Frugal Friday - the travel edition

Traveling is rarely frugal, but here are a few wins we collected along the way. We were at Sam's graduation trip, then home briefly, and then on a long weekend to Las Vegas, to celebrate M's birthday. And finally, in Lake Tahoe for the 4th of July. Yes, this is an unusually busy few weeks, so I'm combining two weeks into one. 

Saving on things we buy

• We knew our trip to SFO would be expensive, but it allowed us to use our United credits (and, four flights more than outweighed the cost of transportation to SFO). We priced the difference between Lyft & Uber and Lyft was much less. I also had a very small credit card reward for using Lyft. We chose the least expensive ride option out of the bunch. 
• On the way back (we flew into San Jose, which is much closer), we again priced out the difference, & Lyft was again the cheapest. We selected that option and got another small credit card reward. For our trip to Las Vegas, parking at the airport was by far the cheaper option, so we went that route. When the boys flew in, we were able to pick them up (free is best when available!)
• We used a Priority Pass $56 credit on dinner at the airport on Friday. It was still very expensive, but $56 less than it would have been.

Earning money

• I earned $560 in dividends on a stock I own, and transferred that over to my savings account. 

Avoiding spending

• I got a free snack box & drinks on the flight to Portland, but didn't need it after my meal, so I brought my snack box to the boys seats & they enjoyed the treats. 
• M & I got upgraded to nicer seats on the way home from Portland. We could have gotten free drinks, but the plane didn't receive any catering, so.... :-) Our seats were slightly roomier, which is always a win. 
• I've been wanting to try a pair of trail running shoes, as I do a lot of weekend running on trails, but only own road running shoes. I found a new pair on Buy Nothing, and picked those up & will try them out. 

Eating what we have

• After getting back from the airport on Sunday (flight was delayed), I was tempted to order takeout. Instead, I picked a bunch of veggies from the garden, and made a salad, and we had that with baked chicken (freezer). I had a pear to go with mine, as I'm trying to eat up all of the fruit still in the fridge. 
• M bought a large container of mozzarella balls in olive oil, so I've been working to use those up. We had caprese salad with dinner on Monday, which used up the tomatoes & a bunch of garden basil. For the second meal (Tuesday), I cut up the mozzarella & basil & used it with overly ripe nectarines from the fruit drawer. 
• Defrosted hot dogs for another dinner, and found a container of chicken stew in the freezer, which I had for a lunch. 
• In the "using up freezer meals" vein, we also had several meals of the leftover chicken fajitas (frozen from my parents visit), as well as tacos. 
• I really, really wanted to order takeout for lunch one day, which is just kind of nuts, since we had food in the house. I'm very proud of myself for digging through the yucky lettuce bits, trimming up all of the romaine (and saving the rest to make future salads easier) & making a taco salad with dinner leftovers. Bonus: I got to enjoy a garden tomato on my salad, and those are delicious!

For others

• Continued volunteering for my college counseling role. 

Not exactly sure which bucket this one falls into, but M had about ~$2k worth of British Airways miles expiring, and we have no plans to take a British Airways flight at the moment. Instead, we researched how to extend the expiration of these miles, and found that British Airways have a shopping portal you can use to earn miles (which, resets the expiration of your account). I bought a pair of workout pants that I needed, which will keep these alive for at least another year. And, since I had no idea these points existed (an old credit card he had), I've now added them to our tracker, so we know about them & aren't caught off guard next time. I also used a credit card cash back offer for the purchase of the workout pants, which will save me another $10. 

What about you? Any wins to share?