Friday, February 24, 2017

Frugal Friday

I took today off using one of my comp days (woohoo!), and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm in the home stretch & time is running out for packing. I have a long to do list, but first, the frugal activities for the week!


  • Got home late on Sunday after various kid activities, & debated ordering takeout. Sounded particularly appealing, as our picky eater wasn't home. Stood strong & made dinner instead.
  • Biked to the new house 2x for various chores/errands
  • M continues to do a significant amount of work at the house. Many of these projects are pre-arranged with the painters, flooring guy, etc to save money. For example, M is ripping up the carpet himself, making trips to the dump, doing some patching, etc. This allows the contractors to focus on the projects that only they can do (well, technically M could, but not to the same level of quality in almost any case) & still saves money. 
  • Made smoothies from our oranges in the yard.
  • Got home late again on Tuesday, due to a last minute switch up in the soccer carpool because of a field change & excessive rain. Really didn't want to cook. Did it anyway. :-)
  • Noticed my preferred airline was having a sale, and used all of my confirmation numbers to validate pricing & request matches to the lowest fare. This saved a total of $76, that is now credited to my account for future purchases. I've earned back $112 over the last month or so by doing this, and will use these credits towards our summer travel. 
  • Found free moving boxes (more!) on our neighborhood alias, and used our local newspaper (free) + flyers to wrap our glass serving ware. 
  • Made rolls on Sunday, in an ongoing attempt to reduce our purchased bread. 
  • Used my day off to rip down the "awesome" plexiglass structure at the new house. 
  • Remember the prospective tenant that I showed around a few weekends ago for our landlord? He & his family our going to rent the house - taking over the lease effective on 3/15! This is great news from a budget perspective. Less so from a timing perspective, as I have a business trip right before that. Details on my move plan to come. Unfortunately, just found out this am from our landlord that the tenant's project was cancelled, and he's backing out of the lease. :-(
  • Used ALL of the leftovers in the fridge this week. As far as I know, this has never happened, well. . . ever. When I open the fridge, there are things to make meals with, but not a scrap of leftovers for me to utilize. In fact, I thought I had enough for dinner cobbled together yesterday, but the boys have been attending a six hour basketball camp, and M had been ripping out carpet. Everyone was starving. I had to get really creative to find a second & third round of options for people.
With that, I'm off to tackle my day! A few glimpses of what I'm hoping to accomplish - dig out the "planter", go for a run, pack, & maybe make banana bread! Can't wait. I love bonus days off.

What about you? What frugal things have you accomplished this week?

6 comments:

  1. Well that sucks about the prospective tenants, hopefully something will happen soon there. In the mean time it sounds like you guys have gotten loads done on your home. Enjoy the weekend!

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    1. We have done a ton of work! I'll make a full list & try to add some pictures. I can't wait to see it once the flooring is done. The paint alone made a huge difference.

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  2. Bummer about the tenants. Fingers crossed for some good ones to come along soon!

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    1. Thank you! Yes, fingers crossed to find someone else quickly.

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  3. Do you mind sharing how you do the price matching on airfares and which airline you are referring to as this may be helpful to me. Ugh the dreaded project cancellation, my husband works at one of the big guys in SV and there is word that his project is likely to get cancelled. Makes it hard to know what to do about our lease which expires in 60 days.

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    1. Sure - it's through Alaska Airline. If you go to their site, you they a section on price matching. You enter the confirmation code, the passenger's last name, & then, if the price is lower, you will automatically get a credit to use on a future flight.

      I hear you on the projects - it's so hard to plan things out without having a clear picture of the future!

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