Frugal Friday

It's been a long work week, so I'm excited it's drawing to a close. Also excited that it's a three day weekend! Woohoo. Here are a few frugal wins for the week:

Saving on things we buy

• I was able to redeem $300 worth of hotel points (that I had no idea I had - must have been from a long ago work trip) for a family wedding we're attending in May
• Redeemed $20 in grocery store rewards to pick up a few items the boys needed for a ski trip, & another $20 grocery store reward to stock up ahead of my soup making weekend
• Uploaded my receipts to Fetch & iBotta. Earned $.60 buying almond milk & $.50 on a box of tea
• Had shoes re-heeled, which is much cheaper than buying new shoes
• I'll preface this by saying that ski lift tickets are *never* inexpensive, but I used a work discount to save 30% off lift tickets for the weekend. That turned out to be a very nice chunk of change. 
• We considered upgrading to a ski in/ski out type of place, after M & the boys reported a lot of traffic on the route last weekend. If it were a small increase, we would have considered it, but the price was way above what we'd planned to pay. Instead, we'll get up earlier & avoid as much of the traffic as we can. 

Earning money

• Listed a few things on eBay, and sold one pair of jeans.
• I did get my annual bonus this week, which will go towards: our 401ks, the 2nd installment of our property taxes, and the rest towards tax on the sale of our vacation home. 

Avoiding spending

• Sam asked for (and received) a Soda Stream for Christmas, as he loves fizzy water, but doesn't get it often (it's expensive, and I don't like the waste of the cans. We recycle, of course.) A neighbor was giving away 5 packages of Bubly water flavoring (our favorite) & I won the drawing on Buy Nothing. It's pretty rare I see something I need/want on Buy Nothing, so it was a double win. Sam will be thrilled with all of his sparkling water. 
• Picked up SAT prep books off of Buy Nothing
• We are packing the majority of our food for the ski weekend, and driving after lunch to avoid meals out on the road. There are inevitably a few things purchased, but we hope to limit it as much as possible. 

Eating what we have

• I continue to be creative with my lunches. One (delicious) lunch recently was a small amount of chicken shawarma, two pieces of bacon, tomato, all on top of a piece of naan bread & drizzled with tzatziki sauce. The bacon was a great addition.
• I also prepped some future meals. One of my freezer wins was making meatball soup, which used up a package of meatballs & tomato sauce from the freezer. Both have been on my "get them out/use them up" list for a while, so I'm excited to turn them into quick & easy future lunches. I was also able to use up the last of a jar of marinara sauce, the container of chicken broth I got from a neighbor, a couple of open boxes of pasta, and other bits & bobs.
• Made banana muffins out of the overly ripe bananas on the counter, plus one freezer banana
• I had a huge cooking weekend & stocked the freezer with prepped food & two types of marinated chicken ready to go into dinners. 
• I salvaged my large batch of chicken taco meat (where I discovered I'd used cayenne pepper in place of taco seasoning!!). 
• Made homemade taquitos for the freezer
• Used the remainder of stale cereal in place of graham crackers in this no bake peanut butter bar recipe. Which is, for the record, fantastic. 

For others

• Gave away a bunch on Buy Nothing. It's fun to get to know some of the "regulars"!
• Volunteered at non-profit job
• Continued mentorship
• Helped a neighbor figure out how to use Nextdoor to post some for sale items
• Donated books to the library
• Gave away outgrown hiking boots to a friend, who happened to need that exact size for her son. Win/win. 

That's it for me. What about you? Any wins to share?