Frugal Accomplishments, April

 Here's what frugal wins we had in April:

We worked some more on the barn finishing project in April, and used another $25 off Home Depot promo when we bought electrical supplies and one last bucket of stain.  Now all the stall walls have been stained/sealed, and I have lights, switches, and outlets on the entire west side of my barn!  It is so nice to not have an extension cord hanging down from the rafters anymore.

I found the Yarn Thief's chosen cat food on sale for $2 off per box at the farm supply store one week and I bought both boxes they had in stock. Then the following week the grocery store had the same food Buy One Get One 50% off plus I had a $3 off coupon at that store!  So I saved enough on four boxes of food (nearly 2 month's worth) that the 4th box was almost free.

Using a 30% off code I had at an online tack store, I was able to cover the cost of shipping on some oversized barn supplies I needed but weren't available locally.  (Okay, I didn't exactly need hunter green water buckets for the newly finished stalls, any color will hold water, but I wanted to match the buckets I all ready had--which were purchased many years ago.)  I did also add a portable saddle stand to that order and it cost $20 less than I could get it at any of the local places.  

DH sharpened our lawn mower blades himself.  He always does that, rather than taking somewhere and paying to have them sharpened, so I almost forgot to include it in the money-saving list.

We continued to eat from the freezer, cellar, and pantry.  

And a big frugal accomplishment was that DH tracked down who to talk to about trees that are being cut down on the road behind the church we attend. The entire several-block-long road is having work done and there are many really large old trees marked for removal.  He told the guy in charge of trees that if the wood was unwanted by the homeowners and the tree company was in need of somewhere to dispose of it, we live just outside of town and would gladly take any hardwood.  A handful of days later, this happened:

A semi-trailer load of free wood!

Since then, we've received several more partial loads of wood.  Probably about the equivalent of an entire winter's worth of heat.

Also wood/tree related, and a huge savings if you look at it from a We Did It Ourselves Rather Than Hiring It Done perspective; DH rented an aerial lift and cleaned up several trees in DD1 and Honorary Son's yard that had been damaged when the tornado went through there last August.  Those trees had branches broken off and hung up or not quite broken off but dead, more than 30 foot in the air.  Because there had been nothing actually fallen on their house from the tornado, their homeowners insurance wouldn't pay for a tree service to take care of the damage (and make it safe by removing the risk of those high widowmakers coming loose and falling on someone).  So, although we spent about $300 on renting the lift, to hire it out would have cost over a thousand dollars.  And now DH isn't worrying about things shifting in storms this summer and coming loose and falling on any of our descendants squashing them to death.