Frugal Friday

 Medical bills are not cheap, but a few frugal things for the week...

Saving on things we buy

• I went to CVS to pick up mouthwash, and used a variety of rewards & coupons. I picked up three of the giant Crest mouthwash containers, and spent $20.91. I earned $2 from iBotta, and another $10 from CVS, making my out of pocket a much more reasonable $8.91, or ~$3/each.  
• There was a Fetch offer I wanted to take advantage of (Bubly water) & combine with an iBotta offer. The local store had a buy 2/get 2 free offer on Bubly. While it wasn't super cheap at the regular price, once I got the $4 Fetch offer & the $1.50 iBotta offer, it brought the price per package down to ~$1.50, which is a solid deal. 
• When I got home, I realized that I'm $1.45 from another $4 on Bubly from Fetch, so I stopped by a few days later & picked up a single serve tall Bubly for $1.50, earning another $4 on Fetch. 
• CVS sent me another offer later in the week, so I went & used up my $10 monthly award, and some more CVS offers & bought 4 giant Gatorades (for Sam, for work, as he's outside working all day in the heat), & Advil for a total of $4. Saw that I also saved $1 on the Gatorade from an iBotta offer, which was an unexpected plus. 

Earning money

• I completed a survey from my local hospital, and earned $25
• Sold reffing gear on FB & made $35
• M & I received a $2 class action settlement. $2 - woohoo! ;-) 

Avoiding spending

• Made M a cake at home, vs buying one.
• Picked up a new set of corn hole bags on Buy Nothing. My sister & I got a corn hole set for my special needs aunt for her 70th birthday, but it was just the boards. Now we will have a full set for her birthday.
• I also picked up two zucchini plants & a pumpkin plant on Buy Nothing. The squirrels decimated one of my garden beds, so I'll be adding a new border to keep them out & replanting.  
• Packed Sam lunches for the week & used some of our abundance of electrolyte tablets to reduce the need for Gatorade (he brings one a day). 
• Defrosted fajitas leftover from my parents visit, and we had that for dinner one night.
• Continued to use lots of garden goodies: jalapenos, lettuce, peppers, mint, Thai & regular basil, cilantro... still waiting for the tomatoes! 
• DH & I spent his day off trimming one of our giant trees, using the extension ladder. It was a messy & time consuming project, but we're slowly getting all of the tree trimming done ourselves. We've paid for it to be done before, and it's not cheap!

Eating what we have

• Made gyro meat for dinner one night (leftover from my parents visit, as we only ended up making one package). Had gyro salads for lunch two days, finishing off the rest of the feta cheese as well.
• Generally I've been eating a lot of leftovers for lunch, including things like cheese & crackers (leftover from my parents visit), as well as dinner leftovers. 
• For the days I didn't have any obvious leftovers, lunches were salads with protein from the freezer (edamame) & pantry (nuts). Plus fruit, because we had a bunch of fruit this week. 
• Defrosted the second of the huge Too Good To Go bakery loaf of bread, and used that for Sam's lunches this week. 

For others

• Had my first mentoring session with the student I'm volunteering with, as a college counselor. It was a lot of fun, and I can tell I'm going to love this volunteering role.
• Saved my mom money by returning a shirt she bought my dad (it was too small) when she was here, and finding it online with a coupon code for $15 less. 

What about you? Any frugal wins to share?