A few frugal things

1. The button that turns on/off the tea pot broke (after 11 years or almost daily use). The plastic dry-rotted where it was meeting the switch contact. I disassembled it and everything else was working well, just I had no way to turn it on any more. My oldest son wanted to whittle something and I asked if he could make me some sticks to insert into switch contact. We are about three weeks in and his little whittled sticks have worked out great! 

2. My sister gave me a printer for Christmas last year and I love it. I have printed so many free worksheets and purchases PDF workbooks for the kids school this year. However, the toner ran out WAY before the specified number of pages. So... after a bit of research online I found out that I could manually reset the gears on the toner to trick the printer into thinking it was still full.  And that still didn't do the trick so I found our that I could reset the printer by pushing an odd combination of buttons in a weird order while opening and closing various drawers. And then I waved a magic wand and the printer started working again and has given me another 300 pages of prints since then. 

3. I ordered a toner refill kit for $8 instead of a new toner cartridge for $58.  

4. I made italian bread twice this week. Once to go with soup and make chicken salad sandwiches. The other two loaves were turned into french bread pizzas for a quick dinner. 

5. My neighbors left for Florida for a few weeks and gave me a box of random opened perishable food. For example: I used up two opened bags of shredded cheese on the pizzas, half a bag of spinach and some romaine lettuce in salads, some bits of extra bread in french toast, and heavy whipping cream in a soup and on top of french toast.