Pennies From Heaven

 

Hello dear Ones!

It is hard to believe another week has passed! Our days fly by when we are in the school year! And today as I write this, there is a distinctive sniff of Fall in the air! Oh, I still took a hike this afternoon wearing short sleeves and shorts—but there was something missing—sweat! It was just perfectly delightful! And today my husband noticed one tree we were passing with just a hint of Fall color starting on one branch. I do hope we get some vivid Fall color this year! Where we live in the South, some years we get a fairly decent showing of color (for the south that is—I realize nothing like up in the Northern states!), and some years we don’t. So we will wait and see! I think it depends upon the night time temperatures, or so I read. Do you get good Fall color where you live? If you do, enjoy some for me this year please! 

On to my money saving endeavors from this week! Do you remember how last week I shared that my car was in the shop? Well, our good news is after one week of a “vacation” in the repair garage, my car is repaired and back in service again! Praise the Lord! Which leads me to my first money saving thing:

1. We received a 10% discount on our car repairs! Yes, it is true that 10% isn’t much—but every dollar that we do not need to pay out is one more dollar in our own savings!  We used the repair shop at the local college, and because our family is employed by the school, we receive a small discount on their services.  I’ll take it! And “Thank you SO very much!” It is also a place that we can trust to tell us the truth—if they say a repair needs to be done, it truly does.  And this repair was less than I had feared it would be, so yay for that as well! This is especially appreciated because of item #2.

2. Our oven broke beyond repair! :( Which was very, very sad!  Well, technically it could be repaired, but the cost of the needed new part exceeded several hundred dollars for the part alone, not counting if we needed to hire it done or if my hubby might be able to put it in.  Considering that my oven was 14 years old—which is not OLD but IS “old,” we decided it would probably be better to put those several hundred dollars into a new stove instead.  I will concede that my stove had the good graces to go out on Labor Day Sunday, and after my initial dismay at the stove breaking down my next thought was “Labor Day Sales!” The stove had already given us an error code, and we had looked it up and done several tests to make sure we narrowed down what the problem was, but once we were sure my hubby and I looked at each other and said “Let’s go look!” So off to Lowes we went!  And here you will learn how old fashioned I am—I truly prefer an old style coil burner stove, not a flat top one, because I do some canning and canning on a flat top is asking for trouble as it is so easy to crack the flat top stove when canning on one, which is why they do not recommend you can on a flat top. Well, guess what is NOT in style now?  Yup! Coil burner stoves.  I already knew this, because 14 years ago when I bought my current stove I had only had my choice of one or two of that style.  I wondered if I would honestly find ANY available now!  Well, they had two! I had already done some research online before heading to the store, and I quickly found the one I favored. Well, the salesman was already quite busy with helping a family that was there ahead of us, so we decided to pop quickly across the road and see if Home Depot had any different styles or such.  They didn’t.  They had one coil burner stove, and it was the exact same one I had just looked at over at Lowes. It WAS one dollar cheaper, but only one dollar. But there WAS a salesman who came over to us immediately, so I started asking him my questions. I asked if they happened to have a senior discount, or a veteran’s  discount. He said they did—but not that would apply to appliances.  Boo to excluding appliances from discounts! But oh well. I wasn’t upset with the salesman at all, he is just doing his job and I appreciated his answering my questions.  But then I joked with him and said “Well, do you have a please-buy-this-item-from-us-and-not-from-Lowes discount?” He looks at me and replies “I can take $50 off—don’t buy from Lowes!” I was shocked, as he was serious! He said he does not work on commission, but he had the ability to give a “customer satisfaction” discount, and so he did! I have no idea what price an item has to be in order to get a discount like that, but I sure appreciated it!!! I thanked him profusely, and then went on to tell him that normally, we would haul it home ourselves in our mini van, but my van was broke and still in the shop at that point, so how much was their delivery fee? And he told me that all their appliances need to be shipped from their warehouse—they do not build their stores large enough to house their appliance inventory so they just ship from warehouses. He said they normally charge I think it was $29 for delivery, but that he would wave that for me.  Another blessing!!! So many things to be grateful to God for! First of all, that if the stove WAS going to break, it was during a sale time. For a $50 discount. For free delivery. And there is more—at the time my oven went out, I had been baking a double batch of oat walnut patties, and the patties were close enough to being finished that we could still eat them and it also gave us several day’s worth of meals to eat! I have been so thankful for those patties this past week! Isn’t God good? He knows every detail!

3. I listened to a book on Hoopla. It was sad—the author lost his young son to a drowning accident in their family swimming pool.  But at the same time, it was a good book in that the purpose of his writing it has been to share what he has learned about God through this tragedy.

 

4. I made a loaf of bread in our crock pot.  Did you know you can bake bread in the crock pot?  I have a whole cook book on crock pot cooking, and it sure came in handy in this week without an oven while I wait for delivery of our new one! Now, the loaves of bread are not the typical bread pan shape, as I bake it as a round ball of dough right in the bottom of the crock pot, and it expands out to be a flattish circle of bread, but it is sure yummy and sure does get eaten! 

5. I went for a hike on local trails that are close to our house and there is no entrance fee to use the trails.  That was fresh air and sunshine and family bonding and health improvement both physical and mental all rolled up into one! So yay for healthy, free hobbies such as hiking!

6. Our family ate free in a meal that was provided for the students at the school, as community members were encouraged to come and mix and meet the students.  This is an annual event, helping the students feel more of a part of the community even though for many of them their own family and home church may be miles away. 

7. I received an “almost free” cooler bag from Eddie Bauer. I had a $10 coupon they sent me, so I went on the website and looked for something as close to $10 as possible.  Many times when they send me a coupon like this I use it to purchase a pair of socks which are literally $10, and I end up not paying anything including tax!  But right now I had enough socks, so decided to use it on this cooler bag.  The bag was $30, and they had a Labor Day sale that was 50% off, which brought it to $15. So I took the $10 off of that and paid $5.00 for it, which I am satisfied with as I really like it.  You can see it has a zipper that unzips and turns it into a little larger of a bag, kind of like some suit cases that unzip and give you an extra inch or two.  Overall this cooler is a smaller size, but I have large ones so it is nice to have a smaller size one for trips now.  It also has a handle on two different sides, and a strap that can hook on either vertically or horizontally so it is very flexible. 

8. All meals were eaten at home—except for our free meal—even with no stove and no oven to use.  I did use the microwave, crock pot, and instant pot, so I am very thankful I have multiple ways to cook.  I do have a single burner that I can get out and use on the counter top. I have not had to use it yet, but it is nice to know in my supplies that I have it.

Well that was my week! How was yours? What things did you do to save your pennies and how did you see God bless you? I would love to hear about it! Looking forward to the new week, and hoping we are all done with broken things for a while now after two weeks in a row, but no matter what I know God will bless us!

Until next time,

Friend