We’ve been having fun thrift shopping and bargain hunting lately! I think what’s so fun about it is that you never know what you’ll come across. Sometimes I go and don’t find anything, and sometimes I feel like I stumble across things that were left there just for me by the thrift angels. What’s funny is that it’s usually something someone thought was so worthless to them that they donated it to the Goodwill or thrift shop! It’s true: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. 😉

I recently mentioned that I poked around in the sale bins at Family Dollar and found a few good deals on pantry items!

Here’s a look at what I bought and spent:

• Rice-A-Roni Chicken (4 boxes): $0.77 each → $3.08
• Pasta Roni Angel Hair with Herbs: $0.77
• Old El Paso Cheesy Mexican Rice: $0.97
• Ortega Flour Tortillas, 10 ct: $0.97

Total: $5.79

If I would have bought these items at Walmart, they would have cost:

• Rice-A-Roni Chicken (4 boxes): $1.48 each → $5.92
• Pasta Roni Angel Hair with Herbs: $1.38
• Old El Paso Cheesy Mexican Rice: $2.27
• Ortega Flour Tortillas, 10 ct: $2.82

Total: $12.39

So, I saved $6.60, which is about 53%! Not too shabby. I think the key with saving on food is to be flexible. I wasn’t out shopping for those specific items, but I will certainly use them and incorporate them into our meals! The Rice-A-Roni and Pasta Roni will be great side dishes. I can use the Mexican rice in stuffed peppers, and the tortillas are perfect to hold Southwestern slow cooker chicken.

Sadie and I went to a local Goodwill that’s a little different; it’s a bin store! Everything that’s donated is simply tossed into big bins and shoppers sift through everything to see what they can find. It’s kind of gross, kind of fun, and a little bit wild.

Sadie found a Squishmallow stuffed animal (that we immediately threw into our washing machine because I am not chancing lice 😉), scraps of tulle, and a dress up dragon cape for Mordecai. I felt like I hit the thrift jackpot for Dakota. I love children’s clothes that are what most people would call tacky. I’ll fully admit it and I don’t care!

Imagine my smile when I found Gymboree baby clothes in her size from 2011. Tacky central!!

A panda dress, turtle tank top, jeans, and a little bear vest with different colored buttons! Those items, along with Sadie’s stuffed animal and Mordecai’s dragon cape cost a whopping $3.42!! Everything was weighed and clothing cost $1.99 per pound. Our haul was 1.72 pounds!

We left the bin store and Sadie was like “Well, that was kind of weird” and I agreed. But it was also so fun! Here’s Sadie with her tulle that probably cost $0.48. 😂

The last bit of thrift shopping we did this week was at the flea market! There’s a weekly flea market near our house that always has interesting things. You’ll see someone selling old street signs next to another person selling kids toys. There’s produce, vintage items, and more. Basically: anything goes!

Our kids love going there and are endlessly fascinated by seeing old Beanie Babies. I ended up picking up a charm for Dakota’s Crocs for $1!

The one thing I’ve learned to do with thrifting is not to buy things we don’t need or won’t use just because they’re a good deal. It’s hard! We saw a brand new box of Legos for $3! But we don’t need Legos. So I didn’t buy them. I was kinda proud of myself. 🤣

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Dakota is feeling better since she was sick! It was good to see her get her appetite back after not eating much for a few days. She thoroughly enjoyed one of my sister’s homemade breadsticks.

Other fun things lately have included baking (surprise 😂) and Bible study! Amos has been such a great book for me to study. I wake up every morning excited to dig into the wisdom of God’s Word.

We did school outside at a local park and it was so great! Mordecai and Dakota ran around, colored, played on the slide, and read books while Sadie and I worked on her lessons.

I worked on making chocolate covered Oreos for my Etsy shop! I had so much fun. The little chocolate pumpkins and leaf sprinkles made me excited to decorate for the upcoming season (not wishing away summer by any means, though!). I decided I’m going to surprise the kids and add a fall blanket and pillow to their beds soon! I have a feeling they will love it.

I also had an order for granola, so that was great! I always enjoy seeing which flavors customers choose. When I have granola leftover after shipping orders we always enjoy snacking on it! Dakota especially loves my gingerbread granola.

Last but not least, Dakota had an appointment with Early Intervention for an evaluation of her development. I noticed that while she is doing so well with physical and cognitive skills, she seems pretty quiet. A speech therapist came to our house, spent some time evaluating Dakota’s communication skills and confirmed my suspicion that she is delayed in speech.

So, she will be starting speech therapy once a week soon. Right now, our goal is for her to be able to say mama to me (my heart will explode!) and be able to have a word for when she wants to eat or drink. They also recommended she has her hearing checked again.

I’m so glad she’s going to get some help with her communication. At the same time, I kind of felt in an unexpected funk about it. She’s healthy and happy and speech therapy will be great (Sadie benefited from it greatly!), and I feel bad she is a little delayed. I can’t help but think it’s something on my end. I know. Mom guilt! Just had to share where I’m at with all of this because I always keep it real here.

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Other Notes and Thoughts 📝

• Scripture I’m loving: Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 4:2 🙏🏻
• I decided to plant arugula seeds to grow micro greens and my seeds have germinated! This makes me insanely happy. 🌱
• The kids and I made paper dolls—well dolls for Sadie and a race track with cars for Decky—and they had so much fun with that old fashioned craft! ✂️
• I was telling my sister that I wanted to get back into photography with a DSLR and she lent me hers (thank you, Hannah!). I’m so excited! I just need to grab an SD card and then I can snap away. 📷
• Niva ran away recently and the police brought her home again. They needed my license to write a report and I realized I misplaced it. This isn’t good because I’m going to be flying soon and will need my ID. So, thank you Niva for running away and helping me realize I need to replace my license. 😆
• Recipes to make: strawberry rhubarb pie, apple cider pork chops, and lentil-spinach soup.

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Have you done any thrift shopping or bargain hunting lately?