Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Frugal Five

Not as frugal of a week: went to Lowe's for some needed household items and starting to look at supplies needed for home projects. Shopping for fruit trees. Got eye exams. Ate out a couple of times--some were frugalish, some not. Need to replace a ceiling fan/light; have priced some and found a couple we like but haven't made the final selection yet.

There are just times that it seems as though we're spending more. Even if I don't like it--it is part of life! Most of these things were planned for and that is the beauty of a budget!

But I still came up with 5 frugal activities for the week:
  1. Attended a free worship concert with a band featuring some of our friends. It was wonderful and not just because it was free! :-) Someday we will pay to see them in concert and it will be totally worth it.
  2. Our ice container was getting really full. Based on the freaking out of kids whenever an ice cube was dropped on the floor, I knew they'd enjoy playing with some ice. "I want ice!" "No, my ice!" I filled a dishpan with ice and took it out on the deck one sunny afternoon. They. had. a. blast! I also provided some plastic containers for them to fill and dump as they pleased. No cleanup--we just left the ice out to melt!
  3. Saved the woody ends of asparagus in hopes of making something like this soup. Also along the line of no-waste cooking, I saved the leftover sauce from this to use with some other cooked veggies this week.
  4. Shopped at Aldi this week--they had very good produce deals this week!
  5. Even with all of our purchases, we still were able to save some money by buying on sale and  using store coupons. One large item we bought was more than 50% off because of this! 
Hopefully, your week contained less spending than mine did! Tell us about your frugal endeavors in the comments! 

4 comments:

Monica Wilkinson said...

Some weeks are like that aren't they? Just better at being thrifty!

1. David fixed our Heat/Air unit himself by picking up the needed $2.85 part!

2. Used a free coupon at CVS for a drink of our choice. Actually made 0.16 on this b/c they gave us the full price of the coupon!

3. Traded for babysitting = free!

4. Took reusable grocery bags to the store yesterday = earned 0.10.

5. My kids are invited to another b'day party this week. I went to my home gift store and found a brand new puzzle - thrifted for $1, it's girly and glittery and we hope the b'day girl will love it!

Wendi said...

Spend, spend, spend was me last week. Like you said some things you just have to spend on.

*I have been signing up for free samples. I got a coupon for a free bottle of shampoo from vocalpoint.

*I received an envelope in the mail with coupons and advertisements. Most of the coupons and advertisements we weren't interested in and were blank on the backside. I cut them up to refill my notepad box.

*I purchased two boxes of valentines for next year for $0.30 a box!

*I needed some bbq sauce for dinner. Instead of heading to the store for a bottle I hit up my pantry and made my own. Not my favorite recipe but it worked.

*I stayed home most of last week.

Lillibeth said...

Mary Ann,
Too bad you aren't closer to home. Jerry's hardware has a huge clearance area! We were looking for a shade to go over the ceiling light fixture to match one we already had in a room, only to discover that it was really hard to find except very expensively online. We went to Jerry's and just sighed and put a different light fixture in the cart-- something we really didn't like, and we had to get two so they would match, which was going to stretch the budget. We decided to look at the clearance area before we left. There were lots of light fixtures out there-- including a ceiling fan! And Lo and Behold, there was the one remaining shade that we were looking for in the first place, for less than half off. It was worth the gas to find it:)

~katie~ said...

Great job, Mary Ann! That ice activity sure sounds like it was a hit too. :-)

Not too much to report but a couple of noteworthy items...

*I found out we were on an "old" cell phone value plan. The newer plans have more minutes for less money than we were paying per month. So we got an additional 400 minutes per month for $5 less per month ~ score!

*Forgot to mention this around Valentine's time, but I ordered a photo book from snapfish for my hubby filled with family memories in 2012. I got it for just over $2 (just the cost of shipping) ~ and the rest was free ~ saw the deal on MoneySavingMom ~ he loved it too!

*I also got free shipping at amazon today when I ordered a gift and I used my cashback bonus to purchase.

We are in need a few groceries and I plan to go to Aldi later in the week.

Again, thanks for the frugal posts!

Have a great week~
Katie