Frugal Friday

 As we push towards the last few weeks of school, there's plenty happening around our house! And, Tess asked a question last week about how I track my frugal activities. As soon as one week ends, I start a new Frugal Friday blog post, and just drop things in each day and/or whenever things come to me. I definitely wouldn't remember if I tried to write it all at one time. 

Saving on things we buy

• Made a run to the grocery store after I got back from my trip. I picked up gift cards & earned $30 of rewards for future groceries. I also earned a $1.50 reward for an item I purchased, picked up the Friday Freebie (pasta) & earned a $2 Catalina. I uploaded my receipts to Fetch as well. I guess it all adds up!

Earning money

• Helped the teens with their tax forms (job applications), so they can earn money this summer. 
• Filled out the form to get $100 reimbursed from our soccer club fee, as part of my volunteer hours. 
• Sold an outgrown teen hoodie on eBay. 

Avoiding spending

• I was tempted to pick up lunch for the teens one day, but there's been plenty of eating out, between Sedona & my lazy takeout on Thursday. It was easy enough to come home & make sandwiches for everyone. 
• I also wanted to order one more of my favorite workout shirts, but they were sold out in my size, so I suppose I avoided spending that way. 
• Sam needs to go to OSU for orientation in July. Serendipitously, I have an origins unknown United travel voucher expiring in August. I booked my ticket to use up more of the United voucher. I used some of the boys travel credits from Turkey to cover their flights. While we really want to do another international trip to see M's family, we don't want to be sitting on these large credits with an expiration, as there are so many moving parts to making that kind of a trip come together. We'd rather use the credits for upcoming travel, and pay out of pocket for the international trip when it does happen. Anyway, for the July orientation, we used up $600 of the boys Turkey credits, and $500 of my unknown origin United voucher. 
• Similarly, M & I are planning to swap out our late June birthday adventure trip from a nearby hotel here, and swap to a weekend in Las Vegas. The room will be free, but I used gift cards to cover the flights, using up $818 of Southwest cards. 
• Made a bunch of other elaborate travel swaps that I posted about here, using up more of the United credits before the expire, and getting instead $880 in Alaska credit that is much more flexible, easier for us to use, and can be used for our preferred airport. 

Eating what we have

• Heated up leftover Greek food, and had that as my lunch for two days. 
• Made sure to cut up the fresh fruit that we have, and serve that to the teens, so it doesn't go to waste. Our rough agreement is that I make breakfast if I'm home & you ask, and I make lunch if you are busy doing other things (studying, just quickly home between activities, etc). I made dinner every night for everyone who is around. Lately, everyone is studying so much that there are many more lunches prepped by me, which is fine.
• Sam ate the last of the fried rice I made on Friday. I started with the Trader Joes veggie fried rice, and added a package of edamame, as well as three eggs that I scrambled. That really helps to bulk out the rice, and since Sam loves it as a leftover, it's an easy win. 
• I finished the chicken leftovers from Friday, and had that for an easy dinner & lunch on Sunday. 
• Defrosted taco meat for a quick & easy dinner.
• Used garlic scapes, mint, basil & red lettuce from the garden for M's salads. 
• I've been eating a lot of sandwiches, as well as leftover proteins (from dinner) over salads for lunch. 

For others:

• Returned shopping carts
• Helped a woman at the store figure out how to download a coupon via her app.
• Continued working on my volunteer project for the soccer club.

And, a frugal fail. I was supposed to meet a friend one day this week for a hike at 6 am, which would still give me time to attend my regular workout class at 9:30. She actually made a typo in her text, and we met at 7 am instead, which wasn't enough time to get to my class. I paid a $14 late cancel fee, which I try really, really hard to avoid. But, time together was fabulous, so I'll treat it more as though we went out for breakfast, which $14 would be a reasonable price to pay for that. ;-) 

What about you? Any wins to share?