Friday, September 1, 2017

Frugal Friday

This is a combination of two week's worth, as I didn't post last Friday. Here are the frugal things we've been up to!

  • Got a refund of $1072 for our home mortgage (rental property sale), & tucked that away for some upcoming home projects
  • Picked up a Subway gift card (that generated a Rite Aid reward) earlier in the summer to use for lunch at my relay.
  • Bought Starbucks gift card (same thing - grocery store reward) a few weeks ago to use for breakfast at my relay
  • Pre-made breakfasts & lunches for my older son, to avoid him buying anything on the days he has to leave early for sports. 
  • Made chicken broth from bones (that were leftovers from a meal out, so at least I got a few uses out of them ;-)) & leftover vegetable scraps.
  • Re-purposed my sticky granola bars (not good for lunch boxes) into protein balls for after work outs.  
  • Made dinner at home all week, even though I hadn't really prepped anything. Scrambled together a few things (pesto I made a week or so ago), freezer meatballs, & various bits & bobs from the fridge. 
  • Started tracking my interest from my fund. I'm hoping this will motivate me to do a better job diversifying my investments & balancing my accounts. I made $56.94 in August. (I'm tracking real gains, not any stock changes in my investment accounts). I'll shoot for more each month!
  • Traded a friend for beach house usage on Labor Day to do all of the laundry & sheets & cleaning, saving me $90. I would have let her use the house anyway, & she's my bestie so she would have taken care of the cleaning had I asked, but it worked out great for this weekend. :-)
  • Turned in our Audi as part of our settlement with Volkswagen (emissions class action lawsuit). Although, we bought a new one the same day, so not sure how much I'd count this as "frugal". We would have liked to drive the previous for 15+ years, but the recall happened. We also attempted to buy a used one. Due to the lawsuit & turn ins, it was very challenging. It was $700 cheaper to buy a new car, so we went down that path. It was also $1500 cheaper to use financing. We are required to use the financing for 3 months, which will cost us $99 in total. After that, we will pay it off for a savings of $1401. I hate car buying, so I'm very happy the process is over. 

Frugal fails:
  • Threw away about 1/4 cup of edamame that was in the back of the fridge. I didn't notice it before I left last weekend, & it was bad when I came back.

That's it for me! Any big frugal wins or fails on your side?

5 comments:

  1. I picked about 9 pints of blackberries, totally free as they are an invasive species here...got away with a bunch of scratches. Was under my grocery budget this month by $15, would have been $20 but I managed to get a cheap watermelon yesterday on the last day of a sale. That will help chip away at overage from previous months. Found a couple of items on side of the road free, one of which is a storage jar which was put to immediate use. I don't know if this counts as frugal but makes me happy...bought two Spiegelau high end glasses for $7 on our Facebook bidding site, new in box. They usually go for around $45 for the pair. What can I say, I am frugal but I still like nice things.

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    1. I miss picking wild blackberries. It always throws me to see them at Costco. When I was at the beach last weekend, we went for a walk & I stuffed myself along the way. Nice work on the glasses!

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  2. We are finishing up a two week RVing trip and spent many of our days backpacking and hiking, which in addition to being free, left us nicely tired and happy to simply hang around our RV for the remainder of the day. Evening entertainment has primarily been card games with the friends we are on this trip with.

    Our physically oriented trips are always our least expensive ones!

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    1. That sounds fabulous! Where were you with the RV?

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    2. Point Reyes National Seashore for a week, staying in nearby Olema RV, then Sonoma County for wine tasting, then Pescadero to visit Ano Nuevo SB and Butano SP. If you haven't visited Ano Nuevo SB in the winter when the elephant seal are birthing their pups, you absolutely should. Amazingly interesting , and the docents are amazing. I think your boys would love it.

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