Frugal Friday

It's that time again. Here's what I've been up to this week. 

Saving on things we buy

• Used a $2 reward at the grocery store, to provide a small discount. This store is more expensive than both Trader Joes & the local produce stand for the items I needed. But, unfortunately, Trader Joes is very crowded (long wait lines, although minimal crowding once inside) & the produce stand has terrible social distancing options. One day soon, I hope to be back to the less expensive options
• Bought Sam a birthday gift, and used a birthday promo code from the retailer, a $5 reward from previous purchases, and a BOGO promo code. All in all, the price per item was about 1/2 their normal price. 

Earning money

• Continued to list & sell things on eBay. (Unfortunately, this week I had two things marked as "free shipping" that shouldn't have been, so I barely covered the costs. I swear that I pay attention to this when I create the listing, but must be more careful in the future.) So far, I've sold:
• A Fitbit charger for a Fitbit I no longer have
• Lip samples (I received a Birchbox subscription as a gift, and I'm picky about what I use & sell the rest)
• Ditto a hair product sample
• A sweater
• A butter warmer
• A bike jersey
• A rain jacket
• A "wand" for an indoor water park, that I discovered at the bottom of a drawer. We haven't been there in years
• A book
• Sold two Delta gift cards that had been listed on Raise for ever. Apparently, people are starting to get the travel itch again? While I "lost" $30 on the purchase from the original price, I'm much happier to have this money back & I've added it to our travel budget for 2021. Not to worry, Laura, if you are still interested, we have one left that hasn't sold! :-)  

Avoiding spending

• Used a Target gift card to pick up a few things (tea, avocados, a protein bar, a chocolate mint candy, & pasta). Used $.66 in Target rewards to bring the price down a bit, & the tea was on sale. I used a gift card for the purchase ($12). I used iBotta to get the protein bar & chocolate mint candy for free, got back $.75 on the avocados, & also uploaded my receipt to Fetch (the tea provided 60 points). 
• Made some progress using our Alaska balance, booking flights for my parents (COVID tbd, assuming they are able to get their vaccines). 

Food savings/eating everything we have

• Ate the last of the carnitas (freezer) on top of my lunch salad on Saturday
• Made ham salad out of remaining ham. I'd never tried it before, but it's Keto friendly & gives M another protein option. Sam also enjoyed it for lunch, rolled in a tortilla. I had a ton of ham, so it made quite a bit. I froze some for future enjoyment - and labeled it & added it to the inventory!
• I brought it all of our green tomatoes before the frost (it actually dropped below freezing here a few nights) & ripened them on our window sill. We've been enjoying the ripened tomatoes in salads
• Juiced oranges from the yard, for Nick to use in his smoothies
• Picked additional oranges to use in orange cranberry muffins this weekend
• Used a bag of roasted chicken in a chicken yakisoba dish 
• Ate the last of a tub of plain yogurt, doctored with homemade lemon curd & pumpkin granola. This feels like a victory, as I don't enjoy plain yogurt, as much as I wish I did.

For others

• Spent hours, but found my parents COVID vaccine appointments! Definitely the highlight of my week
• My emails, phone calls & nags finally paid off, and the intersection where Sam was hit by a car while biking has now been much safer. I'm so happy & this benefits all of the bikers/walkers. 
• Volunteered at my side job
• At work: volunteered to take on a bunch of tasks to help other coworkers, as my week was unexpectedly slow. 
• Helped our neighbor with a tool she was struggling with
• Gave away crafting supplies & packing/mail supplies on local Buy Nothing

That's it from my side. What about you? Any frugal wins to report, or things for others?