Frugal Friday

It's been another busy work week, but a wonderful weekend with my sister & BFF, which was really fun. We also hosted: Nick's GF, Sam's GFx2, Nick's x2 friends for dinner, so plenty of food was made & consumed!

Saving on things we buy

• Our car insurance switched hands (on the back end, I can't really take credit for this, as our policy was transferred to another provider), and the cost dropped by $391/year, which is fantastic. It costs a lot to insure two male teen drivers, so any drop is exciting. 

Earning money

• Just the regular stuff here. Nothing too exciting.
• My office is closing Wednesday-Friday next week, which means I get three "free" vacation days, as I don't have to use time off, but also don't have to work. This is particularly precious time, as I don't have many vacation hours accrued yet, of course. 

Avoiding spending

• We decided to have Nick try first semester without a car in Boulder, which saves the cost of parking permits. It also means that I needed to buy flights to move in weekend for M & Nick. I used a credit for M, and Nick's flight was very inexpensive. Given we are saving on gas + one night of a hotel on the drive, we definitely are still coming out ahead. 
• My schedule has been all over the shop lately, given that I'm normally a morning workout person, but my coworkers are all primarily in London. I'm one of the first California based hires, with a goal of building out the team. That means that my days skew VERY early. But, haphazard later in the day meetings crop up with the US team as well. The spoiler of that is I am trying to find a good workout slot, but meetings often drop in last minute, even when I plan well ahead. My workout studio charges you if you don't show up or cancel before 8 hrs. I couldn't make my lunch class on Thursday, but was able to move it to later in the day. While I don't prefer a late afternoon workout, it saved me $15, and still allowed me to get my workout in. 

Eating what we have

• We worked our way through the snacks leftover from our weekend entertaining. Crackers, cheese, fruit, chicken salad, etc. 
• I pulled together two quick meals of spaghetti & meatballs + garlic bread, on nights we had unexpected guests, but not enough other leftovers. 
• We worked our way through the buns, burgers, kebabs, almost all of the rice, & the chicken shawarma. Oh, and the tzatziki sauce. 

For others

• Can't really think of anything here, other than plenty of hosting & feeding friends & family, but that is always our treat & we are so happy the teens & their friends want to spend time with us. 

What about you? Any wins to share?