Black Friday shopping

Black Friday was not nice to my wallet. However. I spent only money I had, and I bought only things that I really "needed." I did not buy Christmas presents. I did buy Jonny a few new polo shirts, but other than that, it's was "birthday" gifts for myself.

I've been wanting a programmable crock pot for a long time now, and just could not justify buying one for $50. Yesterday, I got one for $20 with a $10 mail in rebate. Thank you, JCPenney! I also bought 2 sets of Store N Lock food storage containers for all the new healthy food that I'm keeping in my house. Whole Wheat Flour, Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, Flax Seeds, Quinoa, Brown Rice, Rice Pasta, etc. Half opened boxes and bags with chip clips stuffed half-hazzardly in my pantry just wasn't cutting it.

I'm also learning to can. I bought a pressure COOKER,  because I was told that a pressure cooker and a pressure canner are the same thing - and they are, but a pressure canner comes with a jar rack that sits in the bottom of the pot. Honestly, I don't understand why companies just don't make combined pressure cooker/canner for everything. For safety reasons, I took the pressure cooker back and bought a Presto pressure canner/cooker from Walmart. It was NOT on sale, and cost more than I really wanted to spend, However, I had a ton of turkey stock that I had to store SOMEHOW. I would have spent more money buying freezer containers, than I did buy sucking up the cost of the pressure canner and some jars so that I could put it up in my food pantry, rather than freezing it all. Plus, I can reuse the canner over and over again. I'm planning to can as much as possible. On the new diet, I am staying away from sugar, and salt when possible, which means its VERY difficult to find spaghetti or pizza sauce that I can buy at the grocery store. So I'm going to start making my own with fresh tomatoes, or start out with canned no salt added tomatoes and go from there. I made my own cream of mushroom soup a few weeks ago and had to freeze it all. I'm looking forward to being able to can the next batch I make. Whoop!

I also bought some black out energy efficient curtains for the living room, dining room and our bed room. Eventually we'll get some for the other rooms of the house. I got a great deal on these curtains at big lots. I found the sizes I needed in colors that matched the paint and decorations in the house, and had no trouble putting them up. I HATE having to use these curtains though, as I prefer natural sunlight. However, I'm hoping these live up to their name and will help keep the heat in during the winter and the heat out during the summer... We will see!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!