Frugal Friday

 It's been a busy week!

Saving on things we buy

• Ordered Nick a birthday cake, and the bakery he loves isn't open on Sundays or Mondays. His birthday is a Sunday, so I found another highly reviewed place. It was 1/3 of the price. I could definitely have made this myself, but he's turning 18 and wanted a very specific cake. Done. 
• I used a $20 grocery store reward to buy items for the soccer banquet, and another $20 reward to buy drinks & snacks for the tennis match I was asked to cover. 
• Used a $10 CVS reward + another $4 reward to pick up some Advil. 

Earning money

• Continued filling out surveys
• Applied for more jobs
• Worked on prepping for my teaching class. Once I get this prepped, it should be much easier to teach future sessions. I'm paid out after the 10 week class is done, although it does include some prep time in the payout calculations. 

Avoiding spending

• I don't typically keep lunch meat on hand, but sometimes I'm craving a sandwich. I thought of buying one, but instead picked up sandwich fixings at the store, which was about the same price as a sandwich out, but will allow me to have 2-3 sandwiches, plus a few for Nick as well. 
• We cancelled our trip to Spain (it is right at the end of M's "job search window" through his current employer, so in addition to wanting to cut costs at the moment, it also gives him more flexibility to job search.
• We cancelled our train tickets (minus a small fee) & got a refund for those, which is awesome.
• I was able to get a large credit back from United, which we will likely use for a trip to Hawaii in October for our 20th anniversary, and to cover our flights to my parents house for Christmas.
• United is also supposed to be refunding us for one ticket, and $700 from the second ticket for our cancellation.
• I was able to cancel our hotel stays. While we were using free night awards x2, points for another hotel, we were paying out of pocket for another, so that was all cancelled. 
• I re-booked my parents flights (they were going to come to watch Nick while we were in Spain) to cover a visit for his graduation. They also received a $108 credit for a future flight.

Eating what we have

• Found two lonely hamburger buns in the freezer, so turned those into chicken patty sandwiches for a late dinner for Nick
• M bought two very large packages of Costco cauliflower rice when they went on huge sale, so I've been trying to incorporate those into the menu. We had orange chicken with cauliflower rice & edamame. All from the freezer.
• M has been laboring under the illusion that our Meyer lemons are oranges, and thus unwilling to use them on his salad. We finally went down a rabbit hole of Google images, and he's now convinced. ;-) This means the lemons will be quickly used up, as he makes his own dressing each day for the salad (not so much dressing as lemon juice, balsamic, and olive oil). 
• Made a large chicken stir fry for dinner, using up lots of veggies that were in the fridge, including the not super fresh carrots. 
• Picked up two oranges from our neighbor's "free" bin, which I will use in smoothies. 

For others

• Nick's soccer banquet was planned by a novice mom, who forgot some of the details (creating a spreadsheet for parents to indicate what they were bringing, so you don't end up with all of the same items, etc). I filled in the gaps for her, to make sure we had everything we needed. 
• We weren't going to use one of our free night awards (due to cancelled Spain trip) before it expired, so I offered it to an old coworker who long ago used his United upgrades for the boys when we flew to Dubai. 
• I also used a small amount of our United credit for my friend's flight next week, as I knew she was flying on United. She hosted us last weekend, so this felt like a nice way to thank her. 

What about you? Any wins to share?