A few frugal things & pre-Mother's Day activities

I'm leaving in a few minutes to do a 5K trail race. I ran my first half marathon on Mother's Day & like to keep to the tradition of gifting myself with an opportunity to challenge & push myself on Mother's Day. Because I haven't been running, I almost skipped it this year, but opted instead for a 5K trail race. It looks pretty hilly, and it's supposed to rain this morning. We'll see how it goes! :-)

Here are a few frugal things I've done lately, tucked in around all of the crazy of our lives.

1. Appealed a parking ticket & won! (The ticket was issued while my husband was paying at the station, and documentation proved that we had paid for the spot before the ticket was issued). It took time to write everything, and extra effort but I saved $67! 
2. Cashed in miles for $200 of Amazon gift cards. We'll save these for Christmas.
3. Didn't need my nanny on Friday, made it work with child care tradeoffs. Saved ~$50.
4. Wrote about my terrible United experience on my return flight - got a credit for $200.
5. Cleaned my own house this week - saved $100.
6. Almost caved in & went out on Thursday, but looked ahead to next Thursday & realized we'd be going out that day. Scrambled up a quick dinner & saved. Also, found a $5 off coupon for the upcoming Thursday dinner.
7. Utilized a $10 extra Starbucks reward (spend $10 with Visa pay, get a second $10 Starbucks credit) to double my money. You can then convert these Starbucks credits into gift cards for others.
8. Made my mom a lovely card for Mother's Day, and will treat her to lunch when we are next together. She prefers this over actual gifts, as do I. I will also call her, of course!
9. Used all of my Alaska credits (from monitoring the prices each week & requesting adjustments when the prices drop) to buy my husband's flight for our family trip. Saved $308!
10. Ordered a $12 part for my 15+ year old food processor, rather than replacing. It now works like a charm!

And, with that, I'm off. Take care of yourselves this weekend, all of you lovely moms out there, this weekend! You deserve it!