the mountains and the nearest Costco or Sam's and Trader Joe's is 50 miles away. Especially if you have 7 kids and four of them are teenagers or older, and 6 of them are boys. Get a refrigerator too, if you can. Especially if the nearest farmer's market is also 45 miles away.

Even if your family is smaller and/or younger, an extra fridge/freezer can be a really useful investment -- you can stock up on sales, and you can save on gas and time and money by not having to zip over to the grocery store almost every day -- or hit the fast food or take-away places when you don't have anything in the house to eat.

When our dishwasher and garage freezer broke down at close to the same time, we got the freezer replaced long before we got the new dishwasher.