Thrifty Thursday-Making the Most of Time Edition

     One thing for sure, I sure have more time on my hands than I've ever had before in my life. Yes, I work long days, partially of my own choosing, but also to keep up to date and  ahead of potential problems. Every half day there seems to be some  curveball thrown in, but for the most part, I haven't succumbed to work stress. On the home front, I've got no young children nor elderly relatives that need care, though I wish my MIL would use us for a bit more for help. While she feels strong and before the bad weather truly starts, I'm sure she wants to keep all her independence so I cant say I blame her. While I track, or reflect is a better term, on where I am thrifty in my expenditures of time, resource, and money, I do have a lot of time that could be better spent. I tried this week to add more productive activities, productive to me meaning not just mindless hours of television. In review, here's my results for the week in all three categories. 

      Time 

• I'm very excited to start a book club again and meeting number one was a start to winter that will push me to read for pleasure, and books I might not  select. My first Fridays are filled for a while. 
• I'm not sure I'm a Blogmas kind of blogger, but want to get more organized and provide better content. I read and made notes for myself when I had day time free time yesterday from this blog post, at Life with Ktkinnes Do you Blogmas? Do you like to read Blogmas type posts?
• Used my day off to catch-up with a few work things as no one would expect an e-mail since I had my Out of Office on, but overall, used the day for things I might otherwise do on Saturday. I also avoided CNN or other news stations that I have been watching way too much.  
• I baked yesterday! Pumpkin bread and  homemade pizza  and took care of my sweet tooth I had the night before. 
• My daughter came over late afternoon and we made the food and had dinner together, then watched an older movie, Notting Hill. 
• I also spent about an hour helping my other daughter refine her resume and write a cover letter for an on-line internship that would start in January. It is a great opportunity of about 10 hours per week for four months of the MN legislative session. She did OK overall on her resume on her own, but I looked at it from the perspective of someone choosing who to interview and suggested a bit of rearranging. 

Resources

• Once again  little bits of things were used to make some good pizzas. I had three kinds of olives, zucchini, and my daughter brought some spinach and tomatoes over. We made two large-one vegan, one with pepperoni and mozzarella and used 1/2 can of leftover tomato paste to make the sauce plus used a jar of bruschetta I had in the pantry. Now I have scores of leftovers for lunch today and tomorrow. 
• I froze two portions of soup plus two  cheddar brats left from meals. With the leftover crock pot pasta and pizza, it was clear I wouldn't get to these items for lunches and I also wanted the soup for DD2 as it is one of her favorites. I plan to use the sausages with either a boxed dirty rice or red beans and rice-which ends up being a really tasty meal. 
• I shredded the remainder of the BBQ pork roast, which had an odd flavor, without saving all the juices since they were drenched in the sauce we didn't like too well. Instead, I used the last of the Sweet Ray's we had from cabin week, then added some water to get the last of the flavor from the bottle, mixed it all together, and put in a smaller container to pull out for future sandwiches. 
• I cooked the whole package of  chicken used for the soup, and froze two meals worth again. It is already for a future hotdish, on skewers, or to thaw, toss in bread crumbs, and reheat in the air fryer for crispy chicken tenders or nuggets.

     I just realized almost everything in resources is about food. Next week I'll try and think about the broader context of our resources. I guess I have gas savings since I have not driven since October 31 other than to go to the polling place and drop of my Covid test at the UPS box. 

Money

• The book for book club is not available through the library now, but while I'm trying to use Amazon less, I did find for under $10 and had a $5 voucher to use towards it from taking a survey. 
• I did another $2 opinion poll. I will miss those little perks-the only good thing about election years!
• When DH picked up the odd grocery items last Saturday for me, several items provided cents off per gallon of gas. He filled his car using a cumulative  35 cents per gallon and saved over $4 on his fill up. 
• I was bored one night and did some shopping on line. Loaded up a cart with cool looking wrought iron signs, outdoor doo dads, and ice scrapers. I ended up just letting it all sit in the cart, then later deleted. Shopping therapy, of which I need very little, was taken care of without spending. 

     I had some splurges too like the two shirts for the Thanksgiving run, all proceeds going to our local family service. DH bought the premium bakery style buns from the local stores bakery  area, but he really enjoys the for sandwiches, plus they made the  oddly flavored BBQ pork roast better. In the future, I won't recommend the already seasoned Aldi BBQ roast-a bit too mesquite for our liking. Even though my test was negative, I decided I should stay home for the full two weeks of when I thought I might have been exposed, through this coming Monday. This means DH will likely stop for any items we need and that likely will  increase spending as he  adds things. I'm less concerned with that than the extra time he will take recreational shopping, longer exposure to people that might balk at masks in public places. Hopefully though, we won't need too much if anything. Where did you save or spurge this week? Did you make any particularly good use of time?