Frugal Friday

 It was a busy week, with all of the jet lag & a pile of work that seemed to just multiply over night. As is the trouble with work travel, my standard work (e.g. not the whole meeting each other, spending time understanding what the local team is up to) just piles up in my absence. So even though I'm absolutely working on trips, it's not the same type of work, which means unfortunately a lot to catch up on. 

Saving on things we buy

• I go through my credit card bonus reward offers each month, and save them to my card. I use the offers infrequently, and only when it's part of a regularly planned purchase, but sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised when an offer comes through. This week I received three: a Southwest reward of $15.62 & a $6.92 reward from Seat Geek (where I allowed Nick to purchase football game tickets), and Google Play (a Spotify subscription, which was a gift to Nick) for $1.19. The money gets credited back to your account as a payment, so it works great. I also used a Southwest credit for part of a flight. The tickets are for my flight to Las Vegas. 
• I uploaded all of our receipts to Fetch, and one receipt (CVS, for my prescription) to iBotta. I rarely use iBotta for anything but CVS, but they have a recurring cash back offer that is super helpful. Saved $.22 on my prescription. 

Earning money

• My paycheck felt very hard-earned with the travel last week!

Avoiding spending 

• Promptly returned clothes that I purchased & didn't need for my work trip, which saved some money. To be clear, I kept the items I did need, so this was just the stuff that I wasn't going to use. 
• About half of the order I'd placed for work clothes didn't arrive on time, despite paying for expedited shipping. I used the customer chat function and asked for a partial refund. They credited me back for the entire amount of shipping, which was helpful. 

Eating what we have

• On the Uber ride back home from my flight, I'd sent a Door Dash lunch to myself at home. We arrived at the house at the same time. However, Sam hadn't answered the phone when I called to see if he wanted me to add anything to the order for him. He was sick, but also very hungry, so he ate 90% of the chicken salad I ordered. You might be asking how this relates to eating what we have, but the good news is that I was hungry enough not to care, so I ate microwave popcorn and an apple & called it a day. (The lunch was purchased using monthly credit card rewards for Door Dash, plus a gift card.)
• M made me a gorgeous breakfast using a lot of odds & ends in the fridge, when I woke up like a bear from hibernation on Saturday morning. Given how much I slept, that analogy felt right. The last of the bagels & eggs, some leftover melon & part of a pear. 
• Used two packages of Boursin cheese, well past their "best by" date. We ended up making this pasta/chicken dish, as Sam asked me to make enough for leftovers for him to eat when he got home late from work. The base of the recipe was okay, but it needs a couple of tweaks, IMO: add broccoli or another veggie at the very end, to steam. And, I think it needs a bit more spice. 

For others

• I used an Alaska gift card (purchased on sale at Costco at Christmas time) to buy my sister's flight to Las Vegas, as her birthday gift. 
• Two neighbors randomly reached out on Saturday to ask if we could pick up packages off of their porch & keep them in our garage until they are back in town, so we did that over the weekend. 

What about you? Any wins to share?