Frugal Friday

The big news is that I've hit the $1,000 selling mark on eBay for the past 60 days. I'm so excited, because I'm making money (particularly while not getting paid) & getting junk we don't need out of the house. Win/win! I've made $1250 in 60 days!!

Saving on things we buy:

• Bought gift cards for stores we use for kids clothing shopping. Earned a $40 gift card to our local grocery store. I love these offers, and keep the store gift cards in my wallet. When the boys need something, the gift cards are there & ready. I did the same with a Rite Aid offer, and earned $30 in store credit
• Used a 30% off Rite Aid coupon, and rewards to pick up back to school snacks & a few supplies for the kids. 
• I also bought Uber gift cards, earning $10 in credit. We use Uber in place of airport parking, as it's cheaper. If we don't use it for personal travel, I use it for work travel (hopefully not too much of that in the future) & get reimbursed. 
• Saved $1 by digging around & finding a granola bar coupon I knew I had somewhere in my purse while buying back to school snacks. Sure enough, I did. Likewise, bought the boys ice cream bars & picked up two boxes, so I could use a $1 off coupon. With the weather so hot & the boys having friends over, we'll go through this in no time

Earning money:

• Sold an expensive Tumi bag M received as a prize. Earned $185 on eBay. Woohoo!!! Split the money between college funds & mortgage pay down. 
• Found a dime outside of Rite Aid
• Listed a bunch of new things on eBay, & sold a few other items. I sold 6 items on eBay yesterday alone. The sales are hot right now, for whatever reason.
• Participated in a consumer focus survey (invited via Swagbucks). Earned & redeemed a $25 Amazon gift card. It was actually a $37 focus group, so I will wait for the next discounted Amazon offer to roll around before redeeming the rest.

Avoiding purchases/spending:

• I met a friend for lunch last week. I provided some coaching & guidance on a tricky work situation, and she bought me an unexpected lunch as a thank you. I took home leftovers, as the meal was huge. 
• We were all craving Mexican food on Saturday, & came really close to going out for dinner. Likely it would have been $80+ for the four of us, even at a moderately priced place. Instead, went to Trader Joes & spent $17 on groceries. Not totally frugal (could have made do with the leftovers in the fridge), but we made excellent carnitas nachos. I quickly defrosted carnitas from the freezer, and added the purchased chips, sour cream, pico de gallo & guacamole. Yum! Everyone was thrilled. 
• To mail the bag mentioned above, I could not find a box big enough to hold it. At the kids soccer game, I noticed a box sitting by the garbage bin. I decided to take it home & see if it worked. If not, I'd planned to recycle it. It was the perfect fit. Saved something from the garbage, and avoided the cost of a new box!
• Picked a few more things out of the garden. It's been a rough year with the squirrels, so we haven't had much success. We did manage to get a tomato, strawberry, and plenty of basil this week.
• Made lunch from things around the house. I started with salad as a base, and would add things like, a scoop of the leftover guacamole from nachos, leftover chicken from the boys lunches, etc. Every day was different, and they were all good.
• Repurposed a couple of Amazon shipping envelopes for eBay sales.
• Arranged for a free USPS pickup for a few eBay sales, saving a trip to the post office

What about you? Any frugal wins for the week?