Frugal Friday (Budget Busters)

I know I've not been around much. It's been a whirlwind of a week. Last Friday night we had an overnight GirlScout event at the mall. :) It's a really fun time, but I'm older and staying up all night is harder. And then Wednesday was the girls annual Science Fair. Lots of fun, but LOTS of work to get ready for that. Tonight the girls have another overnight youth function. So it's been get ready for one thing, barely recover, get ready for another thing.

Oh, and we're having out of town company next week for several days. :) Which I love. But it's work. Then an end of the year GirlScout dinner. And then the next week is finals for the girls. And we're planning a summer trip. And I've been working in the garden ever spare second. But I finally got it all in the ground.

Whew!

I'm not specifically listing a frugal tip this week, I'm telling the things that seem to eat up all of my extra money. Or maybe better put, some of the reasons that I'm frugal in other areas. So that I can afford these things.

(I hope this is ok Crystal. If not, feel free to remove. :)

Tisha is the sweet lady who won my blog contest. And she has tagged me to list my five budget busters. So I thought, how fun! This can be part of Frugal Friday as well! (I'm all for multi-tasking you know. ;) Plus, I've got to admit...there are areas that I'm still working to find more frugal ways.

1. Green Smoothies. We can eat very, very cheaply if we eat a lot of processed food. But that is simply not acceptable to me at this point of my life. We have recently starting drinking Green Smoothies. And yes, I had to buy the blender (I tried it in my lovely KitchenAid blender and it started to have that burnt electric smell really quickly.) We've been doing this daily for over 2 weeks now and I *love* it so much. My husband is sleeping better and I've dropped 5lbs! My youngest asks for her smoothie every day (and my picky red head will even sometimes have some). The thing is, the ingredients aren't super cheap either. We are now buying 4.5-6 lbs of raw spinach, 4 lbs of collard greens and a huge bag of baby carrots (the kind you get at Sam's) ever week. But the most expensive part is the fruit. We have some fruit trees that we planted a couple of years ago that will hopefully help with some of that cost. And I think my sweet husband is relenting on a cold frame for some winter produce. This is my long winded way of saying that I'm trying to get the cost down (and have not even been able to really tell the true cost of it yet as it's so new). And I may post on this more as I get it all figured out. :)

2. My daughters activities. Since we homeschool, I feel a certain obligation to allow them too many a few outside activities. And they all seem to cost a bunch. Times two daughters.

3. My oldest dog. He's 13. And he has arthritis. So we buy some pretty expensive medication for him. I don't at all resent it. I think it's an obligation. And one that I will gladly cut corners in other areas to make happen. He limps pretty badly when he's off the medication. So it's simply not an option to not buy it.

4. My daughters co-op. Great, great education. But it's not cheap.

5. Gasoline. I drive very little. But good grief! A tank on average lasts me 10 days. But it's costing over $50 to fill up! I remember when we first got the vehicle that I now drive and I could not force $15 in gasoline into it. Which I suppose shows the age of my vehicle. :)

I'd love to see what the rest of you spend your money on. If you decide to do a Budget Buster post, please leave a link here so I can check it out!

For some frugal ideas (and I really feel like I need them more than ever now), be sure to visit Crystal's Blog!