Frugal Friday . . . or is it?

First, in great news, M got promoted at work. I'm sure many of you are scratching your heads wondering how it's possible to get promoted while you're looking for a job. Totally reasonable question. ;-) At our company, levels are person based, not role based. The two are obviously highly correlated, but you have to be performing at the next level for a minimum of 18 months to earn the promotion. This now means that M will be eligible for significantly more senior roles. He's pretty far along on two conversations & feels very optimistic about landing either/both of them.

So, we went out to a very nice dinner to celebrate. This is a very substantial difference in leadership & expectations, and is something M's been working on for multiple years. Super proud of him. The dinner was, shall we say, not frugal. ;-)

I'll break the list into two this week, for clarity.

Frugal wins:

• Having my mom clean our house (we're talking, super deep cleaning after all of the flooring & ceiling drilling). She's spent a least 30 hours cleaning. This is totally her choice. She hates being bored, & has loved being able to help us out so much. It's also probably saved about $1000 of cleaning costs as a result.
• Requesting a small refund on a few things that weren't delivered properly on a restaurant delivery yesterday. We will be getting back about $20.
• M's promotion will mean a raise, qualifying for a bigger bonus pool, and additional stock grants!
• M & I had my mom cover a bunch of child care that would have resulted in about $200 of nanny time &/or a sitter. I had a team dinner when M was in Seattle, we went out to celebrate the promotion, and my mom covered after school care a few days. 
• We ordered delivery take out instead of going out last night, when my dad arrived. Obviously, the most frugal option would have been prepping my own meal, but due to work crunches, this was the next most frugal option.
• It turns out our rental house is likely worth $200k more than we'd expected. I won't count our chickens before they are hatched, but this would be HUGE, if it is realized.

Frugal fails:

• M & I had an expensive celebratory dinner out after his promotion announcement
• We ordered a delivery dinner yesterday. I also over-ordered & we have way too many leftovers. It's fine, as they will be eaten & not go to waste, but I could have reduced our order by at least 1/3.

Trying to prepare myself for another week of visitors. Super excited to have my parents in town again next week, as they will be spending time with the boys over their spring break. I will give them spending money to entertain the kids, and I won't need the nanny. I'm also going to try to avoid any meals out, except one. I've promised to take my mom to dinner as a thank you for all of her efforts this week with the house.

What about you? Any big wins or fails on the frugal front this week?