Frugal Friday

 A few frugal wins this week. 

Saving on things we buy

• Noticed that iBotta had a $.10 reward for any grocery receipt, so got that uploaded. Also uploaded the receipt to Fetch. 

Earning money

• Sold a few things on eBay: luggage tags + an old art print. Made about $25 between the two.
• The Frugal Girl reminded me that I had a bunch of books (Sam's lit books from school) to list on eBay & got those posted. Sold 2 in 24 hours, so that was a nice win. Junk out, money in. Made about $20 between the two.
• Gave away a Hyatt free night award to a friend who could use it before it expired, and he thanked me with a $100 gift card.  
• On a related note, had another expiring Hyatt "Guest of Honor" award, and traded that with another friend for ~$100 of Marriott points. While I don't have a use for the points at the moment, they don't expire, unlike the Hyatt award I had. We will definitely use them at some point. 
• Finally had enough Swagbucks to cash out for a $25 Amazon gift card. 

Avoiding spending

• I had a crazy day, and planned my lunch in advance, defrosting soup & stashing my lunch in the fridge. When I went to open the container to heat it, it refused to budge. It was a glass container with the four closure "snap locks" & the vacuum seal was so strong it couldn't be opened. Anyway, I wrestled with that stupid container for the five minutes I had to heat & eat my lunch. I thought about ordering delivery & eating it between my next round of calls, but instead made a very haphazard lunch out of a protein bar I discovered in the back of the pantry (Sam must have missed it -because they are his favorites ;-)) & an overripe banana. M later was able to open the container with a lot of elbow grease & a knife, and Sam had the soup for dinner after work. 

Eating what we have

• We bought a rotisserie chicken at Costco, and used that for two dinners, plus froze half of the rest of the chicken. I then made a large double batch of chicken broth. I've already used one container in the beef & tomato dish we served over rice on Sunday.
• Speaking of that dish, we made a double batch, as we had Sam & his GF at dinner. I also only had one can of diced tomatoes, so subbed in tomato paste + water & some fresh tomatoes, to make up for the gap. 
• Made plenty of leftovers for the week, including this easy Southwest Chicken Skillet

For others

• A friend is leading a project to collect new shoes for kids & teens that are unhoused, so I picked up some on Amazon from her wish list, which felt nice.

What about you? Any wins to share?