I took advantage of several frugal opportunities this past month. There were lots and lots of great grocery deals, my favorite of which is one nearby store that every few months has offered a Buy 2 Get 3 Free deal on potatoes, onions, carrots, and celery. Since those are all produce items we use regularly, and have the ability to store for a while, I make the most of that one. With the holiday weekend coming, May also found lots of deals on bags of charcoal briquettes, chips, ice cream and so many other things that I also have the ability to stock up on and store for months. Of course I made the most of that too.
At the library book sale (on Memorial Day) I found a couple of books, the Richard Scarry one I mentioned in a post all ready. The other two are a book recently published and promoted that I'd been interested in and a book of sock knitting patterns I once borrowed from the library but forgot to add to my Wish List that my kids have access to (for when they want to buy me a birthday, Christmas or Mother's Day present).
While on Facebook Marketplace looking at nearby listings (for free hardwood firewood at DH's request) I stumbled across a listing for very low priced winter horse blankets that, while dirty, looked like they were in good condition and not even 10 miles away! Looking up the brands online, I found that brand new the black and grey one costs $100 and the maroon one has an original price of over $250 (with a hood, which this one seems to have lost). They are in sizes that I can use, so I inquired about them and ended up a couple hours later (after the seller got off work) driving up to a barn that I used to work at (!! in 2016-2017 doing morning feed and turnouts, it has changed hands a few times as people leasing it found their own horse properties to purhase) and buying both of them for the bargain basement price of $40 total! Yes, that's a measily $20 each!
Over the next few sunny days, I gave each of them a good wash in my (super capacity) washing machine on the heavy duty setting with several extra rinses (one at the beginning to loosen up and get rid of much of the surface dirt) and hung them on my clothes line to dry.
The maroon one does have a spot where the lining is missing, but that's something I can easily patch. It also needs new leg straps, and I happen to have a replacement pair on hand. At a mere $40 for over $300 worth of winter horse blankets, I'm not going to begrudge < $10 for leg straps.
I brought Sweet Madame Blue out of hibernation (aka winter storage in the garage until the roads are definitely salt-free) and gave her a bath in the front yard rather than paying to take her through a car wash. With gas prices so high it makes sense to drive her for everything I don't need a truck for. So the pick-up will most likely stay home and only make runs to the feed store for grain and to Tractor Supply for bales of pine bedding until November or so. Sweet Madame Blue can take care of hauling the smaller items until the snow flies and the roads get icy (and salted) again.
Then, the very last day of the month, I saw that Tractor Supply had the pelleted horse bedding (that I like the sprinkle in the pee spots of the horse stalls for extra absorption) on sale for $2 off per bag. Since the regular price is $6.99 a bag, $2 off was quite a large percentage in savings. I bought several bags more than I normally do. Again, I have room and the ability to store it, so might as well stock up while it's on sale.
Since it was time for me to get more bales of pine shavings that I use for stall bedding, and the price on that was 60 cents per bag lower than normal, I decided to take DH up on his idea of buying an entire pallet of it rather than the 20 bags we normally get per trip (in the back of the pick up). We just hooked up the trailer and took that to TSC with us this time.
59 bags fit on a pallet, so 59 x $0.60 came out to a savings of $35.40. Not too shabby. Now we'll test DH's theory that we can store a pallet of shavings in his shop--I don't have that much space in the barn--in an area that will be both easy for me to access weekly and won't be in the way of any of the other items that 'live' in the shop (like the tractor, 4-wheeler, mower, tools, tools, more tools, work tables. . .) or the activities that are done in the shop (repairing things, woodworking kind of things, hanging deer in season. . . ).
Funny side note: I texted this picture to both my daughters with the caption "When TSC has bedding on sale, you buy a whole pallet." DD1 responded almost instantly "For a very brief moment I thought 'How many bed sheets does this lady need?!?' Then realized you meant horse bedding."
HA! That would be a few lifetimes of bed sheets indeed!
No comments:
Post a Comment