Friday, September 8, 2017

Frugal Friday

What a week it's been. I've been working until midnight every night dealing with a crisis in Japan, and then getting up again at 6 to be at the office to keep working through options. It's been very . . . unfun. I'm hoping we've found a solution. Fingers crossed. Sometimes technology is very painful. We're flying to Portland this evening to attend my aunt's wedding. Should be really fun, although a very quick trip!

Here are some of the frugal wins for the week:


  • Transferred our tax savings (Federal & State from profit of our rental house sale) to a higher yield savings account. Will likely make an extra couple hundred dollars in interest vs the account I previously had.
  • Avoided going out for ice cream on Sunday night, and had watermelon at home instead. Even though it was 90+ in our house. We sat outside, as it was just started to cool off, and dipped our feet in the pool.
  • Ate lunches at home on our long weekend
  • Returned the moleskin I bought at Rite Aid (for Nick's giant blister). All of their products have a "try & buy" warranty. I bought it & was unable to remove the sticky backing on any of the sheets, so took it back for a full refund.
  • Converted hotel points to airline miles, generating 100,000 miles (enough for 2-3 round trip flights)
  • Redeemed remaining points for a $100 Target gift card, that I will use towards Christmas gifts.
  • Used $48.04 of airline credit from a price match to offset some of the cost for my parents trip here in October. They are coming to stay with the kids while we go to Hawaii for our anniversary. 
  • Noticed that Comcast was charging me for a modem rental. We had it picked up way back in April (a story for another day). That means, months worth of $10/month charges. I called & am getting all of those charges reversed, as well as a reduction of $10/month in ongoing charges. First of all, such a scam. Second of all, what a huge savings based on just correctly monitoring my bill. 
  • Changed our ski week trip to Tahoe for a unit with a bigger kitchen (but mostly because we had to switch days & the days we wanted weren't available), and it was actually cheaper. Woohoo! Saved about $100. 
  • Price matched another flight & saved $10 (will receive credit for the airline for a future purchase).
  • Made dinner every night this week, despite the chaos.
  • Packed a dinner for myself & M to eat at the airport. The kids will grab a burger when we get there.

That's it for us! What about you? Any frugal wins for the week? 

4 comments:

  1. Excellent work on savings and financial planning for the week. Now if your issues in Japan will just find a resolution!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You do such a fine job of maximizing your financial options. Well done. Your deserve to be able to use your miles for your real life with all your traveling and late hours, so happy that worked out. My daughter gets to keep her mile and soon thinks she might have enough to travel to visit some of her grad school friends either back to London, Italy, or Spain. She has free accommodations each place so would just be her spending money and frugal meals as her friends don't have deep pockets either.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My fingers are crossed that you found the solution for the crisis in Japan!

    What a strange week for weather here, hasn't it been?

    I also went after Comcast for charging me erroneously. They sure like to see what they can get away with charging customers who don't notice.

    And we finally got our savings account bonus from Chase, so that was a win in the income ledger for us this month. Not much else in the frugal wins though, I can plan for some next week.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am considered to have a very high level of energy by most people that know me? But your's? Holy moly, it's completely off the chart! You are absolutely amazing, and I hope you give yourself a well deserved pat on the back from time to time.

    ReplyDelete