Frugal Friday

 Here's what's happening in our world, on the money saving front. 

Saving on things we buy:

• Used another $5 of CVS rewards to buy Nick some treats to accompany his cash birthday gift. iBotta has a very regular CVS cash back offer (entire purchase, not specific items), so I uploaded my receipt & saved a bit extra. 
• Used $20 of grocery store rewards to pick up items we needed for dinners & four bottles of wine that were on a very big discount. Downloaded the digital coupons to my app before shopping as well. I could go on a tangent about how much I dislike digital coupons, but I'll skip that for you. ;-) Uploaded receipts to Fetch. 
• This is more along the lines of "use what you pay for", but I went to yoga on Saturday, taking advantage of my Y membership. My goal is to go 2-3 times/week, to make the cost very reasonable on a per visit basis. 
• We have been keeping a much closer eye on our power usage, after an unfortunately high true up bill from our solar. One of the easiest things (file this under the category of "why didn't we do this before") was setting our dishwasher start time to after midnight, at which time rates are much cheaper, and also just running it less. It helps that Sam often works during dinner & it's mostly just the two of us, so we can go longer without using the dishwasher. 

Earning money:

• I received a $3700 "true up" 401k contribution from my employer, due to the way they calculate 2025 contributions. That was a nice surprise. 

Avoiding spending:

• I bought a subscription to Calm (it's a meditation app) when they had 100% cash back through my credit card offers. I prefer Headspace, but free is a pretty great price.
• Requested reimbursement for the sports medicine massage I got on Saturday. My company offers a $480 per year reimbursement that you can use for the gym, massages, etc. Definitely going to make the most of that! I'm really working on my health & fitness & pain reduction for my back & hip. I love a massage, but this particular massage was one of the most painful experiences I've ever had. That said, I have so much more flexibility in my hip! So, worth it. 
• Used an Amazon gift card to order things M needed to change the oil in the boys cars. He does almost all of the maintenance himself, unless it's a really tricky issue. 

Eating what we have:

• I researched dinner recipes using items I needed to get out of the fridge: a large container of cottage cheese (I love it, but my stomach doesn't like it uncooked), spinach, and leftover mini tortillas. Gemini recommended a recipe, so we had that for dinner on Saturday night, and used up a bunch of leftovers: spinach, mini tortillas & cottage cheese. Hurrah. It was also delicious. Highly recommend to blend cottage cheese with salsa & use that up as a creamy & high protein sauce. This recipe was deconstructed enchiladas & was really delicious & easy. 
• M made up a large batch of grilled chicken, and used lemons from our tree as part of the marinade.
• I made coleslaw, using up extra coleslaw mix from our egg roll in a bowl dinner. I chopped up a green onion to add to the dressing, which always increases the flavor. We have an endless supply of green onions in the garden. 

For others:

• One of my consistent things I do is return abandoned grocery carts that block parking spots at the grocery store. I don't know why people do this, but the lot has very few spots in front, and the store attracts a lot of older residence, so parking further out is not convenient for them. It always makes me feel good to round up a few & put them back in the correct spots. This is a tiny, tiny thing, but I hope makes someone else's day a little bit better, when they find a close spot at the store. 

What about you? Any wins to share?