Frugal Friday

 Another week has passed. We're entering my very busy season at work, so things are a bit more sparse than usual. 

Saving on things we buy

• We've hit our health care plan deductible for the year, so all of the appointments & prescriptions are suddenly very, very low price. We've never hit our deductible before, which is a sign that there's been a lot of $$$ specialist appointments & tests for me. Sam's typically pricey prescription was $11 when I went to refill it this month. 
• Signed up for a 3 hour volunteer slot with Sam's soccer club, which offsets the club costs by $100. It's an event focused on keeping equipment circulating as kids outgrow, which is something the environmentalist in me loves!
• I've been on a three year long search for the perfect casual black skirt (think, with a tank top & sandals for a summer day). I think I've found a promising candidate, so ordered it via Rakuten, then used a gift card & also a credit from a prior purchase, cutting the out of pocket cost in more than half. Fingers crossed this is the one!

Earning money

• Continued to list & sell things on eBay, and upload my receipts to Fetch. Sold so far:
• A gifted sports jersey that didn't fit properly
• A reusable wine bag

Avoiding spending

• Carpooled with a friend to a soccer tournament, saving us both time & fuel
• Made vanilla extract, using the last of my vanilla bean pods

Eating what we have

• I continue to sneakily make the boys meals of things I'm trying to get rid of. Lots of smoothies to use up freezer bananas & protein powder, & other things here & there. 
• Finished off Greek food we ordered, which made 1 dinner & 1.5 lunches for me. It was a huge entree! And, delicious. 
• Substituted jalapenos for another pepper in a recipe Nick was making. He's a stickler & likes to have exactly the right ingredients, but in this case, jalapenos were also less spicy (in addition to growing in the yard), so he was convinced. 
• Used up the dregs of some trail mix (with, all of the M&Ms eaten out of it) & the end of a can of peanuts in a muffin recipe. It called for walnuts, but this worked as well.
• Used garden zucchini to make three dozen muffins for the freezer
• Used our first (tiny) cantaloupe in a fruit smoothie

For others

• Gave away a desk to a neighbor. Glad to get out of the house, and into the house of someone who needs it (new college student)
• Gave away zucchini to a friend ;-) 
• Continued supporting my volunteer job. Also tracked my hours, as the non-profit gets a small donation for each hour I volunteer, via my job.
• Gave away cleats that Nick outgrew. Plenty of life still left in them, so I'm happy they are getting more use. 
• Sent money to help out with a project for a family member
• Also was able to give away Nick's club soccer uniform from last season. They are very pricey, so I was thrilled someone else could use it. 

In a frugal fail/partial save, my company has had a concert series lottery for the local winery since I started working there. I've won tickets a couple of times, and it's always a lot of fun. I entered the lottery this year, but did not read the fine print. It turns out that this year, the lottery was to *buy* the tickets. The tickets were (at a pretty big discount) $300, and on a week day when we have two kid activities. I was able to sell the tickets for $250, which feels like a win, even though there was a $50 (self imposed) penalty for not reading the small print. ;-) 

That's it from my end. Please share your wins for the week!