Here's what we've been up to, in terms of frugal wins this week (and, after reading, Costco factors in quite a bit, somehow :-)):
- My amazing parents are in town, and we pay for their flights & give them spending money & it's still cheaper than putting two kids in camp. And, the kids most definitely prefer this method.
- Rather than ordering takeout on Sunday when we got home later than expected from Napa, we stopped in at Costco and bought dinner ingredients. We ended up with steak, salad & bread. Steak for six is never cheap, but it's made multiple dinners, and was 1/4 of the price of eating out. We also saved some in the freezer.
- M & I almost bought a bunch of wine at a winery, but found it at Costco for less than half of the price. Win!
- We received our Costco executive member rebate of $373, which we will be using to offset the cost of groceries this week. And then some, hopefully.
- We've struggled to get Nick into reading (he can read, of course, but doesn't enjoy it). His reading speed was becoming an issue, given his lack of reading at home, so we made a dedicated effort over the last few weeks to create additional reading time, with rewards. As a result, he's constantly reading. Win! I picked up a few additional books off of the work freebie table, to hopefully keep him going.
- Speaking of reading, my sister shares all of her scifi books with Sam, and my parents dutifully bring them back & forth in their suitcases, so Sam & my sis can share their love of the same series. In other reading related news, my mom & I also exchanged books this time, and I was able to share some of my freebie work books with my dad. I additionally gave a great book that I finally finished (Daring Greatly) with a coworker, who wanted to read it. Frugal reading for the win!
- We opted not to buy the kids Easter gifts this year. They are getting old for that, and my parents are doing an Easter egg hung (candy & money in eggs) this afternoon, so the boys will get their Easter fun in. Instead, we'll make a nice dinner on Sunday, and open up one of our new bottles of wine.
- Oh, & in honor of Sluggy, I found a penny on the ground in a conference room at work. :-)
What about you? Any big or small frugal wins to report?
Easter candy and money for the kids and wine for the grown ups, sounds good!
ReplyDeleteAnd a penny to top it all off....how can I not like that?!?
Exactly! It's the perfect combo ;-)
DeleteI completely agree with you - much easier to have a high end meal at home like steak than a cheap meal out. I seem to be spending more money lately than saving it but we are coming along with our organizing/renovation nicely. I only have $100 left for all groceries/otcs/nonfood house items for the month - it might be a bit of a scrape. Today I took the turkey out - tons of meat for 3 people. It likely will feed each of us 3x plus a wee bit for the dog so for $15 that is a budget stretcher. I bypassed paying $6 for celery (really) and will rescucitate my limp celery with some water today after chopping it up - I need it for stuffing so once it is cooked no one will know it was super limp to begin with. Prices on our produce seem to really have gone up this year - due to pumpkin head surcharging it since Canada is the enemy. I can't wait for our farm market to open up in May!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for less expensive produce, but I really can't complain too much, because if I can find what I'm looking for at the produce stand (it's open year round), the prices are typically really fantastic.
DeleteI still have turkey in my freezer! I need to find some keto friendly way to use it up. It's so lean that it doesn't factor into most keto recipes.
Oh, I love how you got your son Nick to read more. That's great. I'm glad you had a better work week. I hope you enjoy your visit with your parents. It's great that they came and helped out so much.
ReplyDeleteMy parents are so fabulous. I always feel very lucky. My mom actually deep cleaned our house yesterday, as a bonus gift. They are incredibly helpful!
DeleteAnd yes to the reading. I've always loved reading, and Sam is a big reader as well. It's only Nick who hasn't really found a series to love, or a reason to pick up books as an activity. He's more likely to be outside shooting hoops. However, once he noticed that his reading speed was slowing him down in class, we've all made an effort to ramp it up.