Frugal Friday

A few frugal things this week to share... On the frugal fail side, I forgot to pack lunch yesterday, so I ended up buying a salad at work. Luckily, it's the assemble yourself kind, and subsidized, so I got a large salad with lots of protein & veggies for $7. Not the end of the world, but I also had leftovers in the fridge. Need to do better next time. This is the first time I've been to the office since you have to pay (previously free), hence why I forgot. 

Saving on things we buy

• Used $20 in grocery store rewards to offset part of my shopping this week. I picked up sandwich fixings for Sam, to save money on his lunches. And, picked up some dinner ingredients. I also uploaded my receipt to Fetch.
• I earned another $45 in grocery store rewards by purchasing $300 of Southwest gift cards from the store. We will use these for our flights to Sedona, most likely. 
• I rarely see "good deals" anymore at the grocery store, but found canned beans for $1 and pasta for $1 as well. Bought two of each. 
• I get $480 in "wellness reimbursement" through my company. Submitted $250 worth of expenses for joining the YMCA (more on that in an upcoming fitness post) & a massage. Really trying to get on top of my back pain. 

Earning money

• Had my Costco credit card rebate direct deposited into our savings account, to go towards our 2026 savings goals. 
• Had just enough time to get to the bank before my grace period ended for a CD that was maturing. Made a change from a 10 month to a 3 month CD, and over 3 months I'll make an extra $375 due to a much better rate. It does mean extra work when the CD matures again, but the longer duration rates are terrible right now. 
• Filled out Sam's tax forms & got him close to a $1k refund, which will go into his long term savings account/investments. 
• We get random Amazon packages (with our name & address) every few months. It's some sort of drop shipping scam (?). Anyway, Amazon doesn't want them back & the versions we get are for healing oils & stuff we don't use. I typically list them & sell them on eBay. I made a whopping $6 this time, but these expire & I wanted them out of the house before then. I used recycled shipping materials to mail them. 

Avoiding spending

• Returned a couple of items we didn't end up using on our trip. 
• In a big money saver, I had a flight credit for Sam that I couldn't use before the expiration. My standard approach of booking further into the future & cancelling to extend didn't' work in this case. I wanted to book a flight a week after the cancellation, so I was able to get United to help me when I called, which saved $566 that otherwise would have expired. 
• I cancelled my Kindle Unlimited membership. I'm a voracious reader, but am going to try out the library for a while. I can always go back to Kindle if the library doesn't have enough options for me. 

Eating what we have

• Or, drinking, rather. There were two bottles of wine with one glass each from hosting, so I had a glass of wine from each of those bottles & finished those off. M dug out a margarita mix he made a while back, and served that over ice for himself. 
• Made an orzo chicken dish on Saturday, and used a lemon from the garden to add seasoning, plus feta from previous recipes. In addition, for M's salad, I used chopped cucumbers, onions & garbanzo beans from the protein bowls we made earlier in the week. I'll add that the chicken orzo dish was particularly dry and not great as a leftover, but... we won't repeat it.
• I meal prepped on Sunday, to get ahead a bit for meals during the week. 
• Made chicken broth from rotisserie chicken we bought this week. Used some of the broth to thin out a chicken noodle soup that I'd added too many noodles to, which made it a much better consistency. Froze the rest of the broth. 

For others

• Giving away a lot on Buy Nothing, having some career conversations/references with folks job searching. 

What about you? Any wins to share?