Friday, March 5, 2021

Frugal Friday

This was a really busy work week (again), so I didn't give much thought to frugal activities. Luckily, we continued to do a few small things here & there to save.  


Saving on things we buy:

  • Nick needed new shoes for tennis & regular shoes. He's been wearing regular shoes for tennis, and the courts have ripped a hole in the toe (from dragging it back when hitting). So, I invested in tennis shoes, hoping they will preserve the life of his regular shoes. I also bought a gift card on Raise (clicking through Rakuten first), saving 3% off of the purchase of the gift card. I also clicked through Rakuten for the purchase, saving 8% more. Shoes for growing & active teens are quite expensive, so saving even a small amount, while still investing in high quality shoes, is a win.  
  • I used a $1.00 coupon off of cereal, and uploaded the receipt to Fetch for bonus points


Earning money:

  • I've sold a few things on Ebay
    • A book from a freebie table
    • A workout DVD
    • A hat
    • An outgrown jacket
    • Outgrown warmup pants

Avoiding spending:

  • Picked up a box of free box off of our local Buy Nothing - six of the books are from my preferred authors. Win! Dropped off some of our books at the local Free Library & picked up a book for Sam. He's thrilled for new reading material, & read half in a day. 
  • We do this every week, but it's good to remind myself that I run the dryer less often, by line drying the majority of our clothes. We have the clothing racks inside, near a window where they get a lot of sun. This preserves the life of the clothing, and keeps energy costs down. 

Eating what we have

  • I had leftover cottage cheese (free from an iBotta offer) for breakfast
  • Sam ate pesto rice leftovers (delicious, never would have thought to combine) from a Hello Fresh meal, and combined it with gyro meat & a naan bread for lunch
  • I had a chicken fajita (leftover) for breakfast, after a run. It was delicious & I would have never thought to have it that way, if I wasn't being creative.
  • Juiced all of the oranges & added them to Nick's smoothie juice
  • Juiced almost all of the lemons (ran out of time), and now we have lemon juice, ready to go for salads. 
  • Used up an extra head of bok choy that was sitting around. I served it with tilapia & rice & it was great. 

For others

  • Helped Nick sell the second of the two bikes that he bought & repaired. I coordinate all of the buyers & payments, so am always happy when another is gone from his bike shed, and I can mark it as "sold". :-) 
  • Gave away four free Hello Fresh boxes - one to a friend who was interested in trying it out, and three to  a local group
  • Uploaded a receipt to earn Box Tops for the local school
  • Continued to volunteer every (week) day at my volunteer gig

How did your week go?

5 comments:

  1. Though you said you did not have a lot of time to think of frugality this week you still had a boatload of things to list.
    And hurrah for your son's cottage business!

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  2. Yum, I love fresh squeezed oranges.

    How neat that you found those free books with your preferred author. Score!

    The chicken fajita sounds good, I need to add that to our menu soon.

    Sounds like you had a really good week. I understand about saving money on shoes, great job.

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  3. You still squeezed in a lot for a busy week! My boys almost drove me broke with shoes when they were in high school. It's ridiculous how expensive they are, and of course each sport required a different shoe plus their regular everyday shoes! Nice score on the books. I have two people in my neighborhood who have the little free libraries. I find good ones all the time and I fill them up with books that don't sell in shop. It's a win-win. Nice job on your sales too. Have a great weekend!

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  4. I think Nick might have a life long side hustle! I think my Penny needs help-her chain fell off and it would be a good weekend for a ride.

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  5. You got that fruit juiced! Good for you. Keeping boys in shoes is expensive. I swear my son in law who runs a fish lab for the University is constantly in need to shoes. His just rot in all the solutions he works with. So why not wear rubber boots? Because the solutions pour down into the boots. Oh...

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